So there's still confusion when I tell people I'm gay.  The main cause of surprise is due to me not being overly camp, and for many, only effeminate people may be gay.  It's difficult I know - clearly not everyone is gay, and there is some exclusivity to the community.  For a long time now, the simplistic connection of camp:gay has been left to serve the purpose because explaining the full system is too much hassle, but here on MOMS there's no shying away from the painful extended details.

You may have heard rumours about the existence of a 'Gay Card'.  Well it's true - it's all true.  These days we use smart chip technology and a gay development team are working on a second tier 'Gaydar' system that uses RFID cards, which will probably be integrated into the standard smart card we carry now.  It's not always been so technological, but as culture has become increasingly diverse, the standards of being gay have also grown in complexity, so technology has become necessary.

It's based on two main systems, the 'Picks' system, and the 'Action' system.  They do interact with each other, but I'm going to try and explain them as separately as I can for now.

Firstly, you fill in a form and send it off to the Gay Community HQ: Applicants Dept.  You will then be sent a form, which explains that you have a certain number of points to spend (the exact number varies on a case by case basis), and contains a tick box form of all the main talents and traits you have to choose from.  When you have passed a probation period you're given a second, larger bulk of points to spend, so don't worry about getting everything right now.  After the second spend, you develop skills and traits as a breeder (heterosexual) would, by slow gained experience in life etc...
The first and second spend points you receive can be placed into any talents associated with being gay, many of which were previously difficult to get or even unavailable to you as a common breeder.  For example, for men, the Interior Decorating skills were only available to you if you'd put some points in prerequisite talents/traits - so few men invested in that tree.  As a gay man, this talent will unlock from it's dependencies and become available for the face value investment.  Awesome huh?

The down side is that some of the talents and traits that were previously easily available become harder to have in much the same way, but here's the good bit: Say you've put points into football skill as a young lad, without the base levels of being passionate about football and sports as a culture, you're football skill points are not revoked, even though as a gay man you'd not be able to pick them without going down the sports tree with some mandatory picks you might not really want.  So you can get some really unique skill sets and combo's if you've been wise in your choices.  I damn near have mind control from this loop hole, combining just the top sets from the listening and empathy trees with base levels in the dominance, articulation, and psychology abilities that I had pre-gay status.

You can often put more than one point in one talent for a cumulative skill effect.  I've tended to spread my points to gain proficiency in a wide range while many gay men specialise very strongly.

So that's the picks system, and it's why gay men widely have fashion sense, the ability to sing and dance, artistic abilities, and so on.

The 'Action System' is about currency.  This is the system more closely related to the Gay Card itself, in fact until smart cards your choices in the Picks system was nothing to do with the card at all, while now a record of your choices is kept in digital format on it.  The Action System is designed to make sure all members of the community are acting in a proper fashion.  You can gain or lose credit by certain activities, and every 3 months you will be automatically reviewed, at which point, you must have a minimum of zero balance.  For example, I can go to the local pub, but assuming this isn't a gay pub, it will cost me some of my credit.  This isn't a problem though, because I can watch a few home and design programs on TV and I'm back on level playing.  It's theoretically possible to go to an anti-gay group and not lose your gay card if you pick up enough credit to compensate, though you'd have to scrounge just about every available activity to get away with it.  Some things are small change, like the occasional 'Oo-er Mrs' comment and noticing hair cuts, while other things give you massive amounts of margin, such as, well, having sex with someone of the same gender.

The way they interact is that some talents from the picks system generate action points passively, lightening the load.  Camp mannerisms is a gold mine like that, and a quick choice for many gay men.  Other talents simply help you gain points, or allow you to not lose points where you normally would.  For example, if I watched a footy match (in fact, just calling it a 'footy match' cost me 2 points) I'd lose 50 points, unless I had the sports passion talents right to the end of the tree, in which case, I'd be immune to this point sink.  It would be a an exception for me.
It goes the other way too - if I finish up the quarter with a large surplus of credit, I'll be awarded a value of temporary picks, which I can invest in some restricted talents.  These picks will expire over time before the next review comes up, but they're pretty cool when you have them.

Both systems are constantly reviewed and adapted to modern society.  Right now, I'm much involved in a lobby to recognise casual 'Gaymers'.  If you choose the picks that make you a full Gaymer, you're allowed to play all the manly computer games you like without losing any points.  I've not fully spec'ed myself in those trees though - just picked a few of the low level things and every time I play Team Fortress 2 I'm losing 5 points that I have to make up else where.  Our campaign is to have gaming defined as sexuality neutral and it's looking good right now.

It's a complicated affair, and as a Gay Christian I'm always finding it hard to make up my points.  Some times, I don't make it and have a suspension, which is why some of you may have noticed I have girlfriends from time to time.  They only ever last one season though - I'm always sure to watch my Action Account closer for that time. 

You can understand why we don't bother explaining it - it's easier to just think camp and gay are linked in a simple relationship, but I hope this helps you work out the inconsistents like myself.

So umm... what's in your wallet ;-)

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Phil
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It's hard to describe the nature of our work. 

In the development world, you try to buffer deployments through procedures and testing, implementing changes through software over software but in every programmers life, the management will need a quick fix.  And when they do, they need a fool-hardy geek with nerves of steel and an addiction to danger so strong, he isn't afraid to press that execute key. 

The commands lined up stretch on forever, spiraling through the ether of virtual space below the centre fold of our dim small portal into the other world.  A world in which our minds move gracefully through the boolean returns of success or failure, and the gremlins of coders gone by lay in waiting to strike our upgrades down.

In the real world, time ticks on... money haemorrhages from the business giant that only hours ago stood so mightily.

Damn the risks!  The admin department need that system unlocking NOW!

The F5 key sits... starring... daunting... daring:  'Go ahead - you're as sure as you can be.  Run the code.  You wont have missed a coma, or added an unknown space now will you?  There's no hidden mistakes... unknown errors that will destroy the flow of data and make lost forever the structure on which all things rest.  Are there?  Come on... press the key.  Be a hero.'  The voices laugh in sadistic torment.  You stare at the function button as if to see down the barrel of a loaded magnum.

A moment of silence that last forever, I look to my reflection in the dark glass wall behind my screen.

Deep within those databases... I am that crazy maverick.

Execute!
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Phil
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It's been 3 weeks since I started full time employment and everything suddenly changed.

It's a great job, good team, lots of experience to be had.  The place was going a bit mad because we're (still) desperately short on developers.  And as for me and the new new guy, it'll takes quite some time to become fully operational, as we need a confident and encompassing view of the entire system and database before we can safely make changes.  In our case, there are two large main systems running with a handful of smaller systems in between, and to become fluent with all of them is a daunting prospect.

Typically, we have lots of bugs and report requests, small builds and minor emergencies happening throughout the day.  The company loses money every second something's not working, so it's usually an urgent matter. 

Week 1 was a bit chaotic - I wasn't all that much help by that stage and there was a lot of work coming in.  By week 2 I'm becoming useful so there's 4 of us there, and we're starting to actually get on top of the work.  For about 5 minutes.  Then everything suddenly changed.. again.  The manager left, which meant the most senior developer inherited a crap load of paper work and a tonne of meetings to attend, yadda yadda, nerfing his programming contribution massively.  The strain put on the team was shared out and I found my learning curve increasing significantly to compensate.

Week 3 rolls in and we've hired in the new(er) addition.  He's a week in now and will start picking up from here on, but basically, for this last week there's been two fully functioning developers and... me!  Which turns out is just about enough man power to keep on top of the work... just.  It's good though, makes me go through things at a good speed and for each job I tick off the list, I've learnt more about the systems.

However, last week did not only see a new team member.  No no, half way through week 3... everything suddenly changed... again!  We get word from on high that we're opening a brand new business under the corporate group, and the software they bought for it turns out not to do anything they wanted, so they need one making within 3 weeks.  The two available senior developers peal off from the pack to take that urgent project head on... which doesn't leave much of a pack to peal off from.  In fact it leaves me.  Me and the new guy.  A combined experience of 4 weeks on these systems.  The words, 'Phil can be the new _______ guy' and 'Phil will have to handle that for a while', etc started becoming an all too regular phrase.  By Thursday afternoon, my new job had stopped being new and exciting, my tie stopped being neatly tightened up to the neck line, and my workload jumped up several gears.  I still have no idea what happens when I press half the buttons but when someone comes in waving their arms about I literally am the best man we have available, so I make my guess and press things until it works.  I may have taken an entire system offline for about 10 minutes using that mentality... but in the end it was all corrected and working again, and no-one was badly injured in the panic.

Anyway!  It's good to be challenged :)  And I really am learning tonnes which is always good.  I might start crying at the end of each day but no pain no gain.

In other news - I spent £5000 today!  Woohoo!  I bought a car.  It's shiny.  Pictures and spec's are coming in a blog post when I actually pick the car up next week.  Exciting eh?

Until next time!  Be good!
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Phil
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