Funny The Way It Is

Dave Matthews Band is giving away the newest single from their forthcoming album for free, so I decided to grab it. Upon download, it immediately added itself to my iTunes playlist and started playing - whoa now! Slow down there, DMB!! My music collection is stored on a separate hard drive and I like everything in one place.

I was curious about what else this harmless little MP3 was capable of, so I clicked the "get info" about the file. For the "Owner" tab on it, the MP3 was kind enough to automatically grab my name from my computer and lock it. So if I don't want to be the "Owner" of it, I have to change it and verify it. Jeeeeeez, talk about wanting to track people. If they're giving away the song for free, why are they having the file do these things? Should it really matter if "Chris K" is the assigned owner of this MP3 file if anyone with an email address can download it? Thumbs down, DMB.

Tales of the Unemployed Pt. 2

When I first got laid off, my job search was very narrow. I wanted to still be a graphic designer, make exactly or more than I was making at the bad place and have a reasonable commute. That changed - as evidenced by the interview I had with MySpace for a customer service position. It's in El Segundo (about an hour away) that paid $15/hour. I was even considering applying for a cook position at Baja Fresh figuring at the very least, I'd be bringing home tons of free food and that's kind of like saving money. So, if you ever become jobless, my advice is to consider tons of positions. Especially in this economy, I think it's going to be tough to find a well paying job and do exactly what you were doing before.

The job I started recently pays about $10k less than I was making before, is about 45 minutes away and is kind of a mindless, production artist job. But that's okay with me. I'd prefer to have benefits and a steady paycheck than try to find my dream job in this current state.

Even within the graphic design field, I applied for a range of places - everything from toy design to porn. I actually had an interview with an "adult" company and got paid to do some sample work for them. I really had to think hard about that one. A job is a job and at least it would be more honest than doing spam. Luckily, they never offered me anything.

Tales of the Unemployed Pt. 1

It's been a while since I was laid off and now that I have a full time job again, I feel like I can share some of the thoughts and feelings I went through during this period. Some of the next few posts may not be cheery, because it was hard to maintain a positive attitude throughout all of this. I'll try not to be too depressing.

The first thing I thought when I was told we were being laid off was "This can't happen to me." I'm a college graduate! I'm working for a company with offices in France, Germany, Sweden, England and Spain! I go to weekly meetings where I'm told my division is doing fine and the company is happy with us! Then we were called into a "mandatory meeting" and given our walking papers.

It was a completely miserable feeling made worse by the fact that I carpool with my fiancee. We got laid off around 11am and she wouldn't pick me up 'til 5pm. Luckily, they were pretty gracious with us and let us back into the building if we needed to. I grabbed lunch with a friend and exited the building around 2pm. I sat in the park across from the office for about 3 hours until she pulled up to get me.

One kind of sad things is that I will probably never trust a company again. I will always keep my resume up to date and be checking job boards every so often just to see if there are better opportunities out there. It was one of the worst feelings in the world to have the carpet yanked out from underneath me.

As I was saying goodbyes to a few people at the bad place, this one dude came up and we had a conversation that kinda went like this:

Dude: "Oh, you should enjoy your time off."
Me: "What?"
Dude: "Yeah, relax, take a trip. Go to Europe."

Riiiight, because last minute trips to Europe are dirt cheap and I can surely afford one over the next month when I won't be making any money. Brilliant idea, jackass.

Goodnight Moon

Do you remember this book from your childhood - Goodnight Moon? I came across an interesting article the other day regarding this book. Apparently, the author, Margaret Wise Brown, signed away the royalties to that book to Albert Clarke, her neighbor's 9 year old son. And what became of Mr. Clarke? He basically squandered $5 million in royalties and had about $27,000 left to his name in 2000.

On one hand, that's kind of cool she would give some of the royalties to a child. On the other hand, it probably helped ruin his life. He was kind of a problem child to begin with, and he didn't get any money from it until the age of 21. But if you had hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties coming in every year and never had to find a real job, that would sure as hell change your life. And thanks to Bill Clinton, he and his children will have royalties coming in from that book until 2043. That article is kind of interesting.

At least it's better than leaving everything in your will to your pet.

Offer

In case you haven't heard or figured it out, I recently received two offers of full employment. I initially accepted one at a printer I was temping at very close to home, but then got a way better offer at a place 45 minutes away, so I accepted that instead. I wasn't really comfortable at the printer for a number of reasons, but figured at the least, it was better than nothing. I'll go into more detail about my Six Months of Misery in future blogs. I'll also relate some stories that happened at the printer in the time that I was there, and try my best to refrain from using the word "douchebag" too much. Stay tuned.

How the States Got Their Shapes

I recently finished reading / skimming through a book called How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. It probably isn't something you think about it but it's an interesting book. I mean, why does Michigan have that area on the other side of Lake Michigan? This book will tell you.

Each state gets its own chapter, so it's basically broken down into 51 chapters (DC gets its own) of 3-5 pages each. It's even presented alphabetically, so you can skip over the states that don't really matter (sorry, Tennessee!). I have to admit that I really blew through the second half of the book because the book can get incredibly dry. I hate to spoil it for you, but a lot of state boundaries are set because of rivers and/or mountain ranges.

I think the most interesting thing(s) I learned were how much foresight our forefathers had in planning our country out and acquiring land. They intended each state to be equal in size (hence you get a lot of states shaped like Wyoming, Colorado, etc.) but then some states come along and screw that up (Texas). There are also a few notes about how much impact one individual can have on a state's boundary lines because of their political connections.

Also of interest is why California is so freakin' big when it came into the Union so late - it's basically because the United States needed California more than California needed the US. With access to the Pacific Ocean and the amount of people flocking here during the Gold Rush, California could have been its own country. So basically, California set up its own boundary and the government was like, "Okay, you get to keep all that land if you join us." ¡Viva California!

Mark Kano - Walking on Broadway

I recently got the solo album from Mark Kano, and I recommend it. Sure, I may be biased since I loved the crap out of the band he used to front - Athenaeum. He's just a straight up great songwriter. I think my favorite song is "Telling You I Love You" which is just a really great, sweet song. I wasn't sure about "Mr. Dog Catcher" at first but it's really grown on me. I'd heard an acoustic version of "Sad Songs" that was really awesome, and was just a little bit disappointed with this full band version. You can stream the whole album for free over on Bandcamp's site or you can just download it yourself for $7.92 (cheap!). It's the You Look Tired pick of the last few months!™