Here is another of the characters from Team IT. You can also find out about characters in the stories posted here by visiting the Characters tab on the top navigation bar. Click here to see all of the Team IT postings.

Sarah Senfield
Age: 26
Astrological Sun Sign: Scorpio

Sarah is anything but the ‘token woman’ as she is the designer and front-end developer of Computer World’s external support website and their private team internal blog, along with Tom who mostly handles back-end programming. She is also a Windows system administrator for the company, being in charge of group policy for the domain. In addition, she still is responsible for the external tech support and computer repairing and building just like the rest of the team. She has a hard time not taking on additional responsibilities, and does her best to keep peoples’ griping to a minimum. In general she handles it quite well, but if you push her or don’t treat her with respect the outer calm will drop and you will regret it. She works with little complaint as long as she is not expected to ever step foot outside the basement during work hours and she is allowed to manage her time as she sees fit. If you have a problem with her using remote desktop or sshing into your computer, don’t ask for her help, as she has little patience for n00b walk throughs. She’s more likely to bite the bullet and do this for customers, but for her coworkers, she is more likely to lock down their account further so they can’t mess anything up in the future and as punishment. This, of course, excludes her IT coworkers which she has nothing but love and respect for. The Domain’s OUs reflect this as they are broken down into: “TeamIT, “Nice”, “Naughty”, and “ShitList”. The freedom for her to use her own discretion is why she stays with the company, otherwise she would have quit within the first week. She hasn’t even been with Computer World for a full year and already the upper management is unsure what they would do if she ever did leave, since they’d either have to hire three people to do her job or find someone else as capable, hard working, and in love with her job as her. The big bosses know this, try to hide the fact, and hate it. Unlike Craig, she isn’t always threatening to quit her job. Like Craig, she is constantly trying to find better ways of getting the work done, though her methods differ from his. While he tries to organize, she supports more of a head on ‘try it out and get it done’ approach.

Some of you think I unfairly called the Nintendo 64 the worst controller, and I do confess that there are worse game console controllers out there. It was really more of the biggest controller let down because, let’s face it, the Super Nintendo controller was so on the money, but Nintendo took a sad step back.

Here’s the earlier post in case you missed it.

If you glance down into the annals of console and computer gaming history, you will find far worse controllers. You will find controllers that make the word control a joke. You will see controllers that take the word control completely out so all you’re left with is ler.

And what’s a ler?

So here is the confession and then some of my opinions on some of the other worst controllers… There are a lot out there, especially for the early systems that no one has ever heard of. I’m going to try to cover a few you might have heard of.

 

• Power Glove
• Wiimote Batarang
• Atari 2600 Joy Stick
• Xbox Original Controller
• Sega Saturn 3d Controller
• Gamecube Controller

Power Glove

Nintendo

Wow! So I’m going to be able to punch in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out? No? Well… I’ll be able to make Mario jump with my fingers! No? Well, then wtf is the point of this? We still don’t know. What we do know is that it seemed cooler in The Wizard, which was basically a long Nintendo commercial for it. Even today, you can find the power glove make appearances in episodes at purepwnage.com. It gets points for nostalgia badness.

Wiimote Batarang

Wii

I just said that the Wiimote and Nunchuck made the best controller ever. Now I’m going to say there are some things that the Wiimote just should not be combined with. The two obvious questions are: 1) Why? and 2) What? I honestly don’t have the best answers for either. Apparently it makes the Wiimote more Batmanesque. You put the Wiimote in the piece of plastic and… voi la! It becomes a Wiimote in a Batman-like piece of plastic. I know it sounds like it would give the Wiimote boomerange qualities, but please, don’t throw it (at least not with the Wiimote inside- otherwise, throw it in the trash).

Atari 2600 Joy Stick

Atari 2600

Oh, no you didn’t go there. Oh, yes I did. This was my first gaming system, so I hesitate to bad mouth it, and yet I must. I still have my Atari 2600, but not with original joysticks (bought some from Strange Maine in Portland, ME). That’s my main point. They broke. The sticks would often come off leaving no stick and no joy behind either. Sometimes just the casing on the stick came off leaving this narrow white plastic thing that would be near impossible to use before it snapped off later.

Xbox Original Controller

Xbox

As I admitted in my last controller post, I have small hands. Still, there is no excuse for a controller specifically made for large apes with ninja dexterity only. What about the small apes with ninja dexterity, and more importantly, what about me? Make everything really rounded and spaced far apart so it looks like I’m trying to hold a fish when I’m trying to game. Why are the analog controllers located in different places on each side? I know that symmetry is bad composition, but this is a controller, not a painting class. And why are there a couple of tiny buttons with the big regular buttons? Did they take notes from the N64 controller? While we’re on that thread, expansion packs are bad and pointless. If it needs to exist for the console, put it in the console, or make it in the controller.

Sega Saturn 3d Controller

Sega Saturn

Not that anyone had a Sega Saturn anyways, but OMG. I complained about the big, awkwardness of both “>N64 controllers and Xbox’s, but really, this is so far beyond either of those. Thank whatever deities that this isn’t what came with the system, especially since it didn’t work with all Saturn games. Yes, I’m serious. You had to have the privilege in have this controller supported for your game.

Gamecube Controller

Gamecube

On one hand, it’s not as bad as the N64. On the other hand, you’d think Nintendo would learn from its mistakes. Be thankful they got rid of the phallic symbol in the middle but, they added some weird, odd shaped buttons of different sizes and colors. How hard can we make it for you to use a button? Try using a controller with elongated, rounded rectangles and you’ll find out.

I’m not saying there aren’t other bad controllers out there. As long as video games exist, there will be poor designs implemented to control them. I also should say that I think that even my favorite controllers could be better. I won’t be completely satisfied until virtual reality anyways! And even then… let’s face it. There’s always room for improvement.

If you’d said what you needed to say,
then your mind would be clear cut like
a lack of final forest for the
first funeral.
Broken blood vessels in faded hearts
forgotten lie among the memories made
rotten.
If I’d gotten any closer, I’d fall away.
If I’d made a move to stay,
the first would have faded to gray,
gotten laid to rest with the
past and rest.
If I’d held on tighter,
the day would cease getting righter and the
self would be lost to sea.
I see loss every time something is gained.
Something is taken from a.
The pain pauses with pleasure,
sides with whether or not that time
will be forgot or live as a legend
in someone’s eyes, through memories lie.
Life does not.
I’m glad these days I have not forgot
that life is for living.