Job Fairs

With the Engineering Expo coming up next Monday to Thursday down at Champaign, I will be hitching a ride down with my sister to check it out. My experience with these things has not been all that positive, but I figure that I might as well go and talk to some employers and see how the market is these days. Maybe I will even find a suitable job, but who knows.

In my first two years of school, I never really went to any job fair type thing, mostly because I didn't know about them or really care to attend. I didn't have a resume, and I usually wasn't seeking an internship because I had to count on spending every break with my Dad in Taiwan or whatever vacation spot they happened to choose. Plus the expo was usually in like the third week of school, when lazy me had barely unpacked the boxes in my dorm room and most likely had not even bought my books yet.

Junior year was a little bit different. By then, most of my friends were engineers, and people were starting to impress on me the idea that going to these fairs was very important. So I decided to put on a shirt and tie, show up with a folder of resumes, and start shoving them at whoever cared to take them. At this time, the economy had already begun its downturn and many companies were hiring a very limited number of students. Anyways, I didn't really happen to care much, I was just there to visit some booths, talk to some representatives, but most of all, get some free stuff. Free stuff was probably the best part about going to those fairs back then. I'd always just throw aside the company brochures and multimedia CD presentations they'd give me once I got back to my apartment, but those balls that flash when you bounce them were fun throughout all of my two years at 312. Even now, I am still using a Crest toothbrush with massaging tips that I got from a Proctor & Gamble company presentation. I got this big bottle of Febreze that I never opened but is sitting on my shelf too. Whenever I need a rag or something to wear while I change my oil, there is a pile old Compaq Moray Menace T-Shirts somewhere in my dresser. And if there is ever a pen shortage in this country, fear not because I've got a big bag full of pens from every company you can name, lying around in my closet or something.

Even so, once I got to be a senior, things had turned much more serious. The economy had not bounced back as expected, instead it got worse. At the expo, nearly half of the booths were empty because companies were forced to cancel their hiring. A lot of the companies that were there flat out told you that they were experiencing severe financial troubles and were most likely freezing any personnel additions. Others gave me some canned spiel about checking their website online and signing up for InterviewTrak. Good thing I attended, and your company sent you with a booth to tell me that looking online was better than talking to them in person. Needless to say, I was less worried about getting free mousepads that year, and more concerned about getting an actual interview or job offer.

As if matters could not be worse, in the middle of the expo, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center buildings and another into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, what I hope is the darkest day of history that I will ever have to experience during my lifetime. The last thing anybody wanted to talk about was job placement at that time, and rightly so. With all that was going on in the world, my personal concerns suddenly all seemed light and inconsequential.

Here I am now, a summer gone by since graduation, and once again it's expo time. Am I wiser? More experienced? Ready to impress some companies with my new qualifications? Not as far as I can tell. The only advantage I have now over past years is that I can start working right away. Yay for me. Honestly, though, I don't feel all that desperate to beg people for a job. I know in my heart that I am qualified and that I am smart enough to do a good job at anything they would give me a chance at. There is no sense in taking a dead-end, worthless job where I won't learn anything or improve myself, all the while being unappreciated and unrecognized for my work. I'm better off pursuing a graduate degree, continuing to learn from working with my dad, or maybe even starting my own thing.

Nevertheless, this is a big week for me. Even if I don't get a job, I will have a better idea of what my next step in life should be. If something does happen to open up for me, then who knows where I'm headed and what I'll be doing? I'll let you all know how it went when I get back.

Anime

I never watched too many Japanese cartoons. Played a lot of video games, watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid, but never got into the anime thing. But I've seen a few episodes from random series because know a bunch of big anime fans and it comes my way once in a while for whatever reason. Even though I'm not addicted or anything, I gotta say that some of what I watched was pretty entertaining and funny.

One thing I noticed is that it seems like the main character is always the same guy. Like this quiet, mysterious guy with a checkered past, acts real hard all the time but has plenty of dorky moments, especially awkward when it comes to the one girl he secretly likes. For some reason it seems like the main character always has the same deep voice too, as if there is just this one Japanese guy in all of Japan that they get to do the voice for every cartoon series. I wouldn't be surprised.

Then there is the girl he likes, usually some hot chick who wears short skirts but is very innocent and sweet. She also has to secretly like him back, but they don't find out each others' feelings until the second season. At that point, they are happy together for an episode or two before something tears them apart and the struggle continues. Also, the main character has to have a number of rivals, usually with one main enemy who isn't just a plain old bad guy, but he is conflicted with his own history that we are supposed to somewhat identify with, yet still hate. I always like that guy the best in these series, he's usually the most complex and well developed character, I've found. A couple examples I can think of are Piccolo and Vegeta in Dragonball Z, or Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII.

Another thing is that there seem to be a lot of people with blonde, brown, or red hair in these stories. Is this because that is how people look in Japan? I thought all Japanese people were born with black hair. Or maybe they just think black hair looks too lame. But something about blonde hair with chinky face and slanty eyes just doesn't seem right. It's just the guys that have slanty eyes though, the girls always have big round eyes, unlike real life Oriental girls. The other thing about hair is that spiky hair is very common too. Not spiky like Bart Simpson spiky, but I'm sure everyone has seen what I'm talking about.

So basically those are a few of the main guidelines to make a successful anime series, spoken from an observer's point of view. You get your main character (along with that guy with the deep voice to do his part), the hot but innocent chick, and a complex, mysterious, and twisted bad guy. Then incorporate the love story and scattered battles between main character and bad guy in which nobody ever wins. Be sure to also draw more Caucasian looking characters because black hair and slanty eyes aren't cool, and don't forget to add a hip Japanese dance/pop theme song to the beginning title sequence and credits. Shoot, if I could draw and had enough money to produce a Japanese cartoon, I'd make millions...

The Dudo509 Blogspot Awards

In light of the recent MTV Video Music Awards (which I caught pieces of, and from what I saw, really sucked), I have decided to hand out some awards of my own for various categories. No, there is no physical trophy or monetary value to winning a DBA, but the prestige alone should be way more than enough incentive. That is, everyone wants to win one so they can tell people that they got a DBA. With DBA status, it is not uncommon for one to find himself/herself getting into clubs for free, for police officers to not issue you tickets in minor infraction, and to get personal phone calls from the President and Britney Spears.

The following are the categories and nominees. I will announce the winners at a later date.

Disclaimer: Do NOT email me to complain if someone/something you like was not nominated or does not win. Make your own awards.

*Best New Artist*
Ashanti
Avril Lavigne
John Mayer

*Best New Blog*
stork0262
mcpheenys
cindychen
ontic08

*Gayest Song*
Dashboard Confessional - Screaming Infidelities
Enrique Iglesias - Hero
Enrique Iglesias - Escape
Justin Timberlake - Like I Love You

*Most Overplayed*
DJ Sammy - Heaven
Eminem - Without Me
Nelly - Hot in Herre
Avril Lavigne - Complicated
Chad Kroeger f. Josey Scott - Hero

*Best Song*
White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
Linkin Park - Papercut
Avril Lavigne - Complicated
John Mayer - No Such Thing
Incubus - Warning
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way

*Ugliest Celebrity*
Yao Ming
Bud Selig
Randy Johnson
Christina Aguilera
Venus Williams
That large skater-looking kid that does MTV News

*Favorite Fantasy Baseball Player*
Barry Bonds
Mike Mussina
Alfonso Soriano
Alex Rodriguez
Johan Santana

*Fantasy Football 2002 Sleeper*
Clinton Portis
Kevan Barlow
Qadry Ismail
Michael Pittman
Rod Gardner

*Favorite Movie*
Crossroads
Austin Powers 3
Minority Report
Signs
Road to Perdition

*Best Recent Album*
Incubus - Morning View
Aaliyah - Aaliyah
Weezer - Maladroit
Ludacris - Word of Mouf

*Best Meal I Had Over The Summer*
Bob Chinn's for Mom's B-day w/ Mom and Dad
Dinner Aboard Spirit of Chicago w/ Olivia
Dinner at Dennis's Mom's Restaurant w/ DWu, Cindylee, Smythe
Jack's Frozen Sausage Pizza by myself
BBQ with Thai Mafia

*Best TV Show I Watch(ed)*
Friends reruns (WGN, TBS)
Baseball Tonight (ESPN)
106&Park (BET)
Pardon The Interruption (ESPN)
Simpsons reruns (FOX)
Real World Chicago (MTV)

*Best Websites*
ESPN Page 2
The Onion
CBS MLB Scorebard
Yahoo! Euchre

Scented Extra Soft Kleenex With Lotion

In an earlier blog, I wrote how some of the good things about girls are candles and exfoliating hand soap. Well, one thing this does not apply to is Kleenex. I am sick and tired of having to use a tissue to wipe up some spilled orange juice and coming away with my hands smelling like flowers. I also do not like my entire face to feel lotion-ey and soft after I blow my nose. Whatever happened to the good old days, when all the skin around my nasal area would start to peel and turn red after a couple days of blowing my nose due to a cold? I miss those days. When you have a cold, you are supposed to suffer. Your nose should not be in any mood to be pampered.

Kleenex is supposed to be a happy medium between paper towels and toilet paper. Ok, it could be softer than both of those, but the idea is that TP is supposed to be so fragile that it virtually dissolves in water when you flush so as to avoid cloggage of your toilet. Paper towels are meant to clean up moderately large spills, tough enough to soak up plenty of liquid without breaking. Meanwhile, the point of Kleenex is to give you something that is decently strong but small and thin enough to use in more delicate situations.

Delicate, to a point. These things are still disposable, mind you. I don't need to feel like the Queen of England whenever I need to wipe some blood off a paper cut or perhaps a knife wound following an unfortunate watermelon cutting incident. It's like paper plates, you know how Chinet always brags about their plates being so tough and lasting? Well, for something that people use once and throw away, I don't need to spend the unneccessary extra cash for luxury disposable plates. I might as well get me some real china, or reusable plastic plates for that matter. As for Kleenex, any type of lotion or extra softness agents are purely uneccessary for people like me (as well as the rest of the non-princess population wandering around out there in this country).

I was washing the lenses of my glasses earlier, and since drying them with a towel usually leaves streaks, I decided to try using a tissue. Man, I would have been better off using that towel, or maybe the fur of my friend's cat who sheds like a mofo. I had to wash the glasses over again right after that Kleenex left a layer of oily and fuzzy crap on the surface which I could not hope to ever see through. Now I am afraid to wipe off some dust off my clock radio using a Kleenex, in the fear that it might turn oily and nasty in the process.

All I'm really asking for is a simple tissue that is cheap, a little bit soft, and durable enough for certain mundane uses. Girls got props for candles and exfoliating soap, but lotioned Kleenex with extra fuzz for added annoyance is going too far, even for an enlightened man like me.

Strike My Arse

Now that a strike in baseball has officially been averted (until 2006, I guess, when we can do it all again), I can finally write some of my thoughts on the whole ordeal. Some people might be surprised that I haven't already put up a long spiel about the strike negotiations and all, but I've been too busy suffering as a baseball fan to write about the topic.

The analogy has been used before, but it's seriously as if all of us collectively as baseball fans are the pathetic boyfriends who, no matter how many times their girl cheats on them or calls them a loser, always take her back. I feel like the owners and players just continually slap me in the face, insult me, and milk me for whatever money I'm sucker enough to give them, yet I just can't leave. Either because I am too blinded by love or dependence on the game, or I have simply nowhere else to go.

At this point, it really is almost meaningless that an agreement was reached. Haven't we been disrespected and insulted enough already? The fact that these people somehow found some way to split billions of dollars should not earn them a pat on the back. However, the fact that it took them this long to agree on something like this is enough to make me livid, regardless of the final terms of the settlement.

They dragged me around for months while they sat in their hotel rooms and ate room service. While fans continued to sign their paychecks, the players were practically packing up their lockers and getting ready to leave in the middle of their job. So-called "negotiators" bickered for every last cent up until a mere 3 hours before game time, leaving all of us hanging like bloody fools. Can you imagine having made plans to take your family out to Wrigley today, taking off work early, driving into the city and to the park, only to find someone there telling you to go home because the players don't feel like working?

Last night, these jackasses were still fighting because of an $8 million dollar difference in where to set the luxury tax threshold. That's just ridiculous. Baseball makes billions each year, and they argue about $8 million. It's almost like you are buying a $300,000 house, and you threaten to walk away if the owner refuses to throw in his $10 clock radio to finish the deal. Now I know the analogy isn't completely accurate because we're talking about a threshold, but still... when you are talking about the average person in this country making $30,000 give or take, these numbers are so big that they lose perspective.

I'm pretty sure neither Bud Selig, nor Donald Fehr or Tom Glavine read my blog, but I just need to spit some words at them right now. To the owners: don't sign a contract to pay your players $250 million, then complain that salaries are out of control and that you are losing money. I'd switch places with you any day. If you are not a fan of baseball, don't be a damn baseball team owner, because you are bringing the game down with your lack of love. We know that baseball is a business no matter what, but it's not like an oil mining business so run it with some sense of humanity.

To the players: I'd trade places with you any day too. So would any of your millions of fans. God blessed you with the talent and we know you worked hard to get to the major leagues, but would you please find some way to get by on your measly salaries, even though they rarely exceed $20 million per year? You, more than anyone, should love, appreciate, and revere the game of baseball enough to not walk out because of money. All I hear is that "it's not about the money" but as much as I would like to believe that, it's just flat out bull. If it's not about the money, then what is it about? Don't tell us that "fans don't understand," we understand that each and every one of you could retire from baseball, not make a single penny for the rest of your life, and live more comfortably than any of us, who fight for 9 to 5 jobs, making only a tiny fraction of what you do. And yet you still want more.

I'm sure not every player wanted to strike, but obviously most were willing to do so, in the name of the Players Union and higher salaries. Now that it's over, they will all go back to playing and pretend like nothing ever happened. To the game of baseball, they have all shown great disdain and brought shame on themselves for their selfishness. To the fans, especially the young, they have done irreparable damage by showing that this world is ruled by greed, even in America's Pastime.

I wish I could say that I will never watch major league baseball again, but alas, I know it will never happen. I'm that pathetic boyfriend who loves the game too much, or has nowhere else to turn. I know that I will not attend games for a long time, maybe for life, because in doing so I directly feed the greedy appetites of those who continually take advantage of us. Unfortunately, I won't be able to turn away from watching games on TV or tuning in to Baseball Tonight, which end up in their paychecks somehow as well.

At least football season is here, but it may only be a matter of time before greed severely tarnishes this sport as well, if it hasn't already. Go Bears.

* An Afterthought: Fans Not Happy At Angels Game *

This story describes how on the night before the strike deadline, fans expressed disgust at a game by throwing items on the field and chanting "Don't Strike!" throughout the game. Not that throwing things is the most mature or proper thing to do, but listen to what Scott Blowenweiss had to say about it:

"I would have hoped that our fans would have a little more class than what they showed tonight by throwing stuff on the field ... that could cause injury ... I know they're disappointed, but let us play the game..."

Does this not anger anyone else besides me? First of all, if you click on the link and look at the picture, it is of beach balls being tossed on the field. You freaking pansies. What about the police officers and firemen that risk their lives to save others? What about our men and women in the armed forces around the world that deal with land mines and suicide bombers every day, so that we can live in our safe little world? Maybe there was other stuff being thrown, but I laughed for about 10 minutes straight when I saw that picture right above the Homoenweiss quote, "that could cause injury."

Second of all, "let us play the game"??!?! What did you think we wanted all along, you inbred idiots! One minute you are all getting ready to strike, the next thing you say is "let us play the game"? Think about it, if you really wanted to just play the game, nobody would be throwing stuff at you and chanting "Don't strike," ok?

Just another typical example of how dumb, hypocritical, and self-righteous some of these players are.