Tales to Astonish!

For those of you who know that I’m a grammar nazi:

STOP!

That is all.

I bet all both of you are dying to hear how my interview went yesterday, unless you found this page via Peep Show Stories, in which case you’re probably dying to know where all the boobies are. (In that case, they’re at Peep Show Stories.) As for the rest one of you, I think it went well.

First of all, and I won’t mention any details that might give away the identity of the business, you should know that this is a large kind of business in the media world — advertising — and I’m applying for an entry-level position in the broadcasting arena. No, I’m not applying to be a weather bunny, but that’s a good guess. If I don’t get this job, then I might consider that one, because it pays well and I get to play with bluescreen twice a day. (“Look! I’m the invisible man! Except for my hands and head! Fear me, weather!”) Luckily I’ve got a friend inside the company that went out of their way to help prep me for the interview, so I may have had a bit of a headstart on some of the other applicants. I didn’t use everything that I learned while studying, but I got to toss in some key buzzwords that let them know that I’m at least slightly familiar with what they do. My friend also spoke very highly of me, which is good.

I got to the offices at the appropriate interview time — fifteen minutes early — and I waited in the lobby until I got called in by the interviewer and her assistant. What followed was the standard interview, filled with those lovely half-question-half-statements like “Tell me about yourself” and “I’m concerned that this job isn’t quite as creative as your job history suggests you’re used to” and “You reek of booze and sex.” I did my best to explain that I’m looking to begin a serious and stable career, which is why I wanted to get away from the more creative jobs which have been, to date, sporadic and irritating and non-paying. The rewards from a challenging job that I can be engaged by, whether it be painting or math, would be more than enough for me to be happy. I thought I was doing pretty well at this point in the interview, since I actually prepared for it by reading about the company and going over dozens of interview tips from Monster.com. I had an answer ready for pretty much everything. The problem was, I didn’t have any questions.

Rather, I had all kinds of questions ready, but during the explanation part of the interview, the supervisor pretty much went and answered them one by one before I brought them up. I managed to sneak into the conversations while she stopped to breathe once or twice to try to head her off with questions about what I thought her next statement was going to be, and that worked pretty well. In the end, though, most of my questions were really asking her to go into more detail about stuff that we’d already talked about, or asking for clarification on the training programs.

You know what the worst part of an interview is? The stare. Every source I’ve read said that you have to maintain eye contact with the interviewer, so that you seem confident and not intimidated, and I did my absolute best, but man, she just never looked away. We were just staring at each other. I don’t even think either of us were blinking. I tried to throw her off by maintaining eye contact while I picked up a chair and shattered a window with it, but she never even broke. This woman is tough. I bet she’d be a good boss.

After the initial probe was finished, she asked me to stick around and meet with the HR woman, who basically asked me the same questions, but went more into the details of the company policies and perks and whatnot. After that was all done, I was sent on my way, happy that I didn’t completely fail this like the last interview I did. I think it all went pretty well, in the end, and I may actually have a chance at getting it.

And believe me, I neeeeeeeeed the job. My finances haven’t been in a shape like this since Black Tuesday in 1929. Keep your fingers crossed.

I’ve got me a job interview this morning! Wish me luck, think happy thoughts, and you can even pray for me if you want to — I’ll take whatever help I can get.

I neeeeeeeeeeed this job. I hope I don’t screw it up.

This was going to be about four different posts, but I kept screwing up or running out of time or the browser malfunctioned, and I lost each post every time I tried to write it. So, here they are condensed into one single post.

1. If you’re a DVD commentary kind of guy (or gal), run out and rent any of the DVDs that Joe Bob Briggs lends his voice to. They’re the best commentary tracks I have ever heard, because they’re informative, in-depth, and hysterically funny. There aren’t many comment tracks that I’d listen to more than once, but I’ve probably gone through all of his at least three times apiece. All of the movies that he does (mostly released via the Media Blasters label) are cult sci-fi and horror movies that you’d be surprised anyone wanted on DVD in the first place, so the important point is that you shouldn’t watch the movie itself. They’re bad. You don’t need to see the film before the commentary, because it’s not important. I make a special point to say that because most of the people that I recommended the movies to didn’t listen to me about that, and just tried to watch the movies, which are terrible and not worth your time. So only listen to the commentary tracks, and you won’t be disappointed.

You can get the complete list of the DVDs via his website, and you can rent most of them via Netflix. Start off with “Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.”

2. The chilling tale of an American teacher in Japan can be found here. I was in a seriously foul mood the other day, and these stories were the thing that brought me back to sanity again. The author (going by the handle Azrael) is a black American male teaching English to middle school kids in a Japanese ghetto, his stories are like bizarre exposes on the perversions of the Japanese culture, and they are incredibly funny. It might be funnier to me, since my cousin is an American male teaching English in Japan as well, but it’s funny regardless.

Gaijin SMASH!

3. City of Heroes has released Issue 4 to the test servers. Didn’t know I was that big of a geek, did you?

Shut up.

I love sinus medication.

I love it. I can’t get enough of it. I don’t generally have a stuffy nose, but sometimes I take Tylenol Daytime or something anyway because it will clear up whatever residual mucus is in my schnozz, leaving my breathing channels clearer than a clear day in May. I get so much oxygen poured directly into my brain that I sometimes forget that I’m actually not at a trendy gas bar in Japan. That’s why I love clear sinuses: I love that not-remotely-sick-at-all feeling that I get naturally so rarely.

For those of you that I haven’t complained to yet, I’m getting over the flu now, which means that I needed some killer medicine to help with my nonstop sneezing. First, I picked up some Advil Cold and Flu and Sinus and Erection capsules (gel caps), which prevented me from sneezing for about twenty to thirty minutes of their 6-8 hour duration. I counteracted this by taking another dose roughly every thirty minutes until I started to lose my short-term memory, and then I probably started taking them one right after the other because I was distracted by whatever plastic surgery TV show I was trying desperately to pay attention to. I think it was a plastic surgery show. It’s hard to tell when you have no short term memory — but I remember thinking that at least the “after” photos looked great.

After I finished that barrage of sinus-clearing mindbombs, my girlfriend gave me some more pills which were, as far as I could tell, unlabeled, because she knows that I love taking pills without descriptions. That’s the daredevil in me. Whatever those pills were actually for, they were great (worthy of a Tony-the-Tiger ‘GGGGRREEEAAAAT!!’) for my breathing. I stopped sneezing within twenty minutes, and stayed non-sneezy for about seven hours afterwards, and my nose was one hundred percent vacant. I had so much extra room in my nostrils during those seven hours I could’ve rented them out as summer homes to Danny DeVito and his family. In fact, whatever I breathed in, it stung. This happens on occasion, so I don’t generally worry about it.

Until today.

Now, I haven’t taken any sinus medicine in the past two days, but this morning my nose burns more than any urinary tract that ever walked out of Studio 54. Every breath I take gives me shooting pains through my nose and skull like a thousand icy fire-daggers are being acupunctured into my balls. Only, instead of my balls, it’s my sinuses. It’s making my eyes water. I grimace everytime I breathe in, which is not good when you spend all day talking to people face-to-face, because after a while they either think that you hate them or they ask and you have to tell them that your nose feels like white-hot-ball-acupuncture. Which sucks, because the second you mention white-hot-ball-acupuncture, the conversation gets sidetracked, and it’s hard to get back on topic.

My roommate suggested that I apply Neosporin to my nose, but the pain goes so far back into my head that I’d need a laced pipe cleaner to rub it in, and I’d probably end up yoinking out my brain stem like an ancient Egyptian autopsy. Instead, I’m going to fill up a bucket with ice water, dunk my head in, and breathe really deeply until the chilly water numbs whatever pain nerves exist in my nose. That should take care of it.

Or, you know, I bet I could just breathe through my mouth.