AT THE TOP OF THE HOUR I woke up with the Roseanne theme song stuck in my head. It might have something to do with my iPhone’s alarm sound (which is essentially the riff from Bad to the Bone), seeing as how both themes are in a blues-like motif. It still felt odd, since I hear that alarm sound a lot and the Roseanne theme does not usually pop into my head unsolicitedly, so today it gets an [absurd] tag.

WORK WOES Searching for a job sucks. Why am I searching? At my current job, we’re on cut hours. Instead of a nice, normal 5-day, 40-hr workweek, we’re all doing a 3-day, 24-hr workweek. It’s like forced vacation without pay. Or it’s like a 40% paycut. Either way, it blows. And we’re starting week 4 of it. The end of the week will bring my first 48-hr paycheck, since the last one was more of a 60-hr paycheck, as we started this in the middle of a pay period. I don’t look forward to seeing its paltry amount. There are other reasons as to why I’m looking to leave, too, but this is pretty much the capper.

On the bright side, all this time off lets me do more things. Like…look for jobs. Also, my capacity for searching is low, so I also treat my forced vacation as extra weekend days, playing video games, watching TV, etc. At the end of the day, I feel some guilt for not spending more time on getting a new job, but I figure I’m doing something about it, so I swallow that guilt, if possible.

JOBBY-JOBS Speaking of searching for jobs, did I mention it sucks? Why does it suck, though, is the real question. It sucks for two reasons:

  1. It’s an instant reminder that I’m nobody special. My skills at web development and/or system administration are not exemplary. I’m competent. Maybe a little above average, but mainly competent. This means that the only way I’m going to get a new job in such a competitive field is to either a) know someone at the company or b) through sheer dumb luck. I’m exploiting the first one as much as possible, and the second one, well…can’t be forced.
  2. Economy is ass. Lots of people are having their hiring budgets cut or frozen. Taking on a new full-time employee is a decision that goes through more thought than before, I guess. I’m sure people way more talented than me are having issues with this, as well, which leaves me worse off.

My best lead so far just got severed yesterday. I felt pretty good about it, only to find out that 2 weeks prior they already got a temp worker to fill the position instead. WTF, mang. I have a couple good leads otherwise, but mainly just random postings on CL, dice, and indeed, right now. I’ve got a spreadsheet with all my leads and who I’ve contacted and when, so at least I’m organized. Too bad that doesn’t have any actual impact on me being hired.

HOW ABOUT SOME GOOD NEWS I’m getting married to Robyn Daly in exactly 7 months. The wedding planning is going well, thanks to her being so proactive. I got my wedding band last week, we’re ordering invites this week, and we already did the food-tasting. Cake-testing is coming up soon, as are choosing flowers. DJ and photog are booked. Venue is secured. Things are good in that hood.

I got Broken Steel for Fallout 3 the other day, which I have gotten back into, and am loving. I tried to play as a more sneaky character this time, but end up charging through Rambo-style most of the time, anyway. My conclusion on this is thus: the more potential enemies there are to vanquish in any given game, the less likely I am to be the sneaky character, because doing the sneaky option always takes longer and requires more concentration/focus.

Remember The Matrix? That movie feels a little old now, but I watched it again yesterday after many years of not seeing it, and it was still really good. Action sequences still hold up, Morpheus rules, Agent Smith rules, Keanu does his thing, and the moment when Neo realizes his full potential is still kind of ridiculously awesome.

FOR THE ROAD Not actually coming into the office as much really makes coming into the office feel strange.