GustavReporter

Follow him on twitter. And while your at it follow me too. Dill9 He's sending updates from New Orleans as he hears things. A real 24 hour reporter type. This is a really interesting way of using Twitter. And a good way to keep track of Hurricane Gustav.

I think that went pretty good.

I'm talking about the interview I had at the cafe. Hopefully soon I'll be doing some of this.



Or maybe this.

Finding a job is hard

This is what I've found out in the last few years. As a student, I don't really have to have a job. It's not life or death. I can not spend money and save my student loans. But I've found out that there is nothing more soul crushing and depressing then not contributing anything to society. So I need to find a job.

But lately I've found out another thing. Finding a job is hard. It's a lot of work. And really depressing work, too. Some people say no and most people don't even say that. My mom (who seems to love anything web 2.0) tells me I should blog about my attempts at getting a job, a la BloggingAwayDebt.com. Which is a pretty remarkable blog about a couple who got into deep, deep debt and now want to blog out of it. Oh, the marvels of the internet.

I don't really think this would work. There really isn't much excitement in a post entitled "Sifting through Craigslist again." And I don't see much more then that happening most of the time. But maybe I could just write in this sometimes, and see what happens. At the very least it might make me feel better about doing nothing to better humankind.

I have two dream jobs at the end of two very different dream paths. But I probably could do both, if I really tried hard. One: Barista or Coffee Roaster at local Chicago, coffee shop Metropolis. It's one of the two best cafes in Chicago and my favorite place to drink coffee. Really good coffee, really good atmosphere. Two: Chicago (if at all possible) corespondent to Wired Magazine. I really love reading this magazine. I like the style and the content. And I think I could work well there. I like science, I like science things. I once had to wear a lab coat for a job and miss it so much. Man that was a cool job.

I have some experience in both these fields. I was a Barista for a year at Strawberry Fields, a hippy dippy cafe/food store in Urbana, IL. And I have been going to school for a while for Journalism.

I would need to work up to both jobs. Starting at a smaller cafe and waiting for 8 or so months then talking to people at Metropolis about a job. Or finishing school, working at local newspapers for a while and developing my resume.

Right now, I think I can do both. I can use a cafe job to get myself through college then work as a Journalist for the rest of my life. Maybe down the long line I could open my own cafe. I'm working on both. I just started writing for my college newspaper The Torch and I have an interview with a South Side cafe tomorrow.

So that did make me feel better. Sorry about the long post. I'll go back to putting up pictures of cute things tomorrow. And maybe something about my interview.

I think I owe you something cute

These kittens like to dance. Or maybe they are trying to learn how to walk upright like humans. Or they are in a fight to the death and trying to claw each others livers out. What ever it is-it sure is cute.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

I got this game the other day and played it for about 4 hours the other night. I would say this is both a great game and the worst game in the world. It's great: it has an interesting twist on the puzzle game and great RPG qualities. The story is only interesting enough to not skip, but the game is fun.

But it's the worst in the world because it is so fucking frustrating it brings out my Tourette syndrome. My neighbors must be a little scared every time I my guy dies.

I'm not the greatest at puzzle games, but still I shouldn't be dieing so much.

The game has a lot of strategy to it, but it seems like there is one glaring omission that kills it. The pieces fall down randomly and there is no way of knowing what is coming next. It seems like if there was a way of knowing what comes next, the whole board could be used strategically. But those are really my only grips. It's a great game otherwise.

Architecture School

I like free things and sometimes iTunes gives things away for free. This makes me very happy, but I get even happier when I know what is free and when. Thanks to this I know it all.

The other day I saw that a show called Architecture School was starting, and I could download it for free. I did and I watched it and I really enjoyed it. The show fallows an Architecture class as they design houses for use in New Orleans. The best design will be built by the students in the end. What I liked so much was they didn't shy away from criticism from the community. Most people said the houses where ugly. It seems like it's a reality tv show with more reality then tv.

Obama/Biden 2008

Obama is brilliant really. Hiding who he picked for a running mate turned an ordinary presidential bid into Christmas, full of wonder and excitement. Every news channel, news paper, news feed, news junky were all a flutter over who he wanted for VP. And he was there the whole time to say "I know who . . . but I'm not gonna tell you." (Not an actual quote)

I got into it myself. I spent about 8 hours yesterday on the couch with my twitter feed and my news twitter feed up (with twitter friends: the AP, CNN, Chicago Trib) because I had heard he was going to announce it then. He kind of did, but only after I gave up.

But after an entire week of free publicity, he announces Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Here is an article on the Chicago Tribune website, with a ton of information I couldn't write about unless I wanted to write my own Jayson Blair style memoir. (sorry, just a little journalism joke)

So I am very excited about this, even if I did miss the announcement when it happened.

Chirp Chirp

I just got back form my meeting with CHIRP people (CHicago Independent Radio Project). It was a fun time. As I waited for it to get started an old guy on the street asked me if I knew how to make wine. I told him no.

We met in Dank Haus, a historic German building on Western and Lawrence. There were a lot of people there. And we took a big tour of the place. It's going to be the home of the CHIRP internet radio station, so we saw where the station will be, and a ball room, and a bar, and another ball room, and another bar. It looks awesome. Then we went up on the roof/balcony and saw the beautiful view. You can see most of the city from downtown on up North. And Western travails under from horizon to horizon.

All in all it makes me glad I'm a part of it. And hope I will do more.

Just a Little Trouble.

I've been a little down for a while. I don't seem to be doing anything, but I guess that happens every summer when I'm out of school and don't have a job. I'm just kind of stuck in all aspects of my life. I don't have a job so I don't have money so I don't have a social life. Soon it should change but it's just waring down on me significantly lately.

I guess everyone goes through this sometimes. And sitting here complaining about it doesn't help any. I need to go out and do something about it. Which I guess I am. I should be getting a job soon.

I think most of my problem comes from a fear of failure. I don't want to look stupid so I don't do anything. And that goes against what really should happen. We learn by being stupid. And then the whole "You can't win, if you don't play the game" Bla Bla Bla. (Read with sarcastic tone)

I haven't written anything for a while for this very reason. And I have a fear that I can't get back into it. But I'll just have to get over that fear and all my fears and just do something.

This is something I have to write about every few months or else I forget. I'll go back to writing about video games or posting pictures of dogs in dresses tomorrow. I just needed to think about this today.

Video Games

Two games I have been playing for the PSP.

* Every Extend Extra

* Capcom Classic Collection Remixed

I rented both from GameFly and returned them very quickly. This doesn't mean I didn't like them, I just got over them pretty quickly. EEE was a great shooter/rhythm type game. (although that doesn't really describe the game so well.) There were a few frustrating parts in the auto saving system. A few times I got far in the game and lost it when it didn't actually auto save. It would also be a better game if there were a few more game types. But these are small quibbles that don't take much from the fun game.

To a lot of people, Capcom is a big part of childhood. For me there were very few Capcom games in my early years. That being said I played this game for a while and had fun. It's a collection of a lot of early games. It is fun, but because I don't have the memories, the game didn't mean much to me.

Both are good games, but they didn't hold my attention very long.

Well I do apologizes

I once said I would be a better net citizen. Apparently I lied, because I stopped posting things again. There are several things I want to do that would require me being better at writing and posting things online. And really I think the only thing stopping me is my crippling fear of being crappy.

So that's something I need to get over.

Right now I'm getting frustrated trying to figure out how to put my twitter stuff on this blog. twitter.com/Dill9 If anyone knows how let me know.

So I promise I will update regularly from now on, and keep writing more stuff.