Ewwwwww

Ok, a little backstory. Last night, my friend and I were out and I thought some guy was cute, he got a bit closer and she said he was a geek. Well..I like geeks. Pale skinned, dark haired guys, with above average I.Q's and blue, grey, or green eyes and I melt - oh, and above average genitalia is a must too...But, what can I say? Size does matter! Anyway, she started teasing me, so I teased her back a bit and it was as if a lightbulb went off over her head when she suddenly proclaimed, "You always attract freaks!" Yeah, like the time the guy with the goiter started humping my back when he wanted to "dance". Another time there was a guy who was about 70 something years old who kept trying to give me a massage, literally dragged me onto the dance floor where he promptly fell over (I just walked away and left him there). Then the next time we went back to that particular place he kept telling me we had had sex...

1. 1) I'm usually the designated driver with that friend because she has no car and I've never really gotten drunken enough on water to screw some stranger
2. 2) I don't tend to have one-night-stands with 70-year old men and
3. 3) EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Anyway...after the trip down memory lane I got up this morning and noticed some weird men had sent me IM's in Yahoo Messenger. So I decided to check profiles - it's always interesting in that trainwreck sorta way, kind of like watching Jerry Springer. Well...Please let me introduce you to Carpet Man and no, it's not some carpet-muncher-oral-sex kind of thing. Seriously, I think I will put down the Yahoo freak of the week on here. I've gone back to staying in perpetual invisible mode unless I see someone I know online. And..well...Carpet Man, and men like him, are the reason for my reclusion.

I Am A Sick Little Puppy

Well, I mentioned the entire writing a song with LJ thing, so I won't get into that again. Well, we were joking around and he made mention of calling ourselves Dirty White Girl (an inside joke about me). I thought no, we should call it LHBV. (I am not even going to go into what that stands for right now. I think it would be too funny to have people wondering wtf it means if we DID go do open mic nights or something.) Anywho, I was driving back from my job interview (btw I got the job and start Monday) and began wondering...What kind of song could one write about a dirty white girl. Well, I came up with something deliciously wrong, sick, evil and catchy. Sang it for .LJ and another friend and they both agreed it was a horrid little ditty, but they liked it. I am going to hell for this one for SURE

Fun Night

Spent a bit of time at LittleJoe's tonight. We wrote a song that seemed pretty damned good. Hopfully, we'll be able to force our friends to listen to it soon and can do an open mike night at a locale somewhere in town. If it's as good as he thinks it is it might prove to be interesting - I love to sing. About the only experience I have singing in front of people is at karaoke bars. They seem to love me but I'm not altogether sure if that is because I am a good singer or because I sing the Divinyls "I Touch Myself" and pretend to give the VJ a blowjob behind his little podium. (I usually get harrassed into doing it when I go to that particular hick bar.) Oh, can't forget the fake boob rubbing bit for pure audience entertainment...they seem to like that too. Ok, well I have to go to "work" tomorrow, so I had better do that sleep thing. *yawn*

Changes

Someone was bitching about how the blog didn't show how many comments were listed under each post on the main page. So, I finally got around to fixing that, and a couple of other minor errors too. If my devoted two readers notice anything glaringly obvious or annoying just mention it and I will try my hardest to change it; or I will ignore your petty requests for appeasement - Why? Because I hate you.

Vindicated

For the past year or more I have been complaining to friends that it seems companies are requiring skills in a programming language longer than that language has been around. I was on the networking boards on Monster.com and came across this article. In case you don't feel like checking out the entire thing, here is the pertinent part:

Fantasy Combinations A classic example is a position requiring more years of experience with a technology than it has been in existence. According to Hajer, such postings are sometimes "written by recruiters who don't understand what they're putting in an ad. [Job seekers] make fun of companies that will list something like four years of .NET. The laundry listing is something they find really frustrating."

A few links

I was at Contagion's house tonight and we talked a bit about the post I had regarding outsourcing jobs to India. He had wanted proof of the fact that once people stop looking for work or are not counted at the unemployment office (after benefits run out, etc) that they are not considered in the final unemployment tally. There was a book written by David Dembo and Ward Morehouse entitled The Underbelly of the U.S. Economy: Joblessness and the Pauperization of Work in America. It is apparently a much cited source and required reading for some colleges. I haven't seen any negative commentary regarding this book, stating it as a bunch of lies and propaganda. So, check it out if you care. About the only link I found that I remotely trusted (most of them were from Democratic sites doing more than their fair share of Bush Bashing) was from CNN

Link to article about outsourcing

I found the link to that news show I watched. It was indeed 60 Minutes

Do I need to learn the Indian National Anthem?

As previously mentioned, I had written a post about a segment on a news show regarding the outsourcing of American jobs to India. I was filled with a most righteous anger, which has been toned down a tad since last night, but I still find this phenomenon to be quite infuriating. The show was on from 7-8pm CST on NBC. I'm not sure if it was 60 Minutes or what. But they noted that approximately 400,000 jobs have been outsourced to India in recent years. I can understand why it is a feasible financial solution for an American company to outsource their positions because of the 30-50% savings that occur from only paying out an average of $2-3,000 per year to Indian employees. Following are a few companies which utilize this business plan:

• JP Morgan
• Amazon.com
• AOL (yet another reason to hate them)
• Dell
• Massachusetts General Hospital - MRI's are sent to India.

These companies and others like them claim that by outsourcing jobs to areas of cheaper labor "savings are passed onto customers; so they get better savings". OK, my concern with this is...who will be able to afford your product and/or services when the unemployment levels are so high in this country? Americans need American jobs from American companies. I don't want to call up because my Dell computer isn't working and hear a customer rep named "Tommy" in Somalia screaming cause his leg is being gnawed off by a tiger in his hut. * Ok, I have to interject something about unemployment levels people do not seem to understand or consider. Just because the unemployment levels drop doesn't mean there is some major hiring going on and that people have re-entered the workforce. A person can only be on unemployment for so long before they are dropped, these people are discounted. Remember how long ago the layoffs and downsizings began? Well, it's been well over a year, who KNOWS how many people are STILL unemployed, just not being accounted for by the government because their unemployment benefits ran out and they are basically forgotten. Hopefully, this makes you realize that there could potentially be a much larger pool of the unemployed out there than is currently considered, and that these 400,000 jobs might be better off in the US. Because, if these people are earning their money and injecting it into the economy, it stimulates growth and eases us out of a recession. Why do you think the government has been lowering interest rates to rock-bottom levels? If you have no idea how that works, the government lowers tax rates so the lower to middle-class tax brackets will spend more of their newly acquired disposable income. (The higher you go up in the food chain the less money is spent on "frivolities" and the more goes into savings.) One of the Indian gentleman stated that "Geography is history. Boundaries don't matter." I call bullshit. I don't much think that if I decided to purchase a ticket to some western european country they'd be altogether happy my unemployed non-native-language speaking ass popped in to freeload off of them? There are such things as boundaries and regulations to keep an influx of the downtrodden masses from over-running a country. As we all know, the platform of the presidential candidates has been focused on getting more jobs available to Americans. Want me to tell you a little secret? Government agencies themselves are outsourcing welfare and benefits calls to other countries. This insiduous plot isn't just lack of jobs it has to do with deceitful practices. If you call up your credit card company and get a woman named "Janet" with a sort of weird accent, she might be Indian. But, her pseudo name does not reflect her ethnicity, it is actually, most pointedly to DEFLECT from her ethnicity and make her more American. They even take classes to learn vernacular and slang. One part of the news segment showed a man standing at a board asking what "quit yanking my chain" means. Well, I want to wrap this up and have one more point to make. This is the thing that disturbed me the most. A company in Bombay by the name of Sureprep sends tax returns to their office in Bombay. Last year about 1000 tax returns were sent. They think approximately 25,00 were sent in 2004. In 2005 it is estimated that around 200,000 tax returns will be sent overseas. I find this to be disturbing because of 2 things:

1. I don't want my personal tax information being viewed by some stranger in a faraway land. I find that to be rather disconcerting. ESPECIALLY, when I'm pretty damned sure they don't say, "Hey, you DO realize that we're sending this information to be processed by workers in Bombay, right?"
2. When asked if they had any concerns about safety, the gentleman said no, because it was a paperfree environment.

Ok, call me paranoid but I'm remembering the fact that these workers are making about $2-3,000 a year. If they run across Mr. Jone's name, address, and social security number, who is to say that they won't MEMORIZE the information when they note that Mr. Jones seems to make $80,000 a year? In this day and age of identity theft, I, for one, don't feel particularly comfortable having my personal information being shipped halfway across the world. This might not be a huge deal or concern to anyone else. But, I am in the IT field, and a majority of these jobs being sent to China, Russia, and India are IT positions because, hell...they'll do the work for the fraction of what it would cost an American. And if you are paying a damned bit of attention to the availability of IT jobs in the US you will note it's pretty darned abysmal. I went to college in this country, I figured I would work in this country. But, unless you want to sell your soul to the devil, or have an in, you are not getting into a company in the present climate. So, I have a couple of choices....Figure out a different field, in which the $50k I spent for my education was pretty much a complete waste of time; or move to a third world country and make a couple thousand a year? *India is considering the point where they will have to outsource to other countries like China...Perhaps, eventually things will swing back around after America becomes a third world country after spending billions helping everyone but ourselves and sending all of the jobs overseas.

When it rains it pours

Got a call this morning about a temp job. Pretty damned nice pay rate for this area, unfortunately, it's only 3 days a week. I did specifically inform the recruiter that I am searching for a full-time position and that I might not be available for the entire time period required by the company. She looked a bit hesitant at first, but then seemed to be cool with it. I think I posted last week about getting a call on Friday from a lady at the company I interviewed with earlier in the week who gave a referral to another co-worker with a higher level position open in her department. Well, I am going to that interview today at 2:00. I was just about to go get ready for the interview when the phone rang. It was regarding a position in the Chicago burbs. She would like for me to come in this week. But, seeing as to how I have no idea what my schedule is going to be like this week I had to inform her of my little predicament. I don't want to renege on my agreement for the part-time temp job before starting. Why give up on a sure thing. The money is decent and I only have to work 3 days a week which leaves me plenty of time to look for another position. We'll see...to be honest, I am currently somewhat torn between getting a quasi-decent job in my town where the rent is cheaper, and going into the Chicago burbs for a much better paying job and the ability to enter into a rather cool program only offered at one of the colleges nearby. Anyway, I suppose I should go get ready. My hair resembles one of those troll dolls, I think I'm about to shart, and I need to find trouser socks.

*sigh*

I had a long compelling post about the issues of outsourcing american jobs that I saw on some news show, but, as you can tell, my frustrations are quite high at present because my IE decided to konk out RIGHT before I was about to hit the publish button. It will likely lack some of the spirit of my earlier post, but...I'll get right on that...tomorrow or something...

MOTHERFUUUUUCKER

I just lost my goddamned post...Stupid goddamned motherfucking piece of shit fuckety fuck fuck....fuck. I'm getting a headache...I hate you all.

Too Funny

I was checking my stats on Site Meter and came across one of the Referral URLs. Sorry, but this is not really how I thought I would be run across. If this keeps up. I might start a URL Referral of the Week post. Keyword search on yahoo was for: fruits and vegetables cleanse the blood? I came up number 1 with the blurb:

Cleanse the World; Rivers of Blood ... Cleanse the World; Rivers of Blood. The psychotic ramblings of a clinically depressed midget with ... contracting foodborne illness from fresh fruits and vegetables and other foods: ...

Wowsa

Ok, I dunno if it's me or blogger, but I just got my previous comments back...This is getting spooky, cause I know for damned sure they weren't there a minute ago. I checked the goddamned archives. I need alcohol. Mazeltov.

How Weird

I clicked on a couple of things and apparently got the comments working again. Though I seem to have lost the comments made on previous posts. If you are at all confused you have to click on the time and it will open another window with the original post where it states Post a Comment.

Well, hello there!

Welcome to the updated blog. New, Improved and Noncommentable! I have to figure out how the hell to get this fixed. BTW, don't see M. Night Shamalamadingdong's The Village . It was predictable, and quite boring.

Cooking

I was reading a post on a friends blog about cooking and my comment to it made me think of a weird little quirk I have. When I'm not feeling particularly happy with life. Whether I'm anxious about something, or scared about something, or just not feeling up to par, I cook. I've been cooking like a banshee when I've been home the past couple of weeks. I've made banana crumb muffins, blueberry pound cake, oatmeal cookies, scones, crumpets, apple dumplings, shrimp bisque,chocolate chunk cookies, ice cream, been barbequing salmon, steaks, and chicken wings, and a myriad of other items. The weird thing about it is that it's not JUST the cooking that does "it" for me, it's feeding it to someone else and having them appreciate my efforts and feel the love and depth of feeling that I put into a dish or baked good. Lately, since I'm single, I cook, and most of it goes to waste. I try to pawn it off on friends, but that usually backfires because my grandmother grew up in the depression era and has this "thing" about giving food away to strangers....yet..they won't eat most of it because I cook "white people food" go figure. Anywho, I grew up in an italian family (yes, I'm black, stop being confused Bou), and it's damned near impossible to cook in small quantities. You are always prepared to feed a large army or small country, depending on how much freezer/refrigerator space you have. But, in writing my comment on LJ's board, I came to realize "Food IS Love". There is NOTHING compared to rolling out pasta dough by hand, running it through the Atlas pasta machine, cutting out your shapes, filling and rolling up your tortellini into those funny belly-button shapes, EXCEPT for the near orgasmic moans coming from a friend who has never had fresh, home-made HAND-made pasta before. There's nothing like adding that chiffonade of basil to your tomato sauce as a final addition EXCEPT having someone eating your dish of choice asking which brand of spaghetti sauce you used, because it's to die for, only to tell them it's your brand, and not to be bottled or branded because it never turns out the same way twice. Hell, I still get comments about the jambalaya I made for a get-together 2-3 years ago where they offer to give me money to make it again, provided I remember to remove the shells from the shrimp next time. Hahahah, ok, so there have been a few mistakes, but it was still damned tasty. And I doubt that it would have been so tasty if I hadn't taken two days to make it. I created the andouille sausage from scratch, found the largest, freshest shrimp I could find, used hand chopped garlic, and did a myriad of other things to make that dish MINE...When you cook for those you love, you can do nothing less than impart a bit of yourself into a dish and it's that attention to detail involved in creating the final product that makes it so damned good for the cook and their happy, full-bellied diner.

Where are those happy pills when you need them?

Well, it seems my depression is getting worse. I've reached the point where I'm crying (and I am NOT a crier except when pets or close relatives die), completely lost my appetite (though I got foully hungry yesterday right after the dentist told me I couldn't eat for 2 hours - psychosomatic I'm sure), either sleeping for 16+ or 3 hours a day, completely no motivation do do basic things like bathe (I'm down to 1 shower a day *sigh*), and the only people I would like to see are the kids of one set of my friends. Sooooo, suffice it to say my world is not full of puppy dogs, fluffy clouds and rainbows. And until I get a better perspective on things and will most decidedly not cause a few of my scant amount of readers to consider blowing a hole through their OWN heads, I'm going to take a little break. I shall be forced to hang out with friends next Saturday (If I'm still here - not meaning anything ominous by it, just might go visit my friend in Wisconsin next weekend)so human interaction will be kept at a minimum. Well, if Grau remembers to call me about the movie today I might go do that, but he won't..or else he'll cancel - 'tis his modus operandi. So all bets are on my self-inflicted solitude. Maybe I can get enough motivation to clean up the boxes I had to move today. (Seems every vestige of my existence had to be removed from the living room. I am a non-person. HA!) There might be an odd post or two this week. Or else I have just jinxed myself into a plethora of posting. Kind of like I did after that last rant I had about no one reads my site, so I'm done..and then I got some responses and I felt bad so I posted a bunch of shit within the next few days. But, I promise that it won't be "poor me...*wah, wah...my life sucks" type crap. I wish I had money for booze. Damn, I might have to go to a friend's house to get all liquored up tonight...There goes self-inflicted solitude.

Ahhhh, Good Times

Well, remember that job interview I was supposed to hear about yesterday before end of business? Well, today, around 3:30-4:30 I found out that I did not get the job...SURPRISE!!! Since I don't really have a customer service background - and the second round of interviews didn't go as swimmingly as the first - I pretty much knew the outcome of that venture. But, the interview I went for at the beginning of this week...the girl liked me so much she recommended me to another lady with a position that required a "higher skillset than the previous position [I] applied for". So, she wants me to come in Monday for another interview. She seemed really apologetic for asking me to come back to the same place so soon. It probably won't pan out, but I can try to look at the positive side and consider that I am at least getting good interview practice. I seem to be getting better at bs'ing and not sounding like a complete ignoramous when confronted with real-live one-on-one convos with strangers.

Gimps 'r Us

I'm thinking of doing an online store sort of like this one: The Gimp Store. Except I have a few other ideas for posters, art, jewelry. The owner says she will link to me on her site. I figure there might be a niche market for my particular brand of humor. Though, nothing I ever really attempt is very successful. Oh, this site Gimps Gone Wild, I find to be kinda disturbing in a way, though...can't quite put my finger on WHY. I mean gimp-lovers need porn too.

Freaking OUT!!

I have been freaking out all day waiting to hear back about the two jobs I interviewed for.  I am supposed to hear back about the one in Itasca by EOB today. Not particularly thinking I got that one, but they "like me" (their words not mine). The job in town that I interviewed for on Monday was supposed to let me know by the end of the week, but I called today to see if they would have a decision by Friday, and to ask if I was still in contention (yeah, I know faux pas). She stated that they wouldn't have a final decision until the end of next week.  Good lord...I am the queen of instant gratification and have been completely nerve-wracked with all of this waiting. Every time the phone rings I feel like one of Pavlov's salivating dogs - running to the nearest phone at top speed. I do not run, so this is major. Today I spent a crapload of time on the phone trying to maintain my singular network contact for IT. I suck at networking and wish they offered free classes at the library. I am not a people person and feel stupid calling people up and trying to bs with them "Ohh, so how are you doing? How are the kids? Will you hire me or tell me about someone who IS hiring???? PLEASE...OH GOD..PLEASE???" He's a really nice guy, but he seems to be up shit creek lately too. Everyone in this town as far as IT is concerned is up shit creek. Well, I made an appointment with the local CMS office to talk to a career councilor about possible state titles I could apply for.  The governor FINALLY approved the budget so they should be able to negotiate how the money is to be spent within departments and begin their hiring processes soon for sorely needed staff.  I'm hoping to get in on the ground floor, wait things out for 6 months and then apply for something I'm actually qualified for.  Weird thing is, the lowest position they said I qualified for was an Office Assistant type position that pays around $25k a year. The ones I ACTUALLY qualified for were more like $45-50k a year. I am REALLY REALLY hoping that I manage to do well with whatever testing I have to take, and that my resume gets me decent points so that I can at least be held for consideration once they begin bringing people on in earnest. I really need a fucking job. I am getting soooo bummed out about this whole unemployment thing. It makes me feel as if everything I have worked towards these past few years was a pointless endeavor and a COMPLETE and utter waste of time. Everyone spouts the "something will come up soon" thing, but I'm starting to wonder. Something better come up soon, cause I've been having dreams of deep-throating the rifle in the basement.