It’s Packer Sunday and I’m sitting here drinking coffee and not beer. Bizarre.

Started my real, actual work schedule today, so I’m working 1:30-10:30, and that means I’ll have to catch a bit of the game when I can. By the time I’m on lunch, it’ll be over, but I figure it’s reasonable that most of WI will be watching the game, so call volume should be low.

OH: any FYI, if you’re a cable customer and the game didn’t start exactly on time (they finished the early one first, for example), there’s not a damn thing the cable company can do about it. The cable company is in charge of being sure you can *get* the channel. What’s *on* the channel ain’t up to them. Moreover, if you miss the first three minutes of one bloody football game, get a life and deal with it.

The weekend wasn’t bad otherwise, although I certainly was. It *had* been my plan to make a run down to Waukesha to drop off Jen’s CD’s, then high-tail it back to the Fox Valley to catch the 13 Walls gig in Fond du Lac. When I got down there, though, I decided to make a stop at Jared’s Christmas beer exchange, and the demon liquor insisted that I stay in the metro Milwaukee area overnight. It was OK, though, cuz I was still up (or Joe was, anyway) at quarter-to-five Sunday morning when the news came across about Saddam. That’s all good, if you ask me (the apprehension of Hussein, that is). In the long run, I think it’ll be good for adding a *little* more stability to the Mid-East?, although around midday, Dave noticed something weird on the news when all these Iraqis in Baghdad were waving their homemade U.S.S.R. flags. We had a brief discussion of how a communist Muslim state in control of the world’s second largest oil supply might not be exactly what the President & Co. had in mind here. Ah, well, it’s probably nothing anyway. Although… we all remember who was forced out of power in Russia right before the commies took over, so…

K, I’m back on the job.

OK, so I don’t really know how great this job is at the cable company, but I can say this much: it definitely isn’t as lame as it was during the excessively long and ridiculous training. Still, it’s customer service, which, yeah, I dunno I think you can burn out on pretty fast. But I’ll tell ya what: I’m tired of thinking/talking about it. I had one of those horrendous “at work” dreams last night, and that really bummed me out. Your subconscious should be one place you can escape the crap you do for money. Last thing about work, I promise: I jotted down in my notebook on Tuesday that the “training” staff was walking around on the call floor there offering their assistance with the new software. They seemed to be having a good time, seeing as none of the potential problems are really theirs. Made me wish I had a real job.

Like I said, tired of talking about it, so what else have I got? I went out last night to the New Moon Coffeehouse on Main St in Oshkosh last night to meet up with some English students, and there was an unanticipated 2-person poetry “open mic” going on, so it was pretty funny: I got there last, and as I walked in, all that I and the others could do was acknowledge each other with arm-lowered, half-grimacing waves, then in between poems, offer quick little inquires about “how things were going.” It was a fun time, though; it was like being with geeks, except about books and plays and grammar and stuff. Y’know, I think everyone is a geek in a certain way. Everybody, I’d say, has the thing that they’re a “geek” about; y’know, something that they get all wound up about that other people just don’t understand. Some people are more hard-core than others, but… basically the same thing no matter what. Maybe there’s a video in there someplace, I’m not sure.

This weekend? Well, there’s the Oshkosh fall commencement, in which I know one person participating, but I’m not going. Tomorrow, I think Christy is going to come over for a spell. I think she wants me to hang onto her desk or something until she comes up with a way to get it to Stout. Don’t ask me how that’s gonna happen. Does Vann have a truck or something?

Oh, PS: everyone I know that owns a truck, please let me know and then let me borrow it, cuz I reeeeally wanna get my desk out of Joe & Jen’s garage (and I think they do, too!). And that reminds me, I’m going down there to take Jen’s CD’s back.

I haven’t slept but 4 or 5 hours a night all week, so I’m dead tired, and you might’ve noticed I’m rambling about nothing. Bed time.

OH: one last thing? Would someone please guess at the movie quote of day? Or don’t, makes it easy on me.

Yeah, I wish I could be tidier around the house. This is the problem: I had that… well… whole year, basically, where I didn’t work and just had hours and hours around the house at a time. Well, two facts I can relate to you on that: You can only watch so much TV, and you can only do so much homework.

I thought, for a brief time, that I may have developed a small obsessive-compulsive problem in terms of cleaning the house, but on further consideration, it might just be that that disorder is in vogue.

Then I was thinkin about it a little harder, and I was realizing that I’ve been grasping (desperately it seems) for a psychological or emotional disorder I could hang my hat on, and the only reason I can think of that I’d want to do that is so I could NOT take any drugs to treat it on purpose, and then commit full-out to succeeding in spite of my “problem.”

Motivation, of late, has been low.

The first real day at work was today, I actually talked to real people on the phone about their cable, although I had no idea what I was actually saying to them. My lips moved, words came out, I can only guess if I was doing anything correctly.

Well hey: look at this, my room IS getting a little tidier; no more laundry all over the floor. I’ll send you moving pictures soon.

Don’t forget to eat all that leftover turkey by the end of the week. It’s gonna be rancid, like, in a hurry.

PS—Now, the page with the offline blogging shorts (see below) is actually here. Cheers.

Here are the Top Five Things I Should Be Doing Instead of Writing This Here ‘Blog:
5. laundry
4. reading The Elegant Universe
3. cleaning my room for a video
2. reading Crop Dusting
1. writing Timepiece

I’m doing none of these, though; I’m here just for you, because I know that you’ve been neglected. How was your Thanksgiving, provided you don’t live in Green Bay or the surrounding Wisconsin area?

In case you were wondering (which you probably weren’t, as this is the first time I’m sharing this information with anyone), I *have* indeed been keeping bloggable notes since the last update on 19 October. Unfortunately, the following things prevented me from actually posting any of them (appearing in no particular order):
drowsiness/screwy sleep patterns (following the overnight shifts at the Target)
Internet access (as in, none @ the job training at the Charter)
moving (business surrounding the packing/unpacking/settling)
hunting (the preparations and subsequent execution of such activity, up to and including the execution of one female deer)
Madden 2004 (the roommate’s acquisition, followed by the incessant playing during all free-time periods for roughly 10 days)

These are, more or less, the same things that have prevented me from accomplishing the tasks on the Top Five List.

But I digress. My point with regard to the bloggable comments I’ve been tracking is that, rather than dump a large entry with outdated material in this space, please follow the link to a page under the ‘Writings’ section labeled “Offline Musings, Frustrations, Complaints, Comments, and Diatribes.” For your convenience, this document follows the opposite pattern of the ‘blog, insofar as its dates are arranged in ascending order.

But this is not what I came here to talk about this evening; I came to discuss personal growth (a topic that has seen repeated, extensive coverage in this space: see also entries dated 9/9/03, 4/24/03, 10/24/02, etc), having had yet another shower-epiphany on Thursday morning.

But before we get to that, allow me to dispense with what is now officially a “holiday tradition” (having been practiced in consecutive years), wishing you and yours a pleasant holiday season, from Steve and I to you:

Thank you for your continued attention and stalwart patience. At this time, we shall commence with the growth. But first, allow me to offer a disclaimer with regard to that which follows: if you have tired of the introspective, internal dialogues which seem to so plague the many pages of this webspace, please carry on with your holiday shopping schedule, and return again in a few days the site’s content is likely to be more light-hearted, and less wordy (that’s “wordy,” as in, “lots of words,” and not “Wordy,” as in this chap).

Where to begin? I’ve got this new job. Been there about five weeks now. If you remember me lamenting a period of employment that I had at an insurance company in Pewaukee, this job is the same, more or less. Only difference is I’m talkin’ cable instead of talkin’ motorcycles. This really doesn’t have a lot to do with the growth, but it’s a place to start.

Please don’t assume that because I’m exploring other employment options closer to home (I live in Oshkosh, the job is in Fond du Lac) that I’ve definitely decided to leave the cable joint. Also, please don’t assume that I’m crazy and not thinking about the consequences of my actions. Yes, this is a full time job, and yes, I need some insurance, and yes, I really do understand that, but: there is the “job” that’s more important to me on the horizon, namely, the graduate school. For those of you in/finished with graduate school, I think you’d agree that my academics would certainly suffer if I were working 40 hours per week while taking 9 credits (3 classes) and commuting an hour-plus per day. To that end, I’ll most definitely fall back to part time at the most, whereupon I will lose the benefits anyway, so you can see how I’ve reasoned that finding a part time job at the university would be just as good as the cable company.

This is all really just an introduction to the first point I’d like to make, which is that I’ve interviewed for more jobs that I can remember since I graduated from UWO in December 2001. I have at least one more next week. I don’t know if you’ve been on any interviews lately, but the way that it goes these days (and for all I know, it’s always been this way) is you talk to a “human resources” employee, whether the “director” of HR or someone further down the chain (most likely the latter, since the whole point of becoming the “director” of any “department” is to have the flexibility to drive your kids to soccer at any time of the day or night) and that person asks you a number of questions that are intended to expose your convictions, values, opinions, and perspectives on a variety of topics, often (obviously) closely related to the job for which you’ve applied.

I’ve mentioned to some people fairly often in the last two years that I am terrible at interviewing, and it’s not for a lack of skill or understanding with regard to the interview process itself, it is more (I decided Thursday morning in the shower) that I didn’t have the aforementioned qualities to be probed (the convictions, values, opinions, perspectives).

What I was thinking of as this epiphany struck was that in nearly every interview that I can recall (up until the VERY recent past), if I were asked, “what would you do if X happened?” my response would be drawn out, circuitous, and little more than an attempted dodge of the question, because all I was really thinking was, “What would you like me to do if X happened?” You see, I was thinking that I’m a very agreeable, flexible fellow in a general sense, and maybe that doesn’t have a damned thing to do with strength of character or good social adjustment. Maybe it has a lot more to do with me not having formed any opinions on these things people are asking me about.

If that makes any sense.

Well I continued to think about this, and I tried to figure out why the hell I wouldn’t have these “qualities,” and at the time I decided that it could have something to do with my unceasing desire to have friends and family members with unblemished positive opinions of me personally. Whether or not you (assuming you are one of these people) have noticed, I can tell you now that I’ve gone to great lengths over the years to do what I can to help you, to be there when I can, to be the best friend/brother/son/cousin/nephew/etc that I can be. At those times when I have perceived myself to fail in that quest, rest assured that I took it extremely hard, even if the “failure” wasn’t that significant or the “task” at hand was unimportant.

You may not have noticed, but I am fiercely caring and loyal once I bestow these things on you. (Aside to my Oshkosh comrades: this is why the conclusion of the Jill Pape Saga, which I mention only for the sake of example, bothered me so much.)

What does this have to do with interviewing for a job?

Ultimately, I drew this quality back to a more fundamental personality trait: I must please everyone. You all have to like me. You can see where this would make constructing your own convictions/opinions/values difficult, since one of the easiest ways to draw ourselves closer to others is via these important qualities. So in a job interview, of course you want the person interviewing you to like you, because if they like you, there’s a better chance you’ll land the job, and, well, they should like people who share their opinions and believe similar things, right? So, if I could just ask all the questions first in a job interview, maybe I’d end up in better shape?

The vast majority of the people reading this have been around me long enough to know that at the time I finished my bachelor’s degree, I was dead-set on leaving Wisconsin to attend graduate school. In retrospect, it would’ve made a lot more fiscal sense (IE, I would be down several thousand dollars less) to stay in Oshkosh and get started on that Master’s degree here right away. Again, I’ve touched on this a bit in the past, and I don’t regret the decision that I made to go to Bozeman at all, it was a spectacular thing to do, and actually related a bit more to this amorphous “growth” that I mentioned at the outset.

But why did I so desperately want to go? What was my motivation and what did I want to find? Was I seeking escape? From what? Did I think I’d “find myself”? I can’t really say, although, for the sake of personal understanding, I take up these questions and ponder them time to time. What I’m thinking at this point is that every geographical-self-finding adventure you’ve heard of is little more than expensive window dressing for a voyage one needs to take within himself.

I can’t say what the experience is like for you, because I’ve only ever been myself, but sometimes I wonder if the majority balance of the world isn’t numb to these considerations. If not, why doesn’t an average person talk about them? I suppose they would be justified in keeping the log of the inner journey hidden inside, since the individual is the lone crew member on the ship that sails to Self. Where, though, is the evidence of this journey’s completion? How does it manifest itself in our daily lives?

I spent a lot of time alone in Montana, by choice more than anything else, and I can say with confidence (actual confidence) that I probably wouldn’t have had this epiphany if I’d never gone. The thing that this shower-realization comes with, though, is acceptance of the fact that a year spent away was only the start of a journey that is ongoing. I think realizing how much I value all of you and how little I have (historically) valued myself is a major turning point. What I am has been constructed by everything outside me, and being mindful of that is important. The next question, I think, is whether I can come to terms with that fact, or whether I should oppose it, struggling for some identity that I mask within myself.

Where to end? Not here, but this is growth.

• For a period of time in the fall of 2003, I worked an overnight shift at the Target store in Waukesha, then at Charter Communications (the cable company) in Fond du Lac. I jotted some notes at both intended for use in blogging. Here are those notes.

While working at Target
10/21
I think it’s a poor comment on society when they have to dumb down Trivial Pursuit.

10/28
I stood under a ladder at work last night – seven years bad luck, but after five and counting, I figure “why stop now?”

10/29
There’s this infomercial for “US Auto Credit” on the TV at Target every night at 1 AM. It’s one of those “you-went-bankrupt-but-we’ll-lend-you-money-at-90%-a-month” scams. You know it’s a superb organization when they repeatedly flash the graphic on the screen saying that, regardless of credit history, “Your Approved!” That’s a letter-for-letter quote.

10/29
Heard on a radio commercial, “I went to the Internet to find out the facts,” then proceeded to laugh my damn ass right off.

While “training” at Charter
11/3
Today at work, we “trained.” It was extremely boring, and I caught myself mostly proofreading the handouts. We had HR orientation in the afternoon. There were some forms that are apparently not at all HR-related, pertaining to HBO and Channel Guide incentive programs. These forms inexplicably require a social security number. No one in the class asked a question about that. However, we spent 25 minutes on the Q&A regarding the free cable. I felt bad for the bloke sitting next to me; he’s a smoker (heavy one I think) and there must be so much junk in his lungs, it sounds like he’s snoring when he takes normal breaths.

11/4
Why, on every electric hand dryer in America, the last two letters of “Step 1” (PUSH BUTTON) are scratched out? I could see if it were some sort of inhumanly and undeniably hilarious joke, but “PUSH BUTT?” That’s not even funny. Even “Step 2” (RUB TOGETHER GENTLY) doesn’t make it funny. Now if there were a “Step 3,” and that step was STICK FINGER IN THE CENTER CRACK, then it might get funnier.

11/4
Songs I couldn’t get out of my head today include:
“You Spin Me Round (like a record)” by Dead or Alive
“Everyday I Write the Book” by Elvis Costello

11/5
Songs That Got Stuck Today:
“Turning Japanese” by the Vapors
“Wild Wild Life” by Talking Heads

11/5
Used the computers at work for the first time today. Damn Compaqs.

11/6
This is mildly interesting, only to the extent that it demonstrates how “electronicified” our society can be: I’ve written fewer than 30 checks since February 1.

We got our “practicing” headsets today. My cousin Adam probably knows how I feel about that. I had the flashbacks.

This afternoon we talked about Lassie a little bit. It reminded me that our love is like taking Lassie to the desert, removing her teeth with a hunting knife; and shooting her in the head with a gun that you and she built together.

11/6
Songs That Wouldn’t Leave Today:
“Moving in Stereo” by the Cars
“Theme from The Black Adder” from the BBC television series

11/7
Stuck Songs:
“Rain King” by Counting Crows
“Call Me” by Blondie
“For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” by The Beatles

11/10
If you want to draw parallels to the major monotheisms, The Matrix is a reflection of the genesis of Christianity:
The humans in Zion are the pre-Christ Jews, awaiting a messiah to lead them in a great war where the final spoils will be the vanquishing of their enemies, and a utopian existence to follow. In the Hebrew tradition, the faithful await the triumphant coming of the messiah, who will banish the sinful and take the righteous to a “New Jerusalem.”

In The Matrix, the coming of The One (the messiah) is much like the birth of Jesus in the Christian tradition: the unheralded coming of Just A Man; one in whom some believe, but most do not. As Jesus performed miracles, so Neo is capable of extraordinary feats (witnessed by some, not by most). In the end, Jesus handed himself over to the Roman authorities to be judged, even though he was fully capable of escaping them. In kind, Neo willingly traveled to the Machine City. Jesus was crucified and died for the sins of all men, not to deliver them specifically into the grace of God and the New Jerusalem, but to give them a choice: the option to be saved.

Interestingly enough, as Neo was re-assimilated into the Matrix, his body was laid out as if on a cross. Neo went to the Machine City not to destroy them and lead humankind into glory, but to bring them peace, and the possibility of a choice. The humans in Zion (like Morpheus) might’ve thought the ultimate goal was the ultimate victory, much like the Hebrew messiah. Things turned out more like the Christian myth, so maybe the movie is kind of a kick in the teeth of Judaism? Or perhaps, those that are familiar with both traditions are meant to recognize the parallel, and to realize how much easier it is to favor the Hebrew story (a glorious coming, a decisive victory?

11/26
Hey: Thank WW.

Today was the last day of “training” at my new job @ Charter Communications. There was a 100-question multiple choice/true-false “exam” at the end. The results of the scoring have no affect whatsoever on employment status, and come into play only in circumstances where two people from the same training class score exactly equally on a long list of other criteria when schedules are changed. More simply, the exam means nothing. It basically serves as a self-eval of the training program.

I think I finished it first; at least I don’t recall anyone getting up before me. The exam’s inherent unimportance factored significantly into the time I devoted to thinking about each answer.

Good lord and I haven’t written for a while! I was implored by Joe Mundschau yesterday to get back to the blogging, and I’d have to agree that I’m guilty of “link rot.” I jotted some notes and things see above in the early days of the training that I thought might be bloggable. If you were at all entertained by the Hunt Log of 2001, you may be interested in this one.

Anyway, this is the first chance I’ve had in a while to write, and that is a blatant and complete lie. I’ve had time, but I’ve filled it with arranging furniture in my room, watching TV, drinking beer, and playing Madden 2004.

The One Thing That Made Me Choose Today to Get Back Was:
Joe’s email
and Wil’s—

The TWO THINGS That Got Me Blogging Today Were:
Joe’s email
Wil Wheaton’s blog
and the arti—

THREE! THE THREE THINGS That Made Me Blog WERE:
Joe
Wil
The Onion
and Ti—

FOUR!! THE FOUR THINGS WERE:
-Joe’s email
– Wil’s blog
– The Onion article
– Time

Today is the first day I’ve had this quiet time at my desk where I feel no guilt in doing some of my own business while the room sits in silence. Sometimes I really need this to get juices moving: I need a captive environment with no outside information or entertainment sources. I should go to the library more and tell the nice people who work there to not let me leave, read, or surf the web, or talk to anyone for a period of no less than four hours.

Nah, that never works; I’ve tried it. If you go forcing yourself, you can get things done for a little while, but in my case, you get to thinking about all the stuff that’s distracted you recently, and that starts distracting you again.

I wonder if that episode of Smallville got done downloading.
Y’SEE???

Then, I’m writing this by hand, cuz I can go a lot faster than on the PDA, but I’m looking at my handwriting and realizing that if I wanted to have someone else type this up for me, they’d take a glance and politely request that I go straight to hell.

And then there’s the way that I grip the pen (very tightly), compounded by the pressure that I apply to the page (very hard) and I have to “crack” all the bones in my fingers. It’s gotten to be a terrible, and, no doubt, physically degenerative habit, one that I will likely pay for with either the eventual inability to use my hands, or millions of dollars in pain medication. I wonder if my future self is berating me (God, damn my 24-yr-old self for what he’s done!) for making his tactile abilities suffer.

That’s right, I said is, because I’ve decided to stop thinking about time as a flat, linear dimension, and instead as a dynamic 4th dimension that our species has only found one way to navigate through (forward). This gets complex, though, if you want to start thinking about “free will,” “choice,” “destiny,” etc, because it implies that, like the spatial dimensions, all points in time ALSO already exist, so every choice you’ll ever make is already made and every thought you’ll ever think is already thunk.

But upon further review, maybe it doesn’t imply that at all, because if you create an analogy between time and a spatial dimension, like height, these things appear to be true:
– You cannot occupy two heights at the same time (IE, can’t be 100ft and 200ft above sea level simultaneously).
– If time is similar to height, you can’t occupy two “moments” at the same time.

This second apparent truth really throws a monkey wrench into every time-travel story you’ve ever seen, read, or heard where Person 2003 meets Person 1983 upon traveling to a point in the past, or Person 2013 in the future. It would stand to reason (along these lines) that if you leave a place (Oshkosh), it no longer experiences your presence, and so if you “went to the future,” you, and not some Future You, would occupy that moment. Working on this line of reasoning, if could be said that we’re all “traveling through time” constantly, at the same rate, covering the same distance, etc.

I think Einstein’s theories regarding “time travel” and the speed of light could come into play here, but I don’t really recall how.

JUST REALIZED: the TV show Quantum Leap was, in a way, based on this very idea about the dimension of time: Sam Beckett “leaped” from one point in time to another, replacing a person existing in that moment until he moved through to a different point. It makes sense, I guess, that one would only be able to travel backward? Well, that I’m not sure about, but I AM thinking that you wouldn’t be able to bump out other people, only yourself (because you are still you).

Then there are the questions with regard to the Quantum Leap “string theory”:

BIRTH———————-(your life)———————————-DEATH

A) How do you tie the ends together, and
B) ball up the loop

and I guess that’s the question of time travel.

OOOOHH! Of COURSE you can’t travel outside your own lifetime! Who would you replace? You could go to the future within this theory, though, up until the moment of your death. You wouldn’t want to reach that moment, though, because then you’d die. Dave later pointed out that if the string were tied together at the ends, it wouldn’t matter, because at death you’d just go back to birth. I thought about it more later on, and decided that still wouldn’t be the ideal situation to be in, because what the hell are you gonna do to get back to your correct time as a baby?? So theoretically, you could cheat death by leaping to a different moment in the past every time you travel close to the moment of death.

In any case, the whole thing is really complicated by the simple fact that the way we experience each dimension is the only way we experience it.

But anyway, I digress. What I meant to talk about were the things that motivated the blog and the experiences I’ve gathered over the last four weeks or so. Now to carry on with that.

I’d say that one of the leading reasons I’m not very good in normal human conversation is that I look to “write” in talk, which is rather put-offish.

Well, the things that motivated – Joe’s email: pretty simple, it was the proverbial torch below my posterior that was needed.

Wil’s site, which, upon reading his blog, reminded me that I like writing and I should really be doing it all the time. And he’s done some really good stuff lately; I have to get his book.

Time – just had some.

Then there was The Onion article, titled:
“Working Man Proud of Job He Hates”
I hate pretty much any job (at least the ones I’ve had since college) and I always want to have something else that I can be really proud of. (Not to say a person shouldn’t be proud of their work, provided they enjoy it. That’s kind of what the whole grad school thing is about.) Yeah, so basically, I need to make my brain work a little more again, and the writing will come. God, like that temporal-theoretical tangent? That was the most excited I’ve been in weeks.

Speaking of weeks!
It’s been four weeks now that I’ve lived back in Oshkosh and worked here in Fondie. Dave’s apartment is a helluva nice place, and I kind of wonder if, provided we get along well, it won’t become a more long-term residence. Rather than fight that eventuality, I think I’m going to let myself settle in, and just see how things progress. I haven’t talked to Dave about this yet, and I hope he’s not shocked in reading those comments.

If you are interested in seeing photos of the crib (which would be understandable), rest assured they’ll be here in a few days. I guess that’s about all I have to say without a visual.

Well, wait, that’s not true: I’m a writer, for chrissakes, I can describe ’til doomsday if you like. Let’s see…

It’s a 2-bedroom townhouse, brand-spankin-new, and if you know Oshkosh it’s on Dickinson Ave, just off the west frontage road (Washburn), less than half a mile south of 9th Ave. The building is basically right behind McCrory’s? Furniture, next door to Henri’s Music. If you know zero about Oshkosh, here’s a map. You can zoom in or out until you relate.

The house itself has an attached garage, 1.5 bath, all new appliances, a washer & dryer, and just slightly less than adequate cabinet space in the kitchen. Off the living room, there’s a patio door that leads out onto a concrete slab (about 8’x4′), and we’re the only unit with a tree outside.

You have to climb the stairs to get to the bedrooms, washer/dryer, and full bathroom. The upstairs bath has the two-door scheme going on, with the shower and toilet segregated from the sink. Personally, I thought it would make MORE sense to make like Dave’s old studio downtown, where the door separated shower and toilet (which is pretty weird in a studio, if you think about it). Both Dave and I have these extraordinary, large closets, and both of us have filled them effortlessly.

Let’s see, what else? I think the place is nicely decorate; Dave’s got a buncha cool old newspapers from major historical events in frames, buncha photos as well. I still have some pictures to hang and I’m going to do the X-Mas? decorating next week… I also need some ink for my printer so as to blast some photos out.

But right now, my hand is bloody spent and everyone else is done with their test. Back to the “grind,” as it were.

So I had this dream last night, I must’ve been working for a newspaper, or a magazine, or something. Actually, no; I take that back, I wasn’t working *for* anyone, I was just trying to produce something that might get me a job. I think. Lemme start over.

I was with Chris Cunningham and John Hermanson in this dream, and I was spending a day with them on their CD release tour. My goal was to take some notes, ask them questions, etc, write an article about it, I guess. Things were going just fine, I think we all had breakfast together or something, it was really laid back, casual, I felt like I was making progress on this article.

Well, at a certain point in the morning, I excused myself from their company, saying that I needed to get some of my notes down, and they weren’t really doing anything until a press conference or something like that later on. Next thing it IS later on, and I go into this room where they’re sitting behind a table with a guy (I guess their manager?) and there are a couple other people in the room asking questions, taking notes, more press, I suppose.

Their manager dude asks me, “Now, when is your stuff going to be on the air?” And I was kind of confused. He saw this, and rather annoyed, asked me again, “Your interview with the guys — is it going to be live on the air, or are you taping for later?” And I said, “No, it won’t be ‘on the air’ at all, y’see—” and I was going to explain myself but he says “OK, sorry, you’re gonna have to leave then.” And I’m trying to tell the guy, “No, I don’t work for a radio station, I’m a writer. I’m writing an article.” He says, “Nope, sorry, we’re only talking to legitimate people with real radio stations, you have to leave.” And I’m still trying to clear this up for the guy, “I AM A WRITER.” But he didn’t care and he threw me out.

Later on, I went to the show and tried to talk to the guys again, but the manager just would not let me.

So I dunno what that means, but I was thinking about it earlier and I thought it was weird that DJ’s (something I used to do) were OK, but writers (something I’m trying to do) were bad. Any thoughts?

Oh, and Devin Munson won the movie quote derby yesterday. Way to go, Dev.

Got a letter from the Graduate School up at my alma mater on Thursday. It was good news; they’re taking me back to start the Master’s program in English in February. It made me quite happy, and I felt a lot better right after I opened the envelope.

Unfortunately, as I said to Ben Leubner later that evening, developments in the MLB playoffs during the course of 30 short hours spun tonight’s World Series on its head for me: we went from the prospect of an intriguingly watchable Boston-Chicago? title series to an exceedingly less interesting match-up between the Team Which Represents All Things That Are Evil About Professional Baseball, and Some Gaggle of Whoevers From South Florida. Ah, well. We still have football, I suppose.

I actually did some work at the local Target last week, and the job is… just as I remember it to be. Not that I’ve worked at Target, of course, but many moons ago, I worked in retail as a teenager, and in case you were curious, it’s still the same. People have asked me how it’s going there, and “Eh,” is a perfect characterization. The job is neither good nor bad, it just is. I go, I work, I leave, they pay. What else can you ask for, really?

More interesting developments may be coming about in the employment department, anyway. I took my third drug test of the summer yesterday, this time for Charter Communications, the company I interviewed at a couple weeks ago up in Fond du Lac. However, they haven’t *officially* offered me the job yet, I assume that is only contingent on the drug screening. Two weeks from Monday is when the “training” for that job is due to begin, so if I take it (which I should), it looks like Target won’t be getting the two weeks of notice they’d like. The nice thing about retail, though, is that a person in a position like mine is very easy to replace. Basically, all that’s required is someone who’s conscious and has the capacity for language (any language will do).

Of course, one must consider that the job I’d be taking there in Fondy is a full-time, 2nd-shift sort of operation, and there are several classes offered in the UWO Master’s program in the evening, at the time that I, theoretically, would be working. I suppose that the wisest course would be to take the job if and when it’s offered, then proceed from there, in whichever direction comes to be most reasonable. You have any better ideas? I’m open to them.

Wordy won the Movie Quote Derby once again, so here’s hoping you can put up a challenge for him.

Finally, I watched The Matrix Reloaded again today. This was only the 2nd screening for me, and it actually got better this time around. For whatever reason, it didn’t seem as long. It still IS too long, but, y’know, whatever. The rambling and senseless musings of the Oracle and the Architect made more sense as well. Neither of them were quite as deep as they appeared at the theater in Bozeman.

If you want to go to Madison for Halloween, let me know.

I was out there on the “Internet” today, payin a little visit to the “cyberspace,” as it were, and maybe it was just the mood I was in or something, but I realized that most websites really suck. Tons. The ones that I’m referring to here are the “personal” variety of sites, obviously there are some professional, commercial sites out there that are pretty sweet. (Although I don’t think lordoftherings.net is one of them, actually; I think the actor’s voice “welcoming” you to the site is really loud and obtrusive.)

But yeah, just about every user site on GeoCities?, or Excite, or whatever blows. If you have one of these sites, don’t take this personally, not meant that way at all, I’m speaking in a broad sense about a lot of sites that I’ve seen. If you’re on GeoCities? and your site has somehow avoided suckification, I am thoroughly impressed. See, the people creating the sites are only half the problem: the other is the limit of space, resources, and flexibility that inherently comes along with those services. If you, or someone you love is being creatively crippled by some crappy webhosting service, tell ’em to shell out the marginal annual cost, register a domain and get on board with a legitimate hosting provider.

If, on the other hand, that person is 12 (as it seems 84% of these people are), just ask them to stop.

I start this new job at Target tomorrow. Just going in for a few hours of “orientation.” Dunno how soon I’ll be scheduled for a real shift. I suppose it’ll be the next day or the day after. Kinda hopin’ for not Saturday, because that’s the day of the Tischer wedding, which I’d like to attend, I think it’ll be fun.

I scanned some new photos yesterday, so I went ahead and put them up here. Not that they were “new” in the sense that they’re “newly taken” just “newly scanned.” After I’d scanned, I felt compelled to write a caption and the date on the back of all of them. I’ve never felt this compulsion before, so I worried for a second that it may be evidence of a sub-conscious premonition of my impending death. Shortly after that, I realized that being consciously aware of that possibility sort of negated it.

What about this “sequel,” you ask? Well, you should really make sure you saw last week’s video before you proceed.

Take care of? OK, moving on.

Yeah, so I proposed a number of things in that video that I would eat for five dollars. Yesterday evening, Joe put me up to one of these challenges. As promised, I’ve documented it and it’s here for your consumption.

And of course, should you want to see me eat anything else from that list, just paypal the money to tonyshangrila, then wait for the virtual fun!

Who’re the Packers playing this weekend? Kansas City? Right. Yeah, they had a helluva game last Sunday, and that’s why, against this AFC opponent, they will relax, play a really close game and lose down the stretch.
PACK—23
CHIEFS—28

New Movie Quote of the Day. I win the last one (no one guessed).

I think you’re going to enjoy this.

Last night, Tom Klika comes over, and he, Joe, and I sat in the living room, mostly not watching Road to Perdition, but we also had BLT’s for dinner. Just before we stood around for those sandwiches, Tom says, “I’ll give a dollar to whoever eats a raw slice of bacon.”

Well, now.

There are very few things that I’ll do for a dollar. Things I might do for one lousy dollar include getting up to grab you a beer, changing the channel, taking a leak, getting dressed, I think you see the point. Stuff I’ll eat or drink for a dollar? That list includes things like “pizza,” or “beer,” or “pancakes,” possible even “peanuts,” but again, my point is made. I’m not going to go out of my way for one paltry dollar.

So I say to Klika, “I’ll do it for FIVE dollars.”

He fishes around in his pocket, has a five spot, Joe gave him 2 bucks, and so between the two of them I got my portrait o’ Lincoln. I didn’t think it was that bad. Raw bacon, whatever, it’s not gonna kill me. Of course, you know that things I see and do “get me thinking,” and this was no exception. More accurately, Joe thought of it first, and I decided I would think harder about it today: what else would I eat for five dollars?

Then I was downstairs this morning making coffee, and I realized, “I haven’t made a video since… oh, before you were born,” so I figured this would make as interesting a subject as anything else I’ve ever done. Click the link to download the video of Stuff Jason Will Eat for Five Dollars. If it looks like the audio falls out of sync for a few seconds here or there, that’s not you; I’m just working out the bugs different encoder options…

Now don’t get too excited, you don’t get to see me eat any of these things on the tape. In order to do that, you’ll have to Paypal me five bucks and wait for the video.

Finally, I *did* check, and there was a mention in the blog back on the Ides of April, but one of our regulars, Greg Willis, is getting hitched this weekend. I had no photo back in April, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, Joe Knitt, and Jeffry Willis, there is one today (I’m sure there are better ones, too, but I’m doing what I can here, eh?)
So, congradulacations to the soon-to-be-weds.

More news tomorrow on my *next* job interview up in Fond du Lac. Oh, speaking of which: did I mention that the Half Price Books interview on Wednesday was good, but if they offer the job I won’t take it cuz it pays even less than Target? Just so you’ve got that.

Oh, and one final point to make: this movie quote has been staying the same cuz nobody will send a guess. I’m sure there’s someone out there just dying to “work” on it, so I’m leavin’ it there.

Ah. I feel better.

After my early exit from Montana State last spring, I found myself doubting not only the future, but my decisions in the past, and (if you’ve known me a while) you know that as I came up on the final calendar year of undergraduate education, I was planning to carve out a meager career in commercial radio. Three years (but really only ten months) later, I have received absolute and final validation: commercial radio is not for me.

I resigned from WTMJ this afternoon, anticipating that they’d not want to keep me around much longer anyway. I was entirely correct, and I have to thank Dave Schrubbe for counseling me to “preemptively resign,” a tactic that pared what could have been an uncomfortable 10-12 minute meeting into an amicable 35-second handshake, and also I must thank Joe Mundschau for helping me put the loss of a 12-hour per week job for shit money in perspective.

Anyhoo, onward and upward: I should be getting a call from the fine folks at Target any day to begin “orientation,” and I have an interview this afternoon and Friday at different places as well.

At least now I have one less thing to regret.

Oooh, and I have “wings” to attend on Thursday!