I wrote this garbled post early this year after wanting to like NBA LIVE 08 but struggling to get past it’s little game play hangups. EA dropped the demo last week which I downloaded to see if and what they fixed.

Here’s a quick rundown on my gripes from the last game and how they look in 09… (more…)

Crazy trampoline-ceiling accident, or mayhem-trip-roll?
You be the judge! Vote “A” or “B” in the comments!!!

Here is some useful tips on how to handle the tough questions if you ever have the unfortunate experience of taking a psychometric test as part of ‘the recruitment process.’

The questions below are just a sample of the ridiculous questions I copied down verbatim from a test I was forced to undertake at a specialist agency in Melbourne as part of the recruitment process for a position as an Oil Man at an Oil company.  After being mesmerised by Daniel Day Lewis’ performance in There Will Be Blood, all of a sudden I too wanted to be an Oil Man, although I don’t think that was the films purpose.  This particular test took over 6 hours on a Saturday and I’m guessing that the test was slightly tailored for the role of Oil Man.  At many instances, whilst confronted with difficult questions, I found myself putting me feet in Daniel Day Lewis’ shoes in order to ascertain what a good Oil Man would do (WWDDLD? – What Would Daniel Day Lewis Do?).

At the beginning of the test you’re told that when answering questions you should pick the first answer that comes into your head.  But this is a LIE.  You have to lie a lot if you want to do well in these tests. You also have to have super amazing vision to be able spot the differences in the pattern analysis section.  But I won’t talk about that section here, just take my word for it, it’s hard and you should take a magnifying glass.

YES or NO questions

One of the worst things about this section is that it’s not timed so you can ponder and theorise the meanings of each question all day if your hunger doesn’t get to you first or you strangle yourself with the mouse cable.

[Note: where you see “speech marks”, they were in the test question too.  I.e. they weren’t added by me for emphasis.]

#296 – Have you several times had to “sit on” rude or annoying people?

I’ve never heard the expression “sit on” in conjunction with shutting someone up. Have I figuratively sat on someone by shutting them up by something I said?  Or have I had to do it, or maybe should have done it, but I didn’t actually do it? The speech marks also confused me here.  Did I literally sit on someone? I’m sure I have sat on my brother once, but have I done it several times?  How am I supposed to remember how many times I sat on my brother – that was like 20 years ago?  Now I’m over thinking everything and I’ve got another 600 of these questions.

#298 – Have you ever had anyone slip something over you so cleverly that it tricked you?

The words “slip” and “over you” somehow make you think about physical things, like someone putting a bag over your head.  But if you take away the physical aspect of the question, and give “slip” a figurative meaning, then it reads “Have you ever been tricked so good that it tricked you?”  And that just doesn’t make one bit of sense?  That’s the questions trick.  After having already undergone four hours of testing by this stage (already done the maths and pattern analysis sections), I just could not figure out the meaning of this one so I walked up to the reception desk and asked the lady who was facilitating the test what it meant.  She told me that “slip” meant “trick”.  When I explained to her the conundrum I had with that interpretation she said “I know, but that’s how the psychologists meant it, it’s not a mistake”. Ok, so this question is actually designed to make you go mental I thought.  “So you’re saying that an educated person who speaks English actually wrote this test?” I asked.  Then I’m pretty sure she put her hand under the desk and pressed a secret emergency button.

#144 – When things are going smoothly are you inclined to let well enough alone rather than to seek improved methods?

“Let well enough alone”? What does that mean?  I had to read that sentence 10 times just to convince myself that it actually existed and that I wasn’t actually in one of those distorted Grand Theft Auto IV dreams I’d been having.  This was the first moment in the test where I had a ‘(GASP) I’ve never seen those words together before, what’s my first language again?’ moment.

#159 – …let them severely alone…  [Something about having to leave someone severely alone cause they were such a pain in the A-hole or something]

The first four words were all I managed to scribble down for this question.  But I was getting really hungry and delirious by this point.  I think that the ability to handle hunger and delirium were actually two important attributes that this Oil Man test was also evaluating.  Sometimes oil prospectors have to go without food and go crazy.  But seriously, how does anyone ‘let’ anything ‘severely’ ‘alone’?? Those words should be left severely apart.

#161 – Do you ever blush?

You must answer YES for this one.  Everyone has blushed at least once in their life and if you’re dumb enough to lie on this question then they will probably just release the dogs on the spot.

#166 – Have you ever had anyone take you in so cleverly that you had to admit it was one on you?

First of all, I’ve never ever heard anyone, let alone myself, say the precise words “I admit it, that was one on me.”  I’m not sure what century those words come from.  Secondly, there’s a pattern forming here about whether you get fooled easily.  I can’t think of any other job where this attribute is really important except in the Oil prospecting business, which seems to be full of false prophets and liars.  For this very reason this Oil employer must have told the testing agency that to be an Oil Man you can’t be someone who gets tricked easily.  In There Will Be Blood Daniel, Day Lewis’ character doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who gets tricked very easily.  Especially when he’s prospecting for oil.  And he’s the model of a successful Oil Man.  So if you want to be an Oil Man you have to say NO on this one.

#222 – Is more than one person afraid of you?

Despite being in a room full of other serious Oil Man hopefulI, I actually had to LOL unrelentlessly at this one.

At first I thought that it would be better to say NO here.  Surely they won’t want to employ people that they might potentially be afraid of in the future?  But then I remembered ol true blue Oil Man Daniel Day Lewis and how he destroyed that dirty false prophet Eliah in that 10 pin bowling match.  Surely people are afraid of that Oil Man.  Eliah the quarter wit sure as hell should have been if he had any sense.  I’ll never go bowling with Daniel D after watching that scene.  SO maybe I should say YES? Hhhhhmmmmm.

#? – Have you ever been in a fist fight?

This one’s particularly hard as it doesn’t have a time frame of the alleged fist fights occurrence, so they’ll just assume it happened last week and you currently have anger problems.  Nor does it give you an opportunity to explain yourself by giving an excuse for the fist fight, eg “she was a homeless” or something to make the fight appear more reasonable because of the context.

#196 – When you were a child, did you belong to a crowd or gang that tried to stick together through thick and thin?

At first this sentence sounds innocent.  But then you read it again and it will make your head explode.  It probably claimed about 10 minutes of my life to answer this one.  At first I thought ‘yeah I had some close buddies at school, sure I’ll say YES, otherwise they’ll think I don’t have good people or teamwork skills.’  But then you think, ‘hold on a second, did that question contain the words ‘gang’ and ‘through thick and thin’ in it?  I’m sure I was in gangs of friends at primary school but there was no organised crime involved.  We didn’t have any criminal underworld connections.  And what does ‘through thick and thin’ mean?  Did any of us go to jail to avoid snitching on our friends? None of this sentence is sounding so innocent anymore.

On reflection, I think the correct answer here, at least if your applying for an Oil Man position, is ‘NO.”  On balance, surely the trait of not being in a gang was more important than being a social reject to this employer.  And there were also no gangs in There Will Be Blood except maybe for the church folk.

#? Have you ever felt useless – almost no good at all?

Unless you have decided at this point in the test that you don’t actually want to be an Oil Man anymore, you must say NO, no matter how useless you are.

#25 – We’re you nearly always “on the go” as a child?

In hindsight I think that I was possibly over thinking everything at this stage.  To me this question asked whether you suffered from ADHD.  The speech marks also made me consider whether maybe “on the go” was an Australian euphemism for ‘taking drugs’ that I didn’t know about.

#? – Are there several important questions upon which you have not as yet declared yourself, although most of your friends have done so?

What a truly searching question.  “Are you gay?”  That’s the only question that I could come up with that fits into this scenario.

#? – Have your activities ever been interrupted by “blank” periods?

Damn those speech marks to an eternity of Oil Hell. They are automatic five minute wasters.

STRONGLY AGREE/AGREE/NEUTRAL/DISAGREE/STRONGLY DISAGREE questions

These questions are statements, often phrased in a double negative fashion, and you have to pick one of the above answers.

#? – I have never literally jumped for joy.

How can they use the word literally in a question like this, especially whilst posing the question in the negative, with those options to answer with?  I think I may have jumped for joy before but am I sure that I literally did it?  And do I strongly disagree that I didn’t do it?  My eyes are bleeding.

I wish I had written down more of these ones but I was gasping for real oxygen and hungry and I didn’t think I wanted to be an Oil Man anymore.  The worst thing about them is that they would make a negative statement, but then, in order to make sense of it in a way that would enable you to decide whether you strongly agreed/disagreed etc, you had to convert it to a positive statement and this was just a tiring process.

AND MORE

On top of these nonsensical questions, there were also stacks of repeated questions on the following themes:

-Have you ever had a sick day?
-Do you ever get headaches/have you ever had a headache/are you subject to headaches?
-Have you ever gambled? Do you like gambling? Are you a gambler? Do you like watching boxing, horse racing or wrestling on TV? [how on earth did wrestling get in this list? Do people actually bet on wrestling? If I say that I watched some wrestling will they think I’m a gambler or will they just think I’m a idiot? DO they maybe just want a friend to go to the casino with?]
-Do you sleep good? Do you fall asleep instantly? [there must have been about 10 questions on the sleep theme].
-Are you a socialist?
-Have you had periodic vomiting?
-Are you a crook? Have you ever stolen anything? [so many along these lines]

Some of the crazy crasian styz I saw in Siam Square on my recent trip to Bangkok.  You have to read the caption at the bottom of the I Love Milk t-shirt, priceless.  Bottom right photo has me wearing some stupid glasses and a T-shirt that has the caption “Dog Sick?” with some Thai writing beneath it (presumably “Dog Sick” in Thai, but who knows).   Dog Sick?  That questions mark kills me! How did that make it to a T-shirt…

True story. Emery, Ben and I were walking to get chocolate and it hailed on us. I had hail in my damn pockets!

Anyway, a LOT going on right now but my main goal this week is to get this blog design updated. I’ve narrow down to 2 or 3 possible formats which will then require some re-designing. Bear with us if everything looks a bit kooky if you visit this week.

Once the redesign is done we’ll be rolling into a big steaming load of catching up!

Lem.