Here comes the rant!

Actually, partial rant. I shouldn't start about all the cultural differences between Quebec and France, and why they affect our language, thus the games I test and the content in it.

FYI, I'm a Quebecer. A French-speaking one. Québécoise pure laine, as they'd say. "Pure wool Quebecer," female singular.

All you need to know, at this point, is that France French and Quebec French, although using the same grammar, spelling and characters, is pretty much the equivalent between British English and American English. You'll never hear "wanker" said seriously by most Americans, and if so, it might be used for a UK or Aussie mate. The same way you won't hear "criss de tabarnak" spoken by a Frenchman, unless he's in Quebec and trying to make the others laugh with his accent.

Because I have to admit, hearing Frenchmen use Quebec cusswords is funny as hell.

Well, worked with them. I used to be in a localization video game testing team. Used to, because I had to change companies, and my present company has denied me a localization job because I'm not European.

Yep, that's right. My grammar and spelling might be as good as a Frenchman, but I can't do so because I'm not European.

Let's face it, it's a bit insulting. I'm in my own country and I can't do my job. Instead, it's a guy from France who does it, because he speaks a partially different French. And I'm not kidding.

However, I'll admit two things:
1. Game localization, in French, is mostly used in France, as most Quebec gamers are bilingual and don't play much in French because...
2. ... Culture-wise, we're different than Frenchmen.

I have no problem admitting this. We're different when it comes to culture. Quebec is very Americanized for a French-speaking population. Argue all you want about immigration, English in Montreal and the Loi 101, we're still, at base, a French-speaking population. And we have our own culture too. Which differs from France. Here's a good excercice if you want to understand what we're going through when we play a game in French.

You're American? Watch Coronation Street, or a UK stand-up comedian. Yeah. You undestand it, but you wonder what makes it so popular, at a point where you actually don't understand it anymore and tune out. That's what happens for us when we play a game in French. Maybe not that bad, but it still sounds awkward and forced.

Now, the main problem is that 99% of the games available in French were translated for France. It's like you being a huge soap-opera fan, but 99% of the time you fall on Coronation Street-like soaps. You just resort to the 1% that's made for your country, or you watch in your second language, which actually offers the same things you want. It's handy like that.

In other words... it created one hell of a vicious circle. There's little market for Quebec French games because we speak English too, and there's no content available because there's no market.

This being said...

My French may not be the same as a Frenchmen, but I have no problem with asking questions about what's preferable to use there, or simply Google it up. That's what localization is - you're translating and fixing issues for a language, and make sure the target audience gets it. Which is why I'm willing to translate for France.

But, to come back to my ranting point, Company B doesn't WANT this. They don't want people from QUEBEC working in their Quebec office, nope, it has to be Europeans. I even asked the HR manager. To quote her to the best of my memory, "I had to replace a French tester for a Quebecer, for one day only. Head office asked me if the tester was European because of the last name." In other words, not even native French-speaking Quebecers can act as a REPLACEMENT for ONE DAY ONLY.

So I can't do the job I qualify for... because I'm not European. Sure the cultural differences may be awkward at times, but fuck, I have the Internet. I have French friends. I know very well that "Saint-Eustache" wouldn't be used as a probable town name, but rather "Marseille" or "Caen" or "Saint-Aix-Sur-Mer".

I came up with that last one, I have no clue if it really exists. I could Google it up, but I'm off duty.

So I'll just swallow the salary difference and play my games in English, until I make it back into Company A.

The PC of Death

I've had consoles since I was 4 years old. Took a while for me to get how to install them, but at 7 I had no problem doing so anymore. Then again I didn't have a composite-able TV until I was like 10.

In 1997 or 1998 - I was 12 or 13 - my parents finally went along with the new craze: a personal computer. Pentium 200Mhz processor. 2GB HDD. 32MB video card. 56kpbs dial-up modem. Little marvel of technology it was. Came with Windows 95, which had a tendency to crash ALL the time. We always had problems with it, and when the techie moved or something, I became the house techie. I had watched the guy work on it and I had a general idea of what to do with the software.

But when it comes to the inside of a PC... I won't lie, I'm not that good. I can change a hard drive or a video/sound card just fine, but that was about it. A couple years ago, my cousin Isabelle's boyfriend Serge showed me how to hook up a motherboard to all the components, including the power supply. It didn't take him more than 25 minutes.

I took over 3 hours to fix my power supply today. Okay, I had a good half-hour of procrastination and early 90's anime/cartoon nostalgia trip, and a nap... but still. I won the damn fight.

I started at like 10am. I have a small apartment and I have very little place to set everything down. I fetched my piano keyboard's bench and put the case on it, and began "working". It took me about 10 minutes to remove the power supply and all the cables... and over 30 minutes to screw the new one back on. That's not including the nostalgia trip. This had me constantly turning around and clicking on YouTube links every 2 minutes or so. After finally screwing it all together and finding the right cables to put on the right devices, I tried booting it. It beeped, so it was booting something. All good.

Tried to hook it up to my monitor. Nothing. Figured the video card might have not been put in right, so I unhooked it, removed it from its usual space by my desk, put it back on the bench. Video card was fine. I took the cables off the HDDs, put them back on, found another power cord, hooked it back to an outlet, took my mini DVI cable and put it on my TV, and began booting and trying to find out WHAT was wrong.

Exhausted, I promptly said "fuck it" and went to take a nap. Was about 3. I slept until 5:30. At 6:15 I began working on it some more - with a clear head, I realized it might have been because my slave drive was in the master slot, and the master drive in the slave slot. Bingo. 20 seconds later it booted just fine.

Now there's a fan I can't get to work, but I might just place the PC back for a few days and check on the fan later on. Because I really wanna play on my PC.

This being done, I can focus on my current game: Pokemon White.

So... this is my first post. Yay!

So I'm trying to get back into the whole blog thing. I used to have a LJ account, but it's been years and holds quite a bit of bad memories. That and teenage / young adult angst.

I'll eventually come up with a better bio, but let's face it, I haven't used a blog in years. Years.

Either ways, I'm Sara, AKA ChibiShiva, Chibi, or just "that girl at the Starbucks". I've been a gamer since I'm 4 (I'm 26, do the maths XD) and I can't see myself dropping video games anytime soon. My fav genres are RPGs, action/adventure and puzzle games. Recent owner of a 360... without Xbox LIVE for now.

So I'll be mostly writing about the games I play, my job as a game tester (don't expect anything too specific folks XD, I don't wanna get my ass fired!) and random crap. Expect a lot of random crap.

And ranting. Because I rant. XD