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One of my favorite parts of the Oscars is when they pay tribute to all the people who died in the past year. Unforunately, I didn't get to see that part last night. Does that mean those people never really died? Hmm.  Signs my new job isn't as stressful as the last: -In the morning, I don't toss and turn in bed for an hour before my alarm clock goes off -No upset stomachs or fear of heart attacks -I don't pray for redlights on my drive to work -My boss buys me presents when I have a lot of work to do -No stopping for $6 cases of Icehouse on the way home -Our workplace mantra: "Work hard. Play harder." -Deadlines revolve around movies and Family Guy episodes -I don't want to maul anyone in the office (...yet) ---------- Moving updates, for those who care: Still no definite date on when I'm moving to Elizabethtown. Technically, I've already been approved for an apartment, but the current tenant doesn't seem to know when she's moving out. I had a chance to tour this tenant's home on Monday ... while she wasn't there. She was described by the landlord as being "the worst tenant they've ever had." She forewarned me about dark, Goth decorations as if the tenant were the Wicked Witch herself. When we went inside, I studied the apartment's amenities while the landlord frowned upon the black underwear hanging on the wall, the plastic Halloween spiderwebs in the bathroom. There was a pie on the kitchen counter. I didn't eat it. But, despite all the trash and dirty clothes on the floor, I would have moved in right then if I could have. There's a possibility I may have to wait until March 31 for this apartment ... which would mean another month of my 4-hour round-trip drive to work ... but I think I'm willing to wait. If it means being comfortable for the next two years or so ... I can survive one more month of this painful schedule. And suddenly I have about an hour of free time per day. Quick updates: Work is great. I haven't been fired yet. I secured an apartment, but I don't know when I can move in. I have red hair. Tomorrow I will force myself out of bed at 4 a.m. for my first day of work since early November. Not since high school have I had to adjust to a schedule as ridiculous as this. Of course, back then I was Paperboy Extraordinaire! Every morning, in a half-dead state, I'd ride my bike to the corner, pick up my bundle of newspapers, sit on the kitchen floor putting on the rubber bands (or bags if it was raining), and deliver to about 20-30 houses on my street before showering to go to school. I had done this every day since I was 7 years old in attempt to get a small college scholarship. In the end this scholarship paid for about 1% of my education. The other night someone asked me if I thought there had ever been any serial murders of paperboys. I generally don't question such comments from this individual, and, in fact, his query intrigued me. Have there been? I don't know. But I will say this ... in my 10 years experience as a paperboy, I walked through a lot of spider webs in the dark, slipped on a lot of ice, and almost stepped on a homeless person. But dosh garnit, it was all worth it! Ah, the fun in finding a new home. Hoorah to renters everywhere! I start my new copywriting job on Monday, which will require me to commute about 90 min to work every day until I can find a place of my own. Searching frantically, I am. Unlike my move to Georgia, however, I have been able to survey the areas where I may decide to live. Downtown Lancaster? Too trashy. Suburban Lancaster? Too Amish. Hershey? Too chocolatey. York? Too Yorkish. Unfortunately, the luxury of being able to browse these places beforehand only intensifies my first impressions to the point of full blown paranoia. Oooh. A person walking down the street. Is she a crackhead? Why is she wearing that ugly red hat? I hate this town. My god, a dog without a leash. What is this, a zoo? What ... no ... that person did not just run across the street with scissors in their hands. Of course, I can't help but analyze what the locals think of me when they see me walking down their streets, taking pictures of houses with my digital camera. Basically, I just assume they think I'm a murderer out to steal their babies and eat them for Wednesday brunch. Good thing I'm not. Eh-hem. What? Stop that. So, I've basically settled with the idea of living in the same town where I work, Elizabethtown, known mainly for its college of the same name--and, apparently, its "sister city" County Donegal, Ireland. It seems, at least, to have plenty of fine establishments for me to wet my whistle, or milk the local heifers, and that's basically all I need--that and a burrito stand, which I have yet to find. Stay tuned. Yesterday I received a voicemail from my old 'boss' in Savannah. He said he had been contacted by my newest employer because I had listed him as a reference. Somewhat strange, I thought, considering I had already accepted their offer the day before. But, then again, I haven't received the offer in writing yet, so I have reason to be a little bit scared. Thankfully, I was comforted to learn today that my former boss not only said some wonderful things about me, but he was also "stoned off his ass" when he did it. Great. He did, however, reinforce my lie about my last salary, which I had felt the need to greatly inflate on my application ... not because I wanted more money in my next position, but because I didn't want my last job to appear as if it was at some low-budget, shady publication being produced out of a basement. (Although, minus the basement part, that's basically what it was.) I assume I'm still hired, but nonetheless concerned that a call to my other reference will not yield similar lies about my salary and work ethic, even if that ex-boss isn't toking the peacepipe when they call him. Perhaps you've read recently about a shooting in an upstate NY mall. Well, that's not any mall, folks. It's the Hudson Valley Mall. Better known to fellow Bardians and myself as the Kingston Mall. It's a mall where I have several times gone to see movies, to buy dvds, and, in some cases, to try on women's clothing for the most extravagant of events at Bard. In the ruralish area where I went to school, this mall was one of the main attractions. In fact, when I first heard about the shooting--that a man walked into a Best Buy and just started spraying people with an AK-47--my only thought was: "That has to be a Bard student." When I heard the suspect was 24 years old, I thought: "That has to be a Bard graduate." But, alas, the suspect appears to be just some crazy guy with a fascination for Columbine. Anyway ... basically all I'm saying is ... Hey, I know that mall! -------- After five straight weeks of interviews, today I had my last one. Tomorrow I will send a letter to the woman I met and I will tell her that I must withdraw my application. I will do the same for another company, and, as crazy as it seems to me now, I will reject an offer that was presented to me Friday. By some crazy force of luck that I can only imagine will crumble before me at any moment, I was offered my top choice job today--finally putting me on a career path that I am interested in, into a field that I have been trying to break into since I graduated. I'm going to be moving to Bumfuck, Pennsylvania for a little while, but let me just say that this is a damn good day. Anyway, here's an interesting article about bloggers being fired for posting about their employers. As I may have mentioned before, I try not to post anything about my dreams because I generally don't care about other people's dreams. Sure, dreams are interesting and bizarre, but usually only to the people who had them. That said, last night I was shot twice. It stung only a bit, but once I saw the blood I felt tired and realized it was good time to take a nap on the ground. I closed my eyes for a brief second but reopened them with determination that I could force myself to stay awake and make it to the hospital in enough time to at least say goodbye to friends and family. Though I don't remember how, I soon realized that I had already died the moment I first closed my eyes. I imagine my real death being like this some day, except without gun shots or the subsequent realization that I'm dead. If it weren't for a brief scene in Steven Seagal's 2003 action-adventure "Out for a Kill," which I noticed on USA while flipping through channels this morning, I may never have remembered this dream. ---- On a brighter note, I received a job offer today, but, because I'm such a stud, I'm forced to delay my answer in order to hear from other potential employers. What the fuck. Somehow I know I'm going to get screwed in this situation.  For about three years now I've had Ralph Macchio's screenname on my AIM buddy list, thanks to a friend who stole his email address from confidential file during a summer internship. The Karate Kid himself comes online fairly often. Actually, I tend to believe it's his wife--or one of his kids--who surfs the Web so much. Nonetheless, I'm fairly certain of the screenname's authenticity since it matches a combination of numbers and letters of his personal profile, i.e. birthday, initials, etc. I haven't IMed Ralph yet. I'm still waiting to figure out exactly the right thing to say. All it will take is one seemingly nutty IM from a crazed fan of My Cousin Vinny--and then he'll block me immediately and I'll never speak to him again. During my junior year in college, around the time when the screenname was first given to me, I went through what I now call my Macchio Phase. That is, I spoke highly of The Karate Kid and Mr. Miyagi too, and I even began to wear a white bandana wherever I went--to the grocery store, to dinner, to class. For an event that I tried to coordinate with the Office of Residence Life, I fought for funds to bring Pat Morita to speak about The Karate Kid at my school. I even contacted his agent -- but in the end, Mr. Miyagi did not come. Anyway, I'm still trying to think of the right way to start an IM conversation with Ralph Macchio. It's strange to think that it was 20 years ago--20 YEARS!--that he defeated the Cobra Kai dojo. Meanwhile, the complete Karate Kid Collection is now on DVD--including it's red-headed stepchild 'The Next Karate Kid'--along with commentary by Macchio, Morita, writer Robert Mark Kamen, and director John Avildsen. Also, here's a CNN interview with Macchio. I sit and fill out my employment application, list all my references, and wait nervously for my interviewer to come get me, as I have done so many times over the past three weeks. "Hi. Nice to meet you. How was your trip?" she asks, guiding me back to her office. The pre-interview chat is the same as all the others. We sit down. No. You've got to be kidding me. You've got to be fucking kidding me! My interviewer has a lazy eye. MY GOD, MY INTERVIEWER HAS A FUCKING LAZY EYE! "So why do you want to work here?" It's not even a full blown lazy eye. It's like partially lazy. I can't tell if she's looking at me or behind me. Jesus, are either of her eyes looking at me? Which eye do I look at it? Can she tell if I'm looking in the wrong eye? Maybe I'll just stare at her nose. Wait..what's this? You've got to be fucking kidding me! A lash is falling into my eye. I can see it hanging there. It falls in. It's stabbing me. I have to rub it, but I can't. I wait until she gets up to show me a publication that her company produces, and I yank at my eye lashes and rub furiously. The lash disappears ... not out of my eye, but somewhere deep under my eyelid, and the pain is excruciating. My lazy-eyed interviewer sits back down and I cannot help but wink at her for the remainder of my time with her. This has to be a nightmare. Please God wake me up! Nope. This is the life I live. Some late night revelations from yesterday: 1) If you move into a house whose front yard has been used as a depository for murdered bodies, go back in time and seek Albert Einstein for answers. Such is the logic of my dreams. and 2) There should be a soft drink for sale that also acts as a lottery ticket. Even if the drink costs an extra dollar, at least then you wouldn't feel bad if you didn't win the lottery. The money didn't go to waste. It went towards the hydration of your (unmurdered) body. |
Late night snacks. Bite-sized ramblings. Old-fashioned eats, served fresh daily. Open 24-7.  Other blogs Fireballs and Tsunami JeffreyDavis.net Mismatched Parentheses NimbleSixpence One Tortured Soul Palpably Inadequate Picnic, Lightning Pony Legs, Temporarily Supernouveau Wander Lust In my DVD player Archives June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 Other stuff Homestarrunner One Slime DeepDiscountDVD Olde English Sketch Comedy Live Music Archive Copy Army Copywriting Service Love & Radio This One Time Email me mmjunior / at / hotmail   
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