Get Doodling! How to Waste Time at Work
Dear Backpackers, travelers, and other lost boys or girls back in the drudgery of home not so sweet home and dull 9to5 jobs, what if we could live those best moments again? Have a look at this ad by Orange TV and enjoy (why resist?) that invisible little teardrop of recognition.
Hey, face it, I am a sentimental guy so I like it.
Slave To The Wage
Oh the tragedy, all it takes is one little decision and then, quelle surprise, you're stuck. So yeah I made the final leap, jumped the bandwagon, reached the bottom of my wallet, whatever mistakes you can make when you spend too much time daydreaming till it hits you, mondaymorning, 8 o'clock sharp, this guy is in working boots again, steel nose diving (yip new sturdy shoes too!) in the dready world of temp job work. Gosh, what took me so long?
Well, there is no one to blame then myself. I was stupid, a fact. Stupid, broke, stuck. Hail our glasses!
Showcase
The day that heaps of people rush out to down todays top story ( Will Harry die or not? Will there be life after the story ends? The suspense...), my little surprise moment was less global, awaited with fewer anticipation, nah, on hindsight is was more like a sudden (but sorta friendly it turned out) tab on the shoulder with a grumpy morning temper me turning around, "Yeah, wot?".
The deal, I did make it to the Rapidweaver Showcase page. That is, the design of zooadventurer did. Yeah, they have started pampering me with vanity, put me on a pedestal. And oh boy, I hadn't even started yet, this all just in bloody beta stage, and what is worse, kinda intentional too. I mean my ideas are not moulded in bronze, I always prefer to present myself as jelly.
Ok, ok, I am sort of pleased, uhu, I can be, surprisingly. But still, the idea of becoming a kind of rolemodel, me, jeez... It scares the shit out of me. I mean, instead of just bumming around, pleading guilty, I excel in that too, suddenly it feels like the world wants me to live up to some sublime standard, and maintain on those glorious heights. Sounds impossible.
So is this a warning? Is this is what they mean by growing up, the hard way? Perhaps. I should have known. Damn, it was meant to happen one day, 'being thirty' already chilling for a while on the beach of time. But even though, me?
Freelance Switch
Ah, the amazing world of backlinking.
Last week I participated in the Freelancer Survey held by the excellent Freelance Switch site. This survey (which is still going on, just click this or the logo to have your try) aims to compile the collective knowledge for the benefit of freelancers everywhere, and gosh, as big as that sounds, they even give away some prices, like a desksitter screengazer dream the wii. Anyway, it took, just as promised, about 10 minutes. After that I put the logo in my sidebar, and then sort of forgot about it.
Until this morning. Sipping coffee, doing my regular blogs, getting my brains to work, I also went through my Google Analytics, and wow, the visitor count had skyrocketed from an average of 10 to a stunning 84! All of a sudden the Himalaya showed up in my usual Dutch mountain graphs. What happened? Did a busload of fans crash down on my site? Did I write something funny, remarkable, unique (all as in stupid)? Well duh, brilliance as ever a faraway dream, as it turned out Freelance Switch had linked back to my site on it's blog. I got a present, a reward for the effort so to speak, that's what happened.
So how does it feel you may wonder, visited so many times? Well, I had a good laugh. And, as important, I finally had a not so beside the point subject for this blog. That's something, not?
The Decider
Oh, oh, I want one of these things. Do I?
The Decider helps you to make decisions - think of the choice you need to make and the look at the watch to see whether it is displaying "YES" or "NO" (if you are inclined to cheat then you can pull the winding crown out which stops the mechanism giving you an answer with no ambiguity).
The watch can also answer a more complex question - when you receive it tell the watch what you want to know, then wait until the battery runs out - whatever the watch stops on YES or NO is your answer.
*edit: too bad it's so ugly. check for yourself, here's the :link
43 Things And More
The sun is slowly breaking through, another pleasant day is looming with a lazy shrug of recollection, 'almost summer, again...', and sure Sir Bob Geldof was right, monday mornings are the worst mornings, but then you also have to realize, this one hit wonder was sung by a bored teenager in his twenties, all babble without a sense of purpose, well before he started this celebrity crusade against poverty with his pal Bono.
So Bob is doing fine today I guess, having some great sir-hood lunch while gossiping over last non event G8 adventures, and I, despite the fine weather ahead, am again as clueless as on those I don't like mondays days, just kinda pleased with my latest visit to 43 Things where 4 of the wishes exactly mirrored mine. So yeah, tempted to squeak 'can you guess which ones?', but as things go, Bob and me know those wasted years are gone, and well sweet dreams, I don't believe in wishing trees.
Procrastination
Ok, ok, the last 10 minutes I was all zen but sure wasting my time with this kind cute but pointless music-paint site, but no it's not true I spent all my time surfing the days away. Really, necessities aside, there are other ways I kill this uhm... reluctancy to have a good look around in this local world (and by that I mean, here not there, anywhere), cause well, ok it sucks big time but I absolutely, for example sake, adore the little sparrows, blackbirds and starlings (for some reason i dislike that fat pigeon) frenzy in my backyard. For the last weeks I am feeding them high fiber bread crumbs (only one day old, so not mouldy at all my dear pet friends) and today my favorite couple, the sparrow family that is living in the gutter just left of my bedroom, started hopping round my feet even before I finished my cigarette, chirping and jumping in the latest craze. They were lucky, the ciga didn't taste at all (do they ever?), my mood was one of cheerful acceptance (just awake and the weather needed only one layer of fabric, lush jeans an a T-shirt, to keep me in shape), and yes i had a slice of pumpkinseed bread ready. Aha.
And then later on I read this: 10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life. It's a lotta blah but I quite enjoyed the last point of the list: 'Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one'.
Life is bliss.
Towel
© CZ 2007
For the last couple of days I have been visiting several temp agencies. Girls (can't help it, its a fact, f/m ratio in this brand is 99 to 1, and even the 1 is a guess still having meet one guy) in shirts and skirts (it might be fancy logo jeans, but those desk-girls never show there legs for no reason) that act as small town miss Corporate ruling the world with a look of breezy contempt ( 'Don't dare to think you are anything here boy! I break you or make you, so better be a good sweet-mouthed loser' ) always, within secs, followed with that bleak glance of boredom, as if realizing she made already a too big investment, showed too much effort, and perhaps, if lucky, someone goes as far to an effortless moment of scanning the resume ('why so many gaps?' uh...) before sinking back in the ergonomic chair with an almost hearable sigh.
What am I doing here? What happens on that computer screen when I answer those (intake) questions? Red crosses on the appropriate places? And why do all these girls talk like that french teacher at high school, resulting in the instant drop of that course the moment I was able to? Where is the interest, the acknowledgment, the helping hand? Questions that popped up in my mind - at one agency I was 8 minutes late on my second visit (first one: 'come back later, the system has crashed, bye') and all I got was "I thought you wouldn't come anymore. This is a job-interview you must know... - while examining my clothes (camouflage shorts, hat, and 'Geek Clothing' imprinted T) wondering what I would make of that, would I also yawn, even just mentally, secretly but oh so obvious?
Ok, maybe I am not fair. After all someone was impressed with the perfect layout of my resume (no words on the content, of course, and I had to offer myself a chair while the conversation took off, but hey she was right, it looked good). And yeah, 2 years of idleness, despite my splendid excuses, it's only the happy few that are impressed, and still I got offered (only once) a cup of coffee.
So what's next? Not much. The weathermen claim the end of this exceptional sunny weather as soon as next monday, so better carpe diem of what's left, not? Graveyard skies and solid shoes (first time in 2 month, amazing) splashing in puddles, watching the reflection of blue-collar me? Oh boy.
Mayday
It really seemed like a great idea, always enjoying some kinda symmetry in personal as public life, to start to apply for a temp job on May 1, Labour Day, until I realized that almost everywhere, except this country of course, it is a holiday of sorts. Cheap excuses are one thing, but seriously I ask you why go against international folklore and enjoy one more day of ignorant bliss. Also, the weather was bril again, easy choice.
*ps. Temp job boy posts will be recurring as I plan (till I get bored or feel to spaced out to care) to give full account of the dreading and, oh could it be, brio adventures of temporary work.
Firefox
Safari