Employee Profiles: Podunk

Podunk. The name alone conjures images of, I dunno, some toothless appalachian sipping moonshine from a jug with XXX scrawled across the front. But, Podunk, the man as we know him, has surmounted my preconceived notions of his being a West Virginy vagrant who likes a fussin' and a feudin' and become a towering standard of our humble site. From his outstanding musical work on GWJ Radio, to his award winning advertisement for that tasty, if viscous, zombie drink: Encephalic Fluid you can hardly swing a dang ol' ring-tail possum without slapping into Podunk's omnipresence. But for me, what really really stands out about this man, this GWJ icon, this ... Podunk, is simply that he invented and coined the phrase Goodjer. And I swear upon the seven fiery hells, one day I will kill him for it. A pox on thee.

Adorable picture in 3 ... 2... 1...

IMAGE(http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/images/Podunk.thumbnail.jpg)

Your precious, heart-warming offspring will only stay my hand so long, old, drunken moonshiner. One day, I will come for you, and as I stab deep let the last words that pass your lips be: goodger.

1) Who the devil are you?

My name is Ian. I am 30 years old. I live with my wife and daughter in a depressed little timber town on the Washington coast. Kurt Cobain grew up here. That makes it both awesome and terrible, depending on whom you ask. I'm a musician by training, and I am currently on the tail end of the slow transition from angry, elitist jerk to laid-back and good-natured elitist jerk. I enjoy the outdoors, playing games, and cursing.

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

By day I work in the engineering department at a company that designs and manufactures severe duty centrifugal pumps. My main responsibility is running and documenting customer and R&D tests in our test facility. By night I assume the mantle of classical musician up at the local college, where I teach voice lessons and direct their concert choir. I also co-own an audio production company that might conceivably provide some audio assets for a game one day. This paragraph makes it sound like I work much harder than I actually do.

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

I have been married for a little over three years. We have a beautiful 2-year-old daughter and a bun in the proverbial oven. Rounding out the family are two retired show horses and one neurotic cat. There's nothing all the interesting about any of my inanimate objects.

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

My favorite single player experience over the past year was probably Half Life 2, followed closely by Halo 2. In fact, if you could somehow fuse the two games and blend Half Life 2's atmosphere and art direction with Halo 2's audio and multiplayer and then add a real ending you would probably have the perfect FPS game. My favorite multiplayer experience is a toss up between Halo 2, Battlefield 2, and Unreal Tournament 2004. In terms of raw investment of hours, UT2k4 would have to get the prize, as I still play it almost every day on my lunch break with my coworkers.

5) Which game are you looking forward to most?

I'm eagerly anticipating much of the 2006 Xbox 360 lineup, particularly Gears of War and Mass Effect.

6) What is your fondest gaming memory?

Monster Rancher for PS1 is this amusing little game where you put a CD in the Playstation and a unique monster gets generated based on some code on the disc. You train and feed your monster, and ultimately you take it to the arena to fight other monsters. The game has a great mechanic that allows the AI to take control of your monster if you don't want to control it in combat, which is actually highly desirable if you have just consumed six beers. I have many fond gaming memories, but the fondest of all is probably the memory of the first night my college roommate and I spent drunkenly cheering on our monster (his name was Jimmy) over a half-rack of Molson.

7) Better guitar solo, twedledeedeleeesqueeeee or bahndahnsqueedelegrawwwn?

Whichever best fits the song, of course!

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

Because I am hopelessly addicted. And because they are murder simulators, and I have to keep my skills polished for when I inevitably need to kill some motherf*ckers.

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

You're welcome! GWJ FTW!!!

Comments

7) Better guitar solo, twedledeedeleeesqueeeee or bahndahnsqueedelegrawwwn?

And it's official... Certis has been playing far too much Guitar Heroes... Bren, you mind taking it away from him now? Just for a few days... and then ration out his playing time. Thanks.

And nice to meet ya, Podunk, so to speak. That kid is adorable. Hope mine are that cute, I mean... I'm not working with a lot in the looks department, but it looks like you did pretty well, so I suppose I don't have much to worry about.

And it's official... Certis has been playing far too much Guitar Heroes... Bren, you mind taking it away from him now? Just for a few days... and then ration out his playing time. Thanks.

Filthy, filthy skimmer. Can't even take the time to see who posted the article. Tsk, tsk, TSK!

Yet another shining example of someone who has accomplished much more in his 30 years of the life than I have. Well done Podunk! I guess I better get started.

I'm not Certis ...
...
though, I have been playing a lot of Guitar Hero.

I think we all know who the REAL guitar hero is. And it's not Podunk, because twedledeedeleeesqueeeee is blatantly superior.

Nice to know you, dunky!

Ok someone needs to make a program which takes the pictures of GWJ'ers and their kids and calculates what their wives look like.

kudos to you for not being half-nekkid

Nice to meet ya Podunk, seeing this picture confirms to me what I have felt deep inside for a long long time: the old grinning guy avatar fitted you way better than your current one

Elysium wrote:

I'm not Certis ...
...
though, I have been playing a lot of Guitar Hero.

certified verb

1: to have transcended into a Certis-like state by following the path of the Certis.

Podunk, your daughter is cute enough to murder someone with her giggles. But it took me a second look to realise that that wasn't a gray lumpy pillow on your lap, but a gray, lumpy cat.

What a beautiful baby girl. Where'd she get her good looks?

Funny, I never even noticed the cat.

Nice to meet you, Podunk! Good luck with your next little one!

Shame on you for not being half-naked.

Hola!

I remember Moster rancher as well. I was on the Nav and on the middle of a 6 month cruise. We tried SO MANY different cds to see if we could get a dragon or something. Lot of time spent trying to figure out how it picked the monsters!

Agree with Gaald time to get my life in gear!

Howdy podunk-a-dunk!

I fondly remember running through about a zillion CDs to find special ones like the wicked Dragon from REMs Monster and something cool from a couple NIN albums.

Your picture makes me want to vomit with cuteness! No...wait...I think that's just my medication.

Also, this reminds me that I need to update my profile which is a bit out of date.

Good to meet you Podunk. Is that the infamous cat who doubles as a fart pillow?

Oh, and what Katerin said about your daughter.

VicD714 wrote:

Good to meet you Podunk. Is that the infamous cat who doubles as a fart pillow? :)

That's the one. He loves it.

Mex wrote:

What a beautiful baby girl. Where'd she get her good looks?

You keep away from her, dammit!

dejanzie wrote:

Nice to meet ya Podunk, seeing this picture confirms to me what I have felt deep inside for a long long time: the old grinning guy avatar fitted you way better than your current one :-)

Yeah, I was actually kind of thinking of reinstating that guy. He just seems so...jovial. I like his one happy little tooth.

Gaald wrote:

Yet another shining example of someone who has accomplished much more in his 30 years of the life than I have.

Dude, that can't possibly be right. I'm always thinking that about everyone else!

Oh yeah, and:

IMAGE(http://www.willowtreeaudio.com/id/richard_simmons_GOODJERS.jpg)

Great to know more about one of our more well-known greats!

Hugs to your cute daughter, I'll make sure to include something for her when I send in your next WWII game!

Also, please become rich, so that in time my 2-y.o. son can marry her!

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Also, please become rich, so that in time my 2-y.o. son can marry her!

It's like Romiet and Julio! Or the Babydome! Two toddlers enter! One toddler leaves!

No mention of the Wiener Bomb? For shame....

Podunk wrote:

Oh yeah, and:

IMAGE(http://www.willowtreeaudio.com/id/richard_simmons_GOODJERS.jpg)

AAAAHHHH!!!! MY EYES!! MY EYES!!

Podunk wrote:
VicD714 wrote:

Good to meet you Podunk. Is that the infamous cat who doubles as a fart pillow? :)

That's the one. He loves it. :D

and one neurotic cat

No wonder...

Nice to meet you Podunk! I love beeing able to put a face on a name, I'm so shallow.

So...Podunk is Certis' brother?

JimmDogg wrote:

So...Podunk is Certis' brother?

Well, since Elysium did the interview, perhaps they are one and the same?

Podunk wrote:

Rounding out the family are two retired show horses and one neurotic cat.

That`s so cool. I feel so horseless reading this.

JimmDogg wrote:

So...Podunk is Certis' brother?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the resemblance.

Podunk wrote:
JimmDogg wrote:

So...Podunk is Certis' brother?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the resemblance.

Heh, I thought the same when I looked at the picture but I didn't say in fear of insulting you.

Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers!

Prederick wrote:

Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers! Goodjers!

Mushroom! Mushroom!

shihonage wrote:

Ok someone needs to make a program which takes the pictures of GWJ'ers and their kids and calculates what their wives look like.

From a genetics standpoint, no program should be able to pinpoint the way the wives look because there isn't enough information. You couldn't be sure even if you had the complete DNA sequences of the father and the child. You could probably get a rough idea, but I mean, Podunk's wife might resemble anyone from Heidi Klum to Veronica Varekova to Elle McPherson to Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. There's just so many ways it could go.

From an internet stalker standpoint, that would be teh awesome.

Podunk wrote:

Yeah, I was actually kind of thinking of reinstating that guy. He just seems so...jovial. I like his one happy little tooth.

Nice to meetcha Podunk! And please give Michael a chance! D-FENS!!!

Hey, where did the tradition of topless pics go to? HOW WILL WE GET SINGLE WOMEN TO THIS SITE IF THERE ARE NO TOPLESS MEN?

I am ashamed...