Everybody's working for the Wii-kend

Apologies for a horrible pun, but damn does that tiny white console own my every spare thought. And now that I'm a working stiff, I can afford such frivolities with the same ease I always have, but also with a distinct lack of guilt for knowing it was really my parents who could afford them. A band named CAKE once pointedly asked "Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?" It's me now, baby.

We're just jumping in in the middle here, which works for movies, but since nobody's pointing a gun to my head, and I'm not calmly wondering how I got myself into this situation as the scene freezes, it's probably better to back up a bit. (Besides have you seen Domino? It took a voice over, two types of on-screen, written exposition, and the Director's commentary to keep all those loose threads together. And since there's little chance of Kiera Knightley showing up, I won't put you through that.)

Last Friday, I got a call from a company (we'll call them Tech Industries), there's a roundabout story concerning how I got in touch with them, but it isn't really important. Things happened pretty fast. At 11:00 I talked to them on the phone, by 11:30 I had an interview, by 4:15 I was hired. "Didn't know what Tech Industries was this morning, now I'm working there."

Though technically I'm working for Tech, really I'm contracted out to an international paper company*. The Office theme song rings in my ears a few times a day**. As far as what the job entails, the title is "Computer Operator." I hope I can live up to the lofty expectations it implies. I mean, four years of computer science are all well and good... but do I really feel qualified to be a Computer Operator? Needless to say I'm taking a few classes at the learning annex on the side, you know, just to make completely sure I feel able to operate a computer. (Really though, it's basically a network admin-ish job.)

Best of all? I get to wake up at 1:00 PM everyday, also guilt free, because I don't have to be at work until 3:00. Basically, I've found a job that lets me continue the lifestyle I established while mooching off my parents***. It really couldn't have worked out better.

- Scott

* The trend amongst my closest blogging cohorts seems to be toward not mentioning the name of the company to avoid getting fired, so I'll hop on that bandwagon.
** And really, it should, because I just realized that it would make an awesome ringtone.
*** Even into the workplace, yesterday there was nothing to do for several hours and we were hungry. Solution: Order pizza and watch Beerfest. Was the network still running during all of this? Yes. So technically we were doing our jobs.

300

On this, my birthday, my 300th post, and my first day at work, I have this to say: I've noticed that people will watch others being mugged, raped, or killed and do nothing. But Jesus, if I leave my lights on as I'm walking into Wal-Mart fifteen people will stop me and tell me about it. They're automatic, people. They go out.

Also, this being my 300th post, I think I should plug the movie by the same name that I'm wicked excited about. Watch this trailer, if you aren't excited check your pulse, most likely you've legally died.

I promise you all a full post sometime tomorrow (early in the morning). Now that I've moved into my new lofty apartment and got settled in I have infinite time for posting (not to mention at work as well).

- Scott

Ah... Jerseyville

Where the food is just a little sweeter. Where the police are just a little slower. ...Where racism is just a little less thinly veiled.

Would it have been better if he wasn't wrestling African American opponents? Maybe. Discuss.

- Scott

Pass me an XX note.

In keeping with my commitment to calling all notes by their roman numeral, instead of just the much lauded "C" note, my title refers to the $20 bill. "Why?" you ask in that demanding tone of yours? Well, my vernacular has become infected with $20 words. The origin of this term is elaborate, and near impossible to condense down to a couple of sentences. I do so below.

In middle school I had a choral teacher who used to compliment me on my use of "ten-dollar" words*. Well, with inflation, and an ever expanding vocabulary (including the swear words of foreign languages) I think $20 is a fair sum these days.

Anyway, they've spread through my vernacular like cancer through a prostate. They started innocently enough. An "ubiquitous" here, an "ignoble" there. But suddenly I'm constructing sentences that are needlessly obscure. I think I literally said the other day something along the lines of:

"He'd do well to get that papuliferous ass of his out of my quarters before things get any uglier than necessary walking around looking like that."

Seriously? Saying quarters is bad enough (even if it was applicable) but I also felt the need to toss off papuliferous? Am I too good for the word, pimply**? Hell, most people don't know what I mean when I say "vapid."

Ah well... I guess it could be worse. Thank god it wasn't tabloid words; if anyone ever hears me reporting that someone has been "spotted canoodling with" someone else, or if I EVER call a singer a "sultry siren," or even worse, a "crooner***" may God strike me dead.

- Scott

* I have, on many occasions, been praised for my vocabulary, which I find strange because the praise often originates from people who wouldn't even grudgingly admit that I was smart enough to be trusted with fireworks.
** Yes, actually but that's more a matter of appearence.
*** Seriously, who talks like that?

Buggre Alle this for a Lark!

I've just finished Good Omens*, which itself I suppose is a good omen. At least it signals the start of my actually finishing things. Grad school, I'm looking in your direction. But in a larger sense, I fear my time in the fair city of vice and studies has come to an end. And so it is that I'm moving home while seeking a post-college job.

"Oh really? Moving home after college? Well give us just a moment to duck behind something substantial so we don't get hit by the shrapnel from that mold you're shattering," I hear you saying.

And I reply: "Nobody likes a smartass," gleefully ignoring the number of hits and comments on this very blog suggesting that occasionally, people do like a smartass. Especially a shapely one.

I wrestled this decision for longer than I needed to, having seen that it was really the only viable option days ago. But every Adam needs his Greasy Johnson right**? I guess it was just an elaborate observation of formality, but I really wanted to hate this decision enough that I wouldn't actually go through with it. Unfortunately, my hatred of radiator based heat and my love of laundry magically disappearing from my bedroom floor, only to reappear, clean, in drawers and closets had a large bearing on my decision.

Tomorrow? My thoughts on the ritual of the job search. Sleep well.

- Scott

*A book which forced laughter upon me with all the inexorable force of Gideons*** shoving little green New Testament Bibles into the hands of the off-guard.

** If you haven't read Good Omens and this line doesn't sound dirty to you, I ask you to take a sex education course, see a Kevin Smith movie, and visit the bathroom of any men's room in any Junior High, anywhere.

*** They seem to have taken a page from the homeless in the area and starting working in a net formation. Seeing one ahead of you and crossing the street to avoid him only forces you into another one, cleverly set up directly across the street from where you were attempting to escape the hobos in the first place.

Welcome to the WORLD OF TOMORROW

Fun things have been going on in my world lately.

If there were a font that conveyed deadpan sarcasm I would have used it. I would call it Dana. Unfortunately there is no Dana there is only Zuul. And Zuul, as it happens, also goes by "Times New Roman," "Ariel," and "Default Brower Font."

Anyway, in every life there is some trouble. But when we lack cool Firefox extentions, we make it double. In short: this has made my life worth living. I won't tell you exactly what it does. I'll only tell you that it makes browsing the internet with Firefox something to be marveled at. It takes the internet of today and makes it into the internet we see in movies... minus horrid beeping noises whenever someone uses a keyboard.

Just use it.

- Scott

P.S. PC's only. Sorry Mac's.

Excuse Our Dust (where Dust = Emo Outburst)

Please pardon the below. I was temporarily emsane. Emsanity is a condition where, due to a percieved tragedy a person becomes temporarily emo (though for some the condition is known to last years). I was lucky. The emsanity passed within minutes, but not before I had given myself an asymetric haircut, bought a messenger bag which I covered in small buttons bearing ironic statements, and wrote a shitty acoustic guitar song about my feelings.

Thank God I got out before I started cutting people. I know you're really supposed to cut yourself to let the pain out, but I'm very sympathetic so I think it would do. Besides, what immortal hand or eye could cut my fearful symmetry? (Lingering poetry references are an aftereffect of emsanity, bear with me.)

If I've brought infected any of you with my earlier affliction I have good news: there is a cure. And that cure, that I stumbled upon in the course of my moping, is ridiculous pictures of me. I had forgotten these as they existed in a time when I was between digital cameras.

Take three, as often as you'd like. And call me in the morning. Seriously. I have a hard time getting up. Enjoy.

Beware: Not every street on the coast of Mexico takes high tide into account. And no one could have predicted those gams! (I bet Nostradamus feels like a failure.)

Survivorman learned it all right here. On a desert island? Pick up part of a tree and do some reps. It might not help you survive, but at least when they find you they'll remark on your guns.

Imagine I get killed. There, you've seen Apocalypto. Taken at the table where sacrifices were offered, I kid you not, about half a second before our Mayan tour guide put a stop to it. I'm fun to travel with. (And I think a bit large for their sacrifical altar.)

And that's all I've got for now. If you're still emo, I suggest you hang around in Hot Topic, buy a bunch of modern artists on vinyl albums, and start calling the Salvation Army, "Salvo's" because you're in there so often.

Good luck.

- Scott

This fucking computer

Sorry I'm in a vitriolic mood. Seriously I'm filled with bile at the moment. Which is really not the way you want to start a posting year. But I don't consider this the true post. I lost the true post, which was absolutely the best I've written in a few months. As a result, I feel physically ill.

I'll get back in the kind of headspace I need to be in to write sometime tonight or tomorrow and I'll try to reproduce it. Or at least "cover" it in the sense that a band covers a song, but it's never really the same.

On the upside, I managed not to smash my computer, which I was very very close to doing. Small victories.

- Scott