finding a job on a bell curve

finding a job sucks. honestly, root canal without any drugs or an amputation without being knocked out is easier to take. okay, maybe i took that too far. but it still sucks. to make matters worse is not just getting your foot in the door and getting the interview, but now you get to wait…..and wait…..and wait…..and wait for there to be any response. often times there’s no response at all. this can be frustrating to say the least and while i understand that the company often doesn’t make split-second decisions regarding personnel the job seeker is still left in a lurch.

i have, after many nights of not sleeping well, have come up with a theory about the probability of getting a job post-interview. here’s the scenario: let’s say that you interview on a thursday and you interview well, ask and answer questions well, and they tell you that you should hear from them in 3-5 business days. i propose we look at the idea of getting a call back on a bell curve.

we all know and hated the bell curve. it was that one geek that ’screwed the pooch’ for the entire class by getting a good score on the test. what i’m thinking is that on the two ends of the spectrum we can refer to as the length of time in days. the shorter and longer the ‘callback time’ the less likely you are to get one. however, that sweet spot is in the 2-4 day marks where the standard deviation says that the probability is best.  if they call you back in the 2-4 day area they are interested and not desperate (like calling after getting a potential date’s number).  there is a certain amount of restraint in waiting that period of time.  i say this because right now i’m sitting outside of the sweet spot and i want to tear out what little hair i have left.

now before any mathematicians or professors jump all over me for using a bell curve, it’s more of a visual aid, rather than any actual mathematical process. so there.

nutritional information: an inconvenient truth

it’s no secret that americans have a weight problem. more than that we have a denial problem and a ‘it’s not my fault that i’m fat’ problem. we like to blame others. we like to sue others. what we have failed to do is accept responsibility for our actions and change course to correct them. however in attempting to help others work with issues regarding weight i am perplexed as to the lack of support by nutrition labels. okay, follow me here. in the u.s. we use the standard tables for weights and measures: pounds, ounces, gallons, tablespoons, etc. this is crazy confusing to the average user. i have a culinary degree and at times it’s confusing to me. the remainder of the world uses the metric system: grams and liters. that’s it. nothing more. if it’s weight, it’s measured in grams and if it’s volume, it’s measured in liters. here’s the thing though, u.s. nutritonal labeling is done in grams. this causes much confusion for the simple fact that 99% of people don’t have any idea what a gram looks like (save for drug dealers) and only know what a liter looks like because it’s so close to the quart.

here’s where things go south quickly: we have to do math when looking at nutrition labels and that brings us back to the lazy part: we won’t do the math. okay, okay, before you attempt to chastise me for going off like this, i will back up my findings in some upcoming posts (more on that later) and look, most specifically, at sugar. why sugar? because we all have a frame of reference for sugar, in what it looks like and how much it should/shouldn’t be. this can give you a rational look at what a gram is you can use it to enrich your lives. sugar is in just about everything (save diet sodas and whatnot) even the buns at fast food restaurants.

here’s a quick one for you: mike and ike’s (the rabbit’s #2 favorite candy, btw) have 1 gram of sugar per piece of candy. what does this translate to: each piece is equal to roughly 1 teaspoon of sugar. so that means if i’m having a serving of mike and ike’s (23 pieces or 40 grams, however you want to look at it) i am putting down the equivalent of 7.66 tablespoons of sugar. yes, that’s tablespoons, for those keeping track at home. it took a bit for that to settle in, seeing as how i put down almost an entire box, which is about 7 servings.

what i will do over the course of a few posts is look at various food items, not just candy, and show you side-by-side the actual measured sugar content of a serving, can, bottle, etc when put next to the actual product. it was alarming to me and possibly will be alarming to you. i’m not saying to go out and get on the south beach diet or anything, but in taking it from a pro i hope to shed some light on difficult issues.  stay tuned for future deets.  that is all.

i’ve lost my mind when it comes to groceries

i have. i used to be a hunter. i would have my list of what i needed (yes needed) to get, go in the store and make a bee-line for the products on the list. now i meander through the aisles and seek out “new and interesting” products, mostly to review here. it’s gotten so bad that my lady now does the same thing too. i’ve now crossed over to the dark side am now a gatherer. it’s a sad day in my world folks. i died a little bit inside when i came to this realization. to put it in perspective, i can take a 15 minute shopping trip and turn it into a 45 minute excursion and go over budget by as much as $25. now that’s poopy.

while we enjoy trying new things, sometimes it can be exhausting. like for example when it’s a saturday afternoon and you are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with customers in tj’s or the local supermarket. occasionally i will do the whole asian-food-market thing and find some product whose language i can’t understand and have no clue what it is just to purchase and try out.

so i ask you all, since product reviews are some of the main reasons you come here: what product(s) do you want me to review? give me some ideas and i will totally roll with it. not that i am out of ideas, but i want to know what you want to see. also, since the review of the mcskillet burrito is so high on the charts, do you want me to go back an retry it? post a comment and let me know.

an interview tip for employers

okay, not that i am in a position to give interviewers tips on how to conduct interviews to potential employees, but i thought i would share this little nugget of goodness with you.

today, while in the throws of an interview with what was a very dull potential boss i look down to inspect the desk and keep from falling asleep and see my resume. what was stuck to the resume was a note outlining the thoughts of the screener as he was conducting the pre-interview interview. i just about stood up and called him on it when i saw the first line written on the note:

i picked this guy for the hell of it

wow motherfucker, way to show a candidate that they at least have a shot. and while you’re at it are there any other ways that you can show your boss that you are wasting his time? speaking of wasting time, when would you like me to thank you for wasting my time? listen, i don’t care that you had a quota of candidates you had to present to your boss but at least have some decency and not call attention to it.

so there you have it. don’t write shit on anything that’s visible to the potential employee that you don’t want him to see. moreover try not to degrade him too much before you even meet him. keep that shit in your head or relegate it to water-cooler talk. you’ve been warned.

is the commercial jingle dead?

you know the jingle; it told you what name your bologna had and it helped you realize that if you were a wiener, what kind of wiener you would like to be. these days i’m noticing a trend: the death of the jingle. let’s start first to define what i believe the jingle to be, “a short song encapsulated in a commercial that defines a product, what a product offers, or whom the product is tailored for”. it also has a sticking-factor that embedded it into your brain and bugged you when you were trying to sleep. you might have other ideas of what a jingle is, but i don’t care. well i do, but for consistency-sake we’ll just stick with my definition.

when growing up the jingle was a staple of the advertising world. it made me want to buy, no, need to buy something. it made me need something so bad that i would nag my mother incessantly until i got said product. nowadays the jingle seems to have gone the way of the dodo in advertising, with the exception of a few ‘old world’ products from conglomerate companies.

i guess even whole foods makes mistakes….

is sprial some new culinary term i don’t know about? if so hit me up and tell me.

lean like a cholo - song or music for instructional video?

while driving in the car today i turned on the radio; you know that thing we all used to listen to before cds, mp3s, xm, sirius, and ipods; and while flipping through the stations i came upon a song that i had never heard before. it had the most awful chorus that just kept repeating: ‘elbows up, side to side. elbows up, side to side’ followed by a horrible voice that really sounded like a bad voice-over saying ‘i lean like a cholo’.

that was it. i had enough. to begin let’s define what makes a cholo. according to our friends over at urbandictionary.com:

cholo - A cholo is term implying a Hispanic male that typically dresses in chinos (khaki pants), a wifebeater sleeveless teeshirt or a flannel shirt with only the top buttoned, a hairnet, or with a bandana around the forehead, usually halfway down over the eyes. Cholos often have black ink tattoos, commonly involving Catholic imagery, or calligraphy messages or family names.

okay, really a dirogatory song is one thing if it’s good; one need not reference dr. dre’s the chronic and the gratuitous use of the ‘n’ word. however this is nothing more than a modern day version of gene simmons sweatin to the oldies. let’s look at the lyrics shall we:

All the homies they know what i mean
baby let me show u how i lean(Like a cholo)

lay back bounce in the club
when we do a dance ya we do it like what

seriously. what, did you wipe your ass and come up with that? can you not put a full 16 bars together of cohesive words and make a decent song? do you need to make fun of people to get a hit? this is not music. this is music for an instructional video at best. music doesn’t just do voice-overs and give you instructions. this is what’s wrong with the music industry: shitty one hit wonders. this dude will be back flipping burgers in no time once they are done with him.

i wont even link to his video on youtube because i don’t want him to get any more than his 15 minutes. oh and in case you were wondering, the author of this post is not a hater.

dispatch the sniper detail immediately!!!

okay, yes it has come to my attention that heidi from ‘the hills’ has made a music video. and by ‘made a music video’ i mean she paid some socially retarded person to write a song and had her bitch ass little fake fiance shoot a video for it. and by shoot a video for it i mean she could have done porno as a newcomer in the valley and had: a better script, better camera angles, better music and gotten paid more. i digress. see below.  but walk away knowing this, a sniper team has been dispatched.  we should hopefully be done with all this shortly.

you’re an inspiration to us all…

if you’ve been watching american gladiators lately there has been a couple competitors that have finished in very poor times during the eliminator.  the same comment was given when their interview started: “you’re an inspiration to us all“.  it’s a lie, a bold lie.  this goes against everything american.  how can you be an inspiration if you’re not a winner?  losers don’t inspire americans.  we want winners.  we crave them.  look at all the spokespeople out there.  they are winners.  they are beautiful, fit, appear to be fun (though are more than likely secretly really bitchy) and inspire.

this is secretly what hulk hogan was saying, “you didn’t win.  you are a loser.  you inspire no one.  your time here was worthless and made for bad tv.  thank you for wasting my time.“  it’s okay hulk, i just said it for you, no need to worry about saving face.

iphone/microsoft sync commercial boggles the mind

i just saw it.  it’s a commercial offering a free* iphone when you buy a ford focus and you even get a free setup of microsoft sync.  for those of you uninitiated the iphone is….. okay for real if you don’t know what this is you need to sleep less than 20 hours per day.  microsoft sync is microsoft’s new way of trying to get you to buy their crap, in other words it’s a product that is released to great fanfare, then lamented by everyone.  here’s the kicker you get a free iphone (a product which is not supported by sync) to go with your shit car.  okay, okay, let’s think about this.  the commercial for sync shows a zune (an inferior microsoft ipod knockoff) incorporated into the system.  should this be a sign, yes.  will people pay attention to it, hopefully.

in summation here’s what you get:

• a free iphone: without service, minutes, or any way to use it even as an ipod other than paying at&t (ooooooo a free* 12 month contract at$59.99 per month.  thanks ford for the -$719.88 per year)
• free microsoft sync: an bullshit system that is buggy with no way compatible with my free* gift
• a ford focus: i don’t even need to explain this one.

okay.  that’s it.  don’t buy one.  buy the iphone if you want one, but don’t think for a second that anything is free.  don’t think that two competing technologies will ‘play nice’ just because some regional auto manufacturer wants you to believe they will.