Things with More Appeal.18

A few weeks ago I saw the documentary-ish film Food, Inc. I wouldn't recommend it if you ever want to eat again. But, if you are actually interested in what exactly goes into the taco salad or whatever traditional Mexican delicacy you're shoving into your Chalupa-hole, you should definitely watch it.

It's really only a "documentary" in the sense that Michael Moore movies are documentaries; but, I found this one way less self-righteous and bloated. Food, Inc. indeed takes a definite point of view, but if you're on the opposing side, you're probably Lucifer. 

I've mentioned before that I take more interest than many in just what the fuck it is we're all eating, and this flick is pretty much entirely about that. The nice thing about seeing the movie is that it doesn't involve reading books or actually doing anything. And, every ticket comes with a free soapbox, so you can go yell on the nearest corner after it's over and hoot n' holler about how ConAgra and Yum! foods are giving us all "the diabetes." 

Indeed, you will feel like your supermarket is less a place to procure food and sundries, and more a place to get some palatable poisons, after seeing this film. But fret not, the next time you get blackout drunk, I'm confident you'll still be able to rationalize eating that bacon cheeseburger chimichanga with extra syrup. "Pobody's nerfect!"

What I like most about Food, Inc. is that, at the end, the filmmakers include specific ways that we can all take action and seize control of an industry that seems to control us. In the end, they show that it's not entirely hopeless, after all. Just...mostly hopeless.

I Am What's Wrong With This Country

So, I mentioned last week that I'm unemployed right now, making clear that said unemployment is indeed the impetus for my renewed attention to this blog. I've never been unemployed before, and it is taking a toll on my comfort level, to say the least. Not knowing where I'm going to get my next dollar is an uneasy feeling. I'd prefer not to suck dick for coke (never mix business with pleasure), so working jobs I hate has always been the more palatable option. Um, so to speak.

But, today I got my notice from The Man saying that I've been awarded unemployment pay. Remember those feelings of doom and malaise I was talking about, woven in with blueprints of suicide? GONE. Hooray for free money!

Now, I've got about a week before I actually start receiving my free money, but did I mention free money? Suddenly, all those years I spent rolling calls and making reservations for aging yuppie assholes at Katsu-ya seem like an even bigger waste of time than they did before. If all I had to do was get laid off to still get enough money to live a pretty lovely life, I should have seen to this happening a long time ago.

I want to celebrate with the free money I don't even have yet that's burning a hole in my pocket. Peanut butter and crack sandwiches for everyone-- on me!

These Things Come in 3s 3 1/2s

It is unusually difficult to find a photo of this man where he is not giving a thumbs-up. So, this.

Yesterday morning, when I was realizing I'd fallen asleep with the teevee on all night again, Ann Curry's voice was telling me that the Oxi Clean guy done came up deayud (LTNA gets folksy!).  I actually yelled to my pillow "What the fuck is going ON?" before rolling over for visual confirmation of what I thought I'd heard. I had not hallucinated the news.

Ed McMahon last Tuesday.  Then, Farrah Fawcett/Michael Jackson Day, later that week. (I am being polite here. We all know the real story is Jacko, and any mentions of Farrah that have come since then have been obligatory. We all know it. I just had the anonymous blog balls to say it.) 

And now Billy freakin Mays? I repeat, what the fuck is going ON?  Admittedly, I'm not attached to any of these personalities, but this shit is fucking weird. If I were a washed up and/or F-List celebrity, I'd be feeling a bit nervous right now. Billy just did Conan last week, for crying out loud. Who's going to yell at me insisting I buy shitty As Seen On TV products now? 

Sheesh. I totally just lost a bet. My money was on the ShamWow guy going first (meth-fueled murder/suicide, obvi). If I can get some action on a Real Housewife of New Jersey dying, I'm letting it ride.

Oh, and this is old and still sort of funny. Probably a bit disrespectful to put up, in light of things. But, you know, fuck you.

Putting the "Oy!" in "Unemployed"

This is a photo of a bread line. I lack subtlety.

Oh, indeed. Unreliable as ever, it looks like I'm doing this little blog o' mine, again. For a little while, at least. 

You see, the marked fall-off(s) in my attention here over the years have always been due to having pesky jobs that required me to do some actual work at them. Hence, no time to talk about the bullshit du jour that may be amusing. 

But, hooray recession! (Not really.) 

Today is my first day being unemployed, as the show I work/worked for is on an unpaid hiatus that'll last at least two months. Furthermore, due to MASSIVE budget cuts, I can't really count on my old job being there when it returns in the Fall. Sometime during my busy weekend of panic attacks and suicide fantasies, I decided I may as well start up here again. It'll be a nice reprieve from tracing my veins with an Exacto Knife. But, let me tell you, as soon as I get that second interview to be the Assistant Night Manager Trainee at FedEx Kinko's, I'll likely vanish again.

For now though, I'll be posting here daily-ish, just to distract from the terror of having no job and no prospects. Talking shit anonymously in a forum where I have zero accountability provides a brief distraction from the terror of my new reality: Drinking whatever imported beer is on sale (*shudder*) while I watch TV all day-- and mind you, I had to cancel Showtime. Have you ever had only one premium cable channel? It's ghastly.

For now, I'm off to see what awful jobs are out there, so I can talk myself into applying anyway, just to feel like I'm doing something, anything. I never thought I'd be Googling "taco bell careers;" and yet, here we are.

Kill me in the face.

So, Is This the Next MySpace Facebook?

LinkedIn, the social networking site no one has ever heard of, is not to be disregarded as bullshit, according to to Biznass Week. Now seems like a good time to mention that the two companies are partners.

Anywho, LinkedIn wants to establish that they are far from being buried by Facebook and are not has-beens. Personally, I think of it more as a never-was, but you know, tomayto, tomahto.

Indeed, Nielsen numbers are supporting their whining, and show them to be growing at a faster rate than Facebook. However, it seems to me if 98% of the world is already on Facebook, it's sort of inevitable for growth to slow, after a while. LinkedIn's attempt to stay relevant is centered around adding a bunch of modules and other nonsense to personalize your page. I'm not on Facebook, but I'm pretty sure they do the same exact thing. Still, now would be a good time for LinkedIn to try to get themselves out there, since Facebook is getting some bad press, lately. If I were LinkedIn, I would just focus on distinguishing LinkedIn as different from Facebook and the rest, simply because it serves a very different purpose:

"Facebook is mostly for socializing with people you already know, while LinkedIn is for meeting people you don’t know, for professional purposes, through people you do know."

However, this was a mere parenthetical in the article, and glosses over the one thing about the site that makes it somewhat interesting. But, what do I know? I'm just a dumb semi-anonymous Blogger Blogspot blogger who falls into the exact demographic to which these networking sites must appeal in order to survive.

Friendster MySpace Facebook New Way to Stalk Friends Hot Shit

Considering the amount of shit I've gotten lately for not having a Facebook account-- I keep trying to tell my peer pressurers that, while I am flattered, I am straight-- this story makes me extra glad that I've resisted persuasion. Honestly, if you're spending time actually forming an argument on why someone else is lame for refusing to join a stupid website that's a poor substitute for real interaction, you're the loser. Admittedly, I did fall for it when I was talked into joining MySpace a couple of years ago by a friend; but, now that MySpace's 15 minutes as THE "social networking" site du jour are up, I kind of like it. Now that no one's into it any more, I have to say The Space has gotten way less obnoxious for me somehow.

And now, it seems MySpace doesn't seem to spy on you quite as much as Facebook does, let alone report your activities on third party sites back to the friends in your network (even when you're not logged on to Facebook). So, MySpace is indeed looking like the less creepy option. Furthermore, Facebook will still log this information after you've gone through their unnecessarily complicated process to opt out of having your activities tracked-- which by the way, offers no comprehensive way to opt out of their user tracking program wholesale. In other words, there is no real way to tell them to knock off big brothering your ass. Score one for Friendster, MySpace and the rest, I guess.

Don't get me wrong, all of these networking sites are beyond brokeback and moreover, an extremely bleak harbinger of my generation's approach toward life, friendships and relationships. However, I regret to say these sites are here to stay, like herpes. I'm 100% more likely to delete my one account than I am to join an additional site, simply because the two years one particular site has to be all the rage has expired and the trend mandates that I join MyFriendsFace now, if I want to fit in. I've never been cool, anyway. Why start now?

Lord Emperor Google Is Benevolent

Well, Google has done something else, and I'm sure the IT sect is going gaga over Google's latest announcement. In their continued acts of apparent kindness and innovation (and what I believe is really a strategic and calculated effort to catalog and index the entire fucking world and ultimately enslave mankind), Google is poised to offer free online data storage within the next few months.

Documents and information you would normally want to keep on your hard drive like music, photos, and you know, personal health* and financial records can now be put into Google's virtual hands, instead. Don't worry, they'll keep it niiiiiiice and safe for you-- and for free too! You know you were probably just going to lose it anyway. It's basically Chairman Google's way of extending the 2.8 gigs of storage already offered to Gmail users, to encourage the remaining skeptics to surrender to their will, or face the consequences. Naturally, "consequences" simply means inferior data storage options!

*By the way, Google's cryptically named "Weaver" is already their first step in weeding out the weaklings so only the mighty will fill their army ranks when the robot war comes cataloging our health records.