an entire knitted room!

#  

puppy bowl

#  

on the bright side...

5. I can continue my poor sleeping habits--up until late, then sleeping in.
4. I can continue procrastinating on my schoolwork.
3. I don't have to worry about getting dressed up and making my hair look presentable.
2. Work won't eat into valuable knitting time.

And the number one reason that completely screwing the interview pooch can be seen as positive is...
1. No waiting by the phone hoping for a call-back.

4:30:44 PM

#  

interview, intershmoo

Imagine this: American female interviewer, and British male. Good cop/bad cop. The woman is all like, "I'm just so glad that I found someone who's heard these words before." But the guy is asking me questions along the lines of, "When you have a document, how do you approach the metadata?" Quietly, from behind. Or, did you ever see Mission Impossible, with Tom Cruise? I like to ease my way down from the ceiling with some snappy theme music.

Plus, the dog's either barking or begging for attention (if I shut him out, he barks), and then the cat comes up and meows directly into the phone.

So much for selling myself to the man. Or woman. Or anyone, for that matter.

11:50:16 AM

#  

hangin' on the telephone

This is a conference call interview, and I have no idea what to expect; I've never done a phone interview, for one thing, and I imagine more than one other person will be involved, since we're not using the contact person's desk phone. If I got the position, I'd be working with people in the UK office, so perhaps some Brits will be on the line, as well. And then I won't be able to understand their accents and life will be even worse.

Plus I have to keep the dog quiet. He's very vigilant about rogue squirrels, imagined insults, etc.

Thing about the phone interview: I won't be able to gauge people's reaction to me. Argh. It's been a long week: working to help get a grant in on deadline, which saps the strength right out of ya, and I just finished writing a paper. Tonight I'll spend reading up on content management systems for the interview tomorrow.

12:15:16 PM

#  

even the square and the yellow, the dinosaurial and the purple

You may recall the United Church of Christ being in the news a month or so ago for its ad campaign stressing its acceptance of everyone. And they do mean everyone:

For that matter, Thomas explained, the 1.3-million-member church, if given the opportunity, would warmly receive Barney, Big Bird, Tinky-Winky, Clifford the Big Red Dog or, for that matter, any who have experienced the Christian message as a harsh word of judgment rather than Jesus' offering of grace.

(Thanks to Salon.com, from whom I pretty much stole this story, but it was irresistable.)

8:34:02 PM

#  

girlie girls

I could see that one of them was doing a knitty pattern and I asked her which one, and when she told me I felt terrible that she'd put all that work in using a completely inappropriate yarn that wasn't showing the pattern. She seemed pleased, I guess.

12:08:05 PM

#  

profiles of the racially stupid

I'm actually pretty embarrassed, like I've been caught racial profiling, but I kind of have. Okay, black guy with lots of dreads named Hailie...see where I'm going with this? Then I compound the problem when I start reading the "Life" section of the paper. "Look, it's Black History Month! But they don't have anything for the 28th except an Oprah quote...It's only 28 days, and they couldn't find 28 notable events? Wait, there are more quotes--even fewer days are filled." We're kind of having a back-and-forth on this, but in my mind I'm thinking, shut up, shut up, what are you thinking? Luckily, he didn't seem offended.

12:00:03 PM

#  

without child, or immaculate contraception

#  

fathers and sons

#  

apoplexy

I've read a couple of People's Forum letters about how wrong it was to have an inauguration with the tsunami tragedy so close, and how the $40 million could have been so much better spent. It's interesting thought, but with most of the activities planned long before the disaster, I wonder how much could really have been saved.

But hey! What about the the $15 million that John Kerry had left over in his war chest after the election? Just lying around gathering dust -- think what a humanitarian he'd be if he donated it! But that won't happen.

This country is sending $350 million plus, and if you look at those nasty old taxpayer breakdowns, it's mostly conservative money. Even money says the same is true for private contributions.

Luke Steele
Creedmoor

The last paragraph is what gets me. What, conservatives just pay more taxes? BullSHIT! I mean, just because their conservative? Or because they're richer? But the rich re/elected Bush so they'd be taxed less. And study after study has shown (okay, I'm doing something I've told my students time and again never to do, which is refer to a nebulous "study") that the percentage of income a person donates to charity increases in inverse proportion to the amount of money she makes. (Did I say that correctly? The poor donate more than the rich.)

If you want to talk campaign funds, why doesn't Bush donate from his personal stash, since he raised so much more money than Kerry, and since he's asking all of us to pony up? Jesus, mary & joseph, the people in NC are truly scary.

1:11:05 PM

#