Today, I read the funniest job ad I've ever seen in the Columbus Dispatch:
ALLIGATORS! We're interested in hiring a semi-obnoxious, pushy account representative for the very boring, repetitious job of selling our business services. Our rather dismal office is located in the Bottoms. Our current staff, which is the laziest group of people you'll ever see, drag themselves to work 5 days a week to complain about the weather, the coffee, the thermostat, or their manager. When they're done they sometimes manage to organize themselves to service a whole lot of customers, which is surprising because our rates are too high and there are many competitors. Applicants should have a skin like an alligator and the desire to suffer their way to earn what they're worth under our combination salary and commission compensation.
We're interested in hiring a semi-obnoxious, pushy account representative for the very boring, repetitious job of selling our business services. Our rather dismal office is located in the Bottoms. Our current staff, which is the laziest group of people you'll ever see, drag themselves to work 5 days a week to complain about the weather, the coffee, the thermostat, or their manager. When they're done they sometimes manage to organize themselves to service a whole lot of customers, which is surprising because our rates are too high and there are many competitors. Applicants should have a skin like an alligator and the desire to suffer their way to earn what they're worth under our combination salary and commission compensation.
This ad was followed by a legitimate-looking mailing address. I can't sort out if this is for real, or if they had a last-minute gap in the layout and some wag in the copy room wrote this up as a joke.
A pity I'm neither a saleswoman nor possessing the desired personality attributes, otherwise I'd be tempted to apply, just for daft.
Tomorrow I find out if I got the medical writing job at the hospital. If so, e2 will have helped me get that job, because I used several writeups I did over the past months as current writing samples. I wouldn't have written 'em if I hadn't gotten hopelessly addicted to this place. If I've got the job, I'm going to do the Happy Dance throughout my apartment and put in an order for a Handspring Treo 90, because I'm going to have all manner of new information to keep track of and I:
If I didn't get the job ... I'm going to be bummed. I will probably stomp around the apartment, berate the dustbunnies, curse the universe, drink a hard cider, then get back to job hunting. It's the only thing to do, after all ....
Oh wow, If you don't like football or the Cleveland Browns, then just move on, because I'm about to rant and rave. Did anyone see the freaking game? Where did Kelly Holcolm come from? He is one helluva player. He had some incredible poise for somebody who hasn't started over 12 games in 6 years. Granted, the line was giving him some good protection. Our defense was playing terrible. We had an incredible pass defense last year, now we suck...I don't understand it. We stopped up Holmes for a while, but then we started getting tired and he ran all over us.
And to continue with the bad...Dwayne Rudd...I will be surprised if tomorow there's a picture on the front page of the paper of Rudd swinging from a rope on a light post. That stupid mother fucker. That is a huge problem with the NFL of today. Too flashy...the players get too hyped up with just making a tackle. That guy is unbelievable. Alright...I guess we'll get over it, but hopefully the Brownies will use it to get pumped for the next games. We'll see how they face adversity.
The gross overuse of the word "my" in recent years, mostly used in naming services rendered online or various websites, possibly indicates corporate culture's desire to "bring the internet to the user." Given that most internet users have absolutely no idea which way is up, corporations naming their wares "my (whatever)" is a way for them to make the user feel like they're using something made especially for them.
I don't know about you, but when I see a page titled "My Account" or "My Computer" or "My Glockenspiel," or whatever, it just makes me feel silly, like when a directory is refered to as a "folder." What's even worse is when someone refers to their whatever-it-is as "my whatever-it-is," which indicates that whatever they're talking about is, in fact, their own. The internet is, after all, not a bed and breakfast, nor is it Burger King -- you don't and you shouldn't expect to automatically get everything "your" way.
Answering emails from lusers at my low-income tech support job always has me feeling like a doofus when I tell them to click on "my account," when the account is actually theirs. Most of the time the luser seems to understand, although I've had a few think I was actually refering to my own account and ask how they could get into my account. Given the average ignorance of the average internet user, the word "my" only complicates things and creates the need for even more hand-holding.
Using possessive adjectives to name possession-neutral nouns is not only gramatically incorrect, it not only sounds really stupid when spoken aloud, and it not only creates unnecessary confusion; it creates a culture of neophytes who think the internet is "theirs." There is really no point in it. Why not just call it "your (whatever)" and prevent the no doubt unlimited misunderstandings?
Today, two of the most basic laws of my reality shattered each other in a tragic expulsion of childhood memories and misconceptions. Two little known phenomenons killed each other.
The first of these phenomenons is the fact (or, well, hypothesis I guess, since it has proved to not be true) that nothing will write on black pants. My elementary school uniform consisted of a rather ugly green and yellow plaid wool skirt that itched rather badly during the warm months, and from the second full week in November through to spring break (in mid-March), we were allowed to wear black slacks. I spent most of my time writing on these pants, because nothing would show up. Mostly with pens and pencils, occasionally a marker or a coloured pencil or even a crayon once or twice. It was all simply foolish child boredom. Then I hit middle school. And I decided that having subliminal messages in black on these black pants would screw with the nuns heads. (scenerio: a sister of mercy sees something like "666" on someone's pants. Especially on a trouble maker's pants. You can't very well accuse them of putting it there, because then they just deny that they can see it. And then you are guilty of telling some poor middle schooler that they are the devil. This whole concept humoured me). The desire to make nuns think they were crazy started my quest to find things that would write on pants. I tried markers, washable and otherwise, coloured pencils of various colours, chalk of various colours, not even sharpie would mark black pants.
The second is the idea that my favourite brand of highlighter could not explode. Everyone I knew had problems with highlighters that were exploding, leaving large neon stains on books, clothing, and backpacks alike. Until today, I would have whole heartedly recommended a certain brand of highlighter that I now refuse to mention. This brand had never given me a problem, I had never once had an issue with a highlight exploding, or even so much as leaking a little.
Today, as you might have already suspected, I discovered the one thing that will write on black pants. Pink highlighter. Not only does pink highlighter write on black pants, but it writes WELL on black pants. My favourite pair of pants (which were, actually, my old uniform pants), nice and worn in, now have a large neon pink spot on the bottom where my pink highlighter--you guessed it--exploded all over the place. But mostly just on my pants.
I have just returned home from scenic Champaign, Illinios, having seen the first Chicago Bears football game played downstate.
As is the usual, I wore my costume of 'the girl bear', black fur miniskirt, brown fur tank top, bear ears, black leather collar and black combat boots. Little did I know it was going to be close to a hundred degrees. I figured in September, we'd have a little brisk Autumn breeze. My friend Ann was dressed as a Viking, black rubber bodice, brown miniskirt, FULL CAPE, black boots and Viking Horns.
We were hot. In every sense of the word. It paid off, however, since we were sitting in the front row of the stadium, having our pictures taken by sports photographers and being videotaped by NFL Films. Sure we got nosebleeds and heat stroke...sure we were sunburnt and dehydrated. It was worth it to see my future lover Brian Urlacher in action, to see the Bears win the 'home' opener to start another miraculous Playoff bound season, to continue a three year tradition, and to spend a weekend with my good friends Joe and Ann, even if they ARE Minnesota fans.
I think I will go lay in the tub and take a nap now. Go Bears.
This Perl program will take a text file in UNIX format (line feeds at the end of each line) and convert it to DOS format (carriage return then line feed at the end of each line). Next, it will print out the octal ASCII value of each character in the file, each separated by a slash from the next. This was for a homework assignment. The instructor wanted me to do it by hand. Hah!
#!/usr/bin/perl -w open EXPRESS,"express.drg";#put filename inside the quotes there my $file = ""; while (<EXPRESS>) { $file .= $_; } $file =~ s/\n/\r\n/mg; my $fizzball = length($file)-1; my @letters; $#letters = $fizzball; for ($i = 0; $i <= $fizzball; ++$i) { $letters[$i] = sprintf("%03o",ord(substr($file,$i,1))); } print join("/",@letters);
i miss her terrribly STOP she's my best friend STOP one of very few STOP
i think i need to write something else now STOP
printable version chaos
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