The Ankle Biter @ Quibbling.net

If the iPod Shuffle won’t get my dad to leap into the 21st century to try a digital music player, I bet this will.

The parental household has joined the 21st century and gotten broadband and a wireless router. So I’m chilling on their couch with the PowerBook and doing a little surfing. My brother’s computer is upstairs, tasting its first Internet in almost a year. And all is well with the world.

Because I feel very strongly that I never want anyone to Google my employer and find my site, I’m not going to into a lot of detail in this entry. Instead, I’m going to point you over to my post at Metroblogging DC and the accompanying ad.

In short, if you’re in IT in the DC area and are even just thinking about getting a new job, I want to talk to you. Use the link in the MBDC ad.

I was trying to merge from the lane that comes off the on-ramp, as that is what you do from such lanes, since they, you know, END.  So I’ve got my signal on, which is clue #1, and I’m in the merge lane, which is clue #2, so I start moving over and notice this Ford Escape trying to occupy the same spot, coming from the left lane, and since I remember from college physics that two objects cannot occupy the same space, I honk and slide back over- after all, he’s got the bigger car and I don’t want the Bug to get squished.  He looks at me like I’M the idiot, but I ignore him and continue trying to merge into the lane between him and the banana-yellow F-150 in front of him.  Well, he decides to tailgate the F-150 so that there’s just no way I can get in- he’s literally leaving about 8 inches between him and the banana boat.  I’m quickly running out of lane, and I’m looking at him like, “Um, Dude.  Running out of lane here.”  But no, he continues to tailgate, so I am now riding the shoulder, which in 1000 feet is blocked by one of those big construction blinking arrow things.  And jack@$$ still won’t let me in.  So I speed up a little and merge in front of the F-150.  Then I slide over to the left lane, and as the guy in the Escape pulls up, he’s still looking at me like I’M the idiot.  And his bumper has like 4 of those ribbon magnets on it. 

Glarg.

I got a haircut tonight. I have been wanting one for a couple of months- my hair was most of the way down my back, and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

It’s not that I didn’t like my hair. I’ve got really nice hair- when it’s all freshly brushed out, it’s all silky and shiny and looks like a shampoo commercial. In fact, I was sitting in the chair tonight while Yorda was combing it out before the cut, and I saw the back of a woman’s head in the mirror- she had long, honey-colored hair, shiny, and just a little wavy near the ends. I thought, “Wow, she’s got great hair.” And then I realized it was the back of my head. And I felt a little sad that I was cutting it all off.

Then it was time for the shampoo. The shampoo chairs are also massage chairs. Dude. Why have more salons not done this? I’m sitting there in the massage chair, while Yorda massages my scalp with this amazing conditioner that made my head tingle, pondering how this is the first time I’ve had a good pre-haircut shampoo experience, and vowing that I will get my haircut every 6 weeks like I’m supposed to if the shampoo is always this relaxing.

It took a while to cut my hair- every stylist who has ever gotten near my head has remarked on how thick my hair is and how they wish they had hair like that. Hah hah, suckers. I’ve got great hair and can’t be bothered to do stuff with it, meanwhile they’ve got fine, thin hair that’s been styled to death. And then there was the “texturizing,” which seems to mean that Yorda cuts a bunch of random little snips into the last inch or two of my hair, to make it smoother at the ends.

All in all, I’ve lost about 6 inches off my hair- it’s still just about at my shoulders, so I don’t look wildly different. There was also a little bit of product involved. I’ve never been one to use product or buy expensive shampoo, but if it’ll make my hair feel as soft as it does right now, I may reconsider my position.

Tomorrow, if I’m not feeling so lazy, I’ll post a photo. In the meantime, if any of you ladies in the Arlington area are looking for a new stylist, I’ve got a referral card for Yorda that will get you $10 off your first haircut. And by the way, this haircut was relatively inexpensive- just over half of what I expected to spend for a good cut.

Wines Tasted

Originally uploaded by tjbax.

Despite a raging migraine, I took the Metro to the convention center today to take the “One Hour Wine Expert” seminar at the International Wine and Food Festival. For $30, I tasted 6 wines, each representing a major category of wine, under the instruction of Kevin Zraly, who worked for Windows on the World for 25 years, and is now a Vice President at Smith & Wollensky.

I appreciate the fact that Zraly isn’t into a lot of the bullshit surrounding wine. He just explained the basic smells and tastes and sensations we should be paying attention to in wine and had us taste enough different types of wine that we wouldn’t be intimidated by a wine list. It was a well-spent hour of my afternoon, and I picked up his book (which he graciously signed) so I can pick up some more info at my leisure.

By the way, if you own an iPod and haven’t updated the iPod software to the version released on February 22, you should do it right now. It must change the power management somehow, because people are finding that the battery life has been wildly enhanced. I got to play office DJ today and played easily 5 hours of music, which would ordinarily be half my iPod’s battery life, but the battery indicator has only moved slightly. Rawk.

For the last few days, I’ve been getting my groove on hardcore to this terrific mash-up BoingBoing linked to the other day. It’s called “No One Takes Your Freedom” and it combines The Beatles’ “For No One,” Scissor Sisters’ “Take Your Mama,” Aretha Franklin’s “Think,” and George Michael’s “Freedom 90″ into five minutes and sixteen seconds of glorious groovealiciousness. There is something pretty sublime about hearing the Beatles and Scissor Sisters sing countermelody while George Michael and Aretha Franklin harmonize.

So go visit DJ Earworm and download the high quality version. If you’ve got an iPod you’re dying to fill, you can torrent all his mashups together, as I am doing right now.

And then crank up “No One Takes Your Freedom” and shake that thing right along with me.

I received a call from a young man today who said he has three years of help desk experience. He was very polite and articulate on the phone with me, which gives me a reasonable expectation that he’s good at it. Not that that’s all that goes into being good on the help desk, of course, but it goes a long way toward keeping your users calm, so he’s someone I’ll be interested to interview.

Some more advice so that you can learn from the mistakes of people I’ve had to deal with this week:

I do not have a Magic Pot O’ Jobs to which I capriciously deny or grant access. I have a finite number of job orders, each of which has a unique set of requirements. My company makes money, and by extension my coworkers and I get bonuses, based on our ability to fill these orders. So if I had an available position for which someone in my database were qualified, would I not immediately submit that resume for consideration? That being the case, why on earth do people think that trying to bully or guilt me into finding them a job faster will work?

I understand that you need to work. While I might feel bad for your lack of employment, however, that doesn’t solve my immediate problem, that being that you are either not qualified for the positions I have available, or that you don’t want to commute to the ones I do have. Also, going on an extended rant about how my clients are greedy/ignorant/epithet of choice for wanting applicants with college degrees rather than military experience with no degree will not impress me with your abilities as a team player who can take constructive criticism from an employer.

Also, I’m sure you’re very smart and competent despite your lack of experience, but I typically place for positions where you don’t have a lot of time to learn how to do something you’ve never done before. So while I’m confident that you are indeed a quick study, my clients really want people who have actually done similar jobs before. And I know it sucks to try to get experience when you don’t already have experience, but the fact is, that’s how it works and making me feel bad isn’t going to get you a job any faster. The best I can do is keep you in mind for jobs that are more junior, but I don’t get a lot of those.

I’m not Lucky the Leprechaun of Employment. If I have a job that’s a fit for you, I’ll do what I can to make sure you get it. Unless you demonstrate how hard you are to work with. See?