For a while I was on a video game spree. I don't quite understand the point of sitting at home, all alone, paying for video game services, playing XBOX and Sega and all other games, when I could be sitting at some other place, surrounded by lots of other people, all playing video games. Seems way more social - thus the cyber cafe seems the best place for gaming, as far as I know of.
There used to be a place called the Electric Bean at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton, or so I'm told - a big giant yellow building. Now it's a bank on the left and some restaurants on the right, while the place itself is a Burger King shared with some other offices. Further along Eglinton is a little basement converted into a cyber cafe, called, strangely enough, CYber Cafe! At first glance, the place seems amazing! First of all, it is sort of underground as it's below the street level. Second, the walls are funky colors - though not as amazing as my place used to be but still wonderful! The lighting is good, and they play some Internet radio station at quite loud volume that most might find moderate, though loud enough that if watching a movie it might be difficult to hear some dialogue at quieter points. Playing games was not a problem, and working on digital design work was a breeze. The machiens have Photoshop! In a way, these machines are more useful than the ones at the library, even at the library's Digital Design Studio. Isn't that disappointing?
So I decided I'd go to this place for a month, every single night, and work on my projects. After about a week of going there I understood every single problem this business was suffering with and was powerless to resolve. When working at night, it's quite common for a person to fal asleep for a while here and there, that's nothing out of the ordinary, in fact it happens during the day, too! Though the vast majority of this society thinks sleep is not a healthy part of life - though this belief you won't find many to admit in plain English. After working for a long time I must have fallen asleep as far as the security was concerned, what else would you call an employee at a cyber cafe that walks around looking for anyone asleep and then nudges them until they are woken up. And by nudge, I mean a subtle punch in the shoulder. I pay the price they demand, I use their computer services - what rights do they have to tell me how I am to use their services? If I wanted to use the Internet to feed an audio stream that fuels the dreams I have, what is it their business? I don't move when asleep, I don't make noises, I don't talk in my sleep, I don't even snore. In fact, I probably don't even fart in my sleep. If I did any of these I wouldn't be sitting here, writing this post today.
Regardless, after getting woken up a second time I got quite fed up with these bastards and I asked. Seems the Toronto Police are responsible for this ludicrious practice, as I discovered much later in my cyber cafe pursuits. They should have no rights to dictate what a person does at a computer, or even at a cafe. What if I was sipping tea on a Sunday afternoon and fell asleep for half an hour after eating a heavy meal? In Toronto this is not permitted at malls such as the Eaton Center, where a security guard also nudged me awake after I ate quite a bit of food at the food court. Surprisingly there are several cyber cafes near that area as well, though their policies differ drastically. Perhaps as inconsisntanly as the training provided to each police officer.
Regardless, this computer place is good. There's all sorts of people, from kids to grandparents and the atmosphere is wonderful. Their bathrooms are some of the cleanest in the city, and the computers are adequately maintained, though the staff seem to lack the knowledge to fine tune their performance - not even hardware acceleration was enabled on some! I did submit my resume when they had a help wanted sign, but since a year later the sign was still up and they didn't call me, I figure they must be looking to hire someone with much less expertise - and that reflects in the quality of service their customers are receiving.
After a month or two of attending every single night, I got a lot of work done. I've finished a small TV cartoon, a derived video game, and a short film script, several business memos, checked many a email, killed many bots, realized that I can beat 10-12 Quake 3 bots under 5 minutes at least 3 times in a row, and discovered that I'm not any good at Starcraft anymore. It's unfortunate they don't let me dose off for a few hours, because without that I can't quite find inspiration when I find a creative block, and creativity isn't something you can schedule into a day you know!
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