Memory Monday: I don't have a killer instinct

I remember the time in high school when I was trying out for the girls' basketball team, and my future coach, after observing me, pulled me aside and said, "You have the tools, fix it." What he meant was that I had the skills, smarts, and the composition of a good basketball player, but I wasn't aggressive enough. I needed to fix my attitude, because I didn't have that killer instinct that Geno talks about his team having (his team being the UCONN women's basketball team: I grew up in CT and am a big UCONN fan). They don't stop at a lead of 6, 15, 20, or 50. They'll keep playing at that high level regardless of the score. I, however, just wanted to play because playing, and not necessarily playing to win, was fun. I felt bad if my team was up by more than 20 because I knew what it felt like to be down by 20 (we were down by 20 more often than up by 20 because frankly, we weren't that good). I guess that's why I spent a lot of time warming the bench.

Earlier today, I met with a new recruiter. (By new, I mean this is now the 4th recruiting agency I've met with since I became unemployed. Hey, it's always good to have people looking out for you!) Towards the end of the interview, when it became clear that they did not usually place people in marketing research jobs, I asked to speak with their temping department thinking that it would at least be a good idea to find some temp work in marketing for the time being. I met with the temping department and they seemed positive and friendly; everything went well. Then I left the office and remembered one time I had temped for a day at a humongous company downtown. I was charged with organizing and updating the never ending list of the CEO's contacts in Outlook. Looking around at his office, I realized that I lacked the killer instinct to become a CEO. It just didn't seem important to me. Now, I'm not saying being a CEO is a bad thing or putting down the people who are (or want to be) CEOs - those people are fantastic in their own right. But it just wasn't something that was on my list of things to accomplish. And it's not that I'm lazy, afraid of competition on my way to the top, or anything else you might think it is. On the contrary, I'm actually quite hard-working and I like competition. But I don't want to be a giant success, at least not in the sense that a CEO is a giant success. I want to be able to have a job where I can work to live, not live to work.

I'll let you know how that works out.

I wish I had a cheering section in my pocket

So I was watching the NBA finals the other night and I thought to myself: There are millions of people, myself included, cheering because a guy nicknamed "Big Baby" made a shot. Yes, it was amazing. But it's his job to make that shot. Wait a second...what if we all had fans to cheer us on while we did our jobs?

Think about it! You're chugging along, writing some memo or another, and a small crowd of people starts to chant your name and wave signs. When you finish, there's cheering and high-fiving and hoopla of all sorts. And you get all your stats on a card like a baseball card (wow, do they even make those anymore, and if so, does anyone really still collect them?): Number of sales, typing speed, software you're familiar with, your educational background...and a really nice picture of you on the front. Imagine the ego boost! For unemployed folk, this would mean a section of face-painted fans cheering for you as you completed your three job contacts for the week. After all, finding a job is sort of the unemployed's "job," now, isn't it? If you actually got an interview, imagine how the face-painted fans would jump up and down, like they had money on you getting a job or something. Even if you didn't get the position, they'd still win because hey, at least you beat the spread. I wish I could keep people like this in my pocket. My own miniature cheering section. *Sigh*

The only way this cheering and encouragement could go wrong is if there were people who rooted against you. Thunder sticks can be very annoying, after all, and no one needs that kind of distraction in their daily life. So, in short, I'm not saying that I necessarily want this to happen. It already sucks enough when I have to apply to three jobs every week that don't sound good at all but there's nothing else out there and I have to apply to something. To add booing and chants of "joooob-leeeeess! jooooob-leeeess!" would just make it worse. All I'm saying is, it would be interesting. You know, spice it up a little.

Female Fertility Drug Friday

Sorry to get all baseball on you, but this is one got me thinking.

Manny Ramirez, left fielder for the Dodgers, was banned 50 games for his use of a performance-enhancing drug.

And now for the million dollar question: What was the drug? Go!

Me: Yes- guy in the front.
Guy in the front: Was it some kind of 'roid?
Me: Oh no, that would be predictable. You there, in the back.
Lady in the back: Was it some kind of growth hormone? Like, for apes or something? Because some of these men are really apes...
Me: What? No! Jane Goodall? How did you get in here?

Look, I don't know why I'm having you guess - it's almost as ridiculous as having you guess what my middle name is - you'll never get it (unless you already know, which at this point you probably do -- about the drug, not my middle name). It was a female fertility drug, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), used to treat polycystic ovarian syndrome and to facilitate ovulation.

Is Manny not a Manny?

I read on. Apparently, it is also typically used by steroid users to restart their body's natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle.
Ohhhh.
He says he was using it for an undisclosed medical condition, and the media frenzy continues.

The point is it's people like Manny who have ruined it for the rest of us. Manny was probably the type of kid who, because he was jumping up and down and not sitting still, spilled his chocolate ice cream all over the new beige couch. Right after his parents took the plastic off, too. After that, Manny and friends were no longer allowed to eat their ice cream on the couch and had to eat it on the floor. They tried desperately to keep it away from the family dog, but spilled it all over themselves in the process. One of them probably looked at Manny with disgust and said, "see Manny, you ruined it for the rest of us!" A fist fight broke out and everyone beat Manny up. As he walked away from his former friends, ice cream-less and with a black eye, it was the first time Manny considered using performance-enhancing drugs. It was not the last.

I don't think the rest of us, however, would trade places with Manny Ramirez. Sure, you'd have a lot of money (I mean a LOT). If you're into bad press and bad hair, you'd be in luck to be Mr. MR (still talking about Manny Ramirez here, not Mr Mister). But what wouldn't you have? Self-respect and pride, sure. The ability to say you didn't cheat, definitely. But, most importantly, your primary concern would be how to spend the money you earned by cheating and NOT what do I do with my old business cards or what can I do with these corduroy pants. You wouldn't be able to make lemons out of lemonade because you would be too busy being the lemon.

A new workout!

I try to do something active for at least a half hour a day. When I was working in Middla'noplace MA, I woke up pre-crack of dawn to do a little half-asleep Wii Fit (because it was in the other room and wouldn't wake the dogs, not to mention that it was winter and too cold to go outside). Afterward, I showered and ate breakfast in a zombie-like state, then drove an hour and a half to work. During the first half of that hour and a half, my cup of coffee would kick in. During the second half, it would wear off, so that when I arrived at work, where I would once again be in a zombie-like state.

Well, no more! Now that I have more time on my hands, I can actually schedule a work out at a normal time of day! Finally, it's getting warmer and I have the time and freedom to do stuff other than Wii Fit. I can:

• Go running or go for a long walk. Usually, I'll take Emma with me. She gives me a nice excuse to stop when I get tired. "Oh do you have to stop and sniff this tree? Alright..." I'll say, all the while I'm using her to catch my breath.
  
• Hit some softballs at the park across the street and have Emma retrieve them. It's actually quite impressive since the softballs are bigger than her head. She picks them up by the laces and fumbles with them all the way back to home plate. It's not really an aerobic workout for me, but it sure is entertaining.
  
• Play a pick-up game of basketball with the kids who skip school at the park down the street. I go in with the expectation that I will get my ass kicked, which, if there is more than one 7th grade boy there, I probably will. When the pre-growth spurt 5th graders are there, though, I usually win, and man is that a huge confidence boost! "I gots game!" I'll say quietly to myself as I leave the park out of breath.
  
• Go biking. This option I probably choose the least. I suppose I would bike more around town if I wasn't so afraid of being hit by a car or if my helmet (circa 1991) wasn't from Costco. I would use the bike paths more if they weren't so full of holes and bumps. That sort of terrain is quite unfriendly to not only my 13 year old bike, but also to my nether region.
  
• Use my rower machine. All of the aforementioned options require some sort of prep and travel time, so if I'm not in the mood for that and want to just get a workout in quickly, I choose the rower.
  

Well, now I have another rower-like option! My fiancee was recently glued to the idiot box, particularly an ad very much like this one for the HSN Pilates Power Gym. As a result of that brilliant ad ("you can sculpt, you can shape, you can lengthen, you can lean out that body!"), we now own the Pilates Power Gym!

The day it came felt like Christmas: We were five, and the Reformer was Power Wheels. We took turns using it all day. In my sweatpants; I sculpted, I shaped, I lengthened. I wondered if I looked stupid. The reformer had all of the desireables a workout machine should have. Sure, it wasn't an actual Pilates reformer, but I am more than willing to accept its minor shortcomings and choose to refer to it as "the Reformer" anyway. I'm sure HSN can't do that for some intellectual property reason or another, but if they could, I have the perfect theme song for their infomercials!

Set to the tune of "Informer," by Snow:
Refooor-MER! A gooby doobie flobie zabba where?
A licky boom boom da dare!
Somethin' blah-dy goober yaba daba do, micky has no hair.
A licky boom boom da dare!
ReforMER!

And you get the picture.

Dear HSN: You're welcome. Oh, and I have a question for you. Who has two thumbs and deserves an endorsement check?

This unemployed lady right here.

The Mascot Awards

It's been a few days of March Madness now, and I'm beginning to see why they call it "madness." I have had the time, being unemployed, to watch every single college basketball game-- both men's and women's. We're talking hours, nay, days of yelling at referees, cursing the other team, routing for the underdog, and shouldering the bracket busters. During this time, I have subsisted on minimal interaction with live humans and maximum interaction with Mr. Pringle.

All of this has led to the very real potential for a case of March Madness. There was a point today when, slumped over on my couch with only the remote and a bag of chips to prop me up, I realized if I watched college basketball for much longer, my eyeballs would grow soft and just pop right out of my head. Enter: Stage One of MM. Stage Two consists of total muscle atrophy and loss of brain function other than that which is required to say "Yes! And the foul!" Stage Three, the final stage, you don't even want to know about.

Before that could happen, I decided to use my brain. What have I not had time to do because I've had a pesky thing called a job? March Madness still on the brain, I decided to research iffy collegiate mascots. Sticking to the teams that are participating in either the men's or women's tournaments this year, here are the awards for...

Most represented mascot of the 2009 men's tournament: Tigers (LSU, Memphis, Clemson, Missouri)

Most represented mascot of the 2009 women's tournament: Bulldogs (MSU, Georgia, Fresno State, Gonzaga)

Mascot that makes you go "really?" with the most skepticism: The Chattanooga Mocs. "Mocs" was short for "moccasins" until '96, when they decided to be hip (and/or more sensitive to Native Americans) and go by "mocs" instead. Scrappy, the Mockingbird is their mascot. He rides atop a Chattanooga choo choo train. So it's a bird on a train that really represents a shoe. What? Really?

Most made up mascot: The bearcat. Oh, crap, no that's a real thing. The real winner? The Illinois Fighting Illini. Another school who went the less-offensive-to-Native-Americans route, their mascot was Chief Illiniwek until 2007. They kept the name "Illini," though, their reasoning being that "Illini" is short for "Illinois." Even if that worked, it would be stupid because it would make them The Illinois Fighting Illinois. What? That's made up.

Best plant matter mascot: This one has two winners-- Ohio State and Stanford. On paper, it's the Ohio State Buckeyes. Buckeyes are trees native to certain parts of North America, Europe, and eastern Asia. BUT, they lose to Stanford because


does not =










In terms of mascot presentation, clearly it's the Stanford tree. They are, however, referred to as the Stanford Cardinal, meaning the color, not the bird. So why are they a tree again? I don't see the connection.



Most disputed abstract mascot: Cornell and Western Kentucky University, both are "the big red"

Cornell's big red...bear:
WKU's big red...muppet?:

Ok, that was fun. I liked the mental exercise. Now, back to the couch!

Unemployed = No Swimming

Today I am feeling the opposite of yesterday's jubilation: Total despair. Why? Because I just realized that this year I cannot participate in an office March Madness pool.
Since none of my local friends follow college basketball, that leads me to a few important, life changing questions. Among them:

• Who will comment on my brackets?
• Who will lose to my superior prediction skills?
• Who will I track my predictions for, other than myself?

I feel so alone.

Instead making my annual March Madness culinary delights for the office, I will have to eat them all myself. They're supposed to look like this, but they never do-->

Instead of getting into heated arguments with coworkers about how Siena is somehow a 9 seed and how UCONN will not fall to Memphis in the Elite Eight (as President Obama seems to think), I will bask in the confident glow of my own predictions.

Instead of having one tiny speck of wall in my office dedicated to small print outs of my Tournament Challenge Brackets, I will have every wall in my apartment wallpapered with huge copies of Tournament Challenge Brackets, March Madness-related articles, and photos. Just like a crazy person.

Instead of having to give most of my attention to the men's tournament because few of the places I have worked have had a women's office pool, I can devote equal amounts of energy to tracking both races to the final four.

Instead of sneakily tuning in to games and commentary while at my desk, I will have to watch them all from my couch, live and on television...

Wait a minute! This is freakin great!