After a particularly long (cou*12 hour*gh) day, I received a pitch about the many benefits and great things about signing up full-time. I was not impressed and, as my newfound stability isn’t all that stable, am still unimpressed. (I’m scheduled for a check on the 15th, as their accounting system defaults to a 60 day wait.)

… (Speaking of unimpressed.) The Apple i[Tab] (what an incredibly terrible name) was introduced Wednesday and will ship in two months. Some people will find a use for it but until I can justify paying for books instead of the library (on top of some UX choices), I’m out. My next Mac will be the Mini that runs my television after the move.

… Yesterday was my sister’s twenty-second birthday. We went to the restaurant she suggested and had a pretty great time. Afterward, Girlfriend, two friend and I went to a show. After a drink or two and waiting in line for about fifteen minutes, the power went out.

About a half-hour later someone told us they were getting information for refunds; thirty seconds after that the lights went back on. Roma di Luna‘s (if you’re not listening to them, you should be) set was cut short for time and we left before the headlining act. I’m fully exhausted today.

… and finally:
This is the first FFFA since a month and a half after I was unceremoniously and involuntarily removed from my former place of employment. Since has been a whirlwind. I very much enjoyed my summer but didn’t enjoy the finance-related stress.

I’m now actively looking for work in Chicago and if any of the threes of you dear readers know of anyone that could help, please let me know. I’d love to find a local job board or hear about some specific places looking to hire.

Thanks in advance. You’re all glorious beacons of light in this dark, dark world. Well, most of you.

… To stave off a neuron puddle, I’ll be reading more. This includes blogs, non-fiction, magazines, subtitles, you name it. Hopefully I can keep myself mentally ready for any 9to5 that comes my way. (The literary urge may or may not have been sparked by receiving more books from the library than expected due to bad queue management.)

… Girlfriend and I had to make an emergency trip to the MOA Apple Store because her cool-kid-computer tweaked. A terrible idea, this. Not because we didn’t need to go, but I had time to play with the Macbook on display. Ugh.

Someone, (anyone!) let me know if your company is looking for someone to show them the ways of the internets. Hell, need a web designer that can maintain a brand message across dozens of social tools? Need a blogger with a flair for parenthetical thoughts? (No? Are you sure?)

Tell your friends, your parents, your toddlers, whoever. I’d love experience, something to do with my afternoons save for reading (which is too nerd chic for my tastes anyway) and financial stability.

… We need to start electing leaders. The bickering among politicians and their constant skirting of responsibility is starting to get irritating.

… I’ve decided to do something with my portfolio. I will be building a site using Joomla! and will have posts like this one moved copied over there. (Eventually, they may be there exclusively.) I do this for those that would rather me not talk about social media or the implications and theories therein.

In other words, all you with no idea what I just said.

Titles in italics will probably be winners. Titles in bold are ones I’m pulling for. *s are by ones I haven’t seen.

ANIMATED FEATURE

• Bolt *
• Kung Fu Panda *
• WALL-E

ORIGINAL SONG

• Slumdog Millionaire – “Jai Ho”
• Slumdog Millionaire – “O Saya”
• WALL-E – “Down to Earth”

EDITING

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Frost/Nixon *
• Milk
• Slumdog Millionaire

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Changeling
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Doubt
• Frost/Nixon *
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Frozen River *
• Happy-Go-Lucky *
• In Bruges
• Milk
• WALL-E

DIRECTING

• Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
• Stephen Daldry (The Reader)
• David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon) *
• Gus Van Sant (Milk)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Amy Adams (Doubt)
• Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
• Viola Davis (Doubt)
• Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Josh Brolin (Milk)
• Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder) *
• Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
• Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
• Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road)

ACTRESS

• Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) *
• Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
• Melissa Leo (Frozen River) *
• Meryl Streep (Doubt)
• Kate Winslet (The Reader)

ACTOR

• Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
• Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) *
• Sean Penn (Milk)
• Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

PICTURE

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

I doubt I’ll be as victorious as last year (sarcasm) but one can hope I’ll catch a few. It wasn’t a good season (tons of repeats on here) but the ones listed were fairly solid. (As you can tell from the above, I’m quite partial to Slumdog Millionaire.)

I know you can’t wait ’til the recap to fully appreciate my genius. I know it. (Delusion is the first step toward success, right?)

In case you think you’re smarter than I am (and probably are), pick a category or two and lay out your prediction in the comments. We’ll see on Monday who emerges with the prize.*

* There is no prize.

… Wednesday, Girlfriend and I had a night out. With the trips and work and pulling my hair out (metaphorically) and all that, it’s been awhile. As it’s winter and Minneapolis can make a witch’s teet seem tropical, we went to a movie. (The Reader, more on that later.)

Kerasotes, awhile back, bought out the multi-screen downtown. They offer a Five Buck Club (free!) that sends you a card and then emails about upcoming shows you can get at that ridiculously low (high, for the “back in my day” folk) price. If you’re not part of the club, you’re dimmer than an compact-fluorescent after the Apocalypse, I guess, is what I’m saying.

… This weekend is Valentine’s Day. I try (and fail) to make Girlfriend feel as special as I think she is every day. Luckily, there’s a day when I can do that when everyone else is doing the same. (Individuality!)

Guys, make sure you do something worthy of her telling her friends about it. It’s all she thinks about (according to all the sexist ads out this week) between how many carats her dream ring is/which detergent to use/how fat she feels and how annoyed she is that you like sports/don’t vacuum/are a terrible father.

Singles, here’s your annual chance for some pity-play. Happy hunting!

… Last night, at Grumpy’s, I attended my first “tweetup“. It was entertaining. Pretty sure I’ll do it again. Nice to be among a crowd of digital dorks, like myself. Speaking of…

… My Gmail inbox is sort of my digital enclave. I redecorate constantly and reside there daily. I have my documents, my calendar, my AIM/gchat and a theme. I’m also a bit of a filter slut, organizing and reorganizing my labels, directing traffic.

So I pissed myself (just a bit) when Google read my mind, creating multiple inboxes. Over the course of the day I’ll be refining filters and adjusting labels. Because I lead a sheltered, nerd-centric, physically attractive life.

… Screw it, let’s dry-hump Google some more:
Latitude? Passive observation (read: creepy) but has privacy settings more advanced than other geo-locator programs. (Can select, by friend, if they see nothing, citywide, or best location; can hide your location globally.) Also, it stores only your latest location.

Mobile Books? I like the idea (it’s FREE!). I don’t have a cool kid phone so I can’t say I’ve tried it for its intended use but it works in a standard browser too (if impossible to read because it scales width). Seems a good travel companion for those with mobile interweb that want more features than the Kimble can sort out.

It even remembers what page you’re on under the “My Books” section. (Which is nice.)

… Today, for me, is a half day. To say I’m looking forward to my trip to Sydney is an understatement. But so is saying I’m not excited about the travel. Here’s how I imagine the trip going:

• Depart to Chicago, 3.30p today. Finish one book because it’s written at a third-grade reading level (Left Behind series… heard of it?)
• Fly to San Francisco. Hustle desperately for connecting flight with only an hour betwixt.
• Fly to Sydney. Finish another book, pace incessantly, twitch uncontrollably, cry incrementally and murmur gibberish constantly.
• Arrive in Sydney, 8a Sunday. Wobble off the plane on atrophied legs, kiss the ground and start greeting everyone with “g’day mate!” in a terrible British accent.

Return trip:

• Repeat the above, in backward order, replacing SFO with LAX and doing it all within one day. End with crushing jet-lag.

… Because of the above, posts next week will be sparse or non-existent. No apologies, just like last time.

… Every month, we have an employee newsletter. (Think, “how could an office be more lame?” and you can probably imagine most of the topics covered.) I, (un)fortunately, was chosen this month.

I was emailed a set of questions and I answered most of them, as honest as possible, thinking they wouldn’t take as many as they did. The “interview” is as follows, word for word but for some anonymity-motivated redacting. (Links added.)

• Where did you grow up? [Hometown]. Northwest of Milwaukee.
• What are your plans for the holidays this year? I’m going back to MKE for Christmas, then to Cabo San Lucas until New Years Day.
• What’s on your wish list? Money, clothes and money. In that order.
• If you were not in Marketing at [Employer], what else what [sic] you like to do as a career? Design websites for small and medium sized businesses from somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe become a retiree. I hear good things.
• What are some of your hobbies? Watching movies, blogging, snowboarding (theoretically) and darts.
• Describe your favorite thing to do on the weekend during Minnesota winters. Relaxing with a movie, a fire and some drinks with a few choice friends.
• What is your order at your favorite restaurant? Juicy Lucy with pepperjack in the center, cheddar on top and jojo’s on the side at the 5.8 Club or a medium meatball and chicken pizza from Fat Lorenzo’s.
• What did you want to be when you grew up? A lottery winner.
• What’s the last concert you went to? Kings of Leon at the State Theater.
• What is the most interesting place you’ve ever traveled to? The NW coast, Portland and Seattle. Which just barely beat out Wall Drug by a few figurative miles.
• What will your News Years Resolution(s) be for 2009? To take certain things less seriously, others more seriously and to enjoy every day more than I’ve enjoyed the last. That, or to lose ten pounds.

… and finally:
It looks like I’m headed to Vegas in March. I have no idea how I’m going to do this but there’s a wedding in the works. (Sacrifices right? ::snicker::)

Then I saw the ad in the right column (need javascript turned off to see it). My horror evaporated (replaced by dismay). Context aside, this ad is amazing. It’s two frames of an animated GIF so terribly Photoshop’d as to be comedic gold (click for full-size):

Before and after (after/before?) drunk clone stamping.

Has anyone actually bought this shit? I mean, do they think this guy was ever obese? Has anyone seen image retouching? (Ignoring the person who retouched it, who obviously hasn’t.) Thanks the interweb gods it’s hidden. ::shudder::

… Wednesday, I met with a consultant about our marketing department. There’s been almost complete turnover (I’ve been here longer than all but one person) since I signed on and restructuring has been sort of interesting.

She explained some of our inadequacies as far as interweb’s concerned and was stunned when I (title: Interactive Designer) admitted to having almost no part in the strategy. We laughed… and laughed… and laughed… (more misfired neurons.)