Petting the sharks

Recently in the news you may have seen the footage from Australia of a deceased whale. It's pretty amazing, because the gigantic dead thing is now the focus of a voracious group of sharks that are ripping the carcass to shreds. What's even more amazing are the people who are standing around in boats, watching the feeding frenzy: I saw (on "The Daily Show with John Stewart" of all places") footage of a man who actually walked out on the belly of the dead whale and jumped up and down. He, or others equally depraved, where actually reaching out and petting the sharks as the tooth-filled fish tore great gouges of flesh from the floating whale corpse.

I know what it's like to pet the sharks.

Today was the day of the Access Media auction at my old office. Everything went. Cubicles were around $450. Many computers went from anywhere from $600 to $1500 depending on their configuration. The refrigerator sold for $100. Etc. Most of it went for more than it's worth, though a couple of true bargains caught my attention, like the guy who bought about 8 grand worth of software (multiple copies of Illustrator, PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, MS Office, etc) for about $1000. He was muttering about I afterwards. I should have made him an offer.

It was a feeding frenzy for companies needing cheap stuff. Access was the dead, bloated whale carcass, the buyers were the ravenous sharks with money to burn, and I was the dumb human in the boat getting close enough to get my hand bit off.

Yesterday was spent being touristy

Yesterday was spent being touristy with my in-laws. This consisted of shopping in downtown Concord, where half the stores are closed on Sundays in the summer. We then decided to go to check out Walden Pond, the mythical spot where Henry David Thoreau lived many a night of quiet desperation in a small cabin he built himself. I expected a pond with many a trail around it, filled to the brim with writers desperately seeking inspiration, as they sit in the lush greenery near the waters edge, reading works like Walden; or, A Life in the Woods or perhaps his collected letters.

Instead, we found the town of Concord's local swimming hole.

Pay $5 bucks for the day, you can walk across Route 126 and down into Walden Pond where they've built two full beaches, complete with life guards. Talk a walk around the pond and you'll see that despite the fencing on the trail, there's no spot on the edge of this admittedly quiet clear and inviting looking water that's safe from man's trespass. Men, women, children of all ages, creeds and colors were, well, everywhere. There's even a boat launch so you can take your canoe or kayak out for a glide.

To say that Thoreau would probably not have liked the complete commercialization of his former home has probably been said before, and by people who knew the guy better than I.

What really got me was that if this were New York State, they wouldn't let anyone in the water in an unsupervised spot for fear of an accident and the attendant law suit. So maybe the it's not so bad.

(Favorite quote of the day was when my mother-in-law said "He wrote so many great works!" as if she'd read them all. Who the hell has read all of Thoreau except for English majors? I haven't read any Thoreau. Not once. I got all the information above on the guy from the trail map and from a Web site.)

My first haiku: Today I

My first haiku:

Today I play tourist
Lookit the bright orange shirt!
Tchotchkes move me.

(Sorry if the meter is off, I'm not really much of a poet.)

These are quotes from TechTV

These are quotes from TechTV | My Affair With the Blog by Tom Merritt... they are quite true. Of course, if I had to settle for a fun job, I too would probably not Blog. That does not give you the right to hope I don't get a job.
Blogging is the province of the obsessive and/or bored. Not to say there aren't some interesting and even useful blogs out there, but you've got to be dedicated.
Ever since my series of psychoactive drug treatments in Texas a few years back, I just haven't had the drive for megalomaniacal self-promotional projects that I used to. I settle for a fun job, a couple of websites, and a healthy interest in movies, baseball, and reading.
I wouldn't get so passionate as to start an anti-blog movement. (Or an anti-blog blog -- there's an idea.) But I have to say that despite what all the blog evangelists say, blogging is decidedly not for everyone -- or even for the sane.

Apparently being "Blog of the

Apparently being "Blog of the Day" at http://blogoftheday.blogspot.com/ really has an impact... I just checked the traffic stats for my site for the first time in... well, first time ever... and the day I was listed there, July 17, was the single highest day of traffic at the ol' Squished Frog Productions site in its history: 2189 hits in one day! Woo hoo! Look out, Yahoo! You're going DOWN.

Now, if you don't know anything about Web stuff, hits indicates how many files were actually hit on my site's server... so that includes each time a graphic was viewed, each time the Cascading Style Sheet that controls the fonts was accessed, etc. It's pretty useless as a statistic. So instead, lets look at pageviews, which is the exact number of times actual full pages at the site were viewed: only 273 on July 17. That's nothing. On July 25, I had 384 page views. That's the day I posted about the end of FPC, and probably the flurry of e-mail activity when I sent the same news to the former staff of FamilyPC caused many of them to stop by and visit (see, they have no lives, either). Still, page views is a bad example for a stat also... you can have three people visit a site and if they look at enough pages, they can deliver a number as paltry as 384.

So instead I'm looking at the number for sessions -- that the "number of different hostnames or IP addresses accessing the server during a certain time-window," which translates roughly into the actual number of people stopping by in one day. In that case, the best traffic the site ever got was last Sunday on July 22. That's the day I posted... uh... nothing.

Is it any wonder I don't really give a crap about the traffic on my site?

Bonny just e-mailed this to

Bonny just e-mailed this to me... proof that the socially inept should NOT be unemployed...

JOB-SEEKERS' BURNOUT. Given the continuing layoff mania, it should come as no surprise that burnout among job seekers is on the rise, says Ruth Luban, author of "Are You a Corporate Refugee? A Survival Guide for Downsized, Disillusioned and Displaced Workers" and "Keeping the Fire: From Burnout to Balance." Not only are survivors of workforce reductions struggling as their work hours multiply, highly qualified candidates on the job-search trail -- often victims of two-to-three rounds of layoffs by now -- are losing energy and confidence as the time it takes to land a new job averages three-to-six months or more. "Since networking lands more jobs these days than recruiters and job boards, it's essential that job seekers limit traditional search methods to fours hours per day, then get out to cafes, athletic events --- anything community-based where such viral networking can land jobs," Luban says.
Luban: Web site: http://www.corporaterefugees.com

Time for a look at

Time for a look at the inner workings of the unemployed.

I've noticed certain trends this week. And it was quite a week: three days of it were among the hottest of the year. How hot is that, you ask? When NPR tells you the air quality is considered dangerous, that's hot. They really said that. I'm not kidding.

So what does an guy with no job do during a week of mind-numbing warmth? Through careful scientific observation of myself, I've compiled a comprehensive list of the patterns that comprise the life of the modern suburban non-working white male (Homo Unemployiblus). I hope you'll find it enlightening.

Note: All following actions took place in a four day period, Monday through Thursday. These numbers are presented in no particular order. They are all (sadly enough) true.

Average number of:

Hours of sleep per night: 9

Hours per day spent looking for a job, talking about looking for a job, complaining about not having a job, thinking about old jobs: 14

Times out per day throwing a tennis ball for dogs: 3

No. of :

Showers taken: 2

Times I've shaved: 0

Times gathering mail from the mailbox in same clothes slept in: 3

Reality shows episodes watched: 4 (two Big Brothers, one Fear Factor, one Murder in Small Town X)

Informercials watched: 1

Times stayed up to watch the Daily Show with John Stewart: 1

Walks with dogs: 0 (it was hot!)

Books read: 0.3

Jobs applied for: 7 (three seriously, four not so seriously)

Times calling home to parents or brother: 2

Liters of Diet Sprite ingested: 6.5

Trips to grocery store: 3

Trips to post office to mail crap sold on eBay: 3

Trips to post office wearing the same bright colored "Yellow Dog" t-shirt two days in a row and hoping the post office workers don't notice: 2

Posted by Eric G. at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

Seeking Emerson's good graces

I called Emerson College yesterday, regarding the job I'm hoping to land there, just to see what the status is, and to hopefully get a chance to tell them how great I am. I talked to the assistant director of Human Resources & Affirmative Action, expected the usual HR brush off, and instead got a very nice guy who took time to talk to me, look up my résumé in his e-mail to make sure of my status, and even told me he personally responds to all of his messages (which I had the temerity to suggest I thought I'd received a form letter from his office). In five minutes, he proved to me that he's a credit to his profession. I can think of a few HR people in my past who would benefit from talking to him.

Anyway, the gist is this: He'd already received 133 résumés for the job via e-mail. That's without even posting the job at www.emerson.edu -- as far as I can tell the job is only listed at Hotjobs. Of those, two-thirds or so have been forwarded on to the people in the journalism department at Emerson that will form the committee to find and hire someone. That means I'm up against about 88 people, give or take.

My friend Joe (Hey, Joey Joe Joe!) is also trying for a job in an academic setting, in his case Rutgers University, about 20 minutes from his place in Jersey. And as I told him, I think he and I might both be in for a more drawn out process then we're used to from corporate jobs.

Now, if anyone can think of a good way for me to put myself on the committee's radar screen without annoying the crap out of them, please let me know.

New navigation for SquishedFrog.com is

New navigation for SquishedFrog.com is live! About time. I felt bad about having a link for almost a year that said "Videos" and never once putting up any video. I've got some I need to digitize that original Squished Frog Production co-founder Bill "The Terminator" Kays sent me a while ago. I'll do it Bill. Swear to god.

Bill's got five kids. He's one day older than me-- literally. His very existence makes me feel lazy.

Tomorrow: Anthropology report!

Comic book writer Steven Grant

Comic book writer Steven Grant writes a weekly column called Master of the Obvious that is hardly ever that: Sometimes I don't even understand what the guy is talking about. But, I did get this: four great pieces of advice for writers (below). I think number one is an item I need to apply to the rest of my life as well, as I've conditioned myself since high school to be extremely punctual, if not early, all the time (it was my passive agressive way of getting back at people who drove me crazy by always being late. Showed them, didn't I?)

The last word on how to live a writer's life, since some in San Diego asked:
1) It's okay to be a little early. Don't be very early. It makes you look desperate, and, worse, they'll quickly come to expect it. Try to arrive at the last possible moment before you're actually late. But never look hurried. This goes for appointments as well as assignments.
2) You'll write more if you get up early to write than if you stay up late to write. This is unfair but true. Give up wild late night while you're writing and get plenty of sleep, then write while you're fresh. If you must have late nights, set aside a day or two a week for it, though splitting up your sleep patterns like that will inevitably destroy your health.
3) You are a pawn of corporate interests because Coca-Cola is your best friend. Contrary to popular myth, do not drink alcohol while you work. Alcohol is a depressant. You need stimulants, not depressants, and – apologies to Jools Burchill – preferably none that cause permanent damage to internal organs. Which pretty much leaves caffeine. Coca-Cola's better than coffee or tea because it won't give you mouth or throat cancer (scalding liquids can do that) and the burst of sugar will get you going until the caffeine kicks in. DO NOT start your day with caffeine. Start with some sort of juice (not apple juice; it's pure sugar, and you need vitamins as well). That'll get you going. Save the Coca-Cola for later in the day when you don't feel like writing anymore. That's when you need the jumpstart.
4) It's more important to be finished than it is to be good. It's more important to be good than it is to be finished. Get it done first, and then worry about how good it is. There's nothing so bad you can't go back and improve it. That's what rewriting is for.

Shopper freelancing?

It's been a topsy-turvy day.

This morning, I decided it's time to get my name out in front of some magazines for possible freelancing. So I made a trip to the local news stand and snapped up some gaming mags and a copy of Computer Shopper. Shopper used to be so big you could use one or two of them as a monitor stand. In fact, I've got the June and July 1998 issues under my Dell 17-inch CRT right now. Today, Shopper is a normal sized magazine, but they are also filled with real content that anyone can find -- the phone book sized shopper was filled with so many ads that the editorial was frequently lost. A friend of mine once told me back in those days of yesteryear that he though Shopper was just a monthly catalog of computer items -- he didn't even know there was editorial content.

Long story short -- I want in. There content is good and solid stuff for any PC enthusiast without going to much into the Enterprise that needs a team of researchers to do. I've got a call into one senior editor there already.

I've also got a call into ZDNet in California. And I have more people to call. It all seems so futile sometimes, but all it takes is one bite.

Anyway, in the middle of all this, the news comes in to me via an e-mail from my friend Jim: Ziff-Davis has canceled FamilyPC. Mixed emotions about this is just the tip of the iceberg. There were days I thought the mag had outlived it's usefulness even when I worked there... but even after the magazine and company had moved to New York City, leaving me jobless (well, I was never actually jobless then -- I had something lined up before we were shut down), FPC continued to keep Bonny on the masthead as a contributing editor, a position she'd earned in 1995. If you don't know what a contributing editor is, that is a freelance writer that the magazine likes to give more work than just the average freelancer. At least usually. Over the last few months, Bonny has been the regular writer of the Help section of the magazine -- with, uh, a little assistance from yours truly -- and now that’s another source of income gone. FPC is the fourth of Bon's major clients to go belly-up in the last 6 months (behind Home Office Computing, WinMag.com, and some rag named Access Internet Magazine).

If we weren't in trouble before, we sure are heading that way. Might be time to reconsider not sending in that application to the FBI...

From I, Cringely | The

From I, Cringely | The Pulpit: "Understand that I am an idiot, and so I only know what I have done and not much else. My shallowness of knowledge in this area is epic, but if I can make it work, so can you. -- Robert Cringely, talking about how he set up a wireless Internet connection to a house 10 miles away from him just to get a fast broadband connection, yet summing up so much more.

Yes! The blog page is

Yes! The blog page is now not only featured on the top of the site (obviously) but I've also got the page to be squishy again. Notice how it stretches to fit the browser window when you make it narrower or wider. Sometimes HTML is pure magic, my friends! Also, at other times, it seems I've too much time on my hands. Anyone who misses the nonsensical "intro" I used to have on the top page can now find it on the "about" page.

Oh, by the way, a

Oh, by the way, a public thanks goes out to Kieron Murphy, who I worked with when he was a copy editor at Windows Sources and I was a know-nothing edit assistant (we even wrote a script for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine together). Now that I'm a know-nothing unemployed senior editor, he's now an editorial director at Earthweb.com. Anyway, he pointed out to me in e-mail last week that the link to the blog I've had on my site said "a daily look at my retched existence" when it should have said "wretched existence." Thus, my existence is now less about "trying to vomit" as it is about being in a "deplorable state of distress or misfortune." (definitions from Dictionary.com)

I think I'd rather be about vomit.

I was toying with the

I was toying with the idea of putting a guestbook on my site, so I could get people to sign in and tell me what they thought of my blog and how they're doing and blah blah blah.

Then I realized that's just setting myself up for hardship... first I have to find a script to set up (do you realize that most of the CGI scripts running Web sites like mine haven't been updated since 1997?), get it to work on my Web host, keep an eye on it, blah blah blah. Screw that. If someone wants to tell me what they think, e-mail me. I've always got time for e-mail.

Instead of the guestbook, with one minor tweak I've now placed my blog as the top page of Squishedfrog.com. I've got plans to redo the navigation soon so the info that used to be on the top page will be an "about" page, etc. But the blog is the big draw here -- why there's anyone drawn here I can't fathom -- so I might as well put it front and center.

The posting below is from

The posting below is from today's NYPost.com. It's of interest because I used to work at FamilyPC and my wife Bonny is still currently a contributing editor for them, writing their help section each month. This could have an interesting impact on our lives. It seems whenever FPC (sorry, FIL) moves around, it does something to us...

ZIFF DAVIS SHOPPING 3 MAGS

ZIFF DAVIS SHOPPING 3 MAGS

By KEITH J. KELLY
July 23, 2001 -- Media Ink

THE CEO of Ziff Davis Media, Jim Dunning, has put the company's three-title consumer media group on the block, according to industry sources.

The magazines said to be in play include Yahoo! Internet Life, Family PC - which in September is being reflagged as Family Internet Life - and Expedia Travels, a travel magazine which was launched last year.

"They are shopping those hard," said one industry source.

Dunning was said to be looking for $60 million for the trio, but nobody seems to be willing to step forward and cough
up anywhere near that figure in these troubled times.

Yahoo! Internet Life is said to be solidly profitable but is down considerably from a year ago, when it was estimated to
have made about $7 million. In the first half of 2001, its ad pages tumbled 36.2 percent to 366.6 pages from 574 a year ago.
Family PC skidded 43.3 percent to 207.9 ad pages from 366.5 ub the first half a year ago. Complicating any prospective deal is the fact that Yahoo! Internet Life is produced under a licensing agreement with the portal Yahoo!, and Expedia Travels is produced under a licensing agreement with the online travel agent Expedia - which Microsoft just sold to Barry Diller's USA Networks.
Dunning could not be reached.

A Ziff-Davis spokeswoman denied that the magazines are being shopped.

"Definitely not. We have not made any plans such as that."

This year, the company has laid off at least 85 people. - or 8.5 percent of its workforce.

The Three Phases of Job Hunting

There are three main phases to trying to get an interview for a new job:

1) Find the job you want. This is the easiest part, as there's about a billion places online with job listings for any schmuck who cares to look. To quote one of my childhood heroes now making a much deserved comeback via 1-800-CALL-ATT, I pity the fool who is looking for a job these days and doesn't have access to the Internet some where, some how. (Somewhere, somehow? See, life without a copy editor is difficult for me.)

2) Apply for the job you want. This can be as simple as clicking the button at Monster.com that says apply, at which time they dump your résumé into the pile along with the thousands of other losers like you who saw the same listing, or as difficult as writing a brand new cover letter from scratch, adjusting your résumé to fit the job, printing them out on fancy paper along with copies of your best clips and a list of your professional references (read: anyone you used to work with that you know will say nice things about you) and sending them all off to the proper channels via snail mail, e-mail, fax, whatever. I always try to make sure that, if it's a really good job, I don't go through just the proper channels.

For example, if you know the job will answer to the director of such-and-such, why send the application only to the head of human resources? The director of such-and-such is the one who knows what he wants. Don't take a chance that HR will skip your résumé. Also, it helps if you can find ANYONE who knows the person so they can say great things about you ahead of time. That's much better than a reference, because they already trust the person. Also, find out anything about the person you'll work for on a personal level as well as professioanl, and you can cater to some of their desire to work with someone they like as well as their professional needs right up front.

Sadly enough, I consider this to be the "fun" part of job hunting. Much like the knife is the fun part of a bris ceremony.

3) The follow-up. This is where I blow it every time. I just suck as this part. I don't know why. I get side tracked to easily by the next cool job posting or the interviews I'm on for a job from a month back, or whatever.

This is even more important to do after you've had an interview. Case in point: After I interviewed with EH Publishing back on June 27, I sent the folks I met with some thank you notes via e-mail, and that was it. I didn't get around to calling the editorial director there today. I was not surprised to find the job had been offered to someone else. I knew during the interview when they asked how much I made at Access that I'd priced myself out of the job, and the guy who got the offer is making much less than I did. Though chances are I would have taken in for less money, as it's not like I've got a lot of other prospects. She was kind enough to say, however, that my skills were more in line with what they'd want for a senior writer. Not that they have an opening. But she'll also keep me in mind for freelancing. So not a total loss, by any means.

So, the follow up is now my focus in life, along with trying to get some more freelancing. I've got to call SmarterLiving and see what's up, I've got messages out to get the contact info I want for people at CNET, etc.

---

One week from tomorrow is the auction of all Access Magazine stuff-- computers, chairs, cubicles, clocks, servers, mailboxes, cooler for the soda, you name it, it's going. Someone posted on our e-mail list that the PC laptops are going to be priced around $900, so screw that, I won't be buying one. The day will also probably mark the last possible time to bring the magazine back to life. If our CEO gets funding and can buy all the equipment, he will. If the equipment goes, I'd say his hopes of resurrection are much like the hopes of my actually being bitten by a radioactive arachnid and gaining the ability to cling to walls. Frickin' Tobey Maguire gets all the luck... (Speaking of which, check out the amazing computer wallpaper available at the Spider-Man movie site.)

You know that little tiny

You know that little tiny feeling of excitement that the unemployed get when they see a job listing that just seems so perfect , it almost appears written with them in mind? It's a feeling that is three parts hope, two parts luck and one part blind faith. Its a feeling no unemployed stooge should indulge in -- especially in this lame economy.

I got that feeling tonight when I saw a certain job posting that I will be applying for tomorrow with all due haste and care.

No one should feel this way about a job that is nothing but a few empty pixels right now. But sometimes job searching can be like falling in love for the first time... that feeling that the listing is just so right, if you could only just get close enough and make your case, you could live happily ever after with her. I guess the constantly being ignored by those you're courting and the rejection once you do get close enough sadly complete that analogy.

Wow, that was a downer. So much for that tiny feeling of excitement. I think I successfully turned it into a pit of boiling, festering spite. Maybe I'm ready for the job market after all!

My friend Dan was having

My friend Dan was having an argument with someone about what's the best drama on television. Because I'm a television addict of the highest order, he decided my opinion would bolster his argument. This is what I wrote to him:

As for tv drama: well, of those you mention (Practice, Law & Order, ER, The West Wing), WW is the only that is a must see for me each week. The writing by Aaron Sorkin is amazing. He's the new David E. Kelley for me. I used to worship Kelley like a god, but his Practice has, I'm afraid, jumped the shark for me. Law and Order is consistently good, but I find that since it's more about the stories and less about the characters, I'm not very engaged by it. I seldom watch it unless there's something else on. I have seen just about every ER episode made in the last 8 years, but sometimes it's out of inertia rather than love of the program... though a bad ER is still usually better than most of what's on TV.

So WW is the king of that lot... however, if you're going to ask about what the best drama is on television, there's one show I would include unequivocally: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Yes, even spelling out the title of the show sounds like a joke. But it is consistently well acted and incredibly well written, dealing allegorically with the foibles and problems faced by teens and young adults better than any other show on the air. No hour of television last year comes even close to equaling the episode of Buffy where her mom died and she and her friends had to deal with the loss. It was so good that some grief counselors use the show in therapy now. Not to mention the show is just damn funny when it needs to be and more exciting than any other show dealing with the supernatural as a theme.

Today, and yesterday for that

Today, and yesterday for that matter, are a blur. The kind of blur one gets when unemployed and there's nothing to call your attention except a few stray e-mails, an episode of Big Brother, and the occasional meal.

Some highlights:

---

When I was in college freshman year, ThirtySomething was all the rage on TV, even if the critics thought the characters were nothing but whiney losers. Maybe they were, but I loved the show and remember many a Tuesday night in the room across the hall from mine (Terrace 8 at Ithaca College was the dorm) watching it with the guys in that triple. (Little known fact: one of those guys later got a job at Windows Sources magazine after I left. Freaky, but true.)

Anyway, Bravo is now showing every single episode of ThirtySomething as part of their "the art of TV" or some such. I saw the first couple episodes the other night and thought to myself, "What the hell was I thinking back in 1988?" Man, they were whiney. Excruciatingly so. It hurt to watch. (Not to mention Bravo's reproductions of the show are extremely grainy and the sound is bad. They couldn't store these shows in a digital format?)

But last night, I was sitting in the dining room trying to sort through two years with of comic books -- that's probably about 1000 comic books (and you can estimate I spent about $2000 on them as the lowest cover price these days is $2.25) -- and I flipped it over to Bravo as background noise. The episode was one called "But Not for Me" and was all about Hope and Michael trying to have a night out that backfired at every turn, as well as about old flames Melissa and Gary hooking up again for a night after their respective plans go awry.

And it was magical.

Partly this was because of the amazing musical accompaniment throughout the episode as Michael Feinstein plays the piano and sings. If you've never heard of Feinstein, he's a class act, a musician who has dedicated his career to perpetuating the music of greats like Irving Berlin and George and Ira Gershwin. His version of the episode's title song, "But Not for Me" is hauntingly beautiful. Feinstein really shows that Harry Connick, Jr., much as I love the guy (I've seen him in concert twice) doesn't have half the voice.

---

(This next bit gets a bit scatological. You've been warned.)

My wife feeds our dogs nothing but BARF.

Sounds like it would smell good, doesn't it? BARF, is, of course, an acronym, for Bones And Raw Food, meaning my dogs eat better than many humans. She gives them ground up chicken bones, whole chicken backs, sardines, vegetable mush, and a plethora of vitamins. While the whole process means one day a month has to be spent at the food grinder, it doesn't cost much more than kibble since we get the meat in bulk orders with several other dog people.

Much as I can't stand when the does eat sardines -- no matter what Bon says, they smell much worse than my occasional tuna fish sandwich, and worse, the damn dogs always want to kiss me after they've had some -- I have to say there's one major benefit. Our dog's shit don't stink.

I mean that quite literally. We're babysitting right now our friend's dog, Ann (that's the dog, not the friend), another Yellow Labrador, 8 years old, and her main diet is kibble. Probably the good stuff too, like Innova, which is a fine food. We used to fed it to our mutts. But the difference between Ann's feces and our dog's feces in size (Ann poops twice as much) and scent is staggering. Hell, with the BARF diet, half the time our doggie defecations don't even need to be picked up, as they crumble into dust. The dog's digestive systems have sucked out every bit of nutrients. With that other food, there's so much crap in them, even the good ones, that half of it ends up on the lawn.

So keep that in mind, dog owners. A little work on the front will save you some scooping on the end.

Why not write a best seller?

I was at a movie last night with some friends from Access. Afterwards, we went down the street to a barbecue place and had some delicious food sitting at a little table outside as the shadows grew a little longer and the air started to chill. Somehow, we got on the topic of parents, and I told them how, on Tuesday this week, my parents gave me a call to find out about what's going on with the SmarterLiving.com job. I told them I still didn't know. My dad (who, I was explaining to my friends, has a memory like a sieve) said:

"Why don't you and Bonny write a bestseller?"

I tried to explain to Dad that Bon doesn't write fiction (he said she should write the factual parts of the book), and how writing just a 300 word review can be a painful enough process so a novel would be hell, and the chances of getting published let alone selling well are almost nil, etc. I told him that there are days when I do feel like I've got a novel in me, but getting started on such a thing is tantamount to planning a trip up Everest for me.

(This was, however, better than hearing him say I should take the civil service exam. My brother Paul, the cop, is usually much more vehement about the civil service thing... he's still pissed that I never handed in the application I downloaded and filled out to become an FBI special agent, something I do whenever I get laid off... it seems like a unique, interesting career change. Even Bonny was all for me handing it in, until we read that the base pay to start for special agents was around 40k a year. Paul says that's probably not the base in a big city like Boston, but that's assuming I'd get assigned to Boston.) [[My friend Joe just read this and left me a message saying that the FBI would put me wherever they want me, but that they hand out frequent raises to people "just for having a face." Joe knows these things because is mother is a spy for the US Government. Shhhhh.]]

I finished telling my friends this story, and got some laughs.

But Kelly said: "That's so sweet!" She went on to tell how her parents treat her like an idiot and that she can't be with them for 20 minutes with saying to them, "Do you think I'm an idiot? I did go to college, you know..." Her favorite story was when she was moving into her freshman dorm at college and her mother said to her, "Make sure you put your sock some place where they're easily accessible."

I think it was Vikki who went on to say to me that it's good my dad has such belief in my abilities that he thinks I could write a best seller.

And she's right. For my father to just assume my wife and I have the ability to pump out a New York Times best seller is probably nothing short of the highest complement I've ever been paid. I'm saddened that my cynicism couldn't just take it that way.

So, even though I'm pretty sure neither of my parents read this blog, I want to publicly thank them both. For helping me, for supporting me (they sent me a check almost the same week I got laid off), and most of all for believing in me, even when I don't believe in myself. They are the pinnacles of parenting on this sphere. You should all be jealous, because my parents kick your parents' asses.

I got my first check

I got my first check from the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training (translation: unemployment) today. I think they may have screwed me out of about 4 days worth of money through their archaic bizarro disqualification system because of the severance we recieved from Access. I can't decide whether to call and bitch, or just let it go. Chances are other folks from Access will see the same discrepancy and do my complaining for me. I'm getting so lazy. Must... get.... job.....

Finest Cookies in Eastern MA

My friends, if you believe nothing else I ever tell you for the rest of eternity, believe this: Shaw's supermarkets here in the fine state of Massachusetts makes bags of cookies they call Shaw's Homestyle Cookies -- and they are fabulous. Shaw's Homestyle Cookies are now my absolute favorite cookies (especially the M&M cookies). They're soft, they're chocolaty without overdoing it... they're just right, Goldilocks.

End of commercial. (Unless you want me to start talking about how great LightHouseBank.com is...)

Cambridge Job

So, Friday morning last, my dear friend Josh -- perhaps the biggest fan this Blog has (hi, Josh!) -- dropped me an e-mail with a URL in it for a job at CNET... in Cambridge. What? Cambridge?? I thought CNET shut down everything ZDNet had in Cambridge! Can this be true?

The job wasn't listed at CNET.com that morning, but a couple of e-mails and phone calls to the only two guys I know who work for CNET confirmed that there is, indeed, still ZDNet presence in Cambridge. And, they both think I'd be good for the job (a senior editor gig for the Enterprise/Business/IT area of ZDNet), so they were going to recommend me. Plus I've applied via the official channels, too. Keep your fingers crossed. I can't, because if I do, I can't type. The job is now listed, by the way.

Josh, of course, works for SmarterLiving.com -- the place I've been interviewing. Either his sending me the CNET job posting bodes ill for my chances, or Josh is just the nicest guy alive...

Saturday, Bonny and I did something she's wanted to do for a long time: we visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (the MFA). They currently have an exhibit of traditional American crafts dating back to the 1700s, and my antique obsessed spouse was dying to go. We missed the King Tut stuff last year, so I promised we go now to make up for it, and we did.

On the way in, I was thinking aloud, blathering on about my chances with SmarterLiving, my excitement over a possible CNET job (back when CNET started in around '95, I used to consider them the holy grail, probably because of the TV aspect... I don't think they're that good now, but hey, tech publishing jobs are scarce), and, of course, the ever present possibility that Access Magazine may some day resume publication.

Bon made something quite clear to me during our ride in on the Mass Pike-- this amid some minor tantrum throwing by me -- she doesn't want me going back to Access. She doesn't trust it. Not that she trusts dotcoms either, but at least the one I'm talking to is making money. But Access, she's afraid, and rightfully so, could be gone again in 6 months even if it does come back.

Which is true.

And just like that, my hopes -- my NEED -- for Access to come back and restore me to what was the best job I've ever had, the most fulfilling career choice of my adult life, was gone. Sure, if Access comes back and no other offers are pending, I'll probably be there. I'll be enthused and happy and hopeful. I'll do my best work, just like I always did. But would I consider Access over an offer from SmarterLiving, CNET, EH Publishing? Last Friday I would have said yes. Now, I'm not so sure.

Strange tendency: I apparently type

Strange tendency: I apparently type "my" whenever I try to type "me." I've noticed this a lot lately.

At least I know "a lot" isn't "alot."

I'll go far in life, huh?

Check out the cool yellow

Check out the cool yellow scroll bars on this page now. You can only see them if you use Internet Explorer 5.5 or better, but it's worth it.

And who uses anything besides IE? Netscape sucks now. And IE launches so fast as part of the Windows OS, it's obvious that breaking MS up into separate OS and application companies is a big mistake. Nothing helps the consumer better than faster launching of applications. NOTHING.

Well, except having a job.

Call 911! Call 911! Uh, not really.

Last night, Bon and I were stripping the bed of the old sheets, on with the new. As we finished tucking things in, we were also getting ready to slide into said clean sheets... to go to bed. (Get your mind out of the gutter. This is a family Web site, despite all the cursing.) However, I'd forgotten to call my mom. Mom had surgery Tuesday to get some items removed from her spine that were pinching her nerves. Sounds worse than it is, but surgery is surgery, something could go wrong. She was supposed to be home by Wednesday night, so I needed to call her. I picked up the phone next to the bed and immediately dialed 1-978, which is the area code for where I live, not her. So I tried to push the "flash" button that lets you hang up withou actually puttind down the reciever, but I hit something else. Then I finally found it (the buttons are labeled with raised plastic letters that are the exact color of the rest of the phone, so you can't really read them unless the light is just right). I dialed Mom, she answered on the first ring, she was doing fine.

About two minutes into the phone call, the doorbell rang. The dogs when absolutely ape-shit. Bon looked at me with distinct fear on her face for one of two reasons: 1) we never ever, ever get unannounced visitors, let alone at 9:40 or so at night and 2) she was in a t-shirt and just her panties, and my look was probably saying "go get the door". Well, she wasn't about to, so I put on my own short and went to the hall. And standing on my front porch: one of Hudson, MA's finest. My first thought: someone on the street died.

I answered the door (barely holding the two excited Labradors back) and the cop said "Evening, I'm looking into a 911 hangup call from here?"

"Uh, wow, no, not here," I said.

He kind of nodded at me and reached for the microphone on his shoulder that looks like it came right off a 1978 CB radio. All sorts of noise was coming from his belt, other voices, dispatchers, etc. He started to wander a bit away from me on the porch, saying apologetically, "Our tower got hit by lightning so it's hard to get through." The noises from his belt continued, as he tried to push the button and get through.

"You know what," I said, "I think I know what happened. I'll be when I was trying to call my mother a little bit ago I hit the speed dial on accident." Which is what I think happened.

Finally some of the noises stopped and told his mike his car number and that it was a speeddial mistake. I smiled and he smiled and then he said, "Mind if I look around? Just to make sure?" Cops are trained to be paranoid and not trust anyone until the last minute -- I know, my brother's a cop -- but in this case it was almost refreshing.

I said, "Sure," and led him inside, where Caper, our Yellow Labrador, immediately started to hump his leg.

No, not really, but man, would that have been funny. Caper's big thing is to goose any strangers he meets in the crotch with his nose. I figured the cop would be covered with yellow hair by the time he left. I turned on the living room light and he looked around a bit.

"Are these Labs?" he asked.

"Yes, they are," I said, a touch of pride in my voice at owning America's most popular breed of canine companion.

He asked if I was home alone.

"No, my wife's up stairs."

"Could you ask her to come down, just so I'll know everything's all right?" he asked.

I yelled, "Hey, Bon!" but nothing happened. I smiled at him again. I was pretty sure he was going to think I'd killed her and stuffed her in the closet while she was dialing 911 in about two seconds. "Uh, I'll go get her," I said, and raced up the stairs. Siren, the chocolate Lab followed me, but Caper was now rubbing up against the officer like a cat.

Bon had closed the door, probably for fear of being seen in her panties by all the neighbors she thought I would be bringing up stairs at that hour. I barged in and said "throw on a robe and say hi -- there's a cop here because I must have dialed 911 somehow when I called Mom."

"What?" She just looked at me like I had killed her and stuffed her in a closet.

"Here," I said, grabbing her robe. She told my mom to hang on. She went to the top of the stairs and said hi. I walked by her to go back down the stairs.

The officer said "Hi, just wanted to make sure everything was alright, no domestic violence situation."

"No, everything's fine. Sorry about the call," she said. It helped that she was obviously alive and not stuffed into a closet.

"No problem," he said. "You folks have a good night."

"You too," I said to him as he exited. I had to grab Caper by the back legs so he wouldn't go with him to being his new life as police dog.

And that's how I spent last night.

The power of Blogging

This morning, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from someone named "Mike C." -- but it really turned out to be a woman named Shelly using her boyfriend's e-mail. For a moment I thought it was my friend Shelly from college, who I recently was able to track down after about seven years. But it wasn't, it was a complete stranger who'd found my Weblog listed on the Blogger.com site. And sadly, it wasn't some woman who saw my picture on my site and was ready to throw away her life to devote herself to me until the end of time, either. But it was a nice note.

This is what she wrote:
"joie de vivre" does not translate literally into "loose morals" - it literally translates into "Joy of life". Silly. [[I did know that... I looked it up and everything before I posted it before, because I couldn't remember how to spell 'joie.' It was comedy. So to all potential employers out there, please understand, it was comedy. I swear it was.--ecg]

I just found your blog from the sidebar of Blogger, and had to peek. There's not a lot of "squished" anything out there. And I love the word
"squish". Its funny. Seriously. Say it five times in a row. Bet you'll be laughing by the time you're done.

Hope you get the job. :)

~Shelly
http://webpages.charter.net/kingcole/index.html

If you don't understand Blogs, they works like this: I go to a unique URL supplied via my account with Blogger.com every time I want to post something to my blog (short for 'Weblog'). I write it there, or usually write it in MS Word and cut&paste it over to avoid spelling misstacks (get it??). Click the publish button and Blogger then completely writes my post to the page at my Web site, and archives all my previous posts so nothing gets lost. It's pretty slick. Tho I still think we covered Blogger.com far too soon at Access Magazine. So there.

Occasionally, Blogger will pull out a stray blogger post and feature it on their site... apparently mine was pulled out today and she saw it. This of course raised the question of just how many people out there are reading this that I don't know about. Perhaps I should check my traffic stats. These little bits of comedy about my pathetic -- yet fun -- struggle with unemployment may be developing an audience.

This is what I wrote back to her:
Hey, thanks for the note. That's very kind of you. I've read through your Blog a bit now myself and I have to say I think you're a brave and fascinating person for what you've already done in your life (what I could glean of it from the posts, anyway). I hope things continue to work out well for you.

You had a post that said something about someone's blog, and the person had "spent the last 3 days or so bitching about the fact that Blogger has had some problems over the weekend. That kind of irritates me. I mean, no one is paying for the use of this system - it's free." You're completely right, and now I feel guilty over my last post. I try to be the best consumer/customer I know even when dealing with complete idiots, yet I'm bitching about a free service. Shame on me.

And thanks for pointing out the "joie de vivre" definition. Apparently the French for "loose morals" is " lâches morales [[this according to the Altavista Babelfish translator]]. But, I thought that was a seafood dish, something with eels. Oh, well.

Blogger is starting to get

Blogger is starting to get me P.O.ed. I did that last update yesterday at the time posted, but Blogger didn't FTP it to my site until this morning. Grrr.

Hope in Access

So, I'm sure you're all wondering how I spent my morning. Well I'm glad you asked. I had my third interview with SmarterLiving.com and I think it went well (considering that I was once again there for 3 hours I figure they like to have me around. Perhaps I should have challenged someone to some ping-pong while I waited). This time I met the head of IT, the marketing manager, and sales manager, and finally the CEO. I've been told by my mole (Hi, josh!) that the competition is now a bit more serious than it was when I started -- as in they've got candidates with actual travel experience -- so my chances are probably diminishing, unless I thoroughly dazzled them with my charm and joie de vivre (I think literally translated that's "loose morals" ).

After I was done I made a stop by the hallowed halls of 35 Highland Circle to drop off the iBook -- the last piece of Access Magazine equipment in my possession. I saw former CFO who's trying to shut down the company, the former IT guy who's counting all the computers, and the former office manager, who is basically ready to take a new job she was offered if she ever finds out Access is 100% done for. However, that's still up in the air -- I also talked to the former CEO who was there with the ad sales director doing phone meetings with investors. He told me he was throwing on the suit later for a 3pm meeting with more investors. Does that mean hopes are high? Maybe not high, but everytime I find out there's still a possibility, my desire to actively job search, of course, diminishes.

This is akin to having a child go missing for years and not know what happened... or having a loved one go into a coma and not know if they'll come out intact. There's something to be said for finality.

But hope's a good thing, too.

Oh, my. I should be

Oh, my. I should be in the shower getting ready for my interview. Bye.

Back from Vacation

I'm back. The lawn is mowed. The dogs are fed. The e-mail and snail-mail have been read. The dehumidifier in basement has been emptied so it can again suck nutritious liquids from the atmosphere that I can use to water the grass, thus starting the Circle of Life (™ Disney) all over again.

So, first off: Steph, my old boss, tells me that our former CEO is still taking meetings trying to bring Access back. At the same time I'm reading her e-mail, I open a snail-mail note from Access offices saying that in August there will be an auction to get rid of all the stuff left in the Access offices. Make of that what you will.

Second: How was my week? It was fine. My brother's wedding was great -- I wore the Hawaiian shirt as promised, so did he, and then about 10 other relatives appeared wearing the same shirt. Nice touch. They didn't get as many attendees as forecast so they have a lot of food left over. I figure I'll be eating if I go out in again in August or September. The other wedding I was in was a touch more traditional, but I look so damn fine in a tuxedo that I won't complain. But those rental shoes suck.

So, what's up with the job search, you ask impatiently. Fine, I'm getting to it. Tomorrow is third interview at SmarterLiving.com, my best prospect for getting the hell out of unemployment. The competition is reportedly fierce, so I'm going in with guns blazing (that's a metaphor, believe me).

I had a quick phone and e-mail conversation last week with a woman in Los Angeles about Key3Media. She wanted any clips I had writing for the Information Technology (IT) audience, or press releases. Minor problem with that is I don't have any such clips. I know I could pull them off -- you don't read eWeek and press releases as often as I do and not have some of it rub off -- but then again, I don't know if I convinced her of that. I haven't heard from her since Thursday the 5th. That's one of many things to follow up upon this week.

Eric on the road: I

Eric on the road: I had bad USA-style Chinese food with the in-laws in Greene, New York tonight. Fortune cookie afterward said the following: Be prepared to accept a wonderous opportunity in the days ahead!

Even if you don't add the words "in bed" to the end of that, it's good news! Finally, someone stamping platitudes on small strips of paper somewhere actually thought of me. Thank you, platitude-guy.

Oh, and in e-mail today:

I finally set up the third interview with SmarterLiving.com for the Tuesday I get back (that would be July 10).

I got an e-mail from MIT following up on an application I sent for a technical writer job with some generic questions, which wouldn't be so bad, but because I was using Yahoo!Mail to answer it, and tried to get fancy by using their lame spell check and also trying to access other Web pages at the same time, I lost the reply I'd typed in full -- twice. Frickin' idiocy. I finally wrote it all out in Word, then cut and pasted it over. This is why Web-based mail, nice as it is, will not replace good ol' Outlook 2000 for a long time. At least not for me.

Posted by Eric G. at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

Today is my last day

Today is my last day at home for a week or more, as I attend no only my brother's wedding this week (I'm best man), but also my college roommate Giff's wedding (I'm not best man, but I'm going to be in a tux none the less). As such, instead of having fun or relaxing reading my new autographed copy of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, I'm doing last minute work helping Bon with a story due in the middle of all the travel.