I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend of late. I have talked to several of my friends (close and not so close) and noticed that there is a disturbing trend developing in the dating scene (Or so it would seem). I have spoke with no less than four friends within the past week and each of them has told me stories of dating someone or having a one night stand. Yes, people still have one night stands. Not me, of course! Each of these individuals has related stories to me that should be reserved for some suspense novel. The latest trend you ask? Stalking! I guess stalking is back in vogue. “I went on one date with this guy and the next thing you know he is calling me at all hours of the night, calling my work, calling my family, showing up at the same events I attend, etc., etc.” At first I feel really bad for my friends and then I take a step back. Way back.

Are these people really being stalked? I ask myself. Personally in some (not in all) cases people will tell you they have been stalked to receive sympathy from friends because, “I am so beautiful that the people I date can not get enough of me and therefore I am stalked. Please feel sorry for me and my beauty.” Syndrome. This is my working theory because some people give me that, “I’ve been stalked” line a little too often. Personally, I have never been stalked. I feel as if I have been left out! Hell, I’m lucky to get a call back after a date! I was thinking about what I would do if someone ever stalked me. I think the first thing I would do is probably start stalking them! Why not? They wouldn’t expect that. I think this is the answer. Of course this brings up the possibility of a restraining order against me. Hmm.. Or maybe I would get a couple of my cousins to take care of the stalker. I have cousins that have done some serious time and I’m sure they would have no problem setting some queen straight. So to speak. That could possibly bring battery charges against me or worse! Hmm… I guess there is no good way to handle a stalker other than to ignore them. That’s pretty safe. I think I will stick with that one. Now all I need is a stalker!

Lately I have become much more aggressive in my job search but I am not sure how well this is paying off for my self-esteem. In the past week I have been following up on positions that I had either interviewed for or positions I was very interested in obtaining. During my follow up calls I found out that the companies had decided NOT to fill the vacancy for the positions that I had applied. What the!? My question: What the hell is going on? Don’t you companies know that there are thousands of unemployed people out here who are putting in some serious time to smooze and kiss your ass so we can get a job? I have learned an entirely new skill set in my job hunting career. I might as well call job hunting a career because I spend more time trying to get a job than anything else in my life.

I have basically learned an entirely new skill set in my career. Writing! I know I do my fare share of writing in this journal but I believe my true talents lie in writing correspondence. I have an entire range of letters that I have become adept at drafting. Let’s see there is the networking letter, the Thank You letter from networking, the Thank You letter after an interview, the follow up letter when I haven’t heard anything after an interview and several variants in between. The one letter I do not have experience with to date is the letter of acceptance. That one could take a while.

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent last week to a couple of friends about a job I had applied for some time ago. I thought it was perfect for my journal entry:

As I told you yesterday I was on the warpath with this one company which I did not hear anything from after what I thought was a stellar interview. The position was for the company that runs the PACE bus systems. So I called the Philadelphia office where the hiring manager was. This was the same person who interviewed me. Finally got in touch with him today.
Here is what I asked him, "So I was just calling to follow up on that position I interviewed for. I would just like to know if it has been filled and what is the current status."
Here is what I meant, "I sent yo' ass three LONG e-mails about this stupid ass job and you got the nerve to dis a brotha' who has been out of work for over a year! Oh hell naw! You gonna' tell me somethin'!"
He replied that the job had been filled.
Here is what I asked, "Could you tell me if there was anything I could have done to improve my interview. Was there some skill I was lacking?"
Here is what I meant, "I know you gonna' make up some lame ass excuse why I didn't get the job because both you and I know the real reason is that you can't have some strong, intelligent brotha' in a position of authority working at the corporate level and not driving one of your buses!"
He told me that I did really well and I would have been called in for another interview but they decided to hire Craig who was one of the guys on the panel interviewing me!
What I said, "Oh really?!"
What I meant, "What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?!"
He did apologize for me not receiving a notice. This is NO CONSOLATION for me since I e-mailed him directly THREE TIMES.
Well, I got my answer and that made me feel a little better. At least I know I am still at the level of ALMOST getting hired!

So I’m eating my lunch and being very good with my meal. I had a lettuce and tomato salad with red wine vinegar, olive oil and a little tuna. This is a VERY good lunch for me. Anyway, I was still a little hungry for something sweet so I finished off a box of shredded wheat cereal (I should get a gold medal on my lunch alone!) and noticed some cool code thing for online stuff in the shredded wheat cereal box. Well I’m excited and I don’t even care that it’s through Yahooligan’s and is for kids. I just want my free download. I was hoping it would be some cool game! So I log on with my dummy Yahoo account. The reason I have a dummy account is for sites like this one. Yahoo has some partnership with Kellogg and they wanted my name, age, serial number, DNA code. You know, the usual. THAT’S why I have a dummy account.

So I login to this very cute Kellogg site with hippos and donkeys playing soccer. I guess eight year old kids like watching hippos and donkey’s play soccer in this day and age of blood and gore shoot ‘em up games. Anyway, I’m all excited about my online prize. I would even be happy with some decent coupons for Kellogg serial. That stuff is expensive! Well my prize was a picture from the movie Spiderman. ‘OK’, I say to myself. It’s kinda’ cheesy but I will take it. Can you believe it’s not even a picture of Toby McGuire in his Spiderman costume? Just some dumb ass picture of him with a camera! What the F**k!!?? So let me get this straight. If I were some eight year old kid expecting some really cool download from Kellogg I would have given this evil corporation my name, age and God know what else for a stupid ass picture of Toby McGuire?! Gotta’ love capitalism and the American marketing system!

GONE FISHING

As we all know it is fun to get excited about an event that is happening in your own life but it is often more fulfilling to be excited about events that are happening in your friends’ or families’ lives. This Sunday I was afforded the unique opportunity to cheer my dear friend Carrie across the finish line of the Chicago marathon! My girl was FABULOUS! She ran the whole thing in under five hours and it was her first marathon. I could not believe the thousands of people who participated in the race. The energy level was exhilarating. My friend Tami and I were cheering her on with noisemakers and a motivational sign created by our friend Marla.

My girl Carrie looked fabulous but not distinguishable enough from other girls in light blue tops with a ponytail. So my suggestion for Carrie if she decides to do the run again in the future is to follow the lead of some of the more colorful characters I noticed at the run. There were people dressed up like Superman, Captain America, Frog Man, Cow man, Leopard Woman, The Cat in The Hat and the list goes on and on. I think Carrie should dress up as one of the characters from the old TV show the New Zoo Review. Possibly the hippopotamus character! Can’t miss a hippo! One of the other things I noticed was there were an awful lot of people on their cell phones who were running. I even saw one guy on the phone as he was crossing the finish line! That’s just a little too accessible for me but if your running it would definitely help your loved ones keep track. So next year Carrie should be dressed up like a hippopotamus with a cell phone so we can track her. I think this makes perfect sense! CARRIE, YOU DID IT!!! YOU ARE THE BOMB!!!!!

Not much to report this week so I will share a story. Some of you have heard this story but many of you haven’t. For those of you who know me I’m sure you ask yourselves, “That Paul is so fascinating! How in the world did he become so good with computers and technology?” I know, I know sometimes I ask myself that same question. When did it all start? Well, I have been able to trace my fascination with computers back to a solitary incident in a computer lab at the university I attended.

When I was in college my major was Engineering Technology. That is basically the bastard step-child of Engineering. Anyway, we still had to take a lot of the same crappy pre requisite classes for our major. The bane of my existence was programming classes and I definitely had my share; C++, Fortran and Assembler just to name a few. One day while I was in the computer lab working on some stupid program (Probably “Hello World” or something equally as idiotic) I noticed this guy sitting across the aisle from me doing something way out of the box. One minute his screen was plain text like the rest of ours and the next minute it was filled with a full color picture of a naked woman. Well, my interest was piqued! After a short conversation with the guy I found out he was downloading the pictures from the Internet. After that I was spending a lot more time in the computer labs! I started teaching myself networking and all kinds of computer geek things. Before that chance incident can you believe I hated computers? And it’s all thanks to porn!!

“Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on but the Rent..” is a line from one of my favorite songs from the late 70s or early 80s. These lyrics were sung by a woman to a man basically saying, “If you can’t help me with my finances then all that love crap don’t mean diddly.” I have used this line throughout the decades (Yes, I can say decades) jokingly to friends. Well, now these words are hitting home like a hammer to an anvil. For me there ain’t nothin’ goin’ on but the rent. More specifically, the mortgage. I get my last unemployment check this week and I have enough money to last until the end of the year. Scary, scary! I have turned up the heat on the old job search and I’m trying to get the FASiT name out there too. I need an income!

So if anyone out there has any leads for employment (I’m open to almost anything) then let me know! I’m still waiting to hear from Target and Best Buy. Things must really be tough if I can’t even get a part time stock job at Target! I was really hoping they would call me back. I was having dreams of stocking shelves for third shift. No customers to deal with. Just me and a pallet full of mouth wash. I don’t have high falutin’ dreams. My dreams are simple. My basic dream is to receive a paycheck on a regular basis because ain’t nothin’ goin’ on but the mortgage!

TGIF! Woo Hoo!!! End of the week! This has really been a rough week and I need the weekend. I know, you are all saying, “What the hell is he so happy for? He doesn’t even have a job to hate!” For your information I too look forward to the weekends. No, I do not have a regular Dilbert type job where I sit in a cubicle and make small talk with co-workers that I can not stand. No, I am not given idiotic tasks from upper management to please a customer who can not be pleased. I have not had to sit in traffic for hours (I thank the gods for that one alone!) and I have not experienced a serious case of road rage in months. I look forward to the weekends because that is when I can hang out with my friends. It gets pretty boring sitting in this apartment. The only other person I get to talk to on a regular basis is my friend Shawn who lives in San Diego! How impractical is that? After that I talk to Casper my cat and sometimes I think I understand what he is saying back to me. Freaky!!!

One of the other reasons it has been a rough week is that I have not partied all week. Just to set the definition straight, partying for me is going to a dance bar and having a few drinks. That’s it. No wacky weed, pill poppin’ or stuff that looks like baking soda up my nose!! I figured I should slow down with the partying. I was going out about three times a week. Who has that kind of money!? God knows I don’t. So it has also been a very sobering week. It’s nice to know that I still have some vestige of will power. I think my will power resides in a little corner at the tip of my pinky finger. I’m so proud of myself this past week I think I will celebrate by going out and partying tonight! Have a great weekend!

Hotmail is not for children! Has anyone besides me noticed this? I have always joked about how bad Hotmail e-mail was with allowing spam but I really had no idea. I have had a Hotmail account for a few years but I do not currently use it as a primary account. I actually DO use it for junk mail. You know all those online forms that want you to supply an e-mail address? I give them that good old Hotmail address. Now that I have a new ISP (Internet Service Provider) I needed an e-mail account for FASiT. I came up with the (not so) brilliant idea of creating a Hotmail account! I did not subscribe to any of the services that they offer or any of the third party mailings. Basic, basic, basic, I even turned the junk mail filtering up to high. I have not had this account for 24 hours and you wouldn't believe the amount of unsolicited e-mail I have received. Here are just a few of the subjects:

Be your own private eye; Check out these Asian highschool babes; Girls only sleep over party; This sparked my Love Life; Order your FREE copy of 101 Tax Tips. These are just the ones that were in my Inbox. The Bulk mail folder was worse! I am truly offended by this Spam. For one thing why do spammers assume I am a straight man who wants to see women in porn? I am always getting Spam for straight men. Where’s all the spam for gay men!?! One thing is for sure, viewing all this spam has not affected me in the least. I have no desire to buy straight porn or have sex with women. I just thought of something. Maybe this is a ploy by the Religeous Right to turn gay men straight! Things that make you go, Hmmm......