OK, so I missed a few days. It’s Christmas. It happens. Plus I’ve gone to an orientation session for my job, taken a drug test for same said job, replaced a wheel cylinder on an old Dodge pickup, and bought new clothes and shoes. I’ve been busy away from the internet.
I’m going to cheat today because I’ve got an actual idea for an actual post I’m working on. But in the spirit of sticking to my word I’ll tell you what happened in the last 24 hours.
I broke the handle on my back door and scared my neighbor’s rooster in the process. Coincidentally, my neighbor’s rooster scared me since I was unaware that he was just around the corner scratching and pecking. My momentary fear melted almost immediately when I saw the fat little thing running stupidly back up the hill.
I also went to the grocery store.
Turns out job interviews aren’t nearly as intimidating as I thought they were. I hadn’t been to one this decade so I was afraid I would be rusty, unable to answer their questions without hemming and hawing.
To my surprise and relief, their questions were mostly of the So, you wrote this on your application? variety.
Good news. I have a job interview tomorrow. Unfortunately it’s not at a thorough bred racehorse farm. It’s actually for two separate jobs through a staffing agency. They’re both industrial with long hours and just above minimum pay. I don’t know what kind of time frame I’m dealing with, though. When would I start? Is it temporary? Temp to hire? Direct hire? Beats me.
It does look as if they both offer health insurance and a 401k. That’s good. And very adult, too.
The lady who called about it this morning completely threw me off. The phone hadn’t rung since god knows when. What few calls I had gotten were telemarketers and miss dials. When I heard the woman’s voice I thought, “Yeah, wrong number.” But it wasn’t! It was a legitimate human being who offered me a chance to exchange manual labor for monetary compensation.
I drove out to their office about an hour ago just to make sure I knew where it was. I sort of forgot that I can’t see jack shit when it’s dark and rainy. Drove right past it. Turns out that’s as good as anything because I know exactly where I went wrong.
Not much to report today. I took a two-mile walk and applied for more jobs. One of them was 200 miles away.
It was a temporary position — temporary meaning “only lasts 10 months” — as a stall attendant at a horse farm just outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Derby country.
They didn’t require any kind of experience (a vet can shovel poop as well as a drop out can, I guess). We had horses when I was a kid, though, so I’m at least accustom to them. Plus, they offer free housing for workers who can’t commute.
It seems like it could be fun in a nearly year-long summer camp for adults sort of way. I’d just have to get someone to watch my cat.
I got chewed out a little today. First, some backstory.
I quit my job back in August. It was a sort of rash decision but one that had been brewing for a while. I don’t regret doing it, really, but I could have planned better. That said, I’ve got it made right now. I’m living in a three bedroom house, rent and utility free. My food and cigarettes are bought for me. I’m kept.
I don’t feel good about this but I’m not going to pretend like I’m not enjoying it. It’s kind of cool.
I’m going to write a blog post everyday. They’re going to be terrible, I can assure you. They’re also going to pointless. It’s just an exercise. Discipline.
Here goes.
I dreamt this morning that I was going through some empty, modern building with some unidentified other person. So I guess it wasn’t totally empty. Anyway, unidentified other starts to go through a door when I see a handle of some sort swinging in the room we’re about to enter. I think it’s weird but I don’t say anything.
A Kotaku user named Neocorey linked to this comic today. I thought it was so moving that I had to share it. It’s the story of an anonymous IGN user as illustrated by ONESOUND.
I’ll never look at Animal Crossing the same way again.
[Via Kotaku]
[Via thisisgame.com (Korean)]
Facebook’s like Loweezy. That’s what started it — a silly thought at the end of some long, winding brain ramble. But, I forgot the name of the comic strip which featured Loweezy. Not being able to think of something simple, something I know I know is like an itch I can’t scratch. It took me quite a while to find it. Googling “comic strip old man gossiping wife” doesn’t help. I had to look through a long list of comic strips on Wikipedia. Of course, it was very near the end — Snuffy Smith. You know, the one with the old hillbilly and his wife, Loweezy, who’s always gossiping with the neighbor at the fence row? Yeah. Facebook.
You should not be trusting this guy
While I was poking around, I found this on the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Wikipedia page.
Following “The Goo-Goo Song” (1900), the word “Google” was introduced in 1913 in The Google Book, a children’s book about the Google and other fanciful creatures who live in Googleland: “The Google has a beautiful garden which is guarded night and day. All through the day he sleeps in a pool of water in the center of the garden; but when the night comes, he slowly crawls out of the pool and silently prowls around for food.” Aware of the word’s appeal, (Billy) DeBeck launched his comic strip (Barney Google, known today as Snuffy Smith) six years later, and the “goo-goo-googly” lyrics in the 1923 song “Barney Google” (a song inspired by the comic) focused attention on the novelty of the word. When the mathematician and Columbia University professor Edward Kasner was challenged in the late 1930s to devise a name for a very large number, he asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, to suggest a word. The youthful comic strip reader told Kasner to use “Google”. Kasner agreed and in 1940 he introduced the words “googol” and “googolplex” in his book, Mathematics and the Imagination. Milton Sirotta died in 1980. This is the term that Larry Page and Sergey Brin had in mind when they named their company in 1998, but they misspelled “googol” as “google,” bringing it full circle right back to Billy DeBeck.
Nevermind that it clearly states in its first sentence that the word Google was invented by the author of “The Google Book,” Vincent Cartwright Vickers. Nevermind that Billy DeBeck is already credited with inventing the phrases “horsefeathers,” “hotsy-totsy,” “sweet mama,” the ever popular “times a-wastin’,” my personal favorite “heebie-jeebies,” and the inexplicable “Who has seen the doodle bug?” Let’s give him “Google,” too. Screw that Vickers dude.
By the way, this is a Google.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
[Via Wikipedia]
Look! I made a mouse path. It’s a visual representation of all the movements I’ve made with my mouse in the last 18 hours or so. The dots are periods of rest. Guess where I fell asleep watching Hulu.
Makes a great wallpaper.
[Via Door Sixteen]
