I got my new job.

The call came today, shortly after I returned from lunch. While I was on the phone with Mike from [REDACTED] going over some details, Nick and Diana walked up to the Lab to purchase a goat. Or maybe it was something else. I dunno. Then a second later David strolled in. I hung up the phone, turned to David, and said, “Sorry to do this to you, man, but . . . I’m giving you my two weeks notice.”

Those words felt so surreal coming out of my mouth. I’ve been wanting to say them for over five years now — usually in anger — but after finally doing so, it just was weird, and a little sad. I’ve made some good friends because of the Evil Corporation. Leaving them will be a little rough. But I think I’ll somehow cope.

David’s reaction was priceless, but pretty much expected. The words out of his mouth were “Okay, great for you!” but his expression said, “Oh. Fuck.” (Staffing hasn’t been at its best the last week or so, and look worse in the future.)

My last day is Thursday, October 5th. Then I start at [REDACTED] the following Monday, which gives me a few days off to relax and buy some new work clothes. My new job seems like it’ll be interesting and fun. The pay is good, the benefits are great, and I get to start a slow march into becoming the enemy: a member of Management. (Though I prefer the term supervisor, as in “I’m going to supervise you, even though I haven’t the faintest idea what it is you do.”) There’s also a great opportunity for bonuses and stuff, so overall I’m pretty goddamn excited.

The first part of my One Year Mission has been completed. Part Two should follow in time, but I need to get cracking on Part Three if I wanna finish by July 2007.

New job . . . whee!

JAB

Had the weekend off, but it didn’t feel very weekend-y. The whole last several days were sort of geared towards Lindsey going away to college, and was thus rather packed full of doing family stuff: visiting Roland, celebrating my dad’s birthday, and other crap I can’t recall right now. Saturday wasn’t too busy, but was a little gloomy. Lindsey mostly packed, I mowed and sort of twiddled my thumbs during the day before going to Nate’s in the evening. But it’s like there was a dark cloud hanging overhead, casting a slightly depressing cant over the day’s proceedings. My mom was red-eyed and upset most of the day, a state which kind of washed over the rest of us — not that it was her fault, or that any blame is being assigned . . . it’s just how it was.

Sunday was better. We spent all day moving Lindsey into Ohio State. The day began at 6 AM and ended at about 6 PM. After getting her and her roommate’s stuff moved into their room (now that was an ordeal), we went out to get lunch, buy a few extra things at a Columbus Wal-Mart, and visited some family friends for a bit. That whole period was probably the best and least depressing part of the day. We returned to Lindsey’s dorm, helped set up her Internet and cable connections, and then said goodbye. The last part was a little rough, but everyone managed. Since then, Lindsey’s called home a couple of times. She’s having fun, hanging out with her smelly friends whom I don’t approve of, and getting into Zombie Jesus knows what kind of shenanigans. She’ll do alright, I think.

On a final note, I’d just like to say how Ohio State made the whole moving-in process very easy and organized. Consider they have several thousand freshmen move in at the same time, it was efficient and orderly and utterly painless. The school earns major points in my book for that alone — it certainly made my life a hell of a lot easier. And really, that’s what matters.

JAB

If you haven’t listened to Weird Al’s new song, you really should. It’s quite catchy, and more than a little acerbic. The accompanying video is pretty sweet, too.

JAB

Brick is an amazing movie.

I’m not one to lavish praise on much of anything, but this film deserves it. I haven’t been this impressed with a movie since seeing Secretary several years back. Both are moody and resonating films that struck a chord with me. They’re also alike in that both sort of flew in under my radar; I never heard much about them till they made the winding path to DVD.

Brick is an elaborate and hardboiled detective story told in the noir style — think Chinatown or The Maltese Falcon — but set in high school. Here’s a quick synopsis taken from the movie’s web site: “Brendan Frye is a loner, someone who knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When the girl he loves turns up dead, he is determined to find the “who” and “why” and plunges into the dark and dangerous social strata of rich girl Laura, intimidating Tug, drug-addled Dode, seductive Kara, and the ominous Pin. But who can he really trust?”

What really makes Brick so inventive and special is that it takes the style of those earlier crime thrillers and transposes it onto these modern high school characters. The hero Brendan (excellently played by the once-annoying Joseph Gordon-Levitt of ’3rd Frock From the Sun’) is the Humphrey Bogart character, flawed and alienated. Femme fatales, corrupt officials, even the “jealous husband” — all of the standard noir archetypes are represented.

The characters speak with that sort of fast-paced, hardboiled dialogue that just sounds so cool and that I wish I could write, like this little exchange between Brendan and an assistant principal (played by Richard Roundtree, a fact of which I was ignorant until looking up this bit of dialogue):

Assistant V.P. Trueman: “You’ve helped this office out before.”
Brendan Frye: “No, I gave you Jerr to see him eaten, not to see you fed.”

Another great line is when, after beating some information out of a guy, Brendan looks at the guy’s friends (who were watching) and says, “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.”

Just writing this little review makes me want to go watch the movie again, right now . . . and I would, but I have some other stuff to attend to. Brick could be my favorite movie of the year. Instead of telling you how much I think you should see this movie, I’ll leave you with one last quote.

Laura Dannon: “Do you trust me now?”
Brendan Frye: “Less than when I didn’t trust you earlier.”

JAB

Let me just say that the necktie is the most evil piece of apparel that ever existed — even worse, I imagine, than the dreaded ladies corset.

And as for you, Mr. Caspar Isemer . . . I hope you and your little “helpful” website are one day descended upon by fire ants and devoured while you sleep. Or, if that’s asking too much, I would settle for your slumber to be fleeting and troubled.

JAB

New York Magazine has a really interesting piece up right now: “What If 9/11 Never Happened?”

They assembled a varied list of contributors — columnists, political advisers, public figures, even graphic novelists — to pontificate on what the world might be like had the terrorist attacks that day never happened. All of the speculations are very, very fascinating, and, perhaps not unsurprisingly, more than a little depressing.

My two — I hesitate to call them “favorites,” so I’ll go with the two I thought were the best, perhaps the most thought-provoking, are actually the first and last entries. Andrew Sullivan, former editor of the New Republic, contributed a series of alternate history blog posts relating very plausibly how a different, more deadly terrorist attack might have affected a different world.

The other highlight is by the aforementioned “graphic novelists” Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, cocreators of the excellent comic book series Ex Machina. Theirs is probably the most striking too, consisting of one panel of art and one caption.

If you’ve got some free time I recommend reading the whole thing. If you don’t, then just read the ones I pointed out. It’s worth it.

JAB

My Tuesday might not be as awesome other persons, but it’s still been pretty good.

First to report: I have a job interview! Set it up today for Friday at 9 am. It’s with a shipping company called Transcorp, located in Huber Heights, for a management position. I am very excited, yet slightly annoyed because I can find little information about them on google. I have their address, so at least I know where I’m going Friday, but I don’t know what kind of goods they ship, how big they are exactly, and all sorts of other things a web site would be handy for. So I’m going to call them tomorrow to find out exactly how their name is spelled, if they have a web site, and, if not, some basic information about them. I don’t want to go into the interview Helen Keller-like. That would be most vexing.

Additionally, work on Thirty Well Spent progresses, and does so at rate that could almost be described as “Yeti-like.” How fast does a Yeti move? Fuck if I know. What I do know is that I’m nearly done with the new first chapter, which incorporates all the elements from the beta version I liked, but fits in with the overall story better. I’s is excited, for realzy.

I’ll update on both fronts when I have more news.

JAB