Ohhh, so this is what I'm doing wrong. Good news for some, but less so for me: it looks like I'm stuck here for the forseeable future. I'll put off my existential crisis until at least this evening. [Like, how am I even a web developer? Clerical error...] I wonder how many Mac engineering jobs there are in Buffalo that don't involve working for (e:carolinian) 's manic boss.

Also, it's Talk Like a Pirate Day.

- Z

Hiring me has got to be a bizarre experience, but at least I'm having fun with it. Today I put my references on notice:

Some time in the next few days, you may be asked what kind of Worker I am. If you find yourself at a loss for words, you may use any of the following: 'peerless,' 'superlative,' 'exemplary.' True though it may be, 'one of the greatest minds of the modern era' may be mistakenly construed as hyperbole.

...to which the VP of Sales at my last job replied:

You capitalized the word "worker". I fear you've become a Marxist. I shall make this known to potential employers.

I will endeavor to avoid using words such as mongoloid, dotard and ninny.

What a great guy.

- Z

Out of 22 full-time employees in our office, eight have quit since I started working here [not including one who quit and came back] and one new position was created. Today I found out two more will be leaving in a couple of weeks to go see America.

The whole point of this story is: I got a callback on that web app developer position at Buff State . Seems I didn't completely fuck up my chances of being hired yet and, despite not having exactly the experience they're looking for [cf: Appendix I] it seems they still want me to have a short 3-hour chat with the search committee, the web team, and the web administration director. Privately I am shitting minibricks because the main reason I applied for the job was because it would be idiotic not to [double my salary, plus benefits, government job, &c.]. I was not really looking for a job. It's more like Laff in the Dark. I'm just cruising along in my uncomfortable little car with, like, bats in my face or something, and then it's like BAM! motherfucker! send us your resume. And then I fall right off the end of the extended metaphor into some kind of Search Committee asking me for references.

Which brings me to another, premature point- anyone want to be a web applications developer here? It involves Macs and Adobe Creative Suite and dealing with weirdoes and PostgreSQL and Zope ... lots and lots of Zope.

Also I saw (e:enknot) and (e:paul) at Cafe 59 at lunch today. We discussed the merits of a column in my paper about extremely dorky things that nobody would ever understand. We think it's a great idea, but I'm not convinced that the public is Ready for that kind of nerdiness.

- Z


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Appendix I: They are seeking a web applications developer with custom CMS development experience [this is something I have been doing for several years]. They also want a few years of PHP and Oracle experience. I've used PHP extensively and I was allowed to fiddle with Oracle a little at school, but I have almost nothing to show for either. I've always been of the opinion that the stuff you do is what's important and the language you use is kind of an implementation detail. Employers rarely share this opinion.

First things first: (e:libertad,79) got me thinking about the environment, sort of - so my new user sound is '(Nothing But) Flowers' by the Talking Heads gather:0052634001152745342

I'm a little cheesed off about work- I got the last three articles dumped on my desk at 5:30 this evening, a half hour after I was supposed to have already been at my mom's house to tend to her dog. One of them was supposed to be a web exclusive that we were going to promote on the cover, but it's in the paper this week. Is it just me, or does something cease to be a web exclusive once you run it through the press? Ohhh.... just the video is exclusive to the web, because that's a special thing. Wouldn't it be more impressive if we did run the video in the paper? Pick the most important 54 frames and print them in the corner of every page so you can flip through them real fast?

The moral of the story is: the dog pooped all over the floor.

- Z

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ps. The video is kind of blah, but it's worth it just to see Antoine Thompson try to say that he supports gay marriage without actually saying that he supports gay marriage. Also, props to Sam Hoyt for showing up and going on-record, though his argument that gay marriage would be good for Buffalo's economy is, like, really weird.

Went to a reception at the William J Clinton Presidential Library. It's not exactly the kind of place I would travel to, but there's some pretty interesting stuff in there, including a replica of the Clinton oval office [sans Ms Lewinsky] and a replica of the cabinet meeting room. There was one very bizarre exhibit of Billy Clinton's childhood heroes [cowboys- this is Arkansas after all] that one of my coworkers believes is space filler until Hillary R Clinton has something to put in there too. Hmmm.

At the reception, there was free booze and fancy food, and, nestled in among the banquet of stuffed mushrooms and pork tenderloins and european cheeses-- fried chicken strips. Nice. There was also a balcony outside the reception room; the door said 'smoking permitted - but no inhaling.'*

One of my coworkers brought party favors, and all of us are now armed with parachuting army guys. We are trying to decide whether it would be more fun to drop them from the balcony of the presidential library, or the 18th floor of the hotel atrium during the procession of the ducks.

- Z

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• I spent all last night working on that one.

Yes: this is the Peabody Little Rock. Kind of insane with the ducks, but all in all a nice place.

This is the 29th Annual Convention of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies - the place is swarming with marxist hippie rags [that is to say: good people.] Keynote speakers this year are Gen Wesley K Clark (Ret) and Pres William J Clinton. There is going to be an enormous reception at his place tonight [that is to say: the Clinton Library] followed by all-you-can-drink booze at the office of the Arkansas Times [windows say: 'AAN UNITE TO IMPEACH'].

If you were wondering what marxist hippie rags have to talk about, here's a sampling of the classes I'm attending: 'Where Journalism Meets the Cell Phone: An Introduction to Mobile Content,' 'How Blogs Changed My Paper,' and 'Free Online Classifieds: Do They Work?'

Just listened to some embarassing stories about Old Times from the classified director, chowed down an enormous muffuletta and a couple homebrews at some joint down the street, and passed out for an hour. I feel refreshed.

- Z

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• New journal music is Tony Joe White: 'They Caught the Devil and Put Him in Jail in Eudora, Arkansas' gather:0393049001150405167

So they sent me to Little Rock for a conference. Sitting in the room, biting off a little something something from the hotel's wifi network.

My itinerary said our flight was supposed to leave at 6:30am - v. early. Set the alarm for 4:30am, got to bed early. A panicked phone call arrived at 1am from the publisher's assistant: the flight is supposed to leave at 6am, not 6:30am. After we'd all assembled at the airport we just kind of looked around and said: it's going to be a long day.

When we arrived at the hotel, they were just starting the Procession of the Ducks. Let me say this slowly: the hotel has ducks who live in a $90000 penthouse suite. Every day at 11am, the ducks wake up from their little nappy, take a ride down the elevator, and walk down a red carpet to the hotel's fountain. There is also an announcer and JP Sousa is also involved. Running through my head: 'How much less would my room have cost if I didn't have to foot the bill for these ducks?'

They were fat and fast, too - tasty, I bet.

Checked in and got my goody bag. It contained [among other things] a local brew which I am eager to try. However: no fridge. Dddaaammmnnn iiittt!!!

- Z

Good News:
Tomorrow you should run not walk to your local bus stop or coffee shop and pick up a copy of the paper. Our yearly restaurant guide hits the stands tomorrow and it contains 120 restaurants in and around the city. You should also visit it online regularly and perhaps even download it to your iPod. It has been an exhausting week, and it is time to sit back and burn one.

Neutral News:
Went to the Century Grill last night and saw they still had a stack of the final issue of Buffalo Current. 'Schade,' as the Germans would say.

Bad News:
Our annual popularity contest [hitting stands next week] has destroyed my faith in humanity. By my own count, my website got thoroughly trounced in the Best Local Website category not only by by the 800-pound-gorilla of the local Internet [which I have to say I expected because they've totally got us beat*] but also - and this is what burns me - by the most idiotic, vapid, and poorly-designed website in the entire state. You would think that, backed by all the resources of Warren Buffett and the Buffalo News, they would be able to put together a relevant, informative, and aesthetically-pleasing website - but it's not even as good as the real Buffalo News website , which isn't exactly winning any awards either.

What is wrong with people? When you ask them what their favorite Buffalo website is, do they just go and type 'Buffalo' in the little box at the top and see what happens? WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE.

- Z

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• For now. But now they've got my competitive spirit up and they're totally going down. But not so much that they're going down, as we're going up.

So at about 4.45pm I got an email that there would be a companywide meeting tomorrow at 10am regarding our annual popularity contest.

At 4.50pm I got a frantic phone call from the same person asking if the final results were ready yet.

Well, no, considering there was still a small stack of outstanding paper ballots ... and then an actual human has to look them all over and merge the misspellings. [How many ways can you spell, eg, (e:strip)? Let's see: estrip, (e:strip), ((e:strip)), estrip.org, elmwoodstrip.org, elmwoodstrip.com, Elmwood Strip, and these are just legitimate spellings. If I had a dime for every ballot that said 'Niagra,' I would have several dimes.] Then multiply the confusion and incompetence by 150 awards and again by 1500 ballots.

So I said as far as I knew the raw tally wasn't even ready yet. At this point another individual said we need to know who won so we can sell ads to the winners, and we've only got a week to do it. And I said it doesn't change the fact it's not done. And she said, but we only have a week. And I said, it's still not done. What do you want me to do by 10am tomorrow? I am, after all, just the computer geek.

So they said, split it up and we'll each take a section home and bring them in tomorrow. And I said great, but I've already got plans, I've got to do taxes for me and (e:dragonlady7) , and by the time I was done splitting up the tally it was 5.30pm and everyone had gone home anyway. So it beats the Hell out of me what we're going to be doing tomorrow morning. Staring at the walls and yelling at each other I would imagine.


In somewhat nicer news, this was the first year I have ever actually made money on my taxes. I racked up a nice $7400 tuition bill at the beginning of the year and only got a job halfway through the year, so not only do I have little to no taxable income, but I sneaked in just under the wire for the earned income credit as well. [The EIC is a tax credit intended for those living in crushing poverty; it is only available if you made less than $11,500 all year. Unlike other tax credits, if your tax comes up negative after subtracting the EIC, the government will actually give you money. Jeez, poor people have it so easy. Well, except for that whole trying-to-pay-rent-utilities-groceries-transportation-clothing-and-health-care -on-less-than-$960-per-month thing.]


- Z

Yeah, so I'm not much of a blogger, but I figured, what the hey. Ever since I started working for a certain prominent local alternative newsweekly* I find myself saying 'the Internet needs to hear about this' a lot more than I used to. For those who are easily confused, this is my personal blog - not that of my employer - though I will not be able to resist posting about what happened at work. Much as I might love to, I can't get your article published, and I can't get you into Nietzsche's for free.

Today I brought a sandwich press into work to have its portrait taken. [I mean, who wouldn't want a portrait of their sandwich press?] One thing led to another, and we ended up having a grilled cheese sandwich party in the back office at, like, 3:30 this afternoon. Where I'm from this passes as relatively normal.

- Z

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• I realize that most or all of you know exactly who I am talking about. I don't know whether I should bother keeping it a secret.