Michael's Texas Embrace

Even an internationally respected photographer, art critic, author, and all around adventurer takes some time to make a Jack-o-lantern.

This is mine. If you look, you will see a chinese symbol in his mouth. A temple monk gave this to me, and it binds an evil spirit inside the pumpkin. This is desirable as evil spirits suck the organs out of children who try to play pranks within your domain, and woe to the child who breaks the pumpkin's seal...

As an internationally renowned photographer, I travel take pictures of thousands--hundreds of thousands--of things a year. No recent object has moved me as much as Natural Environmental Object Artist Michael Murphy's stark rock forms.

I am not sure what the name of this particular piece is (he may fill me in on that), but I know that it is a sweeping vista of our age, a kinetic and boundless portait of a modern society in flux. I am sure it is for sale, and equally sure that not one of us could ever hope to afford it. I drink my cognac now, in silence.

Haven't posted, here's why for those of you that check this and I haven't emailed.

Argh! writing...paper...*gasp*...immediately after having...guests...training at...Borders...new...*choke*...job...

ugh...*cough*

which means...have...two jobs...on top of...grad school...

*dies*

I am now employed! I got a job at Gamespot. While I'm sure the hours for my part-time seasonal postition will be crap, and I'll probably have to get a second part-time, seasonal job to do any good, I will have some money coming my way. And I'll get discounts on video games. That will be cool.

dude.

Check the comments for the previous post, and see some beautiful haiku.

Long time sice a post. Oh, oh, I am shamed.

Boy, whoever said the economy was picking up and that new jobs were being created sure hasn't been trying to get a job (President Bush, I'm looking at you). I've been looking for a job for about a month and a half, and it has been hard.

I don't know what kind of jobs have been created lately, but they sure aren't jobs with benefits that pay well and let me use my college degree. I've noticed that when they say "9,000 new jobs were created last month," they don't say what kind of jobs have been created. I guess, "9,000 temporary part-time positions at McDonald's were created last month" doesn't sound so hot.

What kind of jobs are available to me, the newly minted (okay, fairly newly minted) college grad?

Well, I started out, I thought reasonably enough, looking for jobs at libraries or in the publishing industry, or at newspapers, or even corporations looking for editors and proof readers (I have an english degree, not the most useful, granted). Those didn't pan out. There's not a lot of work in those fields right now, and any opening are fiercely contested.

So then, I lowered my expectations. And then lowered them again. Now I'm applying to any business I see that has a "now hiring" sign, and most of them are part time and seasonal. Not exactly a booming job market. I've seen very few places hiring for full time, and all the jobs I'm talking about are retail/customer service-type positions. You know, stores.

Next time they say the job market is improving, remember, the jobs that are improving are mostly crappy. Hoo-ray for our president.