Happy St. Patrick's Day

Today we all pretend we're a people that few of us actually are as an excuse to get drunk. Funny how the Irish are stereotyped to be drunks to such a degree, and funnier still that every Irish person I've ever met is proud of this aspect of his/her heritage. At least outwardly. I'm sure they're crying on the inside. Which leads to more drinking. Ah, the circle of life.

 

Little-known fact: most Irish are girl-drink drunks. That would explain the Bailey's.

So have an Irish Car Bomb for me, then sober up with an Irish coffee and take a cab home.

Things to do when you're unemployed

Run a scam!

The other day, my friend decided to help me make a little money. He sent me the link to a conference to teach me to work at home.

For those of you who don't click the link, it sends you to the "Third annual Nigerian EMail (sic) Conference," where the slogan is "Write better emails. Make more moneys." I love the testimonial at the bottom.

"I AM FIRMLY CONVINCED THAT USING UPPERCASE LETTERS MAKES MY WRITING MORE EFFECTIVE." - Mr. Ibrahim Ahmed

Wow! For only $995 I could've attended that conference! Think of all the money I could have made! Instead, I'll have to figure out my own money-making opportunity.

Of course, I could run a Ponzi scheme, but that's so cliche now. I couldn't possibly equal what Madoff and Stanford did. The banks have a good scheme going now. Their plan is to suck at their jobs, get paid a lot, drive the company to bankruptcy, get government assistance, and pay themselves a lot more. The only similar job I can think of is U.S. senator.

One of my favorite scams is to act like I'm going to help people get out of debt, when all I really do is consolidate their loans and add my name to their list of payments. Like this guy does.

Remember, when running a scam, don't do it over the phone and try to avoid scamming over state lines. You don't want the Feds on your tail. Ha, who am I kidding? They're bumbling and incompetent.

My advice? Get something that vaguely resembles a human face and claim that it's Jesus or Mary, then charge people to see it. The more poor, desolate Catholics that live near you, the better the chance of making money.

Things to do when you're unemployed

Actually Apply for Jobs

The following is a list of websites that have so far failed to end my unemployment, despite their promises to help my job search: Monster, Career Builder, Hot Jobs, Craig's List, countless company websites, temp agencies, and industry-specific sites.

Why have they failed? Because these web sites don't actually do anything.You post a resume or two so employers could theoretically see it and call you. You search for jobs and submit your own resume, cover letter, social security number, pet's name, why you're good for this job, mother's maiden name, desired income, what you ate for breakfast, and education level. The server then throws all that crap in a pile and promises you that someone is looking at your info. They're not. They're too busy making Super Bowl ads to get anyone a job.

It's estimated that ninety (90) percent of jobs are filled before they're advertised. In other words, you've got to know someone, get extremely lucky, become a corporation/HR representative stalker, or some combination of the above to get a decent job. Especially in this job market, which, as you might have heard, is down. The resume that you had to reformat ten times to copy and paste into Career Builder, only to have the site crash and make you start over again? Yeah, that sits on the server to never be looked at.

It should also be noted that, since signing up for these websites, I get e-mails from the likes of retirementjobs.com, which is great because I think I'm living my retirement now. I'll have to work when I'm 80.

Monster and Career Builder also asked me for the names and categories of positions that I want. So I filled in things like "finance" and "business analyst." I get job recommendations as a result, for jobs like "truck driver" and "administrative assistant." If I were to click on these jobs, I would find that they filled a month ago. And that I would need a type-B driver's license or something like that.

The biggest reason that I am jobless is that I will not stoop to a low level to get my job. For instance, many people who claim to know about these things recommend getting an informational interview. Put simply, that's calling some higher-up at a company on the pretense that you're looking for a contact and curious about the industry in general. You're not. You're interested in working for the guy, but you can't come out and say it. You try to ask good questions and come across as competent and stick around his office until he offers you a job to make you leave. Or, as put in my handy Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit by Louis Beckwith:

2. for the experienced person, a real pain in the ass, perhaps committed to because the SVP of sales' daughter wants to get into publicity, or the experienced professional has a minute belief of karma and thinks it's the "right" thing to do (and frankly, could use the ego boost of someone thinking their job is really awesome)--either way, a total time-suck that gets rescheduled five times because it's off the radar 3. for neophytes, a request for a job, even though they often show up ridiculously unprepared and with completely misinformed ideas about the industry being discussed; will often exude the aura of "so when are you going to give me/help me get a job?"

 

Sometimes I feel like I am in The Grapes of Wrath (a book I haven't actually read): A guy from the Dustbowl moves to California and seeking work during economic hard times. I hope Henry Fonda plays me in the film version. And they add in some more interesting plot developments, like a sexy sidekick, or have me living above a strip club or something like that.

The Oscars always get it wrong

Nothing shows Hollywood's disconnect from America, from art, or from the filmmakers more than watching the Oscars. They never get the big awards right. Famously, they voted Ordinary People over Raging Bull, Gigi over Vertigo, and How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane. Way to go, Hollywood.

This year was no different. I am, of course, talking about Slumdog Millionaire winning Best Picture over Death Race. Some pretentious dribble love story over a heart-pumping car racing movie?

Let's look at the Best Picture nominees to see where they got it wrong.

Slumdog Millionaire

How far do you want me to suspend my disbelief, Hollywood? Some guy going on a game show to win lots of money, I get that, but the cheesy love story that goes with it? Also, it is in some made-up country called India. Not to get all PC on you, Hollywood (that's your job) I believe these people prefer to be called Native Americans.

Milk

This guy won Best Actor?

And he did so portraying a dead gay guy? If you could've predicted that twenty years ago, I'd have thought you'd smoked more bud than, well, Sean Penn.

Did anyone out there ever see Casualties of War? It's this pretentious anti-war movie with Michael J. Fox playing the naive kid and Sean Penn as the bad guy, and amoral American soldier in Vietnam. As Penn is about to rape a Vietnamese woman, he says as dark clouds circle him and tense music plays, "This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun." The hilarity of that line gets me every time, especially given the over-dramatic execution of it. Come on, Penn. Rape isn't funny.

Frost/Nixon

More historical babble. If I'm to understand Hollywood, if you make a historical political movie, and do it with a big budget and a name director, you get nominated for Best Picture.

Seriously, how am I supposed to take this movie seriously? Did you see the guy's hair? I know it's trying to be historically accurate, but did you have to take the worst part of the 1970s with you? Hopefully this movie doesn't bring back that haircut, along with the soaring gas prices, a recession, and an endless war in Asia....

The Reader

I frequently state that movies would be made better with more gratuitous nudity. I'm on board for that. But did it have to be British nudity?

 The Wrestler

I can actually get behind this movie. I think they should make a sequel: The Wrestler 2: The Chris Benoit Story. In The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke completes a stunning comeback into respectability. In another triumphant return to acting, OJ Simpson could play the lead in the sequel. Like Rourke, he could get Oscar nominated for playing himself.

Cruel, funny day in sports

Two great articles for your amusement. First, from Deadspin:

The 100th season of the Montreal hockey club has had ups and downs, but it's not clear yet where "finding out two of your players are mobbed up" falls on the spectrum of season highlights.

Now that hockey's gone all Sonny Liston on us, maybe I'll watch a game. I mean, the fighting parts are ok, but fighting and mafia ties? Add some cheerleaders (and maybe actually televise a game) and I'm in.

 

Second, Ken Rosenthal over at Fox Sports has a story on athletes being caught up in financial scandals. Notably, Johnny Damon has had his assets seized as part of the investigation into financier Robert Allen Stanford.

For those of you not in the know,

this goofy looking guy allegedly hoodwinked $8 billion from investors. Apparently sports figures have been caught up in this, as clients of both the Scott Boras, Inc. and IMG agencies have been taken. This is another example of rich people not watching their money; Mets' owner Fred Wilpon was taken in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

The humor here is that Johnny Damon, making $13 million per year, can't pay his bills. And I find this funny because Johnny Damon went from wunderkind to impossible asshat in the span of about a decade. It's a story of how money corrupts, so it's only fitting that he now can't access that money.

The simplified story of Johnny Damon goes like this: boy wonder from Wichita gets taken by his boyhood favorite team, the Royals, in the first round of the draft. He marries his high school sweetheart. He tears up the minor leagues and says all the right things. He gets to Kansas City, becomes an all-star, declares he wants to be a Royal for his career. Then he sees the money around him and fires his agent in order to replace him with Scott Boras.

Boras then makes it known that Damon will not resign with the team before testing the free agent market, in spite of a reported four-year, $30 million contract offer (give or take) from Kansas City. So the Royals trade him to Oakland (for far too little, but that's another story) where Damon plays out his final year before free agency by playing the worst he's ever played. So now he's burned his bridge in Kansas City and takes a four-year, $30 million contract from the Red Sox.

Somewhere along this timeline, he has divorced his high school sweetheart and replaced her with a model.

Damon was, of course, instrumental in the Red Sox run to finally win a World Series. He then spurned another fan base when he left for the Yankees' money, but not before he could publish a book that he "wrote" where he could profit still more. He hasn't been healthy since. He is, however, in a contract year, so expect big things in 2009 from the 35-year-old. And pray your favorite team doesn't sign him next year.

Also, pray he doesn't "write" another book to get him out of this cash bind he's in.

One more note on updated literature

Let it be known that I called it.

Coming to a theater near you (courtesy slashfilm.com).

Hollywood Studios Bidding For Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 8:54 pm by: Brendon Connelly

According to the Sunday Times, Hollywood studios (I quote) are already fighting for the rights to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a Jane Austen rewrite that injects a little undead action and is due to hit bookstores in April.

I wonder if they can get Bruce Campbell to play Mr. Rochester.

Wait, wrong book. All that trash runs together.

More Updated Literary Classics

The subject of my last post has inspired me to come up with other ways to update classic literature. After all, what was great yesterday is often boring today. These are some of my ideas for new versions of old books. If they get made, I expect royalties.

 

Oliver Twist versus the Nazis

By Charles Dickens and Philip Roth

The touching story of a Victorian-age orphan sabotaging Hitler's secret plan of using time-travel to win World War II before it began.

 

The Call of the Cujo

By Jack London and Stephen King

The vicious man-eating dog is kidnapped and taken into the Yukon, where he kills his entire team and two Eskimo villages before becoming the leader of a pack of wolves.

 

Frankenstein meets Abbott and Costello

Wait, that's been done.

 

The Tragedy of Macbeth and the 101 Dalmatians

Out damn'd spot!