Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Interesting stuff. Former head honcho in Iraq, Jay Garner has a lot to say about the future of American involvement in Iraq. And it ain't pretty.
No, scratch that. Maybe I've been too short-sighted in condemning this little experiment in American Imperialism. I mean, sure it's freaking expensive. Sure it's going to be hard on the poor boys and girls who are either dumb enough to join or who are forced into the military. Sure it's going to be a nightmare for the countries that are converted into client states and tacked down with more of the ubiquitous American bases.
Despite that, though, throughout the history of humankind, it seems that empires predicated on some mythical idea (in this case the inherent virtue of American democracy,) backed by the reflexive use of military force, supported by a durable bureaucracy (in this case both governmental and government contractors,) built on the backs of enslaved populations (in this case the populations of developing nations and minimum wage serfs) and with a population distracted by myriad entertainments is almost the normal state of government. China and Rome, for example, lasted for thousands of years, while England pretty much ruled the world, and those are just the really big ones. Peace enforced by the force of arms and the weight of paternalistic tradition just seems to be the way things have been forever, and sometimes I wonder why anyone thinks that people deserve for anything to be different.
Hell, the US has been an imperial power pretty much since the Revolution, so why not just get it out in the open? Let everyone see that nothing has really changed, that warfare of one type or another has not yet stopped being the defining trait of the species. That wealthy elites with access to the levers of military power are still the ultimate arbiters of what is and that they are only slightly restrained by the need to get their boys elected every now and then.
Joel M. (via www.thismodernworld.com)
No, scratch that. Maybe I've been too short-sighted in condemning this little experiment in American Imperialism. I mean, sure it's freaking expensive. Sure it's going to be hard on the poor boys and girls who are either dumb enough to join or who are forced into the military. Sure it's going to be a nightmare for the countries that are converted into client states and tacked down with more of the ubiquitous American bases.
Despite that, though, throughout the history of humankind, it seems that empires predicated on some mythical idea (in this case the inherent virtue of American democracy,) backed by the reflexive use of military force, supported by a durable bureaucracy (in this case both governmental and government contractors,) built on the backs of enslaved populations (in this case the populations of developing nations and minimum wage serfs) and with a population distracted by myriad entertainments is almost the normal state of government. China and Rome, for example, lasted for thousands of years, while England pretty much ruled the world, and those are just the really big ones. Peace enforced by the force of arms and the weight of paternalistic tradition just seems to be the way things have been forever, and sometimes I wonder why anyone thinks that people deserve for anything to be different.
Hell, the US has been an imperial power pretty much since the Revolution, so why not just get it out in the open? Let everyone see that nothing has really changed, that warfare of one type or another has not yet stopped being the defining trait of the species. That wealthy elites with access to the levers of military power are still the ultimate arbiters of what is and that they are only slightly restrained by the need to get their boys elected every now and then.
Joel M. (via www.thismodernworld.com)
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Looks like the Pentagon paper I talked about a few posts back is less exciting than it was represented as being on the sites I first saw it on. Check out boingboing's coverage of it here.
Good thing I didn't run off and enroll in that watercourse engineering program right that day, hmmm?
Despite that the story is apparently not all it was cracked up to be right off the start, I don't think that anything that I said personally was too out of line. I still dislike the energy-intensive suburban lifestyle, I still dislike the urge to personal aggrandizement, and I still think that developing nations need to buck the developed world.
Joel M. (via www.boingboing.net)
Good thing I didn't run off and enroll in that watercourse engineering program right that day, hmmm?
Despite that the story is apparently not all it was cracked up to be right off the start, I don't think that anything that I said personally was too out of line. I still dislike the energy-intensive suburban lifestyle, I still dislike the urge to personal aggrandizement, and I still think that developing nations need to buck the developed world.
Joel M. (via www.boingboing.net)
This guy makes a pretty compelling case for the use of ethanol over the use of hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels. From what I hear, though, the whole system of ethanol subsidies and production needs a lot more work before it is workable.
Joel M. (via www.disinfo.com)
Joel M. (via www.disinfo.com)
I don't know if any of you have checked out any of my comix links. Heck, I can't even remember what comix I am linked to anymore. However, anyone interested in extremely incorrect non-furry furry non-explicit dyke action should give Purple Pussy a look. In particular is the just ending Atkins storyline that starts here.
Joel M.
Joel M.
Monday, February 23, 2004
Ugh.
As many of the people who read this page know, I am currently holding down a position as a register monkey at a local liquor store. The position pays approximately seven bucks an hour after deduction and I work about four or five days a week for either five or eight hours. Oh yeah, I also get a few bucks a night in tips and delivery fees. Usually ten or so, but on weekends it can be as much as twenty.
As you can see, I am paid pretty feebly but the work is also pretty feeble. I spend most of my time reading or whatever, so it's not really a big deal.
Anyway, the reason why I mention this is that we have a few homeless types who come in from time to time each day in order to purchase whatever their favorite tipple is. Tonight I got into a discussion with one of them, by the name of Donny, vis a vis whether or not I was going to lend him money for a bottle of Sherry. I was strongly not in favour of the proposition, of course. However, during this conversation the amount of money that Donny makes in a day happened to come up, with the figure being approximately one hundred and eighty dollars.
Now Donny isn't exactly a paragon of reputability, but the fact of the matter is that he dropped twenty bucks on booze on my shift alone, with plenty left over to get started in the morning, and he was already pretty cut when he came in at the start of my shift. I would guess that he spent at least fifty on booze.
Kind of drives home one sort of lesson or another. I think the worst part was when Donny suggested that I come hang out with him one day or another. Offered a job by a hobo. Now I have truly arrived.
Joel M.
As many of the people who read this page know, I am currently holding down a position as a register monkey at a local liquor store. The position pays approximately seven bucks an hour after deduction and I work about four or five days a week for either five or eight hours. Oh yeah, I also get a few bucks a night in tips and delivery fees. Usually ten or so, but on weekends it can be as much as twenty.
As you can see, I am paid pretty feebly but the work is also pretty feeble. I spend most of my time reading or whatever, so it's not really a big deal.
Anyway, the reason why I mention this is that we have a few homeless types who come in from time to time each day in order to purchase whatever their favorite tipple is. Tonight I got into a discussion with one of them, by the name of Donny, vis a vis whether or not I was going to lend him money for a bottle of Sherry. I was strongly not in favour of the proposition, of course. However, during this conversation the amount of money that Donny makes in a day happened to come up, with the figure being approximately one hundred and eighty dollars.
Now Donny isn't exactly a paragon of reputability, but the fact of the matter is that he dropped twenty bucks on booze on my shift alone, with plenty left over to get started in the morning, and he was already pretty cut when he came in at the start of my shift. I would guess that he spent at least fifty on booze.
Kind of drives home one sort of lesson or another. I think the worst part was when Donny suggested that I come hang out with him one day or another. Offered a job by a hobo. Now I have truly arrived.
Joel M.
Tom Tomorrow has posted about a couple of articles relating to a secret Pentagon report prepared to address the possibility that climate change could post an immediate and sudden threat to people who are alive at this very moment on This Modern World. One is from the Guardian and the other is from Fortune.
The thrust of both of these articles is this:
"Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decadeÂlike a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societiesÂthereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power."
The driver of this sudden, catastrophic change would be a huge current that draws warm water from the southern hemisphere to heat the north. Kind of a natural valediction of the current geo-political climate of third-world exploitation, some might say.
"Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it (sudden climactic change) a decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking speed. In some cases, just a few years."
Hey, isn't this how Fallout started? Environmental change and resource collapse led the States to invade Canada, China to gobble up Russia, and then came the obligatory nuke-fest. Maybe I've been too complacent when the tavern-talk turns to the subject of Canada's military situation and I've pointed out that the only credible threat is the 'States and that they would never use force against us since they already own our asses in every meaningful sense. Maybe if the situation got dire enough, some bright presidential wanna-be would crunch the numbers and realize that chopping Canada up and putting troops in control of major water, electricity and fuel choke-points would be more cost-effective than just buying the resources that we are prepared to export. Maybe we shouldn't be wasting time on gay-ass projects like "Clothe the Soldier" and, instead, do our level best to get into the same sort of troop-enhancing technologies that are coming out of DARPA.
"Indicators of the warming include shrinking Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly earlier springs at northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes seemed signs of possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem portents of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we're history."
Unseasonable weather? Check. Frequent Thirties-style drought conditions only kept under control by crippling agricultural subsidies, improved irrigation techniques and media apathy? Check. Frequent out-of-control wildfires? Check. Giant fucking energy-sieve houses where every pathetic paper-wrangler lives like an emperor and the attendant fleet of behemoth, gas-guzzling land-cruisers airreparablybly damaged waterways? Check, check and check.
Some days, nothing hits the spot like a little apocalypse.
What was it that Al Pacino was saying during one of the scenes that built up to the climax of Devil's Advocate? It was when that weird, animal looking guy playing Eddie Barzoon was getting murdered while he was out for a jog...
"These people, it's no mystery where they come from. You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire. Build egos the size of cathedrals. Fibreopticalls connect the whole world to every eager impulse. Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollgreenree gold-plated fantasies until every human being becomes an aspiring emperor. Becomes his own God!
And, as we're scrambling from one deal to the next, who's got his eye on the planet as the air thickens, the water sours, even the bee's honey takes on tmetalliclic taste of radioactivity? And it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There's no chance to think, to prepare. It's buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future! We gotta runaway train, boy. We gotta million Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future, every one of 'em getting ready to fist fuck God's creation and then lick their fingers clean as they reach out with thepristineene cybernetic keyboards to tote up their fucking billable hours.
And then it hits home. You've got to pay your own way, Eddie. It's a little late in the game to buy out now. Your belly's too full, your dick is sore, your eyes are bloodshot and you're screaming for someone to help, but guess what? There's no one there. You're all alone, Eddie. You're God's special little creature."
Words to live by. Devil's Advocate is one of my all-time top ten favourite, most personally influential movies and Al Pacino's Devil is one of my all-time top ten favourite, most personally influential movie characters. Maybe I didn't like some of what he was up to, but I did like his pugnacious, stay in the trenches attitude.
But back to environmental collapse: I sometimes wish for bad things like this to happen. I catch myself hoping for flooding, war, mass migration. Apocalypse. I think that a lot of people do, deep in their heart of hearts. It's very seductive. For most people, I suspect that it's a combination of the perceived simplicity of a post-apocalyptic world plus the notion that of course "I" would survive the circumstances that would lead to it, though this could, of course, be hubris on my part. For me, lust for the apocalypse is a cross between suspecting that the West has it coming as due payment for our hubris and our greed, plus the suspicion that things cannot improve without a good shake.
Right now I am in the midst of, no, I am always in the midst of a major, life-changing shake down, so when I am confronted with stuff like this, I always think of it in terms of what it means to me and to my future and what I should do because of it. Right now, my knee-jerk response is to get into something technical, like watercourse engineering, and then to head south. Find some-place mildly warm and a fair way above sea-level. Build a nice, modest home with a concrete bunker in the basement. Become expatriateite. An outside consultant to the developing world. Find the places where humanity will mutate fastest in response to the rippling upheavals and sign on. Find a place with a lot of energy, a place where the people are being held down by intellectual property laws and agricultural subsidies and imperially imposed trade deficits and hitch along for the ride when they bust out of these traps while NYorkork and London are busy building dikes.
Hark to the lad, won't you? He's got quite an imagination. Too bad he's so lazy.
Joel M. (via www.thismodernworld.com)
The thrust of both of these articles is this:
"Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decadeÂlike a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societiesÂthereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power."
The driver of this sudden, catastrophic change would be a huge current that draws warm water from the southern hemisphere to heat the north. Kind of a natural valediction of the current geo-political climate of third-world exploitation, some might say.
"Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it (sudden climactic change) a decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking speed. In some cases, just a few years."
Hey, isn't this how Fallout started? Environmental change and resource collapse led the States to invade Canada, China to gobble up Russia, and then came the obligatory nuke-fest. Maybe I've been too complacent when the tavern-talk turns to the subject of Canada's military situation and I've pointed out that the only credible threat is the 'States and that they would never use force against us since they already own our asses in every meaningful sense. Maybe if the situation got dire enough, some bright presidential wanna-be would crunch the numbers and realize that chopping Canada up and putting troops in control of major water, electricity and fuel choke-points would be more cost-effective than just buying the resources that we are prepared to export. Maybe we shouldn't be wasting time on gay-ass projects like "Clothe the Soldier" and, instead, do our level best to get into the same sort of troop-enhancing technologies that are coming out of DARPA.
"Indicators of the warming include shrinking Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly earlier springs at northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes seemed signs of possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem portents of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we're history."
Unseasonable weather? Check. Frequent Thirties-style drought conditions only kept under control by crippling agricultural subsidies, improved irrigation techniques and media apathy? Check. Frequent out-of-control wildfires? Check. Giant fucking energy-sieve houses where every pathetic paper-wrangler lives like an emperor and the attendant fleet of behemoth, gas-guzzling land-cruisers airreparablybly damaged waterways? Check, check and check.
Some days, nothing hits the spot like a little apocalypse.
What was it that Al Pacino was saying during one of the scenes that built up to the climax of Devil's Advocate? It was when that weird, animal looking guy playing Eddie Barzoon was getting murdered while he was out for a jog...
"These people, it's no mystery where they come from. You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire. Build egos the size of cathedrals. Fibreopticalls connect the whole world to every eager impulse. Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollgreenree gold-plated fantasies until every human being becomes an aspiring emperor. Becomes his own God!
And, as we're scrambling from one deal to the next, who's got his eye on the planet as the air thickens, the water sours, even the bee's honey takes on tmetalliclic taste of radioactivity? And it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There's no chance to think, to prepare. It's buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future! We gotta runaway train, boy. We gotta million Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future, every one of 'em getting ready to fist fuck God's creation and then lick their fingers clean as they reach out with thepristineene cybernetic keyboards to tote up their fucking billable hours.
And then it hits home. You've got to pay your own way, Eddie. It's a little late in the game to buy out now. Your belly's too full, your dick is sore, your eyes are bloodshot and you're screaming for someone to help, but guess what? There's no one there. You're all alone, Eddie. You're God's special little creature."
Words to live by. Devil's Advocate is one of my all-time top ten favourite, most personally influential movies and Al Pacino's Devil is one of my all-time top ten favourite, most personally influential movie characters. Maybe I didn't like some of what he was up to, but I did like his pugnacious, stay in the trenches attitude.
But back to environmental collapse: I sometimes wish for bad things like this to happen. I catch myself hoping for flooding, war, mass migration. Apocalypse. I think that a lot of people do, deep in their heart of hearts. It's very seductive. For most people, I suspect that it's a combination of the perceived simplicity of a post-apocalyptic world plus the notion that of course "I" would survive the circumstances that would lead to it, though this could, of course, be hubris on my part. For me, lust for the apocalypse is a cross between suspecting that the West has it coming as due payment for our hubris and our greed, plus the suspicion that things cannot improve without a good shake.
Right now I am in the midst of, no, I am always in the midst of a major, life-changing shake down, so when I am confronted with stuff like this, I always think of it in terms of what it means to me and to my future and what I should do because of it. Right now, my knee-jerk response is to get into something technical, like watercourse engineering, and then to head south. Find some-place mildly warm and a fair way above sea-level. Build a nice, modest home with a concrete bunker in the basement. Become expatriateite. An outside consultant to the developing world. Find the places where humanity will mutate fastest in response to the rippling upheavals and sign on. Find a place with a lot of energy, a place where the people are being held down by intellectual property laws and agricultural subsidies and imperially imposed trade deficits and hitch along for the ride when they bust out of these traps while NYorkork and London are busy building dikes.
Hark to the lad, won't you? He's got quite an imagination. Too bad he's so lazy.
Joel M. (via www.thismodernworld.com)
Thursday, February 19, 2004
This one ain't work safe.
Bukkake is a Japanese term that refers to showering a receiver with sperm from one, several or many men. It is always a sperm shower and, therefore, those on the giving end are always male.
Legend has it that in ancient Japan, women who were found to be unfaithful were publicly humiliated in the town center by being tied up while every man in town ejaculated all over her to show his distaste. Basically, they were saying that if you're going to take it from someone else, you're going to get it from everyone else.
Over time, Bukkake has gone from cultlike status to an accepted sexual practice. First introduced in facial cum shot videos in the mid to late 80's by Japanese specialists, the practice has grown worldwide and has generated several popular schools and techniques.
Tips and techniques, like proper bukkake nutrition, on top of a little history and a quick trip around the bukkake world.
Like I said, sometimes I can't tell when people are being serious.
Joel M. (via Scott Jackson)
Bukkake is a Japanese term that refers to showering a receiver with sperm from one, several or many men. It is always a sperm shower and, therefore, those on the giving end are always male.
Legend has it that in ancient Japan, women who were found to be unfaithful were publicly humiliated in the town center by being tied up while every man in town ejaculated all over her to show his distaste. Basically, they were saying that if you're going to take it from someone else, you're going to get it from everyone else.
Over time, Bukkake has gone from cultlike status to an accepted sexual practice. First introduced in facial cum shot videos in the mid to late 80's by Japanese specialists, the practice has grown worldwide and has generated several popular schools and techniques.
Tips and techniques, like proper bukkake nutrition, on top of a little history and a quick trip around the bukkake world.
Like I said, sometimes I can't tell when people are being serious.
Joel M. (via Scott Jackson)
You know what? I really haven't been liking computer games that much lately. Some days I think that this is a function of growing ever older and more decrepit. As though something deep in my subconscious perceives the yawning portal of my grave in the future and, seeing the useless, formless pulp of time wasted to date on video games as somehow greasing my passage into that inevitable hole, is trying to divert my attention to "worthier" pursuits. Whatever the hell that means.
Some days, though, I feel like it is because games just suck in general. Why would this be, though? Aren't companies motivated to produce the very finest games so that they make more money? Not really. Instead they are motivated to pander to the lowest common denominator of the public taste so that they make more money. Just look at how well the crappy consoles and derivative sports games are doing while, on the other hand, companies with fine, fine track records of award-winning games like Looking Glass and, more recently, Black Isle have gone tits up. Some days, I just feel like people are getting the games that they deserve.
Joel M.
Some days, though, I feel like it is because games just suck in general. Why would this be, though? Aren't companies motivated to produce the very finest games so that they make more money? Not really. Instead they are motivated to pander to the lowest common denominator of the public taste so that they make more money. Just look at how well the crappy consoles and derivative sports games are doing while, on the other hand, companies with fine, fine track records of award-winning games like Looking Glass and, more recently, Black Isle have gone tits up. Some days, I just feel like people are getting the games that they deserve.
Joel M.
Pink Steel. Gay heavy metal at its hardest. I shit you not. I like the Pit of Gayness. I always sort of thought that that was what Unskinny Bop was really about. And then there's "What famous metal god, jealous of the Pamela and Tommy Lee sex tape, might have released his own sex tape...of himself masturbating to the Pamela and Tommy Lee video?"
And, of course, there's always We Fight for Cock
You know, I can never tell how serious people are.
Joel M. (via www.diepunyhumans.com)
And, of course, there's always We Fight for Cock
You know, I can never tell how serious people are.
Joel M. (via www.diepunyhumans.com)
I love the Halfbakery. It's a place where you can deposit your (sometimes not so) silly ideas and have others comment on and rate them. I've got a few that I've been meaning to post, but I've been far, far too lazy to bother.
Check out this idea: Murderous Rampage! The idea here is to have a place where you can, for a price, work off your frustrations by pretending to shoot actors with blanks and squibs. Kind of a Disneyland for people who hate Disneyland.
I had a similar one, once. My idea was for a storefront where the owner would collect the sorts of garbage that breaks in a satisfying manner. Like old TVs and microwaves and glass. Then, for a price, you could use a baseball bat or a pipe or something to smash stuff until you were happy again. I used to get to smash stuff when my parents employed me to help remodel their old apartment buildings. It's amazing the kind of old junk that some of those places had in the basements and storage rooms and what's even more amazing is how satisfying it can be to just break stuff.
Joel M. (via www.google.com search "Murderous Rampage')
Check out this idea: Murderous Rampage! The idea here is to have a place where you can, for a price, work off your frustrations by pretending to shoot actors with blanks and squibs. Kind of a Disneyland for people who hate Disneyland.
I had a similar one, once. My idea was for a storefront where the owner would collect the sorts of garbage that breaks in a satisfying manner. Like old TVs and microwaves and glass. Then, for a price, you could use a baseball bat or a pipe or something to smash stuff until you were happy again. I used to get to smash stuff when my parents employed me to help remodel their old apartment buildings. It's amazing the kind of old junk that some of those places had in the basements and storage rooms and what's even more amazing is how satisfying it can be to just break stuff.
Joel M. (via www.google.com search "Murderous Rampage')
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
The pagan heirarchy. Now you can know exactly who is looking down their nose at you and who you should be looking down your nose at! Plus, it makes a deep, satisfying sort of sense.
Joel M. (via www.boingboing.net)
Joel M. (via www.boingboing.net)
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Ah, Warren Ellis. You soothe my pain.
Check out some Bitshifter tracks. Music composed and performed on a Gameboy, apparently. And it's kind of good, if you're into the sort of technobeep that I like.
Joel M. (via www.diepunyhumans.com)
Check out some Bitshifter tracks. Music composed and performed on a Gameboy, apparently. And it's kind of good, if you're into the sort of technobeep that I like.
Joel M. (via www.diepunyhumans.com)
Hot news for all of you Joel-watchers out there:
I was pretty happy last week because my application to BioWare, an excellent video game developer in Edmonton, resulted in my being selected to write an editing test for them. It was pretty easy and, while I was sometimes worried about it afterward, I spent most of last week walking on air. I was going to get it! Easy! At least I would get an interview, right?
Today I just got my notice that I was not selected for an interview.
I'm definitely sad about the whole thing and I feel like I should be angry about not getting chosen. Mostly, though, I'm just really confused. I feel like the test was pretty simple and straightforward, with a few little wrinkles, and I got it back in the allotted time. I took a set of broken sentences with spelling mistakes and poor grammar and, with the fewest changes possible, turned them into readable sentences that made sense. What could be the problem?
It just bugs me that they didn't explain anything about why they decided that my work wasn't acceptable. Maybe they expected the work back in half an hour instead of the full hour that I was given. Maybe they just didn't like a few of the decisions that I had to make when, for example, I was required to decide if something was plural or singular with no context to guide me. Maybe they just didn't like that I am a male, which is something that has been a problem in the past when I have sought out administrative positions. Maybe I just really suck and I shouldn't be thinking that I am at all qualified to work in letters.
Whatever it is, I don't know it and so I can't take any steps to improve myself so that my chances are better in the future.
This sucks.
Joel M.
I was pretty happy last week because my application to BioWare, an excellent video game developer in Edmonton, resulted in my being selected to write an editing test for them. It was pretty easy and, while I was sometimes worried about it afterward, I spent most of last week walking on air. I was going to get it! Easy! At least I would get an interview, right?
Today I just got my notice that I was not selected for an interview.
I'm definitely sad about the whole thing and I feel like I should be angry about not getting chosen. Mostly, though, I'm just really confused. I feel like the test was pretty simple and straightforward, with a few little wrinkles, and I got it back in the allotted time. I took a set of broken sentences with spelling mistakes and poor grammar and, with the fewest changes possible, turned them into readable sentences that made sense. What could be the problem?
It just bugs me that they didn't explain anything about why they decided that my work wasn't acceptable. Maybe they expected the work back in half an hour instead of the full hour that I was given. Maybe they just didn't like a few of the decisions that I had to make when, for example, I was required to decide if something was plural or singular with no context to guide me. Maybe they just didn't like that I am a male, which is something that has been a problem in the past when I have sought out administrative positions. Maybe I just really suck and I shouldn't be thinking that I am at all qualified to work in letters.
Whatever it is, I don't know it and so I can't take any steps to improve myself so that my chances are better in the future.
This sucks.
Joel M.
Gumblondes: a guy builds portraits of blonde hotties out of chewing gum. They look really good and there are no added colours.
It's things like this that make me love and hate people. On the one hand, it's pretty fucking impressive that this guy can manage something like this. On the other hand, why isn't this sort of energy being harnessed for something better? Can it be?
Joel M. (via www.boingboing.net)
It's things like this that make me love and hate people. On the one hand, it's pretty fucking impressive that this guy can manage something like this. On the other hand, why isn't this sort of energy being harnessed for something better? Can it be?
Joel M. (via www.boingboing.net)
Haw haw haw! This is quite an excellent list of Bush's various crimes over the last term. Tragically, I'm pretty sure that he'll be returning for an encore performance.
Joel M. (via www.thismodernworld.com)
Joel M. (via www.thismodernworld.com)
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Here is a partial list of The Video Games That Should Have Been:
System Shock 3
Star Control 2.5 (Just like StarCon2, but better)
Master of Orion 2.5 (Just like MoO2, but better)
Fallout 3D (Morrowind meets Fallout)
X-Com 3.5 (Just like X-Com3, but better)
and, of course:
Joel's Penis Simulator 8 (Just like Joel's penis, but also useful for training flight attendants and installing drywall.)
Joel M. (via Birra Moretti, 4.6% alc./vol)
System Shock 3
Star Control 2.5 (Just like StarCon2, but better)
Master of Orion 2.5 (Just like MoO2, but better)
Fallout 3D (Morrowind meets Fallout)
X-Com 3.5 (Just like X-Com3, but better)
and, of course:
Joel's Penis Simulator 8 (Just like Joel's penis, but also useful for training flight attendants and installing drywall.)
Joel M. (via Birra Moretti, 4.6% alc./vol)
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Well, my PC is broken forever, or until I get around to buying a few new pieces. On the up-side, though, Susan has a much faster PC thanks to my hard work and Quidge's old parts.
Also, in late breaking news, I'm still much, much too lazy to post an image. However, you should go here to see the image that I would post if I wasn't much, much too lazy to do so. It's Bob the Angry Flower! And it's funny!
I hate you all.
Joel M.
Also, in late breaking news, I'm still much, much too lazy to post an image. However, you should go here to see the image that I would post if I wasn't much, much too lazy to do so. It's Bob the Angry Flower! And it's funny!
I hate you all.
Joel M.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Just to let anyone who cares know, my computer is currently hatched. I have isolated the problem to either my motherboard or my CPU, though, and I should have it taken care of in a few days. I would be done sooner, but I am also swapping out a hard-drive for Quidge and refurbishing some of his old stuff for Susan.
Not that you care.
Joel M. (via my ass)
Not that you care.
Joel M. (via my ass)
Thursday, February 05, 2004
