Poor forever

The reason I will never be rich is that whenever I look at the job listings outside the nonprofit section, I am overwhelmed by this sort of nonesense:

XYZ Ltd. provides technologies and services for optimizing the production and playback of entertainment content in the professional and consumer markets.

Please. Is that even English? Besides, don't you think that secretly "playback of entertainment content in the consumer market" translates to "watching a DVD in your living room?"

Unbridled passion

1. Last night, I was valiantly trying to get to Berkeley, but was stuck in maddening rush-hour traffic trying to merge onto 580. It was that sort of back-up where every time a little space opens up drivers are filled with hope and scoot their cars eagerly forward to fill it. Except the driver in front of me. The driver in front of me seemed to be suffering from a seriously delayed reaction time such that the space in front of her would widen and stand empty for long stretches before she would suddenly realize it and move ahead. What's more, when she would finally go forward, the car was listing significantly to the right with only occasional corrections. Since we were in the far right lane it wasn't as dangerous as it might have been, but still erratic enough that I was glad to be behind her where I could keep an eye on her.

Was she drunk? Sleeping? Typing on a laptop? No. Further peering in through the back window revealed that actually she was making out with her boyfriend. Making out with one's boyfriend in a car is a time-honored tradition, but it is best done in a parked car. It is an exponentially more difficult feat to execute in a moving car when one half of the couple is the driver. After about fifteen minutes I guess she came to the same conclusion--she pulled onto the shoulder and turned on her hazard lights so they could get serious.


2. Grafitti scratched purposefully on a windowsill with a ballpoint pen reading, "I do love the world."

Specialist, mind you

Perhaps my all-time favorite Craigslist job posting title:

Youth Prevention Specialist

So, that would be what? People who kill babies?

Hello, old friend

Today when I saw "giant cock" among the subject headings in my junk email box, I felt a little wave of sentimental nostalgia. For several months, all of my fifteen daily spams have been about obtaining cheap medications (they're 100% safe! they're available online!), whereas they used to be almost exclusively about increasing the size of my nonexistant penis. It's been challenging to change my priorities so dramatically, but I'm doing the best I can. Still, nice to know someone's still concerned about my ability to please the ladies.

Will I need a secret password, too?

It is 11:20pm. The local NPR announcer reads the Community Calendar. He makes it through several event listings with appropriate mellow-voiced professionalism. He even gets through "Women's ritual dance of ancient Europe. Join in simple, repetitive dances from Bulgaria, Estonia, and other ancient countries." But when he reaches the next sentence, "this Thursday in the alley behind the Sebastopol Cookie Factory," he chuckles. He just can't help it.

Nearly true

I have been looking at apartment listings lately to entertain myself. I just saw a posting entitled WHOLLY CRAP!!!

I looked at it and I think they were being a bit hard on themselves. Certainly it's quite ugly, but I wouldn't say that it's entirely crap. After all, it seems to get a fair amount of sun.

Revelation

Isn't it delightful how one never really knows oneself? How little discoveries about one's personality can come, unbidden, one knows not when?

This evening, for example, I found out that when the tram begins moving forward only to be suddenly, spine joltingly, slammed to a halt, I am apparently the sort of person who yells "JESUS Christ!"

Even more intriguing, it seems that of, say, thirty passengers in the very same sitution, I am the only one who feels the need to utter any sound at all.