You see, it’s time to praise something.

“Whaaaaaaat?” You may ask. I’ll tell you what. MIDI music. That’s right. Mother fucking MIDI music.

Some of you know what that is, and you’re already nodding your head and saying, “AWWWW Shit! He’s goin’ there!”

Others may be scratching said organ, wondering what the fuck I’m babbling about.

MIDI music is how The Machine bares its soul to the world. It’s how boy-computers serenade girl-computers. It’s what 1′s and zeros sound like, if they sounded like anything at all.

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. I got that from wikipedia. I tried learning more about it, but my eyes glazed over ten seconds after reading the acronym. It’s all very complicated and tech-ish. If someone tries to tell you that it’s not complicated, then they are probably smarter than you. Do not talk to them. All YOU need to know is that MIDI music is not actual recorded music, but rather a set of instructions that a computer reads, then uses to recreate said Eargasm.

If you’ve ever played the original Nintendo games, you’ve no doubt jammed out to some rockin’ MIDI tunes, and didn’t even know it! As far as I’m concerned, MIDI music reaches its pinnacle of perfection on video game sound tracks. They are almost entirely responsible for creating a game’s mood: that MIDI theme in the background lets you know whether you’re somewhere dangerous, somewhere fun, or hopefully somewhere that’s both!!!

There is probably only one place where I can truly start this magical MIDI odyssey, and that has to be the Super Mario Brothers theme song. Everybody knows this diddy, even if they have no clue who the fuck these Mario Brothers are. Even if they pronounce it (MEHR-EE-OH):

(SPECIAL NOTE TO THOSE WITH ADHD: please don’t feel you have to listen to the whole thing when I post these songs. They are for demonstration purposes only. Listen as little or as much as you want. SPECIAL NOTE TO ANYONE ABOVE FORTY: Remember to pause the above video before proceeding to the next.)

Now, doesn’t that bring back some fond memories? The problem is that you’ve heard this song so many times, you’ve grown complacent and you think it’s a simple little song. But is it? Listen to a piano version of the same song, in this case performed by a Viatnamese war veteran:

Not so simple, is it? That’s the biggest misconception about MIDI’s.

The truth is, They can actually blow you’re fucking mind.

Case in point. The game is “Duck Tales.” You enter a level called “African Mines.” And then you’re eardrums IMPLODE:

What the hell just happened? Why is this exceedingly complex, ultra funky blues song playing on some random level on some random child’s game? I don’t know! Why don’t you ask Scrooge McDuck? I guess money CAN buy happiness.

Here is the same song performed by humans:

That’s one of the other cool things about the MIDIs in video games: they’re actually a whole genre of music for cover bands, such as the “OneUps” shown above.

Then, of course, there is the crowning glory of all MIDI video game songs. The most epic, adventure-inspiring score of all time. I am speaking of none other than the Zelda theme song:

Hmmm. Errr. Actually, I remember this song being a little better. I guess it sounds kind of silly now. I still like it though, so screw you!

However, here is an orchestral version, which is worth hearing. FYI It takes about 20 seconds to get past the intro, so just bare with it for a little:

I realize as I’m posting these “real life versions” that perhaps it’s not so much that MIDIs themselves rock, but that there were many talented composers writing these video game theme songs. Maybe it’s just a nostalgia thing with MIDI’s, but to me there’s a certain charm to their robotic representation of music. They are quaint and clunky and lovable in that special way all technology was in the 1980′s.

Now, for a special treat, I’ll leave you with a personal favorite of mine. When I was thirteen eleven, I discovered on “Sonic: The Hedgehog 2″ that I could go to a certain menu and simply listen to any song in the game without actually playing through the level. I could literally use my video game system as a gigantic, primitive iPod! Uhhhhhh, JACKPOT! Here is the track I danced to when no one was around.

I present to you “Oil Ocean Zone:”

See, the problem is that I’ve gone too long, and no idea I come up with can possibly be good enough as a comeback blog. So now I’m just going to have to write some inane shit for awhile in order to get back into the swing of things.

The  problem is I’ve received positive feedback for the stupid pictures I use. But that takes a lot of work to copy and paste from the internet. Right clicking things is sooo annoying. Left clicking is where its at.

I have a few ideas for blogs, but I’m too lazy to properly execute them. I can’t even explain them here because they’ll sound stupid. Not that they aren’t stupid. They are. But you have to give someone credit if they fully execute something, even if its a pile of shit. Look at Avatar.

An Olde Fashioned Lemonade Stand, (circa 1800-2010)

Did you have a childhood business when you were a child? I know I did.

Most little kids usually begin their tryst into the great entrepreneurial world by means of the ever lucrative lemonadestand. At least, that’s my impression. I think I’ve seen maybe three kid-run lemonade stands in my life. Yet, I have this crystal clear picture in my head of a gingham covered table topped with empty glasses waiting to be filled from the ice cold pitcher. The charmingly handmade sign reading “Lemonade 10 Cents” replete with a young freckled, red-haired child behind the counter completes the image.

A couple tangental notes about this image of perfect childhood entrepeneurial bliss–

1. I was never a red-haired freckled child, yet I always saw myself as such if I were ever to sell lemonade. I don’t expect you to understand this anymore than I understand it myself.

2. Why is the lemonade always ten cents? I really believe that lemonade has ALWAYS been 10 cents at such road side stands. Einstein said light was the universal constant. But really it’s the price of roadside child-sold lemonade. Back in the 1800s, lemonade was just really fucking expensive. Now it’s laughably cheap.

3. Do people still let their kids do this? Despite the possible sanitation risks to the customers, I would imagine today’s rapist/kidnapper/generally creepy people paranoia stops most parents from letting their children stand on the side of the road for hours at a time.

4. Is this even profitable? Please let me know if you have any statistics about the profitability of such endeavors. I would be most curious to see your data sheets.

5. Why is it always lemonade? I’d love to see a “Kool Tap Water Ten Sense” stand some day.

Actually, I don’t remember ever trying the lemonade stand biz per se. Rather my version of the lemonade stand involved the sale of a product I called “blown eggs.” You might be wondering at this juncture what “blown eggs” are. A blown egg is an egg that has had all of its interior yolk and albumen “blown out.” To do this, one needs to poke the smallest of holes on either tip of the egg and blow into one end. From the other end, all its contents shoots out at an incredible velocity. The resulting product is a perfectly in tact, hollow egg shell that will never rot or go bad, but will instead last forever.

When I was in fifth grade, I discovered this manufacturing process, and thought, “Hey, I’d buy these for fifty cents a piece. I bet other people would.”

And so I began.

I know you'd buy an egg from her, but what about a chubby 5th grader with a carton and a dream?

First, I created sample eggs to show the kids at school. People were actually pretty impressed and I acquired many orders. One of my big selling points was that each egg purchased was customizable. For a small fee (ten cents) you could have an image of your choice drawn onto the sides of the egg. I remember one person wanted a race car. Another wants flames. One order for a flaming blown egg. Check.

Second, I talked my mom into putting up the money for the endeavor. I probably convinced her with an informal business proposal of some sort.

Third, I started blowing like a mad man. That day, I discovered what it’s like to work at a sweatshop. With over twenty orders, my mouth soon got very tired. I began to notice the faint taste of egg on my tongue. Yet I persisted. After what felt like hours, I had blown a full two dozen eggs, and meticulously hand-painted each of them.

The next day, I delivered the products to my awaiting customers. Some of them short changed me, but for the most part I had a nice sack of change after it all.

Job well done! Except that was not near the end of it.

As the day wore on, problems started to arise. Most importantly, I had not blown the eggs as thoroughly as I had originally thought. Raw egg goo leaked from a good percentage of the eggs, and it triggered a massive recall. About 2/3rds of my money pile was decimated by the afternoon due to returns. Then, the classroom experienced an egg shell plague. At one point, the teacher lost it and yelled, “Why is there so many eggs shells on the ground?” To which everyone ousted me immediately. I, who had provided them all with the quality blown eggs they craved, had become the object of scorn and malice. “Nick, I don’t know what you’re doing with all these eggs, but you need to clean this up right now.” Not even the taste of albumen is as bitter as cleaning up someone else’s mess. When you crash your car into an oak tree, does Ford have to send the board of directors to clean it up? Jeeze.

I just find this image amusing

Needless to say, I didn’t take any more orders. As the year wore on, people would like to occasionally tease me. One particularly creative person got their dad to say to me, “Hey Nick, how’s the egg blowing business?” Why did that asshole dad agree to say that to a little kid he didn’t even know? Jeeze.

Honestly, I still think blown eggs are cool. I would probably consider starting up the business again, if any investors were interested. I can just picture it now: mass production, outsourced to a giant sweat shop in Malaysia, where thousands of kids blow eggs in 13 hour shifts. Would that still count as a childhood business?

This is how you install your next operating system

Well I don’t have the original remote. I have a universal remote. Should be fine, right? I mean, its…universal. I go to look up the code for my device, only to find that I need the model number. Well guess what? My universal remote is such trash it doesn’t even have a model number on it. Anywhere. It says I can try searching by year. Awesome. Except how the f*ck should I know when I bought this thing?

So this piece of shit remote has no model number nor date of creation. For all I know it was shat out of god’s ass during the big bang– perfect, unblemished, and eternally useless.  Not that it would matter even IF I knew the model number and the manufacture year. You see, I have no bloody idea how you input the code into the remote, and their little help site has absolutely  no information. USELESS. PIECE. OF. SHIT!!

But really, this is just one small symptom of a problem that plagues every single facet of modern technology. Every new piece of technology comes with an invisible stamp– a guarantee. Each piece promises to make your life easier, to smooth out all the rough edges. WELL GUESS WHAT FOLKS. ITS ALL A BUNCH OF GARBAGE. That’s right. Every last piece of technology. No, I’m not debating this. “Well, think how many lives were saved by modern medicine…” SHUT UP. I’m not listening. This isn’t a conversation starter. I don’t want to listen to the “other side.”  I’m telling you how the f*ck things are. Listen to me when i say TECHNOLOGY BLOWS.

Just stop and think for a moment. Long ago you were watching movies on VHS. You were happy. Then someone came along and said, “no, those aren’t good enough. Use DVDs.” So then you have to throw away your movie collection, buy a bunch of new movies, and buy a brand new player. Then they do it to you again with BLU-RAY. (On a side note, what marketing asshole thought of spelling “blue” without the “e”? What the hell does “blu-ray” mean anyway? Does anyone even know? DO YOU KNOW? I don’t. All I know is it sounds f*cking high tech as shit!) So you have your blu-ray player. Only now you have to throw out your perfectly good TV because its low definition. God forbid. Oh, and don’t forget, now you need new connection cables and HD programming.

So you’ve got your blu-ray disks, AND your player, AND your HD TV, AND your nice cables, AND you pay extra for your HD programming. Now you’re *really* rockin’! Except, your favorite shows aren’t IN HD…you have to watch them in…you guessed it…regular old what-are-you-from-the-1990s standard definition programming. And even better, all that standard definition programming LOOKS EVEN WORSE NOW.  You would have been better off with your old TV! Besides, is it THAT big of a difference? Was your life so shitty before high definition? I’ll tell you what: if it wasn’t shitty before, it sure is now!

I thought I’d be awesome and try to stream netflix movies over the internet, onto my playstation, and send them to my TV. Hey, I have all the parts, aren’t I entitled to such a sweet setup? I think so, but apparently my playstation doesn’t think so. It’s decided that I can never have internet connectivity for more than 5 minutes at a time. This means I get to watch 5 minutes of a show before it summarily freezes. No one in the whole world of the interweb knows why, either. Least of all Sony. You buy all the shit they tell you to buy, and then you can’t even watch a stupid TV show that is itself only mediocre at best. Why don’t I just read a frickin’ book!

Oh wait…because I’m not supposed to read books on paper anymore. Heaven’s forbid! Now you have to buy a Kindle or a Sony REED, or whatever the f*ck they call it. Paper is SOOOOOOOOOOO outdated. Best of all, they make these digital readers look like real paper! COOL I ALREADY HAD A BOOK MADE OF REAL PAPER, YOU ASSHOLES!

I never wanted a cellphone. I still don’t want one. I had a dream once I snapped mine in half. Like breaking a kitten’s neck. I felt no remorse or regret. I felt no pity. I felt nothing.

Somehow I ended up with a life filled with glittering technology, even though I never really wanted any of it. Every step of the way, I kept thinking, “Gee, I guess it’s time to upgrade.” Keep in mind that the same people who sold me all this shit actually have no f*cking clue how it all works. When it goes wrong they give you a half-ass troubleshoot guide, pat you on your bottom, and say “come back when you’re ready for an upgrade!”

You know what world? F*ck your upgrades. My ass is downgrading. You can reach me by Pony Express, I’m only going to the theatre from now on, my kid will never have a “first Sony,” and my next blog is going to be cuneiform, written with a stick in the mud.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

A few hours ago I was sleeping, when I suddenly had this exceedingly strong craving to play this little game called Everquest. What emotions do you feel when you hear that word, “Everquest”? Perhaps you’ve never heard of it, and thus feel no emotions at all. Or perhaps it brings to mind images of nerdy individuals sitting in their stale rooms, staring zombie-like at their monitor, hot-pocket wrappers and Styrofoam Cup-o-Noodle containers littering the desk? Or maybe, if you played it, it evokes a sense of nostalgia? Or maybe you just inwardly cringe, and think, “oh, great, he’s going to write about *this*?”

Yeah, I am.

Let’s face it. Playing Everquest or “EQ” as the cool kids call it, took up a good hunk of my life. From January 2000, to approximately 2005, I was in fairly deep. I guess now is as good a time to reflect on that experience as any– after all,  this month marks a full  decade since I picked up that game at a local Circuit City.

It all started when I read an article about how addictive the game was. I remember it said people would go days without showering, would play it for hours at a time, would neglect all their responsibilities in real life. While the article was clearly designed as a warning, I interpreted it as, “wow! This game must be awesome!” You’d think if someone told you something was highly addictive, you’d stay away from it…

I remember installing it for the first time, and how long it took. It annoyed me. I was also a little sore about the fact that you had to pay a monthly subscription. Of course, they give you a month free. Like most fools, I thought I’d be done with it in a month. I can still hum the original theme song it played while the game was loading. The first time, it sounded pretty cheesy. So far I was not impressed.

My first character was half elf, half human, and he was a “ranger.” Imagine a Robin Hood type guy. My first real memory is walking out of this huge hollowed out tree, and onto this road that went through a valley with rolling hills. The graphics were incredibly bad. The game was from a first person view, which I hated, because I couldn’t even see my character. Most of the screen was taken up with buttons and menus that I didn’t understand, and only a small square in the middle of the screen let me view the actual world I was exploring. I saw a snake slither by, minding its own business, and decided to attack it. Cheezy fight music came on, and a little digitized hand robotically punched from the side of the screen, not even hitting the snake.

The snake killed me. It was at the point I decided this game sucked really bad, and I turned it off, assuming I would never play it again.

About a week later I got bored and gave it another chance, this time making a new character– a wizard. A tall, African American wizard. Well, the rule book *did* say to make a character that was like your personality in real life….

My wizard was the first character I made that I stuck with.  I remember walking through a haunted forest with this new character, when night fell. Quickly my screen went black. At the time, I thought, “wow, this game is really hardcore. You seriously can’t see at night!” This seemed really cool to me, for some reason. Now I look back and think how poorly that was designed. Games should focus on fun, and it’s not fun to play any game when you can’t see where the hell you’re going.

With my wizard, I took my first boat ride. You wouldn’t think standing on the deck of a boat as it traversed thirty minutes worth of blue, featureless ocean would be a good gaming experience, and yet I remember that boat ride being full of adventure. I was leaving the island my character had grown up on, and I had no idea what to anticipate. What new lands would I see?

I remember when the boat docked, I was in awe. Here was a huge, bustling city, full of more players and merchants than I’d ever seen. I was just starting to realize how massive this game was. A person in ratty looking clothing came up to me and said, “can I have some gold please?” Being the poor wizard I was, I had nothing to give him. A message popped up on my screen: “Evilbob spits on your shoe.” Wow, I thought. This game is really immersive!

My sense of adventure quickly outpaced my character’s power. I heard people talking about an even *bigger* city on the other side of the world, where people sold items that came from an island full of dwarves and elves. Of course, I had to see this city. So I figured “what he hell” and just started walking to the east. I came to the plains of Karana at nightfall, only to find, once again, that I couldn’t see a foot in front of me. All I could see was a light in the distance, so I just walked up to it. Some guy in a colorful robe  was killing a bear. I watched and waited for him to finish the fight. I asked him where the city “Freeport” was. He laughed and said, “you’re only level 4. You’ll never make it. But here…” and he cast some spell on me. “Ok, now you’re invisible. GO QUICK BEFORE IT WEARS OFF!!” And I just started running out into the pitch-black night!

As I was running, I could hear strange animal noises in the distance. Needless to say, I was scared shitless. I didn’t realize at the time that if I had run into basically any creature out there, it would have quickly killed me. I had no idea where I was going, and within five minutes, my invisibility wore off. A half hour later, at daybreak, I came to this huge bridge. The music changed, becoming really solemn and ominous. I saw a few really high level characters sitting down by the bridge, resting. By sheer dumb luck, I had survived a high level area. Like every lucky fool, I figured my luck would hold. Now in the daylight, I merrily walked along a pathway when a lion came out of nowhere! I tried to run for my life, but he quickly took me down with only a few paw swipes. “You have died. Loading, please wait…”  My wizard was all the way back on his home island. All my armor, weapons, and bags were gone, lost somewhere in the plains of Karana. Should I go back and try to get them? Nah, I just made a new character. It didn’t seem very fair that I would get punished so badly for exploring my environment!

But that was the thing about Everquest– it wasn’t about catering to the needs of the audience. Their slogan was “you’re in OUR world, now!” and they weren’t joking. Things weren’t easy to do. Just killing a single creature was difficult. If you died, you left all your stuff on the ground, and you had to retrieve it in a few hours, or it would all go away. Travelling to other locations took hours. Gaining higher levels took weeks. Consequently, when you actually accomplished something, you felt a tremendous sense of achievement. You earned every inch of progress you made. That was your payoff, and a good portion of the reason you kept coming back.

But, the real reason the game was so addictive, in my opinion, was because you played it with other people. At first I ignored other players. It felt odd to try to talk to them, and kept to myself. Occasionally I’d ask questions, like, “What cool spells should I buy?” only to receive a snarky response like, “Um, all of them?” Hey, thanks.

It wasn’t until I met a Magician with a sword-wielding pet rock that I learned the importance of social interaction.

He was an experienced player, and showed me how much faster I could progress if we killed stuff together. He taught me hunting tactics I hand’t even thought of. Instead of randomly wandering the forest, looking for Kobolds (pathetic little creatures that look like mini hunched-back werewolves), he took me to their camp, where we mercilessly slaughtered them…only to find that they re-appear every five minutes! So we’d have a killing spree, sit on the hill and recuperate, and wait for those little creatures to come back..only to kill them again and again! Between rounds of killing, he’d talk about different aspects of the game I hadn’t ever thought of. In the downtimes between fights, I got to know him, and I made my first friend in Everquest.

What I didn’t know at the time was that he had shown me the greatest and worst thing about EQ– “camping.” As time went on, I realized that most of the game was like that– you’d sit around with people waiting for this or that creature to appear, beat the crap out of it, and wait for it to come back again. It was great because it was the fastest way to make your character stronger (the more creatures you killed, the more powerful your character became), and it gave you a chance to get to know the people you were hunting with. Ultimately though, it is repetitive and pretty boring to wait around.

And in some ways, that’s what EQ was, in a nutshell– you’d bullshit with people while you waited for action. When most of the friends I’d made had left, and I got tired of the action, there wasn’t much left to do, so I finally stopped playing.

Only, that isn’t quit how it went. Half a dozen times over those five years, I had cancelled my account, uninstalled the game, and threw away all the disks…only to re-buy and reinstall the game within a few months. Sometimes the craving would hit, and I admit it would be too strong to resist. It was like my brain was so wired, that everything would remind me of it. I imagine that’s how smokers or other addicts feel. I would drive by a small copse of trees, and it would remind me of a place in EQ, and I’d just want to go back….

But I knew it was unhealthy. Because I spent so much time playing the game, I didn’t really try to interact with people in “real life.” So it seemed like I had nothing to do in “real life,” so I would just keep playing. I knew it was a vicious cycle, but when I was playing, I didn’t care. At its peak, EQ felt like a home to me, full of familiar places and friends. Why would I *not* want to go there?

I find it funny that with most video or computer games, there is no need for justification for why you stopped playing. Either you “beat” it, or you get bored of it, or a combination of the two. There is no real “beating” Everquest, though.

When I stopped playing EQ, I wasn’t done with those type of games. I played more than a few knockoffs. But it was never the same. They were always just fillers for EQ. And yet, I now know there’s no going back to EQ, because the game I remember, and the me that played it are both changed. The funny thing about EQ is the nostalgia. Every EQ player will tell you about their nostalgia period, about the “good old days” of EQ. I started having nostalgia six months after I started playing. I think its because the strongest hook in the game is the sense of awe. How many times in your life do you truly experience a sense of awe? Three or four? And how many hundreds of times in your life do you try to recapture it, to try to feel that original feeling?

The last time I moved, I threw away every single disk of every single online game I had. When my computer died, I replaced it with a laptop incapable of playing them. It’s definitely for the best.

Still, I get these pangs every now and then…

Nah, don’t worry– I’m not going back!

This warning should be on craiglist's homepage

Applying for jobs on Craigslist is sort of like frolicking through a Nigerian mine-field. Sure, it’s fun. But at any moment you might be blown to smithereens.  You see, the problem involves the great ratio of scams to actual job postings. I would guess approximately 3 out of 5 of the so called “jobs” listed are on one level or another some sort of scam.

Consequently, I’ve become quite a connoisseur of flimflam.

There are essentially three levels of scams, ranging from outright fraud to halfway legitimate.

1. You’re hired! Just fill out this free credit report…

After you send your resume, they almost always want to interview you. But first, they just need to make sure that you have a sound credit history “since you’ll be handling money” or “working with money.” Sounds reasonable, right? Not really. No job needs to know your credit rating. This is merely a front to get you to sign up for a monthly credit report service– that you have to pay for.

Seriously, do the unemployed make good targets for money scams of any sort? THEY HAVE NO MONEY! It’s like trying to trick a rock into babysitting your kids for free. It’s easy to do, but completely unproductive. I realize the unemployed are desperate folks, willing to believe in miracles, but there’s no way I *could* sign up for a credit report, even if I wanted to. You cannot bleed milk from a turnip, after all.

2. We want to interview you! Now give us the sweet-sweet personal info we crave…

Essentially, you call up a number, or go to a designated link, and then give them all the goodies they want– name, address, social security number, driver’s license– the sky’s the limit. This is like accepting Dracula’s invitation to “have you for dinner.” Spoiler: the main course is YOU!  Admittadly, some of these jobs might actually end up paying you money in one way or another. I really have no idea, because I refuse to give out that information unless it’s to a clearly reliable source.

3. You’re hired! Now do this task at your own expense, and maybe we’ll pay you a pittance for it…

This is really the land of borderline jobs. Usually you *will* get paid in one way or another, but you have to put up many expenses, including time and gas in order to do the designated task. Examples include Vector Marketing, and Solstice Green Directory. Often you’ll have to buy your samples, or drum up your own business, drive, and call random people on your own dime, and get paid a form of commission only. That’s not to say all “commission only” sales jobs are scams, but if they don’t provide you with gas, phones, and customers, it might be questionable.

Back in junior college, I had a friend who got suckered into this third type of scam on more than one occasion. His name was Greg– a skinny guy with dark hair and Buddy Holly glasses. He was a cool guy, really friendly, but man was he a sucker. Greg and I would hang out at Starbucks and talk to random people. I never talk to random people by myself, but he was one of those people that happens to attract crazy folk. He’s also the type of person that gets into adventures, and sucks you into them, and he loved pointless philosophical conversations. Sometimes I’d go with it, sometimes I’d get irate:

Hello, I'm Buddy Holly. Would you like to purchase a 30-year variable loan this day?

“You know, dude,” he said one day, “I think we’re all connected. All of us, Man. We’re all one, ya know?”

“Really, then how come I can’t read your mind right now?”

He looked at me like I shot his puppy.

Greg would say things like: “Man, I’ve had every type of sex there is. I’ve f*cked and I’ve made love.” What do you say to something like that? He also had a sticker on the back of his car declaring that “you’re never too young to be a dirty old man.” I guess that’s true. Come to think of it, he might have been a bit of a perv, but he was certainly interesting.

So when he wanted me to “come to his work,” I thought, “heck, it’ll be an experience, if nothing else.”

We drove about twenty five minutes to an empty commercial building where a few awkward people stood around a few collapsible card tables. They were really friendly to me. Really. Friendly.

No, not *that* friendly. But more friendly than one might expect. If I went to your work, would everyone want to shake my hand and ask me about myself? Probably not, but these people did. Really friendly strangers creep me out. It smacks too much of cultism.

They quickly separated me from Greg, herding me and the one other “visitor” into a side room. There, we enjoyed a lovely sideshow presentation with Walter. Walter looked like a younger, more vibrant Wilford Brimley. He expounded upon the virtues of taking 30-year house loans over 15-year house loans. He used “Brother A” and “Brother B” to demonstrate how the poor schmuck trying to pay off his house early (Brother A) would actually end up broke and in the gutter, while the 30-year loan guy (Brother B) would soar to amazing financial heights by investing his extra money.

Here, Larry. Take this with you also. These pyramid tops won't sell themselves!

Then we entered the fluorescent lit main-room again to join the rest of the gang. There, we heard Chun Li’s success story– she had managed to sell a few loans to people, and recruit a few people under her. Every scam of the third variety benefits from a success story. In this case, Chun Li fit the bill perfectly. Because, you see, if you recruit someone and *they* sell a loan, *you* get a cut. And if *they* recruit someone, you get a smaller cut of that also. For those who have a hard time envisioning this, try imagining a PYRAMID. I think it was during Chun Li’s success story that all the pieces came together. This was an actual pyramid scheme!

I suppose you’d expect me to be mad at Greg, but I wasn’t, really. He genuinely thought it was a great system, where everyone could benefit, and he wanted me to get in on the action. While I declined paying the $250 initiation fee, or buying the special $150 loan calculator (retail $300), I was genuinely excited that I got to witness the inner workings of a pyramid scheme. It was like spotting a unicorn, or some other beast of myths and legends.

Later, I asked him how successful he’d been in the loan biz. He told me how he’d gone door to door in countless neighborhoods. I asked him outright, “how many loans have you sold?”

“Well, none, yet…” he paused, “But this job’s way better than my last one. I had to buy like ten boxes of books and resell them, but nobody wanted them. I lost like $500!”

“Wow, really?”

“Yeah, I’ve only spent like $350 on this job.”

“Including gas?”

He looked at me like I shot his puppy.

When I left for Davis a year later, I saw him one last time. He was selling grills through some outfit.

“Hey, man. If you know *anyone*…*anyone* who wants a grill or wants to sell grills, give ‘em one of these!” He handed me a stack of business cards he printed out on his own computer. I took them, knowing full well I’d throw them away the next day.

Who knows what happened to Greg? Sometimes I imagine him trying desperately to hand out fliers on the dark, rainy streets of New York, the Taxi Driver theme playing in the background.

Then again, maybe if you buy into enough of those scams, if you believe in them enough, maybe you one day become absorbed into their world. You actually *become* the scam. After all, someone has to sell $150 loan calculators. An actual human has to post those scam adds on Craigslist. Why not Greg?

Out of curiosity, I might email back Mohimbi, deposed Prince of Nigeria. Not to provide the $1,000 deposit necessary to secure his inheritance. Rather, I wonder if he’s hiring?

Become the con you want to see in this world

]]> http://nickkom.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/project-job-hunt-scams-and-schemes/feed/ 0 nickkom Boom! Greg Money Shapes The Con Is U! http://nickkom.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/the-end-of-the-world/ http://nickkom.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/the-end-of-the-world/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:00:55 +0000 nickkom http://nickkom.wordpress.com/?p=105 ]]> You hear classical music playing softly, and a red curtain pulls to the side. You see Nick sitting in a leather chair with pipe and smoking jacket. He is intently reading a stone tablet scrawled with esoteric symbols. He looks up, and puts his pipe down.

I'm pretty sure it says, "Don't worry, be happy..."

Oh! Hello. I didn’t see you there. I was busy reading the Mayan Calendar, which lets everyone know when the world will end. Did you know the world will end on Dec 21, 2012? It’s true.

Among other things, the sun will align with the center of the milky way, and block off whatever cosmic nourishment comes from it. Also, there will be a lot of solar flare activity then (well, actually more like mid to late 2011, but close enough, right?). At this point, the Mayan Calendar either ends, or goes to a new era, depending on who you ask. For more information on precisely how the world will end, please watch the John Cusack movie “2012.” That should give you an accurate portrayal of the events that will ensue.

The World Ends Not With a Bang But a Cusack

Yes, 2012 is coming to town, and with it a string of books telling you all about the impending doom: The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies, and Possibilities, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck, and best of all The Complete Idiot’s Guide to 2012.

Conveniently, you don’t have to be in to New Age cosmology to jump on the doomsday bandwagon. For those with a sci-fi sensibility, you can root for a  zombie apocalypse or a potential grey goo situation brought about by nanotechnology.

But if those End of the World scenarios aren’t to your liking, there’s always GLOBAL WARMING.

How many of you were like, “haha yeah, those are crazy beliefs…hey wait a second!”

Look, I saw an Inconvenient Truth like everyone else. I like Al Gore. His science seems sound enough. But what are we going to do? Stop making stuff and driving places? Sure. You first.

Then, of course, people are worried about THE OIL CRISIS. Well, here’s the cool thing about that: after awhile, we’re going to run out of oil, and then we’ll be forced to have low carbon emissions, because there won’t be anything left to burn! The oil crisis will fix the global warming crisis! Also, I’m not too worried about green house gases, because frankly it sounds frickin’ sweet to live in a green house. You know what happens in a green house? Lots of delicious vegetables grow there. Plants chow down on carbon dioxide, so I don’t think they’ll mind global warming so much. Maybe we won’t be able to drive anywhere anymore, but who cares when you can live in a tropical paradise and stuff yourself full of tomatoes and bananas?

I hope I have my binoculars ready when this happens!

If all this talk of Mayan Calendars and global warming has you panicking, then please try to relax a little. Afterall, this isn’t the first time the world has ended. Remember Y2K? How did humanity ever bounce back from that? Weren’t planes supposed to fall out of the sky and all that shit?  Hell, my robot butler didn’t even bat an eyelash when the clocks clicked over to midnight.

If you do any amount of minimal research, you will discover two equally enlightening facts: 1. People have been predicting the end of the world since the world began and 2. They have always been wrong.  Sure, if you say every morning, “today I’m going to die,” then one day you’ll actually be right. But seriously, why bother? If people really thought the world was going to end on Dec 21, 2012 then wouldn’t we be acting just a little differently? Wouldn’t it be like one of those TV situations where the guy is told he has 1 month to live, so he tries to do all the shit he always wanted to do? I’ll tell you what: The next two years should be one hell of a party.

But the fact is that nobody really believes the world will end any time soon. Writing about it is just a good way to make a few bucks, and that’s because people like to temporarily freak themselves out. They want to contemplate the sheer freakiness of the world ending for just a few hours, then go back to watching Grey’s Anatomy. In the end, Apocalypse is entertainment.

As it should be! All I can do is pray that when the end comes, that they predict it well enough in advance that I can watch it on pay per view.

ONLY AVAILABLE ON SHOWTIME FOR ONE NIGHT!

In any case, I think I’m going to go for the once weekly thing, so stop back here next Thursday for more insightful observations about this world.

Alright, down to business.

I’ve been browsing craigslist for some time, applying to anything that even remotely looked like a job I’d take. Assistant manager for a self storage facility? Sure! Short-order egg chef? Why not?! Among these hodgepodge opportunities I found a posting for Census Bureau jobs. Actually, the pay looked pretty good (three bucks above minimum wage is INSANE!), and their website showed upstanding members of the community smiling and talking to people on their doorsteps, a satchel full of important government shit on their left shoulder. I was sold.

Everyone is all smiles when the census lady comes to your door!

I called in, and set up an appointment to take their test, and the following day I showed up 15 minutes early at the Morro Bay community center (as per their instructions), only to find an auditorium full of golden girls jazzercising to a techno version of Shakira’s She Wolf. I tried to remain calm, but its hard not tapping your foot to a song like that. Suddenly I wished I had brought a hula hoop or some one-pound dumbbells and my leg warmers.

Some other people were milling around, looking lost. There was the older gentleman with a pair of glasses and a mustache that would look at home on your resident pedophile. One lady kept a moist, wrinkled Kleenex constantly up to her nose. One old guy looked pretty spiffy with his vans on. I found out later he was a retired rocket scientist for NASA. I don’t know if that’s funny, but it seems significant somehow. Then there was the guy who looked like he woke up early out of his cardboard box that morning, and had himself a little “wake-and-bake.” I don’t judge; I merely observe.

Sir, how many people were staying in this box as of April 1, 2010?

Turns out our test proctor lady was 15 minutes late, and a real Beezy. She shamed one woman for not knowing what a cross street was. She kept yelling “pencils down!!!” like we were 5 year olds. All the while, KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie Shoes” filtered through the closed door, its pace frenetic.

Some other cool things to note– The room was utterly sterile and devoid of any decoration but a US flag. We got to use pens that said “US Government” on them, and pencils with “2010 Census.” I tried to snag one of those sweet trinkets for my personal use, but alas our proctor was– as you might expect– a real pencil miser.

It took forty five minutes for everyone to correctly fill out their two page applications. Mind you, most had walked in with these filled out already, but each person’s application was flawed or mired in one way or another. I only forgot to mention what specific schools I had taught at. I got off lucky and avoided much of her wrath. Now, that’s not to say she wasn’t jovial also. After scolding someone, she would randomly start dancing to the aerobics music, or try to initiate some awkward small talk with brilliant leading remarks like, “Christmas is only 17 days away, HUH?” Yes, yes it is.

So, what was this test like, you wonder? There are 28 questions, and you need to get 10 right. Nineteen is an “average” score. Here are some actual sample questions:

1. Alphabetize the following names of people:

2. Place the following dates in order, from the earliest to the latest. Choose the answer that shows the correct order.

3/8/76
3/9/76
8/14/75
12/31/76
1/1/76

Now, these questions may appear easy to you, but consider my state of mind. Recently, a potential employer had disqualified me from working at a used bookstore  because I “filed books in completely nonsensical places, sometimes 4 rows away from the right spot,” and asked me point blank if I was dyslexic, then when I said no, asked me if I was going to elaborate lengths to hide my disability. This was for a minimum wage job, mind you.

That sort of thing takes a toll on your self-esteem! So, going into this test, I was leery. Also, when a test is too easy, it becomes hard again, because it gets tricky. Who’s with me? Right?

So you’re probably expecting me to deliver the punch line that I failed the test.

ARE YOU KIDDING?! That thing was so easy. 27/28, baby! (And I’m pretty sure I got the alphabetization question right, so take that, bitch who called me dyslexic!) Honestly, it really scares me to think that a person need only know 1/3 of the answers to a test like that, and still qualifies to record information used by the government for funding and other important stuff. I think that sheds a bit of light on how accurate these census things are. (Hint: not very). And then 19 out of 28 is average. I’m hoping that’s not the average American’s score, but only the average potential census employees score. Could America really be that stupid? (Hint: probably). Oh, and if you’d like to see the whole practice test, click here.

In any case, I’m hoping I hit it big with a sweet-ass, part time, 5 week position as a clerk or office worker! Let’s leave the field jobs for those who can’t alphabetize…

err, wait…

What is the distracting element of it? Is it the conversation? If it was, then how come “hands free” is alright? Unless I speak with sign language, I see a contradiction there.  Is it that I have only one hand devoted to steering? Then fast food drive-throughs should be illegal. Conceivably I can hold a burger in one hand, a milkshake between my legs, and hold a conversation with four other people in the car, and its not illegal. But if you hold that little piece of plastic up to your ear. Holy shit, watch out.

Of course, this is me speaking from California. Your state might not be run by schmucks.

There’s an easy way to end this madness. For 3 dollars you can buy a 2×3 inch block of wood at your local hardware store. For 3 more dollars you can buy a can of silver spray paint. Heck, share the paint with your friends to cut down on costs.

1. Paint the block silver

2. Hold the silver block up to your ear when you drive

3. Make sure to pretend to talk when you pass highway patrol. “Rutabaga Watermelon” is a good phrase to use.

4. When the cop pulls you over, show them the silver block, and laugh at their dumb asses.

If we all do this, it won’t be long before decision makers realize how stupid this law is.  You can talk in the car with a silver block of wood up to your ear, and this is legal. Unless that block happens to be a cell phone.

Stupid.

AYDS Commercial Fail

“Question: why take diet pills, when you can enjoy AYDS?” This was actually a real product. It was a chewy, butterscotch flavored candy that contained the chemical Benzocaine. As it turns out, benzocaine is a local anesthetic. So it suppressed your appetite BY MAKING YOUR MOUTH GO NUMB. This product was pretty popular in the late 70s and mid 80s, but the AIDS epidemic of the mid 80s started to kill sales. Who would have thought? Needless to say, the company changed the name of the product…TO DIET AYDS. (I’m not making this up).

Golf Club Fail

19 seconds in, you see the screw on cap. Surely its an extra tube you carry in your backpack. A second later, you realize that tube is part of the club. “Contains a reservoir?” No…no…they aren’t suggesting… And then the money shot: he’s peeing right into it. I love how they supply you with a little green towel you hold over Mr. Woodcock, as if that somehow fools those standing right next to you.  “It appears that you are just checking out your club.” No, actually it looks like you are pissing right into your golf club! At the end, you think to yourself, “this can’t possibly be real.” Oh its real, friends. It’s very real. (uroclub.com)

Animal Identification Fail

I really love this one, for one simple reason– he refuses to give in. He says at the beginning, “Remember the picture of the horse I showed you?”  At first you think maybe they switched pictures on him or something, so you’re willing to forgive him. But then he looks right at it, pauses, and says, “this is a big horse.” Is this what went on his mind: “ok, so i’m looking at this thing and its clearly not a horse. Hmm. But if I admit my error, I will look stupid. They taught me in salesmen school to be very confident…maybe if I really believe it’s a horse, it shall be so!!” Or did he really think he was looking at a horse? It is an enigma.  BUT THEN HE POINTS AT IT. He actually touches the picture, points to the moth’s head, and calls it a “bushy tail.” Somehow he manages to identify teeth and hooves on it.  Is he, in his mind, really seeing a horse?? Is he on acid??

I hope you enjoyed these. I know I did. Let me know what you think, or send me other videos that you’ve found!