Category: Other People

The Job Service With Monkeys has provided my name to a number of potential employers who have contacted me. Some seem to be scams of the variety that involve me promoting illegal or unethical products, such as no-fee life insurance for old folks (we lend you money at a high interest rate, you spend that money on crappy insurance from us, then when you die or default, we own your home!) Some seem to be scams of the “business opportunity” variety.

One is a sales job with an apparently legitimate financial services company. One that advertises on national TV. An applicant would take the Series 7 exam, wear a suit, and sell financial services by telephone. The thing is, I know someone who worked there once, who tells me that everyone spends the day with cocaine, cold-calling, and sexual harrassment. Since she wasn’t into doing coke or being sexually harrassed, it was basically just telemarketing hell in fancy clothes.

Mmmm, fancy clothes.

With additional changes suggested by Cheridy, and now as a PDF: The Aaron Weber One-and-a-Half Page Resume for General Audiences!

I assure you, I’m just as thrilled as you are.

The guy who tried to enforce politics on education turns out to be a 24-year-old college dropout whose qualification for appointment to NASA was working for W’s re-election campaign.

I could have done that job well. In fact, he probably could have done it well, if he’d been honest and humble.

Liars and cheats, all of them.

Four Democrats crossed the aisle to join in selling out the American people:

Byrd (WV), Conrad (ND), Johnson (SD), and Nelson (NE). I get Byrd, because he’s been a Democrat since Reconstruction. The rest of them I don’t know.

I do know, however, that the Honorable Gentleman from my home state, George Allen (R, VA) is pretty hilariously ignorant of certain key goings-on for someone with presidential ambitions:

Indeed, here is what Senator George Allen of Virginia, who is considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said when asked his opinion of the Bernanke nomination.

“For what?”

Told that Mr. Bernanke was up for the Fed chairman’s job, Mr. Allen hedged a little, said he had not been focused on it, and wondered aloud when the hearings would be. Told that the Senate Banking Committee hearings had concluded in November, the senator responded: “You mean I missed them all? I paid no attention to them.”

Not like he’s the only one, mind you. People were paying attention to Alito, and that’s obviously more important. Besides, I think Fed positions are shorter-term. He can worry about that kind of thing when he’s president.

I’m sure Bernanke will be fine. And George Allen in ’08? Well, he’s not the worst politician Virginia has ever had (Ollie North? Jefferson Davis?)

I have promised and promised a picture of my developing mustache. Here it is.

Comedy comes to you in strange ways. For example, look back in my archives at the timeout option ranges for the hdparm command. (That post also illustrates, should you be a potential employer, my facility with engineers and their aberrant logic.)

Or, read the following text message I just got from a friend:
DUDE I AM IN A STANDOFF WITH POLICE IN PROVIDENCE. I NEED YOU TO COME DOWN AND NEGOTIATE MY SURRENDER.

This is a joke. He is really in Cambridge.

Ms. Ironic is out of town this weekend, so I get the house to myself. That means I get away with all the shit she doesn’t let me do otherwise: turning off the radiator in the living room and shutting the door so we don’t pay to heat that room, keeping the thermostat low enough that I need a hat at all times, making tea that smells like smoked tires, and cooking smelly fish-based foods. To start, I made miso soup that begins with bonito broth. Later, there will be chicken wings and copious flatulence.

Par-tay!

Different socieities have different problems… in Japan, one problem is young men who just refuse to go anywhere or do anything.

In other societies the response from many youths would be different. If they didn’t fit into the mainstream, they might join a gang or become a Goth or be part of some other subculture. But in Japan, where uniformity is still prized and reputations and outward appearances are paramount, rebellion comes in muted forms, like hikikomori. Any urge a hikikomori might have to venture into the world to have a romantic relationship or sex, for instance, is overridden by his self-loathing and the need to shut his door so that his failures, real or perceived, will be cloaked from the world. “Japanese young people are considered the safest in the world because the crime rate is so low,” Saito said. “But I think it’s related to the emotional state of people. In every country, young people have adjustment disorders. In Western culture, people are homeless or drug addicts. In Japan, it’s apathy problems like hikikomori.”

That’s not entirely right, because of course there are drug addicts and homeless people in Japan, just as there are shut-ins and recluses in the West. But the particular form of the phenomenon, and the particular response to it, seems to illuminate something about what it means to be Japanese. Of course, what it really illuminates is what Western media and its consumers think about Japan.

Dear Santa, please impeach the criminals running our country.

In a vaguely related note, I am sure that Pat Robertson is a form of divine punishment visited upon this country… I think for being so gullible, but I’m not sure yet.

Jon Stwewart will be hosting the Oscars this year. He’s funny, he’s droll, he’s amusing… but will he be amusing enough to disguise the fact that the rest of the marathon of celebrity self-indulgence is fatuous crap? We’ll find out.