Did I ever tell you the time I won $3000?

It was the summer of 2002 and I was working at a crap phone surveying company. At the orientation, the team leader told us proudly this was their first non-jail call centre. After I heard that, it was hard to shake the idea a prisoner in Bowden was doing a better job than me.

I worked the 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. shift. After negotiating the train from downtown to the bus home, I was usually home around 10:30 p.m. I’d check e-mails, look for better jobs, watch Star Trek: Voyager, and play Diablo II. I was depressed that my job was so awful. I had had high hopes, applying to the City. I needed the money as I was applying to study abroad in China in the new year.

At the same time I was using a website to gather intel on potential scholarships. You’d fill in the info fields and the website would spit out a list of scholarship you could apply for and not win. I was hating my job, hating the university, and doubting I could scrape up enough dough to get to the motherland.

Then this survey from the scholarship site drops into my inbox. It was a survey about universities and it encouraged us to rate our university. In exchange they would reward $3000 to the lucky winner. I wasn’t very kind to the U of C on my entry. I pressed send and forgot about it.

A couple weeks later, I received an e-mail from that site stating I had won $3000 and all I needed to do to collect my cash was send my name and address. Of course I was suspicious and e-mailed back how could I know they were legitimate. They sent their address in Toronto. What good that would do me in Calgary, I don’t know. You can insert your Nigerian e-mail scam joke here. My mom said not to answer back but it was hard to turn it down. However, I had a friend living in Toronto where the website office was located. I sent him the address and a couple days later, he was standing in front of the office. He went in, asked if they were said company and if I was really a winner. I think they reassured him and he sent an e-mail to me confirming their legitimacy.

I quickly e-mailed them back, got my $3000 cheque in my mitts. And then I got a job at the City which paid $13/hr which allowed me to save up for the trip. With the cheque and new job, I was able to pay my way to China without asking the folks for a dime.

As for GTA, it's slow going. This is the first time Daorcey and I have tried to play a long video game as "adults" ie with real jobs. Inevitably, one of us is never home in the evening due to working out, biking, or meetings. And if we are both home, we only get one or two hours in because there's stuff to do. Did you know that entropy is a fact? I can't imagine trying to play this game and having a family. I'm not complaining but it marks a sure difference from the last game where we had marathon sessions and we weren't living together. Cue "I'm an adult now".