Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright

I've been kind of enjoying the Tiger Woods "scandal" due to the fact I find Tiger to be possibly the most boring person on the planet. Well, that's not fair as I don't really know him so let's just say he might be the most boring athlete in the world. It's one of the reasons why I could care less about anything he accomplishes in his sport or anything that he does. The fact that I could care less about golf makes it even easier to not care about him.

The thing about Tiger is that he presents a totally bland, corporate, Nikefied persona. He's been so trained to say nothing but completely bland, innocuous and inoffensive things lest he get in trouble with a corporate sponsor, possible shoe buyer, and journalist that he's been completely wiped of a personality. Some stars out there who have been Nikefied still somehow show a dint of personality-- whether it's actually part of their personality is something we'll never know-- and come off a bit more likeable. LeBron has a good sense of humor and appears to really care about winning one for his hometown. Peyton Manning is mayonaise white, kinda goofy and dorky, and seems completely self-aware of just that fact (which is why he's great in all of his commercials). And some athletes strive to be completely Nikefied but either show too much of their personalities to have it work (Kobe), have too exciting of a personal life for people to get away with being seen as boring (Derek Jeter), or have a little too much edge showing through (Michael Jordan, who pretty much defined the Nikefied athlete, could somewhat get away with it because people always felt that he would bet away his mother to some sort of Saudi Opium Den if he liked the odds well enough).

Which leaves us with Tiger who had none of those things-- he never appeared to be "ha ha" funny, he didn't present any sort of personality, and he was completely scrubbed clean of anything possibly interesting. He was just one bland, corporate whoring, golf wizard. When that sportscaster made that quote about Tiger being lynched he just gave a press conference, smiled a whole lot, and said he didn't get offended at all. Nope, wouldn't want say something involving race that could piss somebody off and lose my deal with Buick.

Now that he's in a bit of a controversy, I'm feeling more disposed to Tiger because for the very first time in his public career, he actually let the mask drop a bit and show that he's actually a human being, albeit a super-rich one with a better class of mistresses to choose from. Yes, Tiger actually likes having sex and likes having sex with more than one person. How about that? And Tiger actually screwed something up big time. In fact, Tiger was caught doing pretty much what ever rich celebrity thinks they can do-- have lots of sex and get away with it not just from their wives but the press and police.

Yet still, I'm not impressed. It's only supposedly with one woman, a woman whose threatening to sue over it so it might not even be that woman. And maybe it was just a little fight between husband & wife, albeit one with lots of face scratching. So I'm not there yet. Let me see who the exactly was the Other Woman and what her story is (the sluttier, of course, the better). And let's see what other shoes drop. More women? Sex tape? D Level reality stars? Bisexuality? Coke addiction? Cause the more he shows acting like a human being, the more I'll like the fact that Tiger is a human being.

And if you don't think any of this matters and that it does nothing but harm for the athlete involved, two words: Alex Rodriguez.

A few days ago, I got a call from some recruiters about a position they wanted me to go interview for. Now, the thing is, I have occasionally stretched the truth to get interviews and said I did things for which I did not do. This was one of those instances. Lately, I've been able to make it work and have been able to get myself an interview but this time, they actually had somebody on the staff who knew all the stuff I said I was doing and for thirty minutes, completely grilled me on this stuff. And not in any sort of way that would be easy to fake (like "how do you do this?" or "what would you do if this happens?" because I know enough about the stuff to come up with a semi-decent answer) but stuff I couldn't fake, stuff like "when did you do this? And how many times did you do this?" and "are you telling me that you've done this but the only time you did it was drunkenly at a party and it turns out you got it mixed up with 'Rock Band?'"

That was fun.

My only victory in the whole thing is that I didn't crack, didn't break down and tears and confess to everything and confess about things I never claimed to do ("I never climbed Mt. Everest either'"). In fact, I stayed strong and had the guy on the other end apoplectic on several occasions ("I don't get why you're saying 'Poker Face'" is your favorite song when according to Facebook it's one of those songs from 'Glee!' You don't even like Lady GaGa!"). Yay me.

The thing, though, is that when the recruiter told me about the job, he made it sound more entry-level and something I could do which is why I said sure, why not. Then I read the actual job description on the company's web site and realized that it was way over my head, so much so, I wasn't really comfortable even interviewing for the job and was contemplating telling the recruiter that I didn't want to do it. When the guy called every bluff I had ever made in my life, I didn't really freak out because it was my way of getting out of the situation as it were. I still did some amount of truth stretching (I had to) but I didn't really push it or stretch it that far. And when the guy started acting like a dick about it, whatever sort of flustered feeling that I had went away because I realized it was more fun to fuck with him than it was to panic over the interview. So, yeah, I lied a bit. But I was honest enough to realize my lying wasn't actually in my benefit so I purposely screwed it up.

Besides, the two recruiters I talked to were kind of dicks and deserved whatever shit I threw at them

As I've seen more than my fair share of bands perform live on TV, mainly SNL but some of those stupid awards shows, I'm pretty sure there's some theorem out there that states that the less rocking the artist in question is, the more "rocking" members of the backup band will try to be. Take Taylor Swift's band on SNL-- Swift is a 20 year old sorta country artist who sings either peppy Avril Lavigne like pop songs or the occasional countrified ballad. There is no real rock involved in any of this and I'm pretty sure that's as it's supposed to be since I don't think Taylor's main motivation in life is to be a rock star. So naturally the guitarist in the band had some sort of Adam Lambert fauxhawk type hair, dressed in black, and wore guyliner. The bassist also wore black and spent the entire performance hopping around on his bass like he's Flea. I'm actually surprised he didn't pump his fist in the air a few times (which he might have done and missed).

The same would be true of Kelly Clarkson's backup band or Katy Perry's backup band or the backup band of anyone who appeared on "American Idol" and any other number of middling pop acts with a "rock edge" all of whom have the same type of "rockers" in their backup band. They all come with guys who dress up in black, have expensive haircuts, and treat songs "Since U Been Gone" like Pete Townshend would treat "Baba O'Riley."

I don't know why this is true as it's pretty silly and kinda out of place. Is it because say Taylor Swift's manager think she needs some more "edge" so hires "edgy" looking guitar players? Is it because they know the music is pretty tame and are overcompensating? Is it because they idolized Kurt Cobain and wanted to play in punk rock/art rock bands and make themselves look like fools as a physical manifestation of how they feel about themselves? Or, they could just think Taylor Swift rocks?

Or not.

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Sorry for the political rant here

I've slowly...slowly...started to ween myself off of politics/news, mainly because it was affecting my blood pressure. First it started with swearing off cable news and now I'm starting to ween myself on newspapers, even the NY Times and what not (I gave up on HuffPo weeks ago). Right now, I'm mainly getting my political news from either Talking Points Memo, Wonkette and Oh No They Didn't (they're reporting on the Rihanna/Chris Brown issue has been spectacular) and I feel better. Now if you're wondering why I'm not reading much in the way of politics right now, it's because I don't think I can stand to see anymore of these total pieces of bullshit masquerading as political reporting.

1)"It's time for Obama to be the leader we voted for"

What the fuck does that mean? How does one be that kind of leader? What do they think, that Obama can come walk to Capital Hill and dictate laws and bills like Moses giving everyone the Ten Commandments? "I present to you...a robust public option!" Should he give more speeches or act more like a parent talking to a whiny kid- "okay, if you don't pass health care without a public option, I'm going to send you all to bed without getting supper." Give Evan Bayh a mickey and have him "wake up" in a bed full of hookers and then blackmail him? Have you seen the Senate? Senators are nothing but a bunch of preening, attention whoring divas. And because the Republicans are filibustering everything, you need 60 votes to pass anything and there's no way you can get 60 Democratic Senators to even come together to pass a bill in praise of puppies. Lieberman himself would gaze lovingly in John McCain's eyes, threaten to filibuster the puppy bill, and then go on twenty political talk shows to talk about how awesome he is for being "so independent." Seriously, I bet Lieberman tapes himself on Sunday talk shows and watches them at night while he masturbates.

Which brings us too...

2)"Obama needs to stop being so bipartisan..."

Okay, the stimulus bill was probably watered down a bit to be "bipartisan" but that being said, it still took some serious watering down the watering down to get the 60 votes. But....see above about trying to get 60. If you have to take Olympia Snowe out, buy her a whole new wardrobe, give her free tickets to a Broadway show, and have some Norwegian dude named Hans to give her a months worth of free massages, you probably have to.


3)"Blah blah blah is a serious problem. Obama has to do something about it"

The first version of this column is something along the lines of "FlashForward started off decently but has progressively sucked since then. Obama has to do something about it." It's the relatively small, non-essential issue that a certain segment of people find important (and is important) but isn't really that big of a deal considering all the amazing amounts of crap we have to deal with. Unfortunately, everybody out there has kind of expected Obama to fix every thing in the world in the nine months or so he's been President so I'm seeing a lot of "I gave hundreds of dollars to Obama's campaign and he has yet to do anything about my downstairs neighbors drunkenly fighting all night. That's not the change I believed in!" comments posted on message boards

And then there's the second version of this story, the one that actually involves a real, serious issue. In today's NY Times, there's a column by somebody titled something like "Unemployment is a serious problem. Obama has to figure out something to do about it." It's like "Oh, really?" Do you not think the administration is concerned about unemployment? Are they sitting around thinking "eh, what's 10% unemployment? if you look at it another way, that means we have 90% employment!" And thank you for telling me that this is an important issue. I didn't realize 10% unemployment was that big of a deal.

And while sometimes the column is just 100 words of beating something totally obvious over the readers head, some columnist/pundits (most of whom has absolutely no expertise or knowledge in any of this) have a solution to this incredibly complicated, fucked up issue, which brings us to....

4)"Unless Obama does blah blah blah, dogs and cats will live together!"

There's several thousands of political reporters out there. And on top of that, several thousand political bloggers, each having about 100 or so commenters all with their own opinion of just what Obama should do. And every one of these people are completely and absolutely sure that they know exactly what needs to be done and if Obama doesn't do exactly everything they say, we're doomed.

And that brings us to the dual nature of punditry

5)"Obama is doing too much"

This will then be followed by a list of the things he should be focused on-- an often long, lengthy, and complicated list. Usually not mentioned in this list are anything that could help people who don't own beautiful condos in DC and estates in Virgina (see health care)

6)"Obama isn't doing enough"

Often written by the very same pundit who said the above thing about a week ago

7)"Obama proposed/passed/did this. This could be good news for the Republicans"
This story, basically one big fluffy hedge, is so common I wonder if there's a giant macro out there for pundits/columnists to write this story. Then, they go in and change the issue in question, plug in some new quotes by the same people they always get quotes from, and quickly have their agent get them booked on CNN

But sometimes those types of stories seem too weak, so for the past several years, I've been seeing this:

8)"Obama proposed/passed/did this. This is a win for Republicans"

See the Politico or the Note. It's actually a running joke on lefty blogs where whenever something good happens to Obama, somebody will say in the comments "this is a win for John McCain!"

For example....

9)"A deeply unpopular Governor and lousy Gubernatorial candidate lost which means Obama should probably just resign in shame. Wait, what? The Democrats actually picked up two congressional seats, including one they haven't held since the Civil War? Definitely a win for John McCain."

See this week's election. Seriously, it's like sometimes all the pundits get together before an election over drinks, decide what the storyline will be, and then go out and repeat it over and over again despite whatever the reality might be. Or if it's patently ridiculous.

All political pundits should be fired and forced to work at WalMart.

And, of course, the most obvious one of all:

10)"It was my views that lead to the Iraq war, which we fucked up, and which led us to fuck up Afghanistan, which also made everybody hate us. Oh, that and Guantanamo and all that torturing. Obviously, Obama should do everything I tell him."
I still believe that whenever Krauthammer, Kristol, Cheney, et al appear on TV, there should be a note on the screen listing every thing they've said over the years that turned out completely and totally wrong. And the fact that every reporter they talk to does not say "Yeah, so we followed your policies. How'd that work out for us? Why the fuck do we keep on booking you? Seriously?" is yet another reason I don't watch the news anymore.

We've been watching "FlashForward" since the first episode and we have this weird love/hate thing with it in that parts of it are compelling enough to keep watching-- mainly the basic concept and all the dramatic possibilities the concept can lead to-- but other parts are just awful. The writing/acting/directing are all awful and there's plot holes that are completely swallowed up by other plot holes. In reading through message boards and reviews of the show, I'm pretty convinced part of the reason people are still watching this mess of a show is because it's fun to sit there and point out all the stupidity.

Anyways, like a lot of shows out there, a lot of the plot hinges on information gathered from computers, in this case, FBI computers. And like a lot of shows out there, the user interface is incredibly high-tech and colorful and full of all sorts of cool bells and whistles. And like a lot of shows out there, the computers are able to find all sorts of random and important information (like the population of crows in the world) with just a few presses of the button.

Yes, it's easy to make fun of all of this, but, really, how should they play it. I mean, how boring would it be if all the user interfaces in the computers look the way most user intranet sites look like-- bland, incredibly boring sites. Or how exciting would it be if to find information online, they'd show something that looked like Google.

Which brings up another thing. You know how everybody complains that there's never any traffic when people drive in these shows or there's always parking? Everybody always finds there information right away. I'd love to see a scene that's more realistic, like if somebody were to type in "population of crows" the computer would spit out a bunch of ads for pet products, the Black Crowes home page, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles of a whole bunch of people with Crow as their last name, and a ten year old GeoCities page dedicated to crows featuring horrific graphics and bad midi songs. Lest you think that would be silly and boring on a tv show, imaging the suspense that could happen when say the good guy is being chased and the person on the computer is unable to find the information needed because they keep on getting bad search information. "Hold on Jack, I'm having trouble finding out ways of defusing the bomb-- apparently there's a Death Metal band in Kansas with the same name and I keep on getting their MySpace page. Let me try another search....no damnit, I don't want the lyrics to 'Drop a Bomb on You!'"

Now that's what I call exciting TV.

Job Update

I haven't heard back from that place I talked to last week, the one with the added bonus of a trip to Jamaica added to it. Since the boss-figure just started a two week vacation I do not know whether the lack of my hearing anything means that they decided it all before I left and nobody told me or that it'll be another few weeks before I hear something as there's nothing they can do while she's away in Ireland. While I don't think I got it, I would still like to hear because if you factor in a 1/2 an hour phone interview, a 2 1/12 hour interview with about another hour or so on top of that for dressing and driving over, and the two hours it took to send out five thank you notes, I feel like I should get at least something for my efforts.

Today I heard from three places-- a pretty good haul if you will. The first place I heard from told me to let me know when would be a good time for a job interview and when I replied back with my schedule, I got an email saying that the person who emailed me about the job will be out of the office for the rest of the week. So, I guess, then, he spent the hour or so that he was in the office to take care of stuff to email me and then hopped on a plane soon afterwards. Or did so while in a coffee shop at an airport.

I then heard from a recruiter about a position with a super huge, cool company for a position that I'm way too underqualified for but the recruiter said that the company always sends job descriptions that don't really reflect the actual job and that usually they send over people who meet every qualification only to hear that they were looking for something completely different and that sometimes they send over people with whom they think have no shot due to their lack of requested skills and were told that they were exactly what the company is looking for and hired. I have a feeling things like this always happen and I actually feel a little bit more sympathetic towards recruiters because if I were one, this type of shit would drive me up a fucking wall.

And finally, I heard from a temp agency wanting to know if I was still around. Funny thing about the temp agency is that I originally sent them my resume in April.

In conclusion-- maybe things are looking a bit up? Or maybe it's just some solar flair throwing everything out of whack.