Bacon: Take thrice daily.

In the last week or so I was asked to convert a couple document files, a .docx and .pages.  After asking what they were for I was informed that they were resumes that recent college grads sent us. 

WHAT?

So let me get this straight.  You want me to go out of my way to help you read one of the hundreds of resumes that were sent to us?  This is clearly natural selection at work here.  Do we keep letting these people unknowingly eliminate themselves from jobs before their resume is even open or should we educate them?

In the pages example I told the person to write back saying that they didn’t have the skill set we were looking for (having a clue) but in the future they should consider sending out resumes in a more standard format like PDF or backwards compatible .doc files.

What exactly are people learning in school?  Isn’t the whole point of school to prepare you for real life?  Is there anything more "real life" than having to find a job when you college meal ticket runs out? 

Having trouble finding a job?  Try making sure people can even see your resume!  Do yourself a favor and send it to a friend, a former coworker, a stranger on the Internet, anyone who uses a different computer than you do.

Tags: resume, iwork

No Comments »

I’ve seen these things on the counter at various convenience stores and always wondered what the deal was…so much to the disapproval of my coworkers I’m going to try it! There were two varieties there normal and extra strength…

“Hey Tim, since you’ve never taken it before why don’t you try the normal on first”

“Pfffft…no way! I’m going all in on this one!”

Recommended use: Drink one half bottle for moderate energy. Drink one whole bottle for MAXIMUM energy! One whole bottle coming up!

1:51pm

So it doesn’t taste all that gross…kind of like a more tart flat red bull. Not feeling any immediate effects, I think I’ll eat my spicy chex mix now.

2:16pm

My coworker says I’m talking fast…I don’t really see it. Then again I don’t really talk to myself that often. Ok, so that’s a lie I talk to myself all the time but I’m not very conscious of the speed. Any ways I’m feeling a little jittery I’m hoping this is just the initial shock to my system and this doesn’t persist for 5 hours…Its a good thing I’m not scheduled to perform surgery this afternoon.

2:51pm

I’m less jittery now but I feel like I’m on a mild dosage of speed. Sitting bores me.

3:20pm

Coding has become effortless! I can’t make a habit of this but once the initial shock was over the caffeine/scandinavian power metal combo really seems to work!

3:31pm

For the record I’m updating this using Ecto Very very cool!

4:30pm

Meh…feeling more or less normal now. But that’s good! This is the time of the work day that usually seems to drag. Hopefully there’s a little left when I get home

No Comments »

Alex and I are going to drink our way from the village all the way up to the UES. In the interest of keeping track of our carousing I’ll post every bar!

12:45
Standings- blue point larger. Crazy college football bar. Red sox fans welcome!

1:25
O’hanlons- on the way here we saw a couple goth kids get out of their parents bmw 5 series on st. Marks. Oh yeah, that’s punk. This place has their own ale! It’s ok, drinkable. Ooohh. There’s a red pool table in the back.

2:45
Wine me up- on broadway.
Early afternoon on a Saturday, perfect wine time! We saw tons of street markets from union square all the way up park. Some fedora shopping took place but no purchasing. At one place they were selling paintings of “the catch” from the superbowl. I considered picking one up for Reggie but could not bring myself to do it despite the very nice giants fan trying to talk me into it. Eli still sucks. This 04 chiliean cab is awesome.

3:30
Space billiards- 12th floor of a building in ny’s version of Korea town. Drinking some ob being the only white dudes here. Tables are actually really nice! There some crazy Asian street festivial taking place below us!

5:00
The Ginger man
Holy shit. After some amazing street food from the Korean festival we find ourselves here. BVM cuvée du 8ème… Sweet Jesus, Swiss micro brew with a hint of Swiss cocoa… I’ve discovered beer drinking perfection.

7:00 ish
Dinner! Gyu kaku! Epic Japanese cook it yourself BBQ! Sake, kiron…
We collected three other people at this point. Woo hoo!

9:00
Pig and whistle.
After swinging on a flagpole we found our way here. There’s five of us now! Moved on from beer, it’s jack and coke time. Still seven hours of drinking left!!!!

Whenever:30
Karaoke bar. Alex did whiskey in a jar Christine was awesome as usual I’m mostly drunk. Tonight is just getting started!

No Comments »

They are selling certain seats from Fenway park this offseason!  I know I’ll have some authentic Fenway seats in my living room!  Here are the details:

The Boston Red Sox are selling all Red Dugout, Field Box, Loge Box and Roof Box seats between sections 14-27.  We can not guarantee season ticket holders their exact seats due to the removal process which includes the destruction of every third seat.

Seats are sold in pairs (two seats, three armrests)

You can purchase seats for $795.  Taxes and shipping costs are included in price point.

First come first serve basis until sold out.

Please call 617-226-6800 to speak to a sales representative or email seatsale@redsox.com with your day and night time phone information and someone will get back to you if your order can be processed.  If chairs are still available we will contact you over the week of September 22^nd.

Seats are going quick, act soon!!!

Now I just need to figure out what they are doing with those sections…ponder.

No Comments »

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bacon/

“Nuff’ Said”

No Comments »

Dear Terry Francona,

I realize you do your job very well but from an interested third party I submit the following for your consideration:

1. Pedrioa

2. Youk

3. Drew

4. Ortiz

5 Lowell

6. Bay

7. Lowrie

8. Tek/Cash

9. Jacoby

I know Ortiz might complain but he’d be PERFECT batting 4th because more often than not at least one of those guys will be on base!

Thanks,

Tim

No Comments »

First thing:I’m posting this from my iPhone! Solid.

I’ve found something annoying. If your phone is set to vibrate and while you are talking on the phone you get a text message… Buzz! Holy shit it scares the crap out of you!

No Comments »

Allow me to start with a brief description of how I use my phone.  Outside of phone calls (duh) I check both my personal gmail and my work email (imap), send a ton to text messages (even more when drinking), and surfing the net to resolve bar room disputes (usually imdb.com), and the occasional photos.  I keep my phone in my front left pocket, I don’t do any of those belt holders or anything.

So I moved from a BlackBerry Pearl that I had had for about two years on T-mobile to an iPhone 3G on AT&T.

First impressions:

• The iPhone is noticeably heavier than the pearl bit its not uncomfortably heavy.
• The iPhone is taller and wider then the Pearl but significantly thinner.
• The touch screen keyboard is taking some getting used to but it hasn’t frusterated me too much yet.
• I haven’t got the coordination of texting with one hand down yet but I’m sure with practice that will come.
• I took less than an hour for my number to be moved from T-Mobile…that’s pretty impressive!  Last time I moved my number from Sprint to T-Mobile it took about a day and a half where I had to carry both phones around as one got all my incoming calls and had to make the outgoing ones on the other.

Unboxing/Setup:

The first thing I had to do before I could even consider leaving the house was move my contacts from my BlackBerry to the iPhone.  This was easier than I thought it would be!  I installed the PocketMac Sync Manager from BlackBerry’s site and that loaded all my contacts into my mac’s address book.  Then it was just a matter of checking off the “Sync Contacts” in iTunes and voila!

Next, setting up gmail…also very easy!  I just clicked the “mail” icon at the bottom and selected “gmail”  couldn’t be any easier.  The setup for my work email was essentially the same except selecting “other” and plugging in my imap/smtp server addresses.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out on my own was how to set it to vibrate.  As it turns out there’s a little switch on the left top.  Very cool.

Ok, now it was time for the fun stuff!  I click the “App Store” icon… I installed the following free Apps:

FaceBook
AIM
Google Search
iPint
More Cowbell
PhoneSaber
BubbleWrap
Shazam
SportsTap
WordPress

I had the FaceBook, AIM, and Google apps for the BlackBerry so I can directly compare them.

FaceBook App:
No comparison, the iPhone version is really, really cool!  The BlackBerry version used to wipe out my status whenever I logged into to…suboptimal.

AIM:
I try to avoid being on IM on my phone anyways but the iPhone app has a much cleaner UI.

Google:
iPhone version = really cool!  I installed it thinking “Why the hell do I need this? Can’t I just to go google in safari?”.  Well everyone needs this app!  It drops down a list of popular searches as you type very handy.

More Cowbell:
Ok, this is just dumb…it pops up a picture of a cowbell and Christopher Walken says “I’ve gotta have more cowbell” then you tap the cowbell and it makes a gratifying clank noise.  Hey its free.

Shazam:
Another “mostly useless but good for impressing your friends who don’t have an iPhone” app.  What you do is hold the phone up to a speaker and it identifies whatever song in playing.  Really.  It actually works!

Ok, now the bad stuff:

• I like the blinking red light on the BlackBerry so I could quickly glance to see if I had messages without touching the phone.
• I can see the “Slide to unlock” feature getting real old real fast.
• It’s only been a day but the battery life doesn’t impress me.
• I don’t get 3G at my house, but it really doesn’t matter cause its connected to my WiFi.
• There’s one number to tell me how much email I have from both my accounts combined.  I’d rather see separate numbers for each account.
• I think I prefer the gmail app on the BlackBerry over the mail interface on the iPhone but I’ll give myself a little time before final judgment on that one.

Ok, that’s all for now.  More updates soon.

No Comments »

Ok, I’m not British (at least that I know of) but I feel things would be way more fun if we (Americans, or even just Bostonians) had a little more Brit about us.  We tend to ruin everything British (Who’s line is it anyways, The Office, soon to be Top Gear, etc)…lets start giving back.

Lesson one:

“I think we can fit that in with the rest of them”
“That’s what she said!”

Funny?  Yes.  Over used? Definitely.

Let’s Brit this conversation up a little bit:

“I think we can fit that in with the rest of them”
“Said the actress to the bishop…”

Enjoy and be sure to impress people with your new found Britishness.

No Comments »

Hey, it’s really not that bad…

Once you get over the initial mental hurdle of  “Fuck that shit!  I’m not some desperate loser” It can actually be a lot of fun – assuming you don’t take things too seriously.  Mind you, that actually is a significant hurdle to get over, at least it was for me.  Up until this point I had shunned social networking as a whole.  Why?  I’m not really sure…Friendster was really lame, I didn’t go to college so Facebook initially deemed me unworthy of membership and don’t get me started on the cluster-fuck that is MySpace.  So really this was a double hurdle for me.

Mind you I’m not what anyone would consider a shy person and I have no problem meeting people the traditional way so really this whole thing started out as an [beer fueled] experiment.

Chapter I:  Recon [Choosing the most appropriate site]

There are no fewer than 3,141,592 dating sites on the internets.  And I use the term “dating” very loosely here.  I’m sure for every terrible idea (http://www.womenbehindbars.com/) there is a success story but probably not many.  Signing up was embarrassing enough so there was a snowball’s chance in hell I was paying for it.  But that didn’t stop me from checking out the “talent” on the more popular sites like match and yahoo (yahoo was better).   I’m not sure why I even did that cause I knew the whole point was to meet people and see just what kind of person meets strangers off the internet.  I realize that sounds redundant as I, myself, was trying to meet strangers off the internet so that pretty much answers my question already…but where’s the fun in that?

After much searching I found the winner: http://okcupid.com .  Initially I was a little put off by the inability to actually see all the women who match the search criteria but as it turns out they are really doing you a favor by limiting it to 100 results per query.  At this point I just had an account, no profile, no picture, and other people were not notified if I “stalked” them.  I was just getting the lay of the land and really trying to talk myself out going through with this.

Chapter II: Fuck it all!  What do I have to lose?

I finally filled out the questionnaire (Yes I’m looking for chicks, dudes too? Umm no thanks just chicks.  5’7” etc…) and uploaded a picture.  Now it was time for the hardcore (no, not that hardcore I wasn’t on AdultFriendFinder) dating to begin.  I had found a couple people who looked interesting so I “wooed” them.  Little did I know how lame that move really was.  It basically does nothing, there are a few prewritten responses (Your profile made me laugh, Cute picture, I’d really like to lick ice cream off your toes while you sing Barry Manilo), you know the usual bullshit.  Regardless of what message you pick it really only means one thing: I’m not witty enough to actually write something interesting but if you’re easy you wont care.

Quickly realizing that was a losing battle I decided to actually write some well thought out emails to a few people.  I scrutinized their profile looking for things we had in common, told them some interesting things about Tim, each one was a masterpiece in itself.  One chick was even a software engineer!  I couldn’t miss.  Not a single response from the first batch of messages.  I would be totally discouraged at this point if I hadn’t been receiving messages from other people that I didn’t write to.  Mind you I didn’t pick them to write to first because, frankly, I wasn’t interested in them.  Any attention is good attention and knowing how I felt not having someone write back I couldn’t do that to someone else so in the name of good karma I said I was writing everyone back who wrote me.  After all it is the polite thing to do.

Chapter III:  Somethings gotta give

This vicious circle of people I’m interested in blowing me off and getting practically buried in messages from people I’m not interested in (that I write back to cause I’m a nice guy) indicated clearly it doesn’t take someone with a degree in online marketing (if there even is a degree for that) to figure out my profile [ad] is targeting the wrong people [potential customers].  My first move was to upload a second picture.  The reasoning being: maybe with only one picture its conceivable that I’m really a 50 year old living in my mother’s basement playing WOW all day.  Little did I know how potent a move that would be!  My second picture was of me sitting on a couch with my three dogs one of which is giant and fluffy.  If any single guys out there have the means get yourself an Old English sheep dog it’s the best investment you can make.  I’ve considered having a service where I rent Malachy out for photo sessions but I decided against it as it would be bad for business to flood the market with pictures of guys with giant fluffy dogs.

Here’s the part where I was really in the dark: How to make a profile that would attract the kind of women I’d like to meet.  I reflected upon the last couple of weeks of reading women’s profiles and realized I actually stopped reading them.  I would skim them looking for interesting keywords or something that made it really stand out.  Like falling off a toilet and visualizing the flux capacitor I had a plan!  I deleted my entire profile and just made a concise list of stuff about Tim.  Wouldn’t you know I started getting responses!  Then I started changing my email technique, clearly if they didn’t give a shit about what was in my profile then my unsolicited emails were probably going unread too.  Three sentences.  That’s it.  No more, no less.  In any order:

1.    Point out something from their profile (you know…to prove you read it)
2.    Poke fun at them a little bit, so they know you’re not too serious (i.e. you really have Hanson listed as a favorite band?)
3.    Ask a question.  This is by far the most important thing in the email.  Make sure its something so good they can’t live with themselves if they don’t answer it.

Maybe this next part is specific to OKCupid (OKC) seeing as one of the main attractions to that site are all the friggin quizzes they have.  Everything is a test and you get graded on it some how.  It’s actually a great time waster and you end up getting different personality “awards”.  For example on the dating persona test I scored:

The Hornivore
Random Brutal Sex Master (RBSM)

Don’t ever marry, you’re The Hornivore. Roaming, sexual, subhuman.

The Hornivores (you) are some of the most screwed up and naughty beings in the Universe. And their numbers are growing, mostly due to skipped or misused contraception. You care not. There’s one thing you want, one sole need.

Half manly, half bestial, you act on instinct, and animal charisma smoothes the way. It’s unlikely you’re driven by much other than your own selfish, orgasmic requirements. Your appearance and personality have evolved for the hunt. Ass beckons, you oblige.

For the record, you can happily bang all personality types, however your match percentages might be low with the kinder, more sensible people of the world, purely because they all wish to avoid you. Good luck to them.

“One day, the villagers came with torches to the house. In the smoldering ashes, stray dogs looked for cooked flesh.”

Not really sure if that’s going to help me attract the kind of women I’m looking for…but hey what’s the worst that could happen?

Anyways, I digress.  My list of key talking points about Tim had grown and I decided to assign arbitrary point values to line item. For example:

Would you be comfortable crashing private functions? +23
You watch American Idol -20
You find it entertaining to watch awkward out-of-town businessmen try and pick up hookers in hotel bars +77

Again, another example of accidental brilliance on my part.  At this point I didn’t have to write people anymore I was getting a fairly steady stream of unsolicited emails from people I actually wanted to get them from! Fuck Yeah!  Needless to say my plan for writing everyone back was out the window and I hold no bad feelings toward the people blew me off in the beginning, I get it now.

So I guess its so far so good…

Stay tuned for Part Deux: The Dates [Insert ominous chord progression here]

1 Comment »