Get Me a Bucket
15 years ago
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Actual quote from our new Imperial Governor, errr "Civilian Administrator" in Iraq, Jay Garner: Remember, this is the guy who is going to represent us in the Middle East-
"We ought to be beating our chests every day. We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: 'Damn, we're Americans!'"
We SO suck.
"We ought to be beating our chests every day. We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: 'Damn, we're Americans!'"
We SO suck.
How can I be so tired right now? I'm sleeping better than I have in awhile, I'm not doing diddly at work, yet all I want to do is sleep. Why can't I just wake up?
Anyways, there's a park in the center of Brisbane, about a fifteen minute walk from my office. During my long lunch today, I walked into the chidren's park on the way to the lovely strip-mall that contains all of the restaurants in Brisbane. From afar, it looked like the park was surrounded by a gravelly kind of pavement, but as I walked on it, I realized it wasn't pavement at all. It was spongey and bouncy, some newfangled type turf put up in kiddy park's to keep the kids safe. Riding on this spongey kind of pavement were two kids learning to bike. Or at least, I think they were. It kind of looked like they were riding bikes with training wheels, except for the fact that the training wheels were the same length as the actual tires. So, unlike most training wheels, which are used as support when you fall over to one side, these propped up the entire bike. The bikes, then were more like quadracycles than bicycles. But if that weren't enough, as these two kids were riding their totally safe bikes on a totally safe pavement, their watching mother also made them wear bike helmets.
I ask you- can there be such thing as too much child protection?
Anyways, there's a park in the center of Brisbane, about a fifteen minute walk from my office. During my long lunch today, I walked into the chidren's park on the way to the lovely strip-mall that contains all of the restaurants in Brisbane. From afar, it looked like the park was surrounded by a gravelly kind of pavement, but as I walked on it, I realized it wasn't pavement at all. It was spongey and bouncy, some newfangled type turf put up in kiddy park's to keep the kids safe. Riding on this spongey kind of pavement were two kids learning to bike. Or at least, I think they were. It kind of looked like they were riding bikes with training wheels, except for the fact that the training wheels were the same length as the actual tires. So, unlike most training wheels, which are used as support when you fall over to one side, these propped up the entire bike. The bikes, then were more like quadracycles than bicycles. But if that weren't enough, as these two kids were riding their totally safe bikes on a totally safe pavement, their watching mother also made them wear bike helmets.
I ask you- can there be such thing as too much child protection?
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
I know cell-phones are supposed to simplify things in one's life and after getting one through work (one, which sadly, I'll be giving up), I have noticed that in one regard that they do actually complicate things.
This is when you have two numbers for someone- their cell phone and their home number (now referred to as the Land line, never as the phone). Knowing that a person has both numbers, which number do you know call? The cell-phone? The home number? Both? Due to cell-phones I know find myself leaving messages on two phones if I want to reach somebody.
Is this a good thing?
This is when you have two numbers for someone- their cell phone and their home number (now referred to as the Land line, never as the phone). Knowing that a person has both numbers, which number do you know call? The cell-phone? The home number? Both? Due to cell-phones I know find myself leaving messages on two phones if I want to reach somebody.
Is this a good thing?
And then there are stories to good to pass up on-
Tale of Bush Twin in the Buff
Sadly,it's not of Jenna Jenna
Tale of Bush Twin in the Buff
Sadly,it's not of Jenna Jenna
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Welcome to the Hellmouth (Part 1)
There's nothing like quitting your job to make you fully realize one thing- how much you actually hate it. This is pretty much where I find myself, with one week left to go on my job.
I haven't really talked about it, let alone write about it, for a variety of reasons. Among other things, the last time I wrote about my job, the Man came and shut me down. The main reason, though, was that after a year and a half of unemployment and with a job-market looking even worse than before, denial can be a wonderful thing. Now that I can be a little less careful about such things and are free to think how I feel, I can now only fully appreciate the level of hatred I have towards it.
Actually, I really liked my job. I also really liked my coworkers and I loved my boss. It was probably the first job that I had in which I could walk into someone's office, close the door, and tell them what I thought about something and have them listen to me. It was also the first time I had a job in which everyone constantly told me how much they appreciated what I was doing. I just hated the place I worked. The company I worked for was Madhouse, a Madhouse. A place that put the F.U. in Dysfunctional. And for the past several months, it had been taking over my life, infecting my brain like a fever, causing me sleepless nights and psychotic dreams. Even now, with only five days left working at the Hellmouth, I still wake up in the middle of the night in cold-sweats, dreaming about meetings and lost deadlines.
It all starts with the head of the company, the Big Head. He was, in the words of one employee "a brilliant, crazed, eccentric meglomaniac." And that was one of the nicer things said about him. At various times, I described him as Col. Kurtz, a Crazy Roman Emperor, a Stalinist Dictator, the Evil Eye of Sauron, and -in one particularly lucidly crazed dream- a James Bond super-villain complete with a hidden lair.
The company was privately owned and founded by the Big Head. He was definately a genius and a brilliant businessman, someone whose brain worked a little faster and on so many more layers than ordinary people- thus one of the reasons for the name Big Head. He built the company into an industry leader, was often right when others thought he was crazy, and a veritable rock star with People in the Know. He was also a control-freak, increasingly out-of-touch with reality, possessing of a massive ego, and never listened to anyone's advice. Although it was said that he could be rather charming, the most common description of him as a human-being fell somewhere along the lines of a "cocksucker." A copywriter who had tangled one too many times with the Big Head famously quit and ran out of the building screaming to everyone who could hear him that the head of the company was the Anti-Christ.
Ah, the stories I could tell….
First, of course, was the infamous race-car spectacle, described somewhere below. Then there was the story someone told about being his office overhearing the Big Head, on the phone, slamming his fist down while yelling at the poor person on the other end of the line "I don't care if it is your birthday party, you have to have this to me immediately." He called people names durinng meetings if they disagreed with him, which was often, and liked to pick fights with all the male manager's in the office just to show who was the Alpha Male of the company. My boss once walked into a meeting and when seeing the Big Head laughing, was shocked to discover that he was laughing only because he was so thoroughly enjoying mocking the Copy Manager that it was making him laugh out loud. It was also well known that while he pissed on all of the male's who worked underneath him, was often incredibly nice to the women who worked for him, especially if they were young and attractive. He also once went to go hand out an "Employee of the Month" award at an office gathering and upon reading the Chinese name of the recipient of the award, told several hundred people (most of whom were Chinese) that he couldn't make the name out and it really matter anyways because every Chinese name was the same. The Big Head himself was Chinese.
Then there was the time he e-mailed one of the Graphic Designers and asked him to drop some proofs off at his home the next day- that day being Christmas Day. Which was all kind of par for the course. A salesperson had a week-long vacation planned, a cruise with his wife (carefully planned because the cruise meant he was unable to both check e-mail and voice-mail) but was forced to cancel it at the last minute because the Big Head wanted him to go on a few sales calls. Two of our copywriters, both freelancing and both of who were to have been made permanent months before, we're finally told they were going to be made permanent, but only after they were to be interviewed with the Big Head. When word came down they were supposed to go to his house on a Saturday for the interview, none of the Manager's could understand why the two copywriters told them that they thought the idea of spending their Saturday going to someone's house for a job interview kind of sucky. They were so used to being treated like that that it was all normal to them. The company lawyer once found himself at the Big Head's house and when the Big Head said out of the blue that his pool needed to be cleaned, the lawyer wasn't sure it wasn't meant as a command to clean the guy's pool.
The truth of any company, any Department, is that the tone of the company is set by the guy at the top. When the head of a company treats people like his own vassal servants, making them do whatever he wanted them to do no matter what, that tone is set and that's how the company worked. He held meetings often til 8, had people scramble to his house after work hours- even on weekends- and frequently called people in the middle of the night to ask them to do things for him. And everybody had to put up with it because if they didn't, they'd get yelled and screamed at, belittled in front of the rest of the company for saying "no" to something. As a result things were dropped whenever he called or requested something. Or things were done for no particular reason other than he had asked for it. I once went into the Copy Manager's office to get him to do something, only to find him having to spend his afternoon buying concert tickets for the Big Head. During a really incredibly busy week, one brought on by the big trade show of the year, he made a request that an artist stop what they was doing to make him a big sign with his name on it that he could put on his car.
As a result, nobody in the company could make a decision about anything, lest they incur the wrath of the big guy. Meetings were held about products in which half of the meeting was dedicated into figuring out what the Big Head knew, what he'd say, when to tell him anything, and how to tell him. And heaven help the company if he was in a bad mood, the mood of the entire company shifted into high panic awaiting the inevitable bomb to drop. For some reason, I was the only who thought it was funny.
To be continued...
There's nothing like quitting your job to make you fully realize one thing- how much you actually hate it. This is pretty much where I find myself, with one week left to go on my job.
I haven't really talked about it, let alone write about it, for a variety of reasons. Among other things, the last time I wrote about my job, the Man came and shut me down. The main reason, though, was that after a year and a half of unemployment and with a job-market looking even worse than before, denial can be a wonderful thing. Now that I can be a little less careful about such things and are free to think how I feel, I can now only fully appreciate the level of hatred I have towards it.
Actually, I really liked my job. I also really liked my coworkers and I loved my boss. It was probably the first job that I had in which I could walk into someone's office, close the door, and tell them what I thought about something and have them listen to me. It was also the first time I had a job in which everyone constantly told me how much they appreciated what I was doing. I just hated the place I worked. The company I worked for was Madhouse, a Madhouse. A place that put the F.U. in Dysfunctional. And for the past several months, it had been taking over my life, infecting my brain like a fever, causing me sleepless nights and psychotic dreams. Even now, with only five days left working at the Hellmouth, I still wake up in the middle of the night in cold-sweats, dreaming about meetings and lost deadlines.
It all starts with the head of the company, the Big Head. He was, in the words of one employee "a brilliant, crazed, eccentric meglomaniac." And that was one of the nicer things said about him. At various times, I described him as Col. Kurtz, a Crazy Roman Emperor, a Stalinist Dictator, the Evil Eye of Sauron, and -in one particularly lucidly crazed dream- a James Bond super-villain complete with a hidden lair.
The company was privately owned and founded by the Big Head. He was definately a genius and a brilliant businessman, someone whose brain worked a little faster and on so many more layers than ordinary people- thus one of the reasons for the name Big Head. He built the company into an industry leader, was often right when others thought he was crazy, and a veritable rock star with People in the Know. He was also a control-freak, increasingly out-of-touch with reality, possessing of a massive ego, and never listened to anyone's advice. Although it was said that he could be rather charming, the most common description of him as a human-being fell somewhere along the lines of a "cocksucker." A copywriter who had tangled one too many times with the Big Head famously quit and ran out of the building screaming to everyone who could hear him that the head of the company was the Anti-Christ.
Ah, the stories I could tell….
First, of course, was the infamous race-car spectacle, described somewhere below. Then there was the story someone told about being his office overhearing the Big Head, on the phone, slamming his fist down while yelling at the poor person on the other end of the line "I don't care if it is your birthday party, you have to have this to me immediately." He called people names durinng meetings if they disagreed with him, which was often, and liked to pick fights with all the male manager's in the office just to show who was the Alpha Male of the company. My boss once walked into a meeting and when seeing the Big Head laughing, was shocked to discover that he was laughing only because he was so thoroughly enjoying mocking the Copy Manager that it was making him laugh out loud. It was also well known that while he pissed on all of the male's who worked underneath him, was often incredibly nice to the women who worked for him, especially if they were young and attractive. He also once went to go hand out an "Employee of the Month" award at an office gathering and upon reading the Chinese name of the recipient of the award, told several hundred people (most of whom were Chinese) that he couldn't make the name out and it really matter anyways because every Chinese name was the same. The Big Head himself was Chinese.
Then there was the time he e-mailed one of the Graphic Designers and asked him to drop some proofs off at his home the next day- that day being Christmas Day. Which was all kind of par for the course. A salesperson had a week-long vacation planned, a cruise with his wife (carefully planned because the cruise meant he was unable to both check e-mail and voice-mail) but was forced to cancel it at the last minute because the Big Head wanted him to go on a few sales calls. Two of our copywriters, both freelancing and both of who were to have been made permanent months before, we're finally told they were going to be made permanent, but only after they were to be interviewed with the Big Head. When word came down they were supposed to go to his house on a Saturday for the interview, none of the Manager's could understand why the two copywriters told them that they thought the idea of spending their Saturday going to someone's house for a job interview kind of sucky. They were so used to being treated like that that it was all normal to them. The company lawyer once found himself at the Big Head's house and when the Big Head said out of the blue that his pool needed to be cleaned, the lawyer wasn't sure it wasn't meant as a command to clean the guy's pool.
The truth of any company, any Department, is that the tone of the company is set by the guy at the top. When the head of a company treats people like his own vassal servants, making them do whatever he wanted them to do no matter what, that tone is set and that's how the company worked. He held meetings often til 8, had people scramble to his house after work hours- even on weekends- and frequently called people in the middle of the night to ask them to do things for him. And everybody had to put up with it because if they didn't, they'd get yelled and screamed at, belittled in front of the rest of the company for saying "no" to something. As a result things were dropped whenever he called or requested something. Or things were done for no particular reason other than he had asked for it. I once went into the Copy Manager's office to get him to do something, only to find him having to spend his afternoon buying concert tickets for the Big Head. During a really incredibly busy week, one brought on by the big trade show of the year, he made a request that an artist stop what they was doing to make him a big sign with his name on it that he could put on his car.
As a result, nobody in the company could make a decision about anything, lest they incur the wrath of the big guy. Meetings were held about products in which half of the meeting was dedicated into figuring out what the Big Head knew, what he'd say, when to tell him anything, and how to tell him. And heaven help the company if he was in a bad mood, the mood of the entire company shifted into high panic awaiting the inevitable bomb to drop. For some reason, I was the only who thought it was funny.
To be continued...
Saturday, April 26, 2003
On second thing, the best part about the Rick Santorum interview isn't the incredulous of the AP reporter about the Senator openly discussing man-on-dog sex, it's this-
Sect Leader Objects to Santorum Comments
Yep, apparently, Santorum pissed off a couple Mormon's by lumping polygamy along with bestiality and incest (and I'm guessing they're not thrilled to be lumped together with a little homo loving either).
"The leader of one of Utah's largest polygamist sects has objected to Sen. Rick Santorum's comment lumping plural marriage with other practices the Pennsylvania Republican considers to be antifamily.....
``He is absolutely right. The people of the United States are doing whatever they can to do away with the sacred rights of marriage,'' Allred told The Salt Lake Tribune....
But Allred said Santorum's inclusion of polygamy in his list tarnishes a religious tradition whose roots are traced to biblical figures such as Abraham, Jacob and Moses - defiling them as ``immoral and dirty.''
Is there anyone out there who the Republicans haven't offended over the past two years?
Sect Leader Objects to Santorum Comments
Yep, apparently, Santorum pissed off a couple Mormon's by lumping polygamy along with bestiality and incest (and I'm guessing they're not thrilled to be lumped together with a little homo loving either).
"The leader of one of Utah's largest polygamist sects has objected to Sen. Rick Santorum's comment lumping plural marriage with other practices the Pennsylvania Republican considers to be antifamily.....
``He is absolutely right. The people of the United States are doing whatever they can to do away with the sacred rights of marriage,'' Allred told The Salt Lake Tribune....
But Allred said Santorum's inclusion of polygamy in his list tarnishes a religious tradition whose roots are traced to biblical figures such as Abraham, Jacob and Moses - defiling them as ``immoral and dirty.''
Is there anyone out there who the Republicans haven't offended over the past two years?
Because I love a good Seinfeld reference as much as anyone, I gotta give my props to this band, the Flakes just for coming out with an EP and song simply entitled "Jerk Store."
Anyband that releases an EP called "Jerk Store" is gotta be cool.
Anyband that releases an EP called "Jerk Store" is gotta be cool.
Thursday, April 24, 2003
You know what my favorite part of the Rick Santorum interview is? Not the lame-ness of what he says, but the reaction of the A.P. reporter.
Check this out.....
Santorum:....That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality -
AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.
I'm so proud of my home state.
Check this out.....
Santorum:....That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality -
AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.
I'm so proud of my home state.
I signed up to play in a kickball league. Kickball, baby, kickball! Did anyone not love playing kickball as a kid? Doesn't anyone think it's an untapped professional sport that us non-athletically inclined people could do?
I'm a bit worried, though. I just got an e-mail from the Captain of the team. He's already asking about our uniforms and what number we want to put on them. Even worse, he wants to hold a practice this weekend.
Practice? For Kickball?
Dude…..
I'm a bit worried, though. I just got an e-mail from the Captain of the team. He's already asking about our uniforms and what number we want to put on them. Even worse, he wants to hold a practice this weekend.
Practice? For Kickball?
Dude…..
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
The spectacle began as the Big Head, the man who runs the company, came to collect his prize, the fevered wet dream of a crazed meglomaniac. As his scooter came to a stop in the parking lot, the Big Head stood up and waddled to the microphone, basking in the glow of his own aura. A few steps in, the beaten-down boss of my boss, the 2nd in Command of the Company, picked the robe up from the floor and carried it behind the Big Head. In front of him sat the targeted audience of this show, the slickly dressed sales people and dealers we're trying to make sales and deals with. Shunted off behind them, beyond the ropes and scattered far to the right of the salespeople stood the employees of the company, called to attendance by the office PA. Behind the Big Head was most of his cars, around twenty bright yellow and red Lamborghini's and other fancy, flashily painted expensive imported cars whose names I've never heard of and all costing around half a million each. All of the cars came out of my poor, understaffed and overworked department's budget. One of my coworkers started adding up all the salary's of people we could have hired. I thought of how the salary that was promised me originally wasn't given to me, the first seed of bitterness that spread forth and led to my leaving. Unspoken by everyone, but thought off by all, was the memories of all the people recently laid-off and all the new cost-saving measure's now being put in place. When I joked to the Big Head's car bitch about how the presence of several boring plain old silver Beemer's were distracting from the other cars, he moved them into the background.
The Big Head began his speech, telling his audience about his new toy, his new race car. He told the Rocky-like story of how the car's team came from behind and won several big races this year. I wasn't moved, the inspiration of a driver driving faster than a bunch of other drivers in a car race clearly lost on me. He turned it over to the leader of the Race Team, telling his audience how the lesson's learned by the Race Car team are lessons we all need to know, words that are clearly meant for it's maximum go get'em-ness. The guy spoke about the races he won, about how great it was and how it was all owed to attitude and teamwork. Attitude and Teamwork- the motto of a company whose employees are mainly overworked, overstressed, and overbitter. "Whatever" and "I hate my job" are more like it. Does the Big Head really mean attitude and teamwork or does he mean kiss my ass and do what I want? I wonder what the meaning of it is when it's becoming more and more apparent that two of my co-workers, two friends, might be let go for no reason other than a nasty political spat fight, the maybe first-shot in a company wide putsch.
As it goes on, I imagine that inside the Big Head's head, the sky is sunny and cloudless, a magnificently beautiful day. I look up. The sky is dark and cloudy with ominous clouds looming right on the horizon.
I'm so outta there.
The Big Head began his speech, telling his audience about his new toy, his new race car. He told the Rocky-like story of how the car's team came from behind and won several big races this year. I wasn't moved, the inspiration of a driver driving faster than a bunch of other drivers in a car race clearly lost on me. He turned it over to the leader of the Race Team, telling his audience how the lesson's learned by the Race Car team are lessons we all need to know, words that are clearly meant for it's maximum go get'em-ness. The guy spoke about the races he won, about how great it was and how it was all owed to attitude and teamwork. Attitude and Teamwork- the motto of a company whose employees are mainly overworked, overstressed, and overbitter. "Whatever" and "I hate my job" are more like it. Does the Big Head really mean attitude and teamwork or does he mean kiss my ass and do what I want? I wonder what the meaning of it is when it's becoming more and more apparent that two of my co-workers, two friends, might be let go for no reason other than a nasty political spat fight, the maybe first-shot in a company wide putsch.
As it goes on, I imagine that inside the Big Head's head, the sky is sunny and cloudless, a magnificently beautiful day. I look up. The sky is dark and cloudy with ominous clouds looming right on the horizon.
I'm so outta there.
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
To get to work, I have to take BART and then hop on a shuttle. The shuttle comes every half an hour at designated times so as a result, I often meet up with the same coworkers whenever I go out and wait for the shuttle. There's a woman who I work with, who while very nice, is a talker. A never shutting-up, always rambling on, occasionally extremely boring talker. Even worse, she only talks about herself. Just on and on and on and on about something she did, something she's doing, something she knows about. While she is really nice (and kind of cute) I have no idea how her boyfriend hasn't strangled her yet.
Today I went out to get the shuttle, totally exhausted from a still lingering case of jet-lag and post-quitting drama, and saw her already at the stop. Great, I muttered to myself. All I wanted to do was read the paper and relax. I hate whenever I have to take the shuttle back with her.
But then, I figured it all out. It's so easy. The last thing I wanted to do was actually have a conversation with anyone, I was way too tired to do anything silly like that, so I figured that all I had to do was just sit there, occasionally nod my head like I was paying attention and ask her a question when the conversation would wane and I was faced with the fact I might have to say something.
It worked perfectly. She went on and on, I just nodded my head, asked the occasional question, and completely zoned out as she droned on. Good thing I'm leaving soon.
Today I went out to get the shuttle, totally exhausted from a still lingering case of jet-lag and post-quitting drama, and saw her already at the stop. Great, I muttered to myself. All I wanted to do was read the paper and relax. I hate whenever I have to take the shuttle back with her.
But then, I figured it all out. It's so easy. The last thing I wanted to do was actually have a conversation with anyone, I was way too tired to do anything silly like that, so I figured that all I had to do was just sit there, occasionally nod my head like I was paying attention and ask her a question when the conversation would wane and I was faced with the fact I might have to say something.
It worked perfectly. She went on and on, I just nodded my head, asked the occasional question, and completely zoned out as she droned on. Good thing I'm leaving soon.
Here's another memo to all you Corporate Executives out there who are reading this here blog:
If you're company just laid off a bunch of people and positions that are open and need to be filled but won't and you just had a huge meeting in which the directive came down that costs need to be cut thus forcing a whole bunch of people to hand in their company cell phones- don't go out and buy yourself a race car. Not only that, do not buy yourself a race car and then send out a directive to the marketing department, already reeling from not only the loss of several positions but the lack of a raise over the past several years, that they have to go out and promote the thing, all with the emphasis being on you, the head of the Company, taking over the car and what a wonderful thing it is. And please, please, do not turn it into some big huge ceremony in the parking lot of the office and then invite everyone in the office to attend the big event via to the company-wide news group.
Oh, and it might not be such a good idea to then later announce that they need to shut down the entire back parking lot, a parking lot in which most of the employee's actually park their car, for the ceremony.
The reason why I'm saying this is that some employees might get a little upset. In fact, some employees might curse you out behind your back, using words like "jack ass," "cock sucker," and "crazy, evil meglomaniac."
If you're company just laid off a bunch of people and positions that are open and need to be filled but won't and you just had a huge meeting in which the directive came down that costs need to be cut thus forcing a whole bunch of people to hand in their company cell phones- don't go out and buy yourself a race car. Not only that, do not buy yourself a race car and then send out a directive to the marketing department, already reeling from not only the loss of several positions but the lack of a raise over the past several years, that they have to go out and promote the thing, all with the emphasis being on you, the head of the Company, taking over the car and what a wonderful thing it is. And please, please, do not turn it into some big huge ceremony in the parking lot of the office and then invite everyone in the office to attend the big event via to the company-wide news group.
Oh, and it might not be such a good idea to then later announce that they need to shut down the entire back parking lot, a parking lot in which most of the employee's actually park their car, for the ceremony.
The reason why I'm saying this is that some employees might get a little upset. In fact, some employees might curse you out behind your back, using words like "jack ass," "cock sucker," and "crazy, evil meglomaniac."
Monday, April 21, 2003
It's still kind of Passover right now, which means, technically, I'm not supposed to be eating bread right now. I am eating bread right now. I am a big fan of bread and bread-by-products.
The reason why we're not supposed to have bread is because the ancient Israelites supposedly packed up in such a rush that they didn't have time to make bread before they left to go forth into the desert. Instead they could only make matzo. They must have made a lot matzo, though, considering they were in the fricking desert for 40 years, but that's another matter. So, anyways, just because the Israelites supposedly didn't have leavened bread when they were running loose in the desert, we too, several thousand years later, are supposed to forgo eating leavened bread. Why? Who knows. Something to do with symbolism and suffering and because of the destruction of the Jewish temple. Seems to me we should be pigging out on bread this week to celebrate the fact that we can eat bread now that we've been freed from bondage, but that's just me. Either way, we're supposed to be bread-free for eight days.
And not just bread free, but anything "leavened" which means anything involving grains or oats being somehow "raised" or cooked is bad. No cereal, no bagels, not even beer. Things get really complicated after that, though, because in this modern world of ours, there's a lot of things that are considered "leavened." Like corn syrup. Anything that has corn syrup, including say candy or ketchup or even cat food, is bad (this caused problems last year because you're supposed to get rid out of all the bad food from your house before Passover, kind of a purifying thing, and we had a long discussion about whether or not to leave the cat food for the cat- in other words, be fully observant good Jews and let the cat starve or be bad Jews and let the cat eat). And rice is bad too, although nobody's sure why and it's totally kosher for Sephardic Jews to eat it, but not Ashkenazi Jews.
All of this is way too complicated and kind of silly and leads to way too many instances where somebody is at a restaurant trying to figure out what'll work and won't work. If I could figure out a way of coming up with a 1-800 number for Jews to call in case they were confused as to what they could eat, I would, but haven't yet.
During my vacation, I was racking my brain trying to think of something to snack on besides matzo during the long eight days and I came up with nacho's. They're definitely not bread-like and they're even made with corn. Hell, most Mexican food should probably work because there's also corn tortilla's. Turns out, however, it's not good. Corn doesn't work (unless it's eaten off the cobb because, well, the ancient Rabbi's had way too much time on their hands) so that's out and tortilla has been deemed as "leavened."
My argument to my dad, though, is why wouldn't it be good for Passover? So what if it technically doesn't conform to the laws, it's not like there's anything in the Talmud that says you can't have Mexican food. Not that I'm an expert, but I'm pretty sure that nowhere does it say you can't have Mexican food. And so what if the Israelite's didn't know about Mexican food back then, if they did, they'd have eaten it. And besides, just because they didn't know about Mexican food back then doesn't mean I have to suffer for it.
The reason why we're not supposed to have bread is because the ancient Israelites supposedly packed up in such a rush that they didn't have time to make bread before they left to go forth into the desert. Instead they could only make matzo. They must have made a lot matzo, though, considering they were in the fricking desert for 40 years, but that's another matter. So, anyways, just because the Israelites supposedly didn't have leavened bread when they were running loose in the desert, we too, several thousand years later, are supposed to forgo eating leavened bread. Why? Who knows. Something to do with symbolism and suffering and because of the destruction of the Jewish temple. Seems to me we should be pigging out on bread this week to celebrate the fact that we can eat bread now that we've been freed from bondage, but that's just me. Either way, we're supposed to be bread-free for eight days.
And not just bread free, but anything "leavened" which means anything involving grains or oats being somehow "raised" or cooked is bad. No cereal, no bagels, not even beer. Things get really complicated after that, though, because in this modern world of ours, there's a lot of things that are considered "leavened." Like corn syrup. Anything that has corn syrup, including say candy or ketchup or even cat food, is bad (this caused problems last year because you're supposed to get rid out of all the bad food from your house before Passover, kind of a purifying thing, and we had a long discussion about whether or not to leave the cat food for the cat- in other words, be fully observant good Jews and let the cat starve or be bad Jews and let the cat eat). And rice is bad too, although nobody's sure why and it's totally kosher for Sephardic Jews to eat it, but not Ashkenazi Jews.
All of this is way too complicated and kind of silly and leads to way too many instances where somebody is at a restaurant trying to figure out what'll work and won't work. If I could figure out a way of coming up with a 1-800 number for Jews to call in case they were confused as to what they could eat, I would, but haven't yet.
During my vacation, I was racking my brain trying to think of something to snack on besides matzo during the long eight days and I came up with nacho's. They're definitely not bread-like and they're even made with corn. Hell, most Mexican food should probably work because there's also corn tortilla's. Turns out, however, it's not good. Corn doesn't work (unless it's eaten off the cobb because, well, the ancient Rabbi's had way too much time on their hands) so that's out and tortilla has been deemed as "leavened."
My argument to my dad, though, is why wouldn't it be good for Passover? So what if it technically doesn't conform to the laws, it's not like there's anything in the Talmud that says you can't have Mexican food. Not that I'm an expert, but I'm pretty sure that nowhere does it say you can't have Mexican food. And so what if the Israelite's didn't know about Mexican food back then, if they did, they'd have eaten it. And besides, just because they didn't know about Mexican food back then doesn't mean I have to suffer for it.
For some reason, this really cracks me up….
Uday Hussein's (aka- the Evil-doing son of the Evil-Doer) e-mail address was udaysaddamhussein@yahoo. Com.
Here we are, hiring hundreds and hundreds of hackers, all trying to break into the Hussein family's e-mail accounts to spy on them and to scare them, and it turns out one of them had a Yahoo account. How long do you think it took them to figure that out and how many people did it take to find it? That is, of course, if they figured it out at all.
It's also funny too knowing that Uday got the same spam-mail we all do. You wonder if he sat there, shaking his fist, cursing at the Yankee-Zionist Infidel conspiracy as he had to delete yet another penis enlargement e-mail.
Uday Hussein's (aka- the Evil-doing son of the Evil-Doer) e-mail address was udaysaddamhussein@yahoo. Com.
Here we are, hiring hundreds and hundreds of hackers, all trying to break into the Hussein family's e-mail accounts to spy on them and to scare them, and it turns out one of them had a Yahoo account. How long do you think it took them to figure that out and how many people did it take to find it? That is, of course, if they figured it out at all.
It's also funny too knowing that Uday got the same spam-mail we all do. You wonder if he sat there, shaking his fist, cursing at the Yankee-Zionist Infidel conspiracy as he had to delete yet another penis enlargement e-mail.
Sunday, April 20, 2003
Life During an Orange Alert….
I have never been more paranoid about travelling in my life. And no, not because I'm afraid of terrorism (puh-lease). No, my paranoia came from the feeling that if I did anything like leave my backpack more than a few inches away from me for just a couple of seconds, I'd have the Terrorism SWAT Team come swooping down on me and I'd be in Guantanomo before you can say "John Ashcroft sucks."
It's not just that when I flew into Dulles, there were more security guards than passengers at 7 in the morning. Or the fact I had to show my ID three times before I even got onto the plane. Or the fact that flying into DC, the Flight Attendant walked down the aisle to make sure she could see everyone's shoes. Or that in order to go through Security this morning, they made all the women who were wearing flip-floppy type shoes take off their shoes. Or the announcements over the PA every five minutes about being on guard for unattended luggage. It was, well, all of that. Throw in the anti-aircraft guns piled up outside D.C. and the barricades set up in front of the Baltimore Amtrak Station (yeah, like that'll be a Terrorist target) and you really get the feeling we're one scared-ass, loced-out, freaked out country right now. All this paranoia is making me paranoid.
At least I didn't get pulled aside and had my luggage searched like I did last year. Nope, being white has it's privileges 'cause it looks like they've dropped any pretense of being Politically Correct and are now only searching people's luggage if they even look remotely Arab, Indian, or just plain swarthy. Of course, it could have been a coincidence that when I walked through the terminal at Oakland Airport and passed by the Security station, the only people who had been yanked out of line and had their luggage searched were kind of Arab/Indian/swarthy looking, but I doubt it. And then this morning, when I went stumbling into another security area, I noticed that some Arab-looking guy had been pulled completely out of line and was being completely scanned by that wand thingy by at least three Security Guards, one of whom looked like he was an inch or two away from ordering a complete cavity search. All this while everyone else was walking around without getting wanded.
You know, racial profiling is fine in theory, but not necessarily fine when you see everyone in the airport who looks Arab-like is off in some corner of the airport being gone over by everyone but the bomb sniffing dogs.
I have never been more paranoid about travelling in my life. And no, not because I'm afraid of terrorism (puh-lease). No, my paranoia came from the feeling that if I did anything like leave my backpack more than a few inches away from me for just a couple of seconds, I'd have the Terrorism SWAT Team come swooping down on me and I'd be in Guantanomo before you can say "John Ashcroft sucks."
It's not just that when I flew into Dulles, there were more security guards than passengers at 7 in the morning. Or the fact I had to show my ID three times before I even got onto the plane. Or the fact that flying into DC, the Flight Attendant walked down the aisle to make sure she could see everyone's shoes. Or that in order to go through Security this morning, they made all the women who were wearing flip-floppy type shoes take off their shoes. Or the announcements over the PA every five minutes about being on guard for unattended luggage. It was, well, all of that. Throw in the anti-aircraft guns piled up outside D.C. and the barricades set up in front of the Baltimore Amtrak Station (yeah, like that'll be a Terrorist target) and you really get the feeling we're one scared-ass, loced-out, freaked out country right now. All this paranoia is making me paranoid.
At least I didn't get pulled aside and had my luggage searched like I did last year. Nope, being white has it's privileges 'cause it looks like they've dropped any pretense of being Politically Correct and are now only searching people's luggage if they even look remotely Arab, Indian, or just plain swarthy. Of course, it could have been a coincidence that when I walked through the terminal at Oakland Airport and passed by the Security station, the only people who had been yanked out of line and had their luggage searched were kind of Arab/Indian/swarthy looking, but I doubt it. And then this morning, when I went stumbling into another security area, I noticed that some Arab-looking guy had been pulled completely out of line and was being completely scanned by that wand thingy by at least three Security Guards, one of whom looked like he was an inch or two away from ordering a complete cavity search. All this while everyone else was walking around without getting wanded.
You know, racial profiling is fine in theory, but not necessarily fine when you see everyone in the airport who looks Arab-like is off in some corner of the airport being gone over by everyone but the bomb sniffing dogs.
I love flying cross-country, especially when it involves getting up at 6 AM East Coast time. There's nothing like that feeling you get when you finally get home- that weird combination of sheer exhaustion from seven hours of travelling and the weird energy that comes from being cooped up due to seven hours of travelling. Too pumped to sleep, too tired to do anything but sleep, too much to do take it easy, not enough strength or brainpower to do anything. I even tried calling a friend and realized that I'm having problms with the English language. The only thing I can pretty much do right now is watch lots and lots of TV.
Oh well.
Oh well.
Home, boy
Home, boy
Everybody needs a home
Home, boy
Home, boy
Everybody needs a home
First of all, contrary to rumours, I'm not moving back East. I just happened to get a job in SF while I was back East. Why, after all, would I go back East? Hell, there's a story in today's Washington Post, the paper of the City I might have moved too, about how drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon is suddenly the rage in D.C. Been there, done that. I'd have to go into seclusion for a couple of years to catch up trend-wise between here and there. Hell, my sister got a Razar Scooter for her birthday last year because Razar Scooter's finally became all the rage in Baltimore last year. I don't want to relive the Razar Scooter years again. Dear God, anything but that.
So how was the trip? Well, besides going back for the holidays and to see the family, I went to try and get a nice, relaxing week in which I could both Get Away From it All and rest up from having way too much All to get away from. So what happened? I got a job offer on Monday, accepted it on Tuesday, wrote the Resignation letter on Friday and spent the rest of the week having the prerequisite angst that one would get if one random resume turns into a brand new job a week after sending it out. Big life changes can be kind of scary when they happen just like that. As for sleep, I took one red-eye flight, a return flight that left at 8:15 in the morning East Coast time, had two two-hour trips back to Carlisle Pa and back, a four-hour drive and a six-hour drive to Soprano-land, and spent three nights sleeping in the same type of bed I had as a kid, two nights on a really crappy fold-out couch, one night on one of those inflatable beds, and one night on the floor because the inflatable bed didn't inflate.
In other words, so much for my nice relaxing trip and Getting Away From it All.
And all I have to look forward to tomorrow is walking in the office and giving them my two-week notice. Followed, of course, by the requisite drama.
Oy.
Home, boy
Everybody needs a home
Home, boy
Home, boy
Everybody needs a home
First of all, contrary to rumours, I'm not moving back East. I just happened to get a job in SF while I was back East. Why, after all, would I go back East? Hell, there's a story in today's Washington Post, the paper of the City I might have moved too, about how drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon is suddenly the rage in D.C. Been there, done that. I'd have to go into seclusion for a couple of years to catch up trend-wise between here and there. Hell, my sister got a Razar Scooter for her birthday last year because Razar Scooter's finally became all the rage in Baltimore last year. I don't want to relive the Razar Scooter years again. Dear God, anything but that.
So how was the trip? Well, besides going back for the holidays and to see the family, I went to try and get a nice, relaxing week in which I could both Get Away From it All and rest up from having way too much All to get away from. So what happened? I got a job offer on Monday, accepted it on Tuesday, wrote the Resignation letter on Friday and spent the rest of the week having the prerequisite angst that one would get if one random resume turns into a brand new job a week after sending it out. Big life changes can be kind of scary when they happen just like that. As for sleep, I took one red-eye flight, a return flight that left at 8:15 in the morning East Coast time, had two two-hour trips back to Carlisle Pa and back, a four-hour drive and a six-hour drive to Soprano-land, and spent three nights sleeping in the same type of bed I had as a kid, two nights on a really crappy fold-out couch, one night on one of those inflatable beds, and one night on the floor because the inflatable bed didn't inflate.
In other words, so much for my nice relaxing trip and Getting Away From it All.
And all I have to look forward to tomorrow is walking in the office and giving them my two-week notice. Followed, of course, by the requisite drama.
Oy.
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Being home like this, or at least at my mother’s (she’s moved away from where I grew up so it’s not really like I’m really home home) makes me realize that now is where I should write one of those “going home” type essays. You know, poignant and sad, yet heart-warming and endearing. Lots of stuff about finding small reminders of past lives once forgotten and reconnecting with the past. The kind of stuff people love. The kind of stuff that gets published all the time. The kind of stuff that makes me go “ick.”
Kind of shame, though, cause it doesn’t get anymore Bringing It All Back Home like plopping on a 20-year old copy of U2’s War on mom’s record player and listening to it (album, baby, album!). And I have a pretty good essay too. Why, I know a lot of writing teacher’s and fellow students who’d eat it up.
Instead, I’ll just cut to the chase, save y’all from the sappiness. See, when I got bar-mitzvahed my favorite present, the only one I really cared about (even more than the money which my damn mother spent instead of giving it to me) was a baseball an uncle gave to me signed by Garry Maddox. Garry Maddox was the then-Centerfielder for the Phillies and my favorite ballplayer. As the famous saying went, “two thirds of the earth is covered by water, the other by Garry Maddox.” For years, that baseball was on the desk I had in my bedroom. For years, whenever I needed a boost, I’d pick up the ball. I’d play with the ball. I’d just stare at the ball.
Years and years later, I found the ball. The autograph, the one by Garry Maddox has long since faded away, gone from everything but my memory.
Uh, how’s that? Pretty deep, right? I know, it really puts perspective on things, doesn’t it? Too much fucking perspective….
Eh, enough with this crap....Onto Baltimore.
Happy Pesach everyone.
Kind of shame, though, cause it doesn’t get anymore Bringing It All Back Home like plopping on a 20-year old copy of U2’s War on mom’s record player and listening to it (album, baby, album!). And I have a pretty good essay too. Why, I know a lot of writing teacher’s and fellow students who’d eat it up.
Instead, I’ll just cut to the chase, save y’all from the sappiness. See, when I got bar-mitzvahed my favorite present, the only one I really cared about (even more than the money which my damn mother spent instead of giving it to me) was a baseball an uncle gave to me signed by Garry Maddox. Garry Maddox was the then-Centerfielder for the Phillies and my favorite ballplayer. As the famous saying went, “two thirds of the earth is covered by water, the other by Garry Maddox.” For years, that baseball was on the desk I had in my bedroom. For years, whenever I needed a boost, I’d pick up the ball. I’d play with the ball. I’d just stare at the ball.
Years and years later, I found the ball. The autograph, the one by Garry Maddox has long since faded away, gone from everything but my memory.
Uh, how’s that? Pretty deep, right? I know, it really puts perspective on things, doesn’t it? Too much fucking perspective….
Eh, enough with this crap....Onto Baltimore.
Happy Pesach everyone.
I've been noticing over the past few weeks that I'm starting to get spam-mail not about hot n' horny coeds, or hot n' horny single girls, or even just plain old single girls, but for hot n' horny married women.
Uh....is this supposed to be something I'd be interested in?
Maybe it's a sign that they're running out of hot n' horny things to send spam-mail about.
Uh....is this supposed to be something I'd be interested in?
Maybe it's a sign that they're running out of hot n' horny things to send spam-mail about.
Well, so much for a relaxing get away from it all vacation. Spent last night tossing and turning about the various in’s and out’s of job switching and spent most of this morning (well, morning in California time which is where my head’s still at) back and forth with my new employers over the new job- negotiating this, working out that. But it’s done, over with, fini, all except for the official Signing of the Offer Letter.
Now it’s just happy thoughts, brisket, the Four Questions, and dread over having to go into the old job on Monday. It’s Two-Week Notice Time and boy is that fun. My boss is on vacation too, somewhere up in Alaska on a cruise with her daughter, so I can’t really officialy quit right now and have to wait for the both of us to get back. Which is kind of good because it’ll give me the rest of the week to not have to deal with it. It’s also kind of bad because I’m guessing there’s nothing like one of your best employees quitting on you on your first day back to ruin that post-vacation buzz.
Oh well.
Now it’s just happy thoughts, brisket, the Four Questions, and dread over having to go into the old job on Monday. It’s Two-Week Notice Time and boy is that fun. My boss is on vacation too, somewhere up in Alaska on a cruise with her daughter, so I can’t really officialy quit right now and have to wait for the both of us to get back. Which is kind of good because it’ll give me the rest of the week to not have to deal with it. It’s also kind of bad because I’m guessing there’s nothing like one of your best employees quitting on you on your first day back to ruin that post-vacation buzz.
Oh well.
Monday, April 14, 2003
Go a year and a half of serious unemployment,sending out hundreds of resumes, going on interviews, waiting for the phone to ring, getting screwed over by company after company after company. Five months into a job, a job that helped me get out of unemployment, I pull a what the hell and send out a new resume. Then I get an interview and wind up getting a job. Just like that. Easy as Sunday morning.
I know, why couldn’t I have had this luck like, say, last year when I was running out of money and unable to sleep and facing the choice of maybe possibly having to move to here in Middle of Fucking Nowhere Land. Now, I’m gonna (probably) start working at my second place in six months.
Life is so strange. Life is so strange
I know, why couldn’t I have had this luck like, say, last year when I was running out of money and unable to sleep and facing the choice of maybe possibly having to move to here in Middle of Fucking Nowhere Land. Now, I’m gonna (probably) start working at my second place in six months.
Life is so strange. Life is so strange
Greetings from Carlisle Pennsylvania, a suburb of Harrisburg. I am smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania, smack dab in Middle America, smack dab in the middle of fucking nowhere. There are no Starbucks here, no Pasqua or Tully’s. There are, however, plenty of Thomas Kincaid galleries and Wall-Marts. Not to mention flags heralding people’s love for Dale Earnhardt Jr and billboards for gun shows. I have come from a city that is adorned with “Bush is a Nazi” posters to American flags being hung from everywhere. From yoga-ins to “Support Our Troops” rallies down on Main Street.
Man, do I miss San Francisco.
I can’t believe I can’t find good coffee anywhere. I can’t believe that seeing a documentary about the human body at the downtown Imax theater would be the big thing to do on a Saturday night. I can’t believe that so many people would fly flags honoring a NASCAR driver. And I mainly can’t figure out what the hell people are doing here.
We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. Harrisburg is a small city that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for it being the state capital of Pennsylvania (for whatever’s that worth). Yet people live in Harrisburg. People commute to Harrisburg. And people go to Harrisburg for their big night out. I live in a city where just on my block I have three Mexican restaurants, two bars, a tapas place, a Chinese restaurant, a Vietnamese restaurant, two pizza places, the Worker’s Party of America, a used book store that likes to show pictures of dead Palestinians, two Indian restaurant, and a place that sells Indian ice scream. And I’m in Carlisle because my mother works at Dickinson College, a kind of cute small college in the ‘burbs of Harrisburg. I went to a college surrounded on three sides by the ocean. You’d have keg parties on a house overlooking the ocean. On a Wednesday.
What the hell are people doing here?
Man, I am such a snot
Friday, April 11, 2003
Let's see....
Woke up early, got dressed, made the bullshit call into the boss (more toilet troubles), went through a grueling three hour interview with which the highlight was one of the six people I met forgot I was there and left me in the lobby for 20 minutes, scrambled to work in a cab, ran around trying to tie up loose ends, and got home late.
Halfway there. Man, this is a long-ass day.
Woke up early, got dressed, made the bullshit call into the boss (more toilet troubles), went through a grueling three hour interview with which the highlight was one of the six people I met forgot I was there and left me in the lobby for 20 minutes, scrambled to work in a cab, ran around trying to tie up loose ends, and got home late.
Halfway there. Man, this is a long-ass day.
So Friday's looking like a really fun day...
Wake up at normal time, make some bullshit call into work about having to come into late (doctor's appointment or just late still to be determined), go to one of those two-hour in-and-out meet someone every fifteen minutes type job interviews, somehow figure out a way to not only change out of my interview clothes but quickly get back to my job eight miles away and no car to call my own, catch up on the pile of work sitting at my desk all with heavy deadlines, prep everything for a week-long interview, pack, go to the airport, and then take a red-eye flight back east. I know- it's a gas, gas, gas.
I hate red-eye flights too. I can't sleep for shit on planes but usually find myself trying to more out of boredom than anything else. Even if I do fall asleep, which I won't because I never do, I'm still up against the fact that I'll be landing at Dulles about 4:15 my time. Not exactly a great time to be waking up on a normal day, let alone one that includes a job interview, crazed work day, and a five hour plane flight. The worst thing about Red Eye flights, actually is knowing that when you go to bed on the day before the red-eye, you know it's gonna be another day before you'll be able to sleep in a bed again.
It totally helps that due to work stress and out-of-nowhere, totally random job interview, I've been fighting a raging case of insomnia. I think I've been averaging about three to four hours of sleep since Saturday night and have the bags underneath the eyes to prove it. Insomnia is hard enough, but try doing it while everything is going to hell in a hand-basket at work. Not to mention being overcome with both guilt and amazement at finding myself going through a second round of interviews after submitting a resume on a lark.
Oh yeah, I'm looking for another job. Or, at least, sent out a resume just for the hell of it and got a phone call back for an interview. The last thing I wanted to do is another job interview. I could go years without wanting to go through the hell of looking for a job again. Yet, what the hell. And with that, I don my totally frayed sports jacket, my suddenly tighter than I remember good pants, and grab my "How To Answer Every Dumb-Ass Question You Could Be Asked During a Job Interview- Third Edition" for my second round of interviews and jump back into the fray. Oh, how I remember the fun of making a mad-dash to make an interview on time, only having to wait half-an-hour before they come and meet you.
Uh, I think I'm rambiling here. See above note about insomnia, stress and geniune frazzlement. What's that prayer about G-d giving you strength? Well, G-d give me strength. Not to mention no more feelings of guilt about bailing on work for the morning or looking for another job. And the ability kick-butt tomorrow. And if there is no G-d, then I bow to you, oh mighty Caffeine to help me make it through the day.
Peace out.
Wake up at normal time, make some bullshit call into work about having to come into late (doctor's appointment or just late still to be determined), go to one of those two-hour in-and-out meet someone every fifteen minutes type job interviews, somehow figure out a way to not only change out of my interview clothes but quickly get back to my job eight miles away and no car to call my own, catch up on the pile of work sitting at my desk all with heavy deadlines, prep everything for a week-long interview, pack, go to the airport, and then take a red-eye flight back east. I know- it's a gas, gas, gas.
I hate red-eye flights too. I can't sleep for shit on planes but usually find myself trying to more out of boredom than anything else. Even if I do fall asleep, which I won't because I never do, I'm still up against the fact that I'll be landing at Dulles about 4:15 my time. Not exactly a great time to be waking up on a normal day, let alone one that includes a job interview, crazed work day, and a five hour plane flight. The worst thing about Red Eye flights, actually is knowing that when you go to bed on the day before the red-eye, you know it's gonna be another day before you'll be able to sleep in a bed again.
It totally helps that due to work stress and out-of-nowhere, totally random job interview, I've been fighting a raging case of insomnia. I think I've been averaging about three to four hours of sleep since Saturday night and have the bags underneath the eyes to prove it. Insomnia is hard enough, but try doing it while everything is going to hell in a hand-basket at work. Not to mention being overcome with both guilt and amazement at finding myself going through a second round of interviews after submitting a resume on a lark.
Oh yeah, I'm looking for another job. Or, at least, sent out a resume just for the hell of it and got a phone call back for an interview. The last thing I wanted to do is another job interview. I could go years without wanting to go through the hell of looking for a job again. Yet, what the hell. And with that, I don my totally frayed sports jacket, my suddenly tighter than I remember good pants, and grab my "How To Answer Every Dumb-Ass Question You Could Be Asked During a Job Interview- Third Edition" for my second round of interviews and jump back into the fray. Oh, how I remember the fun of making a mad-dash to make an interview on time, only having to wait half-an-hour before they come and meet you.
Uh, I think I'm rambiling here. See above note about insomnia, stress and geniune frazzlement. What's that prayer about G-d giving you strength? Well, G-d give me strength. Not to mention no more feelings of guilt about bailing on work for the morning or looking for another job. And the ability kick-butt tomorrow. And if there is no G-d, then I bow to you, oh mighty Caffeine to help me make it through the day.
Peace out.
Thursday, April 10, 2003
When do you know you go to a lot of baseball games?
When you notice that certain players have changed their "at-bat" theme music.
Yep, first game of the year. The night was beautiful, the crowd psyched, the beer cold, the garlic fries yummy and the Giants won 2-1 over the hated Dodgers.
And all is right with the world (well, not really. There's actually quite a lot wrong with this world right now, but you know what I mean and does it really matter anyways? 9-1, baby, 9-1!)
PS- I think I'm about to jinx the Giants by posting that last bit of the message. Hmmm. We'll see. If the Orange & Black suddenly go on a three game losing, streak, you'll know who to blame.
When you notice that certain players have changed their "at-bat" theme music.
Yep, first game of the year. The night was beautiful, the crowd psyched, the beer cold, the garlic fries yummy and the Giants won 2-1 over the hated Dodgers.
And all is right with the world (well, not really. There's actually quite a lot wrong with this world right now, but you know what I mean and does it really matter anyways? 9-1, baby, 9-1!)
PS- I think I'm about to jinx the Giants by posting that last bit of the message. Hmmm. We'll see. If the Orange & Black suddenly go on a three game losing, streak, you'll know who to blame.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Riddle me this Batman- so you're fighting a war against a particular Evil-Doer. And in this war, it's pretty apparent that the end of the war will either come with the confirmed death or capture of that particular Evil-Doer. Now, knowing this, if you get a really, really hot tip that this particular Evil-Doer is hanging out somewhere along with his Evil-Doer sons, does it make any sense to bomb the place with such force that you'll never know if you actually killed the Evil-Doer?
Wouldn't it make more sense to say, oh, send in Special-Ops to capture the guy live and in person instead of blowing up not only the place where the Evil-Doer is at, but three surrounding blocks?
Wouldn't it make more sense to say, oh, send in Special-Ops to capture the guy live and in person instead of blowing up not only the place where the Evil-Doer is at, but three surrounding blocks?
(Editor's Note: the Legal Department of Hooray For Anything has made me issue this note before I post this latest entry- any similarities between the below posting and the fact that the company that employs Hooray For Anything just bought a race car is completely coincidental. Nor is the fact that all of this comes at the same time several people have been laid-off or that it all comes out of the marketing budget even though it's merely a play-thing of an eccentric millionaire has nothing to do with this posting).
As I'm flipping through the channels and happen to come upon a NASCAR race (and no, I don't watch NASCAR nor see any point in a sport the involves tens or cars going round and round a track for hours), I wonder what the point of advertising on a NASCAR car is. Not to get too Chandler Bing here, but can there be more advertising on NASAR cars? And not just the cars, but the uniforms of the drivers themselves, not to mention the driver's road crew. Hasn't anyone heard of subtlety? Of the concept that less is oftentimes better? Of minimalism? Didn't they all read the stories about what a wonderful job Apple does with their advertising because it's so sparse and clean and straight to the point? I know, NASCAR is mainly popular in the Red states and we all know how sophisticated people in the Red states are (they are, after all, Red states), but are they that unsophisticated?
Why do they paste so many ads everywhere? I know why the car drivers do (Money it's a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a stash), although I'd have issues with being nothing but a walking billboard. Not to mention wearing something completely tacky, but what do the advertisers see in it? Do they think that someone watching the race will see a Pepsi logo located right underneath the armpit of Jeff Gordon and go "hmmm, well if Jeff has a Pepsi logo on him, maybe I'll switch from Coke to Pepsi?" Can anyone even make out all the logos on their outfits? It looks like some marketing person just vomited a bunch of corporate logos all over their outfits.
Think design people.
Same with the cars. They go so fast it's hard to make out all the logo's, let alone discern the logo by the front right tire as opposed to the one by the left back tire. Wouldn't it make more sense to have like a theme car? Like it be just Pepsi and all Pepsico products. Would it make sense then for the Viagra car (Viagra car?) also have a bunch of ads on there for things like Maxim and Trojans?
I wonder too how advertisers pay for their ads. Having worked in the magazine biz, I know how ads in magazines work- you pay extra for special positions within the magazine. If, say, you wanted to advertise on Rusty Redneck the NASCAR driver, does it work the same way? Like you'd pay $500 for his front chest, $250 for his back, and $100 for his left butt? If Viagra wanted to put a logo on someone's groin, would someone think that a little too over the top?
Remember, folks, this has nothing to do with work.
As I'm flipping through the channels and happen to come upon a NASCAR race (and no, I don't watch NASCAR nor see any point in a sport the involves tens or cars going round and round a track for hours), I wonder what the point of advertising on a NASCAR car is. Not to get too Chandler Bing here, but can there be more advertising on NASAR cars? And not just the cars, but the uniforms of the drivers themselves, not to mention the driver's road crew. Hasn't anyone heard of subtlety? Of the concept that less is oftentimes better? Of minimalism? Didn't they all read the stories about what a wonderful job Apple does with their advertising because it's so sparse and clean and straight to the point? I know, NASCAR is mainly popular in the Red states and we all know how sophisticated people in the Red states are (they are, after all, Red states), but are they that unsophisticated?
Why do they paste so many ads everywhere? I know why the car drivers do (Money it's a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a stash), although I'd have issues with being nothing but a walking billboard. Not to mention wearing something completely tacky, but what do the advertisers see in it? Do they think that someone watching the race will see a Pepsi logo located right underneath the armpit of Jeff Gordon and go "hmmm, well if Jeff has a Pepsi logo on him, maybe I'll switch from Coke to Pepsi?" Can anyone even make out all the logos on their outfits? It looks like some marketing person just vomited a bunch of corporate logos all over their outfits.
Think design people.
Same with the cars. They go so fast it's hard to make out all the logo's, let alone discern the logo by the front right tire as opposed to the one by the left back tire. Wouldn't it make more sense to have like a theme car? Like it be just Pepsi and all Pepsico products. Would it make sense then for the Viagra car (Viagra car?) also have a bunch of ads on there for things like Maxim and Trojans?
I wonder too how advertisers pay for their ads. Having worked in the magazine biz, I know how ads in magazines work- you pay extra for special positions within the magazine. If, say, you wanted to advertise on Rusty Redneck the NASCAR driver, does it work the same way? Like you'd pay $500 for his front chest, $250 for his back, and $100 for his left butt? If Viagra wanted to put a logo on someone's groin, would someone think that a little too over the top?
Remember, folks, this has nothing to do with work.
Uh-oh, here she comes. Walking down the hall, straight at me….
And damn, she's wearing her tight shirt again. Be cool. Don't screw up. Don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts…look straight up at her face… look straight up at her face…. look straight up at her face…..
"Hello"
Jesus Christ, she's got an amazing….I suck
And damn, she's wearing her tight shirt again. Be cool. Don't screw up. Don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts, don't stare at her breasts…look straight up at her face… look straight up at her face…. look straight up at her face…..
"Hello"
Jesus Christ, she's got an amazing….I suck
Monday, April 07, 2003
Oh my god, Smirkboy is actually leaving the country to meet another foreign leader. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles.
I wonder how'd that happen?
George is sitting at the desk of the Oval Office, reading the baseball scores when the phone rings.
George: Hello?
Tony: Good morning, Mr. President.
George: Uh, who is this?
Tony: It's me, George, Tony Blair. The Prime Minister of the UK.
George: The UK?
Tony: The United Kingdom. Britian and all that. You know, the guy whose far you in the war against the evil-doers.
George: Oh yeah, yeah, hi Tony, how's it going?
Tony: Well, with the war looking almost over, I was thinking it was a good time we meet again and start hammering out ideas for post-war Iraq.
George: Oh, okay. What do you have in mind?
Tony: Umm, shouldn't you call in the Vice-President and the Secretary of Defense?
George: No, why?
Tony: Umm….because , you know, we're gonna be talking about important things…and…
George: Oh, okay, I gotcha. Well, Dick is at his undisclosed location again, so he can't make it, but Rummy should be hanging around. Hold on a second….
(George presses the buzzer on his desk)
Hi Donald, Tony Blair's on the phone wanting to talk about post-war Iraq and wants to go over a few things….yes, I know we're busy…..no, I don't know what he wants…..yes, he is a pain in the ass…yes, I know he should just shut-up and mind his own business, but he just said it's important.
(George gets back on the phone with Tony)
George: Hold on, he's coming.
(Rumsfield appears into the office).
Tony: Hmm, shouldn't we have Colin in here too, this is kind of an important thing we have to discuss.
Rummy (laughing): Uh no, that's quite alright. We don't need Colin. Besides, he's out of the country right now.
Tony: Hmm, why does it seem that whenever we talk about something important, Colin is never there? Oh well. Okay, here's what I was calling about. I think it's time we should have a meeting to start discussing post-war Iraq.
George: Okay, what do you want to do?
Tony: How about a summit?
George: Ummm, alright. Not on a weekend I hope. You know how much I hate having to work on the weekends.
Tony: Yes, I know Mr. President (coughs) we're so screwed.
George: What was that, Tony? I couldn't quite make it out.
Tony: Nothing, I just have a bit of a cold. I'm okay with meeting during the week, it doesn't matter to me.
George: Okay, so when do you want to come out?
Tony: Well, here's the thing, Mr. President, I always go over there.
George: Yeah, and so.
Tony: Well, I was thinking maybe you should come over here.
George: Why?
Tony: Well, it's only fair. I've gone over there a bunch of times, but you never come out here.
George: I don't know, Tony, England's so far away . Plus I get jet lag and you know how hard it is for me to sleep away from home.
Tony: Yes, I know sir, but whenever I come out there, I have to go through the same thing.
George: Still, why should I come out there?
Tony: Because I always come to the US. Don't you think it would be fair if you came out here for a change?
George: Well, I guess, but why going out England? Why would anyone leave the United States or not want to come here.
Tony: You know, Mr. President, if I don't say so myself, Britain has some wonderful parts to it too. And a lot of history and culture.
George: But do you have baseball?
Tony: Uh, no. We do have football, or what you like to call Soccer.
George: What?
Tony: And there's the London Tower and Westminster Abbey…
George: What's that?
Tony: uh, nevermind. I just think that since I always come out to visit you, you should come out and visit me. It's only fair. I do have other things to do, you know, other than fly out to Washington every month.
George: Okay, well, if you're sick of Washington, we could always go to my ranch in Texas…
Tony: Dear God, no…I mean, a swell idea, sir, but that's still not what I had in mind.
George: Or we could go to Camp David again. We got cable there.
Tony: No, sir, I've already been there. May I speak candidly, sir?
George: Yes, of course, Tony.
Tony: Well, you know people are talking about you and the fact I'm always going out to see you.
George: What?
Tony: It's true, sir. I'm getting accused of being your lap-dog all the time and, frankly, you coming out to visit me would help me show that it's not true.
Rummy: Those damn French bastards.
George: Oh, Tony, you shouldn't worry about those people. I never do.
Tony: But it's causing me political problems. I'm losing popularity and there's a chance I might have to have an election and that my opponent could get more votes than me.
George and Rummy laugh
Dick: Votes, shmotes. Trust me, Tony, don't you worry about things like that.
Tony: Oh, yeah, I see your point. But still, frankly, sir, all the other countries are talking.
George: Talking about what?
Tony: About how you never travel and visit them. About how you always make them come to you.
George: We send Colin out a lot to visit you.
Rummy and George both laugh.
Tony: Well, yes, that's true and we appreciate it, but it would mean an awful lot if you came out here to visit.
George: Why? I mean why should I go to another country? I'm the President of the United States of America.
Tony: Well, sir, it would make you seem a little less-arrogant and a bit more humble and that you'd like to show an interest in other countries and how they percieve…..oh well, nevermind, could you do it just as a favor to me?
Geoge: Okay, okay, okay, you got me. I'll go…..
I wonder how'd that happen?
George is sitting at the desk of the Oval Office, reading the baseball scores when the phone rings.
George: Hello?
Tony: Good morning, Mr. President.
George: Uh, who is this?
Tony: It's me, George, Tony Blair. The Prime Minister of the UK.
George: The UK?
Tony: The United Kingdom. Britian and all that. You know, the guy whose far you in the war against the evil-doers.
George: Oh yeah, yeah, hi Tony, how's it going?
Tony: Well, with the war looking almost over, I was thinking it was a good time we meet again and start hammering out ideas for post-war Iraq.
George: Oh, okay. What do you have in mind?
Tony: Umm, shouldn't you call in the Vice-President and the Secretary of Defense?
George: No, why?
Tony: Umm….because , you know, we're gonna be talking about important things…and…
George: Oh, okay, I gotcha. Well, Dick is at his undisclosed location again, so he can't make it, but Rummy should be hanging around. Hold on a second….
(George presses the buzzer on his desk)
Hi Donald, Tony Blair's on the phone wanting to talk about post-war Iraq and wants to go over a few things….yes, I know we're busy…..no, I don't know what he wants…..yes, he is a pain in the ass…yes, I know he should just shut-up and mind his own business, but he just said it's important.
(George gets back on the phone with Tony)
George: Hold on, he's coming.
(Rumsfield appears into the office).
Tony: Hmm, shouldn't we have Colin in here too, this is kind of an important thing we have to discuss.
Rummy (laughing): Uh no, that's quite alright. We don't need Colin. Besides, he's out of the country right now.
Tony: Hmm, why does it seem that whenever we talk about something important, Colin is never there? Oh well. Okay, here's what I was calling about. I think it's time we should have a meeting to start discussing post-war Iraq.
George: Okay, what do you want to do?
Tony: How about a summit?
George: Ummm, alright. Not on a weekend I hope. You know how much I hate having to work on the weekends.
Tony: Yes, I know Mr. President (coughs) we're so screwed.
George: What was that, Tony? I couldn't quite make it out.
Tony: Nothing, I just have a bit of a cold. I'm okay with meeting during the week, it doesn't matter to me.
George: Okay, so when do you want to come out?
Tony: Well, here's the thing, Mr. President, I always go over there.
George: Yeah, and so.
Tony: Well, I was thinking maybe you should come over here.
George: Why?
Tony: Well, it's only fair. I've gone over there a bunch of times, but you never come out here.
George: I don't know, Tony, England's so far away . Plus I get jet lag and you know how hard it is for me to sleep away from home.
Tony: Yes, I know sir, but whenever I come out there, I have to go through the same thing.
George: Still, why should I come out there?
Tony: Because I always come to the US. Don't you think it would be fair if you came out here for a change?
George: Well, I guess, but why going out England? Why would anyone leave the United States or not want to come here.
Tony: You know, Mr. President, if I don't say so myself, Britain has some wonderful parts to it too. And a lot of history and culture.
George: But do you have baseball?
Tony: Uh, no. We do have football, or what you like to call Soccer.
George: What?
Tony: And there's the London Tower and Westminster Abbey…
George: What's that?
Tony: uh, nevermind. I just think that since I always come out to visit you, you should come out and visit me. It's only fair. I do have other things to do, you know, other than fly out to Washington every month.
George: Okay, well, if you're sick of Washington, we could always go to my ranch in Texas…
Tony: Dear God, no…I mean, a swell idea, sir, but that's still not what I had in mind.
George: Or we could go to Camp David again. We got cable there.
Tony: No, sir, I've already been there. May I speak candidly, sir?
George: Yes, of course, Tony.
Tony: Well, you know people are talking about you and the fact I'm always going out to see you.
George: What?
Tony: It's true, sir. I'm getting accused of being your lap-dog all the time and, frankly, you coming out to visit me would help me show that it's not true.
Rummy: Those damn French bastards.
George: Oh, Tony, you shouldn't worry about those people. I never do.
Tony: But it's causing me political problems. I'm losing popularity and there's a chance I might have to have an election and that my opponent could get more votes than me.
George and Rummy laugh
Dick: Votes, shmotes. Trust me, Tony, don't you worry about things like that.
Tony: Oh, yeah, I see your point. But still, frankly, sir, all the other countries are talking.
George: Talking about what?
Tony: About how you never travel and visit them. About how you always make them come to you.
George: We send Colin out a lot to visit you.
Rummy and George both laugh.
Tony: Well, yes, that's true and we appreciate it, but it would mean an awful lot if you came out here to visit.
George: Why? I mean why should I go to another country? I'm the President of the United States of America.
Tony: Well, sir, it would make you seem a little less-arrogant and a bit more humble and that you'd like to show an interest in other countries and how they percieve…..oh well, nevermind, could you do it just as a favor to me?
Geoge: Okay, okay, okay, you got me. I'll go…..
There once was a thing called Blogger. It worked fairly well, despite being a small, not for very major profit company. Everybody used it and the world was happy. One day, Blogger was bought out by another company, a much bigger company. As is typical in this whacky, crazy world.
And now, like most things bought up by bigger things, it now works to the point that crap-like pretty much describes it.
Sigh.
And now, like most things bought up by bigger things, it now works to the point that crap-like pretty much describes it.
Sigh.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
It should be fairly easy- you call someone and if there not there, you leave a message. Then they call you back. That's how things work. That's how society works. It's in the rule book. If you don't abide by the rules, you have social anarchy. Dogs and cats living together and all that stuff.
So why is it nobody can return a fucking phone call? On a Sunday night even. Nobody goes out on a Sunday.
I know you're there, all of you.
So why is it nobody can return a fucking phone call? On a Sunday night even. Nobody goes out on a Sunday.
I know you're there, all of you.
Maybe it's because I've been watching too much Fox News, but I'm amazed how quickly this whole war thing in Iraq has transformed itself into nothing more than a war to liberate Iraq. Suddenly, there's no other motive, no other point to this war other than freeing the Iraqi people.
Yeah, I know Saddam is a horrible, horrible, evil man (and yes, he is evil). And I know that pretty much no matter how badly we fuck up Iraq after the war (and we will), the Iraqi's will still be better off than they are now, but does anyone really believe that this war is only about liberating Iraq? Does anyone really think that Dicky and Rummy and Condi were totally against the war until they saw a news story about Saddam's oppression and were so moved to tears that they decided that, U.N. be damned, they were going to free those poor people? Do you think Rummy and Dicky have ever been moved to tears (well, maybe when Dicky found out his daughter was a lesbian, but that's another story). God, imagine being Rummy's son. That guy is bossing around four-star generals, what chance does a teenage son have after being caught sneaking back into the house after partying all night?
But anyways, I digress.
Wasn't this war about WMD? Wasn't it because Saddam was in cohoots with Al Qeda? Wasn't it about Resolution blah blah blah? Or wasn't it because the neo-cons cooked up some magic mushroom fever dream of a Middle-East domino theory? What happened to all of those reasons for going to war (and whatever happened to those WMD's anyways?)
I know, it's all about PR and spin. About presenting a better face to the rest of the world, especially the Arabic world. I'm just amazed at how quickly the context of the war has changed just because the White PR people decided to call the war "Operation Iraqi Freedom." With that and a few speeches, every other reason to go to war has quickly been forgotten. The press, and the country, has fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
I wonder, what would have happened if they would have named the operation, say, "Operation Help W. Win the NCAA Tourney Bracket." Would Fox and CNN adapt it in their logos? Would we have analyst after analyst talking about how recent developments in the war would help or hinder Smirkboy's ability to beat Condi in the White House Tourney Pool? Would polls be taken on what the people think about W.'s chances? Would Fox News accuse anyone who didn't think going to war to help W. win the pool was a good reason as being a cheese eating surrender monkey? Would every embedded reporter twist their stories to talk about how the taking of Basra would help Bush in the pool because Texas is 4-1 when major cities are taken during American Wars? Would an entire country talk about how proud they are of our boys (and women) because W's beating Dicky?
Are we really that gullible? Nevermind
Yeah, I know Saddam is a horrible, horrible, evil man (and yes, he is evil). And I know that pretty much no matter how badly we fuck up Iraq after the war (and we will), the Iraqi's will still be better off than they are now, but does anyone really believe that this war is only about liberating Iraq? Does anyone really think that Dicky and Rummy and Condi were totally against the war until they saw a news story about Saddam's oppression and were so moved to tears that they decided that, U.N. be damned, they were going to free those poor people? Do you think Rummy and Dicky have ever been moved to tears (well, maybe when Dicky found out his daughter was a lesbian, but that's another story). God, imagine being Rummy's son. That guy is bossing around four-star generals, what chance does a teenage son have after being caught sneaking back into the house after partying all night?
But anyways, I digress.
Wasn't this war about WMD? Wasn't it because Saddam was in cohoots with Al Qeda? Wasn't it about Resolution blah blah blah? Or wasn't it because the neo-cons cooked up some magic mushroom fever dream of a Middle-East domino theory? What happened to all of those reasons for going to war (and whatever happened to those WMD's anyways?)
I know, it's all about PR and spin. About presenting a better face to the rest of the world, especially the Arabic world. I'm just amazed at how quickly the context of the war has changed just because the White PR people decided to call the war "Operation Iraqi Freedom." With that and a few speeches, every other reason to go to war has quickly been forgotten. The press, and the country, has fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
I wonder, what would have happened if they would have named the operation, say, "Operation Help W. Win the NCAA Tourney Bracket." Would Fox and CNN adapt it in their logos? Would we have analyst after analyst talking about how recent developments in the war would help or hinder Smirkboy's ability to beat Condi in the White House Tourney Pool? Would polls be taken on what the people think about W.'s chances? Would Fox News accuse anyone who didn't think going to war to help W. win the pool was a good reason as being a cheese eating surrender monkey? Would every embedded reporter twist their stories to talk about how the taking of Basra would help Bush in the pool because Texas is 4-1 when major cities are taken during American Wars? Would an entire country talk about how proud they are of our boys (and women) because W's beating Dicky?
Are we really that gullible? Nevermind
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Thursday, April 03, 2003
And the story only gets better….
I think I mentioned my toilet. A month or so ago, the little chordy thing inside the toilet broke and ever since it's been fixed, something's been kind of off. It's been kind of creaky, kind of wheezing, kind of a pain in the ass, but nothing too horrible to deal with. Just a slightly minor annoyance, the kind of annoyance that makes you think you should do something about, but not a big enough annoyance to actually do it.
Until last night.
You know what sucks? When the toilet goes kablooey on you at about 10:30 at night. When there's like water everywhere and you find yourself mopping the floor at 11. And then the mop falls apart because there's too much water and you find yourself running to the few open stores in the neighborhood looking for a mop-any kind of mop.
Water, water, everywhere and not a mop to clean.
I tried the plunger. I tried fiddling with the inner workings. I tried flushing. Nothing. Now mopping is kind of easy if it's like a spill or just a regular cleaning. It's not quite so easy when there's oodles and oodles of water everywhere. Out went the old t-shirts. Out went the paper towels. Out went my poor old comforter, all sacrificed to the cause. And I waited, sitting around at the middle of the night waiting to see if the water level would go down. It wasn't. So I grabbed my beloved SF Giants World Series Cup and Pac Bell Grand Opening cup and scooped the water out of the bowl and into the shower.
Finally, at 1 in the morning, I had a dry floor and an empty toilet. Exhausted from a long day, I crashed.
You want to know another thing that sucks? When you wake up for some reason at 4:30 in the morning, notice that there's a loud dripping sound coming from the bathroom that shouldn't be there, and walk into the bathroom to discover that it'ss an inch deep in water. You want to know what the last thing I want to do at 4:30 in the morning is? Fucking mop the floor. Especially with a mop that's leaving clumps of itself everywhere.
Now here's another thing. If all of this had happened during the day, it would be an easy thing to do. Just call the landlord or call a plumber. But what do you do at four in the morning? Landlord's asleep and not around and God only knows what calling one of those 24 hour plumber service thingies would do. Then there's the fact I'm clomping around, throwing buckets and buckets of water down the shower drain while everyone in my not quite so noise-proof apartment complex is trying to sleep.
There's too much water. The mop isn't doing it. So this time I grab my Giants cups and start bailing water. Just scooping it up from the floor and throwing it down the shower drain. Scoop, scoop, scoop. And still the water comes. It drips down from the just overly full toilet bowl and won't stop. I am Mickey Mouse in "Fantasia" except without all the magic and psycho broom sticks. My poor bathmat, which I had put down thinking the coast was clear, was sopping wet.
And then it came to me. I've been in this kind of situation before. Just stop the water that runs to the toilet. Problem- I can't move the damn knob. I even grab a monkey wrench to try and, well, wrench it, and only manage to succeed in chipping part of the knob off. It doesn't budge. The water keeps coming. I keep bailing.
Finally, around 5 or so I get everything back to a manageable level. The toilet bowl is once again emptied and I go to lie back in bed. It's really cold in my apartment and my feet are totally freezing. I know I can't really fall back asleep, what with a toilet that won't stop running, but I'm too tired to not do anything but fall asleep. An hour later, weird paranoid dreams wake me and once again, at 6 in the morning, I scoop away, clearing out the water from another overfilled toilet.
One more thing about all of this. Most people, in a situation like the one I was in, would just think "oh well, I haven't gotten any sleep and my toilet won't stop running, so I'll just call in sick from work and it'll all be better in the morning." Except for one problem- I had already called in sick to do the tax thing. Already pulled that card. And since I work in another town and don't own a car, it's not like it's that easy for me to get into work late. So, basically, I'm praying things go well and sucking it up the next morning on no sleep.
Once again, I go back to bed and lie there waiting for the alarm to go off. Seven comes. The alarm goes off. I trudge back into the bathroom, do some more scooping and sit around watching the previous night's SportsCenter, seeing what'll happen and hoping something happens that means all is well. The toilet behaves. The dripping has stopped and the water in the bowl doesn't rise. With a smattering of water still left on the floor and the bathmat curled up in a corner of the bathroom soaking wet, I hop into the shower to get ready to go to work.
Yesterday kind of sucked.
I think I mentioned my toilet. A month or so ago, the little chordy thing inside the toilet broke and ever since it's been fixed, something's been kind of off. It's been kind of creaky, kind of wheezing, kind of a pain in the ass, but nothing too horrible to deal with. Just a slightly minor annoyance, the kind of annoyance that makes you think you should do something about, but not a big enough annoyance to actually do it.
Until last night.
You know what sucks? When the toilet goes kablooey on you at about 10:30 at night. When there's like water everywhere and you find yourself mopping the floor at 11. And then the mop falls apart because there's too much water and you find yourself running to the few open stores in the neighborhood looking for a mop-any kind of mop.
Water, water, everywhere and not a mop to clean.
I tried the plunger. I tried fiddling with the inner workings. I tried flushing. Nothing. Now mopping is kind of easy if it's like a spill or just a regular cleaning. It's not quite so easy when there's oodles and oodles of water everywhere. Out went the old t-shirts. Out went the paper towels. Out went my poor old comforter, all sacrificed to the cause. And I waited, sitting around at the middle of the night waiting to see if the water level would go down. It wasn't. So I grabbed my beloved SF Giants World Series Cup and Pac Bell Grand Opening cup and scooped the water out of the bowl and into the shower.
Finally, at 1 in the morning, I had a dry floor and an empty toilet. Exhausted from a long day, I crashed.
You want to know another thing that sucks? When you wake up for some reason at 4:30 in the morning, notice that there's a loud dripping sound coming from the bathroom that shouldn't be there, and walk into the bathroom to discover that it'ss an inch deep in water. You want to know what the last thing I want to do at 4:30 in the morning is? Fucking mop the floor. Especially with a mop that's leaving clumps of itself everywhere.
Now here's another thing. If all of this had happened during the day, it would be an easy thing to do. Just call the landlord or call a plumber. But what do you do at four in the morning? Landlord's asleep and not around and God only knows what calling one of those 24 hour plumber service thingies would do. Then there's the fact I'm clomping around, throwing buckets and buckets of water down the shower drain while everyone in my not quite so noise-proof apartment complex is trying to sleep.
There's too much water. The mop isn't doing it. So this time I grab my Giants cups and start bailing water. Just scooping it up from the floor and throwing it down the shower drain. Scoop, scoop, scoop. And still the water comes. It drips down from the just overly full toilet bowl and won't stop. I am Mickey Mouse in "Fantasia" except without all the magic and psycho broom sticks. My poor bathmat, which I had put down thinking the coast was clear, was sopping wet.
And then it came to me. I've been in this kind of situation before. Just stop the water that runs to the toilet. Problem- I can't move the damn knob. I even grab a monkey wrench to try and, well, wrench it, and only manage to succeed in chipping part of the knob off. It doesn't budge. The water keeps coming. I keep bailing.
Finally, around 5 or so I get everything back to a manageable level. The toilet bowl is once again emptied and I go to lie back in bed. It's really cold in my apartment and my feet are totally freezing. I know I can't really fall back asleep, what with a toilet that won't stop running, but I'm too tired to not do anything but fall asleep. An hour later, weird paranoid dreams wake me and once again, at 6 in the morning, I scoop away, clearing out the water from another overfilled toilet.
One more thing about all of this. Most people, in a situation like the one I was in, would just think "oh well, I haven't gotten any sleep and my toilet won't stop running, so I'll just call in sick from work and it'll all be better in the morning." Except for one problem- I had already called in sick to do the tax thing. Already pulled that card. And since I work in another town and don't own a car, it's not like it's that easy for me to get into work late. So, basically, I'm praying things go well and sucking it up the next morning on no sleep.
Once again, I go back to bed and lie there waiting for the alarm to go off. Seven comes. The alarm goes off. I trudge back into the bathroom, do some more scooping and sit around watching the previous night's SportsCenter, seeing what'll happen and hoping something happens that means all is well. The toilet behaves. The dripping has stopped and the water in the bowl doesn't rise. With a smattering of water still left on the floor and the bathmat curled up in a corner of the bathroom soaking wet, I hop into the shower to get ready to go to work.
Yesterday kind of sucked.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Went to get the taxes done today. How shall I put this- remember what happened to Marsellus in Pulp Fiction with Zed and Maynard? Well, I'm Marsellus and Zed and Maynard are the IRS. Looks like I'm making a significant contribution to the war effort whether I wanted to or not.
Here's the thing. Way back when, when I was unemployed, I was running out of money. Being unemployed for long periods of time while also being kicked out of a nice rent-controlled apartment at the same time will do that to a person. So, almost a year ago, I cashed out my 401K. The whole enchilada.
As we all know, the 401K is money that you set aside out of your paycheck that goes into some kind of retirement account set up by you. It's basically my money because I put it aside (yeah, yeah I know there's matching funds and stock market involvement, but for the most part it's my money). For whatever reason, the wise-heads in congress- the same one's who gave us deregulation and Freedom Fries- decided that for everyone's best interest, we'll penalize people for cashing out too early. A pretty steep penalty I might add. The idea being to encourage people to hold onto it until they retire and not take it out for doing something, like, oh buying yet another winter home in Aspen or trying to be able to afford to live because you've been fucking laid-off and there's a recession going on. I took it out early and so I got penalized. For whatever reason, instead of doing it all in one fell swoop, I decided to hold off on some of the penalty then so I'd just pay for it come tax time. I'm smart like that sometimes.
And today, I got hit with the penalty. A big, huge whopping penalty. The kind of penalty one just doesn't right a check for immediately to pay off. Why? Because I have none of the money left due to the fact I WAS FUCKING LAID-OFF AND UNEMPLOYED. Well, that and blew a lot of it on baseball tickets and booze, but that's another story.
So, because I was unemployed I had no money left, which made me take my money out. And because I was unemployed I had to blow all the money I took out, not to mention all of my savings. And now I have to write a huge whopping check to the government because I took my money out to get by. Oh, and my job doesn't pay nearly as much to cover it all because it was the only job I could get and it doesn't pay as much as I want but am stuck with it because THERE'S A FUCKING RECESSION GOING ON. Does any of this seem fair to anyone? It was my money after all. And it was the only thing I could do other than move home because it's not like the government was doing anything to fix the economy or give unemployed people enough money to get by.
Yeah, I know it's partially my fault. I did blow what money I had left and I haven't really been very thrifty lately. And maybe I should have done what my mother said I should do and become a lawyer or an accountant or a middle manager at Global Widget Inc. so I wouldn't constantly be hard-pressed for cash. And it's totally my fault for not being born into an already wealthy family or didn't set up an off-shore account in the Bahamas or buy off enough politicians to rescind the 401K policy. Silly me thinking that congress would have my back in something like this, considering that nobody in congress has ever faced lay-offs, unemployment, or job searching. Hell, sometimes they're daddy makes them Governor and then President if they fuck up so much.
And I know too that as a Democrat, I shouldn't bitch about paying taxes. After all California is laying off teachers left and right and the Federal Deficit is climbing and W. got us into a war which we have to entirely pay for ourselves because he pissed off all of our allies. But then, on the other hand, I didn't vote for him, I didn't buy inflated dot.com stock, didn't jack-up energy prices, or work in an income bracket that the Republican party feels the need to give tax relief too.
So in other words, I'm just plain screwed right now. And all because I got laid-off.
At least I just downloaded the new Radiohead CD a couple of months before it's out (way spacey and tripped out mellow). This day hasn't turned out all bad.
Here's the thing. Way back when, when I was unemployed, I was running out of money. Being unemployed for long periods of time while also being kicked out of a nice rent-controlled apartment at the same time will do that to a person. So, almost a year ago, I cashed out my 401K. The whole enchilada.
As we all know, the 401K is money that you set aside out of your paycheck that goes into some kind of retirement account set up by you. It's basically my money because I put it aside (yeah, yeah I know there's matching funds and stock market involvement, but for the most part it's my money). For whatever reason, the wise-heads in congress- the same one's who gave us deregulation and Freedom Fries- decided that for everyone's best interest, we'll penalize people for cashing out too early. A pretty steep penalty I might add. The idea being to encourage people to hold onto it until they retire and not take it out for doing something, like, oh buying yet another winter home in Aspen or trying to be able to afford to live because you've been fucking laid-off and there's a recession going on. I took it out early and so I got penalized. For whatever reason, instead of doing it all in one fell swoop, I decided to hold off on some of the penalty then so I'd just pay for it come tax time. I'm smart like that sometimes.
And today, I got hit with the penalty. A big, huge whopping penalty. The kind of penalty one just doesn't right a check for immediately to pay off. Why? Because I have none of the money left due to the fact I WAS FUCKING LAID-OFF AND UNEMPLOYED. Well, that and blew a lot of it on baseball tickets and booze, but that's another story.
So, because I was unemployed I had no money left, which made me take my money out. And because I was unemployed I had to blow all the money I took out, not to mention all of my savings. And now I have to write a huge whopping check to the government because I took my money out to get by. Oh, and my job doesn't pay nearly as much to cover it all because it was the only job I could get and it doesn't pay as much as I want but am stuck with it because THERE'S A FUCKING RECESSION GOING ON. Does any of this seem fair to anyone? It was my money after all. And it was the only thing I could do other than move home because it's not like the government was doing anything to fix the economy or give unemployed people enough money to get by.
Yeah, I know it's partially my fault. I did blow what money I had left and I haven't really been very thrifty lately. And maybe I should have done what my mother said I should do and become a lawyer or an accountant or a middle manager at Global Widget Inc. so I wouldn't constantly be hard-pressed for cash. And it's totally my fault for not being born into an already wealthy family or didn't set up an off-shore account in the Bahamas or buy off enough politicians to rescind the 401K policy. Silly me thinking that congress would have my back in something like this, considering that nobody in congress has ever faced lay-offs, unemployment, or job searching. Hell, sometimes they're daddy makes them Governor and then President if they fuck up so much.
And I know too that as a Democrat, I shouldn't bitch about paying taxes. After all California is laying off teachers left and right and the Federal Deficit is climbing and W. got us into a war which we have to entirely pay for ourselves because he pissed off all of our allies. But then, on the other hand, I didn't vote for him, I didn't buy inflated dot.com stock, didn't jack-up energy prices, or work in an income bracket that the Republican party feels the need to give tax relief too.
So in other words, I'm just plain screwed right now. And all because I got laid-off.
At least I just downloaded the new Radiohead CD a couple of months before it's out (way spacey and tripped out mellow). This day hasn't turned out all bad.
WB eliminates peace sign from poster
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "What a Girl Wants" is to avoid making a political statement.
Print advertisements for the teen comedy originally featured a photograph of star Amanda Bynes wearing a tank top with an American flag on it and flashing the peace sign with her fingers as she stands between two British royal guards.
But with the war in Iraq sparking anti-war protests in the United States and abroad, Warner Bros. quickly changed the ad. The studio said Monday it feared the peace sign would be viewed as a political message.
New versions of the image feature Bynes with her right hand at her side, although many of the original posters already had been placed on billboards and buses before the change was made.
Have I mentioned that we so suck?
By the way, check out this site. Sadly, I'm a little too late to the thing and missed out on"Make Fun of Dick Cheney Day" (d'oh), but anyone who sponsors such a day is fine by me. Check out all the entries as part of the day.
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "What a Girl Wants" is to avoid making a political statement.
Print advertisements for the teen comedy originally featured a photograph of star Amanda Bynes wearing a tank top with an American flag on it and flashing the peace sign with her fingers as she stands between two British royal guards.
But with the war in Iraq sparking anti-war protests in the United States and abroad, Warner Bros. quickly changed the ad. The studio said Monday it feared the peace sign would be viewed as a political message.
New versions of the image feature Bynes with her right hand at her side, although many of the original posters already had been placed on billboards and buses before the change was made.
Have I mentioned that we so suck?
By the way, check out this site. Sadly, I'm a little too late to the thing and missed out on"Make Fun of Dick Cheney Day" (d'oh), but anyone who sponsors such a day is fine by me. Check out all the entries as part of the day.
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
We now interrupt Hooray For Anything for yet another War update:
Hey all you protestors- if you really want to stop the war, stop protesting. Just get yourself a job a neo-conservative think-tank, the military, or the CIA and start leaking stories in the news about what a bad job Bush and Rummy are doing running this thing. Thousands of people in the streets- nothing. One general admitting that the army didn't war game against Iraqi guerilla attacks- panic in the Bush administration and a press suddenly wondering 1-2-3-4 what are we fighting for.
See, I told you protesting doesn't work.
Hey all you protestors- if you really want to stop the war, stop protesting. Just get yourself a job a neo-conservative think-tank, the military, or the CIA and start leaking stories in the news about what a bad job Bush and Rummy are doing running this thing. Thousands of people in the streets- nothing. One general admitting that the army didn't war game against Iraqi guerilla attacks- panic in the Bush administration and a press suddenly wondering 1-2-3-4 what are we fighting for.
See, I told you protesting doesn't work.
There are big pleasures in life and there are small pleasures in life. It is the big pleasures that make life worth living for. But it's the small pleasures that make life bearable. One of life's little pleasures has begun anew- the opening up the sports page and seeing, for the first time in 'lo so many months, the Baseball Section. Standings, box scores, news reports. Box scores! I never thought I'd be so happy to see box scores. This has never been truer of today, having undergone my Fantasy Baseball Draft (and yes, I am a geek, but you know that already) last night and now have to really care about box scores. Now, all of a sudden do I not only have to care about the Giants game and that of the Dodgers and D-Backs, but I have to care about how Wes Helms did (3B of the Brewers, and yes, I am pretty worried that I know who the 3d baseman of the Brewsers is).
Ahh, sweet baseball, welcome back. God knows the world needs you know.
Ahh, sweet baseball, welcome back. God knows the world needs you know.
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