Category Archives: Mundania

Why I Won’t be Seeing Transformers 2

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“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

Thank you Mr. Ebert.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997

Ow.

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On the way home, having turned into our complex, we were hit by another vehicle. My neck hurts. The hood  of our car is bent up on one side. No damage to the other vehicle.

A big Nissan Armada had stopped on the   of an intersection, so we stopped (prudently on *this* side of the intersection). We waited a bit (was she waiting for the garage to open to pull in? looking at directions?) and then the Armada turned its reverse lights on and began to back up.  I figured they were reversing into a side street to turn around.

Half way through the intersection I realized she was rolling all the way back and hit the horn with one long loud burst. She kept coming and before i could take my hand off the horn and get the car (remember, fully stopped on this side of the intersection) into reverse — BAM. Right into us.

This has not been a good day.

Wallpaper meme

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from elsewhere on the web:

1. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper.
2. Explain in five sentences why you’re using that wallpaper!
3. Don’t change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

briliant-sunset

1. It’s called Brilliant Sunset.

5 reasons:  I love the colors. It takes me to a very good ‘place.’ It has a lot of movement. I feel like I’m at the beach. When I look at it I feel like I can go forever.

When did the Celtic Cross become a Neo-Nazi Power Symbol?

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from: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/

Over a plate of chicken wings, he tells me about his path into the white-power movement. “I was 14 when I decided I wanted to be a Nazi,” he says. At his first high school, near Los Angeles, he was bullied by black and Latino kids. That’s when he first heard Skrewdriver, a band he calls “the godfather of the white power movement.” “I became obsessed,” he says. He had an image from one of Skrewdriver’s album covers — a Viking carrying a staff, an icon among white nationalists — tattooed on his left forearm. Soon after he had another white power symbol, a Celtic cross, emblazoned on his stomach. (emphasis mine)

Excuse me, but there is NOTHING to relate the Celtic culture, and specifically the so-called Celtic Cross with Neo-Nazism, white supremacy, or any of that ilk. I mean, it’s totally wrong to do, but at least it’s understandable when people mistake Viking or Norse symbols for “white power’ symbols. But the CROSS? (Celtic or not)

P.O’d at the USPS

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One of my other roles is the editor of Facing North, a review site for all things alternative spirituality. Every month or so, I send out a pile of books and things to my group of reviewers.

I have learned to always put a ‘delivery confirmation’ on my packages, otherwise they tend to mysteriously disappear en route. (I once had thirteen, yes THIRTEEN, packages to different people disappear — an entire mailing.) This costs me more money, but media mail is pretty cheap to begin with so I just chalk it up to the cost of doing business.

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A final ‘raspberry’ from Mercury

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Not long ago, I spent a bit more than an hour creating a wishlist (at wishlist.com). Today I went to update it (since we got some DVDs over the weekend) and I accidentally deleted it.

You see, the were the first entry duplicated the second entry, so I deleted the first entry, not realizing it was a listing for the ENTIRE wishlist. Now, I think there’s some poor design on wishlist’s part, but mostly this was operator error.

I’m not sure I have the energy to recreate that list.

Slogging through Resumes

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I know this is a terrible job market . . . but that means it is all the more necessary for applicants to pay attention to the advertisements.  I’ve written about this before, but things have gotten a lot more intense this time.

We’re hiring an administrative assistant, having been without as a budget-cutting measure for a year now. We’re very clear about what we want in an ideal applicant. And, as usual, I am very specific about what I want from applicants: a cover letter, a resume, and salary expectations. (Don’t believe me? Here’s the post, at least until it expires on CL.)

I got 25 responses within an hour of posting the ad. And 120 in six hours, when I stopped checking my office email. Today I have another 50+ to input. My guess is that I’ll have 300 resumes to review before the weekend is over. Look at that figure for a moment: three HUNDRED resumes.

I said it before: you’ll get a lot further in the process if you write your cover letter to me. But you are now going to get an automatic rejection if you don’t include the items I specifically requested: a cover letter, a resume, and your salary expectations. I

I started out willing to ask people for a cover letter/writing sample — now I just mark the person ‘no’. I may lose a great candidate, but I doubt it. In fact, my impressions is that the people who don’t bother to compose a cover letter have little or NO relevant experience.

What a waste.