Leave Me Alone. Send.

I got contacted by several more recruiters over the past couple of days, which, given my situation of having to try to choose between a definite offer for a job I don't especially want and a slightly less definite offer for a job that I do want wasn't exactly helping.
It made me want to respond to them in the way that Satan responds to Lucy in this clip from Lucy The Daughter of The Devil:

Now I've Got That Stupid "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?" Song Stuck In My Head

So I spoke to the recruiter from the company that I want to work for and she let me know that I am a lock for the position.
The problem, though, is that the position doesn’t actually exist yet, and they just submitted their final proposal justifying the creation of the position, and won’t hear back until next week, possibly as late as Wednesday.
So I’ve got the job, if the job actually proves to exist.
In the meantime, the other job does exist, and I also have it.
I tried to stall for time, saying that I was definitely interested and would be willing to take the job, but could I make a final decision next week after I hear back about the other one?
That didn’t really work out, and so I decided that I would actually accept the job with the caveat that if/when I get the other offer I’m taking it.
I’m not locked into taking my second choice job, so really the worst-case scenario here is that after everything shakes down, pretty much no matter what I have a job.
Honestly, this is sort of an enviable position to be in; I’m guaranteed to have a job that, while not ideal, is certainly something I can live with and is familiar territory, but the odds are nearly as good that I have a job that is much closer to the ideal.
It’s win-win, right?
So why is my stomach in knots?

Having Too Many Choices Worse Than Having None?

So I just got a call from the recruiter for the job I interviewed for yesterday letting me know that they want to extend me an offer.
I can't really accept an offer until I know whether or not I'm going to be offered the other job that I actually want, and I haven't heard back from them yet.
So I called in to let the recruiter for the job I want know about the other offer, but got her voicemail.
Hopefully she calls back soon. Obviously I need a job, but I'd hate to take a job I don't want rather than a job that I do want, but then there's that whole "bird in the hand" thing.
Aargh.

Unsealed Deal

So my interview went pretty well. The guy interviewing me pretty much told me that I would be one of the people offered a job, as he said that, looking over my résumé and just talking with me for a few minutes he could tell I’d be a perfect fit.
This was after I told him that I’m pretty much expecting another job offer. He said, “That’s too bad. For us, I mean.”
I told him that the deal wasn’t sealed, though, and to keep me in mind just in case things don’t work out.
When I got there I was greeted by someone from the recruiting company. All I’ll say is that apparently there are a lot of hot chicks working in the field of technical recruiting.
I let her know about the potential/likely job as well.
After that it was off to the comic shop to meet up with Scott. Stacy and the kids were along for the ride, as they’re down to one vehicle.
Due to Thanksgiving, the new comics won’t be in until tomorrow, so we all just went to eat at the Mexican restaurant. After dinner we got to see Santa riding around in a horse-drawn carriage.
(Some lady in the restaurant had spotted him going by the window and came over to let us know for the kids’ sake. The kids were thrilled. Vicki said, “I can’t believe I got to see him!”)
Yesterday morning I went over to the eye doctor to make an eye appointment and let them know that I’m interested in the Gentle Molding procedure, as I have the money for it in my Flex account and need to use it before the year’s end.
Longtime Threshold readers know that a few years back I attempted to date the office manager from the eye doctor’s Ashburn office. Things didn’t work out that well, and we really only went on one date. Though she was always friendly, and full of excuses for why she never returned my calls every time I saw her, after a while it became clear that there was a message I should be getting, and when you try too hard to date someone without getting any sort of cooperation they call that stalking, so I gave up trying.
In any case, while I was making my appointment with the girl at the desk, the office manager of the Leesburg office was on the phone, not paying any attention, until she heard me say my name, at which point her ears pricked up and she turned to look at me. After she got off the phone she said hello and was suspiciously friendly. I have to wonder if I’d ever been the topic of conversation between her and the Ashburn office manager (whom I refer to as Stone Face, given that she was the most inscrutable and unreadable human being I’d ever met and her face, which was still gorgeous, was as inexpressive as stone).
I know that my one real date with Stone Face was a point of contention between the two office managers, as Stone Face had blown off her own office holiday party to accompany me to the AOL party.
Given the spectacularly embarrassing manner in which, coasting on pure adrenaline, I had burst in and asked Stone Face out – in front of several patients and the eye doctor – I’m sure that, at the time, I was also fodder for inter-and intra-office gossip, so I can’t help but wonder if, after I left yesterday, the Leesburg office manager placed a call to the Ashburn office that started off with something like, “Guess who was just in the office?”
Of course, I don’t know if Stone Face still works in the Ashburn office, or is even still around. The last time I saw her, which was quite a long time ago, she was wearing a ring. While she was fairly friendly, in her stone-faced and expressionless manner, I wasn’t there long enough for us to actually have a conversation.
Anyway, I just thought that the reaction my name elicited from the Leesburg office manager was kind of funny and worth mentioning.

Make Up Your Minds

So the company that told one recruiting company that my skills "aren't a match" has asked a different recruiting company to have me come in for an interview on Wednesday.
It's a NOC job, lousy shift, contract work, no benefits, but decent pay.
I'm going to the interview, because I might as well, but I'm hoping that I get an offer for the job I really want before that.

I'm Number One!

So it appears that I may soon be back among the ranks of the employed.
I got a call from the recruiter for the job I interviewed for last week, and while they need to get final approval before extending me an offer, it seems that I pretty much have the job.
After interviewing the other candidates, my (probable) future boss stated unequivocally that I was the best choice and wanted her to at least call me and let me know where things stand.
I should be hearing back from her next week.
So that's - conditionally - a very big relief.

That Sucks For Mr. Young

Shortly after I applied for that job yesterday I got a FOAD e-mail in response.
Or at least, someone named “Mr. Young” did, as that’s who the message was addressed to.
I came extremely close to sending back a response saying, “Well, it’s too bad for this Mr. Young guy that you aren’t interested in hiring him, but what about me?”
Yes, I realize that it was just a generic response copied and pasted into a message to me without anyone bothering to change who it was addressed to, but hey, rejection hurts – especially when the person rejecting you can’t bother to get your name right – and the message put me into a defensive and snarky posture.
I also considered sending back a response saying, “You said that my résumé was reviewed carefully…I hope it was reviewed more carefully than the response you sent to me.”
Oh well.
Today was a pretty uneventful day. Apart from doing some work on a picture, I really didn’t do anything.
I actually continue to be amazed by my ability to not do a damn thing all day. Too bad there’s no way to market that skill.
Of course, even if it were a skill that was in demand, I probably couldn’t manage to get hired to do it.

Slow Day Entry With Entertaining/Offensive Links

Today has been pretty uneventful.
I got up. I sat around. I read the comics I bought on Wednesday. I went for a walk. I got back. I sat around. I read the Left Behind Friday post at Slacktivist. I applied for a job.
I got a call this morning from the other recruiter who’d been submitting my résumé to the company that the recruiter that called yesterday said wasn’t interested in me. He was looking for some additional information to provide said company with. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the company had already said they weren’t interested in me.
I’m not 100% sure, but there may be yet another squirrel in the attic.
It’s hard to say for sure, as it’s windy today, and the noise I heard might have just been the branches of the tree out front brushing against the house.
Sound travels and echoes in an odd fashion in the house. Sometimes when I’m sitting downstairs watching TV, someone out on the street will slam a car door or something and it will sound like someone walking heavily upstairs.
In any case, I haven’t set the trap up again yet, though I was thinking about setting it up in the backyard, as the squirrels seem to pass through there (if only via the fence) on their way to whatever ingress there is to my attic.
(I also considered mounting squirrel number two’s head on a pike and sticking that on the fence as a warning to other squirrels, but I couldn’t do that, as doing so would mean that I killed the squirrel, and of course that just can’t be the case.)
I’ve walked around the house a few times craning my neck skyward, but so far I haven’t been able to spot any sort of opening, except one that seems too small (and awkward) even for a squirrel to get in through (I realize it doesn’t take much), and it may not even be an opening. Not sure what it is. There’s no easy way to get to whatever corresponding opening there may (or may not) be on the inside, either, so I can’t really check it out from the attic.
Speaking of Slacktivist (well, a couple of paragraphs ago), in the characteristically interesting comments on one of the characteristically entertaining posts, someone posted a link to a blog entry and a photo gallery detailing a visit to the Creation Museum.
It was far too entertaining to not pass along, so check out the blog entry here.
The entry itself has a link to the photo gallery. There are a lot of pictures in the gallery, but the accompanying captions and comments make going through them all time well-spent. My favorite captions: “Diormageddon!” and “When You Gaze Into the Abyss, It Gazes Back, and Looks Like an Ape.”
What makes the whole thing even more entertaining is that the author of the blog – writer John Scalzi – essentially went to the museum on a dare. In exchange for readers of his blog donating $250 to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, he agreed that he would visit this monument to what I hesitate to even call pseudo-science. The total donations received actually reached $5,118.36. His response to this largess, in addition to eventually going to the museum, was to a post a picture of himself holding up a sign with a message for his readers: I hate you all.
Now, if any of you would like to make donations to Americans United for Preventing the Separation of Jon from His House, click on the PayPal link over on the right. In exchange, I probably won’t go to any museum, but I will happily pose for a similar picture, though with a different message (probably something like, “I hate you all…but thanks for the money.”).
Anyway, if you’re as amused/horrified by the agenda of fundamentalists who view the Bible as a science textbook as I am, check out the blog entry and gallery for a good laugh, or, if you’re the type who does view the Bible as a science textbook, check it out to keep your moral outrage and feelings of persecution by the evil, sinful secularists at their maximum levels.

NOC NOC! Who's There? Not Me, Apparently.

So today was the day of my job interview.
Yesterday, in comparing their relative awkwardness, I mentioned that I have a lot more experience with job interviews than I do with first dates, but on my way in to the interview it occurred to me that, oddly enough, it’s been longer since I’ve had a job interview than it has been since I’ve had a first date.
So technically I’m actually a little more rusty with the interview skills than with the dating, even though my interview skills are stronger.
Overall, I think the interview went well, but I found that it was very hard to get a read on the guy interviewing me. The recruiter, whom I met with after the interview for a sort of “debriefing,” wasn’t quite so cagey, and seemed genuinely impressed by my skills and experience, but I have no idea how much input she has in the decision-making process.
The job itself is one that I think I’m ideally suited for, but again, I can’t really gauge how well I did in getting that idea across.
If I did get the job, I probably wouldn’t start until January, which would mean that I would still get my severance package despite the fact that I’d be back in the employ of the same corporate entity, though that would mean that the severance wouldn’t really be “extra” money in the way it would be if I were to get a job with another company and start immediately.
One advantage, though, would be that I would be sort of “grandfathered in” as far as my benefits go, so I wouldn’t, for example, have to start all over again for things like accrual rate for vacation time. I would have to accrue the time again, but the rate at which I would do so would be the same as if I’d been working there for six years.
Evidently the employee-contribution for insurance is much lower than it is at AOL, which is also a plus.
Anyway, at this point it’s back to the “wait and see” posture.
To be on the safe side, I’ve dialed down the level of hope to 1.5%.
(For the record, when it comes to my – excuse me, I just burst into a fit of painful, choking laughter over the thought of using this term in reference to me – love life, the level of hope is much lower than 1%. It’s not even .1%, or .00001%. How many decimal points has Pi been calculated out to? However many that is, the one would go three decimal points beyond that.)
Yesterday I ended up spending a bit more at the comic shop than I’d planned on. For one thing there was a bigger than usual pile in my subscription box this week, as a lot of book shipped this week. Beyond that, there were a couple of “if you like x, you might be interested in y” books that the shop throws in subscription boxes, much like TiVo automatically records other TV shows using the shows that you actively record as a basis.
I also opted to buy a few bags and boards, and when I was being rung up I noticed that Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier has finally been released, so I decided to grab that, too.
If worse comes to worst, the comic shop is hiring. Sure, it’s unlikely that I would make enough there to even make a mortgage payment, let alone pay my mortgage and my other bills, but at least I’d have ready access to comics, and probably some sort of employee discount.
(Just got a call from one of the recruiting companies letting me know that yet another prospective employer has decided that I’m not a match for one of the positions they have an “urgent” need to fill. Apparently spending five years working in a NOC doesn’t provide sufficient experience for an entry level NOC position. Not really sure how that works, particularly given that, depending on the specific duties, 50-90% of the requirements for a NOC job consist entirely of simply showing up. Oh well.)

The 1% Gambit

Lots of people have various superstitious rituals that they make use of every day, assorted methods for attempting to bargain with the Universe (or Fate, or God, or whatever you want to call it) in an attempt to get the things that they want out of life.
Last week I mentioned my own attempt at striking a bargain with the Universe, and mentioned how it did not appear to work.
In light of that apparent failure, I fell back on a ritual that I have come to call The 1% Gambit, or, as it can alternatively be called, Giving Up Hope.
Or rather, Giving Up 99% Of Hope.
Last week when I didn’t hear back about the job I’m really interested in, I gave up hope, or at least gave up most of it, holding on to just 1% of it, The idea is to trick the Universe into thinking that I’ve given up so that it will decide that I’ve suffered enough, move on, and cut me a break.
Of course I know that you can’t actually bargain with, cajole, or trick the Universe into doing what you want it to do, but the fact remains that this morning I got a call and tomorrow I go in for an interview.
So now I’m at about 2% hope. We’ll have to wait and see whether or not the hope grows.
I really hate job interviews. A job interview is worse than a first date. After all, the whole “Do I move in for a kiss?” thing tends to be even more awkward.
Still, it does feel good to finally get called in for one, and honestly, I have a lot more experience with job interviews than I do with first dates.
One annoying thing about this one was that I had to fill out an application to bring with me. The application (and authorization for a background check) asked for all kinds of information that I don’t really have about previous jobs, like former supervisors. It’s been over six years since I worked for anyone other than AOL. Who knows if any of them are even still at the companies I worked for?
It also asked for my previous addresses for the past seven years. I don’t remember that kind of crap, or keep records. I had to leave one place out because the only thing I could remember was the name of the street.
Anyway, shouldn’t it be the job of the people doing the background check to find that information?
But whatever. I’m not too concerned, as I passed a background check to get into AOL six years ago, and this new job is with a company that’s a different branch on the same corporate tree.
After doing my laundry today – I had absolutely no clean socks or underwear – I headed out into the world briefly to get a haircut, buy some batteries for my new garbage can (which will now freak me out every time I move past it to get something from the cabinet near it and the lid automatically opens), and stop at the comic shop. Scott didn’t join me today, as he’s got the 1st and 15th Blues.
(Because he’s on salary, he gets paid semi-monthly, on the 1st and the 15th, so he’s short on his comic book budget this week.)
Apparently while frolicking in the “enchanted forest,” the squirrel told one of its woodland friends about what a great attic I have, and so it decided to venture forth and see it for itself.
This morning I’d looked out my kitchen window and had a “No fucking way” moment as I saw a squirrel running along my fence. For a moment I thought I was seeing a ghost, though that was, of course, impossible, as it’s not like I killed the squirrel or anything. *Cough*
Later in the day I heard the pitter-patter of squirrel feet up in the attic, and so I’ve set the trap once more.
Without a ladder I can’t really find the spot where the squirrels are getting in, and I can’t spare the money to hire someone to check for me, so I guess I’m going to have to keep relying on the trap.
In addition to being called about the interview, I received some other good news in the form of a letter informing me that I’ve won $70,000! All I have to do is send a check for $2,890 to cover “administrative costs.”
“But Jon,” you say, “do you have that kind of money to spare right now?”
Sadly, no, I don’t, but luckily the people awarding the prize were kind enough to send me a check for $2,990 which I can use to pay those costs! Hurray!
Obviously I realize this is a scam, but I have to say that it was kind of novel to receive a scam letter via snail-mail rather than a scam e-mail.
I’m sort of unclear about how the included check aspect works. Do they wait for me to deposit it and then get my account number from the returned check somehow? Are they just willing to make a risky investment in the hopes that it’ll pay off? What would happen if I were to bring the check to a check cashing place?
The check itself was issued from a Teacher’s Credit Union in Colorado (though the company awarding the “prize” is in Canada).
I couldn’t find much information online about the specifics of the scam.
Anyone out there have any details on exactly how this scam works? I mean, I can see the obvious way of running it: get me to give them all of my account information so that they can “deposit my prize,” but what purpose does the check serve?
Just curious. Obviously I’m not going to try cashing it or depositing it (depositing it anywhere other than my shredder, that is).

Ain't No Party Like A Jon Party 'Cause A Jon Party...Ends

I have to say that I was inordinately pleased about catching the squirrel.
As to what happened afterwards…well, best not to dwell on unpleasantness.
Tonight was the night of my housewarming party.
In planning the party I forgot that I’m supposed to check with Kathleen before making decisions about my life, so it turns out that she and Brian had prior commitments that prevented them from coming while the party was actually going on, though she did stop by afterwards, as did Brian shortly thereafter.
My Realtor, David, wasn’t able to make it, as he and his wife had just brought their new baby home from the hospital (Congrats, BTW), so Scot and Stacy and Jamie and Casey, along with their respective broods, were the only guests.
Having so many kids in the house was…an experience.
Thanks to Stacy for taking it upon herself to act with an efficiency that would make FEMA green with envy and restoring the disaster area to normal conditions in short order.
I ultimately had a lot more food than I needed. The Torta di Pasta (essentially a pizza made out of spaghetti) didn’t go over as well as I’d hoped – especially since I made two of them – so I guess it’s a good thing that I like it, as I have a lot left over.
My mint chocolate cake was a hit, but then it always is. Still lots of that left, too, though, despite the truly massive piece that Kathleen had.
As for swag, I got a Crème Brûlée set and a gift card for Bed, Bath & Beyond from Jamie and Casey, and a cool, high-tech garbage can from Scott and Stacy that will, once I get batteries for it, automatically open its own lid through the use of infrared motion detectors. It’s like I’m living in a futuristic wonderworld!
Seriously, though, I’d been hoping that they’d get me one ever since Scott told me about theirs. I’ve been wanting to get a new garbage can for a while, in particular a nice stainless steel one, but whenever I’d see them at Bed, Bath & Beyond I would become enraged at how ridiculously expensive they are – and we’re talking about non-futuristic, manual garbage cans – and refuse to even consider buying them.
Honestly, I’ve stood there staring at them and shuddering with impotent rage over the ridiculous notion of paying upwards of $100 for a freaking garbage can.
So I’m pleased, and now I can stand in Bed, Bath & Beyond staring at the displays of expensive garbage cans with an attitude of amused condescension (and I probably will).
I also got cards from my mom and my sister (and family), along with some gift certificates for Wal-Mart and Ruby Tuesday.
So not a bad haul.
In the afternoon when I was cleaning I had a pretty severe reaction to some sort of allergen that got kicked up in the process. It felt like there was something lodged in my throat and I started coughing really hard. Not sure what it was, but, eventually, a Benadryl took care of it.
On the job front, I heard from two separate recruiting companies contacting me about the same job. It’d pay about a dollar less an hour than what I made at AOL and there would be no benefits, unless I eventually got hired on full-time. Beggars can’t be choosers, though, I guess.

The Show With The Highest Per Capita Hotness

First of all, happy birthday to Kevin (and, if he’s reading this, which he probably isn’t, to his cousin Joel).
Today has been, of course, largely uneventful. I went grocery shopping and picked up some things for tomorrow night’s housewarming party.
Then I came home and did a little bit of cleaning/de-cluttering.
It’s a non-stop thrill ride, I tell you.
No movement on the job-hunting front, apart from getting an e-mail from the friend of the ex-AOLer whom I’d been referred to asking if I ever heard anything from the people that he’d given my résumé to. I told him that yes, I had heard from someone, but that what I heard was that they weren’t interested in me. He wrote back saying that not hiring me doesn’t make any sense, so he’s going do some digging on my behalf, which is cool.
Lately I’ve been watching the show Shark on Sunday nights. It’s an okay show – I like James Woods – but the main thing it has going for it is the amount of hotness it has per capita compared to other shows.
Sure, most TV shows have a lot of hot chicks on them, but Shark wins out because of the quality and intensity of the hotness.
First up is Jeri Ryan, who is still smoking hot, and while she’s not wearing the so-tight-she-often-passed-out-on-the-set bodysuit she wore as Seven of Nine on Voyager, she usually wears outfits that follow her curves pretty closely.
If you watch House – which I’ve also been watching lately, if only because doing so gives me the opportunity to look forward to reading the episode reviews at Polite Dissent – you can compare her outfits to the outfits that Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) wears: lots of cleavage and curve-hugging skirts.
At the center of the hotness, though, is Danielle Panabaker, who plays Woods’ daughter (and whose IMDb photos do not do her justice). She is just unbearably cute. That’s pretty much the only way to describe her.
Plus her character goes to a private school, so most episodes feature scenes of her in a school uniform, short plaid skirt and all.
Sophia Brown is not quite on par with the others, but is still a very attractive woman and adds to the overall hotness.
Rounding out the hotness is Sarah Carter, who all-too briefly played a non-Lana Lang love interest for Clark on Smallville.
Of course, because Smallville has to be all about Lana all the time – the primary reason I gave up watching it – the powers that be pretty much immediately killed her and had Clark basically forget that she ever existed. In a season and a half following the episode in which she died, he never once made even a passing a reference to his brutally-murdered girlfriend. It was basically, “Oh, she’s dead. Welp, back to pining over Lana.”
Prior to Smallville, I didn’t actually hate the Lana Lang character, I just thought that she was pointless.
(Smallville made me hate her by making her even more bland and uninteresting than the version in the comics and then insisting on centering pretty much every episode around her.)
After all, she was retroactively shoe-horned into Superman’s history to serve as a cheap rip-off of Lois Lane in his retroactively added youth, and later to serve as Lois’ rival for his affections in his adult life.
And that’s really all she ever was and all she ever could be. Lois was there from the start, and she was always the only woman for him, not Lana.
When John Byrne revamped Superman’s history, he clearly understood the role of Lana Lang. It was pretty well summed up in the thoughts that went through the heads of Lois and Lana upon meeting for the first time in the newly-established history:

Lois: She’s very pretty. Is he in love with her?
Lana: She’s beautiful. No wonder he’s in love with her.

Of course, since that time Byrne’s vision of Superman has fallen out of favor (and so have thought balloons, for that matter) as current creative teams scramble to put things back to the way they way they used to be (With a modern twist!), which is a subject for another rant entirely.
Speaking of JB, of late I’ve been re-reading his early 90s creator-owned series John Byrne’s Next Men. You may recall, but probably don’t, that JBNM was one of the books that I dropped a bunch of money on back issues to replace the issues I was missing.
For his many strengths as a writer and artist, Byrne also has many weaknesses, and both are clearly on display in JBNM, but overall I’m enjoying it as much now as I did then.
Of course, my enjoyment of it now is hampered by knowing that when I get to the end of the series it won’t actually be the end, and now, unlike then, I know that it’s unlikely that it will ever be finished properly, despite the promise of that very last image which showed what was supposed to lie ahead for the series.
My modern sensibilities also lead me to be inclined to believe that the series would have been better if written by Warren Ellis, as it’s exactly the kind of thing that he writes well.
And for the record, it was re-reading JBNM that actually sparked lat week’s memories about Jen – along with many other memories – as it was one of the main titles I was reading during that period in my life.
In any case, I started writing this hours ago, so I suppose I should just post it now and be done with it.

Your Most Burning Question Answered!

I’m sure the question that’s foremost on everyone’s mind is “How did the new sheets work out for Jon last night?”
They were okay. Not quite as soft as the old ones were, but also not quite so mysteriously ripped to shreds.
Of course, given that we’ve been having some cold weather of late and that in an effort to save money (and to avoid the hot curling iron smell that comes from the electric baseboard heaters), I’ve been dressing in layers to stay warm rather than turning the heat on, so, just as with the old ones, the coldness of the sheets as my skin first came into contact with them elicited the standard “Gah!” from me as I got into bed.
I was supposed to hear from the recruiter for the job I was really interested in by today.
That didn’t happen.
Serves me right, I suppose, for getting my hopes up (and for thinking that I could work out a deal with the Universe).
Of course, maybe something just came up and she’ll contact me next week, but given how things have been going I’m beginning to think that maybe I’m not quite so employable as I’d thought my experience and education made me.
Not much else I can do but keep applying for jobs, I guess.
Still, that was exactly the thing that made this particular prospect seem so promising: I didn’t actually apply for the job.
The recruiter just got a copy of my résumé (from the company representative who had been at the job fair last week) and contacted me because she thought I’d be a good fit (and seemed to be even more convinced of that after I’d talked to her).
Oh well.
The squirrel is still ranging around up in the attic. I went up and put some more tempting bait (pieces of bread with peanut butter on them) in and around the trap.
I really hate going up into the attic because as soon as I do I begin to itch from all of the insulation floating around and have to take a shower as soon as I come down.
This leads me to wonder why it is that spending just a couple of minutes up there forces me to have to recreate the decontamination scene from Silkwood, yet it doesn’t seem to bother the squirrel. I mean, I was up there for only a couple of minutes – albeit slightly longer than should have been necessary, as I ended up springing the trap while re-baiting it and had to set it again – and it’s not like I’m actually frolicking around in the insulation like the little rodent is. I know the stuff can be deadly because years ago we had a cat that chose a bunch of insulation as the place to give birth to her kittens, and the insulation killed all of them before we actually found them (one survived, briefly, but eventually died after being removed from the insulation).
Again, oh well.
Earlier today my computer started acting a little wacky (no sound on some video files, Media Center flat out refusing to play some videos, memory usage through the roof, etc.), so I decided to reboot it.
After the reboot I got a message telling me that I wasn’t connected to my network, and it wouldn’t even allow me to access the Network Control Panel.
So I went for reboot number two.
Same thing.
After a few frustrated attempts at getting into the Network Control Panel – and after confirming on my laptop that there was no problem with the network itself – I realized that all of the weirdness had started after I’d finally given in to the little nag screen that came up every time I launched it and updated to the latest version of AIM.
First you lay me off, then you hose my computer; thanks AOL!
So I did a system restore to a point before I made the update and everything was back to normal.
The thing that really annoyed me the most, though, wasn’t that the new AIM trashed my network settings, it was the damn screen nagging me to upgrade to the new version.
When I launch a program, I’m doing so because I want to actually use it. At that moment I’m not particularly interested in whether or not there’s an update available.
Fuck your update; I just want to use the program.
I hardly think I’m alone in this regard. Most people launch programs because they want to use them.
At least Firefox, which seems to have an update available every damn time you launch it, gives you the option to run the update the next time you launch – most other programs, like AIM, only give you the option to update now or be reminded again the next time you launch - but even that’s a pain in the ass.
The time to mention that updates are available is when I’m closing the program. The fact that I’m closing it means that I’m no longer using it, therefore your stupid update won’t be interfering with what I’m trying to do.
And when you do choose to run the update, you generally get a message at some point saying “Oh my god, you can’t update me while I’m running! What the hell were you thinking? Close me!”
I understand that it may not be possible to update some files while they’re in use, but why pop up an error message at me? As it is, I can’t actually use the damn program anyway because the stupid update is running, so just quit your bitching and close the program your damn self as part of the installation process.
I just can’t fathom the mentality behind this kind of shit. Most software developers (and their bosses) are, at some point, also software end-users for at least some programs, so how hard can it be to figure out that this kind of nonsense is a barrier to use and annoying as hell?
Whether you believe that the adhere to it or not, Google has as its motto “Don’t be evil.” I think that software companies should have a similar motto: “Don’t be an idiot.”
(Oh, and if you could write software that doesn’t hose people’s systems, that’d be super, too.)

Sometimes The Universe Even Punches Me With My Own Fists And Says, "Stop Hitting Yourself!"

So last night’s trip down memory lane led me to receive, via e-mail, a response that I sort of expected to receive from at least one person: look up Jen and contact her.
There are a few problems with this idea, most of which stem from the fact that the whole thing happened over 14 years ago.
While I’m reasonably certain that, at the time, the developing attraction was mutual, I doubt that I made as much of an impression on her as she did on me because a) I’m Jon, and therefore don’t make that kind of impression on anyone b) it was 14 years ago, so even if I did make a big impression on her back then, she has no doubt forgotten me. Most people who aren’t Jon and therefore don’t commit what are essentially insignificant events – and people – to memory the way that I do can hardly be expected to recall a casual acquaintance from more than a decade ago.
Then there’s the whole creep factor – what woman anywhere wants to have some random guy she kind of knew 14 years ago looking her up and contacting her out of the blue?
Then there’s the simple fact that her last name may no longer be the same.
Also, while being five years older than I am wasn’t a big deal when I was 20-21, now it would mean that she’d be a 40 year-old hag (I kid, I kid.).
I’m sure these could all be written of as me making excuses, but even if they are just excuses – though I say they are simply practical considerations – they’re still good enough excuses to keep me from trying to track her down.
(Besides, let’s say for the sake of argument that I did look her up: none of the matches I found were actually her. Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
Today I got a call from yet another recruiter for yet another contract job, though this one would pay better than most of the contract jobs I’ve been contacted about.
I’m still holding out hope that I’ll hear from the recruiter about that other job, as, despite the fact that it would involve actually working five days a week. I haven’t heard anything more on it, but the phone conversation went well, and she told me that the person I’d actually be working for liked my résumé, so I haven’t given up hope yet, especially since she said that I should be hearing from her by Friday.
This morning I finally went out to buy some sheets to replace the mysteriously shredded set I had. I’m not really thrilled with them, but it was the least objectionable set I could find. There were some others that were a little nicer, but they wouldn’t have matched my existing comforter set as well as the set I bought, though I’d really like to know at what point in my life I started caring about things like whether or not my sheets matched my comforter.
I suppose it started when I finally began making enough money to be able to afford to care about things like that. Apparently even though I’m no longer in that financial state I’m still in that mental state.
Oh well; at least I have new, freshly-laundered sheets to sleep in tonight.
Apart from buying new sheets and talking to the latest recruiter (and my mother), the only major event of the day was me taking the time to sit down and read the comics I bought yesterday. I still haven’t gotten used to the idea that I have to actually set aside time to read my comics rather than bringing them in with me to read at work on Saturdays, as I still haven’t gotten used to the idea that I don’t work.
*Sigh* Hopefully that will change soon enough.
I’ve actually attempted to make a deal with the Universe that would ensure that I get the job I want, but I doubt that it’ll go for it.
What are the terms of the deal? Well, if I get the job I want, I won’t be needing the services of the hot recruiter I met with the other day, therefore she won’t have the “it would be unprofessional” defense were I to ask her out, therefore I’m free to ask her out and the Universe can laugh its ass off when she shoots me down in flames. That way I get a job and the Universe can take delight in the latest crushing blow to my ego. It’s Win-Win.
Of course, the Universe tends to prefer Win-Lose deals, so it may prevent me from getting the job and then goad me into asking her out anyway so that in the end I can feel doubly rejected, and the Universe can say, “Ha ha! You don’t get the job or the girl!”
Big dumb mean Universe.

Slow Day

No movement on the job-hunting front today.
Well, no positive movement, at any rate. I did find out conclusively that one of the companies that’s come up a lot in conversations with recruiters and in recommendations from various people has absolutely no interest in hiring me.
Oh well.
I spent much of the day at first working on a modification to the free Heroic Portrait I did for Brian’s friend, as it turns out my vision of what he wanted was not, in fact, what he wanted.
Then I got tired of that and started working on a random picture that may or may not find its way onto the (eventual) revamped Heroic Portraits site.
While I was up in the office working on that and listening to music I was oblivious to the sound of my cell phone – downstairs on the dining room table – ringing as Scott called twice, first to let me know that he would be getting to the comic shop late, and then to let me know that he wouldn’t be that late.
So we met at the comic shop as per usual and had “dunch.”
When I got home I learned that the squirrel is still in the attic. I moved the trap so that it’s more directly in line with its movements.
And that’s pretty much all that’s happened today.

It Never Rains Unless It Pours And Other Cliches

So under the heading of “feast or famine,” today saw a lot of movement on the job-hunting front.
It started this morning just moments after I’d gotten up when I had to pause mid-stream to answer a call from a recruiting/consulting company.
The call ended with us scheduling a meeting for this afternoon.
A short time later I got a call from another recruiting company that had gotten my résumé from the person a former AOLer had put me in touch with at the career center last week.
When I got home from meeting with the recruiter who had called this morning (Okay, I’m trying to maintain some decorum on the off-chance that she lands on this blog at some point, but Holy. Freaking. God. She was one of the hottest women I’ve ever seen in real life. As I was sitting there talking to her, I was actually blushing. I could feel my face positively burning, and I’m sure it was a bright, nerdy shade of crimson. Okay, that’s all I’ll say about it, as I’ve probably already said too much.), I found that I had a message from another recruiter.
This one was an actual on the payroll of the company she was recruiting for recruiter, not just someone from a company fishing for people for potential placement elsewhere. The job itself is NOC-related, but not actually in the NOC, and is something that I would be very interested in doing.
So I returned her call, and our conversation went well, I think. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

Traffic Jam

There was a HUGE surge in Threshold traffic today. Biggest numbers I’ve seen in a long time.
I’m not sure why; visitor activity and keywords didn’t show any particular common denominator, though there were quite a few people looking for the standard stuff.
Not much went on today. I got up, showered and dressed, went grocery shopping, came home, and then got a call from a recruiter who had e-mailed me yesterday about a NOC position.
It’s not an ideal job – lower salary and terrible hours, but it is relatively close (Ashburn), and the company is, apparently, “growing rapidly,” so there is, presumably, opportunity for getting a better shift and more money somewhere along the line.
I guess we’ll just see what happens.
Other than that I spent the day working on the free Heroic Portrait request I’d gotten on Friday. I finished it up and sent it out. We’ll see whether or not he likes it.
Earlier tonight as I was walking downstairs to make dinner, I realized too late that I probably should have turned the lights on, and ended up totally missing the last step, which sent me flying forward – after stubbing my toe as my foot slipped past the stair – to land hard on my knees while my momentum carried the rest of me forward so that I ended up lying face down in the living room.
I decided to lie there in the darkness for a while before getting up, and when I did get up I said, “Well, it’s a good thing I like pain.”
Then I said, “Oh, wait. I don’t like pain.”
I suppose that the Universe had decided that I wasn’t quite sore enough from yesterday’s yard work, and I can’t help thinking that it was unoriginal enough to say “Have a nice trip. See you next fall!” to itself as it gleefully watched me pitching forward.
Of course, the fall was the most excitement I had all day, so maybe I shouldn’t complain too much.

More Like Job Un-Fair...No, Wait, "Job Fair" Is Correct

So today was the big job fair.
I got up early, showered and shaved, got dressed in slightly dressy fashion (dress pants, dress shoes, gray, sweatery sort of dressy shirt thingy), scooped up my many copies of my résumé, and made my way to Reston where I spent 10 minutes driving around in a vain effort to find a parking space less than a quarter mile away from the Sheraton where the job fair was being held.
Eventually I gave up trying to find anything closer and made the quarter mile+ trek from where I’d parked to the hotel.
There were a LOT of people there, which isn’t surprising because a LOT of people got laid off.
I saw some people I know, including Simon (who looked positively adorable in his little suit), and my former boss’ former boss, who was actually canned long before the layoffs, but was, apparently, still able to attend the event, as I imagine his severance package covered a much longer span than mine does, given his pay level when he was with AOL.
There were a lot of companies represented there, including Google. I didn’t even bother talking to the Google people as a)any job openings they had required relocating and b)the Google table was the most popular one there, with lines rivaling those of a popular amusement park ride.
Paradoxically, many of the IT companies represented there didn’t actually have any IT recruiters at the fair.
A couple of the people I gave copies of my résumé requested that I also e-mail them soft copies so that they could more easily distribute them to other people in their companies.
Overall, the whole thing consisted of people just milling about and recruiters telling people to check out their companies’ Web sites for any job openings, which made it all seem kind of pointless, and I came away from it not feeling any more hopeful about the future than I had been.
Oh well.
Some time ago I mentioned to Scott that the fact that I’m as solitary as I am means that I have even less opportunity than the average person (recognizing that the average person doesn’t have much of an opportunity to do so either) to have minions whom I can command to “Go forth and do my bidding!”
I was thinking about this on my way home from the job fair and it occurred to me that rather than trying to find some other NOC job, or something in technical writing, I should pursue a career in super-villainy, and I began working out a list of pros and cons to such a career, as well as some of the assets and liabilities I bring to the super-villainy table.

Pros:
In addition to being able to command them to go forth and do my bidding, I could also punish my minions for their effrontery.
Maniacal laughter is never inappropriate.
There are no super-heroes, so I would only have to contend with conventional law-enforcement and military types.
Wearing the same outfit day-in and day-out eliminates the need to decide what to wear.
As Stan Lee pointed out in an interview in reference to Dr. Doom, there is nothing inherently illegal about aspiring to take over the world. While some of your actions along the way might get you into hot water, you can’t be arrested for simply aspiring to world conquest.
If I were to succeed in conquering the world, my ultimate supremacy over all living things would trump the declarations of actresses like Jessica Alba who say they will never do nude scenes.
Flexible hours.
Chicks dig bad boys.
Reading Threshold and leaving positive comments would be mandatory.
People would have two options: place an order for a Heroic Portrait or be destroyed!
Everyone would have to kneel before Jon.
10% Super-Villain Discount at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Cons:
Constantly battling off rivals for the throne.
The cost of R&D and upkeep on doomsday devices.
So much paperwork.
Most of the good names/themes are taken.
A life devoted to evil would undoubtedly require an alliance with Fox News.
Whiny people constantly begging to be spared.
Dealing with reps from the Minions and Henchmen United, local 305.
High minion attrition rate due to constant punishing of effrontery and failing to go forth and do my bidding. The cost of removing bloodstains and the smell of charred flesh from my evil command center would be through the roof, and the constant loss of co-workers would generally be hard on minion morale.
Mutant super-beasts enslaved to my will would aggravate my pet dander allergies.
Paparazzi always in your face (or at least your titanium-plated face mask) and just waiting for that opportunity for a nipslip or crotch shot when free-balling under the tunic.
Luthor-esque tight green pants and skin-tight purple shirt make me look fat. And are also tacky.
Hidden lairs tend to be drafty.
The whole thing reeks of effort.

Assets:
I don’t have a fatal weakness for Hostess® brand snacks.
A lifetime of reading comic books has made me keenly aware of all the little unconscious traps that super-villains invariably set for themselves. Thus, no revealing my nefarious scheme to the hero while there’s still a chance it can be stopped, no choosing elaborate death traps over the simple expedient of a gunshot to the head, and no giving in to self-doubt at the precise moment of my ultimate triumph, to name only a few.
I don’t have any one particular person I hate and around whom all of my evil plans would center, leaving me free to focus on the big picture and pursue all sorts of avenues of villainy.

Liabilities:
Because I don’t have an arch-nemesis, I also don’t have the sort of tragic accident – likely brought on by my own hubris – in my past that pushed me over the edge. For example, Dr. Doom can (dubiously) blame Reed Richards for the accident that destroyed his face, whereas my face just did it to itself.
I have no super-powers, and am not some sort of super-scientific genius.
Just opening a bag of chips can turn into an epic struggle for me – a struggle in which I don’t always succeed – so it seems unlikely that I would prevail in a struggle against the united forces of the world.
Unfortunately, I have a conscience, and am not particularly interested in hurting people. Even though being able to un-self-consciously bellow “You shall pay for your effrontery!” would be cool, I probably wouldn’t be able to follow through on it. Nor would I be able to get someone to beg me for mercy, or to not destroy their city.
Despite Machiavelli’s thoughts on the subject, I think I’d rather be loved than feared.

So overall I guess a career in super-villainy really isn’t for me. I would honestly be more inclined towards a career in super-heroism anyway, but that pays jack, and I don’t really have any of the necessary assets for that either.
*Sigh* I’m like the chartered accountant in the Monty Python sketch who wanted to become a lion tamer because he had mistaken anteaters for lions and, as a result, thought that taming them would be easy. Besides which, he had a hat that said “Lion Tamer” on it, and thought that a good half of the job was already done. Then the career counselor showed him what lions actually look like and suddenly chartered accountancy no longer seemed so unappealing as it had.
So I guess it’s back to looking for a job in a NOC...

Happy Give In To Despair Day!

The one thing worse than watching a really bad movie is watching most of a really bad movie and then not getting to see how it ends.
After all, while you really have no reason to care – because it’s awful – you can’t help but feel like you’ve been cheated.
(Even more than you’ve already been cheated by the lousy story, horrible acting, and sub-BBC science fiction TV show from the 70s special effects.)
Such was the case for me today with the movie Alien Abduction.
Among the channels I get that are in HD is Universal HD, a channel that’s a hodgepodge of HD programming such as old TV shows that have been upconverted to HD, concerts by bands like Poison (seriously), and movies that are either 10+ years old, which were never exactly blockbusters to begin with, or are of the direct-to-video variety.
Because it’s nearly Halloween, for the past week or so they’ve been airing a lot of low-budget horror movies.
Like Alien Abduction.
While flipping through the channels last night I encountered Alien Abduction already well underway. I could tell right away that it was really bad, but the protagonist was a chick who was cute, in a low-budget crappy horror movie kind of way, and seemed to spend most of her time wandering around in an extremely short hospital gown.
The shortness of the gown piqued my interest, as this seemed like the sort of movie in which the female protagonist would spend some amount of time wearing even less than that (FYI, my suspicions in this regard were correct), so I checked the guide to see if it was going to be on again. It was, at 3 AM, so I set the DVR to record it.
Today, after it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to motivate myself to do anything productive, I decided to watch it.
And it was just as bad – possibly worse – as I thought it would be.
However, due to some sort of glitch – which I think I’ve figured out the cause of – the recording cut off at about 60 minutes into the 90 minute runtime.
So I was robbed of the “thrilling conclusion.”
Granted, all I really wanted from it was some T&A, which I got, but I can’t help but feel the need to see how it ends.
Luckily it’s on again tonight, so I’ve set it to record once more.
Then I’ll be able to watch the ending, at which point I will, no doubt, wonder why I bothered.
As for the “glitch,” I think this is what happened.
Earlier today, before I started watching the recording, I found that the movie was on yet again, and was at about the hour mark.
When I went to the list of recordings to select the movie, it presented me with option of “Resume Play,” rather than just “Play.” When I did that, it started playing from the point that I’d just seen it at while flipping through the channels, so I hit “Stop.” I went back in and hit “Play.” I think that somehow screwed up the recording, causing it to delete everything after the point at which I’d hit “Stop.”
That’s my theory, anyway. We’ll see what happens with tonight’s recording, which should run uninterrupted.
As mentioned, I didn’t do much that was productive today. I decided to declare this “Give In To Despair Day” and just forget about even trying to accomplish anything.
Tomorrow will, of course, be “New Comics Day.”
Thursday will just be Thursday, because giving each day of the week some kind of special name would just be stupid.
(Though technically Thursday is also “Job Fair Day.”)
I have no idea if I’m going to get trick or treaters tomorrow night, but I bought some candy just in case.
The only time in my adult life that I’ve actually gotten trick or treaters was when I lived in Minnesota.
It was a Sunday, and my roommates and I had just gotten back from a trip up to the cities where we’d attended a Halloween party and gotten suitably trashed.
We’d gotten back to Red Wing late in the afternoon and were all sitting around feeling like we’d been up all night drinking (imagine that), and as it was starting to get dark, a thought occurred to me and I said, “Crap! It’s Halloween!”
I made a quick run to the store and bought some candy, and got back just in time for the parade of costumed kids.
I left one little girl paralyzed with indecision by responding, to her “Twick or tweat” with “Hmm, okay…trick!”
She stared up at me in helpless panic until I said, “I’m only teasing,” and then gave her extra candy to alleviate her trauma.
While I was writing this, Kathleen called, offering to stop by quickly to give me some feedback on my new résumé. Actually, she called before I started writing this, but I was downstairs and the cell phone was up here, so I had no idea until she called again.
I got three e-mails from three different recruiters, each one trying to fill the exact same job.
Unfortunately, it’s that same contract job that I was contacted about the day after the layoff.
And that’s pretty much been my day. I didn’t totally give in to despair, as I did update the résumé with some of Kathleen’s suggestions, and I did at least shower and get dressed, and even go for a walk, but overall, I wasn’t terribly productive and didn’t see the point in even trying to be productive.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

I'm Definitely Not A Flasher

First of all, I’d like to ask all Threshold readers to join me in wishing my mom a happy birthday.
When I wasn’t napping, I spent most of yesterday working on at least updating the Gallery at Heroic Portraits with a (very) basic Flash-based version.
I followed a tutorial and managed to create one – after a lot of frustration – that appeared to be functional.
That is, until I actually tried putting it up on the site. Then it was not so much in the way of functional.
Not sure what the problem is, so I don’t know how to fix it. While working on it yesterday I ran into all sorts of problems (hence the frustration), but was at least able to determine the nature of the problems and, eventually, resolve them.
Beyond my limited knowledge of Flash – and even more limited knowledge of Action Scripts – the biggest obstacle to creating a Flash-based site is that the content I have for it was sort of slapped together without any real plan, and so now I have to either a)find a way to retrofit the content into a plan or b) start from scratch.
Neither option is especially appealing, but clearly I have to do something, as I continue to get traffic, but no one who visits the site seems interested in actually taking advantage of my services.
Then again, it could be that the problem is not, as I suspect it to be, that the site is boring and unappealing, but that my actual content is unimpressive and no one thinks that it would be worth paying for a portrait done by me.
Oh well, all I can do is keep plugging away at it and hoping that somewhere along the line something will click.
Saturday night my friend Kevin called to see how I’m doing, and to add his voice to the chorus of “You’ll be okay, you’re smart.”
Which s appreciated, of course, but so far hasn’t seemed to manifest in me actually finding a job.
On the job-hunting front, this morning I got up early and headed to the outplacement center for the résumé development class, where I did pick up some useful information, and a possible lead on some job opportunities, as one of the people there knows some people who need to fill NOC positions.
So we’ll see where, if anywhere, that leads.
Thursday I’ll be attending a job fair, which will hopefully also provide some useful leads.
In any case, I think I’ll get to work on updating my resme using my newly-acquired skills, as that much, at least, I can manage more easily than updating Heroic Portraits.