Things are going really, really well with this draft. I have a few moments of stage fright, wherein I convince myself (albeit briefly) that this was a terrible idea and no one will ever want to read my book. It’s more pressure now because of all the absolutely incredible feedback I’ve gotten so far. I’ve had the guts to send the book out to a few people and get their feedback. I’ve gotten a great deal of positive response, and some excellent critique. The critique, in many ways is what I’m dreading and looking forward to most. It’s like being a contestant on a reality show. Every week, I send out another chapter, and every week (so far), I make it to the next round. My fear is that I’ll be thrown something I can fix in a quick rewrite. I’m dreading the somewhat inevitable major plot reevaluation. While I’m fairly certain this is a solid effort at this point and the plot is somewhat water tight, I’m terrified and excited about the idea that I’ll discover something was missed. keep reading »

There’s this ongoing .. I don’t want to call it a debate, because there’s no fight surrounding the phone, but more of a saga. The ongoing phone saga. So a few months ago, Manfriend’s 2 year cellphone contract was up. Instead of upgrading to a new iphone (which is what he had), he decided to switch carriers and try out one of the droid phones.

I won’t get into the details of it, but apparently it had a few issues which were ultimately solved by removing its protective case and restarting it every few days. Cut to present day dinner time in our apartment. Manfriend is microwaving a burrito and we’re idly conversing.

“I solved another problem with my phone,” he announced happily. keep reading »

So we drove out to New Jersey today and wound up talking about man-madediamonds.com, a thoroughly disturbing website. We’re still very self-conscious about being recorded, but maybe you’ll find this amusing. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO TELL US TO STOP RECORDING IF THIS IS DUMBNESS. We won’t be upset, we’ll appreciate you being honest before we made bigger fools out of ourselves.

So, whilst we were out to eat, we concocted a new hit blog idea that involves me writing about the things that I hate. Manfriend did an exemplary job of coming up with suggestions of things for me to hate. His initial idea was Mike “The Situation” and his new t-shirt idea, a shirt with a window that displays abs.

My response was not hateful, so much as impressed. Only someone like The Situation could make a shirt like that successful. At the same time, a fly happened to be buzzing around us, and I grew irritated with it, claiming that a fly’s sole biological function is to be repugnant. Manfriend suggested that this too would make a great blog post in my hate blog. We decided we should record our conversations, and rehashed the ideas. So, without further ado, our lunchtime conversation about Mike “The Situation” and flies:

Do you think a blog devoted to rants and raves written by me would be a good use of our time, or should we pass on this one? More importantly, would you read it?

Also, how many times do I say “situation” in that recording?

Should we just make recordings of our stupid conversations? Manfriend is convinced that I am “very popular on the internet,” but I am not as convinced. I don’t think people find us as funny as we find ourselves.

UPDATE:
The verdict so far is that we should do a lunch podcast instead of a written blog. I like this idea, and suggested that the blog be a) a container for the podcast itself and b) provide supplementary information, such as bulleted lists, visuals, pie charts, cat pictures, animated gifs, and glitter unicorns. I call it “blogcast.”

There are few things I consider myself good at, but resume writing is one of them. I worked at the career center of my university and took a shitload of prep courses. What I’ve learned about what’s conventionally taught versus what works is useful. This post isn’t going to be your run of the mill resume advice. Instead, because I’ve had to read through a ton of resumes recently, I’m going to address some of the more common issues I’ve seen. I’m serious, I’ve read through hundreds of these fucking things.

What doesn’t work:

1. When addressing your cover letter, don’t write “Dear Sirs:” Women also read cover letters, you dingbat.

2. If your resume is over two pages long, I’m skipping you on basic principle and out of self-preservation. If you’re that verbose on paper, you’ll probably kill us all in your interview. I don’t give nearly as much of a fuck about your life history as you think I do. keep reading »