- ibntumart
- Mar 18, 2007
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Good, bad. I'm the one with the power of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.
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College Slice
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Does anyone have that stdh from a goon where he charmed a Saudi businessman and convinced him to start building Rapture from Bioshock?
quote:I’ve had a very interesting turn of events happen in my life recently, and I'm still in a state of shock (sort of). I just recently quit my job because I got into a spat with a co-worker and I decided that I wasn't going to be able to work at the company anymore as long as he was there. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, so I gave the ol’ 2-second notice, grabbed my poo poo, and walked out. Irrational? Oh yeah. So where does Bioshock, and a chance to plan an underwater city come into picture? Well, here is how it happened:
Where did I work? That will go unnamed (as well as some other things...loving internet detectives), but I will tell you it was a large oil and gas company. I was a systems administrator, and basically spent the entire day in a server room doing server maintenance, making sure the network was functioning correctly, and all the other good stuff sys-admins take care of. Sometimes I would get bored and walk around and bullshit with people. During one of my walks, I encountered a man of Middle Eastern decent. This is not uncommon at all when you work in the oil and gas industry.
For the sake of this, I’m going to call him Ahmed (not his real name). He looked extremely bored out of his mind, and a little anxious. I hadn’t seen him around before, so I introduced myself and we got to talking. He talked about his life in “The Kingdom” and I told him about mine here in the states. It was at this moment I found out he was an extremely wealthy oil baron, and more or less despised the religious overtones of his fellow Middle Eastern brethren. Turns out he was a capitalist at heart, and believed that Islam’s overzealous approach...to uh, everything, was a hindrance to business and was very annoying to him. Not your typical Middle Eastern man indeed.
I suddenly became worried because I had just spent the last hour conversing and going on with an extremely important client. And of course, not a minute later the room began to fill with executives. They were all eyeballing me, probably wondering what the hell the sys-admin was doing in the executive conference room with Ahmed. Turns out the plane with the executives Ahmed was supposed to meet with had been delayed and they had been breaking all kinds of traffic laws to get back to the office ASAP. They were extremely apologetic for keeping him waiting. He laughed and said he had thought about leaving except that I (pointing at me as I was trying to leave the room) had kept him entertained while he had been waiting. I did one of those fake “ha-ha” laughs and waved goodbye as I ran back to my server room to hide.
I expected to get a phone call later about how I almost hosed up some huge deal, yadda yadda yadda, but it never came. I gave a sigh of relief and went back to watching House on one screen while Wire Shark displayed some interesting stuff on the other. Then it happened, my desk phone rang. What could it be? The internet was up, the T1’s going to the VoIP phone system were all online, there were no disk faults on the SAN...why was I being called? It was coming from the Vice President of International Relations. Great. Here it comes. Here was me about to get bitched out. Boy was I going to be surprised with what was going to happen next.
Turns out I had inadvertently saved the day by talking to Ahmed. What had happened was [NAME REMOVED] had been put in charge of waking everyone up at the hotel so they could catch the early flight out back to Houston. [NAME REMOVED] had gotten drunk the night before, slept in, and caused everyone to miss the early A.M. flight. This meant that if everything went on schedule they would barely make it to the meeting with Ahmed taking the next flight...and it had been delayed. Ahmed didn’t like to wait, and would have probably had left it hadn’t been for me talking to him in the interim. So the conversation went something like this:
VP: “HypeTelecon, what are you doing tonight?”
Me: “Well, it’s Friday night, I’m probably going to go out with my frie-“
VP: “No you’re not. You’re going to go out with Ahmed.”
Me: “Uh, what? You want me to go hang out with a 30 somethings middle eastern man?”
VP: “Yeah, funny thing, turns out he has requested that you come out with him tonight instead of the client entertainer we normally use.”
Me: “So...what exactly would I be doing?”
VP: “More than likely you’ll take him out to eat at one of the 5 star restaurants, and then whatever else he wants to do.”
Me: “And what exactly would that be? I'm not sleeping with him.”
VP: “HAHA, no, not that. Well, to be honest, you will probably end up taking a limo to a lot of dance and strip clubs, getting drunk beyond all belief and generally having the time of your life. Probably get a lot of rear end too.”
Me: “I’m sorry...did I just hear that...from a 40 something year old executive...? I must be dreaming or someone put something in my lun-“
VP: “Yeah, you see, some of these guys that come over here to do business with us are not religious at all and love to party. We show them a good time, they sign deals with us. We tend to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing and use a client entertainer to handle all the knitty-gritties. This situation, however, is a little different. He has taking a liking to you for whatever reason, and wants to party with you. We have been trying to get this guy to sign FOR A LONG TIME and [NAME REMOVED] drat near hosed it up again. You’d be helping us out a lot by doing this. I realize I’m making some gross assumptions about you, but I figured you being in your early 20’s and all you’d jump at the chance for something like this.”
Me: “Who is going to be paying for all this fun and excitement?”
VP: “You’ll be given a company amex to take care of everything.”
Me: “SOLD.”
VP: “Excellent. Come by my office to get everything you’ll need. I'm going to call amex right now and add you as an authorized user of the corporate card. Oh yeah, you’ll probably be doing this all again Saturday night as well.”
Me: “Dear diary, jackpot.” *CLICK*
So I went to his office, and he gave me a “corporate amex”. I was instructed to go get fitted for a suit since he knew nothing I owned would be good enough. What a jerkface! But it was true; I wore a polo-shirt and jeans to work every day. I didn’t really need a nice suit. Since the company was footing the bill for this, I decided I’d go with the classic tux. It’s truly amazing how fast you can be tailored for one of these things when you say you’re buying the thing outright, heh. Just say, "Charge it!"
I called Mr. VP of International Relations and let him know I had the appropriate apparel for the evening. He said, “Good,” and then gave me directions to the hotel Ahmed was staying at. He told me he had already emailed the limo company I was to use to my phone, and to keep in mind the Middle Eastern do’s and dont's he had gone over with me in his office. And then of course the big thing, keep mentioning how thankful the company was for working with him and that I hoped that he signed come Monday. He also kept going on about how much of a stellar employee I was for doing this and that I could expect some surprises for myself come Monday if everything went well. Yawn. Whatever.
The drive downtown was a little annoying, but soon enough I made my way to the Inter-Continental Houston Hotel. If you haven’t seen it, it truly is a timeless sight. Before I went and located Ahmed, I booked myself a room for the weekend, and prepaid in full. If we did party again Saturday, I’ll be covered, if not, I’m staying anyways, heh. The cute blonde behind the counter must have thought something was up. Young 20’s something, wearing a tux, booking a room on the fly and paying the ridiculous rate all on a corporate amex...yeah I’d probably think that was fishy too.
I told her I was youngest executive at [COMPANY NAME REMOVED] and that I was here to entertain a client that was going to be signing a multi-million dollar contract on Monday. This just added to skepticism and she called a manager over. I'm sure the manager's bullshit alarm and fraud detector were going ape-poo poo. I placed my driver’s license on the counter and told them to call amex if they didn’t believe me. After verifying that I was an authorized user of the card, they suddenly became a 100 times nicer to me. Who would've thought? I also joked with the blonde about coming up to my room when she got off work. Cue face turning red and girly laughing. Sweet. I like this pretending to be an executive thing.
Anyways, after dropping the little stuff I had brought with me in my room, I found Ahmed’s room and knocked on the door. He opened the door and shouted, “HypeTelecon! So nice to see you again! We are going to have a great time tonight!” I asked where he wanted to eat, and to my shock, he responded with, “Take me to the best steak house here in the city of Houston.” Now, I’m no cultural expert by any means, but even I knew this was outlandish. I waited for the punch line of the joke, but he was 100% serious. Apparently he loves his steak, and can only eat it when he is here by himself in the states for obvious reasons.
So I called Ruth Chris (maybe not the best steak house in Houston, but it has to be drat close), explained that I was going to need a private party room and to pull out all the stops. They were more than eager to accommodate me, especially when I asked if they took the corporate amex, heh. The limo showed up just a little before 7pm, and off we were to eat delicious steak. And I must say, the steak and wine were to die for. Ahmed was thoroughly impressed, and said it was by far the best steak he had ever eaten. At this point, I had to ask him why he wanted to hang out with me over the guy they had lined up. He replied, “You have been the first person here that treated me like an equal, you weren’t scared to talk to me even though my wealth extends beyond anything imaginable, and you aren’t always doubling-back your words if you say something I find displeasing. You treat me like a friend and that is extremely important to me.” Heh, wow, I didn’t know what to say, so I raised my wine glass and toasted to friendship and a fun rest of the night. He didn't have to know that if I had known all of those things I would've have said a word to him in the first place.
Now it was time to party. We went from dance club to dance club, and lived it up like no tomorrow. We danced with amazingly hot (but extremely shallow) girls, had all kinds of alcohol, and just had an awesome time in general. When you have no limits on the funds, the party doesn’t stop. I wanted to see the look on the accountant’s face come Monday when they checked the bill. After lots of dancing and drinking, it was time to hit up the strip clubs. We bounced around from Gold Cup, Centerfolds, Colorado Bar and Grill, The Men’s Club, and finally decided to end the night at Treasures. It was almost 1am at this point, but again, show a “corporate amex” and they literally bend over for you...get it, bend over?
So after watching some stage performances and having a few private lap dances, it was getting close to closing time. By this time, we had quite the number of ladies hanging around our table. Ahmed was essentially what you could call a “Middle Eastern Playboy.” He was one of those “hot foreigners” that all the ladies wanted to gently caress, and not one of the “ugly foreigners” that spend most of their time in strip clubs because those are the only girls they can get to touch them...in exchange for money.
With about 10 minutes to close, Ahmed just comes out with it and says, “Ok, which of you lovely ladies wants to come back to the hotel with me and my friend HypeTelecon here? We have a limo waiting for us outside, and we both have rooms as the Inter-Continental Houston Hotel.” I would imagine everything mentioned in that sentence, plus the roll of 100’s he took out of his pocket made everyone of those strippers dripping wet. I had no problem with this. They whispered amongst themselves, and said that they were all up for it. Ahmed had a thing for blondes, and picked the two hottest ones at the table. He looked at me and then said, “Now HypeTelecon, you pick your two, and I’ll see you back at the limo.” He then stood up, and the two blondes scampered into the back to get their things.
Suddenly all eyes were on me. I had an assortment of cash-starved strippers begging me to pick them. Now, I could’ve sworn the one stripper I dated briefly told me there was a huge difference between strippers and prostitutes, and that not all strippers were prostitutes. Yeah, I wasn’t seeing that at all right now. I picked the young looking Asian women with the perky tits, and the euro-trash red that had somehow managed to bend ways I didn’t think the human body could in her stage performance. The others whined in disgust as the two I picked trotted off to the dressing room to grab their things. Then all six of us headed outside to the limo.
As I made out with the Asian while the red massaged my junk, I could only think this is what is must be like to be Collin Ferrell every night. Money, such a grand thing to have a lot of. It must have been quite a sight to see two extremely drunk men both being escorted by two extremely hot strippers to their rooms. I wonder if the blonde I had flirted with earlier saw this spectacle? Oh well, like it mattered anyways. Ahmed then paid my whores, and we parted ways to go to our rooms. All I can say is that the next few hours were pure ecstasy. I could describe it all to you, but this isn't some fan fiction designed to get you horny. Or is it? Na, not really.
After all the fun and excitement had died down, I found myself resting between two naked strippers. They’re both sleeping soundly, probably dreaming of what they are going to both buy with tonight’s big score. I yawn, and then the phone rings. Who the gently caress would be calling my hotel room at 7 A.M. in the loving morning? Who the hell even knows this number?! Turns out it is Ahmed, he is bored and can’t sleep. I ask him how the hell he can be bored with two blondes lying naked in his bed. He tells me, “My dick is broke. I need something else to do while it recovers.” Then he asks me if there is some way we can play that video game I was going on about all night. Cue question mark over my head. Video game I was going on about? He says, “Yeah, you know, the one about the underwater city, and the crazy genetics. Bio-something or another?”
If there was ever a moment in my life when I felt like the biggest nerd ever, it would definitely be now. Apparently at one of the strip clubs, I had been going on about Bioshock to Ahmed and the strippers at our table. Ahmed had decided he wanted to see what all the fuss was about and wanted me to play it with him. I told him we would have to go somewhere and buy an Xbox360, and the game itself. He said he doesn’t care, and to meet him downstairs ASAP. So, I tell my lovely ladies me and Ahmed are going to run an errand. They say, “Ok, whatever,” stretch, yawn, and snuggle up with each other, boobs to boobs. loving HOT. So resisting the urge to dive between them and repeat what I was doing only hours earlier, I put my tux back on, and take the elevator downstairs.
I meet Ahmed in the lobby. He is still wearing the same thing he wore the night before too. A couple of real class acts right here folks. So we then pile in my car, and I try to think of a place where I can buy an xbox360 and the game Bioshock at 7:45 AM in the loving morning. GameStop is out, as those communists apparently don’t open until 9:00 AM or some poo poo. He gets upset, as again, he doesn’t like waiting, but then I tell him we could get it 100% for sure at Wal-Mart at this hour. He agrees, so I begin driving to the closet Wal-Mart in the area. Thank god for Garmin GPS.
Now, this had to be the sight of all sights. You have an American man wearing a full tux and the other a Middle Eastern man sporting a Brioni suit, both walking in Wal-Mart half-drunk and half-asleep. We head back to the electronics section (everyone eyeballing us as we walk by) and find the game consoles. I tell the sales lackey with the key that I am going to need an elite xbox360, and the game Bioshock. The guy looks at me in disbelief as he gets the items I have requested and brings them to the electronics checkout counter. Ahmed insists on paying, and pays for everything in cash. Yikes! Doesn’t he know it’s a bad idea to carry thousands of dollars around on your person? Apparently not.
So with game and game console in-towe, we return to the hotel. We head up to Ahmed’s room, and I set everything up. Luckily the TVs in the rooms had front inputs, otherwise I bet I would’ve found myself going back to Wal-Mart to buy a plasma or something. I put in the game and start it up. I try and hand him the controller, but he says he wants to watch me play. So I play Bioshock. He watches in awe for sometime, and then begins to ask me questions about why I like this game so much. I tell him I like the concept of a city underwater, away from everything else, were people can thrive without government influence (yes folks, I’m a libertarian). He seems intrigued by the concept as well.
I pause the game, and we get into a huge discussion about what we would do if we could create such a place in real life. I don’t know how long we had been going on about all this, but at some point the two blonde strippers woke up, and started laughing at us. We both look at them with a “What?!” look on our faces, they laugh harder and call us a bunch of nerds. Then Ahmed dives on top of them and says, “I’ll show you nerd.” I take that as cue to exit stage left and return to my room. I like the guy, but no way in hell I’m having a 4some with him. I return to my room with the sleeping wenches. They are still snuggled together, except now they are spooning each other. So I do what any normal man would, strip down to nothing and jump in bed with them.
Now, I could go on about what I did the rest of the day, or the encore party me and Ahmed had Saturday night, but that’s not really important. What is important is that I had planted the idea of creating something where Ahmed could do business as he pleased without having to deal with “religion police” and stupid archaic laws (as he called him) that were stifling his fund-making abilities. Couldn’t be hurting TOO BAD, but whatever.
Monday comes, and I stroll in at 8:00 AM and I’m immediately called into the executive conference room. I see Mr. VP of International Relations, sweating bullets while standing at the podium, and just about every other VP I had ever met was sitting around the conference table. He asked, “So, HypeTelecon, is he going to sign the contract?” I froze, and must have turned white as a ghost. I had totally forgotten to talk up the contact-signing. So I did what any other person in my position would do and said, “Oh yeah, it’s a done deal. He is going to come in here and let the ink fly!” and then I gave a huge thumbs up and a huge wink. This was followed by murmuring amongst themselves and then dead silence when Ahmed walked in.
The CEO stood up, shook his hand, and then asked, “So have you come to a decision?” Ahmed replied, “Yes, I have. I am impressed with your company, the terms are more than fair, and the hospitality HypeTelecon has showed me was excellent. I have decided to sign the contract and do business with all of you.” And the executives rejoiced! My heart started beating again, and my skin pigment returned. Mr. VP of International Relations winked at me, and I winked back at him. It was totally a gay moment. Ahmed went through the contract and signed this, dotted that, all while both sets of lawyers scrutinized every line item to make sure no last-minute tom-foolery had taken place. As for me, I went back to my server room. Today was Venture Brothers marathon day, and of course, more Wire Shark.
Then, about half way through “20 Years to Midnight” I got a call from Mr. VP of International Relations again. Turns out Ahmed would be flying out later that day and he wanted to say goodbye. I met him and Ahmed at the front of the building. He gave me a firm handshake and said, “I had a great time this weekend. I’ve told [NAME REMOVED] here to make sure they inform you of when I come back to visit so we can go out again. Which, apparently is going to be a lot more frequent now.” I told him I’d be honored to keep him company anytime he was in town. I shook his hand again, and he got into the cab to take him off to the airport.
Mr. VP of International Relations looked at me and said, “Wow, you made quite an impression on him. What exactly did you guys do this weekend?” I started to tell him of our adventures in debauchery, but he cut me off saying if I went any further he’d probably end up coming out with us next time and end up cheating on his wife, and that he couldn’t afford to do that since he had a daughter and some other yadda yadda yadda, whatever. Then he told me I had to report to accounting to go over every line item on the corporate amex I had used during the weekend. Oh goody. Let me tell you, confirming all of those charges while Jesus freak of a CPA read them all off to me was very pleasant. I kept waiting for her to bust out the holy water and crucifix and start beating me to death. But, I guess this was nothing out of the ordinary, nor the fact that I had rang up over $10,000 bucks in charges. No, nothing to see here, just move along and don’t stare.
So about once a month, Ahmed would fly in for the week to yammer over figures, find out what in god’s name his money was being spent on, and then of course we would party like crazy on the weekends. Mr. VP of International Relations took great care in keeping a tight lid on who knew it was actually me “entertaining” Ahmed while he was in town. God, that just sounds dirty, doesn’t it? But eventually a rumor broke out...I think it was after that one time we decided to party on Sunday night too and I showed up to work hammered, but it’s anyone’s guess really. The top level executives didn’t seem to give a flying gently caress about what was going on behind their backs as long as Ahmed kept sending those generous EFTs to their corporate bank account.
Now we get to the good part. I wasn’t really being paid what I was worth at this job. Sure, having a server room to yourself is nice and all, and partying with a cool foreigner once a month is badass, but the lack of decent pay does kinda outweigh both of those. And on top of that, a lot of people I had to deal with were either luddites that just didn’t get this new-fangled “technology” thing, or just plain assholes. I decided to just quit and find something better. Some would say a smart man would’ve quit after he had another job lined up...some would say I’m not a very smart man.
However, it turns out Ahmed found out I quit, and was very upset over this. He called me when he found out and wanted to know why. I told him my grievances and he agreed it was a lovely deal. He asked me if he should cancel his contract with the company. I laughed and said no, because then he wouldn’t be coming in town that much anymore and I wouldn’t get to see him when he did. I told him I’d still love to party with him when he was visiting, but unfortunately I wouldn’t have a corporate amex to foot our usually 5 figure bill. He said that wouldn’t be a problem, we’d party just the same and he’d send the bill directly to them. Wow. Party buddies four lyfe yo!
Then we got to talking about the whole Bioshock thing again. He asked me if I had secured another job yet. I told him no. He said, “Great! I want you to plan the underwater city. Every detail. I am looking for something new to invest in, and every time we meet, I can’t stop thinking that this could be the next big thing. Dubai has their underwater hotel, I want an underwater CTIY!” I asked him if he was joking, and he reassured me I wasn’t. I said I would get right on it.
Now goons, how in the hell do you even begin planning something like this? Are their companies that build poo poo underwater? I have no idea. How...I...duno. I could possibly have the chance at being a real Andrew Ryan here, but I have no loving clue how to plan this. Hell, I don’t even know the location I would pick out! Is there a “Dummies guide to building cities underwater” somewhere? Ahmed comes back into town on Feb 25th, which means I really have until the 29th (oh poo poo, just realized it was a leap year) to come up with something. If all else fails, I guess I could go to work for his international company, but building an underwater city seems way cooler.
Anyone have any ideas? I’m totally open to suggestions!
edit: Original post/thread! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2769640
ibntumart has a new favorite as of 20:50 on Oct 19, 2017
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Aug 13, 2017 03:22
