I apologize for the relative dearth of new content on this blog over the past couple weeks. I blame it on a general malaise whose cause I'll get to in just a sec, though if you wanted to just translate that as "laziness" and leave it at that, I guess I couldn't argue with you. I would've liked to have had some news to offer on the ongoing job search, but there hasn't been much, certainly nothing meaningful.
In fact, I got kind of a nasty one-two punch in the last 24 hours: First, while I was filing my weekly unemployment claim with the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations on Sunday afternoon, a note popped up that this appeared to be my last week of eligibility for standard unemployment benefits and would I like to apply for the emergency extension that's been made available by the federal stimulus bill. I can't complain too much about that one, I guess -- after all, I'm lucky to have had that available to me at all, because it's certainly better to have it than not -- but still, that was a milestone I was really, really hoping I wouldn't have to cross. Then, this morning, I got the news that an opening I had applied for at Columbus Regional Healthcare -- and one that I was kind of excited about -- had been whittled down to two finalists, and I wasn't one of them. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been quite the punch to the gut that it was, since I've kind of gotten used to rejection over the very protracted course of this job search, but the thing is, my dad works for Columbus Regional, and if I can't even lean on nepotism as a way to land myself a job, then by that measure I'm actually less employable than Lane Kiffin.
Anyway. I've now been unemployed for more than seven months, during which time I've applied for probably around 100 jobs, some of them as close by as my hometown, others as far away as L.A. and Seattle. It has been an almost uniformly spirit-crushing journey, but one that has taught me a lot that I might never have learned otherwise. For one thing, I guess you could say that I've learned what it's like to technically be in a disadvantaged minority, and of all the things that suck about being in a disadvantaged minority, one of the worst is that people talk about you like you're not real.
The unemployment rate, the number of unemployed people, the number of jobs the American economy has added or lost in a given month -- these numbers get tossed around with a frequency that rivals football scores in the fall. And just like football scores, they are frequently used for the purpose of taunting and trash-talking. And until I'd entered the longest period of involuntary unemployment of my life, I had no idea just how demoralizing and infuriating that could be.
I've been rejected for around 100 jobs and on more than one occasion have barely scraped by in terms of paying my bills for a given month. So when I see a Republican Congressman or talking head crow on TV about how this Democratic bill or that Democratic bill have failed to make a dent in the unemployment rate, it really rankles me, as if they're actively rooting against my getting a job so that they'll have something to beat the Obama administration over the head with. It may be funny to you that the unemployment rate has stayed at such-and-such percentage in spite of everyone's best efforts, but as a member of that percentage, it's not much fun for me at all. And it's kind of shocking that these folks can't even take ten seconds to take a step back and observe just how joyous they look in proclaiming the news of my continued unemployment.
But the Republicans are hardly the only ones who don't get it. I get at least three e-mails a day from Media Matters or Democracy for America or some wing of the Democratic Party trying to pump me up and make me feel awesome that something the Democrats have done have created X number of jobs. That's great, and I certainly don't begrudge any of the people who've been able to snag one of those jobs, but obviously it hasn't trickled down to me yet. I don't know how to build fighter planes or bridges, and I haven't been to medical or nursing school, so I'm still out there looking. And looking. And looking. It's not like I expect someone to just drop a job into my lap -- though if any of y'all were thinking about doing that, you're welcome to do so -- but sometimes it seems a wee bit tone-deaf to get that excited about a supposed economic recovery when nearly 15 million people are still looking for jobs. Things might be getting better overall, but for me personally, I'm still in a deep recession, and the economy hasn't turned around for me until I'm pulling down a regular paycheck again. So it would be nice if fewer people in D.C. would act like all our problems are solved.
(The other thing I love is when one of those e-mails asks me for a donation because they just can't pass meaningful legislation without my support. You know, maybe I'm being cynical, but you've got control of the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress -- if you can't pass meaningful legislation with all that, then I doubt my five bucks is going to put you over the top.)
And believe me, I don't think for one hot minute that I'm stuck in the worst of it. I've got a roof over my head and two loving parents who have been generous enough to give me a soft place to land, and other than a mountain of credit-card debt that I freely admit I built all on my own, I don't have too many huge debts or obligations that are in danger of putting me under on a regular basis. But think about the people who have families, student loans to pay off, major medical bills for themselves or their loved ones, and who no longer have an income capable of keeping up with all this stuff. When you gloat over the success or the failure of an economic plan that's been passed by Washington, these are the people you're using to make your point. These are the people whose problems you're conveniently putting out of your mind so that you can score gotcha points against someone. And that is a shitty, shitty way for one American to be acting toward another.
We don't want to be your talking point. We don't want to be in your rah-rah press release. We don't want to be your billy club for you to bash the other side with. We don't even want you to turn around and offer us your pity, because that and two bucks will get us a tall coffee at Starbucks. All we want is the opportunity to go to an office or factory or store or whatever for eight hours a day and earn enough money to feed, clothe, and house ourselves. (Think about what little that is to ask: We're only asking for the ability to go do something most of us don't even like to do, and wouldn't do if we didn't have to.)
So keep that in mind the next time you're tempted to use me, or any of the 14,799,999 Americans as of last month, to score points against someone on the opposite side of the aisle from you politically. If you're going to crow about the failure of a given job-creation plan without offering any better ideas as an alternative, or crow about the success of a given plan without offering anything other than "Stay the course, our work here is done" as a follow-up, you may be helping yourselves but you're sure as hell not helping us. All you're doing is getting us really, really pissed off.
Rant over, because it's time to hit up the job sites again. And if any of them finally come up a winner, rest assured you'll hear about it here.
Showing posts with label my job search. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my job search. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Dougie does Dallas.
Or, a Sociological Examination of Athletic Prowess, Eating Habits, and Preponderance of Certain Female Characteristics (viz. the Human Barbie Doll) in the Greater Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
Between various stories I'd heard from friends who'd spent time in east Texas and my driving hatred for the Cowboys, I'd assumed Dallas would be this sun-blasted, paved-over suburban hellscape in which we'd go see the Texas-Oklahoma game, spend the rest of the weekend pinballing between various chain restaurants and overpriced bars, and then fly home. We did end up sampling the delights of the northwest Dallas Olive Garden (this has become an official Crazy Rivalry Game Road Trip tradition for reasons to obscure to waste your time with here), but the rest of our time in the city was way more fun than I'd anticipated.
I got into Dallas on Thursday afternoon, met up with Kristen at Love Field, and we set about exploring the various nether-reaches of the Dallas metro area. This took us to Cafe Brazil in Deep Ellum for a late lunch and then out to Grand Prairie, about halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, where sheer morbid curiosity drew me to the new Cowboys Stadium. I still hate the Cowboys and have no use for Jerry Jones other than the possibility that he and Dan Snyder might one day end up in a broken elevator at an NFL owners' meeting and proceed to murder one another, but I will say this: Like Sarah Palin and those massive gymnastics demonstrations put on by the North Korean government, Cowboys Stadium is impressive to look at, even if it does go against everything I believe in. When we drove by the old Texas Stadium in Irving on our way to pick up the third member of our party at DFW, it looked downright puny by comparison.
I'm fairly certain that at least one type of storm trooper in "The Empire Strikes Back" wore helmets that looked a lot like this.
This picture is probably in at least the 95th percentile of pictures that have ever been taken of me, and I'm a little pissed that it's got Cowboys shit in the background.
From there we had drinks at the W Hotel bar downtown, followed by a jaunt over to a dive called Lee Harvey's on the other side of downtown where we guzzled Jack-and-Cokes while "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" played on the jukebox and I felt more like I was in a Tarantino film than I've probably ever felt in my life. The next morning, we went to pick up Mark at DFW, and it was while we were walking through the Delta terminal that something completely random and awesome happened.
My phone rang and a number with a 540 area code showed up in the caller ID. I was worried it'd either be a wayward junk-debt collector or freeloading semi-friend asking me for money, but I answered it anyway, and it turned out to be a member of the search committee at Virginia Tech charged with hiring a new editor for their alumni magazine. Apparently he'd e-mailed me earlier in the week and I didn't see it because I'd been spending so much time either on the road or in the air; he wanted to do a preliminary phone interview but had a full schedule the following week, so we agreed to talk later on that afternoon. We picked up Mark, paid a visit to the Sixth Floor Museum (named for its location in the Texas Book Depository in downtown Dallas), and then headed back to the hotel to recharge, at which point I chatted on the phone with the gentleman from VT for 30 or 40 minutes. It went pretty well, I think, and I'll keep y'all posted on where that goes.
The infamous "grassy knoll" at Dealey Plaza, which I am hoping will not end up serving as a metaphor for my employment prospects.
Speaking of the hotel: There was, as the comments on the Hotels.com review had warned us, a strip club more or less in the parking lot (next door, actually, but there was no difference in practical terms). The hotel was much nicer than such complaints would lead one to believe; the strip club, though, was . . . strange. It was huge, and had the fake-stucco-and-colored-mood-lighting exterior that, as Kristen pointed out, is exclusive to strip clubs and (ironically enough) southern Protestant megachurches, but it turned out to be B.Y.O. with respect to alcohol and the female talent on a Thursday night was -- well, I would charitably describe it as "disinterested." All the dancers looked like they'd just popped a couple quaaludes, and let's just say that not everything's bigger in Texas (I'm referring here to boobs, of course). Though we did have the unique experience of a stripper using racial/ethnic humor to try and close the deal on a lap dance, which was definitely a new one for me. I'm a little offended that she didn't stop for even a minute to consider that I might have African-American or Hispanic blood, but then again the lighting wasn't good in there so maybe I should just give her the benefit of the doubt. At any rate, we left the establishment feeling enlightened by a new experience, yet very much discomfited at the same time.
That also pretty much sums up our experience sampling the culinary delights at the Texas State Fair, which surrounds the Cotton Bowl stadium and for which the Texas-Oklahoma game is more or less the grand finale each October. As Kristen pointed out in her Facebook photo essay of our trip, "In Texas, the question is not should we fry this. But how can we fry this." I couldn't even begin to list all the food items we observed for sale in a fried, barbecued, or otherwise innovatively larded state; I'll simply run down the fried items I personally sampled, reviewing each one in order of preference from "that was awesome" to "I'm not sure what I just put in my mouth":
In between our adventure deep in the gummy, wheezing, sclerotic heart of Texas, there was a football game, in which I noticed four things:
1. Texas is far from the best team in the country, if what we witnessed Saturday afternoon was accurate. Maybe it was the amped-up Oklahoma defense, maybe it was nervousness induced by the hype surrounding the game, but the Longhorn offense was just as likely to give up a sack or incur an exasperating penalty on a high-school-caliber mental error as they were to break a big play. Perhaps more likely, actually, as Colt McCoy averaged a measly 3.3 yards on 39 passing attempts. If the 'Horns' offense can rise to the level of their aggressive D, this is a national-title-caliber team; if they keep starting off slow like they did against OU (and several teams before that), they've got a loss waiting for them somewhere down the stretch this season. (Be that as it may, however, they easily established themselves as the superior trash-talkers in Dallas over the weekend.)
2. Oklahoma is even further away from the best team in the country, which might have been true even before a crushing sack re-aggravated the shoulder injury Sam Bradford suffered in the opener against BYU and knocked him out of the game. The Sooner defense is every bit Texas's equal, maybe even a little better, but their re-jiggered offensive line paved the way for a miserable -16 yards rushing and frequently left Landry Jones to run for his life in the backfield. The defense alone will keep the Sooners in every remaining game they play, but unless the offense grows up in a hurry and overcomes the losses of Bradford and star tight end Jermaine Gresham, they may not actually win enough of those games to earn a decent bowl bid -- or, potentially, any bowl bid at all.
3. There is a fine line between "gorgeous day for football" -- which, as you can see from the photo above, last Saturday definitely was -- and "skin cancer risk." I crossed this line to the point where even the TSA agents at Love Field on Sunday were going, "You must've been at the game yesterday, huh? Man, you got SCORCHED."
4. Barring some sort of hardship exemption or letter of recommendation from one's Congressperson, being brunette evidently disqualifies female applicants from admission to the University of Texas. The brunettes all go to Oklahoma -- where, if OU's RRS contingent was any indication, they are admitted almost as grudgingly -- or, as Dawgs Online informs me, to SMU. And there is evidently a human-genetics laboratory somewhere in the DFW metroplex (perhaps funded by UT?) that has succeeded in creating life-sized, human, walking, talking Barbie dolls, because everywhere we went Dallas was stacked to the rafters with tall, thin, tanned blondes packing suspiciously perky breasts. Upon finding that much of Dallas was in fact tree-lined and attractive, I found myself thinking, "I could probably even live here"; upon seeing the range of female talent on display, I found myself thinking, "There's no way I could ever live here, because there'd be no end to the trouble to which I could subject myself around these Fembots."
As it turned out, the Red River Shootout was not the last football game we got to see in person that day. Thursday evening, during our random exploration of Dallas proper, we'd taken a quick spin through the Southern Methodist campus and found the Navy football 18-wheeler parked by the football stadium -- the Midshipmen were in town to face the Mustangs. Kristen, who used to live in Annapolis, asked if we could go to that game as well, and after a short beer/burger fill-up at Snuffer's, we did. Entry to the game was every bit as cheap and simple as you'd expect for a program that's had only one winning season since getting the NCAA death penalty in the late '80s, but the overall futility of the program was not enough to keep the game from being blessed with a three-F/A-18 flyover before kickoff (the RRS only got two), nor did it scare off some very famous guests:
Yup, that's Bush 43 his ownself, who probably would've been perfectly content with a crisp evening of brush-cutting had his wife, an SMU alumna, not dragged him up to Big D. Crushing NCAA penalties notwithstanding, SMU still appears to be the prime drop-off spot for the children of conservative Texas bluebloods who make more money than you or I will ever see in our lifetimes; I have no doubt that every one of the smoking-hot (and, indeed, overwhelmingly brunette) coeds in attendance left the game in an expensive foreign car and will likely leave SMU with a husband who has a trust fund and a country-club membership.
We were treated to another close game, which, unlike the Red River Shootout, came as a surprise -- the Mustangs had some success early in corralling Navy's triple-option attack and went into the halftime break up 21-7, but Navy either adjusted at halftime or just wore SMU down physically, because they stormed back to take a lead before the Mustangs tied it with a late score and sent the game into overtime. SMU proceeded to execute about the saddest overtime series I've ever seen -- rush for 1-yard loss, incomplete pass, incomplete pass, miss a 43-yard field goal -- and Navy had little trouble kicking an FG on their possession and trotting off with a win. Still, I give Southern Meth credit for a) the female scenery and b) having Coke Zero at the concession stand, both of which put them a cut above most gameday experiences.
All in all, it was a great experience, and I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to the people of Dallas for showing us more generosity, courtesy, and good times than I could've ever expected from a bunch of fucking Cowboys fans. I tip my woefully undersized hat to you all and smear another dose of steroid cream onto my disgustingly sun-shriveled face in your name. And I look forward to your future advances in the fields of deep-frying and female-humanoid development -- both of which, as you know, are near and dear to my heart.
Hook'em, Big D.
And now please excuse me while I retire to the bathroom to peel the rest of my face off.
Between various stories I'd heard from friends who'd spent time in east Texas and my driving hatred for the Cowboys, I'd assumed Dallas would be this sun-blasted, paved-over suburban hellscape in which we'd go see the Texas-Oklahoma game, spend the rest of the weekend pinballing between various chain restaurants and overpriced bars, and then fly home. We did end up sampling the delights of the northwest Dallas Olive Garden (this has become an official Crazy Rivalry Game Road Trip tradition for reasons to obscure to waste your time with here), but the rest of our time in the city was way more fun than I'd anticipated.
I got into Dallas on Thursday afternoon, met up with Kristen at Love Field, and we set about exploring the various nether-reaches of the Dallas metro area. This took us to Cafe Brazil in Deep Ellum for a late lunch and then out to Grand Prairie, about halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, where sheer morbid curiosity drew me to the new Cowboys Stadium. I still hate the Cowboys and have no use for Jerry Jones other than the possibility that he and Dan Snyder might one day end up in a broken elevator at an NFL owners' meeting and proceed to murder one another, but I will say this: Like Sarah Palin and those massive gymnastics demonstrations put on by the North Korean government, Cowboys Stadium is impressive to look at, even if it does go against everything I believe in. When we drove by the old Texas Stadium in Irving on our way to pick up the third member of our party at DFW, it looked downright puny by comparison.
I'm fairly certain that at least one type of storm trooper in "The Empire Strikes Back" wore helmets that looked a lot like this.
This picture is probably in at least the 95th percentile of pictures that have ever been taken of me, and I'm a little pissed that it's got Cowboys shit in the background.
From there we had drinks at the W Hotel bar downtown, followed by a jaunt over to a dive called Lee Harvey's on the other side of downtown where we guzzled Jack-and-Cokes while "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" played on the jukebox and I felt more like I was in a Tarantino film than I've probably ever felt in my life. The next morning, we went to pick up Mark at DFW, and it was while we were walking through the Delta terminal that something completely random and awesome happened.
My phone rang and a number with a 540 area code showed up in the caller ID. I was worried it'd either be a wayward junk-debt collector or freeloading semi-friend asking me for money, but I answered it anyway, and it turned out to be a member of the search committee at Virginia Tech charged with hiring a new editor for their alumni magazine. Apparently he'd e-mailed me earlier in the week and I didn't see it because I'd been spending so much time either on the road or in the air; he wanted to do a preliminary phone interview but had a full schedule the following week, so we agreed to talk later on that afternoon. We picked up Mark, paid a visit to the Sixth Floor Museum (named for its location in the Texas Book Depository in downtown Dallas), and then headed back to the hotel to recharge, at which point I chatted on the phone with the gentleman from VT for 30 or 40 minutes. It went pretty well, I think, and I'll keep y'all posted on where that goes.
The infamous "grassy knoll" at Dealey Plaza, which I am hoping will not end up serving as a metaphor for my employment prospects.
Speaking of the hotel: There was, as the comments on the Hotels.com review had warned us, a strip club more or less in the parking lot (next door, actually, but there was no difference in practical terms). The hotel was much nicer than such complaints would lead one to believe; the strip club, though, was . . . strange. It was huge, and had the fake-stucco-and-colored-mood-lighting exterior that, as Kristen pointed out, is exclusive to strip clubs and (ironically enough) southern Protestant megachurches, but it turned out to be B.Y.O. with respect to alcohol and the female talent on a Thursday night was -- well, I would charitably describe it as "disinterested." All the dancers looked like they'd just popped a couple quaaludes, and let's just say that not everything's bigger in Texas (I'm referring here to boobs, of course). Though we did have the unique experience of a stripper using racial/ethnic humor to try and close the deal on a lap dance, which was definitely a new one for me. I'm a little offended that she didn't stop for even a minute to consider that I might have African-American or Hispanic blood, but then again the lighting wasn't good in there so maybe I should just give her the benefit of the doubt. At any rate, we left the establishment feeling enlightened by a new experience, yet very much discomfited at the same time.
That also pretty much sums up our experience sampling the culinary delights at the Texas State Fair, which surrounds the Cotton Bowl stadium and for which the Texas-Oklahoma game is more or less the grand finale each October. As Kristen pointed out in her Facebook photo essay of our trip, "In Texas, the question is not should we fry this. But how can we fry this." I couldn't even begin to list all the food items we observed for sale in a fried, barbecued, or otherwise innovatively larded state; I'll simply run down the fried items I personally sampled, reviewing each one in order of preference from "that was awesome" to "I'm not sure what I just put in my mouth":
Fried S'More
Other than the "mushy" graham-cracker section, reviewers had universal praise for this "sweet, gooey" confection, which "literally bursts with marshmallow fluff" and adds a "melty," "delicious" layer of chocolate to boot. The "crisp outer shell" adds another "layer of awesomeness" to this "brilliant" take on a beloved campfire treat.
Fried Green Tomatoes
Fried green tomatoes may no longer be exotic, but the crowd gathered at the Gina's Restaurant booth in the Coca-Cola Food Court waited for them "like teenaged girls waiting for the Beatles to get off the plane in New York in 1964." The food didn't disappoint: From the "thick," "crispy" breading to the "deliciously seasoned" tomatoes inside, Gina's offering "sets a new bar" for fried-tomato excellence.
Fried Nutter Butter
While the Nutter Butter inside was "rendered rather mushy" by the frying process, tasters praised the "crispy" shell and the way the deep-frying "didn't overpower" the "essential peanutty/chocolatey goodness." Be careful, though, as the goo inside may be "hot enough to melt your teeth."
Fried Butter
"If you love the taste of pure butter, you'll love these," said our diners, who confessed to being "not exactly sure" how these "salty-sweet dough balls" were created but called the "unmistakable" blast of butter flavor "enough to make your hair stand on end." They were divided, however, on whether the "decadent" taste was worth the "feeling that your arteries are hardening" even as the butter-"saturated" dough "slides down your throat like a topless Spring Breaker on a K-Y slip 'n' slide."
Fried Coke
If fried butter was a mystery, then fried Coca-Cola was "downright confounding," as the dish appeared to be nothing more than "mysteriously flavored dough balls" soaking in "Coke syrup" or "some other sugary liquid substance." Perhaps the "dough balls themselves are made with Coke syrup," one sampler posited, but either way, the overall taste is reminiscent of "when you'd be almost finished with lunch in elementary school" and would "mix your leftover food and beverages together" just to "experiment." One tester said she "devoured every bite"; another said he was "frankly terrified" of the "concoction."
In between our adventure deep in the gummy, wheezing, sclerotic heart of Texas, there was a football game, in which I noticed four things:
1. Texas is far from the best team in the country, if what we witnessed Saturday afternoon was accurate. Maybe it was the amped-up Oklahoma defense, maybe it was nervousness induced by the hype surrounding the game, but the Longhorn offense was just as likely to give up a sack or incur an exasperating penalty on a high-school-caliber mental error as they were to break a big play. Perhaps more likely, actually, as Colt McCoy averaged a measly 3.3 yards on 39 passing attempts. If the 'Horns' offense can rise to the level of their aggressive D, this is a national-title-caliber team; if they keep starting off slow like they did against OU (and several teams before that), they've got a loss waiting for them somewhere down the stretch this season. (Be that as it may, however, they easily established themselves as the superior trash-talkers in Dallas over the weekend.)
2. Oklahoma is even further away from the best team in the country, which might have been true even before a crushing sack re-aggravated the shoulder injury Sam Bradford suffered in the opener against BYU and knocked him out of the game. The Sooner defense is every bit Texas's equal, maybe even a little better, but their re-jiggered offensive line paved the way for a miserable -16 yards rushing and frequently left Landry Jones to run for his life in the backfield. The defense alone will keep the Sooners in every remaining game they play, but unless the offense grows up in a hurry and overcomes the losses of Bradford and star tight end Jermaine Gresham, they may not actually win enough of those games to earn a decent bowl bid -- or, potentially, any bowl bid at all.
3. There is a fine line between "gorgeous day for football" -- which, as you can see from the photo above, last Saturday definitely was -- and "skin cancer risk." I crossed this line to the point where even the TSA agents at Love Field on Sunday were going, "You must've been at the game yesterday, huh? Man, you got SCORCHED."
4. Barring some sort of hardship exemption or letter of recommendation from one's Congressperson, being brunette evidently disqualifies female applicants from admission to the University of Texas. The brunettes all go to Oklahoma -- where, if OU's RRS contingent was any indication, they are admitted almost as grudgingly -- or, as Dawgs Online informs me, to SMU. And there is evidently a human-genetics laboratory somewhere in the DFW metroplex (perhaps funded by UT?) that has succeeded in creating life-sized, human, walking, talking Barbie dolls, because everywhere we went Dallas was stacked to the rafters with tall, thin, tanned blondes packing suspiciously perky breasts. Upon finding that much of Dallas was in fact tree-lined and attractive, I found myself thinking, "I could probably even live here"; upon seeing the range of female talent on display, I found myself thinking, "There's no way I could ever live here, because there'd be no end to the trouble to which I could subject myself around these Fembots."
As it turned out, the Red River Shootout was not the last football game we got to see in person that day. Thursday evening, during our random exploration of Dallas proper, we'd taken a quick spin through the Southern Methodist campus and found the Navy football 18-wheeler parked by the football stadium -- the Midshipmen were in town to face the Mustangs. Kristen, who used to live in Annapolis, asked if we could go to that game as well, and after a short beer/burger fill-up at Snuffer's, we did. Entry to the game was every bit as cheap and simple as you'd expect for a program that's had only one winning season since getting the NCAA death penalty in the late '80s, but the overall futility of the program was not enough to keep the game from being blessed with a three-F/A-18 flyover before kickoff (the RRS only got two), nor did it scare off some very famous guests:
Yup, that's Bush 43 his ownself, who probably would've been perfectly content with a crisp evening of brush-cutting had his wife, an SMU alumna, not dragged him up to Big D. Crushing NCAA penalties notwithstanding, SMU still appears to be the prime drop-off spot for the children of conservative Texas bluebloods who make more money than you or I will ever see in our lifetimes; I have no doubt that every one of the smoking-hot (and, indeed, overwhelmingly brunette) coeds in attendance left the game in an expensive foreign car and will likely leave SMU with a husband who has a trust fund and a country-club membership.
We were treated to another close game, which, unlike the Red River Shootout, came as a surprise -- the Mustangs had some success early in corralling Navy's triple-option attack and went into the halftime break up 21-7, but Navy either adjusted at halftime or just wore SMU down physically, because they stormed back to take a lead before the Mustangs tied it with a late score and sent the game into overtime. SMU proceeded to execute about the saddest overtime series I've ever seen -- rush for 1-yard loss, incomplete pass, incomplete pass, miss a 43-yard field goal -- and Navy had little trouble kicking an FG on their possession and trotting off with a win. Still, I give Southern Meth credit for a) the female scenery and b) having Coke Zero at the concession stand, both of which put them a cut above most gameday experiences.
All in all, it was a great experience, and I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to the people of Dallas for showing us more generosity, courtesy, and good times than I could've ever expected from a bunch of fucking Cowboys fans. I tip my woefully undersized hat to you all and smear another dose of steroid cream onto my disgustingly sun-shriveled face in your name. And I look forward to your future advances in the fields of deep-frying and female-humanoid development -- both of which, as you know, are near and dear to my heart.
Hook'em, Big D.
And now please excuse me while I retire to the bathroom to peel the rest of my face off.
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Friday Not-So-Random Ten+5 begins planning for its future.
As I'm pretty sure all of you know by now, I got laid off a couple weeks ago, and after a back surgery, a few days' recovery, and a visit from some out-of-town guests for SEC Media Days, it's probably about time for me to start hunting for the next place at which I will (hopefully) be gainfully employed. There's just one thing, though: I don't like working. I realize that doesn't exactly make me anyone's unique little flower, but there are very few things I like enough to be jazzed about the prospect of doing them for a mandatory eight hours each day. Even some things I like when I'm just doing them on my own become dreary and unappealing when I think about having to spend five days a week in a cubicle doing them so that I'll get to eat that month.
What do I like to do? That's a question a lot of people have asked me over the past couple weeks, in an attempt to begin honing in on something I might like to seek out for my next job, and I can actually think of a few things. The +5 below is where I reckon I'll be starting my job search: My Five Ideal Jobs. Following that is a Not-So-Random Ten that will basically constitute the bulk of my job-searching, future-planning soundtrack over the next few weeks, but let's get to the jobs first, just in case any of you helpful readers might know of some openings for any of these:
Freelance Lego sculptor
I would hope that my Lego design/construction chops have already been well established on this site. "Freelance Lego sculptor" is actually the alter ego I use for myself when I'm in a new and unfamiliar city and roaming bars to pick up chicks. Sure, it probably sounds dorky at first blush, but there's a lot you can do with it. For instance, I tell girls I just got back from spending a month in Switzerland, where I earned $15,000 for building a 2:1-scale version of the Peugeot 5008 for a display at the Geneva Auto Show. Laugh all you want, but that story earned me a night of passion with Katherine Heigl last month. OK, not Katherine Heigl, but her personal assistant, which is practically the same thing.
Rick Neuheisel's sweater-vest coordinator
My fandom of Rick Neuheisel is also well established at this point. After maybe Jim Tressel, Neuheisel is also one of the sharpest-dressed coaches in Division I-A, with a wide variety of wondrous sweater vests at his disposal for any given game. As something of a sweater-vest aficionado myself, I feel I would be highly qualified to select the most appropriate vest for each situation, helping to ensure that Neu's reputation as one of the slickest ladykillers in college football remains intact.
Lucy Pinder's personal hand bra
Being an internationally famous, 32G-equipped glamour model means you spend a lot of time with your hands posed coyly in front of your boobs. Only problem is, that doesn't leave you with any free hands to do things like play video games, shift a manual transmission, cook flapjacks, or what have you. I would be happy to offer my services as someone who could handle the boob-covering while she tends to those other important activities, and I think she'd find that she was now able to handle her daily chores more quickly and efficiently than ever before.
Proprietor of the world's first human petting zoo
I don't see how someone hasn't come up with this idea already. A hygienic, safely monitored place where people can pet the kind of beautiful women or men they might never get to come into contact with otherwise? Way better than a lap dance, and way better than some regular old petting zoo with farm animals. Which would you rather pet, a supermodel or a billy goat? You shouldn't have to think too hard about your answer to that question.
James Bond supervillain
Living in the lap of luxury in a concealed mega-hideout, extorting billions from the world's governments -- heck, I could do that. Only I'd have two advantages over the supervillains Bond faced in movies like "You Only Live Twice" or "On Her Majesty's Secret Service": One, I wouldn't actually have to tangle with anyone as clever or capable as James Bond, since he's a fictional character. Two, I'd have the advantage of watching all the mistakes those villains made and knowing better than to repeat them. As satisfying as it might be to trap an enemy spy in an elaborate, slow, excruciatingly torturous (but theoretically escapable) trap, I would resist the temptation to leave him in something like that; as Bond has proven time and time again, you're really better off just shooting him right away and getting it over with. So I think I've demonstrated that I have the cunning and foresight to be quite a nefarious villain -- all I need now is a hefty infusion of venture capital so that I can build my secret lair and city-destroying laser and what have you. Anybody looking around for sound investments in a troubled economy? Let me show you my prospectus.
And now the Ten, which, as explained, is Not-So-Random this week:
1. Mo' Horizons, "Hit the Road Jack"
2. The Farm, "Hard Times"
3. The Beatmasters, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
4. Underworld, "Two Months Off"
5. Beck, "Deadweight"
6. Miles Davis, "Freddie Freeloader"
7. Public Enemy, "Brother's Gonna Work It Out"
8. Pet Shop Boys, "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)"
9. The Smiths, "Stretch Out and Wait"
10. Avenue Q cast, "I Wish I Could Go Back to College"
Your turn, folks. Help me out! Let me hear your job suggestions, and/or random or not-so-random tens, in the comments.
What do I like to do? That's a question a lot of people have asked me over the past couple weeks, in an attempt to begin honing in on something I might like to seek out for my next job, and I can actually think of a few things. The +5 below is where I reckon I'll be starting my job search: My Five Ideal Jobs. Following that is a Not-So-Random Ten that will basically constitute the bulk of my job-searching, future-planning soundtrack over the next few weeks, but let's get to the jobs first, just in case any of you helpful readers might know of some openings for any of these:
Freelance Lego sculptor
I would hope that my Lego design/construction chops have already been well established on this site. "Freelance Lego sculptor" is actually the alter ego I use for myself when I'm in a new and unfamiliar city and roaming bars to pick up chicks. Sure, it probably sounds dorky at first blush, but there's a lot you can do with it. For instance, I tell girls I just got back from spending a month in Switzerland, where I earned $15,000 for building a 2:1-scale version of the Peugeot 5008 for a display at the Geneva Auto Show. Laugh all you want, but that story earned me a night of passion with Katherine Heigl last month. OK, not Katherine Heigl, but her personal assistant, which is practically the same thing.
Rick Neuheisel's sweater-vest coordinator
My fandom of Rick Neuheisel is also well established at this point. After maybe Jim Tressel, Neuheisel is also one of the sharpest-dressed coaches in Division I-A, with a wide variety of wondrous sweater vests at his disposal for any given game. As something of a sweater-vest aficionado myself, I feel I would be highly qualified to select the most appropriate vest for each situation, helping to ensure that Neu's reputation as one of the slickest ladykillers in college football remains intact.
Lucy Pinder's personal hand bra
Being an internationally famous, 32G-equipped glamour model means you spend a lot of time with your hands posed coyly in front of your boobs. Only problem is, that doesn't leave you with any free hands to do things like play video games, shift a manual transmission, cook flapjacks, or what have you. I would be happy to offer my services as someone who could handle the boob-covering while she tends to those other important activities, and I think she'd find that she was now able to handle her daily chores more quickly and efficiently than ever before.
Proprietor of the world's first human petting zoo
I don't see how someone hasn't come up with this idea already. A hygienic, safely monitored place where people can pet the kind of beautiful women or men they might never get to come into contact with otherwise? Way better than a lap dance, and way better than some regular old petting zoo with farm animals. Which would you rather pet, a supermodel or a billy goat? You shouldn't have to think too hard about your answer to that question.
James Bond supervillain
Living in the lap of luxury in a concealed mega-hideout, extorting billions from the world's governments -- heck, I could do that. Only I'd have two advantages over the supervillains Bond faced in movies like "You Only Live Twice" or "On Her Majesty's Secret Service": One, I wouldn't actually have to tangle with anyone as clever or capable as James Bond, since he's a fictional character. Two, I'd have the advantage of watching all the mistakes those villains made and knowing better than to repeat them. As satisfying as it might be to trap an enemy spy in an elaborate, slow, excruciatingly torturous (but theoretically escapable) trap, I would resist the temptation to leave him in something like that; as Bond has proven time and time again, you're really better off just shooting him right away and getting it over with. So I think I've demonstrated that I have the cunning and foresight to be quite a nefarious villain -- all I need now is a hefty infusion of venture capital so that I can build my secret lair and city-destroying laser and what have you. Anybody looking around for sound investments in a troubled economy? Let me show you my prospectus.
And now the Ten, which, as explained, is Not-So-Random this week:
1. Mo' Horizons, "Hit the Road Jack"
2. The Farm, "Hard Times"
3. The Beatmasters, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
4. Underworld, "Two Months Off"
5. Beck, "Deadweight"
6. Miles Davis, "Freddie Freeloader"
7. Public Enemy, "Brother's Gonna Work It Out"
8. Pet Shop Boys, "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)"
9. The Smiths, "Stretch Out and Wait"
10. Avenue Q cast, "I Wish I Could Go Back to College"
Your turn, folks. Help me out! Let me hear your job suggestions, and/or random or not-so-random tens, in the comments.
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