Music: another true life nature adventure

first, Music fails me. 5/9/2008

John Brown was bad. Opera IS bad. At some point in the history of man a snobby (and evil) Italian man invented an insidious joke....hijinks ensue adding large women with horns....the joke continues on, at some point mating with real theater to produce their bastard spawn; musicals.

Second, Music redeems itself. 5/11/2008

My sister had me come along with her to Lawrence to see a show at the Granada. She was going to see Josh Ritter and the opening act was a girl named Dawn Landes.
Landes was good. Kinda folk and alternative, which maybe just be the new folk. iTunes says rock. Her showmanship needs a little work. One song, whose first line is 'we are kids in a play, she introduced with 'this song is about kids in a play'. I just don't think it needs the set up she thinks it does. I found out later the name of that particular song was indeed, Kids in a Play. I would see her again if she comes around though.
Josh Ritter was very entertaining. Even iTune more trouble than usual classifying him, Rock Folk, Alternative, you could throw blues in there if you wanted. It was all very good, very skillful. I was surprised, considering I've only heard about two of his songs before. I would definitely recommend a listen.

Conclusion: Opera, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

My question is this: Why is it in five minutes, five people can display more skill in story telling, music and emotion than opera can in three hours?

Yes, a new post

get over it.

I've categorized the people I help everyday into three categories; applicants candidates, and employees. In my head they are in a never ending struggle to annoy and surprise me with their lack of common sense and abysmal reading comprehension. Here are three examples, one from each category, help me decide which is worse.

Applicant: Today a girl came in asking about positions as a CNA, I told her everything was online and she could use our terminals or do it from home. she seemed to want to do it from home so I gave her the card that has Jobline one it and has the job line number and website one it. she then proceeded to ask if she should call this "Joe Bleen" when she was done with her application. she did catch herself after a few seconds and was good enough to let me laugh at her.

Candidate: Today I get a call from the company that does our drug screens they have a candidate (candidates being the people we plan on hiring) that had scheduled a physical with them, which we don't have them do there, so we had her do the drug test. she called about a half hour later and told me out occupational clinic did not have her on file to do a physical..... It's because we have officially offered her a job yet (yet another reason I really worry about nurses). she'll probably be put in candidate purgatory for a week or so .

Employee: I got a message the other day from an employee he was curious about prescription coverage, that in itself isn't dumb, he should be asking blue cross this but insurance is confusing. here's the dumb part, he rattled off the drug and why he was taking it. It wasn't for herpes or anything but why would anyone leave that in a message for the front desk.

What about R.O.U.S.'s

Thats rats of unusual size for those of you who don't remember The Princess Bride. I'm expecting some, well symbolically. I've skipped ahead a bit. I'm buying a new computer soon and It's been a huge headache. First I find a decent computer then find that it might be horribly underpowered for a graphics card. Next, I find that power supply specifications are secrets guarded closely by computer gnomes or some such nonsense. But after three days, two headaches, and one pot of coffee later I see light at the end of the tunnel. I do however remain confident that tomorrow a giant rat will attack and rape my dreams of a good computer, again symbolically. A special thanks to Donald who has helped me out through this.

surprisingly good

I rented Lady in the Water this weekend. I was surprised it wasn't typical M. Night Shayamalan suspense, if you have to compare it to something it's most like Signs. It's more of a fairy tale. and beside all you people who think Sin City is such a good movie would be happy if someone spit on a piece of film and shown a flashlight through it, so this should exceed expectations for you.

Since the weather has been crap I decided to watch the Lord of the rings movies again. It's taken the better part of two days I and made a few new observations and reconfirmed old ones.

1. Arwen and Aragorn are cousins, ack! Aragorn's great great great(theres like 100 more greats in here) grandfather and Elrond are brothers.
2. elf = ninja
3. all Gollum really needed was love and to get back on his meds

there are more issues, most of them have to do with inconsistencies with the books, but I've made my peace with those.

An Ambush

I hate meetings especially when they amount to a one sided ambush rather than any sort of forum for discussion. one such ambush occurred today. Sitting in the meeting today where the benefits of applying online were sounded, we didn't discussed the downside. We talked about how much easier the online application was, we didn't discuss the fact that probably half the people that apply have to call in because the digital signature is confusing. We talked about the about how most people are internet savvy enough to get through our application, we didn't didn't talk about the fact that the aforementioned well rounded, reasonable people aren't the sort that apply/work at KUmed. we talked about how easy we've made for people to sign up for an email address, we didn't talk about the 30 other things I have to do other than help someone signup email. we talked about certain recruiters getting more paper applications than others, we failed to mention the fact that those recruiters don't put their positions online, and we advertise positions in the paper that don't exist yet. all-in-all the point of the meeting was if we shout and close our eyes everything will work out fine. at thats why my department is a giant cluster

thats a bad TV, BAD

Are any of you familar with the move "Cube"? it was one of those Sci-fi original movies that no one should watch but inevitably we've all seen one that we remember. It was later followed by "hypercube". And now in a fit of sleeplessness, I witnessed "Cube Zero" and as the title suggests it's a prequel, a magical, wonderful prequel. I won't give it away, (if anyone cares I will) but it is goldmine of comedic bliss.