The depths of depression

The other night my phone rang. Surprisingly it wasn't a debt collector for Susanne Lawson (if Susanne is reading this: please stop giving out my phone number) or some unknown number. It was someone I knew. The sad part is the first thought I had was that my friend must have misdialed.

I do think things are swinging upward. I am going to call a production company again Monday to see about jobs. Then Wednesday I am meeting with an alumnus to get some guidance. I fully anticipate having a job by the end of the week.

The key I've found in follow-up emails to employers is extreme brevity. Instead of a long winded email, I send a 2-3 sentence email stating I wanted to follow-up to schedule an interview.

I've also started studying for the GRE in earnest. I requested info from some New York artsy schools and some schools in Cali for their photography or journalism programs.

New Ad Campaign

In case you didn't hear it, a 6-year-old had such a strong hankering for Applebees that he "borrowed" and crashed his grandmother's car en route to the restaurant.

Watch this for the gripping video:
http://www.wbaltv.com/video/14305224/index.html

If I had the video resources I'd make Applebee's a new ad campaign featuring the young patron. After showing a little kid herding his diaper-wearing buddies into his gram's sedan they head out to Applebee's. On the trip he crashes the car a few times and we see the scraped up car in the lot and the kids teetering toward the doors.


Narrator voice over: "Yeah, we're that good."

Freegan Eh

From the Oct. 1 Newsweek:

Before June of this year, I thought only the sad and desperate ate garbage. Then I discovered the freegans. For those new to the term (free + vegan), a freegan is a person who has decided to boycott capitalist society by severely curtailing consumption of resources through reusing, recycling and Dumpster diving. Taking the expression "Waste not, want not" to its extreme conclusion, freegans try not to purchase anything up to and including food. Instead, they rely on bartering and what the rest of us leave for the garbageman.

Just a quick note here: the correct term is "homeless."

I shouldn't joke. I'm on the fast-track to being a freegan Dumpster diver.