sitting in front of a computer, being asked what key i would push if i wanted to “smudge the layer mask of the layer marked ‘boat.’” wondering what the hell that even meant. clicking something then being told “that is incorrect” before being immediately pushed into the next question.
i suppose i don’t know photoshop as well as i thought i did. who ever thought they would check?!?!
i’m wearing the same same white button up shirt and pin-striped pants i’ve worn to every job interview. i just found a little brown spot on the pocket (coffee, no doubt). i brought my resume, but she didn’t look at it. i had to fill out an application like i’m applying at denny’s.
my most recent job on my resume is the daily texan, where i am a reporter. so it’s listed at the top. i figure it looks good, to be a writer and reporter. she tells me the first order of business will be getting references from my last three employers. that means the first call she is going to make is to the twenty-year old that functioned as my “editor.” this person almost never answered her phone, fully “forgot” to publish at least one article i wrote, and i’m not sure ever really got my name. so that should be a good recommendation.
my next employer lives in costa rica. so i’m not sure how easy to get in touch with he will be.
and now i’ve scored a less-than-stellar score on the computer skills challenge. (did fine on the MS word and typing test, btw. i can type 40wpm! who knew?)
not feeling super confident that this place is going to place me anywhere.
oh well. at least i will get a free pen out of this.
it looks like rain. again.
we have a young in-town guest, visiting from florida, and as i am the one without a job, i am the one charged with showing her around.
and yet: it rains. every. damn. day. every day since she got here. sometimes the sun comes out for an hour or two (we managed to make it to barton springs the other day) but it always clouds up, and water has fallen from the sky every day. it’s documented.
this weather is crazy unusual and not at all typical around here. usually it’s over a hundred degrees every day, and the sun won’t stop shining on you no matter how much you curse it.
so we watch television. we play video games (i told you, she was younger). we see movies. we do every variation of sitting very still and staring at a screen we can think of. i have been told i can stare at moving pictures an inordinately large amount of time. but i am hitting my breaking point.
weve got big plans for the next week or so: six flags, tubing on the river, swimming.
weather-permitting, of course.
it was a typical meeting room. fluorescent lighting. fold-out tables placed end to end throughout. that short, greyish-tan carpet that hides dirt so well. there was a podium at the front, and a lady had a microphone headset on.
it was a room full of about a hundred realtors, and there were all kinds. most fit squarely into one of a few types:
the middle-aged housewife types with “styled” hair that clearly requires hairspray or some other kind of hair product, bedazzled pastel blazers over shirts they would probably call “blouses,” and white capri pants.
the older, fiftyish/sixtyish grandma type. dressed similarly, but slightly more intense looking. one lady had a bluetooth earpiece that blinked through her whitish-yellow hair, like a futuristic earring.
the men: thirty to sixty, with a polo tucked into their crisply creased khakis, cellphones clipped firmly to their belts
there were a couple of rogue realtors not fitting into any of these groups. a couple of them were my age, dressed much more informally, and seemed more laid back.
they talked about mortgage rates–why they went up, and when they would go back down. they talked about the bowling tournament and the charity auction. they talked about promotional items (pizza rollers![?])
the one useful piece of information: “i gave this homeless man a bag of non perishable foods and stuff, and he looked in, and all he said was: ‘ooh, socks!’”
chimed in another “yeah, i like to take all my son’s white socks that have lost their match, and i ball them up and give them out to homeless people! they love ‘em!”
huh.
is it ridiculous to fear that if i were to try this, the homeless man might look at my extended arm, sockball in hand, and mock me? to say, “what would i want your old socks for?”
am i overthinking this?
cause dammit, it makes sense to me.
and yet i’m embarrassed.
shall i reel off my opinions on things that i have seen and how they are? (spoiler: they’re all good.)
knocked up: so good i couldn’t stop laughing. so good i couldn’t tell you which part was the best part. so good that i just wanted to last action hero my way into the screen and be a part of that world. so funny, but so full of character. so real. i challenge you to see it and say “eh.” you won’t even be able to do that.
hot fuzz: not as funny as shaun of the dead, but just as good. just when i started to think it was just a spoof, it became exactly what it wante to be, what it loved so much–a kick ass action movie, complete with awesome quips and great moments of action. you’re not going to care too much for any of the characters, but what action movie brought you characters you cared about in anything more than a superficial sense, anyway? these guys did their homework; they spoof the genre, but they do clearly love the genre, in a way the naked gun guys and the scary movie people don’t. awesome.
rescue me on fx. the only thing wrong with this show is that i never heard of it the first season. i have only seen one episode of the new season, but it was solid, and chock full of promise. if they can keep doing all the great things they did last season, they will be the best show on tv this summer. it’s the only thing that gets my heart racing like heroes did. best compliment i can give it.
oh, btw: caught “employee of the month” on dvd. awful. truly bad. scenes missing that seemed much more integral to the plot than the scenes they did show. and not one thing that was funny. not one thing. i hate dane cook (couldn’t get vince caughn, huh?). i hate jessica simpson. and i hated this movie.
there. not everything was predictable.
Filed under: random
question:
when i first get my coffee at the coffee shop, when it’s too hot to sip, i leave the lid off.
which side should i set down on the table? the side that will be touching my cup and therefore the coffee in it, or the side that will bet ouching my actual mouth?
hm.
to the dude in the jiffy lube with the big headphones around his neck and the plastic elvis wig on your head filling out a job application:
good luck, man.
in my neighborhood–
not far from my house, behind a church, theres a big open space where these trucks are parked every day.
basketball season is over—finally. thank god.
not that i hate basketball. on the contrary, it’s the only sport about which i care even one iota. i watch the super bowl for the commercials, and skip the world series altogether. hockey—tell me who won the stanley cup, and that will be plenty for me, thank you. but basketball—well, turn on a game, and it doesn’t matter if i don’t know either team, i will pick one to root for based on something—which is the underdog, what player shows a little bit of sportsmanship, the color of the uniforms—and within ten minutes i will be screaming for a foul and yelling at someone to drive to the hole.
that said, i am a dallas mavericks fan—being from dallas, i have been pretty much since i discovered the sport. and the mavericks, while finishing the season with the third best record in history, got knocked out in the first round…about three weeks ago. so for me, the season has been pretty much over already. and yet, i keep watching. and once in a while, it’s a good thing—lebron james shows why he is the next kobe bryant or somebody makes a desperate last-second shot to win the game. and i’m always glad i saw it.
but this year’s champions are the san antonio spurs, who specialize in winning while at the same time being about the most boring team in the history of the game. i will give them their props—they are the best, they deserve the title, etc.—but damn, they are just no fun at all. and yet i could not look away. i watched every game, hoping for something exciting to happen. and it never did.
so last night, i watched the final game, shrugging my shoulders and saying, “hopefully it will all be over tonight.”
“i thought you wanted cleveland to win,” said b.
“yeah, but they can’t do it. the spurs are better.”
“so why do you have to watch it then, if you’re so sure?”
“cause what if…what if…?” was all i could say. it wasn’t a very good explanation, but it was the best i could do. what if cleveland pulled the greatest comeback in the history of sports (abc commentator’s hyperbole, not mine…well, mine too.)? what if lebron could pull it off?
and so i watched.
and nothing exciting happened.
the spurs won. as everyone knew they would–and now i don’t have to watch bad basketball anymore.
mavs will be back in october. and this will be our year.
my heart starts to race just thinking about it.
question: who were the twelve heroes in the last one? cause i guess there’s one more in this one, though i’m not sure who that is.
seriously: we know there’s pitt and clooney, the little asian guy and bernie mac. the sweaty techie, and cheadle speaking “bri’ish.” that’s 6. the old dude, the two brothers that argue so hilariously…that’s nine. that’s all i’ve got.
doesn’t matter. the star of this movie is…well, let me rephrase. the guy with the most screen time is al pacino. he’s the guy everyone’s trying to get, he’s the guy running around trying to stop all the stings, he’s the guy getting mad when they beat him. yeah, the bulk of this movie, you’re staring at the gradually falling face of pacino.
and you know how al pacino can overact, right? how he can chew up scenery like he’s the only oscar winner in the movie and he knows it? well, guess what–he gets upstaged. who pulls off the “look at me, look at me, aren’t i the big star?” act even bigger, you ask?
the script.
yes, the scene (asitwere) is stolen by the the oh-so-clever “bet you never saw that coming!” story lines, chock full of semi-amusingly-named cons and smarmily delivered zingers (complete with eyerolls that must have required a neck brace afterward). please.
the beauty of the first of this trilogy was the twists–the audience never saw them coming, and so we were surprised. the second one attempted the same, but there’s just very little “oomph” in a breakdancing frenchman swivelling through lasers. that’s no finale, and so the audience came away feeling disappointed.
now with this one, soderberg has abandoned the formula altogether. the first twenty minutes of the movie is “here’s all the cons we are going to pull” and the rest of the movie is them pulling them.
the end.
wow. thanks, guys.
i read somewhere that these movies seem more fun to make than they are to watch. i sure hope it’s true.
for their sake.
UPDATE: with a weekend between us (this movie and me), i should cut it a wee bit more slack. as everyone else said that saw it with me, if you came in not expecting anything, it was fin–even kinda fun. i can see that. it’s every handsome, charming leading man in hollywood, having a good time. what’s not to like? and especially after the debacle of part two, why would anyone come in expecting anything? i guess i just still haven’t lowered my standards for soderberg and his gang, which, if i would, i might be able to enjoy the broad comedy, silly costumes and telegraphed plot.
so there–it wasn’t that bad. (but that’s all the slack i can give it.)
