Everyone in the audience laughs somewhat nervously together about the syncing stuff, which of course is proving his point.
That speaker is painfully awkward, disorganized, and uncharismatic. I don't know whether I should be unimpressed or more impressed because he hacked a large audience despite having a lame presentation.
Of course, I'm probably saying that because he's unlike me.
PUAs supposedly use NLP techniques to pick up girls. I'd love to see this guy teach that.
somewhat nervously
I thought it was the sex thing that made them a bit nervous.
Abe Lincoln is the correct answer. You must have screwed up in some other way.
You must have screwed up in some other way.
No doubt possible. But my answer was something approaching "uh, uh, uh. ................... ABE LINCOLN?! He was from Illinois, and, uh, I'm from there. And he, like, freed the slaves, which I totally like. And, uh, well, see, you should give me this scholarship to Thomas Jefferson's college because he knew all about slavery, too."
Okay, not that bad. But close.
If someone asked me to name my hero, I would draw a total blank.
6: You're hired by my company! Now I just need a company.
6: Surely a cavalcade of MMA luminaries would unspool in your mind's eye. Still, I'd recommend, should the need arise, that you stick with Lincoln. Unless you're in South Carolina.
I'm your hero, apo, as ari is mine. Stanley has no hero, for he is a nihilist.
I submit that apo would just say, "Dude, do you read the internet? I am teh hero."
I certainly wouldn't know who to claim my "hero" was. or my favorite philosopher, or the person I would most want to travel back in time and have dinner with. Dubya had the right idea with just saying "Jesus Christ" to everything.
Unless you're in South Carolina.
"Bill Sherman, why do you ask?"
The bullshit-to-content ratio in the job interview advice industry is amazingly unbalanced.
Sure, people are suggestible to a certain extent, but things like syncing (or, for the love of God, sending a thank you note) are far less effective than having the skills they need for the job .
My work has gone through the process of hiring someone in the last two months, and all of our evaluations and interviews have been completely content-driven. If someone doesn't have the relevant experience in our (pretty specific) field, then they're gone. It doesn't matter how handsome their resume is, or how nice their interview-suit is, or whether they made sure to Ask At Least Five Questions Of Their Interviewer.
I don't know why the advice industry pisses me off so much. It's something about focusing people on this bullshit minutiae at the expense of common sense and content. Also, it requires you to have a hero, which nobody over the age of 8 has any excuse for.
how nice their interview-suit is
I always look for the power tie.
Though, now that I think about it, I have a friend who actually got a job because she answered Ben Franklin to one of those 'who do you want to have dinner with in history' conversations that idioterviewers ask.
Interviewer: 'Didn't he invent, like, everything?'
My friend: 'yes'
They told her on her first day, 'we never would have thought of him!' and that they were tired of hearing Einstein and Jesus.
Also, it requires you to have a hero, which nobody over the age of 8 has any excuse for.
Amen.
who do you want to have dinner with in history
Vlad the Impaler or Slappy White.
The best approach for those questions is painful literalness.
"I'd eat dinner with Hitler so I could poison his rolls and keep him from killing all the Jews."
"I'd eat dinner with Future Rupert Murdoch, so I could ask him the 10 stocks that I should buy right now and become Ferrari-flossin rich."
If I could pick which dinner, I'd have a nice little Seder dinner with Jesus, so that my face would be part of some of the most famous paintings evar.
But since the paintings would've been made centuries after the fact, "Ben W-lfs-n" is in fact represented by the artist's current fancy boy or sponsor who needs buttering up.
I had an English tutor as an undergraduate who liked to bring wine to her seminar groups and throw out these kinds of questions.
"So, who would you put in the lowest circle of Dante's Inferno?" etc.
these kinds of questions.
Travelling to a recent gig, we were discussing the worst way to die, and it was decided that my bandmate who's seriously allergic to peanuts would be worst off being pushed into a vat of boiling peanut butter, which would combine burning to death, drowning, and anaphylactic shock.
being pushed into a vat of boiling peanut butter
Plus, it'd be a patriotically American way to die. Especially if the vat also contained jam, which was incorrectly labelled "jelly".
a patriotically American way to die
You mean getting shot?
Some days I think 14 must be right, and this entire industry is selling bullshit to people who don't have the appropriate skills for the job (and are buying false hope), plus a few type-As who have the skills and would get the job regardless, but feel nervous if they're not scrupulously prepared.
But then I hear stories of the interview-equivalent of Becks' no-indentations insanity, and srtart to think maybe this shit matters. It's all bullshit and social convention, of course, so it's the sort of thing where if your interviewer thinks it matters (even subconsciously), then, fuck all, I guess it really matters.
I feel like presentationey bullshit matters less as the skill demands of the job go up. If you're answering an ad for a 1986 Mercedes Benz E-Class Rear Axle Polisher position, and you have that skill, the color of your clip-on is not going to make or break you.
The problem, though, is that a great number of jobs in our service economy require little other than basic competency. Especially entry-level positions and certain sectors (I'm looking at you, HR). The skill demands of the job can be taught your first couple weeks, and quite a few of the applicants could, let's face it, do the job. The interview and resume-skimming process really just serve to pick among the, say, 10 people who could easily handle their shit if they actually got the offer.
A British friend of mine used to hire entry-level people as part of his job, and he took the most ridiculous excuses to reject them. I remember him bitching, with goebbels-caliber contempt, about an applicant who had back problems and asked if he could stand up for a few minutes during the interview. The gall! It's probably these less-skill-intensive-but-still-college-degree-requiring jobs where a lot of the age, race, gender, nationality and disability discrimination takes place.
I've never had the dinner question, but if I ever do I hope I'll have the presence of mind to answer "Jeffrey Dahmer."
Fuck this who's your hero? stuff. They should be asking who's your mortal enemy?
My enemies are immortal. By day they live in supply closets of eternal darkness. I must have two fifteen-minute breaks every eight hours if they are to be defeated.
Holy crap, eb's nemeses are OSHA inspectors.
I was recently in a job interview in which I was asked I was asked a series of boring and cliched interview questions in a row ("Where do you see yourself in ten years?" "What do you think is your greatest strength?" "What is your greatest weakness?") and I couldn't stop leaning back and saying, "Ooh, good question," after each.
I couldn't stop leaning back and saying, "Ooh, good question,"
And there's your greatest weakness!
You mean getting shot?
Nah, Type II diabetes and a coronary.
The answer to the hero question is clearly:
a) a parent who sacrificed for the family;
b) a teacher who helped set you on your intellectual path; or
c) in Obama's case, a great uncle of a different race who helped liberate Buchenwald.
Hey, soup, how's the weather in Houston? How much rain did you get?
The "syncing" thing has a plausible cognitive basis, but if explained in those terms seems kind of banal.
I once got a job designing logos by answering a question about what kind of cars I liked. Boy was that dumb on their part.
38: "Whichever one has the best logo" may have been an honest answer, but should have showed you as impractical.
MIRROR NEURONS ARE NOT BANAL!
37: Hey Sir Kraab, how's Austing? It's been pretty mild here. Temperatures down in the 80s but not much rain.
On topic: I don't know how effective these techniques are in practice (i.e. if you are an awkward interviewer trying to game the system are you going to benefit) but I think the idea of technical requirements is probably off the mark. Lots of skilled positions have a ton of reasonably similar applicants, so how do you differentiate yourself. It can't hurt if your interviewers like you.
41: right. I think the origin of the "syncing" stuff is in cognitive psychology research from a few decades ago, when they filmed interviews and then looked at what candidates who successfully made a good impression did, and found that they had similar body language to the interviewer. Turning this into the nerd version of Simon Says seems.... fraught, at best.
I thought the time-tested advice was to spend the whole time imagining your interviewer in his or her underwear. That's what I do.
The answer to the hero question is to smile dreamily, take out an album full of your interrogator's grammar school report cards, college yearbook clippings and family photographs, and say, "I was hoping you would ask that."
43: Any time I reply to a comment here, I imagine the original commenter in their underwear. Especially Will.
re: 38
Years ago I worked in a call-centre, doing financial sales stuff. About a week of our training consisted of nothing other than voice training. Bits of it were 'syncing' type things but most of them were more about controlling the conversation by slowing the tempo down and deviating from normal intonation patterns.
Clearly billion dollar industries believe these things are effective.
||
I am mailing a letter, and because of Unfogged, I am suddenly all neurotic about whether I'm folding it properly and what the recipient will think of me.
|>
The "syncing" thing has a plausible cognitive basis, but if explained in those terms seems kind of banal.
My ex-MIL was (is?) really into the NLP/"syncing" stuff. I suppose it's plausible that it could be effective if done with sufficient subtlety. Otherwise, it is profoundly irritating in precisely the same way as that game 5-10 year old kids play where they repeat everything you say and laugh hysterically.
"Quit copying me."
"Quit copying me"
"I'm serious!"
"I'm serious!"
"AAAGGHHH!"
""AAAGGHHH! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...."
37: The usual mid- to high 90's, though very humid today. There's talk of thunderstorms tomorrow, which would be nice.
Here's how you play it:
"Who would you say is your hero?"
(Penetrating stare transitioning ever-so-slowly into wide-eyed, open mouthed beaming)
(Beatifically) "You!"
There is the natural undergraduate philosopher's response:
"Who would you say is your hero?"
"What exactly do you mean by 'hero'?"
I"ve never before heard the "who is your hero?" question, but it undoubtedly tops "what's your weakness?" on the worst question. I'm not sure I could answer it. I think I'd just have to say
"there are plenty of people I admire--both public figures and personal acquantinances--but I don't know that any of them are my 'heroes'. I'm not sure I know what that word is supposed to mean in this context."
And that's exactly how I'd pronounce "acquaintances", just to throw them off.
Any time I reply to a comment here, I imagine the original commenter in their underwear. Especially Will.
I'm told that is an effective weight loss strategy as well.
"My weakness is that I have too many heroes."
"My weakness is that I have too many heroes."
Ted Kacynski. Isn't that obvious?
Continuing the misspelling trend, my hero is Ty Cob. Take me as I am, potential employer!
58 Heebie, no joke. At my last job before retiring the assistant manager's hero was, in fact, Jimmy Buffett> She read his books and pondered his philosophy.
I have heroes the way dogs have fleas.
From Apo's link:
For this type of training you must have a teacher, otherwise you might get hurt.
No shit!
I was going to say Iceberg Slim, but my hero is now that Tu guy.
"My hero is that courageous guy who qualified for the Olympic swimming event without any legs. I hope when I'm working here I can overcome my many mental and emotional handicaps to excel just like he did."
I thought that swimmer was a woman. Can women be heroes?
No, they're heroines. That's how I'd answer: "Don't you mean 'Who is your hero or heroine?' Sexist."
"My hero is Corporal Robert Furlong. Incidentally, I live really close by - easily within 2.4 km of this office, I'd say."
"My hero is also the god I worship and pray to every week. Wotan."
The Wotan Clan ain't nothin' to fuck with, Fatman.
"Heroes? Let's see, Frank Serpico, Jeffrey Wigand, and Karen Silkwood. Can we talk salary now?"
More help for your next interview.
"who is your hero?"
"The Hero within, which is to say, myself."
It's cool that women can do Iron Penis Qigong, but I think I'd rather not date a practitioner.
You know what I really hate? Job announcements that ask you to submit your salary requirements. Why can't you tell us at least the approximate salary you've budgeted for the position, you nitwits?
If they simply said "minimum salary is X but higher is negotiable depending on experience", or something like that, they wouldn't have to waste their time with applications from people too expensive for the position, which they're just going to reject anyway. Plus the rest of the applicants wouldn't have to waste time and effort trying to figure out how to answer that question so that they don't get screwed on salary but don't price themselves out of a job they're really interested in.
Wasn't there an Ask The Mineshaft on how to answer that question?
77: I don't know. Why are you asking me? I don't run this blog.
Yeah, hobo-gobo. The buck stops with you now.
68: Dude's a *cop* now. That doesn't seem like the kind of job where he'd get to put his skills to much use.
Best wishes to you! upon reading your newest blog entry. I had never heard of that complication before.
Due to your delicate condition, heebie, I decided to do the hard work of hunting for it myself. Looks like this is the post.
Oh, thanks. I'm on limited activity for the next 6 weeks, which is going to totally totally drive me insane.
Downers help, heebie, and downer babies are very placid. You just have to remind them to breathe occasionally. They don't cry at all.
85: if you had a bb gun you could shoot out window panes when you get super bored.
87: Jesus, Sifu. You're so inconsiderate. The rest of us already sent heebie BB guns.
88: heebie-beebie is a completely different blogger, though I'm sure he appreciates your guns.
Crap, I hadn't read your blog since the pea announcement, so I was just joshing about the "delicate condition". Now I feel all guilty, heebie, and it's all your fault.
Pwned, and what's worse, pwned on a pun. goodbye forever.
91: she announced it on this blog, too, M/tch. It's like you don't even see us any more, M/tch. Are we furniture, to you? Some old rug you can pee on and put on in the road to be stolen and made into bindles by feckless hobos? Sure. Sure, that's fine. Here's your warm milk.
93: I've thought this before, but it keeps getting truer and truer: what the world needs in Unfogged Digest (available in large print version too!).
44 is awesome.
A few months ago I'm afraid I succumbed to my desire to make people squirm when I hate them. We got an application from someone who was leaving my own former place of employment so my boss had me sit in on the interview. I mentioned - in the course of an observation that this is a small industry and everyone knows everyone - that I had once worked there just to watch their face fall. I knew already that the candidate was a self-aggrandizing job-hopper who'd inflated their resume nearly to tech-bubble standards and I wanted the pleasure of watching them realize that for once their reputation had beaten them to the interview.
What, M/tch? What does the world need in Unfogged Digest?
96: It says "is", Brock. You probably thought it said "in" because the type is so small.
It's hard to digest Unfogged. We're all so full of shit already.
I thought the time-tested advice was to spend the whole time imagining your interviewer in his or her underwear.
It's only fair, seeing as how I always imagine the job applicants in their underwear. Well, technically I'm not "imagining" them, since I ask them to strip down to their underwear, but it's kind of the same thing. I always make sure to compliment them on the style/fabric/brand of underwear, just to put them at ease.
M/tch has yet to deny that he thinks of the rest of us as a rug that he might put on in the road so as to be stolen and made into bindles by feckless hobos. I have to be honest with you, that is a very, very strange ambition, and I don't know how Unfogged Digest would help.
Now I feel all guilty, heebie, and it's all your fault.
I feel a tiny bit better. Keep going.
Sifu, I think of the rest of you as a rug that really kind of ties the room together.
It's the kind of rug with concentric circles that keep going around in circles forever, and it has some fringe.
103: With a graphic design of exploding calves.
It's an attractively alternating pattern of cattle and legs.
But it's hard to make out, because of all the stains.
I often wonder what the rug's salary requirements are.
107: a can 'o beans and the open road, M/tch. Nothin' but that and a dream.
It's the kind of rug with concentric circles that keep going around in circles forever, and it has some fringe.
It's an office whiteboard that's fully recycleable! It asks trivia questions and can be used to deter muggers.
Mitch knows compiler of the Unfogged digest is a power position. Everyone sucking up to him to get their comments in the digest. Putting together commenter rankings. Probably monthly commenter awards of some sort. Pretty soon, he'd be the Brian Leiter of Unfogged.
Hey, Heebie, great to hear it looks like thing will be fine. Your blog is awesome -- I love it when you just relax and whimsy it up. You should give us one of those "hey, this happened today" posts too.
The Sifu rug liked to sit and watch drops of water run down the windowpane on rainy days.
111: then the bb gun arrived, and the Sifu rug was wet.
110: Oh I know you didn't just call me "Mitch".
Rug is a hi-fi that never needs repairing and traps small animals.
It's an attractively alternating pattern of cattle and legs.
I recently found myself in an airline lounge dumbly staring* at some documentary filler on n-tv about a training program for would-be demolition technicians. It showed one of the introductory lectures, where the instructors deliberately detonated a charge near the severed foreleg of a cow in order to graphically illustrate the kind of injuries that result from careless use of dynamite. It made me think of unfogged and smile--probably not the same reaction that most viewers had.
Around the same time, I realized why, when your name comes up on the top of the waiting list for the shower facilities in the Lufthansa arrivals lounge, the announcement takes the form of the notably imprecise "Mr. Ruprecht is requested to contact housekeeping." To-wit, it might sound a little disturbing if a German-accented voice crackled over the loudspeaker, "Mr. Ruprecht, you are now to proceed to the showers."
* it was right after an all-night flight, OK?
Informally, "M/tch".
Formally, "Mai-tai-chi-chi-bitch".
"Mitch" never, but "Mitchell" in the bedroom.
Everybody knows what "M/tch" stands for.
Without having read much of the thread: were I ever again in such an interview situation, I'd fall back on the best approximation of my normal self that I felt might pass, which is to say that I'd likely say, "Oh heavens! I have no idea! Heroes change over time, and I don't think I've ever had a single one. Can you clarify?"
Would that kill me, job-wise?
Remember that time that Mai-tai-chi-chi-bitch fell down the well, and Ben ran around trying to get the adults to help, and with each adult he'd have to re-explain that Mai-tai-chi-chi-bitch has fallen down the well?
Yes, saying "oh, heavens!" in a job interview would kill you, Parsimon.
Welcome home, Knecht!
What if parsimon was applying to replace Snagglepuss on Wacky Race?
You idiots, "Oh heavens!" is accompanied by a throaty laugh, the barest hint of a wink, a level look, and finally by a slightly smirky admonition that this question requires some clarifiction, as I mentioned.
You idiots
This would be a pretty funny answer to the hero question.
125: that's quite a collection of tics you're sporting, Miss. And you'd like which job, now?
Well, we can stick a fork in this election. It's done. I just talked to my neighbor, America's Swing Voter (he voted for Gore and Kerry, but just barely chose them over Bush, and was not happy about it), and he announced that he's removing McCain from consideration.
125: Gosh, what idiots we are, not to have known that all that would follow the "Oh Heavens!". Thanks, parsimon. Tell us more about your odd affects.
Sorry, I meant to post that in the other thread. Copying it there. Then I ban myself, and ehj2.
clarifiction
That's when you further explain your position using complete lies.
129: I don't know the corporate world any more, if I ever did. Maybe "Who's your hero?" is a completely sensible interview question. I didn't think my list of what are called odd affects and tics was strange.
What I've ever done in any interview, for anything, whether teaching a course or running an office, is to try to convey intelligence and communication skills. I would not be able to work in a job in which I was supposed to behave, in an ongoing way, as though Abe Lincoln or George Washington was my hero.
The interview is as much for them to get a sense of me as it is for me to get a sense of them. If they can't handle my inability to immediately answer a foolish question about my hero without further clarification, we're not well-suited.
I would not be able to work in a job in which I was supposed to behave, in an ongoing way, as though [...] George Washington was my hero.
"You might not have thirty goddamn dicks now. You might not ever have thirty goddamn dicks. But I want each and every one of you to run that photocopier like you do. Do it for George, but more important, do it for yourself."
Would that kill me, job-wise?
It depends on the job opening, obvs. For future reference, here are appropriate low-risk heroes for various jobs.
Tech jobs (peer interview): any internet pioneer or open source guru
Tech jobs (HR interview): Jerry Yang
Tech jobs (boss interview): Sun Tzu
Any sales job: Jack Welch (may substitute Meg Whitman if female)
Any customer service job: Florence Nightingale, Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln.
Any other corporate job: The CEO most recently glowingly profiled in Forbes, or Galileo
Any job in a small town: "My mother, who raised me and my siblings on her meagre survivors pension..."
Investment banking: "I've never felt the need to model myself after any heroes, because the one thing they all have in common is that they're dead. I'm on the lookout for champions, not heroes."
Consulting: "Do you mean 'hero' in the sense of 'someone whose works I admire' or 'someone I model myself after'? Because those would be different answers."
Any position in retail: any recent winner on American Idol
Corporate law firm: John Quincy Adams
Small private law practice: Thurgood Marshall (not entirely safe, but if it hits the wrong register, you need to know that NOW)
Liberal advocacy group: Medgar Evers (may substitute Eleanor Roosevelt, if female)
Bush administration: Dick Cheney
132: You idiot. "Who is your hero?" is followed by a muffled guffaw, a slight squinting, some prodigious foot tapping, and the admonition that any fiction, clari- or otherwise, is severely deprecated.
135: Babe, that's if you're wanting to become a bookdealer or something.
136: Hon, your "convey intelligence and communication skills" efforts need more work.
The full name for NLP, neuro-linguistic-programming, sounds so high tech. I heard it and was like "OMG, they've cracked Fodor's language of thought and now you can access a command line prompt!"
Then it turns out to be a bunch of body language stuff for job interviews and manipulating potential girlfriends.
138: You left off "Sweet!" from the end of the second paragraph.
I will always remember the National Lampoon from before you people were born which explained how important it was not to pee in the wastebasket at the beginning of a job interview.
You may laugh about the idea that anyone over the age of 8 has a hero, but I have a hero: Amanda Marcotte. When she basically deliberately got herself fired from the Edwards campaign, I literally thought "Amanda is my hero."
137: Okay. I don't know what you're talking about any more. 136 was written in all affection (I'm a bookdealer, see). So, okay. I also have to be off here shortly.
143: That's because M/tch is trying to use neuro-linguisting programming on you, and he sucks at it.
144: No, it's having exactly the effect I intended.
This thread helps to explain why parsi and I aren't climbing the corporate ladder.
"Who's your hero?"
"Oh, fucking spare me."
Hmmm. I'm just not much of a fan of M/a/rco/tt/e, so the hero stuff seems doubly strange to me.
The new in-depth, heavy-psych interviews are part of an evil trend toward so-called Japanese management, where the employee is suppoped to identify with the company. The old idea of doing a good job and going home is disappearing. "I want to work here because it pays well" is the wrong answer. "I need to work to make a living, and this job is better than any other one I know of" is the wrong answer.
Some jobs were always total-involvement like that, but more and more of them are getting that way.
Mr. Emerson, why are you drawn to hog farming?
how important it was not to pee in the wastebasket at the beginning of a job interview
That is *so* pre-9/11 thinking.
Some jobs were always total-involvement like that, but more and more of them are getting that way.
I think I have mentioned it here before, but jobs that suffer from high employee turnover (e.g. telemarketing) employ psych questionnaires that are pretty much explicitly designed to sift through the applicants to find the losers who will accept the fact that they have a sucky job and not show the initiative to look for another one.
M/tch and I can never work together, ever. We would either have to have sex, which is a not, or we'd just end up firing each other.
You know, we can all pretend to be self-invented autonomous individuals who never do childish things like look to other people for role models, but it's a pose. Everyone looks up to someone. Admiration is a basic human moral emotion.
I'll be painfully sincere here. When I was young, my hero was Ian Fucking Mackaye, but actually saying it that bluntly wasn't really punk rock, so I didn't. Now I'm forty years old, and I still admire the dude.
150 is completely true. The tech industry has always had a 'what, you're a fucking nerd, you're supposed to want to be here' sort of ambience but it's gotten worse since the bubble, not better. My recently-ejected boss' boss was a charismatic, beer-after-work, 80-hour-a-week, why-the-fuck-aren't-you-happy sort whose relationship with me probably first began to sour when he asked me why I worked there and I said, "Because I have a mortgage."
141 - Marcotte didn't deliberately get herself fired. She was targeted by a right wing smear merchant who was heavily armed with ammo provided by her own writing over the previous few years. At the time she made the announcement about her hiring I was astonished that she'd taken the job and that Edwards' campaign had failed to do even the most basic vetting. The horribleness that followed was completely predictable. It's really sad, because I like Marcotte and supported Edwards, but I'm still kind of surprised that neither she nor the Edwards people saw the sheer inevitability of what happened.
157: Her last post at Pandagon before she was fired was clearly designed to provoke the firing. She gave her public non-apology apology, and then wrote an incredibly mockingly anti-religion post. I admire bravado in the face of power almost more than any other human impulse.
152: People were very conventional back then. You young people can't imagine.
158: I just often wish her bravado, which is indeed admirable, were employed a little more intelligently / less knee-jerkily. But then I'm pretty allergic to the "MY OPINION MUST BE RIGHT BECAUSE I STATE IT SO STRONGLY!!!1!!!11!" schtick.
I used to piss in wastebaskets just to set them on fire.
Liberal advocacy group: Medgar Evers (may substitute Eleanor Roosevelt, if female)
How about Dick Gregory?
I'm starting to wonder whether I've said something on the internet at some point which might be susceptible an unfairly unfavorable interpretation by an employer. I've been racking my brains and I can't think of anything right off hand, but you know there's going to be some slip of the tongue somewhere that people would misinterpret.
161: Bravado in of itself is nothing. Bravado in the face of inevitable negative consequences for yourself is heroic. She chose unemployment rather than shut up.
159: Except that most of my life I've been a miserable drunk.
161 is TOTALLY WRONG. There is literally NOT ONE THING that is correct about 161. Seriously, if you go through 161 word-by-word EVERY SINGLE WORD is NOT CORRECT. Not at all. It's wrong, and dangerously so. Just, absolutely, inarguably, utterly wrong.
How about Dick Gregory?
Fleur sat next to Dick Gregory on a long flight a while back. She thought he was a friendly, cool guy, but that he had some pretty batshit insane political views. OTOH, she did appreciate the fact that he was castigating George W. Bush in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the first class cabin of a flight originating in Texas, so I guess he is kind of a hero in a way.
154: You know Parsimon, it's bad form to threaten to fire a guy if he won't have sex with you...
"Batshit insane" is like "finky". It can be very good, or very bad.
158 - I think you have the timeline wrong. She quit Pandagon, went to work for Edwards, quit working for Edwards when the Donahue dustup happened, and returned to Pandagon. The holy spirit as semen post was shortly before she started with Edwards. It did provide the original meat for Donahue's attacks and it might have been posted after she'd been hired but before she made the announcement, but she wasn't posting inflamatory stuff on Pandagon while she was formally associated with Edwards.
Incidentally, the dustup was mildly harmful to Edwards (her employer and someone she supported), and if she'd deliberately provoked it she'd be a total asshole. That's one reason I don't think she did - I think she's better than that.
You know Parsimon, it's bad form to threaten to fire a guy if he won't have sex with you
Besides, he'll just have his way with you, and then cast you aside like yesterday's newspaper..
I admire bravado in the face of power almost more than any other human impulse.
You don't be any chance have a job, do you?
173: I always recycle yesterday's newspaper, Knecht. Now do you understand why I passed you along to several of my friends?
172: togolosh's account jibes with my memory of how the whole thing went down too.
154: You know Parsimon, it's bad form to threaten to fire a guy if he won't have sex with you...
Di is going for the Guinness record for longest-delayed double post.
It was a good line, Di, and in a just world it would have gotten more applause. But repeating it like this is sort of embarrassing; sometimes you just have to let these things go.
Guinness record for longest-delayed double post
This is about to turn into the Innocence thread, isn't it?
I'm just going to quietly slink back to lurking...
I would just tell the interviewer that I am sorry but I am not able to tell them who my hero is because it is a secret. I would hope that they would respect that and that it wouldn't prejudice them too much against me.
"No problem, Ms. Midler. Next question. Who is the wind beneath your wings?"
Another crappy interview question: "So, who is the wind beneath your wings?"
I did that just to make you feel better, heebie.
Sometimes I suspect that I'm the wind beneath M/tch's wings.
I mean, I'm everything he wishes he could be.
A mighty wind, heebie, a mighty wind.
A howling wind, an idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, blowing every time you move your teeth....
my favorite job interview sketch The real sketch starts 45 seconds in.
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.
You'll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,
And I'll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,
And it makes me feel so sorry.
Didn't we have a thread recently about guys who were incapable of unambiguously ending a relationship?
You're an idiot, Emerson. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
192: Has anyone ever told you you have a voice like sand and glue?
Now I have no heroes. You fuckers.
194: You can change that for only $9.97.
Surely Walt can hold out for a hero 'til the end of the night.
Do we need another hero? Do we need to know the way home? It's hard to say.
I've always felt that Walt is all tragic like that, not having any heroes and shit.
You're a genius Emerson. You're half the reason I struggle episodically to hang out here.
What would be worse: to have no heroes or no shits?
198: Like condoms, toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, etc., it's always wise to have a spare hero or two "just in case", IYKWIM.
Anyway, Walt, hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich.
'Heerios are part of a nutritionally balanced breakfast.
Heerios? All this time I've been looking for Heebieos.
And like my grandpappy used to say: "When you run out of heroes, switch to gyros."
Hiro T. Agnew is part of a nutritionally balanced Nixon Administration.
206: I think you're thinking of Fruity Heebles.
You gotta trust G/n/r/l M/lls when it comes to cereal.
OT: important political question. I'm watching the simpsons and it's the one with George H W and Barbara Bush feuding with Homer.
They didn't really get those guys to be voices on the simpsons, did they?
Heebie Geebie sounds like a cereal killer, like Helter Skelter but worse!. A cereal killer who is always right.
Not our Heebie, of course. Some other Heebie. Iwas speaking abstractly.
Dollars to donuts GHWB was voiced by Harry Shearer.
SNPP says Shearer was George and Tress MacNeille, aka Mrs. Glick ("it's a candy bowl, Ned"), was Barbara.
Have you seen that episode? Do they sound like their .. um. Sound-sakes?
are the voices convincing, I meant to say. I am good at words!
Of course I have seen that episode! However, I'm not very familiar with the real voices—there's a reason everyone calls me "young ben" or "young w-lfs-n", and it's not just mean-spiritedness.
In that episode GHWB reveals his elitism and contempt for the common man by presuming that Bart has never heard of Robert Mosbacher.
it kind of freaks me out how many people are willing to actually be their own voices on that show. But the Bushes seemed like a reach.
Wikipedia didn't tell me who the voices were, and it turns out I am no longer capable of using any other sources. Good thing I have you around, young w-lfs-n.
Good thing I have you around, young w-lfs-n.
Make use of ben while you can. As soon as he finishes watching all the Simpsons episodes ever made, he's gonna turn into the mean old codger he aspires to be.
As soon as he finishes watching all the Simpsons episodes ever made, he's gonna turn into the mean old codger he aspires to be.
You must think rather little of me, Stanley, if you think I'd waste my time with any post-2000 episodes.
But I do encourage you to make good use of me, Cecily.
I will certainly do my best. My BEST!
and it's not just mean-spiritedness.
Of course not, we know you can't help it.
today on the shuttle bus i sat behind a girl who uses as a bookmarker a postcard with the image of our gers
i was glad
So, if ger is the actual word for what gets called a yurt by Americans, where does the word yurt come from? Is it a different language, or a different kind of house/tent?
yurt is from Russian, Russians adopted the word from the Turkic languages maybe
My heros: the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronauts, anyone who's flown at mach 3, and in particular, Viktor Belenko.
I know the topic has moved on, but I followed the job interview thread. This popped (so to speak) into mind immediately:
http://www.goalieheaven.com/popup_image.php?pID=280&osCsid=9847a69a127189d40ef03e954d18d144
I've honestly seen this in action . . . playing hockey, of course.
