What the hell?

This creepy ad was in the new Better Homes and Gardens:

I'm fine with Bigfoot movin' in on the housewife, but WHAT THE FUCK is up with those dwarves? And the racoon worshiping the pink polo?

Creepy, I tell you.

sunday silliness

I was torn as to whether this this belongs on dorkbloggers or here. but I'm already soooo lazy about dorkbloggers...



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On a totally unrelated note, Charles is looking for feedback about marketing his book. I got myself a free copy of his first book, but do not have the attention span for ebooks or podcasts (although with DSL it might not be such a horible concept...) stop by and see him if you know a little something about those!

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one of my guilty little pleasures is Vanity Fair, kind of a grown up People magazine. I just stumbled across the online version, and spent all day...

Here's one for ya...

the scandal of the starving baby
Originally uploaded by Djuliet.

File this under super-dorkfession, agonizing admission of my own idiocy, or AW CRAP. (Okay that may have been funnier with the original typo of aw carp)

Several months ago the link on my blog to Locus Magazine, the alpha and omega of sci-fi book news, geek central, was advertising for an administrative assistant. You must understand that books used to be my life. My life's work. I quit school because working in the bookstore was so much fun. I was lured away from books by filthy lucre (and not much, at that), and I have pined for books ever since. To have even a slight chance to work at a magazine dealing with (presumably) articulate and thinking beings, and have a job that did not involve a panic button and a plexiglass spit shield was too much to pass up. I did not care that it involved a commute to the bay area and, by extension, less money than I make now (how is that possible without a paper hat and a nametag?). They asked for a cover letter describing your interest in sci-fi. I think I tasted honey.

I agonized over that cover letter. It couldn't just be a list of books, but how to narrow it down? Who did they want me to like? What if I mentioned the author they hated? Should I 'fess up that I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't geek out if Raymond Feist or George R. R. Martin called? I finally got my letter down to the basic loves of my sci fi reading. I confessed, not my fear of hyperventilation faced with certain authors, but rather my absolute disinterest in Manga or old-school hard sci-fi. I thought they should know. If they hired me, it would become evident that certain names made my eyes roll back in my head.

I fretted over e-mailing it to them, worrying that I'd screw it up somehow, and reveal my dorkiness. I bit the bullet and I pressed the send button, and gave them every one of my e-mails so they could choose where to reply. Can you see it coming?

I got brave and told my mother that I had taken this huge daring step (for me) in applying for a dream job. I know I tell you all how close my mom and I are, and how I adore my parents and we have this perfect relationship. Let me now reveal that she is still my mother, and we have a very real relationship. Her response was, and I quote,

"Jenny, that's just stupid. Why would you apply for a job in the bay area. It can't pay very much, and you think you could commute?" blah blah blah. Fill in with more of the same. Thanks, mama-san. sigh.

But I faithfully checked my email accounts, and listened to the crickets chirp. I used the canned air on my keyboard so I would be ready to reply. In my cover letter I acknowledged that I might be too far away to commute, but that I'd like to discuss the possibility--damn! I shot myself down! I would like to thank Bre for listening patiently while I agonized back and forth about what I might have done wrong. She's very patient anyway, but that stuff HAD to get old.

Then it happened. The ad was taken down. My dream was over.

Life goes on. At least until you remember a thing called the answering machine, something gathering dust in the corner because it's always full of mortgage re-fi pitches that chap my renter's hide. Every once in a while I clear out the messages to make room for more re-fi con men, but it's a pain in the ass because you have to listen to each message. There are also a ton from my ex, telling Big O to pick up. Annoying to listen to him in person, let alone in memorex. Oh, and a message from Locus Magazine asking me to give them a call.

They called. I never checked my machine, it never occurred to me that they would CALL, when everything had been via computer up to that point. They.Called.Me.
And they hired someone else, without ever knowing that I was the one they really wanted and needed.

There is my deep dark Saturday Dorkfession. I will be a little old lady rocking myself in a corner, slapping my forehead, saying "Check your messages." Maybe I'll get the golden trash can award for a life's work in garbage. Maybe I'll snap and threaten to dump MY garbage on THEIR porch if they don't shut the hell up and listen to me. Locus Magazine called me and I was too dorky to check my messages. LOCUS MAGAZINE. Worst part? I can't tell my mom they called, 'cause then I'd have to fess up the rest.

I'm off to beat the concept into my children that they WILL go to college, they WILL NOT quit for a shite paycheck in a fun retail job.

It's like the American Dream...UAE style

So I browse the PayPerPost listings from time to time, to see if there's anything that I know anything about that might make me a little bit of green towards my dream of keeping Big O in hoodie sweatshirts until the cold snap is over...

While we may be entering an unannounced ice age which has killed the citrus crop in California, and I may lose a little toe to frostbite, There is no cold snap in Dubai.

Excuse me, Jennifer? Dubai? What could you possibly know about Dubai except that Michael Jackson runs there to avoid extradition? Well, I have passed this opportunity on Payperpost on more than one occasion, and I would have said "nothing." But then we got our subscription to National Geographic at work, and there was an article on Dubai! Two days later our Budget Travel came in, and there it was again! It seemed, my bloggy friends, like destiny.


It's a neat story of the little sheik that could. With nothing like the EPA, or, say, OSHA, to stop him, The man decided that Oil was NOT going to be enough to save his country/kingdom. So he dredged the hell out of his little creek (really, it's Dubai Creek, I think), and built a world class port. Then he built high rise hotels all along the water, created a fabulous investment friendly economy (no taxes), and started building artificial islands so that all of the folks could spend $3-30 million on beach front homes.

The National Geographic article (surprise!) also mentions the indentured servitude that many asian workers find themselves trapped in to work here, and the squalid conditions that they live in. But even NG acknowledges that it's pretty free of racial strife, in spite of the multiple ethnicities crammed into such a small area. The Budget Travel looooved the variety of ethnic food available, and found it surprising that the hotels were often good sources of good food (as opposed to bland, "safe" food usually found at hotels).

sigh. I will probably never make it to Dubai (sorry, Budget Travel, but you guys are NOT looking at MY budget), but if you have any friends that worshipped Ronald Reagan, I think this place really is the Republican American Dream come to life--in the middle of the United Arab Emirates. Without the EPA to save the coral reefs, or OSHA to protect the worker bees, They have created luxury living like Vegas (being landlocked, and trapped in American bureaucracy) could only dream of. The sponsor of this post encourages you to check out their Dubai property. I think that most of my bloggy friends have budgets closer to my own than Donald Trump, so I encourage you to go out to the library and read about the little sheikh that could in the January issue of National Geographic. Neat stuff, unless you're a big fan of Coral Reefs or human rights. You know what? It's still a neat story about a man with a dream, allowed to fulfill it unchecked. Somewhere out there, Ronald Reagan is smiling.
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This was a flippin' sponsored post.

It's Here! It's Here! It's Here!

 

I found one! I had money in my pocket when I found one! If you don't know what I'm talking about, you may be looking for the Brazilian kid whose blog is in Portuguese--hit the "next blog" buttton one more time. What's that? Japanese anime video gaming blog? Three hits on the button and good luck loading that fucker!

That next blog button can certainly be an adventure, can't it? 

Thursday 13 #13! --13 Magazines I love

1. Cuisine at Home Best, easiest recipes, easy to follow directions, yum.

2. Harper's Magazine Brain food-- an interesting cross section of liberal media--a little bit of everything, the Index alone is worth the price of a subscription.

3. National Geographic Long a favorite of schoolboys everywhere, this magazine is the coolest for incredible photo essays AND exotic locations.

4. Real Simple A little bit of everything, but beautiful and simple and clean. Love it.

5. Cook's Illustrated Magazine This is the advanced version of #1. They are much less concerned with simple and easy, their point is to find the best result, and then they'll worry about easier if possible. The PBS Show America's Test Kitchen is from the folks who put out this magazine. Love them.

6. Discover It's not quite science for dummies, but it IS science in everyday language, much more approachable than other science journals.

7. Vanity Fair This is a total Guilty Pleasure. It's like People Magazine, but instead of the story about the Wal Mart clerk, they have the story about the Art Thief, or the Uber rich dog trainer, or whatever--it's snobby People. What a life...

8. Everyday Food The unstoppable Martha Stewart gave me something to compete with Cuisine--but I don't like the size--I want something I can lay flat as I dribble sauce on it.

9. Print Magazine I don't claim to read this--it's a graphic design magazine that is over my head/out of my league. But Years of working at the bookstore got me hooked on their annual design issue--I've said it before, I love cheese. I clever graphics and funny ads, and I pour over this thing when I run across it. Marvelous stuff.

10. Car and Driver Magazine My dad is a car junky. Not to fix them up, but he loves toys, and likes to know what the newest toys are. I have always loved cars. I blame it on my father.

11. Turtle Magazine Again, my father. I had a subscription when I was little, and there was a series of Baba Yaga stories that my dad and I read together. There were probably only one or two about the Russian (Slavic?) witch living in her cottage, but that time with my dad was HUGE to me, and I will always love Turtle for that time with him.

12. Rolling Stone It was my bible in high school. Not so much anymore, I haven't bought an issue in a few years (when did THAT happen?), but the first of it's kind.

13. Smithsonian Magazine My former sister-in-law had a subscription to this. It's like an Americana version of national geographic--minus the stunning photography (usually). Great stuff.

14. I know, I know, it's THIRTEEN things, but every year, Better Homes & Gardens does a Christmas Cookies magazine. I don't want their other seasonal stuff--I just want an annual subscription to THIS. My Christmas season is kind of a failure if I don't grab one. I'll see one in the store and think I'll get it next time and then never see it again. ARGH!

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