"It's a big blue watery road"

Employee Profile: Quintin_Stone

Employee Profiles are back, and Quintin_Stone is the man for you! He's been collecting signature testimonials to prove his worthiness for a while now, although most of them are chopped short in a commendable show of humility.

"Quintin is both smart and attractive," raves site overlord Certis. "But there's more. If any of you try to touch him, I swear to God there'll be retribution. Site bans. That sort of thing."

"Good lord, I wouldn't have expected brilliance like that from that nemeslut Quintin Stone!" writes Fedaykin98 who, of course, was only joking. "I expected brilliance, and turbo-brilliance was delivered. Quintin is a Web 2.0-compliant brilliance content delivery system."

"I logged into Quarantine only to find that Quintin had broke into my safehouse overnight and chopped me to death with an axe. Of course, he typed me a stirring, hour-long soliloquy on the nature of death and inertia beforehand, so I couldn't really be mad. I just wish I could've saved it to read again later..." wistfully recalls a Goodjer, who wishes to remain anonymous.

This one was too long to sig, but nonetheless evokes a beautiful shared experience that Quintin often writes poems about in his free time.

The man has been buttered up enough! Let's get to the sultry Q&A action.

1. Who the devil are you?

I'm a 35 year-old narcissist with a Masters in Mockery and a PhD in Kicking Ass! Assuming my dissertation defense goes well. Of course only the first half of that sentence was true. For some reason I have a reputation among my friends as a liar. My shirt that says "I'm probably lying" doesn't help my case.

I've been married 11 years now (hi, Yellek!) with no kids and three cats.

2. What are you supposed to be doing during the day when you're reading GWJ?

Software design, development, and architecture, mostly. I'm the lead designer (of a dev team of two) for a small hospital software division inside a larger manufacturing company. So I get to decide what feature to implement, what bugs to fix, how things should look, that sort of thing. I also get to delegate to minions, which is nice. I'd close my office door and nap occasionally if I wasn't an insomniac.

3. How about family? Kids? Pets? Particularly meaningful inanimate objects?

We've been married a little over 11 years now and somehow we've managed not to kill each other. No kids, but three troublesome cats and my wife is angling for a fourth. (We used to have five but two passed away last year.) As for immediate family, I'm third of six kids and all but one of us live in the same general area, as do my parents. My wife's parents live in Seattle which makes heading out there for PAX convenient.

I'm very fond of my new car, which many of you helped pay for thanks to Cash for Clunkers.

4. What was your favorite game over the last year or so? Why?

I'm going to go with Left 4 Dead. It doesn't get as much play as it used to, but playing Versus mode with fellow Goodjers is still a blast. Especially with the snare-speak mod that lets you taunt your opponents after you've vomited on them or choked them with your tongue.

5. Which game are you looking forward to most?

That's a tough one. As far as multiplayer goes, I'm really looking forward to some Goodjer-on-Goodjer action in both Starcraft 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. Completely different games but both have great potential for some epic online play once you add GWJ folks to the mix.

For single player — and I still spend most of my gaming hours in single player games — I'm going to go with Tropico 3. People familiar with my creations in Dwarf Fortress or Railroad Tycoon 3 know what a fan I am of sandbox building games. The Tropico 3 demo really got me looking forward to the full game.

6. What is your fondest gaming memory?

Penny-Arcade Expo 09, which is also one of my most recent gaming memories. All those games, that huge expo hall, nerf celebrities, freeplay rooms, lots of swag. And meeting people you've only talked to online is always a blast. Then you get together, drink, play board games, or join an impromptu TF2 tournament. Good times, good times.

Except the nerd flu. That part sucked.

7. What is your most embarrassing gaming memory? If you hold back, we'll know.

From 1999 through 2002 I helped run a local LAN party with a lot of my friends. We tried to be very inclusive with the games we played and the tournaments we ran, so it wasn't all just Quake and (ugh) Counter-Strike. One of those tournaments was a single elimination Age of Empires 2 bracket. (It only had seven people participating, otherwise it would have taken several days to finish.) In my match, I'm playing against this kid and while I'm building up defenses and an army to attack him, things are pretty quiet from his end.

After a long stretch of little interaction (I wasn't a terribly aggressive RTS player back then), I get the sudden warning from the game that my opponent has started building a Wonder. For those of you not familiar with the game, a Wonder is a special building that takes a huge investment of time and resources to build, but if you can finish it in a multiplayer game you automatically win. So I take my troops and rush to attack him and my army runs headlong into a wall. A literal stone wall. And beyond that one, another one. He'd spent that initial time ringing his town with 3 or 4 layers of the strongest wall in the game. By the time I'd breached them all with my army and began attacking his town, he'd finished the Wonder and won the match. It was a terrible public humiliation that my friends like to bring up to torture me.

8. Finally, why do you play games at all? Why haven't you outgrown them?

Outgrown them? As immature as I am? Ha!

We literally had a Pong system in our house when I was young. That's how long I've been doing this. Pong, Intellivision, 3 kinds of Atari computer, 2 Nintendo consoles, Dreamcast, PS2, and uncounted PC iterations. I don't know any other way to live.

After not too long, this question won't even be relevant. College grads these days have no memory of a world without videogames and some of them probably don't remember the days before the internet. You've got grandparents and great grandparents playing the Wii. The stigma of adults playing videogames will eventually disappear completely. Just before the Robot Wars.

9. Thanks for taking the time to answer our hard hitting questions! Any last words?

This means I get to edit other people's posts now, right?

Ed note: No.

Spoiler:

Yes.

Comments

Spoiler:

I dare him to edit this post. Yep, throwing down that gauntlet.

Employee Profiles are so intermittent that I think they all start with, "Employee Profiles are back."

I am Edit-Tor! You must challenge me for the right to edit posts!

*walks on through, twirling a cane*

IMAGE(http://www.freewebs.com/maybe_im_a_lion/chocoboVIII.jpg)

Now that he's an employee do I get spousal benefits?

Oh, and congrats sweetie.

Here's to you, Stone!

Well played Lobster, and just so it gets posted again...

LobsterMobster wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.freewebs.com/maybe_im_a_lion/chocoboVIII.jpg)

I am very glad the "Employee" feature has crept back, even for this temporary and ignominious entry.

Also, you look nothing like Christian Bale. Severely disappointed.

Also, can the audience throw questions out? Why nemeslut? Are you a slutty nemesis? Inquiring minds want to know!

Oh great, now we're never gonna get him to shutup!

Grats, Q.

Huge thanks to Clem for taking the initiative on running more profiles. I have a feeling they'll be more regular from now on.

Certis wrote:

Huge thanks to Clem for taking the initiative on running more profiles. I have a feeling they'll be more regular from now on.

Have the profiles been eating more fiber filled cereals?

Certis wrote:

Huge thanks to Clem for taking the initiative on running more profiles. I have a feeling they'll be more regular from now on.

Great. The snubbing begins anew!

All I have to say is when trip1eX gets profiled before me, that'll be the last straw. Imma outta here!

Podunk wrote:

Here's to you, Stone!

:drink:

Yeah, I love this guy! Not in a homo way tho.

Spoiler:

Unless you want to, Quintin, then maybe.

*Legion* wrote:
Certis wrote:

Huge thanks to Clem for taking the initiative on running more profiles. I have a feeling they'll be more regular from now on.

Great. The snubbing begins anew!

All I have to say is when trip1eX gets profiled before me, that'll be the last straw. Imma outta here!

Clem, you know what you must do.

Certis wrote:

Clem, you know what you must do.

I have to feed laxatives to chocobos in order to appease a drunken Quintin.

... is that it?

Certis wrote:

Clem, you know what you must do.

I'm taking the dog. And Boogle.

You can keep Rat Boy.

HedgeWizard wrote:

I am very glad the "Employee" feature has crept back, even for this temporary and ignominious entry.

Also, you look nothing like Christian Bale. Severely disappointed.

Also, can the audience throw questions out? Why nemeslut? Are you a slutty nemesis? Inquiring minds want to know!

If this is the first time you've been disappointed by Quintin, you must not have been paying attention.

I want an employee profile on Mex, just so that we can have a NSFW profile. Also, pics or it didn't happen.

Hot.

The story of the wonder is made public. Hooray! As Inigo Montoya would say: Humiliations GALORE!

Congratulations, Stone.

Good job, Clem. You sure know how to toss a salad.

Ed note: No.

Aw. IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/Smilies/frown.gif)

Spoiler:

Yes.

Hooray! IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/Smilies/grouphug.gif)

Rat Boy wrote:
Spoiler:

I dare him to edit this post. Yep, throwing down that gauntlet.

IT'S NOT WORKING!

wordsmythe wrote:

I am Edit-Tor! You must challenge me for the right to edit posts!

Oh, very well. I can spare 30 seconds to kick your ass.

LobsterMobster wrote:

*walks on through, twirling a cane*

Guess who's going to suffer the first abuse of my new editing powers, Lobster. Go on, guess!

HedgeWizard wrote:

I am very glad the "Employee" feature has crept back, even for this temporary and ignominious entry.

Looks like another one made the list.

*Legion* wrote:

Great. The snubbing begins anew!

Clem told me that you were first on the list but if I slipped him $30 he'd move you somewhere after verronica10.

Mex wrote:

Yeah, I love this guy! Not in a homo way tho.

Spoiler:

Unless you want to, Quintin, then maybe.

Coldstream wrote:

I want an employee profile on Mex, just so that we can have a NSFW profile. Also, pics or it didn't happen.

There was one

PSA: If you click on the image to the right of the first paragraph (huge eye inside a magnifying glass), then you get a list of all previous articles in this category. A lot of the cool kids are in it.

This works for all categories of articles, btw.

I had the good fortune of meeting Quintin at PAX 2009. I can confirm a very interesting bit of trivia: he can hold his liquor. Also, he drinks it without spilling. He was very fun to talk to and hang out with.

Nerf celebrities! It's Nerf or nothing!

docbadwrench wrote:

I had the good fortune of meeting Quintin at PAX 2009. I can confirm a very interesting bit of trivia: he can hold his liquor. Also, he drinks it without spilling. He was very fun to talk to and hang out with.

It helps that he has mastered the sippy cup.

He also plays Rock Band drums like a T-Rex.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
HedgeWizard wrote:

I am very glad the "Employee" feature has crept back, even for this temporary and ignominious entry.

Looks like another one made the list.

I know I am on the list - but what kind of engineer are you? Languages?

Quintin wrote:

Guess who's going to suffer the first abuse of my new editing powers, Lobster. Go on, guess!

Podunk? It's Podunk, right?

*Legion* wrote:
Certis wrote:

Clem, you know what you must do.

I'm taking the dog. And Boogle.

You can keep Rat Boy.

I'n glad my opinion was asked. I'm hoping for joint custody. Yay for 2 christmases!

Nice, I always enjoy the employee profiles. I know who is going to be next. Certis told me it was

Spoiler:

me

.