Killing my TV

Why can't anyone make my life simple? All week, ESPN's NHL page has had a TV listing for this very afternoon, when one of two games will be aired, either the Pittsburgh-New York Islanders game I don't care to see or the second half of a home-and-home between the Kings and the Ducks that I'd love to watch.

Coverage is regionalized, which means the western part of the country will get the Kings-Ducks and the eastern part will suffer through Penguins-Islanders. However, there's no obvious or easy way to ascertain just where Chicago is situated for the purposes of this dichotomization. Geographically, we're closer to both Pittsburgh and New York than to Southern California. But from a hockey standpoint, Chicago's NHL club, the Blackhawks, play in the Western Conference, along with the Kings and Ducks, whereas the Pens and Isles both play in the Eastern Conference.

A few weeks ago, a similar situation arose involving two sets of teams I had a casual interest in watching, and I believe we got the western (or further-western) game. However, for my viewing convenience, ESPN saw fit to put up a nifty color-coded map that broke down which regions of the country would see which game.

Alas, they don't see fit to do that for today.

Compounding the problem is that I can't find a general TV listing anywhere that clarifies the picture. They just repeat the same business about how ESPN is showing NHL hockey this afternoon, and that it's going to be either Kings-Ducks or Pens-Isles. Which, of course, I didn't already know. Argh.

Perhaps this is just an academic exercise, or one that would be in vain regardless. Since I don't have cable TV in my own apartment (at least as of yet), I'd have to trek up to Colleen's early enough in the afternoon to watch. I may do that regardless. But it seems certain that I'm only going to find out which game is on the air here by waiting till 3 p.m. and tuning into ESPN to see the surprise.

Oh the suspense of it all.

Redefining irony

I won't spoil it for you, but you simply must read this article about preppy punks. Trust me, it's worth your while.

Orange alert

Check out the "Terrorism Update" for today on Dave Barry's blog.

Boffo

It came as quite a surprise to me as well. But, yes, Virginia, there really is a job for me.

As of late yesterday afternoon, I am officially employed as a project intern for a public relations firm in the North Loop. Stunning, I know.

It started about two weeks ago, when I first saw the job announcement online. Though an internship, I was drawn to it because it offered the possibility of 40 hours a week, and though the wage is meager, it should be enough for me to live on for the foreseeable future. Also, it was doing a lot of stuff I like, or can do, like reading articles, gathering information and writing things for legislative and nonprofit clients (and possibly businesses as well). Plus, I figured I might at least overqualify myself, as I think a lot of the crop that would be attracted to this job would be kids still in school, whereas I have a degree and some work experience. So I gave it a shot.

My resume went out on the weekend, and by the time I woke up Monday morning the contact person had already e-mailed me to say she'd contact me that week regarding an interview. Of course, I didn't hear anything that week, and by the weekend was growing a little bit worried. I decided I'd call Monday, and when I got up decided to wait till the afternoon. That proved prudent, as I got a call a little before noon to schedule my interview, which turned out to be Wednesday morning. They also needed me to furnish them with three writing samples and two references, so I spent some time Monday evening trolling through old papers, stories and the like in search of some appropriate material. I settled on the story I wrote that ran on NHL.com, an excerpt from my thesis and a Web biography from my last job. A nice sample of various kinds of writing that I might expect to do for a P.R. firm.

Wednesday I showed up for the interview, and it seemed to go fairly well. The first woman, the internship coordinator, remarked on the quality of my resume and asked about my plans, then started asking if I'd be able to work beyond the early-June end date, should they decide to extend the internship. So I elaborated on my plans for grad school and suchlike, and it went well. She asked me to give an example of a time when I had worked with a team and pitched in as needed, so I described my last job and the myriad tasks and assignments I ended up doing, and managed quite impressively to make it sound like I had already done exactly what they would have me doing, which is probably because I have. Beyond that, we talked about some of the different tasks of the position, the various clients and, a big clincher for me, how they try to be principled about the clients they take. No tobacco companies, obviously. But the impressive one was when she mentioned that Dominick's, a local grocery store chain, had tried to hire them a few years ago, but the firm turned the company down because Dominick's has a less-than-exemplary record of its attitude toward and treatment of unions. That was refreshingly unexpected. So I thought my talk with her went well.

Next came a meeting with a senior project manager (or some similar title). We hashed some more things out, and then she filled me in more about the firm. The principal, I already knew from the company's Web site, was formerly a campaign manager for the current Mayor Daley of Chicago. I was forewarned that I'd be exposed to a fair amount of foul language, as the owner evidently is given to peppering her speech with it liberally, a habit, this interviewer speculated, she picked up from working in City Hall. I didn't get the sense that I really wowed this particular person, but it also didn't go really poorly. But I was already nervous because the first woman had mentioned that they had gotten a lot of great applications for the position, so I knew that I'd have some significant competition for the job. I tried to make a point of selling myself to each person, hopefully not a vain hope.

The final woman was someone who did a lot of the work with nonprofits, and I think my session with her went quite well. By this point I had already gotten a pretty clear picture of my potential job and responsibilities, and she elaborated further on the thinking that went into their decisions to take some clients who might seem quasi-evil in the beginning. Mainly it's for a soft drink association, which is trying to prevent the state legislature from barring soda machines from schools. The firm's rationale was that for some poorer schools in small towns, these vending machines contribute a significant amount of money for extracurricular and other programs, and given the budget and funding crises fazing all manner of local governments and agencies, it is difficult to say that some of these schools should just get tens of thousands of dollars taken away. So, while I'd certainly prefer not to see junk food being peddled in schools, yeah, I can't exactly say I want that to the tune of axing programs. Plus, I always appreciate the convenience of the occasional soda when I was in school.

Anyway, my last interview went well, and then I was finished. The intern coordinator told me they'd make their decision and then call me Friday afternoon. I returned home, pretty satisfied with how I had done, and fairly pleased with the firm. At the bare minimum, the office environment is pretty relaxed, and there's a general philosophy that it doesn't really matter when the work gets done, so long as it gets done by deadline. Considering this is more in the manner of how I prefer to work, I thought that sounded pretty good. Additionally, the hours are normal -- 9 to 5 -- and since the office is a mere seven stops from my apartment, without needing to switch trains, I can get there in less than 20 minutes, meaning I'll just have to leave my flat by 8:30 each morning to get there on time. Considering that at my last job I had to be at the office by 8:30, and left my apartment almost an hour before then, I can certainly live with that. They also offer an actual lunch hour, which is much nicer than the half-hour I was supposed to take at the last job. Plus, in some regard, it seemed like they were trying to court me. Between asking if I'd be available and interested in possibly working through the summer, till whenever I'd have to leave for school, and reassuring me that they were principled in who they took as clients and also would never force me to work on something I had ethical objections to, I sort of got that impression. But I could've been mistaken.

At any rate, with this job I decided to prepare myself for the worst. After my experiences with potential or seemingly likely jobs, where I thought for certain I'd get it only to be passed over for some inane reason or other, I knew I couldn't handle another devastating blow like that. So I set out to persuade myself that they, too, would pass me over. I made a point of continuing to search job boards, and I even applied for a few jobs. It was all halfhearted, but that owed more, I think, to being generally discouraged with my job search than to having the very real prospect of a job.

I actually proved quite successful at this the rest of Wednesday. I discussed the interview and the potential job minimally, and made a point of not trying to figure out where this would situate me in terms of income and other things that would be made possible my having this job. Thursday, however, my mind wandered on to some of the hypotheticals a bit. I suppose it was unavoidable. I was also growing anxious at the thought of knowing definitively the following day.

Friday I woke up a little later than I wanted. And instead of making a point of getting dressed and ready to face the day before lunch, I lolligagged and didn't shower till early afternoon. Then I sat around at waited nervously. I washed the dishes, I made a pitcher of iced tea, I even managed to sit down and start studying Czech. But I kept eyeing the clock with growing desperation. Granted, I had no idea what time Friday afternoon they planned to call me, but I got it in my head that I'd hear back earlier rather than later if they were going to hire me. As the hours stretched toward three, I started telling myself that it hadn't happened, that they had probably called to offer the job to someone else and were only waiting for a confirmation before giving me the consolation call. Antsy, I couldn't sit still long enough to study anymore. I ate a large amount of chocolate and turned on the television.

Finally, about a quarter to 5, the phone rang and I jumped. It looked like their number. Too jittery to mute the TV, I bolted into the kitchen so I could hear. Yes, it was the intern coordinator. She began her spiel about how they had finished reviewing all the applications and discussing the interviews. My heart sank. This was the same thing I had heard before when I had been rejected. So I was certainly not expecting her to then say "We'd like to extend our offer to you" immediately thereafter. I probably sported a wide grin at that point, and my pulse began racing. She offered me a chance to think it over if I wanted, but I knew pretty much that I wanted to take this; certainly I needed this income, so I accepted on the spot. We went over some of the logistical stuff, like the hours, lunch periods, dress, etc., and that finished the call. My heartrate was probably rather elevated for at least another hour, but for a good reason. A tremendous burden has been lifted from my shoulders. For the first time in many moons, I have some semblance of security. I'm still poor, but I won't starve. And, perhaps best of all, I won't have to keep looking for jobs anymore. Oh, and my paychecks should begin coming in before too long, since I start Monday morning.

Yup, life is good.

Next week: Stay tuned to hear me bitch about how much work sucks.

Ordem e progresso

You're Brazil!

You're athletic, charming, and probably a good dancer. Unfortunately, you don't really mind chopping down the rain forest, and you probably consider homeless people expendable in certain circumstances. Of course, your personality is so diverse that it's hard to track down exactly what you're like. You definitely like Pelé, the World Cup, and shouting "gooooal" at the top of your lungs.
Take the Country Quiz.

When piranhas fly

Planning an upcoming getaway to London? Then you might want to arm yourself with an umbrella and avoid boating on the Thames. It seems a seagull dropped a dead piranha on the deck of a ship in the Thames, some 5,000 miles or so away from its natural habitat in the tropical Amazon.

Of course, the fish liked died due to the frigid temperatures of the Thames, rather than from an attack by the bird. Then again, given the water quality of London's famous river, it might have been from other most unnatural causes.

The further idiocy of Tom Brokaw

Those of you who caught part of the not-too-distant debate of Democratic presidential hopefuls in South Carolina may or may not remember a particular exchange between candidate the Rev. Al Sharpton and moderator Tom Brokaw that went something like this:

Brokaw: Mr. Sharpton, what do you think of the war the West is waging on the Nation of Islam?

Sharpton: Do you mean on "Islamic nations"?

Brokaw: I mean the Nation of Islam.

Granted, that's far from a verbatim transcript. But it makes the gist of it painfully obvious: longtime, well-respected NBC newsman Tom Brokaw doesn't know that the "Nation of Islam" is not Iraq (or Iran, or Syria, or any other Muslim-majority nation in the Middle East), but instead a Chicago-based organization of black Muslims, one with which Malcolm X was associated in the years before his death.

So, it's been established that Brokaw is not the brightest apple in the bushel. Or at least that he doesn't take that bedrock journalistic principle of reporting facts accurately terribly seriously.

But now he's taken another of the Fourth Estate's sacred principles and desecrated.

I'm referring, of course, to the guest editorial Brokaw penned for today's New York Times about the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, titled "How the Home Front Can Help."

Now, it's not an absolute taboo for journalists to write op-ed pieces. But, it's the sort of thing that should be done on a limited basis, particularly for someone like a major network anchor who, rightly or wrongly, has come to be popularly regarded as a paragon of objectivity. I mean, I would've commended Brokaw had he written in last week with a column not unlike William Safire's criticizing the FCC for potentially allowing Comcast to acquire Disney and further consolidate the media oligarchy. There's even a case to be made for chastizing people in positions like Brokaw's for not speaking out against corporate media synergy, though I'll refrain from taking him to task on that.

Still, it's hard to take anyone like Brokaw seriously as a journalist once they've authored such a puff piece for the U.S. military, lending his name and prestige to government propaganda. How likely am I to believe a word he says from here on regarding the situation in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or any other military imbroglio? Not bloody likely.

Granted, I personally lost most of my respect for broadcast journalists of Brokaw's ilk years ago. And obviously this sort of outburst shouldn't come as a great shock from a man who wrote a best seller, The Greatest Generation, that was 400-odd pages of hogwash contending that the folks who survived the Great Depression, fought in the Second World War and drove the postwar boom years are better than any other generation. Conveniently, Brokaw omitted mention of the myriad failures and debacles borne of these folks, i.e. racism, the Cold War, Korea, McCarthy, Vietnam, Watergate, Reaganomics, Iran-Contra, etc. So we know he's not a pillar of fairness and balance, but more a willing propagandist.

Nonetheless, it irks me to see someone abusing their position for such an unnecessary purpose. Instead of questioning power and acting as a check on those who have it, Brokaw is quite content to cozy up to power, to be an apologist for it and to defend it against all comers.

My name is Simon ...

... I like to do drawrings.

Idle hands do the devil's work, my hands tend to the production of revolutionary art.

Over the past two nights, I've discovered a passion for sketching and drawing. More accurately, I've taken to making manual reproductions of black-and-white profiles of great Communists. Last night it was Lenin, tonight I began a larger-than-life profile of Che.

Oh, but the best part: My chosen canvas for these endeavors? The walls of our library/map room/study. A nice fringe benefit of living in a building slated for a spring demolition is being able to have complete and total free reign over the place. As in, we had no security deposit because any damage we do the flat will merely be wiped clean by the wrecking ball. Though, with any luck, we'll get to smash some windows and punch gaping holes in a few walls on our way out.

Another rewarding aspect of my art projects is that I've exhibited a newfound talent for this sort of thing. No, my works aren't original representations by any stretch of the imagination. Nor do I demonstrate any especial mastery of drawing technique or that sort of thing. But I am gaining some skills and confidence in my abilities, which could well be put to use eventually should I ever decide to go for something more original than Sharpie works of revolutionary kitsch. And that's worthwhile in and of itself.

Granted, I have no aspirations or pretensions of producing great art. But, I think I might be able to unleash some yet-untapped creative energies and ideas better through this medium rather than by writing. Alas, I don't think I have quite what it takes to be a great novelist (and poetry has never especially captivated me, though the odd verse will grab me), particularly with the whole plot development and symbolism bits. It just seems rather complicated, and while I may yet take a stab at it, I think ultimately it will be merely for my own edification and merriment. Kind of like my art.

That seems to be the true beauty of it: I genuinely am pleased with my output. Simply tackling such an undertaking is inherently gratifying, and the fact that it actually turns out better than my expectations is pure frosting. And, as I mentioned, I am developing uncharacteristic confidence in my artistic abilities. Last night's Lenin sketch was a regular baptism by fire. I was fairly careful in trying to accurately capture the detail and maintain a sense of proper proportion, at least while freehanding the whole profile. But despite my anxiety and ever-present fears it would turn out a spectacular failure, it actually ended up looking pretty damn cool, if I do say so myself. While it didn't take the form I originally envisioned, namely a faithful reproduction of the original image, it had its own artistic merits(!).

Tonight, as I launched into my enormous work of homage to Che, I again had worries it would end up a grotesque distortion of a legendary image. But, looking over my shoulder, I could reassure myself that the final product would be much better, and that proved true. OK, so perhaps it's not a finished product. At least, I've reached a stage where I'm not certain how to proceed. I'll probably spend some time studying it and running through possible next steps in my head before making an artistic(!) decision.

Only in rugby

Good reason not to shake a rugby player's hand.

Germans love David Hasselhoff

This is beyond hilarious:

David Hasselhoff has complained to museum curators after finding his photo absent in a collection of memorabilia about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The actor and producer, who says he is working on a film version of TV series Knight Rider, claims he is partly responsible for the fall of the concrete divide.

Speaking to German magazine TV Spielfilm, Hasselhoff said in 1989, the year the wall fell, he had helped reunite the country by singing his song 'Looking for Freedom' among millions of German fans at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

He said he felt he had moved people on both sides of the wall, although he admitted hardly any of the East Germans could speak English. He said: "I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Check-Point Charlie.

"After my appearance I hacked away at pieces of the wall that had the black, red and yellow colours of the German flag on it. I kept the big piece for myself and gave the smaller pieces to colleagues at Baywatch."

Hasselhoff said he doesn't mind that Americans make fun of his popularity in Germany and says he feels it is his second homeland.

He said: "Many Americans joke about my popularity in Germany. But they have no idea how beautiful Europe is and how rich it is in culture and fun and warmth and children. In Germany children have brought me thousands of flowers."

Wow. All I can say is, yes, it's true that there isn't a picture of Hasselhoff adorning the walls of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin. But he certainly played a role in bringing down the Wall. I happened to catch the tail end of VH1's "I Love the '80s" episode on 1989 tonight, and it had footage of Hasselhoff performing in Berlin the night the wall came down. Apparently millions of East Germans loved "Baywatch."

And if you want to pay homage to this great hero of the Cold War, might I suggest purchasing David Hasselhoff Sings America, which comes highly recommended by one Cindy of Wavre, Belgium. She writes:

What can you say about a man who's done it all? One word comes to mind when listening to this CD: WOW! This CD is a wonderful mix of country, pop and classical songs. David sings America is a thrilling ride through the amazing country we all dream about one way or the other. David takes you through a journey that you're not likely to forget. I've always been a big fan of David's music, but this album is even better than my greatest expectation.

You are thrown from one song to the other at the speed of light. Before you realize it, you've heard them all. There's not one dull moment in this album.

David experience on Broadway made him grown vocally. Perfectly assisted by the wonderful West Australian Philharmonic Orchestra, their music could give you goose bumps in a heartbeat.

Speechless.

For later

This is the part where a really long rant about how anything and everything in life sucks would go, if I had the energy or the mental clarity to write something lucid at 1:56 a.m. Or at least something packed with sufficient vitriol.

From your warm, living hands

Defender of civil liberties and the Constitution Charlton Heston, your and my favorite senile NRA executive, is giving you, red-blooded American, the chance to win his "my cold dead hands" rifle.

No, seriously. Best of all, you don't actually have to join the NRA or want anything to do with it to enter the contest.

Consider the possibilities: this is the weapon that, according to the NRA, "unleashed a revolution, rallying law-abiding gunowners, changing the course of elections and defeating the Clinton-Gore anti-gun machine."

Meditate on that a bit. This gun "unleashed a revolution." OK, fair enough. Many a revolution (like all political power, to paraphrase Chairman Mao) has come from the barrel of a gun. But it seems to me that at the moment you take up arms in revolt, you cease to be a "law-abiding" citizen. Or so it would seem. More frightening still is the notion that Chucky's Winchester deserves credit for "changing the course of elections." Now, maybe I'm just one of these naïve, hippie gun grabbers who doesn't know any better, but it seems to me that raising a rifle to alter the course of an election would be in direct violation of most folks' conception of democracy.

Call me crazy, but this isn't the sort of thing of which a man of such principle as the illustrious Moses would want to boast. Particularly a man who, in his self-promotion, trumpets having "stood beside Dr. King" during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. To quote my roommate, "it's too bad he wasn't standing beside King on that balcony in Memphis."

Regardless of Heston's dementia, I do think it'd be really terrific if a sane person won the rifle just to stick it to the NRA. Personally, if I win, I'd love to turn this into a great publicity coup for the good folks at the Brady Center. It'd be beautiful to have a proud member of the NRA Blacklist in possession of such a cherished treasure of the NRA and donating it to the group's archnemesis so that it could be melted down into something nonviolent.

G.I. George

This is, without doubt, the coolest action figure ever. Way cooler than those talking G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls that had their voice chips reversed so that Barbie would express her desire to kill people while G.I. Joe exhibited an unpresented interest in fashion.

Resolve

It's something I need to exhibit right about now. Try though I do to simply write off the unbearable wretchedness of being to factors beyond my control, I still need to exert some kind of agency over my own life.

No, that doesn't mean that I think simply working hard and longer in search of a job will improve my chance markedly. It might enhance my odds slightly, maybe get my foot in the door at a couple of more places, but really, I think the most effective strategy is just to e-mail my resume to even more places and sit by the phone, hoping someone calls.

Despite my unavoidable pessimism, I'd like to move forward with other aspects of my life, rather than allow my joblessness to provoke a general malaise that paralyzes my ability to be productive in other venues. It's a thought I've been kicking around upstairs the past day or two, and as yet it's unformed, but I have some general ideas as to what I hope to accomplish with my abundance of time:

• Read more. Back at the beginning of the year, I determined to read voraciously, making my way through virtually all the books in our apartment: mine, Joe's, Dick's. It was an exceedingly ambitious goal to set for myself, one that would require me to tackle probably a little more than a hundred books in roughly seven or eight months' time, and one that I knew even then was likely unattainable. But still I must resolve to trudge forward. Off the top of my head, I think I've read one book in the intervening time, which I finished just this morning. Granted, it was Jon Lee Anderson's superb if lengthy biography of Che Guevara, a nearly 800-page tome. But I'm capable of plowing through something like that in less than five weeks, for sure. And even though the subject matter merited more careful contemplation than the typical book -- I got misty-eyed at the conclusion, when Che was finally murdered, lamenting the premature death of such a dynamic, visionary personage with such promise to forge a true new world order -- I took so long in completing it mainly because I just went through several periods of multiple days where I didn't pick it up at all. So I need to be a bit more disciplined about reading regularly, and voluminously, even if I end up leaving dozens of unfinished books on the shelves.

• Learn some foreign languages. Another objective I identified when I got back to town a month ago (it seems like I'm taking inventory of all the New Year's resolutions I've been neglecting). I really, really want to not only maintain my Czech and German, but improve upon both. Word came this week that, once again, I'm a finalist for the Fulbright. While this doesn't come as any great surprise, and though I'm not expecting a better fate to become me this time around, I do need to prepare myself academically for the task should it come through this year. More broadly, even if I don't end up in Prague for a year just yet, there's a good possibility I'll be starting grad school this fall, and I'd really prefer not to be spending too much of my time there boning up on languages. So long as I'm not working, I should resolve to devote an hour a day to both Czech and German, sharpening my command of the grammatical structure of the languages and building my vocabulary so that I might be conversant by the summer. Granted, I'd ultimately like to learn Russian, and Esperanto, and brush up on my Spanish that's rusted a big hole in it from almost six years of neglect. But those are projects to pursue later, when I've built a working proficiency in Czech and German.

• Write for myself. Those big fiction projects I keep imagining will surely remain in the conceptual stages if I don't put finger to keyboard. Admittedly, I don't think myself capable of anything grand or worthy of publication, at least not at this juncture of my life. And I do delve into all sorts of subjects penning entries for these pages. But I can still gain a lot by writing solely for myself. I think I should pay more than lip service to the idea of creating art for art's sake, simply by keeping some sort of private journal of thoughts and ideas and stories that are written for my eyes only. Later, if I think any of them merit further work, I can always rewrite and revise and disseminate them. In the interim, however, I think it best simply to write what I think and feel and not need to worry about audience reaction.

• Revise my thesis. For the love of God, this should've been done almost a year ago. To my credit, I have periodically spent time with my thesis, revising it and mainly retyping it so that I have it in word. But as presently constituted, it's a lot of pages -- maybe 20 or more -- too long for journal publication, which means I need to do some substantial rewriting. The nice thing is, I don't think I really need to do new research for it; the feedback I got didn't have any real suggestions in this regard, other than recommending that I draw out some of the other characters better. But given that there weren't any adequate documentary materials for this purpose the first time around, and that I need to concentrate on cutting, not adding, prose, I'm not going to focus on that. Instead, I need to sit down with a notebook and read my thesis, marking it up with corrections but also constructing a general outline and then figuring out what sections to jettison in order to pare it down to a publishable length. That may be a challenge, and an agonizing one at that, but, dammit, it's some really excellent scholarship and it really accomplishes most everything I want in my own scholarship. Other scholars should read this. I want the world to learn about my topic, and to learn from it.

Beyond that, I'm sure there are plenty of self-improvement tasks I could assign myself. But I'd rather not. I think I've got quite a plateful as it stands, and frankly all that self-help book crap isn't my bag. At least if I set out on this and start making some real progress, I'll have something to show for myself from this period of my life and won't have to feel like it's been entirely wasted (though, ironically, probably any job I could or would find will leave me feeling like the time I've spent working it was wasted).

Shredded

As we all (should have) expected, I did not in fact get the internship I wanted. Of course not.

I finally got word of this earlier this afternoon, when they called me to tell me that they had chosen someone else who had some background in religion, even though they still think I have a great background and want to keep my resume on file. A fat lot of good that's likely to do me. Argh.

Rather than attempt to expound on the effect this has had on me, and to make some pathetic plea for pity, I'll simply say that I feel like a dog that's been kicked. It's not that I feel particularly slighted by this organization in particular, though obviously I really wanted this job, but it's more the general sense that life is out to kick me in the ass at every opportunity.

But praise be to the jobless economic recovery.

In the meantime, I get to begin thinking long and hard about what I'm going to do at the end of the month, since I'll be broke shortly thereafter and no longer able to stick around here. At least, not if I don't get a job in the interim. So, keep checking this space and looking for updates as I try to sort out what the hell I'm going to do with my life.

Only in America

While browsing the USPS FAQ section, trying to get information about getting a package redelivered because they mythical delivery notice they left never appeared at my apartment, I encountered a particularly interesting question: "What is required to mail a shotgun to a family member?"

No, seriously.

Bear in mind that this section also includes questions like "Why is the Eid stamp being issued?" Bear in mind that the Eid, at least the Eid-ul-Adha, is an important Islamic festival commemorating the end of Ramadan. This is sort of like asking why there are Christmas stamps or why we acknowledge Easter. At least, assuming that this question contains mere cultural ignorance, and isn't just an anti-Islamic rant.

Obscenity in the U.K.

In case you wondered whether American profanities had such a powerful grip in other countries, here's a handy reference chart of the Top 20 Swear Words in the United Kingdom, courtesy of the Guardian.