We recently discovered that one of our local theaters does “Throwback Thursdays” and shows older movies once a week.  So, tonight, we’re going to see The Goonies.  Going to be fun!

Been playing a good amount of WoW lately.  And, since I’m not really part of an active guild, I’ve been running dungeons with a bunch of pick-up groups.

For a while there, I was having great luck with my PUGs.  Could burn through three or four dungeons, back-to-back, with no trouble.  Decent gear, no real drama, more-or-less competent players…  Really had no trouble clearing a dungeon – either normal or heroic.

Sure, there’d be the occasional fuckup and/or party wipe…  But folks would just get back up, dust themselves off, and charge back into the battle.

Then something happened.

I’m not sure if my luck changed, or a people suddenly got stupid, or what.  But I suddenly find myself constantly grouped with moronic prima donnas.

I’ll wind up in a party with one or more incompetent players – a tank who can’t hold aggro, or a healer that just can’t keep people standing, or a mage who simply can’t control his aggro…  And we’ll wind up wiping on something…  And then folks start bailing.

We’ll have a single bad pull, and all of a sudden the tank leaves the party.  Or the healer runs for the hills.  Or a couple of the DPS’ers leg it.

Depending on who leaves, it might be possible to queue up again, find someone to fill that role, and continue through the dungeon…  But unless someone is found very quickly, more people start leaving…  And before long I’ll find myself standing alone in some dungeon wondering where the hell everyone went.

Seems like I’m only actually clearing a dungeon about a third of the time.  It’s getting pretty discouraging.

We rented Apollo 18 last night…

I’d wanted to see it in the theater, but we never got around to it.  I didn’t feel like I’d missed-out on much since the ratings weren’t terribly impressive…  But I still wanted to see it, and I finally got my chance last night.

Downright creepy movie.

Vaguely reminiscent of Paranormal Activity, in the way subtle things happen and it isn’t entirely clear whether the characters are imagining them, or actually experiencing something unusual.

Definitely an entertaining couple of hours.

Made it through my second (and last) week of training.

I can certainly appreciate the goal of the training…  It’s definitely a good thing to learn about the company as a whole, the industry, the competition…  Find out how we fit into the bigger picture, and where our paychecks come from…  Especially since there’s such a disconnect between what folks believe about the industry and reality…

But, honestly, I feel like a lot of those two weeks was wasted time.

I don’t know that I really needed to learn about the first automobile to ever be built…  And I’m not sure the dealership visit was actually all that useful…  And I don’t think I really needed an hour presentation from every single department in the company…

I also really wish we could have spent more time with our respective departments earlier in the training process.  It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon, after a week and a half of training, that I spent any real amount of time with my department.  Would’ve been nice to get a feel for my job and how I was going to fit into the company before spending so much time on training.

And it would’ve been great to shadow some more people.  We spent a couple hours shadowing one of our digital advisors, and then another couple hours shadowing someone in support – and both of those were incredibly enlightening.  I would’ve liked to shadow someone in development, or production, or some of the IT guys…  But I guess that might not be as obviously enlightening as listening in on phone calls.  I suppose folks without an IT background probably wouldn’t have a clue what they were looking at.

But, anyway, I’m done.  Monday I start working for real.  Well, mostly.

I’m going to spend a chunk of next week shadowing one of our Windows guys, and then another chunk of the week shadowing a Mac guy, and finally I’ll have some kind of “hand-off” meeting with the last workstation sysadmin.  So I guess I probably won’t be doing much real work for another week or so…

Huh.

I’m almost disappointed…  We were supposed to get some kind of horrific winter storm last night.  I was expecting a rough commute in to work this morning…  But there’s absolutely nothing.  No snow on the ground, clear skies, no sign of a storm at all.