Oom Paa Loom Pa

I already talked about how hidef TV makes hair pieces and botox more noticeable but there's another thing I'm noticing too, even on non-hidef channels, and that is the amazing prevalence of both shiny bleached teeth and fake tans. Everywhere I go, I'm seeing white teeth that glow and orange skin that glows. Even on a lot of people who you'd least expect to (Stephen Colbert, as much as I love him, totally not only dies his hair but has sand blasted his teeth). This is especially noteworthy on the cable news channels because while you kind of expect, say, the stars of Desperate Housewives to be brith and orange, you don't quite expect it with "news journalists" or at least hope they'd show enough for their profession not to go fake. But no.

I'm watching CNN right now and everyone on that show is orange. Gloria Borger looks like a carrot. As much as Anderson Cooper tries to play serious journalist and not a pretty boy, has pearly white teeth and a bit of a tint. And, yes, so does Wolf. Even scarier, Bill Bennett, you know the guy who likes to scold everyone for moral infalability looks like he dropped a bucket of orange paint over him. It's even true of people who you wouldn't expect. Rachel Maddow's pearly whites are particularly pearly and Keith Oberlmann, someone who's schtick I grew tired of years ago, hits the trifecta of hair piece, shinhy teeth, and orange skin.

Naturally, of course, know that I'm aware of all of this, I can't stop noticing it. Everywhere I go, it's shiny teeth and orange skin. Between the fake tans, hair pieces, and botox, watching tv or movies can often seem like watching a whole other species.

It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp

I just got my second call about some scam job. Which means that scammers are either

1)More desperate
2)More saavy

and not just sending spam mails out, but getting somebody to call you. This particular scam was for one of those part-time, work-from-home inside sales type jobs and I knew it was scam pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this didn't stop the guy from yabbering on for a few minutes.

I also got a call about an "opportunity" or something to that effect but I can't tell because the person who called had such a thick Chinese accent, I couldn't tell what she was calling about. It's also obvious from listening to her that she's using some sort of script while leaving a message.

Your April Job Status

For those wondering how things are going for the unemployed these days, in the three months since I've been out of work, I average about 2-3 resumes sent out a day. This has gotten me two phone interviews although as they were for the same position, that only counts as one. I've had the potential for three more, but two of them were for jobs that I discovered paid ridiculously low amounts of wages (one of them by a major hi-tech company that should know better) and the other was cancelled the day before the interview because they found somebody. Which sucks because if I didn't even get the chance to screw up an interview. And that's it.

I've also sent resumes out to about 10 employment agencies and have only gone in to talk to three of them. The thing about them is that I should be temping but as I earn more on unemployment, it's not really worth it to me to take super-crappy jobs. Which means that I don't have to take super crappy jobs (yay me!) but probably can't find a job that'll pay more as those jobs only exist to people who made a career out of doing admin work as opposed to those of us who made a career out of doing admin work whenever they were laid off.

The good news that I've discovered is that California will actually give grants out if you need money for some sort of career retraining, which is good because all things considering, I need a new career. Hopefully whenever you do such a thing, they don't do that hard of a job checking on what you do with it because plane fair to Australia is ridiculously cheap these days.

The Impending Pandemic

Really?

Like we don't have enough to worry about these days.

Why I'm a Failure

It appears that Bill Kristol is going to win some $250,000 award for "his outstanding achievements in a wide range of activities affecting the development of public policy from national and international perspectives," this despite the fact he's not only wrong about everything, but a smug, arrogant prick. This is further proof that the bigger the failure you are and the bigger the thing you fail at, the better chance you have at becoming successful. Which means that the problem in my life is not that I’m a failure, it’s just that I haven’t failed enough and at too many unimportant things.

Actually it appears that my biggest mistake in life was not being born into a rich, political family as “helped start major land war against Middle Eastern country with insufficient amount of troops and total lack of planning” does not work as well on a resume as it would for others.

Alas.

I'm a Welfare Queen

I've done some calculating and have figured out that I actually make more money on unemployment than I would if I took a temp job of $15 or less. Most temp jobs (and some full time jobs I've encountered) fall in that range. What this means is that it's actually better for me not to temp or go work at Safeway or something. First of all, bravo for the state of California for giving decent unemployment benefits as not every state (Souther states, I'm looking at you) does so. The other thing, of course, is that this means that I am proving Conservatives right-- thanks to the Government's largesse, I am not going to find a job. I am going to be a Welfare Queen.

So, in order to appease those conservatives out there, I will also do like most of them do-- go protest taxes and benefits to the poor.

Those Were the Days

I'm back.....

I saw "Adventureland" last night and it was a really sweet and wonderful little movie but it made me feel something weird, mainly nostalgic. Normally, I tend to avoid anything remotely nostalgic because because the reality was that I hated the '80's and hated a large part of my adolescence. Why should I feel nostalgic for things of that period when I didn't really like things from that period? Okay, I can get feeling nostalgic for youth long gone, but I can't get feeling nostalgic for anything from the '80's because I thought the '80's kinda sucked.

Yet, "Adventureland" made me feel nostalgic. Specifically, it made feel nostalgic for that time I spent a summer working at an amusement park and met this beautiful if extremely broody Jewish girl who listened to Husker Du and the Replacements and we hooked up and started dating towards the end of that summer.

Oh wait-- that didn't really happen to me-- it happened in the movie.

I guess that's the thing about "Adventureland," it made me nostalgic for things that didn't actually happen to me but felt like it could have (and probably would have been cool if it did). Which, I guess, is proof that it's a really good movie.

Sometimes, I Hate This Country

The closest liquor store to our apartment is owned by a family of Pakistanis. Up against the wall in the back they have a tv that is constantly on and they usually have some sort of digital feed that relays news from Pakistan, usually involving cricket, on but this time the guy who usually works there had CNN on. The story they were discussing was Obama's big speech in Turkey today in which he tried to make the point that America isn't going to bomb the shit out of every Arab land and they were taking calls from people watching CNN about their opinions on his speech. As I got up to the counter to make my purchase, a caller was put on the air and the moment I heard his scratchy, cigarette-scarred, Southern voice I knew this wasn't going to end well and I was right--I didn't hear exactly what he was saying but whenever you hear the words "Muslim Sleeper Cells in America" you know it ain't exactly I Heart Moslems. When he was done I felt like apologizing to the guy at the counter on behalf of my countrymen.

Your Recession Update

This came from a temp agency I sent my resume to:

Dear Job Seeker,

We wish to sincerely thank you for your interest in our staffing service. However, we feel it is our duty and strong obligation to inform our valued candidates that the downturn in our economy has impacted our industry.

We have seen a decline in the number of jobs and a significant slowdown in the actual hiring of our candidates. The good news is that recessions come and go.

We are happy to keep your resume in our database and contact you if our client company selects your background and skill set.
Please keep your spirits up during this difficult time - we are committed to riding this out until we see signs of a recovery.
Our best to you and yours,

The Truth is Out There

I watched one of those History Channel Docs this week about "Ancient Aliens" and the belief that aliens came down from outer space and gave people from mainly ancient civilizations some form of highly-advanced technology, technology that seemed to serve no other purpose but to allow those ancient civilizations to build monuments to said aliens. They didn't give them information on how to cure disease or how to build flying devices or computers even, but mainly information on how to build giant heads made out of rocks.

Needless to say, it was awesome. Basically, for every sort of mystery out there in the ancient world, the proponents of the theory came to the conclusion that the obvious answer was aliens. Pyramids? Aliens. Ancient Mayan calendars? Aliens. Easter Island? Aliens. But what made it so much fun is that they said it with such certainty, like how could anyone believe anything but. They legitimately thought that they had a scientific explanation for certain mysteries and were baffled how scientists didn't take them seriously. And, of course, they did so using the completely obvious point that while there is no conclusive proof that aliens did come down and visit Egyptians, there is no conclusive proof that they didn't.

How could you argue?

This got me thinking, though, about what to do with my life. Obviously, cable tv has led to an explosion of shows dealing with the paranormal and other sort of unexplained mysteries. There's plenty of shows about ghosts, demons, aliens, monsters, the Republican Party and there seems to be no end to them. So, I'm thinking that for my next career, I'm going to be some sort of paranormal investigator. How hard could it be? I just need to buy some fancy sort of equipment that sounds really cool (like an EMF indicator or an InfaRed sensor) and say that something you see or hear is definite proof that there's something going on. After all, could anybody see inconclusively that it's not what you say it is?

Weird whispers in an attic? Ghosts. Furniture occasionally moves? Ghosts. Strange light in the sky? Aliens.

Just spent about fifteen minutes doing one of my favorite things in the world, one of those online job applications, the kind where you have to create an account, enter in a whole bunch of information, and then upload a resume with all of the information that you've just entered into the computer. Total waste of my life? About fifteen minutes.

This one was fun too as after every screen, I was told to go to the next screen where I was told that I hadn't filled out my form completely and had to add something to my application to which I was not asked. I was also told that I needed to upload my resume, a cover letter, a supporting document, and an additional supporting document. Huh?

The only good I can see in doing something like this is the hope that I'm the only one stubborn enough to waste fifteen minutes and the pool of candidates is rather small.