You have been weighed in the scales and found wanting . . .

I haven't posted for a while, the main reason being for the last few weeks I have had the wind knocked out of me.

I have been looking for a job here in Utah since I graduated from Indiana University. I graduated back in December, so that makes . . . 8 months now. I started a little slowly, but we moved in April and since then I have been hitting it pretty hard. For a long time I wasn't worried about it, thinking, "It'll work out, what's the use worrying?" A couple of weeks ago it caught up to me.

I have now sent literally hundreds of resumes to companies here in Utah. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the companies to which I have sent resumes, some in Utah, some outside of Utah.

In Utah:
Interpace Industries, Inc
Anderson Development Services
Permier Mentoring
ISI
Encover
Tomax
406 Partners
Raylia Designs
Novell
Select Portfolio Servicing
Infopia
Ivory Homes
Ken Garff Automotive Group
The Modellers, LLC
GE Motor Credit
WorldStrides
First American Corporation
Overstock.com
Comcast
LexisNexis
XO Communications
Intuit
Omniture
U of U
Utah Retirement Systems
Zions Bancorporation
eBay
L-3 Communications
General Growth Properties
LDS Church
American Express
UnitedHealth Group
George S. May
CB Richard Ellis
ITT Industries
Sirsi Dynix
REMX IT Staffing
HealthPort
Investools, Inc
Cambridge Financial Center
Robert Half Finance and Accounting
Marketstar
Select Portfolio Servicing
Harman Music Group
The Generations Network
Wells Fargo
MonaVie
Anderson Development
City of Salt Lake
Rio Tinto
Attensity
Skullcandy
Wasatch Advisors
Avalanche Software
Cambridge Financial Center
Maden Technologies
HCA Physician Services
Myriad
CR England
StoryRock
Morgan Stanley
Goldman Sachs

Not in SLC:
Countrywide
Deloitte
D & B
Cisco
Google
Apple
Omniture
Microsoft
Nordstrom
Amazon
HP
Dell
Nvidia
ATI
Ocean Tomo
Disney
EA Games
Motorola
Broadcom
Logitech
Nordstrom

There are many more, these are some of the more commonly known companies. You can see that many of them are tech companies, I like tech.

Of all these I have only been invited to interview twice, TWICE! I'm not really sure what it is about my resume that won't get me in the door. I have a couple of ideas, but they are just speculation.

I have applied for mostly business analyst, financial analyst, db analyst positions. What one does when you work in these positions is take information, numbers mostly, analyze them using all kinds of statistical techniques, and gain insights into how the company is performing. Sometimes this process results in profound insights that can help a company get a real advantage, usually it simply results in a small, but significant improvement in profitability. I am good with numbers and this is the kind of thing I like doing.

I have tried to avoid going into the practice of law, it just doesn't fit my nature. But, it is one area that is untapped. I haven't applied to any law firms yet, and I think that I will have more success if I do. So, I am going to apply to take the bar in February and if I haven't found anything else soon, that's the direction I will be going.

This is me, failing, and giving up. I am accepting that I cannot go in the direction that I have wanted to go, and so I am taking a job that I can get, but that I don't want. I am exchanging happiness for pragmatic, responsible misery. I am ashamed and embarrassed. Hopefully it's only temporary, but how do these things usually go?

More Memes! More Memes!

I don't know how many of you have been following Andy Samberg's stuff on SNL, but a lot of it shows up on the dipity time line of memes I posted last time. "Lazy Sunday", "Laser Cats", and "Andy Punches" are especially funny. (Notice the Zombies in the Andy Punches video, we'll talk more about zombies later, I promise!)

In his latest post, Samberg talks about "Dear Sister." A sketch that pokes fun at the OC. If you haven't seen this yet, you are in for a treat. Here's the original clip from the OC.



This is the SNL Digital Short, "Dear Sister":

Snldigitalshortindie
by Barneyk

Of Samberg's stuff, "Dear Sister" has become the most spoofed meme of the internet community. There are over 1,000 recreations of this joke, including "Dear Matrix", "Dear Boromir", and my favorite, "Dear Duck Hunt":



Samberg got his job at SNL by creating internet videos. He and his friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone created a group and website called "The lonely Island". The exposure their material got from the website led to their creating (among other things) a pilot for Fox and ultimately they were all three hired on at SNL. Schaffer, Taccone and Samberg are responsible for the SNL digital shorts (Schaffer and Taccone write/direct/contribute music).

The first big hit was "Lazy Sunday." It was created in mid December in 2006 and by February when NBC requested that Youtube remove it from the site, it had been viewed 5,000,000 times. Some say that it reinvigorated SNL (I know it did for me).

I can't hear that Imogen Heap song, "Hide and Seek" any more without seeing Shia Labeouf lying shot on the ground. So tonight when Katee chose it for her solo (on "So You Think You Can Dance"), I had to laugh.

I found this interesting time line about internet memes when I was doing research it includes everything from the dancing baby to Numa Numa to LoLcats. Check it out. As you zoom in more events will appear.

Ninjas!

When I was a kid, Ninjas were awesome.

Forget Arnold and Rambo, the ninja took the cake. From karate kid to Bruce Lee to Steven Seagal, martial arts made you invincible. Many boys (including myself) took karate or tae kwon do or aikido in order to possess these most excellent skills. Ninjas were totally rad!

Today ninjas are still around, but they have fallen from their previous stature. They could still be described as totally rad, but the calling something totally rad today evokes a different emotion than it did 20 years ago.

The internet is full of totally rad ninjas!

Chuck Norris v. Bruce Lee - Totally Rad back in the day!



Chuck Norris today reading Chuck Norris Facts - Still Totally Rad



Ask a ninja - this is one of the more dangerous ninjas, he spends his time critiquing films.



You may wonder when the ninja fell from grace. This may have had something to do with it.

Wheelchair Ninjas



In honor of ninjas, I have placed a feed from the Chuck Norris facts page to my sidebar. Each day there will be a new Chuck Norris fact displayed.

My Talking Dog

My dog Riley has a blog now. You might be asking, "How's that?" Turns out that dogs are a lot more like people than we ever knew. Cats too, I understand. They are miniature versions of people, with all the same sophisticated thoughts and feelings that people have, only cuter. These pets opine about current events, celebrity lifestyles, fashion, public policy, you name it.

They want to dress up in fancy costumes and act out scenes from famous movies and plays, they just lack the dexterity to do this for themselves. Some pet owners are savvy and sympathetic enough to understand this fact and oblige, to the great satisfaction of both pet and owner.

Come to think of it, Riley and I have spent many an evening on the back porch in intense conversation. I usually struggle to keep up while Riley expounds the principles of economics and economic policy to me. She understands well the application of sophisticated theory to practical political problems. I have considered granting her permission to guest write posts on my blog from time to time. My only fear is that she will be overzealous at the opportunity to reach a wider audience (she is pretty conservative, almost libertarian) and will come across heavy handed. Still, I may grant her wish anyway. She has so much wisdom to offer.

Things Nerds find Funny, Pt 1

Graphs:

Graph Jam







Indexed:



If you're still with me you might like Demitri Martin, law school dropout and professional comedian:

Doogie Howser, MD + Buffy the Vampire Slayer + Musical = genius!

I found this new direct to web show called "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." Starring Neil Partick Harris and written by Joss Whedon, pretty funny.

Let's take a quick ride down memory lane with Neil.

Doogie Howser - Intro



Undercover Brother



Barney