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.

Job Posting of the Day

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See you at the top!"

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.

Just filled out another online job form (took me about ten minutes to do) and this one drove me crazy because it constantly asked for the particular country of either where I live or where I worked. This wouldn't be a big deal but you had to use a drop-down menu to get to your country and this brings up one of my big pet peeves about a lot of drop-down menus-

Basically, I hate it when either USA or America is not like the first option and instead, you have to scroll all the way down into the "U" for "United States of America." Yes, call me a small-minded America firster.

Now, I know what you're saying-- why should we get priority over, say, China or Denmark?

Well, to that I answer it's a job in America. With an American company.

So you might say, but a lot of companies are multi-national corporations and have places all over the world.

Well, to that I said there's a good chance that the company is only in America

So what if you're wrong and the company is in more places than you think?

Well, to that I said that might be true but do they really have to put Uganda, North Korean and Djubuti in your menu as I'm pretty sure Company X is not doing business in Pyongyang. And do you have to have between 5-10 instances where you have to enter the country because I wasted like five minutes constantly scrolling past those countries and others like Albania and Afghanistan. I mean, it's a company that's involved in cable TV and I'm pretty sure there's not a lot of cable in Albania and I'm really, really positive you cannot watch "Project Runway" on the Lifetime Channel even if you are a CIA operative living in the embassy.

And to that, you say, "yeah, that's a little friggin ridiculous."

I hate doing thank you notes after an interview as I see it as one more possible chance to screw something up. Like they could be about to hire me and HR is already to find out if I should make shit loads of money or loads of money but then I send a thank you note with a misspelled word or a typo and here comes the "sorry, we're going with somebody else" email. All this worry despite the fact that from most indications, it doesn't matter. It's just another hoop to go through-- a box you're supposed to check-- and it's hazy as to whether or not people even read it. Yet, still, I find them nerve wracking to do.

During yesterday's interview, I met with five other people. For every person with whom I had to meet, I had about half an hour with them and when that time was up, they'd bring in the next person. And yes, it's grueling. But the question I had this morning-- the day after-- was that if I were going to send a thank you note, should I just send one to the boss, the entire group as a whole, or all five of them individually. The answer? Send one to each individual person. This meant having to write and send five thank you notes.

Okay, yes, I could just write one and send it all to the same people but most people said it's good to personalize it a bit to make it seem less like it's a form letter. This is also important because all of the people with whom I talked to all worked next to each other so if I did just copy the same text into each email, they'd all notice it. Again, it might not matter at all, but it could. This meant adding a little personal bit to each email which meant that, yes, that's five more chances to screw it up.

Took me all afternoon to get up the courage to finally send them. It didn't help that I kept on having images of all of them sitting there next to each other getting pinged by my thank you note within seconds of each other.

Lively Up Myself

That whole confusion over phone numbers worked itself out pretty easily and as a result, I have an interview in a few hours. The thing is that while talking to the person who interviewed me, she at one point asked me if I don't mind traveling as the company has several off-sites that everyone attends. Later, when things were going rather well, she asked again if not only can I travel but would I be able to soon and have a passport. When I pressed her, she said the next off-site is in December and whomever they hire has to go despite the fact they just started a few weeks before the off-site. Thus the question about the passport. Oh, and the offsite? It'll be in Jamaica.

So, great, as if I don't have enough pressure on me just to get the job, I know now there's also a free trip to Jamaica riding on it.

And one more thing...

...so the phone number that was given to me goes to the desk of another person, another person who doesn't appear to be there as she never picks up the phone. The phone with which the HR person called me doesn't quite work as it just rings and rings and rings. Then I decided to look up the office's phone number and found it on Google and so I called. It's a customer service line for something the company offers. I looked up the phone number in the white pages and Yelp only to discover they had the same wrong number too. Then I called 411 and, hold on to your seats, it was the same incorrect number. Either the company lied about their office phone number or just recently changed it and the new number hasn't taken hold yet.

So, in other words, I'm not exactly sure what to do here.

Today's Job Update

I never heard back from the dumbass HR woman, the one who left me with such an ambiguous voice mail that I thought I had a job, about the status of the job as supposedly they were to have let me know mid-way last week. I'm pretty sure I didn't get it and I'm pretty sure I'm somewhat okay with it but I'd at least like to know for sure, especially in light of her making such a production out of that one phone call, and I've decided to hound her until I get an answer about the job. If she's going to be such a shitty HR person, I'm going to at least make her do her job and have to tell me I didn't get the job. I'm also doing this so she'll have to feel whatever sort of pain involved in telling somebody they don't have a job. If HR people do, in fact, feel pain.

This morning I emailed her only to find out she's now on vacation. For two weeks.

Anyways, this morning I got a call about another job. Funny thing about this one-- the HR person gave me the wrong # to call her back at.

Last weekend, I went to a wedding and while telling everyone my new found-love of Denmark, I heard from a Swedish woman who told me that everything I had heard about Denmark was true and that Denmark was a wondrous country full of shiny, happy people with not a care in the world as they lived on the Happiest Place on Earth. Even compared to Sweden who, despite the fact ABBA came from there, were a little bit more prone towards melancholy and sadness.

I am in love.

This made me think about why I've become feeling so socialist these days, more so than I usually am. And here's why-- I've been laid off at least three times in my life. How's that American Style capitalism working for me?

The other day, I was sitting in the jacuzzi at the Y and eavesdropping on a fifty-something guy talking to somebody else about his plight. He got a Masters in Computer Electronics when he was in school and has been a computer engineer all of his life. He recently got laid off from Microsoft and now he's basically looking for work, plowing through his savings, and coming close to running out unemployment. When the guy he was talking to asked what he was going to do, the man, with a barely disguised tone of disgust and despair in his voice, said that all the experts and politicians says he needs to go to community college to either sharpen his skills or learn something new. This man was in his 50's, had about thirty years of experience and a good education and now he was staring at the reality of having to go back to school to learn something new so he can get a lower-end job that would probably pay him at least half of what he was making before.

How's American style capitalism working for him?

Then there's this story, about how in order to survive, companies are cutting salaries, health care benefits, and 401K payouts. Somebody commented in the story about how he took a 10% pay cut in order to keep his job but was now slowly coming to realize that it'll probably take him 3-4 years before he can ever get enough in raises to get back to the salary he had before. On top of that, he's now paying more for health care so his expenses have gone up and he's earning less for retirement which means he either has to take more money out of his salary for retirement or retire later in life. Or work at Safeway.

So, how's American-style capitalism working for him and all the other people in the same boat?

Just wondering-- when you write a check, how does the bank and or credit card company and or gas company know exactly the amount you're filling out the check for? Yes, it's really kind of easy in a lot of regards in that a lot of people have nice, clear handwriting and take the time to write their check with their nice handwriting but a lot of people (not me, of course) have bad handwriting and don't spend a lot of time making their checks legible. So, if say, you fill out a check for $28.78 but make the $28.78 part (or even the name of the company you're writing out the check for) so illegible that it doesn't even look like $28.78, how is the bank supposed to know? Do they just guess? Have handwriting experts to study it? Just take out a lot of money thinking that that's what the check writer would want?

Last week, I had that job interview, the one I wrote earlier about getting the wrong instructions from the HR person. When the interview was over, I was told that I'd hear a decision about the job next Wednesday. That Wednesday being tomorrow.

About an hour ago, I got a voice mail message from the HR person saying "blah...blah...blah...I just wanted to talk you...blah...blah...blah...see what your availability is." Now, first off, HR people never call you about a job unless you get it-- if you don't get it, you get an email. Second of all, it's the day before I'm supposed to know. And finally, there's those magic words "availability." Why that word? All of this made me very cooly and calmly think about the possibility THAT THEY WERE ABOUT TO OFFER ME A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After all, why the call? And the words "availability?" Now that could have meant meeting with other people, or so I realized after almost having a heart attack, but I did have an interview with President of the company. Who else would I need to meet with?

Oh yeah, and there's the fact I'm not necessarily sure I'd like the job, let alone be good with it.

Heart racing, I called the HR person back, thinking that it was either-- at best-- the start of the long negotiation at employment or --at worst-- the scheduling of one more interview round.

It was neither-- the HR person was just calling me back to get feedback about last week's meeting. A week after the meeting. Not the day after or the day or but a week after. It was also to tell me they'll have a decision tomorrow. Which they said would happen-- last week.

Oh, when I called and introduced myself, she said "how did it go this morning." To which I naturally paused as I had no idea what she was talking about. Which means there's a very probably chance she called me instead of the person who interviewed there this morning.

This week's Love/Hate U2 Index

I read a write up of U2's big show in Dallas and there was a listing of celebrities who went to the show, including Tiger Woods. Right before "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" Bono decides to dedicate the song to Tiger. So I'm thinking, can you think of a more blatant rock star move, to dedicate a well-beloved song, inspirational song to a bajillionaire sports athlete whom you hang out with? And the way it's done makes it come off as one big inside joke between the world-famous rock star and the world-famous golfing icon. "Yeah, this song goes out to my buddy Tiger Woods who was just saying he'd like to win more tournaments and make millions of dollars-- take it away Edge!!!!!!!!"

What's next, dedicating to "One" to the rumored-to-be squabbling Brangelina and Bono's neighbors in the South of France? "Beautiful Day" to all the recently laid off investment bankers who managed Bono's portfolio?

I've been slacking off at the gym for the past few weeks and haven't really seriously gone in awhile. When I started going again, I noticed that several people who are always there were no longer there. This was a little disconcerting in that I started to wonder where could they have gone to in the few weeks that I had stopped going? Unless they suddenly decided to not go to the gym, why wouldn't I see them again? To make things even more intriguing is that one of them, the super crazy fitness girl, was no longer at the gym, but there were pictures of her all over the gym. Had she achieved such a state of fitness perfection that she had ascended to a higher fitness plane?

And today I saw them, both of them, working out as if nothing had changed. Everything is back in it's right place.

Last week I went to use my ATM/Credit card to buy a bottle of wine and the card got denied. As in can't use the ATM card AT ALL. This is always a scary thing, especially when you're unemployed and not bringing in a lot of income. Oh, I have money and I knew I had money when I bought the wine, but still there were a few moments there when I was thinking "oh shit, I'm broke. I guess I'm going to be sharing the cat food with the cat."

Turns out one of the places I used the card got hacked over the past week and the bank decided to shut down my card. Great for them but you know, it would have been nice to have known that beforehand.

Now the actual point of this post is completely different, but....

Way back before banks went kablooie, you were able to pay credit cards off online pretty much the day before it was due. This made sense because we have computers and all sorts of fancy technology and it's just a matter of certain beeps connecting with other beeps to create a happy beep. Suddenly, I've been noticing that it's no longer possible for banks to handle payments online in one day. For whatever reason, they say they need three days to handle this. I guess maybe the servers are really busy these days. Or the electronic request gets printed out and give to a Wells Fargo stagecoach to hand over to a bank manager.

Luckily, the banks have figured out a way to help all of us who are sporadically late with our payments, they can actually send the money electronically in a day BUT you have to pay an extra $15. That Wells Fargo stagecoach guy needs to feed his family, you know. I guess what this means is that paying a credit card electronically is like buying something on Amazon these days in that whenever you do it, you have a selection of different shipping options.

God damn fucking banks.

Yesterday's job interview had a whole new wrinkle, that being the HR person telling me to go to the wrong place. Well, actually I went to the right place but it had the wrong Suite # on it and so was sent from the actual place I was supposed to go to the corporate office across the courtyard so I could ping the HR person and ask where the fuck I was supposed to go. I was, of course, officially late when I went up to buzz the HR person and asking a HR person for directions because you're lost never looks good. Yay me.

As I said, I did go to the right place but one of the things that looked screwy was that the entire company was sitting around a conference table having a team meeting. A team meeting that was going on when I was supposed to have an interview. Not a really good time to have to go walking into a place. I eventually said "screw it" and knocked on the door to get somebody's attention but here's the other thing about my instructions from the HR person-- she didn't actually say who I was supposed to meet with so when the person came to get me, all I could say was that I'm here to meet with somebody about an interview but that was about it. Oh, and as I also had the wrong suite #, I was quickly shooed out of there.

Luckily, this all got sorted out fairly quickly and I was brought back into the correct office and placed in a meeting room far, far away from everybody else. Unfortunately, nobody came to meet with me. As I was going on minute 10 I began to debate when I would call the HR person to see what was going on but somebody came in. Then they left and another person came in. Then that was over and when they asked me if I was supposed to meet with anybody else, I told them I had no idea. Since he didn't either, he told me to wait here while he figures out what to do next and if there's nobody else to see, he'll escort me out. Ten minutes later, nobody came. Once again I began to debate whether to call HR or to just wander out.

Luckily somebody else came in, a big tall guy who looked like David Wallace from the Office. He asked me a few basic questions and then moved onto the "so what do you like to do in your free time" type questions, you know, the questions that people ask when they've run out of questions and want to be polite. So wanting to be polite back, I asked the guy what he did at the company. Turns out he was the guy who ran the place. And here he was, hearing me go on about how much I like to watch TV.

The interview ended and he asked me if there was anybody else I was supposed to meet. When I told him I didn't know, he said he'd go find out and then get back to me. And, like everybody else, he wandered off and wandered off and didn't return. One minute...five minutes...almost ten minutes in and he finally returned back so that nope, that was it and I was done and then the guy who ran the company, the guy who founded it and built it escorted me out of the office as if he had nothing else to do with his time.

Got a voice message from one of my recruiters about a possible job that he needed to fill very quickly. In the message he also said that it won't be in the "Bay Area." So I'm thinking, what San Jose? Campbell? Antioch? At this point, sure, why not?

Turns out by "not in the Bay Area" he didn't mean Los Gatos, he meant Austin Texas. Yes, a recruiter from here called me about a job he's looking to fill in Austin Texas.

Now why would he think I'd be interested in a job in Austin? He's either really, really desperate or thinks that I'm really, really desperate. Which I am, but that's a whole other thing. So I added up the pluses and minuses of moving there to try and see whether it's worth or not

Positive
-It's a job and they must be so desperate for a job they'd hire even me
-They must be really desperate for a job
-Austin is supposed to be a really nice
-It's only for six months.

And the negatives?
-It's a bit of a commute
-IT'S IN FUCKING TEXAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously, I'm not going to even think about it. Unless the recruiter offers to fly me down there myself in which case I'll go but only because, hello "free trip!"

Another thing about going to the theater

-Before the movie started, I went to the bathroom where I was, umm, in a position where I wasn't standing and heard this loud whooosh sound, like a train going past followed by some mild shaking and the rattling of the bathroom stall walls. First reaction was that it was an earthquake but strangely didn't panic or make much of it for whatever reason (that's kind of atypical of me, actually, as being on a toilet during any sort of bad thing is a huge phobia of mine and if anybody says that's silly and they don't have that fear, they are lying). Instead, it occurred to me, that what happened was that a movie next to the bathroom was so loud that it rattled the men's room. Yay Hollywood!

-As usual, there was the assortment of people talking through the movie which was slightly tolerable since it's a horror movie and that's what you kinda do in horror movies as it's a good way to relieve tension or share what you're going through with people. Still, it's hard to tell that all of this is because it's a horror movie or because they like talking in movies. Then there was the guy with the cell phone. Now, sadly, we've all gotten to the point where we all kind of expect somebody to bust out a cell phone during a movie. However, whipping your cell phone out towards the end of the movie as what should be obvious as the final scene of the movie, the scene that the entire movie had been building to and the scene where the big, big, big scares happen is slightly on the you're a motherfucking doucehbag asshole side of things.