I...am a lucky, lucky bastard.
 My hunter hit 80 and was surprised by this bad boy on the same day....O.o Now I gotta find a new bear...:)
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You guys want an earworm, don't you? Sure you do.
David Byrne meets Fatboy Slim. Yes, you read that right. Feckin' awesome.
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I'm sorry. I know they made me wrong at the factory; I know I'm just a weird old fool, and that not a lot of what I do makes any sense. I know I'm sentimental, and that I'm just not practical when it comes to animals. I tend to get kind of attached. Stupid, I know.
But still, I can't look at this eBay auction and think, "Gosh, wouldn't it be romantic to snuggle under that."
FIFTY DEAD LYNX? Why on earth would I want to own, to touch, to even see a "blanket" made of the skins of FIFTY DEAD LYNX? The fuck? Even if you subscribe to the notion that some deity put them on this earth for us to do with as we like, wouldn't it feel like you were outnumbered? Like they were watching you?
Euuuuurghhh.... |
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Amusement, courtesy of Something Positive:
 I went to the library yesterday. It was, I realised with severe distress, the first time I have been in a library since, oh, college. This is depressing, as I love libraries. It was kind of like going to church -- the space was unfamiliar yet familiar, comforting and welcoming. Yes, I'm a geeky little bibliophile. I have spent many wonderful hours in libraries, getting lost in books. (Perhaps a better comparison is entering an adult toy store? Naw.) Either way, I walked out with about 30 pounds of books, including 1/3 of the books which are "Saved For Later" in my Amazon shopping cart. I finally found a living copy of Michael W. Fox's The Dog: Its Domestication and Behavior, which I did not think I could do, given that it has been out of print for more then 20 years. Having opened it, I made insane "squee" noises and searched online, and I appear to have found a used library copy for $30. Given that every other copy I've seen has been in the $125+ range, ZOMG. As you may have guessed, The Book progresses. I believe I have finished gathering reference pictures, and now I am turning them into illustrations. Two people are being poked and prodded into final edits. And now I have, oh, nine or ten delightful books with which to finish up cross-referencing. Then I can hit ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) darkwolph with sticks until he puts together an index! W00t!
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Apparently there's some sort of brouhaha brewing about a newly-discovered glitch which allows you to tame a Worgen pet as a hunter in World of Warcraft.
My own personal hunter was lucky enough to have skipped the quests involved, and went out this morning to compete for a single named mob with about 50 other hunters. After five tries, she caught the bugger, and is he ever beautiful. It's highly likely he will get nerfed or removed, since of course we're not supposed to have tame humanoids, but I thought I'd at least see if it worked (it does), and get some screenshots.
Meet "Logan":
  The first image is me and my new friend, and the second is me wearing my Worg Disguise, which is 100% pure win, with Fuzzy Boy there giving a wary look back at the mob I had to tame to get him (2-minute respawn!). Alas, he can't hold aggro worth a damn. :P (Long live my wonderful AoE-tanking Mr. Bear!)
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On a lighter note,
The Memorable Poot.
(Yes, it's SFW. This is shaping up to be an epic series on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) customers_suck.)
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Speaking as someone who's been searching for a new job for more than two years, and who's been asked to wrangle ducks and to clean a bear exhibit during her interviews, I would like to give this man notice that, when he's finished and they ship him back off that island, He. Is. Fucked.
Lucky Brit Earns Tropical Dream Job
Several million people know what he looks like, where he lives, and exactly what he "did" to "earn" SIX TIMES MY ANNUAL SALARY TO GO SNORKELING.
I hate the news. It's so depressing.
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From the "Spaceballs: The Flamethrower" department:
 Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale. I was assaulted by it at the grocery store this afternoon. I love, love, love Monty Python. I want to give them all my money, I really do. How about...oh, I don't know...five minutes of new material? Instead of this shit? Please? (I really can't complain. John Cleese once actually called the Wolf Park answering machine and personally answered a letter I'd sent him. Somewhere, I still have Michael Palin's autograph, and a personal letter he wrote to me despite my being twelve years old and a complete dingbat at the time. They're awfully nice people, and, again, I want to give them all my money. But...this is moving alarmingly towards irrelevancy: "Monty Python: The Flamethrower"?) Also: why is it not "Monty Python's Holy Grail Pale Ale"? :)
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Something really awesome happened to me this weekend, and it wasn't this.
But this was also awesome.
 This is my hunter's sweet new baby boy. Or possibly girl. Who knows. I've actually been squeeing a lot about my hunter recently, because someone snuck in pet talent trees without my really noticing. (My hunter had leveled to 70 long before the trees were introduced.) I had seen the Cunning (DPS) tree and the Ferocity (general-purpose) tree, on pets I already had, and just said, "Huh". Then, when my hunter was about 74, she was farting around picking out a new pet and, just for gits and shiggles, tamed a bear. OMG. The tank-based (Tenacity) pet tree is ludicrous. Properly glyphed and talented, my Mend Pet now ticks for 1200 hp every three seconds, and my pet can now hold up to eight like-level mobs at the same time. He won't lose aggro. He won't die. For my hunter, who grew up with pets which ranged from "okay" to "tissue paper" as tanks, this is unbelievable. Holy shit. It has a taunt. It has an Intervene. When did this happen?!? Why did nobody tell me? Moonfiring Spirit Kitty will come out when I'm in town, and Mr Bear will be going with me to level the rest of the way to 80. There's just nothing like him.
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Earlier this week, the kind people at the Park referred to me a lady from a humane society who had "questions about a possible wolf hybrid". Delighted, since my fledgling business offers wolf hybrid identification services and is closing in on writing a book about them for use by humane societies, I called the lady back.
"Oh, thanks!" she said. "But we've already found a home for it. We found someone willing to give it a try. One of our staffers did some research on the internet. We're a little worried about what it'll do when it gets older -- it's still a puppy -- but we'll see, won't we?"
I am simply speechless. You don't know anything about wolf hybrids (why the hell else would you come to me?), and, based on research on the internet, which we all know is the world's best source of unbiased factual information, you have adopted out something that's potentially a dangerous animal to someone who was willing to "give it a whirl"? Your insurance adjuster just loves you, doesn't he?
On a similar level of WTF, Cesar Millan, everyone's favourite proponent of in-your-face, high-tension control methods with an emphasis on dominance, is looking for wolf hybrids to train on television. Everybody grab your popcorn for this train wreck....
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Ghostbusters: The Video Game is out, at long, long last...and it is everything I hoped for, and full of squee. You can run around in the fire house and break things, everything is destructible (and there's a little running tally of the cost of the damage you do, just for fun), and you are literally hanging out with the guys as they run around the city, chasing ghosts. I haven't yet actually played myself as I can't afford my own copy of the game, but the Cute Man has kindly let me watch him play, and it looks just fooking awesome. Squee. Squee.
The only thing I don't understand is the "Oblivion"-style facial animation -- what is up with the hyper-reflective eye surfaces? They look like aliens....otherwise, they got the likenesses pretty right, and the characters move naturally, especially their faces! And oh, the dialogue...squee. Squee squee squee. Squee, squee squee squee squee....
...oops, got a little distracted there.
And, in other news, ( ...some WoW blathering... )
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I hear this is very old, like 2005 old. It's been hiding very well. It's a very poignant, slightly creepy short film involving multiple muppet-like critters...kind of like Land of 10,000 Kermits.
Overtime
This is kind of how I imagine I will die; escorted into the next world by thousands of well-meaning, sticky billies.
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Over my two years of job searching I have read a huge number of articles with titles like "What Not To Do During A Job Interview". There are all sorts of instruction manuals written by pissed-off interviewers who have encountered ill-mannered job applicants and are tired of sorting through bullshit. That's fine; I would be too (and job applicants pull stunts you wouldn't believe!) However, I have not yet seen a "How Not To Interview A Job Applicant". With that in mind, here are a few pointers for my potential workplaces:
While I am applying to you for a job, you are also applying to me to potentially be my employer. With that in mind, be professional.
- Don't be late for my job interview. If you are going to call me at a certain time, do so. If you're going to be late, call me and tell me. Don't just "space it" and make me have to chase you down. I take time off work to be ready for those phone calls, and to travel to those interviews, dammit. (And if you can't remember to make a job interview, are you going to remember to, say, write my paycheck?)
- The job interview is not a good place to bitch about how much your own, personal, job sucks. If your job sucks, what can I guess about the job for which I'm applying?
- Please have the job posting be sort of relevant to the job for which I am applying. If I'm applying to be a zookeeper, I kind of expect the job to primarily involve animal husbandry, and not, for example, running low-budget carnival rides.
- Likewise, if the job requires having intimate knowledge of something obscure, like pre-20th-century farming techniques, please mention it somewhere in the job posting. That interview was quite possibly the most embarrassing one I've ever had.
- Also likewise, if the job involves something hideous and nasty like euthanasia, it's polite to mention it in the job description and in the goddamn interview so it's not a "happy surprise" when I take the job.
- When you ask questions like "What is your astrological sign?" during a job interview, it does not give me confidence in how your facility is run. Just saying.
- It is unbelievably rude and classless to make me meet and interact with other applicants seeking the same job. There is nothing more socially awkward than having to make small talk with a person against whom you are competing for a job. Also, it's really rude to let me know that I, and my 10 years of experience handling exotic animals, am competing against a guy who volunteered at a big cat place for a year. Thanks for undervaluing my skills.
- Get the hell back to me! Especially if I've blown $600-$800 on traveling out there for a live interview. Give me the basic human respect I deserve and tell me that I didn't get the goddamn job. 50+ interviews, and only one of you classless motherfuckers had the balls to actually call me, personally, and tell me why I didn't get the job. More than 1/3 of you didn't even bother sending me a "Fuck You" email or a form letter. I have more respect for that one facility that called me than for all of you cowardly assholes who just let things trail off and hoped I'd get the hint.
You want to leave me with a good taste in my mouth. Almost all of you are non-profit entities who want good word of mouth. You want me to fall in love with you and come back and visit, and bring my friends, even if I didn't get the job. Rude phone calls, incomprehensible interviews, and lack of communication tell me that you don't give a shit about me, and I will certainly return the favour when someone asks me about your facility.
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The Great Job Search has stretched for two years. Two years ago, I had no doubt that all I had to do was apply, and someone, somewhere, would snap me up, and I would be off into the happy embrace of a new job where I did something I loved, or at least tolerated, and would be Advancing My Career. Today, I am seriously considering applying to local restaurants as a "step up" from where I am now.
Today, I am in limbo, waiting to be told that I am not getting another Dream Job. I interviewed on Monday, and they are "getting back to me soon". I want them to just tell me I'm screwed so that I can get on with the business of attempting to get a job doing Anything Else. As long as they haven't called me back, however, my treacherous mind gives me little images of hope, and so I sit and bang my head against the desk and try not to listen.
I wouldn't have ordinarily considered Cracked.com to be a source of enlightenment, but I am still interested in their (admittedly elderly) article 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable. I want so much just to figure out exactly where my life broke, so I can fix it :P
In the meantime, the wolf hybrid book actually appears to be shaping up into something that Does Not Suck. People are reading it and not openly vomiting on it, so there is hope. We are hoping to get it out by September, so someone from Wolf Park can cart it around to Europe on a speaking tour about wolf hybrids. Fingers crossed....
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Fuggy. Fuggy fuggy. Fuggy, fuggy fuggy! Fuggy fuggy fuggy fuggy; fuggy fuggy.
Fuggy! Fuggy fuggy!!!
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A WoW colleague turned me on to Tim Minchin, a highly funny musician who also happens to look -- and sound! -- exactly like Weird Al Yankovic and Captain Jack Sparrow had an illegitimate love child (and yes, despite myself, I'd probably pay to see footage of that conception).
How did I miss this man? And why are his CDs only available in farking Australia?!? :( :(
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Visited a local cemetery today on the spur of the moment, and was so squeed by the light and the trees and the pretty that we had to go back and get not only the camera, but the dog.
Some pics:
Mr Yello, who was yello
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I'd hate to have to explain this one to a child
("No, honey, that's not the real Santa...well...uh")
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And a picture of me with the dog, not that anyone needs to see me or my dog. |
The Cute Man and I often wonder where people got the idea for cemeteries, and why we perpetuate them. I mean, why do we plant dead people in the ground? Do we think they'll sprout? (Which reminds me...time to go play more Left 4 Dead!) I love cemeteries, though. They're very quiet little parks, with beautiful landscaping and often some very pretty memorials. We're not the only ones who use cemeteries recreationally -- while we were there, we saw a family out for a Mother's Day picnic with their late grandma.... O.o Monty's old camera, alas, is showing its age. One of its $120 battery packs has died, and the CCD is really not turning out anything very sharp despite the claims of the autofocus. Ah well. This little boy has been very good to me, and even when he no longer takes pictures he will always have a place upon my shelf.
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I think I may have hurt myself.
Ganked from one of my favourite timewasting blogs, Cake Wrecks:
WTF? I mean, really. WTF?
The cake was originally supposed to read: "Happy Fatherhood Shawn and Glenn". Clearly, this did not happen. But how did the baker come up with this? A commenter suggested that the baker got a mite sidetracked somewhere, and by the time he got to the bottom of the cake his intent was to write "Happy Father's Day", but halfway through he changed course to the requested saying (sort of).
Don't forget to view the YouTube video of their confrontation with the professional baker (or at least his professional associate) who made this cake.
Also, the T-shirt. I need this. (It was even funnier that I saw this shirt before I'd seen the cake upon which it was based....)
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Dear strange pony lady:
You are asking me to move to New Jersey and be office slave to your non-profit. Maybe, just maybe, you could treat me like something on which it is worth spending your time.
I have never, in maybe 40+ interviews, had a job interviewer say "I will call you on Monday. Or Tuesday.", then reschedule to Wednesday, miss Wednesday, ask for Thursday and then maintain radio silence the entire day (so far; it's now 4:30 pm). This on top of an original "interview" wherein you asked me to call you, on MY dime, rambled for 40 minutes, asked me a series of increasingly bizarre and just about semi-relevant questions, conveniently omitted any useful information like how much the job pays, then demanded that I mail you samples of my marketing/design work even though I'm applying for a "clerical" position. (Also, the bit where you "lost" that package? Real smooth.)
There is an extremely small but nonzero chance that you are sitting on my dream job. For this I will put up with a little rambling. But every time I hear from you, that chance gets smaller.
Also, New Jersey? What the hell.
*sigh*
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This made me laugh out loud, which doesn't happen often.
Picture yourself, having skimmed through pages and pages of inexplicable m/m slash fiction starring various people in Fullmetal Alchemist, puzzling as to why nearly every author seems to think that nothing, literary-wise, can be accomplished without two, or more, men having sex*, when you come upon this little gem. It looks a lot like that slash fiction at first, but read through to the end -- it not only gets better, it gets hilarious. And it's short. Read it. OMG.
I'd actually venture that it's possible to find it funny without having the slightest idea what the series is about. All you need to know is that "Ed" and "Al" are brothers -- conveniently 19 and 18 in this story, how on earth did that happen -- and "Roy" is Ed's commanding officer.
Research, by JaelleI have to admit it was the quote from Shakespeare that got me. What a piece of work is man!(I'm not sure how I picked up on the Fullmetal Alchemist squee. There's just something about a fandom whose story archives include tags for "angst", "drama", and "kumquat". I am not kidding.) * Not that I can really complain about men having sex, normally, but that's just not what I'm looking for out of a series starring a 15-year-old kid....
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