For Good or For Awesome II

Part of the reason I am able to write a blog post a day (so far) is because I have little else to do. That, and these posts are so lacking in quality that it’s not very hard to come up with something.

April has a job here in Norfolk and our savings are pretty solid, so that is at least letting us break-even on our monthly expenses. This also means that she is gone all week, and I have a lot of time on my hands during the day to yell at the cat and do other things.

These other things primarily consist of futilely looking for a job, finishing up writing my thesis, and playing some kind of video game. The last thing on this list is all good and fun. The others need some work.

I’ve applied for many companies and submitted my resume all over the Norfolk/VA Beach/Chesapeake area. The few jobs that are actually entry-level and do not require ridiculous amounts of experience that I don’t have with job skills Tech didn’t bother teaching me seem to like me and tell me they are considering me, but then come back a week or two later saying “Whoops! Turns out we don’t have any money for new hires!” I’ve heard this excuse three times now. Other companies just don’t bother getting back to me despite saying they will. I heard some kind of statistic that there is something like 6,000 people out of work in this area due to the awful job market, so I’m not alone, but that is little solace.

My thesis should have been finished a while ago, but there was still quite a bit of refinement I had to do on it, so I reluctantly had to become a “part-time student” this “semester.” I guess it’s okay that I don’t have a job yet, since that means I have plenty of time for working on finishing that. I’m close to finishing writing it, which is good because then I have to send it out to my committee for approval. Gulp!

In closing, if you are looking for somebody awesome to fill a software engineering entry-level position or know of any available, LET ME KNOW. Thank you, and good night… and good luck.

I’d like to revisit the post I made in here a while ago about the ridiculous commercial for the Marines, since I now have found it through the wonders of Youtube, which really is the Wikipedia of recorded visual media.

“My favorite television commercial of all time would have to belong to the United States Marines. Yes, anybody who has seen one will know that they are notorious for being absolutely ridiculous. Recent ones in memory include the man scaling the completely smooth mountain side with no climbing gear until making it to the top, where his spirit then goes into the mountain and he is visible as a marine in the rock. Then there is the one with the diamond being sharpened or shaped or something as the man inside performs grueling physical training tasks until he is the perfect diamond, a United States Marine.

These are all very good and inspiring. I mean, who wouldn’t want to impossibly scale a mountain only to be sucked into the mountain for eternity? Those marines/mountain spirits get mad props for that. But no, my favorite is not among one of these.

It goes much deeper, to the center of the earth. Or maybe some other planet, it’s kind of ambiguous.

Yes, I am talking about the famous Marine Vs the Lava Monster commercial.

It starts off with our brave hero as a man in tattered clothing scaling another mountainous spire-like structure with lava all around him. Once he gets to the top, he traverses a dangerous, rickety rope bridge crossing the lava. He’s almost in the clear, until … A CREATURE MADE OF FEAR AND PURE EVIL RISES FROM THE LAVA BELOW!

Normally such a sight would make even the bravest of men turn and run, but our would-be marine does not falter. He swiftly dodges the monster’s swings and delivers critical blows with his sword until the demon is defeated. Once the foul creature is vanquished, the triumphant warrior lifts his sword into the air, where lightning strikes it causing the electricity to surge down his body, replacing tattered clothing with the clean, distinguished garb of a United States Marine. Wow, talk about a tense 30 seconds of television.

With the marines possessing this kind of might, you have to wonder why there are any conflicts involving the US in the world today. I would not want to get on the bad side of a country who won’t enlist people into their military service until they have defeated an otherworldly creature, or scaled a completely smooth mountain. If such conflict should arise, the marines should be sent in there and suppress the aggression in a matter of seconds. I guess enlistment is drying up due to the lack of lava monsters around to defeat to prove their worth, or maybe that’s just a sign that the marines are doing their job. Have you seen any lava monsters wreaking havoc on your hometown lately? I think not.

Alas, I feel my memory of the details of this commercial getting hazy, but I am confident that I’ll always remember the general idea. I’ve spent quite a while trying to find it on the internet to download but nothing has come up. Other people remember it but it’s just not out there to get. I really want to see this again.”

Well, now I can!

It still cracks me up to this day, despite how many times I’ve watched this since rediscovering it. I guess my recollection was a little flawed. I said he was “traversing a rickety rope bridge” when he fights the lava monster. It was actually a bridge of light. Well, okay. Also, lightning doesn’t grant the man his Marine powers; he is instead enveloped by flame. What a silly imagination I have!

Tomorrow I’ll write about something that isn’t commercial-related, I promise.

Here’s something I really can’t stand: Freecreditreport.com. It seems like a decent enough service; log-in, provide some information, and get your credit score. I did this for “fun” one time when I was like 22 to see if I actually had good credit. Turns out I do, somehow. Awesome!

BUT, this site just cannot get its advertising together. It’s so irritating.

I remember the first commercial always being played either really late or during shows that really made you question whether or not the projected audience cared about what their credit score is, like South Park. It started with this nerdy white guy saying so whiny, “I’m theeeeeenking of a number…” Then he goes on and on bragging about how good his credit score is, and how you too can benefit from this Jesus of a site, www.freecreditreport.com.

You can even print it out if you want to. Wow! The “Print” feature that is standard to any web browser can be used on this site! What an innovation!

This ran for a long time, and then disappeared. For a while I breathed a sigh of relief, foolishly assuming that this site was finished. Boy was I wrong. They ditched this smug white guy and went in a completely different direction. Unfortunately for them, they were so far lost in Crapville that this new direction just took them to a different section of town.

This is absolute garbage. This song is so annoying, and the thing I really can’t figure out is how this video is receiving so many positive comments. People honestly seem to like it. How far we’ve fallen as a society!And if that wasn’t bad enough, they crapped out ANOTHER one!

What’s with that stoned guy in the back seat? He looks like such a tool. He looks like he just ripped one and his buddies in the front haven’t realized it yet. I hate that guy. I hate this commercial. I hate that it’s a SERIES!What were they thinking? These songs are so irritating! Why do they need these “funny”, “cool” “songs”? This is a site about getting a credit report! Who are they trying to reach? This would be like if TurboTax made a commercial using Fall Out Boy or some such nonsense. It just seems like it should be alienating and confusing everyone.

Am I the only one who loathes these commercials?

Last night, the Brothers Guirk and I accomplished something we had all wanted to do for a long time, and that was see the greatness that is the rock band Ozma in concert.

For a long time, this was not possible, since in 2004 the band split up. But upon hearing of a reunion and a tour to go with it, this dream could once again be dreamed. When a tour date was set for August 6 in Norfolk, it became a very feasible possibility.

This was my second concert I’ve been to, I think. I don’t go to many concerts because the bands I would want to see don’t tour that much, they never come to areas that are close, or I am never near those areas when they do. All that and I can’t stand the annoying trashed concert crowd that is always jumping around everywhere. I guess you can chalk that annoyance up to me not being a very excited person.

Ozma would be opening for the Rentals, some band none of us had heard of and had no intention of staying to see. They were playing down at the Norva, a place I had sworn that I had been to before to see some play company’s production of “Tommy” some years ago. When I got to the building it looked drastically different, and I complained about it for a while until somebody asked me if I was thinking of the Wells Theatre, which was next door and much classier. I realized that that sounded like a good name, and felt dumb about it for a while. But not for long, since Ozma was going to be playing soon!

Or that’s what I thought. Instead they were like a half hour late coming out. I appreciate good music but I appreciate some punctuality too! We never figured out the cause for the delay. Maybe it was to give more people the chance to get there, since the place really wasn’t crowded at all. Oh well.

When they finally got out it was quite a show. I can’t remember the specific set list or order, but I probably could if I tried hard enough but I’m not going to bother since most likely anybody that reads this either won’t know them or won’t care. They didn’t play one of my favorites, “Baseball”, so I was kind of disappointed, but I guess you could only expect but so much from an opening act. They played for about an hour which was a lot longer than we expected them too, and they got most of my favorites out so I can’t complain too much about that.

What I can complain about is our bad luck in finding where to stand. We were next to like the only drunk guy there. Lots of people were drinking, but this fool was the only drunk who couldn’t control himself. He was slamming around, running into people, and acting like an idiot. I gave him a quick jab to the kidney when he shoved into me, and he didn’t seem to notice, so that was kind of fun, since he probably would have owned me in drunken fury. After he ruined “Game Over” by flailing around running into several people, he started yelling to the band onstage with stuff like “I’m sorry that nobody here can appreciate good music!” over and over. Apparently, enjoying music in a civil manner isn’t appreciation. Music appreciation is boozing yourself up to the point where you act like an animal and probably won’t even remember the band you’ve paid to see. I can see where I was wrong.

We left after Ozma finishing up, not caring about the Rentals, but not before finally picking up some “merch” (merchandise). I kept saying that I wanted to “score some sweet Ozma ‘merch’” throughout the whole show and neither of the Guirks believed that people called it “merch”. The time of reckoning came when there was a big sign over the table that said “OZMA MERCH”. I picked up a t-shirt and an unsatisfying poster while McGuirk took about 10 minutes buying a shirt for himself. This was unacceptable since there were only three different shirts to choose from, and he said he wasn’t going to buy the same one I got, narrowing his quandary down to two. After he picked one out he spent far too long debating on whether or not a medium would fit him, since there were no larger sizes in that type. He could have spent those ten minutes driving me home. What a jerk that McGuirk is!

That’s okay, I got him back by littering his car with money. Parking was two dollars so I gave him a five to pay for it, and they gave us three dollars back in quarters for some reason, which I then accidentally dropped all over the car, in those impossible to reach spots like between the front seats and the center console. I didn’t bother getting those out, because I like to feel like McGuirk owes me, and Lord knows he certainly does.

Since I almost forgot to post today, I managed to get this one in. I was supposed to go to Blacksburg for Katie’s wedding tomorrow, but the weather was horrible when we tried to leave so we turned around. Whoops. This is an apology as well as a mandatory entry.

What a waste of time this entry was!