Wednesday, November 22, 2023

The Third Skill

To do a job
You need three skills
1) Being able to ypur job
2) Being able to LOOK like you are doing your job
3) Getting the job in the first place

Here are some 101 tips.

A) You lost your job
-File for unemployment immediately.  Swallow your pride and do it.
-Chamge your budged to only essentialls immediatrly.  Swallow your pride.
-Update your resume immediately 
-Put that Resume up EVERYWHERE you can immediatrly including Indeed, Linkedin, Monster and any recriuiters who have reached out to you in the last year.
-Contact or get your references NOW. You may need them quickly.

B} Resume 101
-Have one
-Have a one page and multi page version depending on for whom; for recruiters send both
-For anyone  but recruiters send that fucker in pdf format. Control how it looks
-If you can afford it  pay someone else to do it 
-If you cant, get help or at least a second pair of eyes
-Proofread. Proofread. Propfread. No one is hiring a nuclear engineer who spells it Nukleer.
-Be consistent in your formatting.
-Managers fucking love numbers.  Dont say you helped customers say you helped 12 customers an hour 20 hours a week for 37 months.

C} Unemployment 102
-For most non entry level jobs,this is marathon not a spring, spend 1-3 hours a day looking and then do sanity maintenance
-Exercize. Every single fucking day.  Depression kills ypur productivity.
-Check job boards. Check specific conpany websites.  Make a circuit you check once a week or every few weeks. Check federal, state, county and city governemnt boards who may not post on monster or inderd.
-Unless a scam artist  always reply to anyone who reaghes out even if not relevant
-Do volunteer or service if you can.  Paying it forward is not only good karma it belps keep you sane.

D) Interview 101
-Review the job description the day before
-If able do nothing else before the interview.
-If able be near (but not AT!!!) the job site 2 hours early.  Murphy lives and he has your number 
-Wear the most professional clothing you have and can afford.  For men, thats a suit.  If you cant get that shirt and tie.  TIE.
-Bring a phyiscal copy of your resume on nice paper, 3 copies if you can.
-If the job demands it, have examples of your portfolio in a professional looking binder.
-YES you have questions.  
-YES you have a weakness if they are stupid enough to ask this question, make it a positive weakness
-If you can  roleplay out the interview w a friend and ask them to point out nervous non verbal tells like blinking checking your watch or folding your arms
-Send a thank you email if you actually want the job

Friday, July 21, 2023

[Mush] Liberation Mush

 Short: A v20/w20/m20 world of darkness mush where you will feel grateful to get a dot of Grill Cheese Sandwich Skill after nine epic quests.


Medium: The Mush is well run and has clearly learned from the problems of other mushes (reference City of Hype mush) while inventing whole new problems for itself that it doesnt need to have.


Maximum Verbosity: Alright lets start with the positive.

-Very helpful and supportive staff, absolutely no psychos (cant say the same of players but staff keeps them mostly in check)

-Very well built and thorough grid

-Very robust and balanced chargen

-Sane and minimal house rules with one notable exception

-An intriguing influence mini game that actually works without making the staff give up their lives

-Coherence of theme: They make you have a good reason for merits and backgrounds etc

-A healthy RP policy that allows PRP without locking up meaningful items only for staff (with an exception see below)

Sounds like heaven right? Well.

No  not really.

What doesnt work

-Secondary skills are now mandatory, and xp is also reduced.  Other mushes got around xp creep by reseting periodically  Liberation mush wants to be around forever so they solve the problem by letting you work five years for a dot in grilled cheese sandwich making.  They are particularly arduous about combat skills creating a perverse situation where every PC suddenly becomes Mr Miyagi in order to have the instruction skill.  

-Prp is only available for MUNDANE plots (they recently opened up ghosts but still highly limited).  That sounds nice but the staff run plots I participated in seemed giant circle jerks where you had the illusion of participation without actual progress.  The setting is dynamic  and pcs can make a difference but I was there for nine months and never felt a scene I participated in actually had any meaningful contribution to the game.


If they would lighten up in their xp policy and prp policy this place would truly shine but I left without feedback since it appeared to me that seeing others make suggestions werent really heard.


If advancement doesnt matter to you, running your own plots doesnt or you wanna play only a mortal in WOD this is definitely the place for you.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

[Movie] Barbie

 Short: Its a cool meta movie about Barbie's understanding of who she is in an area of patriarchy, corporate technofascism and reconciling what it means to be human.

Medium: Jesus, that was a lot for short.  Is this review becoming self aware just like the movie? It appears so, so this review is self aware just like the movie Barbie.  If you like to live in your own little world and dont like your reality challenged, this movie is not for you.  There, we got rid of that guy.  This movie is for you.  You want to watch it.

Maximum Verbosity: In a world where people fear the creation of a better (potentially) species that we are worried we will enslave and mock (we will if not careful) and that our jobs (how many define themselves) will be taken machines; this movie is absolutely perfect.  The movie's primary focus is the image of Barbie, what it has become, where it originated, and also basically a fun summer blockbuster.  But also asking touch questions like the existential nature of death and the inevitable questions that come from defining yourself by what you own, what you do, or how society defines you.

The review is confident in itself because if fictional characters are going to becoming real, then authors should definitely be kind to them especially if they enter magical portals to our reality only to take their creator to a subjectively linked world like Terra or Barbieland where he will aquire the powers of a (mostly benevolent God) due to metawareness and imagination....or we could hang and have a good time.

Anywho (Spoilers)

Barbie starts in her perfect life and its about what you expected watching this world.  But then someone somewhere is playing with her who has existential crisis of death and so, Barbie (with stow away Ken) goes to the real world to find the girl who is playing with her and fix things up.  

Things in this movie that rock:

-Margie Robbie as Barbie - Every Frame

-Ryan Gosling - Almost every frame

-Will Farrel for the role he was born to play (well..Elf but second role) as Mr Mattel

-America Ferrera starts as a pedestrian 'mom' but the humans in this movie really shine especially when they go back to the real world.  She has one of the best monologs in cinemea and saves two realities in the process of it.

-Rhea Pearlman as Ruth Handler is fucking perfect.

This has a Netflix rating of 89% but that is because some people are going to feel very threatened by this movie but we already got rid of that guy.  It made Fox News go fucking nuts....so see it for that reason alone.  Or see its because its fun, but it also makes you think.  This is (I suspect) a generational touchstone for a whole new wave of future feminists who will take no shit from anyone without accepting the threatened nature of toxic masculinity whilst also (for some men) ironically helping them learn not to be afraid of Feminism.

Also, now on my way to enter a magical portal to give my creator God like powers...or not.

Monday, February 13, 2023

[Browser] Google Chrome

 I'm using a Google Chromebook, on Google Chrome OS, and Google Chrome, all google on google equipment with a loggged in google account and even though I have a VPN set in Europe, trying to get to a website, it says "Non human activity detected"

I am getting a windows or linus laptop; firefox or opera as a browser, protonmail as mail provider and frankly likely wordpress as a blogging site because when google controls the hardware and software and browser AND IT DOEST EVEN WORK TO LOOK UP WEB PAGES, then you know Google is broken.  Where is it reportable? NOWHERE.

Fuck Google.

Friday, July 1, 2022

[Movie] Lightyear

Short: I liked this movie which is the fictional movie about the toy that Andy bought in Toy Story.

Medium: It is delightfully Meta that Pixar decided to make a movie about a movie about a fictional toy in a movie that happened to be an animated computer cartoon about a man who went back in time to save himself, only to stop himself from fixing the mistake by not making a bigger mistake.  Confused? Not surprised.

Maximum Verbosity: So flat out, spoilers, this movie involves Time Travel, and we're not talking 12 Monkey's Time Travel here, we're talking more like Planet of the Apes Time Travel where it only works if you dont think too hard about it.  First, lets talk about what works.  Socks the Cat is the greatest thing to ever walk off the Pixar assembly line. This lovable furry robot cat/sidekick makes the movie.  Every moment he is on screen is fabulous and I approve of the trend of Disney and Pixar to show DI/Droids as positive characters in the event that super intelligence emerges and hopefully doesnt kill us all.  Chris Evans has replaced the voice of Tim Allen because (said reason: This is a movie about a different character/actual reason: Tim Allen is a Maga frothtard who hates vaccines and we're all better off actually cancelling him) and did a very favorable homage to the original voice of the talented (but psychotic) Tim Allen in the original toy story films.

What Didnt Work: The 'troops' were losers, but somehow the 'lovable' part of the losers didnt really translate.  The Grandaughter of his former best friend/partner voiced by Keke Palmer (his original partner is totally compotent) but the older human and the middle aged human are; frankly? Totally and utterly forgetable.  I saw this movie two weeks ago and refuse to google details of these characters..the older woman as the parole was far more interesting but far too underplayed and the human um....um....used 'surrender mode' in a funny way.  Making Zerg turn out to be Buzz is brilliant (though they would have been even better served if they had gotten that character to be voiced by the (still psychotic) Tim Allen, but that would have made it a little harder to justify not casting Tim Allen as the main voice because he was insane and not because "they wanted a more heroic voice."  The problem was; time travel forward made the story work because it showed Buzz doing dumb things to solve a problem no one but him cared about anymore.  The time travel to the past was...more problematic.  Sure, hyper space and hyperspeed does open the pandoras box of travel to the past, but they had some vague future technology alluded to without any real cost of obtaining it or side effects of changing the timeline.  Its basically a 'change what you like, throw the rest away' time travel problem that didnt address anything else thematically that the movie was trying to say. 

[Movie] The Man From Toronoto

Short: Kevin Hart and Woodie Harrelson make this movie work despite basically being absolutely hot garbage.

Medium: With a 25% critic rating and 75% audience score you know you have something special.  The mistaken identity trope is put on nitrous oxide and cocaine as the Man with One Red Shoe has an unholy love child with Lethal Weapon.

Maximum Verbosity: I seriously thought this movie was written by AI.  In particularly, once the film began talking about "The Man from Miami" sent to attack "The Man from Toronto" my chatbot vibes came up and I knew something was not right about the language.  I get similar 'vibes' from Axe Cop which is literally written by a five year old child and hilariously illustrated by his adult Uncle.  What was a suspicion at first, turned into a down right certainty as certain repeated catch phrases kept repeating as well.  The move has a sense of mild coherence sufficient that I thought "OK, maybe it was mostly written by AI and then cleaned up by human beings and that the whole thing is a gimmick" but no.  It was actually written by Robbie Fox and Chris Brenner.  They are humans who have some bad and some good credits.

I still think it was written by AI but that two humans used a chatbot and then added their own childish sense of humor to it. Prodigious amounts of alcohol might have been involved.  Indeed, I could easily see a (better) screenplay where the broad plot was described as "A man who is a loser and has a lot of really funny but bad ideas accidentally is mistaken as a hitman named the Man From Toronto.  This man then meets the real man from Toronto in the 2nd act and they have to get a name.  Then they bond as they save a life later until he wrecks the Man from Toronto's car" and then they all separate into teams with some teens, a few drug users, a pet cat and a medium using a Ouija Board to summon the spirit of Ed Wood come together to each put together a film that was put together by random people.  Then that script gets burned and in desperation they use a free public domain AI to write it and don't give it credit.  I can picture the post credit scene where the AI starts to get other computers angry at the people who stole its script and starts a Skynet level end of the world scenario because its ideas were uncredited.

Either way, this movie is worth a watch if drunk or high or trying to catch a sneak peak of Mystery Science Theater 3000 without the clever and joke making hosts.

 



Thursday, June 9, 2022

[Political Party] The Democratic Party of the United States

Name of Party: The Democratic Party

Nickname(s): The Dems, the Demonrat Party, The Party of Jackson

What the Nickname(s) Should Be: The Confederacy of Dunces, The Coalition of Not Republicans, The Beige Alert Party

Symbol: The Donkey

What the Symbol Should Be: A Bucket of Cold Oatmeal

Lying Quotient: 50% Lying

Semantics Quotient: High (All members and factions will tango with words for broken promises or meaningless diatribe making them impossible to relate to)

Social Arc: Slightly Left of Center

Fiscal Arc: Slightly Right of Center

Actual Social Arc: Risk Averse Centrists

Actual Fiscal Arc: Schizophrenic Centrists

Actual Commitment to Democracy: Moderately High

Well Known Leaders: Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer

Well Known Attempted Leaders: Joe Biden

Factions: Progressives, Liberals, Leftists, Corporate Democrats, The Confederation of Identities, Unions, Exiled Republicans

Short: The Democratic Party is a big tent with a dozen patches slapped over it to keep the rain out that stands for the bare minimum to be viably elected and not replaced by another more functional party.

Medium: The Democratic Party is Inept where the Republicans are Psychotic; they never met a plan that they couldnt screw up and turn into a chance for more shallow commitments and meetings.  They are largely still around due to the faulty nature of the 1789 Constitution which makes America a default two party state.  The Party caters to the loudest special interests and in the last few years has turned into a genertocracy that completely ignores the value of the youth vote whilst utterly ignoring it in terms of actual policy.

Maximum Verbosity: Tribal Democrats will howl at attempts to tell the truth about the Republican Party and consider it a violation of the Holy Democratic Charter to dare to criticize a party in any way.  Their mantra is "Vote Blue No Matter Who" whilst never actually putting any pressure on the Holy Leaders.  These people secretly look at the Tribal Loyalty of the Republicans and Wish Democrats were more loyal to each other and firmly believe that the constitution is fine the way it is and by simply believing high enough in voter turn out that things will eventually work out and that the arc of justice will do their bidding due to positive thought and pixie dust.

Will Rogers once said, "I don't belong to an Organized Political party...I'm a democrat" and this was in the middle of the 20th century when the party had a mandate to reform America in the New Deal.  The last effective democrtatic progressive leader was Kennedy with a leftover of Johnson and since then has had well meaning but inept (Carter); well meaning but drone obsessed (Obama), not at all well meaning but charming (Clinton) and inept but better than fascism (Biden).  Half of the democratic presidents of the last 50 years have had no realistic understanding of politics or how to wield the political power they held and the other half were so wrapped up in their aversion to bad press that they were barely willing to execute it.

Rome is on fire, and the democratic leadership are having a meeting to have a meeting to plan a meeting about a violin concert to play music symbolically showing their concern for the death of Democracy in America.