like Rach, Jatue, B.G. and any others...
I got a text message on my cell phone from her about 90 minutes ago. She says her stuff is apparently okay but many of her friends are not so lucky. There is no electricity. I doubt she'll be updating anytime soon.
I've tried phoning back to the number she gave me 3 times but "all circuits are busy" which is understandable considering the magnitude of what's happened down there.
The most important thing is she's okay.
J.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
so brutal
I was looking at the pics this morning on the NY Times website of the New Orleans area. It's scary--places with 20 feet of water, 80% of the city flooded--and significant loss of life.
I can't really imagine what Kate and everyone else is going to be going home to. Over two million people are without electricity so I doubt we'll hear soon, either.
I can't really imagine what Kate and everyone else is going to be going home to. Over two million people are without electricity so I doubt we'll hear soon, either.
Monday, August 29, 2005
The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains
Just Lather, That's All
So this is a short story and not some stupid long novel so I already like finished the whole thing and I still had time to play warcraft and go outside and smoke up.
The story's about this barber who's some kind of 'rebel' which probably means he wore a leather jacket and stuff (cause on account of this was written back in the day but in spanish my teacher said but I bet they still had kickass cars and drag races and stuff) and anyway, this barber's just minding his own business and then this Captain Torres guy comes in.
The barber freaks out, on account of I think this was back in the day when there was some lamewad music group called the "The Captain and Ten Eels" so this captain was really some celebrity. Anyway the barber was all nervous since he had to shave this captain guy (and if he's like all those sea captains in the cartoons and stuff he's probably got some big gross tangly beard) and he was afraid he'd cut this guy and then the captain's posse would hang him or something.
Oh, and he got really sweaty, which was kinda gross.
So this is a short story and not some stupid long novel so I already like finished the whole thing and I still had time to play warcraft and go outside and smoke up.
The story's about this barber who's some kind of 'rebel' which probably means he wore a leather jacket and stuff (cause on account of this was written back in the day but in spanish my teacher said but I bet they still had kickass cars and drag races and stuff) and anyway, this barber's just minding his own business and then this Captain Torres guy comes in.
The barber freaks out, on account of I think this was back in the day when there was some lamewad music group called the "The Captain and Ten Eels" so this captain was really some celebrity. Anyway the barber was all nervous since he had to shave this captain guy (and if he's like all those sea captains in the cartoons and stuff he's probably got some big gross tangly beard) and he was afraid he'd cut this guy and then the captain's posse would hang him or something.
Oh, and he got really sweaty, which was kinda gross.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a
Fast Food Manager
So, you want to be "lovin' it" for the next four decades or so, kid? You're the one who always looks so happy there in the drive thru... oh, really? Well, your parents will stop weeping about this idea in a month or two--after all, they've got to be proud of that older sister of yours. Feature dancer at the downtown show bar... Tell her that it's embarassing when she waves to her old teachers from onstage, er--I mean, the shop teachers told me she does that sometimes; I wouldn't know myself.
Anyway--back to your future managing the golden arches. First of all, they'll probably test your IQ and your personality to make sure you're smart and ambitious enough to staff the restaurant and do the promotional stuff, but not so gifted as to want to put a gun in your mouth after a couple years. No doubt you'll work your way up locally as first a shift manager, and then assistant, and then one day it will be your turn to don the golden name tag.
Don't expect it to be easy. Once you're past 20, girls don't see dating someone like you as a great catch--you might understand there's good things ahead if you're loyal to the corporation, but they see you as a loser they'd be ashamed to bring to a thanksgiving dinner and have sit at a table with their sister's husbands who all have more impressive careers.
Ironically, at the same time as you strike out at the bar every time they ask you what you do for a living, you'll have 16 year old girls offering you 5 minutes of paradise in the stock room for a pathetic promotion to the drive-thru window, so you'll have to be careful to cover your backside, since even if you behave, the rejected ones can still say something happened. To be safe you'll put the guy who's been there longest on the window job--with only his pathetic dreams of rock stardom to hold onto, it's already clear to all the other staff that he's a "lifer". Still, even though you duck the sexual harassment complaint by that little maneuver, you'll still end up in the headlines when it turns out mister rock star is dealing drugs to the cars that pull up each night.
Head office cringes at the bad publicity and quickly gets you out of town--you're given the management responsibilities for a new outlet in a small town a couple hundred miles away. It wouldn't be big enough to have a franchise if it weren't for all the traffic that goes through on the main highway through the center of town. You get to hire the entire staff, which is harder than back in the city since there's a much smaller pool of candidates, but soon you've got a full crew, even if there's a number of sibling teams who bicker constantly until you figure out not to schedule their shifts together.
The small town realities hit you quickly. You realize after the fiasco at your last restaurant that you have to make this one work, but there's some resistance in town--especially from "Mom and Pop's", the local cafe that's been in operation for almost 20 years. Some people make it almost a moral issue to patronize the older establishment and boycott yours, seeing as you represent all that is evil with corporate globalization. Nonetheless, some of those same people have no problem coming to you with cap in hand every time some charity or team needs sponsoring--they expect you to have the bottomless pockets of a huge multinational corporation, and think you mean and stingy when you have to turn some of them away.
It gets even more uncomfortable when "Mom and Pop's" daughter is sent to the city, ostensibly for treatment for a serious eating disorder. They make no secret of the fact that the treatment is expensive and their income reduced with the arrival of your fast food place. You can't avoid contributing substantially to her treatment fund, even though you receive little or no credit for doing so.
A few months later you're visiting relatives back in the city and you find out your niece rooms in the same dorm with the "poor anorexic", and she laughs at your questions about the girl's condition. Apparently the whole thing was a scam and the girl has used the "treatment money" to buy a car. Still, you realize you'd best not say anything back in town, and you bite your tongue every time some old dear prattles on about "that poor girl".
It's only a few months later when "Mom" is apparently diagnosed with some mysterious tumor, and she also is the recipient of local business largesse, and once again you're hit for a major contribution. Your niece tells you the mother had a nice visit in the city, using that cash to take all the dorm girls out for an expensive dinner, and showing them her purchases from a couple of days' shopping at a variety of exclusive shops.
This time you've had enough, and when "Pop" comes around with a group from the local chamber of commerce collecting for a scholarship for his "dyslexic" son, you explode, and scream forth all your accusations, only to find yourself punched by a local town councilman who calls you a variety of disgusting names, and then leads the group to the local newspaper where an exposé on your wicked heartlessness is quickly added to the front page of the next day's edition.
Within days parents have forced most of your employees to quit, and the head office damage control team shows up and gives you a choice--quit outright and forget about the pension you've been depending on, or take a transfer to Beirut, which they assure you is much more peaceful than it used to be.
You think about it for a while and realize you have no marketable skills and no money to go to college, so you accept the offer. You work well as the second in command at the Beirut outlet until you are mistakenly kidnapped by terrorists--you look strikingly like the Belgian ambassador--and they kill you in disgust when they discover their error.
Your pension is sent back to the small town you fled and dumped into yet another fund to help pay for Mom and Pop's irish setter's treatment for canine depression. Nobody notices.
So, you want to be "lovin' it" for the next four decades or so, kid? You're the one who always looks so happy there in the drive thru... oh, really? Well, your parents will stop weeping about this idea in a month or two--after all, they've got to be proud of that older sister of yours. Feature dancer at the downtown show bar... Tell her that it's embarassing when she waves to her old teachers from onstage, er--I mean, the shop teachers told me she does that sometimes; I wouldn't know myself.
Anyway--back to your future managing the golden arches. First of all, they'll probably test your IQ and your personality to make sure you're smart and ambitious enough to staff the restaurant and do the promotional stuff, but not so gifted as to want to put a gun in your mouth after a couple years. No doubt you'll work your way up locally as first a shift manager, and then assistant, and then one day it will be your turn to don the golden name tag.
Don't expect it to be easy. Once you're past 20, girls don't see dating someone like you as a great catch--you might understand there's good things ahead if you're loyal to the corporation, but they see you as a loser they'd be ashamed to bring to a thanksgiving dinner and have sit at a table with their sister's husbands who all have more impressive careers.
Ironically, at the same time as you strike out at the bar every time they ask you what you do for a living, you'll have 16 year old girls offering you 5 minutes of paradise in the stock room for a pathetic promotion to the drive-thru window, so you'll have to be careful to cover your backside, since even if you behave, the rejected ones can still say something happened. To be safe you'll put the guy who's been there longest on the window job--with only his pathetic dreams of rock stardom to hold onto, it's already clear to all the other staff that he's a "lifer". Still, even though you duck the sexual harassment complaint by that little maneuver, you'll still end up in the headlines when it turns out mister rock star is dealing drugs to the cars that pull up each night.
Head office cringes at the bad publicity and quickly gets you out of town--you're given the management responsibilities for a new outlet in a small town a couple hundred miles away. It wouldn't be big enough to have a franchise if it weren't for all the traffic that goes through on the main highway through the center of town. You get to hire the entire staff, which is harder than back in the city since there's a much smaller pool of candidates, but soon you've got a full crew, even if there's a number of sibling teams who bicker constantly until you figure out not to schedule their shifts together.
The small town realities hit you quickly. You realize after the fiasco at your last restaurant that you have to make this one work, but there's some resistance in town--especially from "Mom and Pop's", the local cafe that's been in operation for almost 20 years. Some people make it almost a moral issue to patronize the older establishment and boycott yours, seeing as you represent all that is evil with corporate globalization. Nonetheless, some of those same people have no problem coming to you with cap in hand every time some charity or team needs sponsoring--they expect you to have the bottomless pockets of a huge multinational corporation, and think you mean and stingy when you have to turn some of them away.
It gets even more uncomfortable when "Mom and Pop's" daughter is sent to the city, ostensibly for treatment for a serious eating disorder. They make no secret of the fact that the treatment is expensive and their income reduced with the arrival of your fast food place. You can't avoid contributing substantially to her treatment fund, even though you receive little or no credit for doing so.
A few months later you're visiting relatives back in the city and you find out your niece rooms in the same dorm with the "poor anorexic", and she laughs at your questions about the girl's condition. Apparently the whole thing was a scam and the girl has used the "treatment money" to buy a car. Still, you realize you'd best not say anything back in town, and you bite your tongue every time some old dear prattles on about "that poor girl".
It's only a few months later when "Mom" is apparently diagnosed with some mysterious tumor, and she also is the recipient of local business largesse, and once again you're hit for a major contribution. Your niece tells you the mother had a nice visit in the city, using that cash to take all the dorm girls out for an expensive dinner, and showing them her purchases from a couple of days' shopping at a variety of exclusive shops.
This time you've had enough, and when "Pop" comes around with a group from the local chamber of commerce collecting for a scholarship for his "dyslexic" son, you explode, and scream forth all your accusations, only to find yourself punched by a local town councilman who calls you a variety of disgusting names, and then leads the group to the local newspaper where an exposé on your wicked heartlessness is quickly added to the front page of the next day's edition.
Within days parents have forced most of your employees to quit, and the head office damage control team shows up and gives you a choice--quit outright and forget about the pension you've been depending on, or take a transfer to Beirut, which they assure you is much more peaceful than it used to be.
You think about it for a while and realize you have no marketable skills and no money to go to college, so you accept the offer. You work well as the second in command at the Beirut outlet until you are mistakenly kidnapped by terrorists--you look strikingly like the Belgian ambassador--and they kill you in disgust when they discover their error.
Your pension is sent back to the small town you fled and dumped into yet another fund to help pay for Mom and Pop's irish setter's treatment for canine depression. Nobody notices.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
State your quest
The weekend thus far:
Friday was nice--the kidlets did an overnight at the inlaws and Judy and I went out for supper downtown. Moxie's for those who know Victoria, seems to have a hiring policy that goes something like this--"you must be good looking enough to be on a magazine cover to wait tables here". My wife and I both noticed this to be true of both the guys and the girls working at least that night. Nice to know that the staffing policies of The Keg from my university days still live on, at least at that restaurant.
Then we wandered downtown and ended up at the tourist trap gelato place where R. is now working--poor kid, she's worked about 30 hours this weekend or something insane. Anyway, it was nice to see her there and take a pic of her in her "uniform". I don't know that my credit rating would allow me to patronize that place too often though. Crazy expensive, but I guess the tourists just off the boat can be assured it's merely the "exchange rate" at work.
Yesterday we had a nice barbecue at my wife's sister's place, and her husband and I were in the liquor store when I discovered this to my great delight:
I'll let you know how it tastes. I really just wanted the bottle, anway.
Friday was nice--the kidlets did an overnight at the inlaws and Judy and I went out for supper downtown. Moxie's for those who know Victoria, seems to have a hiring policy that goes something like this--"you must be good looking enough to be on a magazine cover to wait tables here". My wife and I both noticed this to be true of both the guys and the girls working at least that night. Nice to know that the staffing policies of The Keg from my university days still live on, at least at that restaurant.
Then we wandered downtown and ended up at the tourist trap gelato place where R. is now working--poor kid, she's worked about 30 hours this weekend or something insane. Anyway, it was nice to see her there and take a pic of her in her "uniform". I don't know that my credit rating would allow me to patronize that place too often though. Crazy expensive, but I guess the tourists just off the boat can be assured it's merely the "exchange rate" at work.
Yesterday we had a nice barbecue at my wife's sister's place, and her husband and I were in the liquor store when I discovered this to my great delight:
I'll let you know how it tastes. I really just wanted the bottle, anway.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A
Tour Guide
Oh, I know you--you're that foreign languages club kid. How many you speak now, anyway? Oh--well, German could be valuable, I guess. You taking anything special course wise this year? Tourism, eh? Great program that--preparing kids for the minimum wage careers of the future. So--a career in tourism? How 'bout you try travel agent? Yeah, I guess, but office work ain't so terrible... all right then, tour guide it is.
So, you'll get on the local tourist runs--seasonal work, low pay, occasional tips. In return, you'll deal with the idiosyncracies of weirdos from all nations. You can't help but make mistakes too, using the wrong word for something and offending an entire busload of people by accident, but still, at least you'll get to know the three or four bus drivers who become your regular companions driving around the same tired tourist traps for four or five months a year. Naturally, since you speak German, you'll get those groups most, and you'll begin to develop some strange suspicions--you walk off the bus for a moment and get back to overhear the words "fourth reich" muttered in clipped Prussian accents and then they all look shifty and change the subject when they see you to something more innocuous.
If it only happened once or twice, you'd ignore it, but it happens over and over, and you get a little worried when you hear too many of them humming songs you recognize from archival footage of rallies at the Brandenburg Gate during the late 1930s. Finally you decide something is up--perhaps these bus trips are some sort of front for neo-nazi plotting, and you report your suspicions to your supervisor. He looks at you incredulously, and recommends stress leave. You realize his last name is Von Braun, and decide he's in on it--so you go to the government, to tip them off about the plot.
Eventually you get a little "holiday" in a psychiatric respite center, and it's only when one of your fellow employees feels guilty and sends you an anonymous letter that you clue into the fact that each time you stepped off the bus your "friends" the bus drivers clued the passengers in to a little "let's freak out the tour guide" game they enjoyed playing so much. Seems they figured with their air brakes tickets they shouldn't be making 50 cents an hour less than you.
You are released from the psych ward, and you abandon local tour work to take a job with a group that tours elderly north americans through europe. Of course, the tours are not sightseeing as much as endurance, since one really can't "do" seven countries very well in ten days, and you're forever having to go out hunting for the one or two old dears who get lost and haven't made it back to the bus. Plus, the air conditioning invariably dies just as you hit the hottest part of your trip, and I won't even begin to describe the repulsiveness of the "biffy" at the back of the bus--you do your best to dissuade your charges from ever using it, but they're old and stubborn, and along with the broken air conditioner that disfunctional bus accessory also makes the trips even more hellish.
Every so often one of the groups includes a younger man--perhaps the child of one of the elderly tour members--and the ancient busybodies make it their business to matchmake you, thereby guaranteeing that no romance will ever develop. Pushy local bus drivers hit on you regularly as well, but you know they're just after a quick fling or a chance at getting out of their country's hellish economic situation by following you back to the land of the free.
Still, despite all this, you fall for one driver--Pedro--four years into the monotony of the job. He seems different--he's cute, he listens and he seems to care. You fall into a romance almost without realizing it, and actually begin to feel the unfamiliar sensation of happiness. You don't even notice the tour company supervisor sitting near the front of the bus when you step up from the Roman street to plant a kiss on Pedro's cheek, and squeeze his shoulder. His pulling away and yelling seem strange, and then he immediately files a complaint to the already disapproving supervisor sitting nearby. You are fired and sent home immediately.
Not to worry, though--there are plenty of souvenir shops or whale-watching ticket booths around. There's always lots of low-paying deadend part-time seasonal tourism jobs for someone with your training and skills. Plus you'll be familiar enough with the youth hostel system that you'll be able to negotiate a monthly rent for your accomodations--which is good, because it's all you'll ever be able to afford.
And you'll still have enough left for an adequate supply of kraft dinner and lice shampoo as well.
Guten tag.
The other 44 Career Counsellor posts can be found here.
Oh, I know you--you're that foreign languages club kid. How many you speak now, anyway? Oh--well, German could be valuable, I guess. You taking anything special course wise this year? Tourism, eh? Great program that--preparing kids for the minimum wage careers of the future. So--a career in tourism? How 'bout you try travel agent? Yeah, I guess, but office work ain't so terrible... all right then, tour guide it is.
So, you'll get on the local tourist runs--seasonal work, low pay, occasional tips. In return, you'll deal with the idiosyncracies of weirdos from all nations. You can't help but make mistakes too, using the wrong word for something and offending an entire busload of people by accident, but still, at least you'll get to know the three or four bus drivers who become your regular companions driving around the same tired tourist traps for four or five months a year. Naturally, since you speak German, you'll get those groups most, and you'll begin to develop some strange suspicions--you walk off the bus for a moment and get back to overhear the words "fourth reich" muttered in clipped Prussian accents and then they all look shifty and change the subject when they see you to something more innocuous.
If it only happened once or twice, you'd ignore it, but it happens over and over, and you get a little worried when you hear too many of them humming songs you recognize from archival footage of rallies at the Brandenburg Gate during the late 1930s. Finally you decide something is up--perhaps these bus trips are some sort of front for neo-nazi plotting, and you report your suspicions to your supervisor. He looks at you incredulously, and recommends stress leave. You realize his last name is Von Braun, and decide he's in on it--so you go to the government, to tip them off about the plot.
Eventually you get a little "holiday" in a psychiatric respite center, and it's only when one of your fellow employees feels guilty and sends you an anonymous letter that you clue into the fact that each time you stepped off the bus your "friends" the bus drivers clued the passengers in to a little "let's freak out the tour guide" game they enjoyed playing so much. Seems they figured with their air brakes tickets they shouldn't be making 50 cents an hour less than you.
You are released from the psych ward, and you abandon local tour work to take a job with a group that tours elderly north americans through europe. Of course, the tours are not sightseeing as much as endurance, since one really can't "do" seven countries very well in ten days, and you're forever having to go out hunting for the one or two old dears who get lost and haven't made it back to the bus. Plus, the air conditioning invariably dies just as you hit the hottest part of your trip, and I won't even begin to describe the repulsiveness of the "biffy" at the back of the bus--you do your best to dissuade your charges from ever using it, but they're old and stubborn, and along with the broken air conditioner that disfunctional bus accessory also makes the trips even more hellish.
Every so often one of the groups includes a younger man--perhaps the child of one of the elderly tour members--and the ancient busybodies make it their business to matchmake you, thereby guaranteeing that no romance will ever develop. Pushy local bus drivers hit on you regularly as well, but you know they're just after a quick fling or a chance at getting out of their country's hellish economic situation by following you back to the land of the free.
Still, despite all this, you fall for one driver--Pedro--four years into the monotony of the job. He seems different--he's cute, he listens and he seems to care. You fall into a romance almost without realizing it, and actually begin to feel the unfamiliar sensation of happiness. You don't even notice the tour company supervisor sitting near the front of the bus when you step up from the Roman street to plant a kiss on Pedro's cheek, and squeeze his shoulder. His pulling away and yelling seem strange, and then he immediately files a complaint to the already disapproving supervisor sitting nearby. You are fired and sent home immediately.
Not to worry, though--there are plenty of souvenir shops or whale-watching ticket booths around. There's always lots of low-paying deadend part-time seasonal tourism jobs for someone with your training and skills. Plus you'll be familiar enough with the youth hostel system that you'll be able to negotiate a monthly rent for your accomodations--which is good, because it's all you'll ever be able to afford.
And you'll still have enough left for an adequate supply of kraft dinner and lice shampoo as well.
Guten tag.
The other 44 Career Counsellor posts can be found here.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Poetry by the Emo Child
Parentals
Dear, would you mind coming down to dinner?
Mortal food pleases me not, mother
I sit and contemplate my surroundings
Too middle class, too white, too suburban.
My room should have stalactites
And stalagmites,
Chewing intruders.
Honey, how come you never bring any boys to the house ?
Do you really want to hear the answer to that?
How about something angstful and easy...
The boys at my school are stupid
I'm not really as popular as the cheerleader sluts
I'm saving myself for...
No not even I can say that with a straight face
And that's what you want, isn't it mother...
A "straight" face.
I see you wondering as you timidly tiptoe into my room
Glancing at things you cannot begin to comprehend
So much.... black, really dear--doesn't it depress you?
You continued breathing depresses me, mater dearest
But I can't change that... just yet.
I see those books you bring home from the library
"How to Talk to Your Troubled Teen"
I peruse it them while you sleep.
My responses are more disturbing
When I script them first.
Please sweetheart, wouldn't you prefer a tidy room?
Fire is the ultimate cleanser, mother.
Maybe your father can talk some sense into you...
He can't even make eye contact
Maybe he's noticed his liquor decanters
Are slowly filling with water.
Or maybe...
I found his secret stash of porn--old school, VHS.
I did a little editing...
Videos of my birthdays, preschool graduations, and such
In place of the money shots.
I wonder if he's noticed?
I think it's time
For a bigger allowance.
Dear, would you mind coming down to dinner?
Mortal food pleases me not, mother
I sit and contemplate my surroundings
Too middle class, too white, too suburban.
My room should have stalactites
And stalagmites,
Chewing intruders.
Honey, how come you never bring any boys to the house ?
Do you really want to hear the answer to that?
How about something angstful and easy...
The boys at my school are stupid
I'm not really as popular as the cheerleader sluts
I'm saving myself for...
No not even I can say that with a straight face
And that's what you want, isn't it mother...
A "straight" face.
I see you wondering as you timidly tiptoe into my room
Glancing at things you cannot begin to comprehend
So much.... black, really dear--doesn't it depress you?
You continued breathing depresses me, mater dearest
But I can't change that... just yet.
I see those books you bring home from the library
"How to Talk to Your Troubled Teen"
I peruse it them while you sleep.
My responses are more disturbing
When I script them first.
Please sweetheart, wouldn't you prefer a tidy room?
Fire is the ultimate cleanser, mother.
Maybe your father can talk some sense into you...
He can't even make eye contact
Maybe he's noticed his liquor decanters
Are slowly filling with water.
Or maybe...
I found his secret stash of porn--old school, VHS.
I did a little editing...
Videos of my birthdays, preschool graduations, and such
In place of the money shots.
I wonder if he's noticed?
I think it's time
For a bigger allowance.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains
The Plague - by Albert Camus
This book is like some dental hygiene thing, I think. See, there's this place called "Oran" which is like some town in Africa which totally sounds like the name of a toothbrush, and everybody's just ignoring these rats that are croaking all over the place because they've got "the plague", which I think is that gross stuff that gets on your teeth and they give you those red pills to chew and it's all "look you've got plague on your teeth" but my friend Jake says that it's called "plaque".
No way Jake--that's what they call those boy scout things up on my wall that my mom won't let me take down because she said they'll remind me that I "still had potential to make something of your life". Right. I quit that lameass club cause on account of one day my grandpa was over and he was kinda loaded and he took me aside after I came home from scouts and he said "What the hell is this sissy outfit" and something about how scouts is filled with perverts and stuff and so I quit cause that old man rocks when he ain't going on forever about some stupid car he had back in 1950 something.
Anyway, I don't quite get how the rats get bad teeth and all, but they start showing up dead all over town and the people just igore them cause they want to party and not brush their teeth. And then it's too late and they all start dying from this "bubonic plague" which is like when your gums get so infected your whole body is like one giant cavity with tooth decay coming out your armpits and it's hella disgusting.
Then the book goes on forever about nothing, really, ceptin' how this priest is all "God wants us to learn from this" and this doctor who's all "yeah right" and this reporter dude who pays some guys so sneak him out of town and ain't even pissed when they don't and a bunch of people are dead and then the plague ends and people are kind of happy when they see some rats again.
I guess they kinda missed the rats. I gotta go brush my teeth now.
This book is like some dental hygiene thing, I think. See, there's this place called "Oran" which is like some town in Africa which totally sounds like the name of a toothbrush, and everybody's just ignoring these rats that are croaking all over the place because they've got "the plague", which I think is that gross stuff that gets on your teeth and they give you those red pills to chew and it's all "look you've got plague on your teeth" but my friend Jake says that it's called "plaque".
No way Jake--that's what they call those boy scout things up on my wall that my mom won't let me take down because she said they'll remind me that I "still had potential to make something of your life". Right. I quit that lameass club cause on account of one day my grandpa was over and he was kinda loaded and he took me aside after I came home from scouts and he said "What the hell is this sissy outfit" and something about how scouts is filled with perverts and stuff and so I quit cause that old man rocks when he ain't going on forever about some stupid car he had back in 1950 something.
Anyway, I don't quite get how the rats get bad teeth and all, but they start showing up dead all over town and the people just igore them cause they want to party and not brush their teeth. And then it's too late and they all start dying from this "bubonic plague" which is like when your gums get so infected your whole body is like one giant cavity with tooth decay coming out your armpits and it's hella disgusting.
Then the book goes on forever about nothing, really, ceptin' how this priest is all "God wants us to learn from this" and this doctor who's all "yeah right" and this reporter dude who pays some guys so sneak him out of town and ain't even pissed when they don't and a bunch of people are dead and then the plague ends and people are kind of happy when they see some rats again.
I guess they kinda missed the rats. I gotta go brush my teeth now.
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A
Newscaster (by request)
Ahh--I remember you. You know when you taped me by the principal's car after that staff party? I wasn't really peeing... It was all just a joke. You have destroyed that video, right? Good. So, you want to be a newscaster? Hmmm--I think it will look something like this.
First of all, you've got that combination of "pretty" and "authoritative" that will give you a leg up on the competition. Sure, if you looked good and were a visible minority, you'd get there quicker, but still, you've got the right... tools for the job.
You'll need to take some sort of training--there's hundreds of programs all over that will let you study broadcasting while practicing in the college's studio and then working as an unpaid intern--which is another word for slave--at the local cable access station. At the station you'll run cameras, aim lights, and help prep guests and on-air "talent"--though calling the bunch of freaks and weirdos that vie for time on those stations that nobody watches is stretching it just a bit. You'll chuckle at the program warning that UFO's have landed and the aliens are among us, and you'll cringe every time you get assigned to tape "The Golden Age Nudist Music Appreciation Show" with naked 70 year olds dancing to scratchy jazz standards.
Eventually you'll get your chance in front of the camera. It may be a local dog show, or the big scout jamboree, but you'll get to lead a one-man camera crew around while you stick a microphone in front of a variety of inarticulate clods. Your parents' investment in your teeth and your perfect skin mean that the camera is your friend, and it isn't long before a real station agrees to let you do your next work experience placement in their newsroom.
You thought you'd been blessed with a clean, wholesome beauty, but soon you're having an anxiety attack whenever a small pimple appears on your face, and you borrow money from your parents to finance the plastic surgery you're convinced you need until too late you realize it was just the wonky picture tube on your old television that made your nose look crooked. Still, you become skilled at doing the fluff "around town" pieces for the evening news, and when your internship is finished, you are offered a job which pays pathetically little, but gets your face on the screen.
You do that mundane schtick for a year or two, and then when one of the two regular evening news anchors takes a job in a bigger market, they decide to give you a shot at the coveted anchor chair. You aren't the most experienced or most qualified for the job, but the producer knows you'll look good in those ads on the sides of buses, and you'll distract from the bulbous alcoholic's nose that dominates every shot of your veteran anchor partner. He, of course, soon resents your easy rise to equality with him, and takes every opportunity to belittle your work to the rest of the crew. You ignore him as best you can, and the public warms to you quickly.
Just as you ready to sign a new contract at the end of your first year, expecting a nice raise, there's a newsroom coup, and your producer is fired, and the new one, at the senior newscaster's urging, decides not to renew your contract. Fortunately for you, your new producer will land a good job in another city, and he'll bring you along to his new station.
His mentorship comes with a price, though. He knows you and he are both new to the city you now call home, and he manages to monopolize all your free time until suddenly you wake up and find yourself in a relationship with him. Since you'd been staying at his place anyways until you "settled in", it's an easy transition to make from employee to lover, and your new colleagues assure each other that it's only your willingness to "put out" for your producer boyfriend that got you your new job in the first place.
The constant backbiting grates on you, and one day you decide to test their theory, and you break up with your controlling partner. He assures you that your job is safe, but one day, while you are describing the horrible death toll in the fiery crash of a busload of orphans, he stands beside the camera you are forced to look at, and begins doing his one-man three stooges routine that always cracks you up. You end up giggling on the tag line "and only two of the children survived, and they will be horribly scarred for life" and as you prepare to go to commercial, you burst out in horribly inappropriate guffaws.
This ends your career. No one will corroborate your story about your ex-boyfriend distracting you, and the actual clip of your gaffe somehow finds its way to all the news outlets in the English-speaking world, and you become a topic of vitriolic editorials on the insensitivity of modern media.
You hide in your parents' basement for six months after losing that job, and eventually you regroup and take the only job in broadcasting offered you.
You become the host of a late night infomercial "talk show" focused on promoting a sketchy herbal libido enhancer. Each night you sit on a semicircular couch surrounded by an aging male porn star, an exotic dancer, and an ersatz "doctor" and you furrow your brow and nod supportively as you ask carefully scripted questions about erectile dysfunction and herbal remedies for such.
You tape seven such shows, which run on stations all over North America in the inexpensive late night time slots, and your parents plead with you to adopt a new "performer" name. You collect royalties for these shows and travel to trade fairs featuring the same product--you won't be rich, but you'll get by, until one day when Conan O'Brien does a "where are they now" segment which flashes your laughing at orphans embarassement and then segues to your herbal sex enhancement informercials.
Your employer realizes you are still a laughing stock, and your disgrace is complete when the herbal enhancement company decides you are too ridiculous to even speak for them.
You spend the rest of your days making a pittance as a guest speaker in media ethics courses and selling mail order fruit preserves from your home. On your 40th birthday you receive a card from your former producer/boyfriend with two words scrolled neatly inside:
"You Lost"
Oh, you've got to run now? You're sure that tape was erased, right? Thanks, kid--I appreciate it.
Ahh--I remember you. You know when you taped me by the principal's car after that staff party? I wasn't really peeing... It was all just a joke. You have destroyed that video, right? Good. So, you want to be a newscaster? Hmmm--I think it will look something like this.
First of all, you've got that combination of "pretty" and "authoritative" that will give you a leg up on the competition. Sure, if you looked good and were a visible minority, you'd get there quicker, but still, you've got the right... tools for the job.
You'll need to take some sort of training--there's hundreds of programs all over that will let you study broadcasting while practicing in the college's studio and then working as an unpaid intern--which is another word for slave--at the local cable access station. At the station you'll run cameras, aim lights, and help prep guests and on-air "talent"--though calling the bunch of freaks and weirdos that vie for time on those stations that nobody watches is stretching it just a bit. You'll chuckle at the program warning that UFO's have landed and the aliens are among us, and you'll cringe every time you get assigned to tape "The Golden Age Nudist Music Appreciation Show" with naked 70 year olds dancing to scratchy jazz standards.
Eventually you'll get your chance in front of the camera. It may be a local dog show, or the big scout jamboree, but you'll get to lead a one-man camera crew around while you stick a microphone in front of a variety of inarticulate clods. Your parents' investment in your teeth and your perfect skin mean that the camera is your friend, and it isn't long before a real station agrees to let you do your next work experience placement in their newsroom.
You thought you'd been blessed with a clean, wholesome beauty, but soon you're having an anxiety attack whenever a small pimple appears on your face, and you borrow money from your parents to finance the plastic surgery you're convinced you need until too late you realize it was just the wonky picture tube on your old television that made your nose look crooked. Still, you become skilled at doing the fluff "around town" pieces for the evening news, and when your internship is finished, you are offered a job which pays pathetically little, but gets your face on the screen.
You do that mundane schtick for a year or two, and then when one of the two regular evening news anchors takes a job in a bigger market, they decide to give you a shot at the coveted anchor chair. You aren't the most experienced or most qualified for the job, but the producer knows you'll look good in those ads on the sides of buses, and you'll distract from the bulbous alcoholic's nose that dominates every shot of your veteran anchor partner. He, of course, soon resents your easy rise to equality with him, and takes every opportunity to belittle your work to the rest of the crew. You ignore him as best you can, and the public warms to you quickly.
Just as you ready to sign a new contract at the end of your first year, expecting a nice raise, there's a newsroom coup, and your producer is fired, and the new one, at the senior newscaster's urging, decides not to renew your contract. Fortunately for you, your new producer will land a good job in another city, and he'll bring you along to his new station.
His mentorship comes with a price, though. He knows you and he are both new to the city you now call home, and he manages to monopolize all your free time until suddenly you wake up and find yourself in a relationship with him. Since you'd been staying at his place anyways until you "settled in", it's an easy transition to make from employee to lover, and your new colleagues assure each other that it's only your willingness to "put out" for your producer boyfriend that got you your new job in the first place.
The constant backbiting grates on you, and one day you decide to test their theory, and you break up with your controlling partner. He assures you that your job is safe, but one day, while you are describing the horrible death toll in the fiery crash of a busload of orphans, he stands beside the camera you are forced to look at, and begins doing his one-man three stooges routine that always cracks you up. You end up giggling on the tag line "and only two of the children survived, and they will be horribly scarred for life" and as you prepare to go to commercial, you burst out in horribly inappropriate guffaws.
This ends your career. No one will corroborate your story about your ex-boyfriend distracting you, and the actual clip of your gaffe somehow finds its way to all the news outlets in the English-speaking world, and you become a topic of vitriolic editorials on the insensitivity of modern media.
You hide in your parents' basement for six months after losing that job, and eventually you regroup and take the only job in broadcasting offered you.
You become the host of a late night infomercial "talk show" focused on promoting a sketchy herbal libido enhancer. Each night you sit on a semicircular couch surrounded by an aging male porn star, an exotic dancer, and an ersatz "doctor" and you furrow your brow and nod supportively as you ask carefully scripted questions about erectile dysfunction and herbal remedies for such.
You tape seven such shows, which run on stations all over North America in the inexpensive late night time slots, and your parents plead with you to adopt a new "performer" name. You collect royalties for these shows and travel to trade fairs featuring the same product--you won't be rich, but you'll get by, until one day when Conan O'Brien does a "where are they now" segment which flashes your laughing at orphans embarassement and then segues to your herbal sex enhancement informercials.
Your employer realizes you are still a laughing stock, and your disgrace is complete when the herbal enhancement company decides you are too ridiculous to even speak for them.
You spend the rest of your days making a pittance as a guest speaker in media ethics courses and selling mail order fruit preserves from your home. On your 40th birthday you receive a card from your former producer/boyfriend with two words scrolled neatly inside:
"You Lost"
Oh, you've got to run now? You're sure that tape was erased, right? Thanks, kid--I appreciate it.
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