Unprofessional Fridays: 01/10/2020

If these guys love sharpening the lance, just wait until they see the hammer.

“Yeah Lemon!”

Eggs Against the Poutine.

Poutine with two over medium eggs on top.

Poor Jeffy.

Let’s Not

No sure what it was but I got pretty excited in the chat during this UPF. Obviously, the big one was when I waxed poetic about my time as an employee at Chuck E Cheese. Nonetheless, I wanted to make a few corrections about the IRS video that @benpack brought up during this particular UPF. First, and foremost, those IRS employees made a motivational team-building video to try and bring up spirits within the agency. The costumes came from one of the employees and the post-production was done by another employee during their spare time. However, when the video came to light during the IRS' "targeting controversy" it resurfaced and was used by predominantly Republican leaning politicians to attack the agency and justify its budget being cut. People also lost their jobs and it was overall, kind of a bad deal for something a bunch of people made for fun as a emotional pick-me-up. Yes, this video was not entirely the cause of this, but I thought it was important to mention regardless.

Also, this topic was wonderfully covered by John Oliver four years ago:

Now, let's talk about something more lighthearted. I LOVED working at Chuck E Cheese! That place paid well, the hours were flexible, and they accepted broke-ass college students with zero years of work experience with open arms. Unless you want to get into food-service, these sorts of jobs are a dying breed, and I couldn't imagine getting my broke ass through college without those weekend shifts at Chuck E Cheese. So, here are some things I mentioned in chat in case you wanted to know:

1. Chuck E. Cheese took its training seriously. The "fun" origin story I mention during this UPF? That was in my training manual. The company wanted to build this mythos to Chuck E. Cheese almost as if he was a common man's Mickey Mouse.
2. I never wore the Chuck E. Cheese costume, but let me tell you something, you could smell the damn thing the minute you entered the changing room for staff. Yes, the suit was washed, but only from time to time because the fabric was surprisingly delicate and could tear if washed too often.
3. Being a "support" employee for the person in the costume was serious business. That was primarily my job, and I was expected to have bottles of water on stand-by. Not sure if any of you noticed, but during peak hours, it was incredibly humid in Chuck E. Cheese. Part of that was due to sweat, but my location had notoriously lousy ventilation. As such, dehydration was a concern for anyone earing the outfit, and they often could only work one-hour shifts before needing a break. Finally, knowing those "safe words" and signals that something was up a huge deal.
4. Additionally, making sure random kids wouldn't kick, punch, or throw things at Chuck E. Cheese was a constant problem. Yes, the suit was padded, but a punch in the gut would still obviously hurt.
5. Teenagers were an occasional problem. They would enter and then go to the live shows and "riff" the performances. I won't deny enjoying that part, but a group of them would swear gratuitously at employees, especially the suited employees, and we eventually caught some trying to "smoke" in the bathroom."
6. Speaking of which, we had a "Black Book" of people permanently banned at the location. If you have ever worked in a service industry, you know this exists in every business everywhere.
7. White suburban moms were THE WORST. THE. WORST. They would micromanage our corporate set-up and program, ask for free shit, complain that the person in the outfit should stay longer (EVEN IF THEY OBVIOUSLY WERE TIRED AND NEEDED WATER), and would complain about the pizza and food quality. I'll never forget one mom asking if I could shut down the arcade while her party group sang 'Happy Birthday' because it was "too loud for her to sing."

Did Jeff say Silksong is coming out on Saturday @ 1:06:40?

Rorie definitely looks like a guy who cuts his own hair.

Guild Wars ruled just as Jeff said, played it for years (started with factions). If they somehow would remake it I totally would be back

The Rorie is strong in this one...

Jeff,

If you're over San Francisco, come on up to Tacoma and we will start Giant Bomb Grit Cast. We go hard here. And Jan and I can talk about the ins and outs of vMix.

IRS STAR TREK

acting

Can we get a Battlefront 2 segment. It has improved a ton and deserves a some recognition.

I LOVED Guild Wars 2.

The dynamic event system alone is still unmatched to this date.

I would watch a feature where they watch more of those videos

Never stop doing UPFs! (please)

@pasqual

Grilling in the name of.

Zack de la Mocha

Escape From Tarkov doesn’t have guns you can buy with real money after you die. Unless you're buying someone's account, which is a separate issue.

Another of those "this government thing is a bad thing" pitches over the last 20 years that was itself bad.

Gotta get those taxes down for certain rich folks paying for all this!

I love Jeff and the guys, but the music snobbery makes me kinda sad. Primus is fucking rad. Tool is fucking rad.

God dammit.

It's no big deal. Ya like what you like. But fuck.. man...

Jason's new glasses :thumbsup:

I love you Fussy Baby

Beard oil is super legit. It kinda starts to hurt after a while otherwise due to skin dryness and stuff.

I've just let mine grow freely for close to 3 years now and for it to not be too much in the way I braid it. About 40 centimetres long now :)

Primus sucks

and by that I mean Primus is a great fucking band. Or at least Frizzle Fry is a great fucking album.

Poor Black Mesa barely got showed-off, but at least Xen does look a lot more pretty than the original thing...still does have platforming, but looks more tolerable than the original.

@kain_pole: Tool have a decent album or two but their fans turn people against the band due to how obnoxious they are. If you listened to Tool fans you'd belive they were this groundbreaking, experimental band that did shit you'd never heard before. In reality it's a metal band that borrow some ideas from 70's and 80's progressive rock.

@glots said:

I was looking forward to that and was skimmed over quite rapidly. The whole of Black Mesa is a very nice package, updated quite expertly. Xen is particularly good and much improved in every way over the original. Black Mesa still plays like the old game, but with many of the rough edges smoothed.

the IRS Star Trek thing doesn't even make sense. I don't think they even use money in Star Trek. So how do they have taxes?

The videos were great. Thanks, Ben!

@shu: How are they paying for everything without taxes?

Yeah I'd hate to see what kind of music Jeff likes. It's funny he's probably my favorite and has my favorite personality of all the duders but his taste in pretty much everything is straight trash. Tool and Half Life are awesome.

It's Waterloo or nothing.

Wow, Jeff wasn't kidding about that map; he really was dying about every 3 seconds.

I've decided it's good to watch Jeff suffer through bad entertainment. Seeing his dismay at the sullying of a cherished IP gives me that smug, "I'm not the only one screaming inside" feeling.

Good UPF, though I wish Rorie would just let stuff (games, conversations, etc) breathe lol. Slow down bud!

jeff said cummies, he's a millennial now

@clapmaster: I mean, he went to bat pretty hard for Temporary Secretary.

Wait, what's all this about right and wrong ways to open cans?

Rory: We love fussy baby. Never stop the fussy baby.

Rorie continues to be the worst.

Jason spending the bulk of that fight slowly bleeding stamina without using a hot drink had me stressed the hell out, haha!

I'm with Jeff. Guild Wars 1 was the shit. 2 was an unfortunate departure from the style of the original.

A Lassi is basically a sweet yogurt shake, Rorie. There’s no tea or any other herb in it.

Although, you can get a Bhaang (weed) Lassi, here in India, which is quite popular during Holi, commonly known in the west as “the festival of colours“.