Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

Cool people and new books

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First off — with as many complete momos as there are running around in the world today, it’s always nice to be reminded that there actually are some truly cool people out there, too. A couple days ago I posted a bit of a whine/moan/rant about how the combination of lack of response on the job front and lack of money was getting to me. Since then I’ve gotten a couple e-mails and a couple conversations over Yahoo! Messenger with some very kind words of support. Much as I try not to let things get to me, and keep a healthy and happy outlook on whatever’s going on in my life, sometimes it’s neccesary to let my frustrations fly — and when I do, it’s wonderful to get the occasional “buck up, kiddo” from people out there. Thanks to all of you — you rock.

Last night I managed to finish two projects I’d been working on. The first was a large puzzle of M. C. Escher’s work ‘High and Low’ — a real bear of a puzzle too, as the entire thing is black, white, and shades of grey. The second was the book I’d been reading, The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by his Fool, Will Somers: A Novel, by Margaret George. Very good historical fiction.

Having finished those, I’ve just started re-reading (as I don’t want to spend the money on something brand-new at the moment) a book that I was reminded of while reading The Jargon File — The Cuckoo’s Egg, by Cliff Stoll. This is a great little techno-spy thriller detailing the chase of a West-German hacker (this was written in the late 80’s) who was tunnelling through the then-new Internet, breaking into U.S. Military computers, and selling secrets to the Russians. The entire trail started from a 75-cent billing error in a Universities computer system, and the real kicker to the story — is that it’s all true. It’s been years since I’ve read it, though — I’ll babble more about it once I’m done.

I’ve got an interview!

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Woohoo!

Yesterday in the midst of all my bitching and moaning about not having gotten any leads in the job search, I had sent off a bunch of online apps for Data Entry positions. I hadn’t thought about this approach before, but Stacey recommended it while we were chatting, so I figured it was worth a shot. Today I had a return e-mail waiting for me, and now I’ve got an interview set up for Friday morning at 9am.

Turns out that when Cathy (the lady reviewing the online apps) saw my resume she realized that I was somewhat over-qualified for a simple data-entry spot, but also knew that there were positions opening in the reprographics industry that I’m eminently qualified for. Sounds good to me…and hopefully my interview goes as well as the phone conversation today did.

Wish me luck!

I want a Klein Bottle kitty

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People never fail to amuse and amaze me. I got an e-mail today that was (yet another) internet-based petition. I’m sure you’ve all gotten them before — they’re rapidly becoming the most popular of the variants of spam (see sense 5) floating around these days.

This particular one was railing about cruelty to animals, cats in particular. Here’s the gist of it:

In New York there is a Japanese [sic] who sells ‘bonsai-kittens.’ Sounds like fun huh? NOT! These animals are squeezed into a bottle. Their urine and feces are removed through probes. They feed them with a kind of tube. They feed them chemicals to keep their bones soft and flexible so the kittens grow into the shape of the bottle. The animals will stay there as long as they live. They can’t walk or move or wash themselves. Bonsai-kittens are becoming a fashion in New York and Asia. See this horror at: www.bonsaikitten.com Please sign this email in protest against these tortures. If you receive an email with over 500 names, please send a copy to: [edited]. From there this protest will be sent to USA and Mexican animal protection organizations.

My first question — did anyone actually look at this site before signing the petition? I’m not sure what gets to me more — that anyone could actually take this site seriously, or that by the time I got the petition, there were 239 names on it, and who knows how long it’s been circulating around the ‘net? Okay, sure, so the site doesn’t have a disclaimer anywhere on it…but does it really need one? I mean, come on…I started going through it, and I almost fell off my chair here because I was laughing so hard. So maybe I’ve got something of a sick sense of humor — that’s fine with me.

Another question — why in the world would the petition be sent to animal-protection agencies in the US and Mexico? That just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, as the information given states that this ‘business’ is run by “a Japanese” (person) in New York.

Ah, well. I think it’s funny. So there. Bleah. :)

Here’s some other sites that may be of interest to cat lovers, cat haters, or cat humor afficianados: Cat-Scan, Pet Mummification, Live Nude Cats!, Stop Kitty Porn, Dancing With Cats, and Cat Dynamics — Cat Technology Specialists.

Is this going to work?

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I’m starting to get really worried as to whether this whole thing is going to work out for me. It seems I may have made a bit of a mistake in moving my departure date up to when I did — I arrived in Seattle at a time when the job market is pretty nasty, and I’m getting really tired of being unemployed.

As all of my computer knowledge is self-taught and I hold no actual degrees that prove I know what I know, getting into anything computer-related at this point is something of a pipe dream. Since I knew that was a possibility, I had counted on being able to get hired on either at Kinko’s or Suncoast or both — I thought that eight years of experience plus Xerox certification on the DocuTech and DigiPath would give me a good chance at getting into Kinko’s, and I had just completed almost a full year at the Suncoast in the Dimond Center in Anchorage. Unfortunately, Suncoast is currently full with their summer hires and likely won’t be hiring until around the end of summer/beginning of the school season, so that isn’t happening to quickly; and Kinko’s has switched to a system where you can’t actually apply in person at a store — merely check their website to see where any openings are, and there aren’t currently any posted spots at the stores that I know I can get to easily.

At the moment, then, that leaves me still unemployed, pretty much broke (I’m down to my last $50 at the moment), and getting more and more disgruntled every time one more day goes by with no return calls or e-mails from the jobs that I’ve been applying for over the web. I’m about to start hitting the lowest tier of employment — everything I can find in the Capitol Hill area, from grocery stores to fast-food — just to see if I can get some form of income fairly quickly.

I just hate the fact that I have to end up doing that. Tons of computer knowledge that does me no good because I haven’t been certified in anything, close to a decade in the quick-print industry and I can’t get to a Kinko’s that has an open spot (and the other print shops I’ve checked with so far aren’t hiring), retail experience that currently is filled with summer hires…and all of a sudden, everything that looked so good and promising from Anchorage is starting to look frighteningly like a momentous waste of time and money if I can’t come up with something really soon. I’ve sold off or given away the majority of what I own that I felt able to part with, including my car, and have already burned through almost all my finances through the move down and into my Shoebox — even if I wanted to throw in the towel and head back to Alaska (something that I’m still too stubborn to resort to yet), I couldn’t afford to do that at this point. Something needs to come through soon…I’m not sure what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.

I just hope this wasn’t all a big mistake.

However, in slightly happier news, when I met up with Holly and Ryan at the Baltic Room last night, she reminded me that the girl who’s name I couldn’t remember in the last post is named Courtney, so now I can go through and fix that post so I don’t look quite so retarded. Hrm. Well, that’s something, I guess.

A Talitribe party

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So Friday evening I got a call from Holly seeing if I was up to heading out for another party with her group of friends. Not very hard to answer — I’m still (unfortunately) unemployed, so have no set schedule, and I had a lot of fun at the her birthday party…so it was a go, as far as I was concerned.

Saturday day I spent just hanging out at home. As I don’t have my computers set up over there yet, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and working on a jigsaw puzzle, so those took up the majority of the day. That afternoon Holly called, and I walked a block down to Toys in Babeland where Holly, Ken, and Courtney were doing some shopping. I have to admit, I had no idea there were so many varieties of vibrator available…!

Once done there, we headed up to (the other) Ken’s apartment, where we met up with (the other) Ken, Ryan, and another guy who’s name I’ve completely spaced on. After a bit of time there (where I introduced them to Divine Interventions, home of the “Baby-Jesus Buttplug”), we divided into seperate cars — Holly and Ryan in one car, Ken and Courtney and I in another, while (the other) Ken and his friend waited to head out later, and went out to Tali’s house for the party.

TalitribeI had a lot of fun during the ensuing party. Saw a lot of the people I met at Holly’s birthday party again, and met a few more members of the Talitribe (that being the name of this family of friends, with Tali being the ‘mother’ of everyone). Just a very relaxing evening of having fun, talking and joking around a lot, soaking in the hot tub — something I don’t get to do very often — and generally enjoying myself. This seems to be a really good group of people — the general atmosphere during these parties really reminds me a lot of the parties I used to have at the Pit a few years back, when that group was still going strong. I’ve missed those days, and it’s nice to have found something similar down here.

The party lasted long into the night and next day, as is common for these things, and I ended up grabbing a few hours sleep in Tali’s room next to Renda, Griffin, and (at times) Ken, (the other) Ken, Tali, Amber — and there may have been some others floating in and out, too. Much of Sunday was spent kicking back and waking up, as various people reappeared from wherever they’d passed out for the night. I ended up at one point watching the Adam Sandler comedy Billy Madison — and I have to admit, I think I was better off standing by my previous desire never to see any Adam Sandler flick other than The Wedding Singer, as I find him to be one of the least funny ‘comedians’ out there.

Eventually everyone was up and mobile, and we headed out for dinner (as it was now almost 6pm) at Charlie’s, a restaurant on Broadway. After a good meal and more general hilarity and whatnot, I wandered my way back to the Shoebox, as Charlie’s is just 10 blocks or so away. A few minutes of attempting to work on the puzzle was enough to convince me that I was absolutely beat, so I just spread out my ‘bed’ (blankets and pillows on the floor for the moment), and crashed out.

Today’s been pretty standard so far — got up and came over here to Casey’s to check in on things here. Tonight I’ll be meeting up with Ryan at a bar called The Baltic Room to catch some of the downtempo beats being spun. Hopefully that should turn out to be pretty good…and hey, it’s exploring someplace new, which I generally enjoy. We’ll see this evening.

Neighbors, and a new desk

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Not a whole lot of major interest in the past day, unfortunately. Went out to Neighbours again last night for the 80’s night — luckily enough, this time I managed to make it through an entire night without breaking myself. I am glad my first night was last Thursday, though — neither the DJ’ing nor the drag show were quite as good this week. Always good to know I got started on a good night, so a weak night isn’t as much of a bummer…at least, unless the weak nights eventually outnumber the good ones. That can only be told with time, however…and at a whopping $1 cover for Thursday nights, I think I can afford a few more tries over the coming weeks.

Best thing from yesterday, though — the landlord stopped by my apartment to see how I was getting along, and it turned out that he had some more old furniture that he was willing to give to me. So in addition to the couch he gave me last week, I’ve now got an absolutely ginormous table in my place. It’s actually an old heavy oak drafting table — I think it’s roughly seven feet wide, four feet deep, and a little higher than an average table. As befits a drafting table, the entire surface can be tilted up, though I don’t plan on doing that — once I get my computers over to the house, this will make a perfect workdesk, and I don’t really need to have my equipment sliding off onto the floor. It’s also got four drawers — one standard wide drawer beneath the surface, and three more filing-cabinet style on the far right side, and a power cord that leads to a two-plug outlet on the right side of the desk. It’s a great desk, and will work perfectly for spreading out all my workstuff once I get it over to the apartment.

Too cool…more and more pieces falling into place. Now I just need to get the job and money situations taken care of….

Family, blondes, and jargon

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First off — hi dad! :) Got a call from dad yesterday — he and mom were off on a trip to England and Scotland (anywhere else?) with the Alaska Childrens Choir for the past few weeks, and just got home. Seems everything went well for them, and I’m now told that Edinburgh is a wonderful place to visit, should I ever get the opportunity. Hmmm…well, I’ll certainly be keeping that in mind….

I’ve been seeing ads for Legally Blonde for a while now, and I finally decided to break down and go see if it was as cute as it looked in the ads. It definitely was (something that’s always nice).

Lastly for today, as I was going through my boxes of stuff last night, I stumbled across a book I hadn’t read through in a while. The Jargon File is a compendium of slang and jargon from the hacker community that has been an ongoing project since roughly 1981 — a full 20 years now! While it would at first appear to be aimed solely at the hacker community (which, to be honest, I can’t exactly dispute), it also has a broad appeal to people outside of the community, especially those with a decently sharp sense of humor and a love of wordplay. I started re-reading it last night, and had forgotten just how entertaining it can be to read something that is, in some respects, a dictionary of technical terms and slang. In particular, I think my dad would really get a kick out of it, given what I know of his sense of humor and interest in words, wordplay, and etymology. The file can either be found online, or can be purchased in bookstores as The New Hacker’s Dictionary (though the online version is more current).

The job hunt commences

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Not a whole lot going on at the moment, beyond getting into job searching. Yesterday I e-mailed my resume to a hiring rep for Kinko’s, and turned in an application and resume to Suncoast (as I wouldn’t mind working there again, though it would most likely stay a secondary job). Aside from that, things have been pretty slow.

I have been getting a lot of reading done, which is nice, as things were busy enough for a while in Anchorage that I hadn’t been able to dive into books like I used to.

So, that’s it for now…more to come eventually, I’m sure….

Bring out the gimp!

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In this case, unfortunately, the gimp is me. I’ve been holed up in my apartment for the past few days, nursing a banged-up knee — hence the lack of much in the way of updates here. Bleah.

Thursday night went out with Chad, Casey, Casey’s girlfriend Jen, and a friend of Jen’s named Steve to a bar called Neighbours just a couple blocks away from where I live for their 80’s night. Very fun place — it seems to be a Seattle version of the old Wave in Anchorage — a gay bar that’s been deemed ‘safe’ for the straights to hang out at. Was a good night, but at one point I was dancing on a platform, and when someone got a bit too close to me I backed up, and fell right off the platform. I caught my knee on the edge of the riser as I fell, and while I didn’t really realize it then, apparently I damaged myself pretty decently — by the time Friday rolled around, I could hardly walk. Very frustrating, and led to my primarily holing up in the apartment for the weekend.

Luckily, I didn’t have to do it alone. Laura, a friend of mine from Anchorage is off on vacation and had a couple days to kill in Seattle, so I had said she could crash at my apartment. She came in early Friday morning, her friend Jenny came in Friday evening, and they took off Saturday around noon. Then Saturday afternoon my friend Aliena (who Kirsten, a friend of mine up at UAF, had introduced me to) came by, and we spent a very pleasant night kicking back at my apatartment and watching movies (as she’d been kind enough to bring up a small TV and VCR so we didn’t have to just stare at the walls all evening). Aliena crashed at my place, took off about noon today, and I decided it was time to head over to my computers and wade through the backlog of messages from the past few days.

One other cool thing, however — there’s a cool little theater just a couple blocks away from my apartment (The Egyptian, at Pine and Broadway) that was playing Run Lola Run at midnight on Friday and Saturday, and I got to go see it Friday night. Quite cool, having only seen it on DVD before. Apparently, the Egyptian does midnight movies on a regular basis, which could be all sorts of fun — next weekend’s is A Clockwork Orange. Whee!

In any case, I need to get busy getting my resume ready to go as I dive into the local job market….

Final fantasy, sleeping in a shoebox

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Okies — first off, if you’ve been looking forward to Final Fantasy at all, go see it. Eye candy — lots of eye candy — and it’s well worth catching on the big screen for the full effect.

Spent the night in the Shoebox last night. First off — as soon as I can afford it, I need a bed. While I can deal with sleeping on the floor, it’s not the most comfortable way of doing things. Ah, well…details, details, right? Oh, and I need to see if I can get the neighbors to refrain from turning up their stereo quite so loud at 6am. Other than that, not bad. :) Anyway, got my stereo hooked up, so I can listen to music, and then got stalled on unpacking anything else, when I realized I don’t have anyplace to put anything. No shelves, no tables…oops! Guess things are just going to need to stay in boxes for a bit longer. Felt kinda silly when I realized that.

No biggie, though — I’ve got my music, got books, and now comes the big challenge — hitting the streets in an attempt to find a job. Fun fun fun….