The Black Book of Discord

June 1st, and damn is it too hot already. The ice cream truck showed up Thursday at the dealership- man did that hit the spot. I never see these things anymore- they used to come up and down the street when I was a kid, dispensing the frozen treaty goodeness they contained. For that matter, a bitchin' summer toy I never see anymore- Slip and Slide. Man the thing hurt like a bastard if you were the first poor fool to find the rock the mat got put over, but the wild uncontrolled crashes into things at the far end made it all worthwhile. For entertainment today, we have the "what's your pirate name" generator http://www.fidius.org/quiz/pirate.php I was "Dread Pirate Kidd"

Soo... searching for a job definitely has alot of suck. I found the *perfect* job online today... it is nearly identical to what I was doing (taking care of networks and circuits from ISDN to DSL, frames to T1s, SONET to GigEther- the whole gamut). Alas, it is also in Washington DC. Now, being that I loved Alexandria VA, and that Alexandria is only about 15 minutes from downtown DC, that's not too bad. Problem is, if I could have moved down there, I could have followed my old job to PA. And what's with not getting back to you at all? Is this a normal thing now? It's been awhile since I submitted applications/resumes, but I remember a time when you at least got a "sorry, we dont' have anything for you" if nothing else. Oh well- time to call the unemployment office. I was hoping to have a job by now and not go on UI, but... I've been paying into it, I might as well collect for a change.

Well, today was one of my nephew's birthday. I got him a Spiderman Super Soaker that you could actually bathe a small rhinoceros with- the thing holds 86 ounces of water, which is well over 1/2 a gallon. Where were the toys like this when I was a kid? Granted I got those bouncing balls you sit on and things like Sit and Spin and I was just young enough to remember Lawn Darts (great game for siblings who can't stand each other, really... way to go marketing geniouses) but if I wanted to get my sister good and soaking wet just to piss her off, I had to do some elaborate "sneak up to her with a big bucket of water" ruse that just never worked and ended up with me taking 1/2 the bucket for my efforts. Ah, the good old days, when toys weren't educational and could kill you at the same time- no Surgeon General's warnings on them either. The closest thing we got to "this could kill you" was "great fun for all ages and great for parties!"