Something To Keep Y'All Busy...

I will be quite busy for the next few days, and shall not be stopping in to blog. I know...it's sad, ain't it? There's a few familial obligations to attend to this weekend, and a whole lot of 'networking' to be done at a few so-called Job Fairs, which are more like cattle calls for gray-haired, middle-aged male PhD's and MBA's who are apparently so desperate for a job that they'll sink to selling Green Energy door-to-door.

Been there, and done that. Oh, and of the two so-called Job Fairs or Job Seminars that I've been to in the past two weeks, they're all selling the same type of job;

You work on a "commission-based system"  (that is, for free) for a company that is a fly-by-night subsidiary of a Fortune 1000 that doesn't want to hire you because you cost too much -- what with Social Security taxes, unemployment insurance and fucking ObamaCare. Hopefully, you manage to sell whatever bullshit product they're pushing -- it's such a good product that the company doesn't dare send out it's professional, full-time-pay salesmen to do it for fear of taking them away from the actual lucrative products they normally sell -- to at least recoup your bus fare this week while you're "getting the hang of the sales' thing", and in the meantime, the "company" is either sold without a word, the government-financing runs out, or it goes into bankruptcy, always unexpectedly.

No wonder 30 million people have given up looking for a job.


Anyways, to help keep you entertained for at least a few minutes, I've collected some bits of news and some links for you.to look over. This is all stuff I normally would have blogged about, but for the time constraints and the busy past week, and soon-to-be busier week to come. Enjoy!

Jammie Wearing Fool has moved. Like an idiot, I did not know this. I used to visit JWF just about every day, but then forgot they existed. Which was a big mistake! Visit them today, and have a look-see, or else something seriously bad might happen to your pet Yorkie in the dead of night. Blogroll, belatedly, updated.

Also, it's good to see that Greasywrench has returned to blogging after a long hiatus. You should visit his site, too, if only because you never can quite tell who it was that accidentally-on-purpose cut your brake lines because you didn't. Grease was once an avid supporter of this diseased rant, and this is where I get to pay him off. Go visit.

It goes without saying that if you're STILL not reading Iowahawk regularly then you deserve a big, sloppy tongue kiss from Nancy Pelosi...post her garlic chicken and fried onion luncheon, and only then, after she's licked her own balls as only your dog can.This week's fare is a rib-ticklin' funny-but-sadly-all-too-true Masterpiece of sarcasm and satire.


The American Spectator goes to the Heart of the Sickness Within the Obama Administration. A must-read for those of you who still haven't grapsed the amateurish depravity, or detected the simple-minded, mile-wide Leftoid Fucktard streak in President Odoofus that causes him to go all gay and shit.

John Derbyshire tells the truth about The Establishment Right (and you know who you are, Rich Lowry, and the rest of the frat-boy wing of the conservative movement!). I did not know Derb was ill, and wish him well. I am a big fan from his days at National Review. Between the trust-fund-prep-school Right and the Godbots, this GOP of ours is gonna be royally screwed up one day.

We finish things off, appropriately enough, with a double dose of Professor Hanson. First on just why California is royally screwed if Obama remains in power (as if that wasn't obvious enough?), and then with a classic explanation of why Barack Obama will lose the rhetorical war -- and the election -- to Mitt Romney.

I know there's more that has happened this week, but I'm kinda swamped. Promise that next week I'll get on some things (like the Obama Administration airbrushing the biographies of other Presidents to make their man look like he has clue-fucking-one), and I'll have something to say about snoring...yes, you read that right: Snoring.

See you next week.

UPDATE: Apologies, but on the John Derbyshire thing: you need to read a few of his columns back (and read this here column that started the whole thing) to get the entire gist of it. Derb apparently was denounced by his former "friends" at National Review for...gasp!...speaking his mind on matters of race. Which lead one reader to wonder (paraphrased) "Why do the people at National Review even bother to grovel on questions of race when they will only be called racists, anyway?"

Human Resources Manager In Chief...

President Obama tells woman that her Engineer husband's inability to find work is "interesting", and doesn't square with the information he has about our apparently Stealth economic recovery.

Odouchebag then goes one step further, and offers to give his resume a once-over. You can't make this shit up, folks.

So, since Barack Obama is going to be personally involved in helping this man find a job -- strictly for political purposes -- why not force the Vacationer-in-Chief to put his money where his mouth is? If finding people work is such a simple matter, given all this economic prosperity that we rubes are just too stupid to see and wouldn't otherwise find without the O-man's enlightened leadership, why not just send Barack Obama your resume and have him hook you up with the job of your dreams?

I know I will.

The address is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Mark it "Find me a Job, Mr. President", and let's see a) how easy it is for Barack Obama to find you one of these high-paying, high-tech jobs, and b) how quickly the White House servers screech to a halt under the deluge of job-seeking professionals, and a public statement is made to please knock it off.

Here's my resume (see below), Mr. President. I'd like $100k/year, and three weeks vacation, and please, no Green Energy jobs; I've had one of those before and it evaporated faster than your chances of ever being re-elected next year have. Maybe one of your buds at Goldman-Sachs can hook me up? They can contact me here at the Asylum.

Thanks ever soooo much, President Kelly Girls!
====================================================
The Lunatic's Resume:

Objective: To obtain a challenging position which will allow me to fully utilize my skills and work experience.

Work History:

December 2009 – Present: Self-employed                   Staten Island, NY
Position: Blogger/Freelance Writer

Provides content for online web pages, including The Lunatic’s Asylum, The Insane Asylum, and Diogenes Middle Finger blogs. Featured in the New York Times healthcare blog of December 20, 2010 in an article entitled “One of Those Days”.

May 2009 – November 2009: Just Energy, Inc.           Staten Island, NY
Position: Customer Sales Representative

Sale of electricity, natural gas and other energy delivery services to small businesses and residential customers. Completes customer orders and contracts and submits them to Customer Accounts department for further processing.

Jan. 2000 – May 2004: Smith-Barney, Inc.                New York, NY
Position: Technical Analyst, Systems Automation

Converts data from project specifications, statements of problems and procedures to create or modify system automation programs. Prepares workflow charts and diagrams. Applies knowledge of system capabilities, subject matter to create automation programs utilizing C and REXX-based languages. Confers with representatives of various departments to plan, create, test and implement automation routines, and resolves questions of input, control requirements and internal checks. Writes, tests and implements programs intended to increase efficiency through the use of automation software and processes. Writes detailed instructions and flowcharts for use by Operations Staff.

Apr. 1998 – Jan.2000: Smith-Barney, Inc.           New York, NY
Position: Data Center Supervisor

Co-ordinates all Computer Operations activities in a multi-CPU, multi-LPAR Z/OS production environment. Includes the execution and prioritization of production batch and workload regulation utilizing OPCA, CA-7 and input queue manipulation. Maintains system integrity utilizing all available monitoring tools (Omegamon suite, NetView, MQ/Manager, Candle Command Center). Monitors and controls 300+ CICS regions and associated databases with real-time monitors. Identifies and responds to all matters pertaining to system availability. Schedules and co-ordinates all system modifications and maintenance events. Provides end-user support for a worldwide TCAM network servicing 2,000 branch offices and exchanges. Performs all managerial and administrative functions for a staff of 14.

Apr. 1995 – Apr. 1998: Smith-Barney, Inc.           New York, NY
Position: Senior Computer Operator

Performs IPL and POR for all systems. Monitors system activity through use of real-time monitors (Omegamon suite, NetView, MQ/Manager, Candle Command Center) in a CICS-heavy (300+ regions) automated securities trading environment. Tracks and executes batch production through OPCA and CA-7 schedulers, performs help desk functions for an international, 2,000 branch office TCAM network. Identifies and reports any issues of system degradation and implements recovery procedures.

Mar. 1991 – Apr. 1998: Telehouse International Corporation         Staten Island, NY
Position: Site Support Technician

Sept. 1988 – Dec. 1990: Nomura research Institute of America      Staten Island, NY
Position: Lead Computer Operator

Oct. 1986 – Oct. 1987: Salomon Brothers, Inc.               New York, NY
Position: Senior Computer Operator

May 1985 – Oct. 1986: Insurance Services Office            New York, NY
Position: Computer Operator

Software:
Z/OS, OS/390, MVS/ESA, MVS/XA, MVS/SP, DOS/VSE, VM/XA, VM/HPO operating systems, JES2, TSO/SPF, NetView, Omegamon for MVS, CICS and DB2, AF/Operator Suite (AF/Oper, AF/Remote, AF/IRM), RC?MVS, ESCON Manager, SAR, IDMS, DB2, MQ/manager, CA-1, CA-7, OPCA VTAM, TCAM, TCP/IP protocols.

Programming languages: C and C-variant languages, REXX.

Education:
Graduated St. Peter’s Boy’s High School in May of 1985, with honors.

Candle Corporation Certified in all Omegamon products, AF/Operator, IRM for AF/Operator and Candle Command Center at various dates.

Certified in REXX programming and Advanced REXX Programming Techniques by TechKnowledge Corp., Baltimore, MD, in November 2001.

References: Available upon request.
========================================
Update: If anyone can use someone with this sort of experience, or if you know someone who can, please contact me here at the Lunatic's Asylum (see e-mail address above!). Thanks much!

Someone Hired Me?

With regards to the lack of content, recently:

I'm busy. I've got a new job (sort of) that I'm working on, and so far as I can tell, the only good point in it's favor is that I'll get to (legally) fleece Senior Citizens -- the second biggest community of mollycoddled crybabies in the United States (Baby Boomers come in first).

Told You So...

So, I caught the replay of Emperor Barack's no-doubt-about-it-certainly-non-political Economy speech, and yes, it pretty much was what I expected. Although he fails at so much, at least our President has become wildly successful at becoming entirely too predictable.

Exclusive! The Lunatic's Asylum Gets Advance Copy of Tonight's Obama Speech!

In a major journalistic coup, the Lunatic's Asylum has obtained an advance copy of the speech that President Marriott-Suites will be giving before a joint session of Congress this very evening. Lefty the Asylum Elf, after intense negotiations with Barack Obama's Teleprompter, snagged a snippet of the speech which we have been told we may publicize here at the Asylum.

Maybe They Should Call It a White-Old-Man-Cession...

Yes, yes, I know: I've been absent for a while, but I have been quite busy. Looking for a steady job in the blasted heath of what used to be the economic capital of the world can be quite the time-consuming task.

It's also becoming a damned-near futile one. Unless you speak a foreign language.

I say this because it is true. For upon entering the Department of Labor here on Staten Island (what used to be called 'The Unemployment Office'. In Reichsfuhrer Bloomdouche's New Yorkistan, we're supposed to call them 'Employment Centers' keeping with the now decade-long Bloomberg tradition of calling something exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to be for political purposes) one cannot help but think that English must have been replaced as the Chief Lingua Franca at some point, and whoever did it just forgot to tell us.

You will find all sorts of literature there in the Employment Center -- about your rights as a worker, about state wage and overtime laws, how to apply for welfare -- but few, if any, of these pamphlets are written in English. There's Spanish, Creole, Polish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Cantonese, but no English.

The same goes for the Bloomberg Administration's most efficacious, cost-effective, and low-tech solution to the problem of finding a job in tough economic times: the Job Board. Or, as I like to call it, a bulletin board full of minimum-wage grunt tasks that all end with the sentence 'Se Habla Espanol".

If you're a Native Born, English-speaking job seeker with actual skills, you're shit out of luck. The Employment Center apparently doesn't exist to get YOU a job -- for all the times I've been in there in the last five years, I can't recall anyone ever actually doing anything to help me find an employer. Instead, it's always been 'fill in this paperwork, and wait for us to call you. That call, incidentally, never comes -- and frankly, I wonder just what these people are doing on any given day (other than encouraging illegal immigrants to apply for welfare benefits while also hooking them up with jobs).

There was once a time when the Job Market made sense. People needed other people with actual skills, and so they did something that nowadays seems quaint and anachronistic: they employed a Personnel Agency to go out and find qualified candidates for whatever job they had available, and to perform a very valuable service in weeding out the marginally-qualified before arranging interviews. These Agencies put you in touch with prospective employers, there was often a series of interviews, and if you made the right impression upon the hiring manager, you very often got the job.

No more.

Today's Personnel Agency is  little more than a whorehouse for temporary workers. You get pimped out on short-term projects,and wind up having to split your earnings with the agency, who incidentally, also gets a fee for supplying your services. Temp work always sucked, but it never sucked this badly. You might also try to find some (again, temporary) work with what's euphemistically called a 'Consulting Agency', but again, this is sort of like Indentured Servitude: whatever contract you negotiate under the auspices of the 'Consultant Group', you're going to lose about half of it before you even see it.

That's if you can manage to elbow the Indians and Chinese out of the way first, so that you can even get a sniff at a contract. They're willing to work at such ridiculously-low rates that you wonder how it is that they manage to survive, until you remember that they come from countries where famine is a fact of everyday life. These are people who could stretch a pound of rice and a dozen cockroaches, for a family of six, out for half a decade, if they really had to, and skipping meals eighteen days in a row is no big deal.

Anyways,the Personnel Agency and 'Consultantcy' groups have had their primary function of connecting employer with potential-employee largely superceded by that most impersonal of contraptions, the computer.

See, nowadays, you may not even get to see another human being when applying for a job, and depending on how the computer is programmed to do it's job, you  may never even get an interview even when you're infinitely qualified. Your resume goes into a the dark, murky depths of cyberspace and winds up in some hiring manager's PC, and the next thing you know, his 'puter is deciding for him whether or not he should invest any time or effort on you.

I wonder: How many people would have been hired if they got as much as ten minutes of face time with a Manager,but they never got that opportunity because the computer rejected and shitcanned their resume before the Manager was even aware it had been received?

Well, don't fret that personal-factor bullshit none, because technology has an answer for that, too, in the form of Facebook. It has now become common to see a space on an online application where one can put in their Facebook and Twitter nonsense, particularly a link to a Facebook video of you trying to sell yourself to potential employers (why bother with videos when you can you just as easily invite people in to TALK to them? What's so 'interactive' about Facebook or Twitter, in this regard, and really: would you hire someone based upon their ability to use internet shorthand and avoid the 140-character limit?).

It isn't enough to have qualifications and experience, anymore, now you must master the intricacies of Social Networking and Personal Online Marketing just to find a job? What kind of bullshit is this, other than a way of keeping people -- that is,the older folks, who might be making more money -- OUT OF the job market?

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts of the Modern Job Search. It gets far worse.

Another useful tool in days past was to 'know somebody' who could whisper a word in someone else's ear, or perhaps get you a shot at a position, but those days are long gone. Despite all this bullshit about a 'connected' world and Social Networking, even if you DID 'know someone' the chances of them being able to connect you with a job opportunity are rather slim for two reasons:

1. There ain't no jobs, and the job your contact has they might only be managing to keep by hanging on by their fingernails. They ain't rockin' boats, they ain't stepping forward to put themselves out, and they certainly ain't bringing potential competition into the office.

2. You DO realize that most of the jobs you (and by that I mean 'I') can do with all your qualifications and experience can be done in India, China, Russia, Pakistan, South Africa, Ukraine, and Indonesia for a fraction of the price you'll ask for, right? Why should anyone pay you $150,000k a year, plus bennies, when they can get some third-party Asian coolie to do the same job for $15k (often less), and they don't have to give him medical, a pension, or vacation days?

Then there's the 'BA or equivalent' routine.

I don't know when it became necessary for EVERY job to require a bachelor's degree, but I can pretty much say that it is perhaps the most ridiculous requirement imaginable. I don't have a degree, myself, and quite frankly, I didn't NEED one; I learned my trade by doing, not by sitting in a classroom, learning to parrot a professor who has no actual EXPERIENCE, while piling up unpayable debt.

As a former hiring manager myself, I saw so many college graduates that I began to wonder if they weren't making them on an assembly line somewhere. Most of them, incidentally, couldn't write, count, or find their own asses with both hands. So, imagine what a shock it must be when you pick up an ad for a Computer Operator's job (a job that is, frankly, about as close to factory work as you'll find in the IT industry) and it requires a BA or 5 years of experience.

No problem: I have 20+ years of experience, right? Should be a shoe-in. Except there's no degree for a job that doesn't really require one. And if that excuse doesn't confuse you, try this other one:

Oh, right...I'm too old. Apparently 44 is the new 81 when it comes to employing people, especially if it's in the financial industry and they have to abide by some of the more onerous...and expensive ...state laws. Like the Pension Law that states that if you underwrite any State business, then you MUST contribute a lump-sum payment into your employee's pension fund, based upon their age. A 40-year-old working for a financial firm that underwrites New York State debt, for example, costs that financial company $10,000 a year in pension benefits before he even walks through the door for his first day of work.

Fail to make that pension payment, and you'll never underwrite another bond for New York State.

Of course, no one ever tells you you didn't get the job because you have no degree or are considered too old, you simply don't get called back. Ditto when a background check reveals you've been treated for a mental illness, despite the fact that your medical records are supposed to be private. I'm beginning to think it's probably worth eventually getting caught by claiming a disability on an application, just to have some additional legal protections,or get myself higher up on 'TheList'.

I guess I always could go back to school to learn a set of new skills, but applying for financial aid (State or Federal) is a bit tricky, you see. I'm not Black or Female enough, according to the one consultant I've spoken to on this subject (yes, he actually said those words!). Are you sure you don't have any Muslim, or perhaps Pacific Islander, in your background? Too bad; that would have made you golden.

Same thing for Government Work: not black or female enough, and besides, I have this nasty habit of scoring '100' on every civil service exam I've ever taken, which means I get called LAST for any job, assuming I even get called AT ALL.

I can't stock shelves at the local supermarket: I'm over-qualified, they say. I can't program mainframe systems, or run massive mainframe complexes; I'm under-qualified -- no degree -- despite the fact that I did exactly these things for over 20 years. I'm not bi-tri-or-quadri-lingual, which I'm told puts me at a distinct disadvantage in the 'Global Marketplace', but then again, the 'Global Marketplace' is right here in the United States, sucking up welfare benefits, undercutting wages, and filling the 'Employment Office' with pamphlets written in Sanskrit, Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics.

What to do, what to do?

I guess I'll have to do one of those 'reinventing myself' routines you used to see on Oprah before she got tired of hiding her raging 50-pound-a-day bonbon habit from public view. I mean, I could start a business of my own, but certainly not in this country, that's for sure. The taxes and ObamaCare mandates alone would kill you. But even going overseas to start a business could be tricky. After all, you need to find a business concept that will attract local interest.

That means any plans I had for teaching basic hygiene in El Salvador are probably doomed to fail before I even begin. Do you know how many e coli-on-spinach cases we'd avoid if Salvadorans just washed regularly before they picked it?

Ditto for my other great idea, which was to introduce soap to Pakistan. I figured I could corner the soap market,and be the biggest importer of the stuff by simply putting a few dozen bars of Ivory or Irish Spring in a suitcase -- this would represent about a 5,000,000% increase in Pakistani soap imports -- and selling them on a street corner in Karachi. Pakistanis will pay anything, you know, just avoid each other's stench.

Seriously, though, I have to find something to do, and soon. It's starting to look pretty bleak, now and I'm running out of time, what with a sick mother and bills to pay, and all that. So, if there's anyone out there that needs a relatively-smart guy with a work ethic, willing to pay a decent wage, drop us a line at the Lunatic's Asylum and make us an offer.

I'll pretty much consider anything that doesn't involve a foreign object being inserted -- or forcibly removed -- from my rectum.

Job Opportunity...

Wanted: One illustrator with experience in graphic design, and a strong background in desktop publishing. Experience in publishing children's books, preferred. You will be working on spec in a profit-sharing arrangement, so there is no steady paycheck. There's only an opportunity to make some cash, but that's not such a bad thing, is it?

If you or someone you know is willing to take a chance on a self-publishing project, please drop us a line here at the Asylum (Rocky the Human Resources Elf is standing by to take your e-mail) because we definitely have a few things to talk about! Please send your response and a small sample of your work to the following address:

Excelsior502@gmail.com

Why IT Managers are the Dumbest People On Earth...

Okay, so just why was it that I had to go into Manhattan yesterday? Well, there was the prospect of some work, is why!

There is a certain software company, which shall remain nameless, which produces an entire line of (very expensive) products which it promises that it's customers will be able to make the optimum use of information to make themselves more profitable. If you've ever worked in the IT industry, this is a standard sales ploy: our software will enable your sales force to do X, your employees to do Y, and your management to do Z, all of which will increase "productivity" and sales, cut down on miscommunication and human error, and save you scads of cash.

Which will then be given to people who do no useful work, and already make scads of cash. But that's besides the point...

The truth is that very often these claims are hard to justify. Yes, there are instances where automation can save you money, but more often than not you spend more than you save between implementation costs, maintenance, upgrades, and the disruption to the normal "routine" that each new technological gee-gaw introduces to your work flow. Programmers must devote hours to implementation and customization. Workflow Experts must decide how these tools can best be used and introduced. People need to be trained on how to use the thing. There's often new equipment to buy to make use of it. You have to hire consultants to put the thing into operation and integrate it with your existing infrastructure, or spend a lot of man-hours taking your staff from their regular duties to work with the new crap.

Technology evolves every few years, and today's bargain or productivity tool is tomorrow's White Elephant. As an IT manager, you have to be aware of this, and you need to realize that when you make a purchasing decision, that you make it for the long term. Nowadays, the trend is to buy the latest-and-greatest...and then replace it six or 12 months later when something latest-er-and-greatest-er comes along. IT budgets balloon, cash gets tight, and then you have to fire a lot of people just to keep your job.

And a year later, you make the same mistakes and the cycle continues. Because once most IT managers reach a certain level in the corporate pecking order they become more politician-than-line-worker, you eventually wind up with a multiplicity of tools of dubious value (the quickest way up the ladder is to convince your superiors that you've got the latest money-saving idea, rather than the most efficient or intelligent idea). You can't get rid of these White Elephants because you're locked into multi-year contracts, and you simply can't go back to your bosses and ask for yet-another $2 million for a new-and-improved version of what you've just fucked up.

Eventually, you wind up having to write memos exhorting the troops to use a piece of software that they a) hate using, b) often find useless and c) can't really take full advantage of, just to justify the original expense...and you desperately hope no one above you notices (don't worry, they usually don't, because they're even further removed from reality than you are).

The next step in saving your job is to implement a regime of more rigorous Information Management technologies, which is a fancy term for "can someone make sense of this shitpile for me"? If it's your shitpile and you can't make heads or tails from it, you have a problem. What makes you think I can fix it for you in a short period of time? The solution involves tying together various platforms, a multitude of different data types, and is the electronic version of trying to herd cats, into a simpler, more efficient system that promises to deliver information to those who need it, as they need it, in a way that doesn't require a PhD in Attic Greek to understand what you're looking at, and of course, cheaply.

Except that consultants ain't cheap, and neither is starting from scratch.

IT managers get into this hole because they have been raised in a climate where"Information is Power", and because it is believed (wrongly) that an employee who has access to information that otherwise has no bearing on how they do their job is a more efficient, and therefore more valuable, employee. This is wrong because the same IT managers almost always make the same secondary mistake:

Having spent millions on new technology and the means to diffuse it (iPads, Blackberries, cell phones, desktops, servers, e-mail, and so forth), they do not make any effort on training employees on how to actually use and evaluate this information properly. After all, Training People is an Expense, you see. Eventually, the typical IT worker reaches a curious state; he's supposed to be an expert in the technology you're using, but he hasn't necessarily been trained on it, and he now has information being blasted at him from all quarters, most of which he doesn't need, and he's overloaded. He's not expected to actually think (thinking leads people to make mistakes), but he is expected to always have the answers to every douchebag who calls the help line, or every visiting VIP who asks him a question about what he does and how he does it.

This is your first line of defense against problems which interfere with your, supposedly, most valuable asset: information.

And so, you find yourself on the lookout for the next best technological answer to a relatively simple manpower problem. You're not making effective use of an employee's brainpower, in fact, you're discounting the possibility of them having any brainpower at all, and become reliant on technology rather than people, and you're invested up to the neck in it. People have an advantage over technology in that they are able to think in the abstract, and are capable of showing initiative when properly motivated. If more IT managers realized this, there wouldn't be a multi-hundred-billion dollar "Information Management Software" industry, fewer IT workers would die of heart attacks before their 45th birthday, and American business would not be beholden to machines that most cannot comprehend.

And I wouldn't have to take an interview to work for an Information Management Software Company that hardly makes use of it's own products because it knows they're unequal to the Herculean task of delivering what they promise to deliver: efficiency, flexibility and cost-savings at an affordable price. You think I want to work here? Guess again!

Who wants to design NEW software to do what the last batch promised to do, but doesn't? Why didn't they just keep those programmers and designers and tell them to fix the piece of shit when they discovered it was a total kludge? Oh, right, that would have entailed expense: keeping employees with institutional knowledge, not to mention recreating something that already cost you more than you expected.

Total waste of time, this interview, except for all the ladies that I saw on the way in (see last post). You can only reinvent the wheel so many times before it's no longer a wheel. Besides, most of the kludge comes from all the bells-and-whistles (they're typically so-called "Flexible management features", which is a metaphor for "bullshit" ) you've added to your software, which usually originated by a request from ONE customer to do something differently -- usually because his bosses prefer multi-color pie-charts to monochromatic bar graphs. .

It seems to me that if you really wanted to make money in information management these days, you'd do better to recommend that managers actually make an honest evaluation of their mistakes, and then pour resources into bringing staff up to speed on what they have available to them, and them how to properly use it instead of constantly having to buy something else. I'm going to talk to some folks I know, because there's obviously a dollar or two to made here without having to write code.

More Signs o' The Times...

Regarding The Economy. I wrote last month about local businesses shutting their doors. I was out on the main drag yesterday afternoon and noticed something that made me scratch my head.

First,the good news: three new businesses opened (or are about to) on pretty much the same block.

The Disturbing News: all three are "salons" of some sort -- a hairdresser, a"Day Spa", and something that I think is offering what may have been called"New Age" therapies at one time, but which probably now go by the all-encompassing term "bullshit".

Now, what makes this disturbing is that along the eight or nine blocks on the Main Drag, there are already 2 Day Spas, at least a dozen beauty parlors/nail salons, and just a few blocks off the drag, an entire building devoted to acupuncture, chiropractors, reflexologists, masseuses, and all manner of Crystal and Rattlesnake-shaking charlatans.

What to think of this?

Well, on the one hand, it probably indicates that in a "down" economy, we can still count upon one thing: people will pamper themselves even more when times are bad. The Feel-Good-and-Personal-Selfishness-Trade must be raking in big bucks if someone can open up a Salon offering Seishido (whatever the fuck that is) in a revamped storefront, right across the street from a place that offers basically the same, and which has a plastic surgeon and a dermatologist on site to hand out Botox by appointment in a luxurious environment that might have made Nero jealous.

People are defaulting on their mortgages, but somehow, there's always money for a peel, a fake tan or a mani-and-a-pedi.

And all of that on a street that is absolutely lousy with salons, spas and haircutters.

The second thing it indicates is that you probably have to be either Korean or a Queer to get a business loan these days, because that's who's building and running these establishments. How do I know? All the nail salons are full of Korean girls giving manicures, and as I passed the hairdressers that's under construction, the Owner was on his cell phone complaining that the workmen were making a mess...and he was Korean (yes,I can tell my Orientals apart, thank you), and every word spoken into that phone was a steady stream of sibilant esses that gave one the impression that, somewhere, there must be steam leak.

The nine-inch hips, white-snakeskin shoes with three-inch lifts, neon-pink Guinea Tee, and bandanna tied around his neck made it obvious -- just in case you couldn't figure it out on your own.

Korean and Queer....I rest my case.

But on a serious note, while it's wonderful to see new businesses opening in what's supposed to be such a terrible business environment, why is it that none of them seems dedicated to providing an actual product or service that's useful, and not predicated upon vanity?

Signs o' The Times...

Unfortunately, they tend to say "For Sale", "Going out of Business Sale", or are an advertisement for the local Real Estate Agent hoping to lease empty, or soon-to-be empty, space.

This past fortnight has seen a rash of small businesses, many of which had been staples of the local community, close their doors. That's terrible, especially when these business owners spent, in some cases, decades growing their businesses and their reputations in the community, and now it's all over for them. Or is it? I know a few of them, and we've been talking, and some of it is simply fascinating.

Two small businessmen of my acquaintance that have recently closed shop have told me that business was actually pretty good despite the bad economy (one ran a delicatessen, and the other a dry cleaners), and that what really caused them pull up stakes was their rising rents. One man told me that no sooner did the real estate market head south in 2008 than his landlord was already trying to renegotiate the lease he had just signed, so as to double his rent to $14,000 a month on a storefront where two generations of his family had worked for near on 30 years.

When he refused to renegotiate (he did have a signed contract, after all), the landlord took him to court over nuisance issues just to try to get him out of the building, but the Deli Owner ran the clock out, and when his lease finally expired this past spring, he finally left. Whether or not he re-opens in a different location is questionable, because the local commercial real estate situation is,as they both tell me, "absolutely crazy".

My dry cleaner friend is going to re-open elsewhere, but he informs me that the leasing situation makes this somewhat problematic; despite having more retail space added to Staten Island in the last five years before the recession than in the previous decade -- and with much of that new construction sitting empty -- some landlords are actually raising their rents, not lowering them. My buddy says that this tells him that the landlords probably financed all of that recent construction with high-interest/variable-rate loans, confident they could fill the space at high-enough rents to turn a profit. Now, they're stuck with empty space and a ballooning monthly mortgage payment, not to mention tax assessments that reflect the formerly-inflated values of the properties they own. They are so deep underwater as to be drowning. They can't afford to drop rents, and they're simply praying they find someone stupid and desperate enough to pay these inflated rates.

He's also under the impression that we're talking about a very few landlords who own the majority of the properties, doing business behind a variety of real-estate companies/concerns. That the guy who owns 123 Main Street as Mr. X Property Management, is probably the same guy who owns 678 Main Street, as Nosepicking Dimwits and Company, and you can tell two locations have the same landlord when the rents on both pretty much rise at the same rate, at the same time, despite the sticker in the window identifying the management company.

Mr.Dry Cleaner also expects to see a whole lot more"For Lease" signs at the end of the year, because many of these leases will expire on December 31st -- and no one is going to pay rates that are much higher than they are now. There's been some folks forced out of business by the bad economy, but maybe there are just as many being forced out of business by their over-mortgaged landlords, he reckons.

So, I took a look around because while there have been a lot of closings lately, there's also some new stuff opening around here, too. What's that all about? And then I started to take note of what had closed, and what was opening.

On the Closed side, we have perhaps the biggest Bridal shop on Staten Island. In fact, "shop" is probably the wrong term to use. This was a Wedding Emporium, something on the order of 6-8,000 square feet of nothing but wedding dresses and wedding crap, and if that wasn't impressive enough, the local paper which lamented it's closing reported that the recent renovations made to that building cost just over $2 million. That shop didn't go out of business because no one's getting married (although I'm fairly certain they were selling fewer-and-fewer $5,000 wedding gowns to brain-dead Schifoozas who want to wear the same dress they saw on their favorite episode of Real Housewives of Bensonhurst), they went out of business because they couldn't afford to pay for the renovations they made, which makes you wonder how they financed it tobegin with? A second mortgage on the first-and-second homes, now less-valuable then they were two years ago? Most likely.

Then there's the Yarn/Knitting/Fabric Store which never seemed to have any clientele at all, but somehow stayed open for 20+ years. When I say "no clientele", I mean that I never saw anyone go into or out of the place in two decades, that I can recall. You would think that in a recession, knitting supplies would be in demand as people start saving money by making/repairing more of their own clothing. Having the ability to knit a cardigan is about to become a skill on par with hunting caribou, or smelting iron from surface deposits in Post-Obama "Recovery" America. But there's the knitting store, Out-of-Business.

A small printer's shop has also closed, although the Dog Grooming and Antique businesses that flank it are apparently doing a decent trade. A few hair salons have closed (which is no great loss, considering there's at least 15 more within a 20 block radius), a large health food store went under, too. The Leather/Luggage shop, gone. So too was closed the Christian Gift Shop, which just goes to prove that it doesn't matter how much you pray, when it comes to money the Lord hardly ever giveth but doth taketh away faster than you can say "Glow-in-the-Dark-velvet-Jesus".

I've also noticed that just about all of the local banks have turned off/removed their "Courtesy Clocks" which give passers-by the time and temperature. When banks are belt-tightening...

But, on the Opened Side of the ledger, something weird is happening.

A new Bakery opened this past winter, just down the block from one of the more popular and revered bakers on this island. Business is such that it stays open until 9 pm, on most nights.

Two Discount Stores (Mostly household goods/children's clothes) have moved into the neighborhood, and so has a new Fresh Fruit/Vegetable shop. Last spring, a new comedy club opened up in the old Lane Theatre which had alternated between "flash-in-the-pan-flavor-of-the-week Guido Hangout" and "Abandoned" for years. A great deal of renovations were done on the building, and business looks decent on most weekends. Most of the more popular restaurants on the main drag do pretty well on weekends, although weekday nights are pretty slow. Three new restaurants (two pizzerias and a Japanese restaurant) opened up within the last 18 months, and are still here. We're about to get a new Yogurtberry opening up any day now, and a relocated Dance Studio moved in last summer, shares the same newly-renovated commercial building on the main artery. A recent report in the local paper says that one of the major Big Box stores is not only staying in it's current location, it's going to open a second location not a mile further up the road. The Day Spas and Korean Nail joints which litter the landscape are busy everyday, with a steady stream of gum-snapping Middle-class housewives running in and out for fish pedicures and European skin peels.

What to make of all this? What does this say about the economy, in general?

Damned if I know, but it appears as those who have cash on hand are doing well or holding their own, and those who lived and died by credit are up Shit's Creek without a paddle. And when you stop to consider that if there one thing that's harder to get than a blowjob in a convent, it's credit, then it's no wonder.

Of course, the Credit Crisis would have been much less severe if a) Banks that received TARP money had done what they were supposed to have done with that money -- get the bad loans off their books -- instead of what they actually did -- shore up their stock prices, buy up their weakened competitors, pay their Executives exorbitant bonuses, and b) if the Federal Government hadn't had sucked up $787 billion for a Stimulus Bill which is two lies for the price of one, but then again, "The Keeping Dangerous and Useless Democratic Party Allies Rolling in Someone Else's Money Bill" wouldn't have worked.

And now the same douchebags who took $1.5 trillion dollars off the credit markets between TARP and Stimulus -- just at the time where that money would have been useful to help with recovery -- are about to inflict a new round of "Financial Reforms" on the Nation which will involve making a Corporate Bailout next to a Constitutional Right. Citibank's ability to fuck up and be saved, and Planned Parenthood's ability to give a 13-year old a We-Won't-Tell-Your-Parents-Late-Term-Abortion is being paid for by the Print Shops, Knitting Barns, Health food stores, and Bridal Shops of Staten Islanders, and many others.

That's not Financial Reform, Mr. Obama. That's a reward for bad behavior that will guarantee a repeat performance.

Why Do We Even Have a Post Office?

The Postal Service wants more money because it's going broke. I don't mind forking over another 2 cents to mail something (because I'm a 21st Century guy, and I actually mail things like...maybe twice a year), but at some point you have to start wondering just why we even have a Post Office at all.

After all, this is an Electronic Age, where e-mail is pretty much free, cell phones, computers and Blackberries a are ubiquitous, and if you're a real geek, you can get a bunch of iPhone Apps that will turn your handy little piece of Electronic Heroin into a lean, mean machine that can do calculus, allow you to watch television, read a book, and maybe even fillet a panda, if you need to. Who needs the anachronistic process of writing an address on an envelope, licking something that tastes like a mixture of those black jelly beans that no one eats and ass, and walking to the mailbox anymore?

Why, it's not as if my mail carrier actually delivers much of anything to my home anymore. I get three bills (gas, electric and cable), and the rest of it is stuff I can most certainly do without; catalogs I never asked for, direct mailings from the local politicians, those Val-U-Pacs full of mostly-useless coupons from local businesses that apparently can't get customers without a coupon for 10% off carpet cleaning on odd-numbered Thursdays only, or without offering a free set of steak knives that always break the first time you use them for every 50 pound bag of World War II-surplus no-name brand dog food you buy (I guess because once the food kills the dog, those knives might come in handy?). Same for my gas and cable bills...mostly ads.

I would guesstimate that for those three actually useful pieces of mail I get every month, I probably get somewhere between four and six pounds of useless paper and cardboard that I never wanted, never asked for, and simply toss away. And even those three useful presents I get are stuffed with all sorts of advertising and completely inane shit, which means the guy who lugs the mail around all day probably has 90% of all that wear and tear on his back thrown away.

Take my electric bill, for example; Con Edison is very thoughtful and sends me a three-page bill every month (it needs to be three pages because two of them are simply a rundown of the ass-rape taxes that the Fed'ral Gubmint and NY State have so thoughtfully put upon my energy use), and the third is taken up by those lovely bar-and-pie graphs giving me -- a complete doofus apparently -- a handy visual aid to show me just exactly how I'm getting the Big Purple Electric Shaft every month.

The other six pages of nonsense, printed in color no less, are devoted to advertisements and public pronouncements...usually about how Con Edison is dedicated to saving the environment, although not by saving trees, it seems, and those "Helpful Hints" like "Turn Out the Lights When you Leave the Room..it saves Energy!". My mother only shouted that at me all my life, Assholes, so lay off. Maybe there are Con Ed customers somewhere who weren't hen-pecked or developing common sense when they were children, and somehow it fell to the Electric Company to fill this void? That's when they aren't hectoring me to donate to some charity, letting me know that I can reach a Customer Service Representative (three lies for the price of one, complete with photo of a model who is just to awesomely gorgeous to work for Con Ed. Sure, entice the lonely, chronic-masturbator-losers out there to call by putting a pretty face on the bill. I wonder how many a day call wanting to talk to The Chick in My Electric Bill?) 24-hours a day, and reminders that you should Run Like Hell if You Smell Gas and Call a Professional, and a friendly reminder that you just might want to stop looking for the source of the mysterious gas odor in your darkened basement with your Zippo lighter aflame.

I can't, for the life of me, figure out where all the catalogs come from. I figured it was from the online services or utility companies that I use selling my address as part of a mailing list. Now, for some reason I can't discern, I get an actual J.C.Penny catalog just about every other week, and it's not the small one, either. I never shop at J.C. Penny. Radio Shack has my address, yessirrreee, and, no--- I didn't give it them. Lilian Vernon? What the fuck am I going to do with a Lilian Vernon catalog? I hate fucking cats, and I don't need a tea cozy, a hand-knitted dick warmer, or a genuine Lebanese Straw doormat with my dog's photograph silk-screened upon it under the caption "Grrrrrreeetings!". I don't have a dog, for one thing, and the only Lebanese anything that will ever enter my house will probably have D-cups, been converted to Christianity, and possessed of absolutely no gag reflex, whatsoever. Donald Trump, would you please stop asking me to feed your slot machines? No, I don't care if you have Rich Little and Dion and the Belmonts playing the Taj this weekend -- I'm not making the trip! And a man with your cash can get a decent wig, already!

I mean, do we really need all this stuff? It seems to me that a Postal Worker is really expending a lot of effort to hand-deliver information that is already on a website somewhere, and he's actually only expensively delivering absolute shyte. Wouldn't it just be cheaper to encourage those still getting a paper bill to use the website (something I'm about to start doing more often), where they can get that info and conduct their business, too? No envelope, no printing costs, no energy wasted shipping bills back and forth, no Lilian Vernon, no Lebanese, no Pizza Hut or Domino's special offers -- Pizza Hut? Dominos? This is New York. Anyone who eats at Pizza Hut when we have the best pizza on the fucking planet should be made into a Lilian Vernon Doormat -- just a Happy Postman who doesn't have to lug all that crap around; forests spared, gasoline saved, fewer trucks on the roads, fewer delays at the airports.

I mean, it's not as if the Post Office actually makes money, anyway. It's a freakin' Federally-protected MONOPOLY ... and it's still broke.

So why does it persist? Why hasn't the Electronic Age eliminated such an organization?

Primarily, because there's still a significant percentage of people in this country who aren't computer literate. These are mostly Old Folks -- who won't oblige us and die already and spare us the expense of supporting them well after their productive value to society is long past. Mostly, they remember FDR fondly (suckers!), and will tell you the tale, ad nauseum, about how they walked to school through five miles of foot-high snow, uphill both ways, without shoes (because it was the Depression, you know), everything cost a nickle (you could get a lung transplant for a nickle back then, it seems), and they never mastered anything more complicated than a rotary telephone. Which they still have. That's when they aren't ruminating upon the virtues of Epsom Salts and Jimmy Stewart, or drifting into Alzheimer's.

These people will need to be accommodated, and worse, they'll need to be accommodated in the manner to which they have been accustomed, which means a pile of dead trees delivered by an overpaid federal employee who collects, sorts and hauls absolute crap all day for a living. Asking these people to adapt automatically encompasses huge problems (not least of which, is their predictable, full-throated menstrual fury about why is it things need to change?), primarily one of expense and convenience; these people might not own a computer or cell phone, wouldn't know how to work one, can't be bothered to learn how, and would probably scream to a Congresscritter who will sponsor a Free-PC-For-Your-About-to-Drop-Dead-Anyday-Great-Gram bill.

Of course, blind people will need paper bills printed in Braille. Accountants will scream for paper hardcopies, and let's not forget the one, true advantage that paper has over a computer -- it never breaks.

The second problem is one of security. I would probably do everything online if it wasn't so ridiculously-easy to hack a computer or cellphone. The average user is dumb as a fucking stump about internet security, and even the security companies themselves routinely have their security breached (mostly by ex-Employees that they've screwed over. They never learn!). Until encryption software becomes user-friendly, hacker-resistant, and cheap for the majority of knuckleheads out there, most will still receive a bill. Even large corporations who can presumably get the best-and-brightest to hack-proof their systems will suffer security breaches (most of them already do, because you can't hire the best-and-brightest through a second-rate service that you've never laid eyes on in Mumbai, even if it is cheaper than hiring Americans).

Of course, we could stimulate the development of such software and systems, if we just made an effort to do so. I don't know why environMENTALists aren't pushing for online bill payment every goddamned day, even above Windmills, Global Warming/Freezing and The Virtues of Hemp , just to save trees and prevent air pollution. They'd be a damned sight more useful in this endeavor, and they'd actually have some things they've never had before --- a point, and an achievable goal.

Naturally, the reason why we still have a Post Office is (everyone together, now!)....Political!

The Post Office is a super-duper federal jobs program for nose-picking dolts who just couldn't qualify for that top-flight janitorial or fry cook job. Post offices employ thousands of unionized people-who-know-how-to-look-busy-when-they're-just-jerking-off, and those jobs are located in Congressional Districts that come with politicians attached to them, like ticks. The unions are often generous with the campaign cash and "volunteers". Closing a Post Office anywhere is an activity akin to suggesting that we pass a decree certifying that blind, three-legged kittens are an excellent source of protein and Vitamin C, and an excellent winter fuel. People will suggest that you be strung up for even daring to say something like that. There have probably been more Presidents assassinated than Post Offices closed, I'd reckon. So long as there's overpaid-and-otherwise-unemployable unionized government douchebags doing a completely-superseded-by-technology job, there will be politicians who will protect them.

Which means someone will have to pay more for a monopoly system that's run like a Chinese fire drill, is always broke, and that fewer and fewer people actually use. Twenty years from now, we'll all have microchips in our heads (or something) that will connect us to the internet and e-mail, and all sorts of other shit, and some dumbass in a blue polyester uniform that hasn't changed since the1950's will still be dropping a shitload of useless paper on my doorstep, and delivering Delinquency Notices to People Who No Longer Live Here. I mean, it's already getting to the point that when someone says "Check the mailbox", they automatically go to the Blackberry to start looking for e-mail. Within a very short span of years it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that old-fashioned mailboxes will once again become valuable...as antiques.

So, I say let the Post Office have it's two cents now; but someone should just have the balls to finally suggest that, within a decade, we may not need it anymore, and then begin the process of dismantling a quaint reminder of days gone by. The occupation of "Letter Carrier" should soon be going the way of the Barber-Surgeon, Town Crier and Witch Doctor. If someone in a position of authority actually did this sort of thing-- planned the slow demise of the Post Office over time -- it might even serve as a form of economic stimulus; DHL and FedEx already do it better than the Post Office, and the technical problems of securing personal data and networks, and of protecting financial information, would draw a ton of investment money back into the Technology field. Telecommunications would experience new growth. People could be put back to work in the Private Sector, rather than the Public One. The Unions would be struck a death blow, and it might even serve as a model of how the Private sector might eventually obviate the need for many government services altogether, saving the taxpayer billions!

Which is why no one will do it, naturally. And why five years from now when the Post Office isn't even delivering the Lilian Vernon catalog anymore, the price of a First-Class stamp will be $11.95.

Of Forests and Trees...

Pelosi says: Unemployment checks are good for the Economy.

November cannot get here fast enough. The thought that someone has actually voted for this turdcutter...repeatedly...boggles the mind. Everytime this woman shows herself in public...and speaks...I'm convinced that she makes the case for forced sterilization, and that we should start with the entire state of California (then start on New York).

Recovery Summer, Part II...

Sec. of State Hitlery says the U.S. should emulate Brazil, and raise taxes on everything and everyone, but especially -- "the rich"-- to astronomical levels, because, well....Brazil did it, and they're "growing like crazy!"

Of course, she fails to notice that Brazil is mostly a shithole, except for the places where the really smart set goes. That's the thing about these "amazing" economic miracles (Brazil, China, Indonesia, India); there's lots of glitter and lights, but it somehow manages to escape the VIP's attention that the rest of the country lives in cardboard boxes, eats grubs and lives up to it's waist in shit. Brazil is "growing like crazy" because most of the country is so fucking poor and underdeveloped, that in most areas, the installation of a pay phone or a vending machine represents 1,000% economic growth. In other words -- there was no place to go but UP. The numbers don't tell the entire story; even with this wildfire growth, maybe half the people in Sao Paulo alone will probably go to bed hungry tonight -- still.

The same argument is made about wildcat Chinese economic growth, but again, the story is the same: 7/8 of China still lives in the same grinding conditions of poverty that would be all-to-familiar to the truly poor, starving and dying-of-malaria all over the planet. The Big Cities may be showing the signs of new commerce; McDonald's, a Citibank branch, The Gap, skyscrapers-going-up-to-house-mostly-foreign-companies, but the vast hinterland hasn't advanced an inch in 50, or even, 100 years.

Now, mind you, the Hildebeest is supposed to be The Smartest Woman in the World, but it's statements like this that make you want to saw the top of her head off just see if there's anything between those ears. Or, maybe she was just playing politics, and making the disingenuous case for those who can't think without help that if you look at Brazil and see rising tax rates on "the Rich", and a booming economy, it validates everything Barack Oshithead is doing...so long as you avoid asking the obvious questions.

Here's what Her Heinous' case runs up against;

* While the Unemployment rate is "Officially" 9.7%....unofficially, it's closer to 17%.

* The Vice President of the United States can feel totally unashamed -- and curiously unconcerned about his personal safety -- and admit that 8,000,000 lost jobs are "never coming back".

* The President of the United States promises to "create or save" 3,000,000 jobs..and loses an additional 5,000,000 million in just under two years. He's nearly-nationalized the banks/brokerage houses, berates and threatens them with new taxes and regulations on a daily basis, forces them to re-write millions of mortgages for bad credit risks, castigates them in every speech making them out to be the biggest evil since The Huns....and then wants to know why no one is lending money and there's a Credit Crisis. That's AFTER he's already taken $787 billion out of the credit markets with a"Stimulus" which hasn't worked, "Reformed" the financial markets in Hitlerian fashion, and is talking about making Energy unaffordable with a Cap-and-Trade bill. All of that's even before we get to the VAT taxes necessary to pay for "Healthcare reform"...which now turns out to be more expensive than anyone ever imagined, and can't ever be paid for.

* The National Debt stands at nearly $13 trillion dollars -- before interest. This is almost equal to all American economic output for one calendar year. With interest payments, we're looking at debt in the hundreds of trillions if Obama gets his way on a long list of democratic "priorities".

The point is this: at this rate, there won't be ANYONE left to tax, let alone The Rich.

The Smartest Woman in the World is a lying dipshit who should get her fat, lying ass back in the kitchen. If there's anyone who should be wrapped in a burqua and beaten daily, it's Hillary Clinton, for sure. Especially when she makes asinine remarks about taxing other people (because I have every confidence that multi-millionaire Clintons will somehow mysteriously manage to skate on most of the taxes they advocate for others. It's funny how that happens, isn't it?).

I can promise you that while she stands before cameras and says this shit in order to seem "a team player", the woman is sharpening her knife(and fangs) as we speak. Barack Obama, you is about to get Arkancided come 2012...assuming you don't find yourself lying in state before then.

There's Money in That Thar' Shyte!

So, here I am, looking for a new start and wondering just what the hell I'm going to do with whatever time I have left before cancer, or some Islamic Nutjob with an Explosives Fetish, finally finishes me off for good.

Prospects have been, for a very long time, bleak. I mean, I spent my early working years doing "Brain Work" -- I was Computer Operator for a decade, and then a Data Center Manager for five years, and then a System's Automation programmer for five years after that. I'm not exactly the kind of guy who knows one end of a hammer from another, and when someone asks me to pass a screwdriver, I start looking for the Absolut bottle. In fact, asking me to work with my hands (unless you're a Lady, wink-wink) is a dangerous thing; I haven't fixed anything of value since I did that nasty thing to my dog with a fork (just kidding). There's not much Brain Work to be done, nowadays,and when there is it usually requires ridiculous qualifications (this is done purposely to discourage "Cattle Call" interviews of potential candidates....and discrimination lawsuits).

I've tried finding more "White Collar" work since my illness, and the subsequent destruction of my chosen profession in recent years; I have done some "Contract" work (only to find I'm not Asian, or cheap, enough to get steady work, even when I drop my price).There have been a few technology "side jobs" here and there, and once, I even tried to sell Green Energy (door-to-door) to sanctimonious assholes who simply loved the idea of the Green Economy...until they find out what it costs.

I've tried to apply for government jobs, only to find that I'm a) Too White, b) Too Male, and c) Too Smart, which puts me at the bottom of any hiring list for those plum Municipal and Federal jobs that require little thought, no sense of responsibility, and the ability to simply occupy a desk for 20 years until the prospect of "Early Retirement" with a generous pension kicks in. At this point, my only viable career options were beginning to look like "Pimp" or "Mafioso".

Ah, but then came all those internet thingies that say "Qualify for Job Training Funds in Your Area!", that I usually delete as spam before they even get comfortable in the inbox. But then one day, I figured "Why the fuck not?" and clicked away, and was actually surprised when one of them actually turned out to be legitimate. Wouldn't you know it; there really are a few (very few) "programs" that Straight White Guys might (key word) actually qualify for!

Serendipity having called, I responded, and found that there were a wide array of careers open to me, but that they don't fall under the categories that one might consider "careers", as much as they are "trades". Certainly, there must be a trade for me, right? Well, I considered culinary arts at first, specifically, baker or pastry chef. I could get the money for that, and even if the hours suck and the job can be messy, it's at least better than digging trenches or pumping gas, right?

But the pay sucks, and the one thing I'm not willing to do is take low pay -- I once had a six-figure income, and dammit, I'm going to have one again. So, I did some thinking (a dangerous thing), and my train of thought led me here:

We live in a world of shit. It's full of people who are full of shit, obsessed with their own shit, and enamoured of the smell of their own shit. I'm surrounded by assholes who pour forth the most inane an uninteresting --and often, frightening -- shit you can imagine, and just when you thought things couldn't get worse, scatalogically-speaking, the whole thing is run by politicians and businessmen who are experts at flinging bullshit with both hands. And when they're not trying to sell you a load of crap, they're all in the commode grunting and pinching some off. There's money to be made in Shit, if you're willing to be an unabashed opportunist (just ask lawyers, psychotherapists, political consultants, and Used Car Salesmen).

So, I've decided that I'm gonna take that grant money -- and go to plumbing school -- where, hopefully, they finally teach me that a wrench is not something you monkey with, or throw into the works, and that when you screw or nail something, it had better not have breasts and a heartbeat, or an irate boyfriend.

When Life hands you Shit...Learn to become a Horsefly. The Path to Being Waist-Deep in Cash is to be Knee-Deep in Shit, First.

In addition to the plumbing training I'll be receiving, this school will also teach me the finer points of tile work, a bonus when you stop to consider that there's more to the Plumber's Life than clogged toilets and leaky faucets -- there's also kitchen and bathroom renovations to be had (as well as heating systems, septic, pool and solar-heating systems). I expect to be "apprenticing" after training for a couple of years, but at least I'll have a license that says "This Guy Knows His Shit". I expect that the average workday will leave me...ahem...pooped (groan!)... but let's face it -- if there's any sort of work that people will pay top dollar for, in any economy, it'll be of the "Keep that Shit Away from Me!" sort.

Wish me Luck with this Shit.

P.S. - Imagine my surprise when I went to the "Retraining Center" and ran into not one, but THREE guys that I used to work with back "In the Day" -- a "real" programmer (master's degree, and former teacher!), an Electronics Engineer (former IBM Field Engineer), and another man with both a CNE and MCSE -- a veritable Networking Guru of Newtonian ability -- all with more than 20 years of experience "in the field".

The sad truth is that unless you're willing to relocate to some godawful place like North Dakota, or worse, Punjab, Magnitogorsk or Jakarta, and work for less money than the typical Dental Hygienist makes, you ain't finding high-tech work. Even the sort they advertise for in North Carolina and Texas are less "Tech" and more "after-sale-support". Unless you want to work 93 hours a week on contract for a major software developer who can break the contract just because it's partly-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-showers, you're not going to work in the sharp-end of the technology field at all... especially if you're 40+ and don't have a degree.

The scuttlebutt amongst my three former colleagues is that many people they've known "in the business" , have either picked up a trade (carpentry, painting, electrical work, roofing), or taken jobs driving buses, joining Law Enforcement, or had become the subject of a "Deadliest Catch" or "Dirty Jobs" episode or two. A few were lucky -- relatively speaking -- and died young (all seem to have died from problems usually associated with overwork and stress, like sudden heart attacks and strokes), with not a few suicides. The time was when the field was an "interior" one, restricted to those who did it, and those who knew about it, and the "community" here in New York was rather small. It was not unusual to work with someone for a couple of years, part ways and not see or speak to each other again, only to wind up working in the same joint a decade later -- where everyone knew the same people and told the same stories.

It seems the "community" is getting smaller, and less-personal, and the "Old Breed" is rapidly disappearing.

The Lunatic Contemplates a Career Change...Seeks advice...

Okay, so you pretty much know how difficult it is to find work in the Programming field when those jobs are rapidly disappearing, and who the hell wants to do minimum-wage or work-on-commission bullshit when you've got bills to pay, and now some expensive medical care to pay for?

I thought about changing careers before, but I've only recently been looking into it seriously. See, I used to be a System's Programmer, and before that a Computer Operator, and those where some high-skilled jobs. Once upon a time. But nowadays, automation has reduced the need for actual people, and outsourcing has ruined the job market for the higher-end skills.

And adding insult to injury, I don't have a degree. I never studied computer programming, computer science. In my day, the only people who did that were suckers who wanted to be saddled with the debt of a college loan to pay back. "Back in the Day" you learned by doing; millions of people started out in Operations, where they learned the principles behind large-scale data processing. Along the way, they were often given specialized training by their employers (on all aspects of data processing), and then they moved into different areas (programming, communications, data storage, etc) as they gained the experience. There were no schools to really teach people the skills they needed to enter the field at that time.

Nowadays, you can't get in the front door without an expensive piece of paper that basically says "I'm an idiot, but I was able to parrot whatever my professors -- who know even less than I do -- said faithfully...and oh yeah, I'm desperate, so underpay me, please?" And, like I said, the field has imploded because of the "progress" made in the field of automation (I used to be an Automation Programmer, so there you go!).

So, I've come to the conclusion that while I might have marketable skills (albeit, in a diminishing market), I don't really have a trade. It's not really so much a career, as it used to be, but more like having a job...if you can even land one. There really isn't much difference between the modern IT worker and the Assembly Line Worker anymore, except for pay-scale (the Unionized just-barely-finished-high-school knuckledragger -- who's still slightly smarter than the college graduate -- is still overpaid, considering his job is even more heavily autmoated than mine is).

So, I thought about it. Change is good, right? So, what to do? Real Estate? Are you kidding? This market isn't coming back for at least a decade, maybe more. Manual trade, like electrician or construction? No way; I'm old, have a bad back and giving me tools is like letting retards run free in a nuclear plant. I am NOT handy. Whenever I fix something, I have parts left over and then wind up hiring professional help anyway.

I thought about learning to cut hair, if you must know. Becoming a barber --excuse me -- Stylist, seemed like a good idea. People will always spend money on personal grooming, and some people are dumb enough to be quite vain, and so spend more. But then I thought about having to rub elbows with that many homosexuals, and that idea was shot down. I spent 20 years surrounded by homosexuals on Wall Street, and I don't think I could take that much drama in my old age. It made me vomit 20 years ago because of the over-the-top campiness some gays exhibit, and I'd probably end up beating someone bloody now. Not because I hate homosexuals, but because I can't stand people who whine incessantly about a lifestyle that involves both a violation of a Cardinal Rule of Nature -- Your Rectum was Purposely-Designed to be Exit-Only -- but which also requires people to know entirely too much about shoes, make-up, proper skin care and Oprah, without your actually having to be a chick.

I just couldn't make up my mind. Enter my four-year-old nephew, who planted the seed during playtime. We were playing with his Play-Doh Bakery. He would ask me what sort of cake, cookies or pies I wanted, and he would whip them up out of Play-Doh. Where it got interesting was the creative aspect of it.

Because after you run the gamut of "the Standards" (Apple, Peach, Lemon, Blueberry, Cherry, Mince, Pumpkin and so forth), in order to keep a 4-year-old entertained and engaged, you must start making up new sorts of pies on the spot...and boy, was my imagination fertile that day!

And then it dawned on me: Baker and Pastry Chef. Not only a Trade, but pretty honorable Profession, at that. So, I've done some research, and I can get some Federal retraining money,and there's a load of good Culinary Arts programs around here, and the best part, you can be certified in about 18-24 months, so why not? Better than leaping from job-to-job, ain't it?

Except that I don't know any bakers/pastry chefs, so I'm unable to find out if it's worth the effort. I mean, is it satisfying work (I would think it is)? What exactly is involved in getting your certification? Anything I should know about culinary arts programs before I get in over my head?

So, if there's anyone reading this who is engaged in the Culinary Arts, or knows someone who is, please give me some advice before I go ahead and sign up. I still have some time to commit, both for the re-training grant, and before applications are being taken for the culinary program at a local college.

You can drop your suggestions/advice at Excelsior502@gmail.com. Please address your note with the subject "Baker/Pastry Chef". Thank you!

Immigration Laws and Me...

One of the arguments against Arizona's new immigration-enforcement law is that it threatens to turn the desert into a Police State, full of racist police officers (all police officers are racists, according to Al Sharpton. It's a requirement for the job) empowered to harass every Brownskin in sight and ask that most-cliched of Movie Nazi phrases "Your papers, please?".

The Law says (and it's only mimicking Federal Law here) that if someone already in contact with the police for a reasonable assumption of criminal activity or civil violation cannot prove they are a citizen of the United States, or in the country legally (producing some form of state-issued identification or a Green Card upon demand) , they are, therefore, presumed to be in the country illegally and subject to deportation.

But a question left unasked is what happens when the State and Federal Governments deliberately make it more difficult to obtain a document proving citizenship...for actual citizens?

If you've been reading this blog, then you know of my trials and tribulations with obtaining a New York State Non-Driver's Identification card. I can't satisfy the valid photo-id requirements because my previously-state-issued photo identification documents have expired, and are, naturally, not valid for the purposes of obtaining this Holy Grail.

I can give them a birth certificate which states that I was born on May 2, 1967 in Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan to a American Citizens (one of them a New York City Police Officer -- it says right there "Father's Occupation: Police Officer"). I can produce the necessary proofs of address. I can give them a Social Security Card. But my old driver's licence and State-Department-issued Passport are both expired, and therefore invalid for this purpose, and so the whole process dies a feeble death just within sight of the goal.

Without that Identification card, finding work becomes a little bit more difficult, since other laws require employers to verify the citizenship and immigration status of their hires. And guess what? A social Security Card and Birth Certificate don't constitute positive proof of either for these purposes! There needs to be a piece of state-issued identification with a photograph on it.

Now, what should happen, if I were to be stopped by a police officer for some offense, and he asked me for my proof of citizenship -- and I don't have one, even though I am a native-born Son?

I'm all for sending illegal immigrants back where they came from if they don't have permission to be in the country, but why is that the government -- in a half-assed-and-day-late-and-dollar-short effort to fight illegal immigration and terrorism -- in the process of making it more difficult for illegals and terrorist to obtain identity documents, make it harder for citizens to get them, too?

Probably because it's easier to inconvenience the taxpaying innocent than it is to actually catch the bad guys, perhaps?

I should probably be very careful about jaywalking or littering in front of a cop, or else I might have to write this blog from Sicily in future.

A Second Great Depression....

Obama kicks Wall Street in the balls for it's part in triggering what is now a Second Great Depression.

This from the man who told us that $787 billion Stimulus Bill -- that FIRST BILL that no one read before it was signed into law -- was necessary to avoid "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

This from a man who told us that nationalizing Medical Care, the SECOND BILL that no one redad before it was signed into Law (which doesn't take "full" effect until 2014 -- after the taxes are already rolling in) was necessary to aid in our swift economic recovery.

This from the same Person who asserted that Cap-and-Trade bills and Green Energy Initiatives would fundamentally change the American economy and provide millions of jobs.

This accusation comes from a man who's administration promised "six million jobs created or saved" and "transparency", but which routinely lies about job numbers, and won't tell us just by what criteria it counts a job as "created" or "saved".

This Economic Lecture comes from the Administration which in little more than a year has added $1.3 trillion to the Federal Deficit, and will add $12 trillion to the National Debt by the time it's done.

You know it's all about politics, don't you? People like Obama always need enemies, and they always need crises, because if they didn't there would be no reason to keep them in power. You'd question their motives and intentions, if it wasn't always a dire emergency.

The people of this country should be ashamed of themselves. They got so desperate that they lost faith in what this country was supposed to stand for, and for what it was and always will be, and they voted for a Socialist charlatan with no knowledge of economics or foreign affairs, who can't speak without a teleprompter, and who simply recycled Bill Clinton's mantra of "change", Jimmy Carter's economic policies, LBJ's welfare state, and FDR's expansion of government -- which was only appealing by comparison because the Other Side was offering little better -- into the highest office in the land.

This from the man who was stupid enough to pick Joe Biden to be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. I guess that was because Obama looks positively statesman-like when compared to Joe Ding-Dong.

He hides his stupidity behind fake populism, and when he's really desperate, in accusations of racism. I thank all of you Obamatards very, very much; you couldn't have made a worse choice if someone had paid you to do so.

2010 can't come soon enough, that we might be spared the worst of this jerk's politics and policies.

Update: spelling, grammar and a few re-written sentences.

I Wonder if Osama Bin Laden Didn't Win After All?

I'd write my Congressman about this, but he's a democrat and probably busy trying to figure out how to vote for Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants without appearing to have actually voted for Amnesty for Illegal Aliens.

One of the by-products of the War on Terror and our Endless-But-Controlled-Freefall-Into-Third-World-Nation-Status, are the laws that were propagated to"secure" the validity of all forms of personal, government-issued identification in this country. The theory goes that if you just put enough bureaucracy and union workers in front of the problem, you make the act of obtaining visas, passports, drivers licenses, State-issued identification and Social Security cards that much more difficult for those who would use such things will evil in their hearts. They'll just give up, having worn themselves out bashing their heads against the brick wall of Government Union workers and Bureaucracy. With "secure" identification standards, and with stricter standards about how and to whom they're given, some Muzzie with an Explosives Fetish, or Itinerant Central-American gardener would find it much more difficult to "operate" within the United States without drawing the attention of the "Authorities".

Who, presumably, will better able to "defend" us against terrorists, and save "the taxpayer" tons of cash that would otherwise have been lost to illegals seeking social services on the Sunnier-Side-of-The-Border.

But, in practice, these sorts of measures do nothing of the sort. Instead, they hurt the Citizens of this country far more, and more and more of our "Freedoms" are denied us by well-intentioned-but-seriously-misguided Government. Congress, always, follows the same routine in the wake of a disaster (like 9/11 or the Invasion from the South): it slams the barn door shut after the horse has shit and run away, reshuffles the Org-chart, nails a few hides to the post, and then strengthens the iron grip of government bureaucracy. It then operates under the new assinine regime until the next convulsion of society requires they get denser and dumber.

What's my beef? You may ask.

I can't get a valid photo identification card. Something one increasingly requires in order to be gainfully employed in this country. Those documents represent permission to work in this country, facilitate travel, and stand as proof of American citizenship, or legal status.

It all began when I tried to get a job with the U.S. Government.

Because for the better part of five years I was a virtual shut-in, battling a variety of mental disorders, I had let what identification I used have lapse. This is, of course, my problem; it was my responsibility to see that they were up to date and valid, and I won't dodge that responsibility. So, in order to get this government job, all I had to do (because I passed the third-grade level Civil Service exam quite easily, with the highest mark) was to obtain new copies of my identification documents, and all would be hunky-dory.

But not so fast.

I tried to renew my U.S. Passport, but the State Department wants me to go through the entire routine (and pay the fees) again. Fair enough. However, they require valid photo identification; which I do not have. My expired passport, even though it has my picture on it and I've had one for a decade, is not valid for purposes of renewing the same document. I can show them a Birth Certificate (Issued by the City and State of New York, where I was born and have lived most of my life), a Social Security Card, and several proofs of address, but this is not enough; there's nothing with a photo on it. The U.S. Government won't even replace it's own document when the old one expires without that picture I.D. requirement.

I don't drive. Haven't for years. Not a practical activity when you live in New York City.And the one I do have does, in fact, have a picture of me on it...but that's expired, too, and therefore, also invalid. I called the State Department to see if there was anything else I could do, and was told that the supervisor in the local office did have the ability to issue a passport based on his/her discretion, and a notarized document stating I am Who I Am might help, but that didn't fly, either. State Department employees are loathe to even admit they have that discretion(assuming I even got correct information in the first place from the"Help Line"), because exercising independent thought can help you to lose your cushy government job.

And New York State was no better.

I didn't even bother trying to obtain a new driver's license (I don't own a car in any case), and instead applied for a New York State Photo Identification card, which, I'm told, will be a valid form of picture identification for the purposes of a) getting a new government job, and b) obtaining a new passport.

Same thing; I have a Birth certificate, Social Security Card, two proofs of address, but no valid photo I.D.. When the helpful Spanish-speaker at the Department of Motor Vehicles Information Line was told my sordid tale, he told me "Don't worry; just speak to the Manager or Supervisor at the desk, explain your plight, and they should be able to help you. They have the ability to issue the card under certain exigent circumstances under their own authority, and it sounds like they'll be able to help you".

Except they won't. Because while I can produce four (4) points of identification, I can't produce the required six (6). Even though I was born here, paid taxes here, lived here all my life, and don't look remotely like an Al'Qaeda or Speedy Gonzalez.

But the local DMV office will be glad to help you if you speak Russian, Two Kinds of Chinese, Hindu, Spanish, Swahili, Korean, Arabic or Creole. Those lines seem to fly at a brisk pace, and no one seems to be getting hassled.

Same thing with the local Unemployment Office -- or as they like to think of themselves because some bureaucrat with a flair for a turn of phrase instructed them to do so in The Memo, "The Employment Office". No picture identification, no help. Why not browse the "Job Board" (a bulletin board with recent job openings), it's right past the State-printed Employment Pamphlets for Spanish-Speakers on your Left. Oh, but they'll make you fill in a six-inch stack of forms anyway -- so you'll be "in the system".

A "system"that will never kick my name out for Employment because my file will be marked "insufficient identification", no doubt.

This is what an out-of-control government does to it's citizens when the same citizens cry for them to "do something" and then doesn't bother to examine or question the result.

In the meantime, I'm getting by (if you can call it that) on little "contract jobs" that I can hook up via acquaintances, and taking the odd-job here and there, but nothing permanent,and certainly nothing very remunerative. I want to work. I need to work. And if the lack of jobs wasn't already a major barrier, this gigantic-pustule-of-a-purple-hemorrhoid of a problem doesn't allow me to compete for what jobs might be available.

It seems as if the "War on Terror" and the process of "Securing the Borders" is taking a heavier toll on US than it does on terrorists and illegal aliens. I have little faith that any future government will take any steps to help remedy these issues, because it will still be largely made of the people who created this mess in the first place.

In the meantime, I'm going to brush up on my Spanish and perhaps sneak into Mexico to see if I can get a nice pool-cleaning job. Shold be easy since all the really good pool cleaners seem to be up here.

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing...

Obama was just on TV (FoxNews). Again. Standing in front of an F/18 (it makes him look much more manly -- especially after he snuck into and out of Afghanistan in the middle of the night like a thief earlier this week), and starts talking about Biofuels. The F/A -18 has been specially modified to fly on biofuels...we think. Who says you can't be environMENTALly conscious when killing what liberals (small 'l' intentional) insist are innocent Muslims driven to the extreme of terrorism by the evil cabal of Big Oil, McDonald's and Srhubby McBushHitler??

He then goes on to say that the United States has "less than 2% of the World's Known Oil Reserves", but we're going to drill for them anyway in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, because we need to become energy independent. Places that two years ago were off-limits because we needed to "grow the Green Economy" and because "it's not worth the investment, doesn't solve our energy problems, and will contribute to global warming."

Two years later, the priorities seem to have changed.

The Green Energy Initiative that was supposed to create sixteen bazillion jobs only creates them in China. The Green Cornucopia that was to bring us unlimited energy instead brings us next-to-nothing nothing at prices that cannot be maintained. The threat of Global Warming, brought into question by the fact that the scientists and international bureaucrats who supposedly "study the phenomenon" are probably lying to us and doctoring their data to support outlandish claims and investments in their continuing "research" -- and even-more outlandish regulation and taxation.

And Obama gets his (death-) wish and accomplishes the passage of a "Health" "Care" "Reform" that is mostly-unfunded mandates that can only be realized by massive tax increases that the public is likely to revolt over.

Now, Obama's taking up the banner and fulfilling the evil Wishes of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Fascists, and shouting "Drill, Baby, Drill!" -- but still trying to disguise it as part of a Green Energy Initiative and as a matter of National Security -- by standing in front of a "modified" fighter-bomber? Why, the juxtaposition of political opportunism set against the cynicism of trying topaint your politicaloppoents as right-wing-extremist-whackos almost looks too painful to be real.

You have to be a complete and utter asshole to miss all that symbolism. You'd have to be Stevie Wonder not to see through it in a second.

Obama wants Cap-and-Trade policies that will, the Other Side insists, "solve" the "problem" of "Global Warming". But, Obama needs cash. Cold, hard, dollah-dollah-moolah, Baby, and tilting at windmills (literally) and depending on solar panels hasn't panned out quite the way He anticipated. It apparently isn;t so easy to blow Sunshine up people's asses when there's only so much to go around. Obama needs what on Wall Street we used to refer to as "an additional revenue stream",and what's known in political circles as "a pivot" so as not to be seen as ignoring the Americanpeople, and to convince them that he's really not a died-in-the-wool-Castro-Loving Commie Crapweasel.

Obama offers the molasses; we're going to open up drilling and exploitation of home-grown resources that have been off-limits for decades. Conservatives/Republicans/Tea-Fascists should be happy -- and lulled into a false sense of security. Then he feeds us the Sulphur: the money gained from the sale of drilling rights, the taxes collected on gasoline, electricity and by-products created with that all that new oil and the soon-to-return spectre of Windfall Profits Taxes, will then go into funding ObamaCare -- and might even be used to fund even worse liberal (small 'l' intentional) excesses. Some of us will get a job, some of us might have that appendectomy paid for eight years from now. As long as all that happens (He assumes), we're not supposed to notice that Obama basically became a Conservative overnight, caved to the pressure of public opinion, and tossed his Leftie friends over the railing on the issue of enslaving us all in the name of Mother Gaia (the New Communism), turning himself into a liar and opportunist in the process.
In the meantime, maybe a few tens of thousands of Americans might be put back to work, which will be trumpeted as evidence of an economic "miracle" by (P)MSNBC and their ilk (in a country in which 10 million are "officially" unemployed, and the true total might be closer to 17 million). We're supposed to be grateful for any economic growth we get out of this President, no matter how mediocre and infinitesimal.

David Copperfield on his best day couldn't pull this one off, and neither can Barack Obama. Mostly because he doesn't have any credibility anymore, and partly because like George C. Scott in "Patton", "You magnificent Bastard, I'VE READ YOUR BOOK!".

King Priam, the doomed monarch of Troy is supposed to have remarked upon the discovery of hte Trojan Horse "I fear the Greeks, even when they come bearing gifts...". But no one listened to him, and Troy was taken by deceit and the inhabitants slaughtered.

I fear the post-racial, post-partisan President who does nothing but harp on race and practice naked partisanship when He comes bearing gifts, too.