Well sportsfans, I think I fixed the problems I was having with the format being all messed up on here. The Youtube embeds that were in the Blogspot posts I imported kept getting their tags messed up, so I fixed those posts.
The only problem is that Wordpress keeps changing them back to their broken states! I am tired of constantly fixing these tags. Anybody with some more Wordpress experience know why it might be doing this?
This post is dedicated to Patrick Arnett, whose tireless determination to help me despite my ignorance with web servers and foolish hosting plans did not fail in setting me up with Wordpress on this new domain name, which was not surprisingly available. So here’s to you Patrick! And not to you, Scott! You didn’t do anything but nearly set the apartment on fire and lie to your friend, AGAIN.
I’ve imported my blogspot stuff, and Patrick sent me the means of importing all my old livejournal posts, which are mostly very bad, but I was reading through some of them and I enjoyed the nostalgic factor to them. So despite my probable embarrassment from bringing them back, I will.
Now, I’d like to write more, but for some reason this looks like crap now on Firefox, but for some reason looks fine on IE. Now that’s backwards!
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?