“What don’t you like about the job you have now?”

I read that question on one of the tests I took for my interview today. Funny, there was only one itty bitty line allotted with which I should answer that … so little room, and where would I even begin? I hate the commute, I am beginning to hate the people I work with because a couple of them are trying to deliberately make my job harder and one of them has recently stabbed me in the back, the pay is laughable at best, and the benefits are … well, let’s face it: there really aren’t any.

Yep, another interview … but this one was a little different. I mean, I still had to fill out the 6-page application and voluntary information (affirmative action form, yay *blegh!*) form, but I also had to take an IQ test. It was one of those quickie-eval versions though. I’ve had several similar to it, and have always done well so I think I did well today too. It’s timed, you have 12 minutes to answer 40-something questions. The instructions tell you that you won’t finish, but I came close. I had 4 left when time was up.

The interview went pretty well, I think I got along with the IT manager alright. He seemed pretty easy going, and I could tell right away that he’s someone that I wouldn’t have any problems working for. He made it clear that the position is a “self-starter” type, which means that he’s no micromanager — I like this guy already!

So I’d say we got along pretty well … hell, I was in the interview for nearly 3 hours! It’s on Valleydale Road, which is a real bitch to deal with during rush hour. If I’m hired, I’m going to hate that part; but oh well, it would be a lot better than where I am right now!!

Hopefully I could know something as early as tomorrow … which would totally rock!!!

*evil grin* Y’all just don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to march into the owner’s office and slap a two-week notice on his desk.

A friend of mine here in the office thinks they will offer me money if I decide to leave (only Jim knows that I’m looking to leave), so it will be interesting to see if they actually do try to keep me. If I get the chance, I’ll tell them they’ll need to think about giving that money to Jim if they want to keep him.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyways … I’m hoping that’s my good news for this weekend, or next week. It would so make my year to have that job.

I’ve been adding a few things to the art gallery lately … mostly stuff that’s been on my DeviantArt account that just hadn’t migrated over yet. I will hopefully have more to add to it soon. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on my art lately … a new job would certainly help that.

If I get time and/or the energy to do so tonight, I’ll start a sketch on the dream I had last night. A real vivid one too, and very disturbing. I dreamed that Jim, Jessie, and I were caught in a 9-11 style attack … except that it was in B’ham. I don’t remember who it was that was after us, or who was doing the attacking, but I still remember even now how big and what color the bombs were.

I remember feeling glass shards hit me when the building we were in was bombed. In my dream, the building’s whole side was all glass and we stood there watching the bombs come in. The building had a strange shape, almost like a stretched ‘v’ with the inside of the fold being glass on the left, and brick on the right. I remember seeing chunks of brick go flying everywhere.

In my dream I was screaming but no one could hear me. I was trying to get Jim and Jessie to safety, away from the windows and incoming projectiles. I watched both of them burn right in front of me.

I woke up in a pool of sweat with the most horrible feeling. I’ve had “real” dreams before, and many as vivid as this one was, but never had any felt like that. I awoke feeling as if it was something I had really lived through, as if I was re-living it in my dream.

Very creepy.

I don’t normally have “doomsday dreams” … and even if I did, they were never anything like that.

*shrug* Oh well, maybe tonight will be better. I have had a headache all day, and it is only getting worse. I think I’ll try to talk Jim into leaving work early so I can get a nap in before dinner.

I originally had this long-assed rant to post today, but my power supply belched, my machine rebooted, and I can’t be arsed to type it up again …

But I did want to share this quick tidbit: I had meant to post it this past weekend, it’s already on my DeviantArt account.

It’s the cover of my next album … if and when I ever finish it. Oh well, that’s a step closer right?

Anyways, I’ve had 4 hours of sleep in the last 3 days. I’m exhausted.

Excuse me, mind if I pass out here?

I was watching Jim and Jessie play, and he was letting her jump up on his shoulders and fall off.

one of her favorite games, “fall off Daddy” hehehe

She jumped up, and looked straight at me and asked “Am I a monkey on Daddy’s back?”

… then wanted to know why we thought that was so funny.

I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon playing with different scripts, plugins, and hacked up (read: F’d UP!) code … to show a recent song playlist here on the website.

A lot of hair pulling and a pound of M&M’s later, voila! I found a working plugin for WinAMP called Audioscrobbler. This plug works similar to the Do Something plug released a coupla years back by posting data to a php script. In this case, it updates my profile on Last.FM. I can then parse what information I need by way of RSS2HTML, dump it to a custom template script locally and call from the page.

YAY ME! lol

Anywho, you can see the results on my current “playground” page (aka the “where I try to break things” page) found by clicking Things & Stuff on the menu.

My buddy Jason works with this young man’s mother. My heart goes out to her and I will keep her in my prayers.

The Deadly Pass Out Game

Sept. 19, 2005 NewsChannel 19’s Amber Moody reports

It’s a game with several names like suffocation roulette, the pass out game and black out. It’s popular among young children because it gives them a 5 to 10 second high without using drugs, but it’s deadly.

The family of Johnathan Kelly found out last week.

“I’m grieving my heart out,” Darlene Kelly says. “I feel like a part of me has died.”

Darlene Kelly found her son Johnathan hanging by a belt from the shower curtain rod in their bathroom. She says you could tell he was playing the passing out game by his position.

“He could have stood up,” she says. “But because he passed out he choked after that.”

Doctors say it as an asphyxiation game where they get a high from suffocating to the point of passing out. Johnathan’s mom and dad talked with us because they don’t want it to happen again.

Michael Kelly says, “We had not a clue that there was anything like this that existed. We just don’t want anyone else to lay victim to this-an evil demented mind game.”

Some children who also go to Madison Crossroads say it’s a popular game, but most of the time it’s played with more than one person. On the other hand, parents we talked with had never heard of it.

Michael Kelly says, “If they could see their child laying in a coffin like I have for 3 days they would investigate like we’re going to.”

Experts say there are a few warning signs you can look for: marks on shower curtain rods, bed posts, weight bars anything a child could hang from. Most importantly they suggest just talking to your children about the deadly game.