When I was a teenage nerd, video games were a thing many of my class mates played, but only the nerdiest of the nerds kept up on all the news. How times have changed. At PAX, I was met with a diverse crowd … that reeked of body odor. Who cares! I just got a brand new camera, so let’s see how that turned out.

Many put a lot of effort into their costumes.

While others did not.

There were a number of sights I simply could not reconcile.

However, I did spot a few of my heroes.

Leaving PAX, I was unsure if I’d return the next year, but I was glad I came. In the end, what held my interest more than the games was the people-watching. Maybe, next year, I will come just to do that. More photos of my trip to PAX East can be found on Flickr.

I filmed the goings-on at Hyphenfest 2011 and put together 5, short, amusing videos. You can find them over on my Vimeo channel, Hyphen Home Movies, or you can check out the Hyphenfest-only channel. Here’s a sample below:

The farm was fairly small, about 150 by 250 feet. It had sections of squash, plots of peppers, innumerable baby tomatoes, even a row of grapes that never, ever grew.  My partners in crime and grime were Lou, Geoff, and my brother, Sam. To help us tend to the crops we had a league of volunteers. They came in all shapes and sizes; high school students trying to earn summer credits, juvies doing community service in lieu of jail time, and recovering cokeheads from halfway houses. Our worst volunteers were teenagers.

Teenagers are the Worst

I could write an entire doctoral thesis about why being a teenager is the worst and what sort of island we should build to house every teen in America, but I’ll leave that for another time. While Emir was our honor roll student at the Farm, we had our share of delinquents. One such example was a high school sophomore, who would make an appearance from time to time, ”Julie.” She was short, she was white, she was a brunette, she thought “booty shorts” were appropriate garden wear, and she was whiny.  Julie would often refuse to pick any of the “dirtier” vegetables, for fear of a dirt getting on her fingers. She would refuse to work with other volunteers if they were pungent (meaning, anyone). The only lasting impression Julie made was on a picnic table, where someone wrote Julie is a bitch in sunscreen, which burned into the wood. However, she acted as a catalyst for our next story.

While Julie was a no-wage slave on the Farm for school credit, “Rob” was with us because he was a troubled teen. His options were working with idiots like us or going to juvenile hall. He chose the idiots. Rob was just your standard skinny white boy, trying to look tough. He spoke with a thick “Row dyland” accent, which punctuated his many, many tall tales.

It seems that when you combine an adolescent male and an adolescent female, they both begin to suffer from a case of “stupid brain.” In order to impress Julie, young Rob would spin tales while stuffing cardboard boxes with malnourished squash. He claimed to be a smooth criminal, until he slipped up. Rob regaled us with the time he snagged 10lbs of marijuana from Amsterdam. When he arrived back in these United States, our post-9/11 TSA just laughed him off, even as they pulled brick after brick of pot out of his bag in front of the entire airport.

“Yo dawg, put that back,” Rob demanded of the TSA agent, with swagger literally pouring out of his ears. Naturally – because a TSA agent would listen to a 16 year old – they put all the pot back and sent Rob on his way.

The crime that resulted in Rob’s 240 hours of community service was one of passion and tragedy. Rob had discovered that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer, which is always terrible. People react to the news of a terminal illness in a number of different ways. Some cry. Some begin drinking. Some turn to God. Rob took things in stride. As in he walked a stride or two down to a local gas station, waited for a car to stop at a red light, and shot the driver in the face with a .22.

Rob told enough stories to fertilize the farm for a week. Sadly, there are many details that have been lost to the ether of my memory. He was the 16 year old equivalent of that barfly who spins a new pub lore after his 10th beer of the evening. Why Rob felt the need to transparently lie in order to impress a few strangers and some idiot girl, I will never understand.

Wait, no. I just got it.

Almost six years ago, I proudly stepped away from college with a crisp, fresh college degree. I was certified 

The farm was fairly small, about 150 by 250 feet.  It had sections of squash, plots of peppers, innumerable baby tomatoes, even a row of grapes that never, ever grew. My partners in crime and grime were, Lou, Geoff, and my brother, Sam. To help us tend to the crops we had a league of volunteers. They came in all shapes and sizes; high school students trying to earn summer credits, juvies doing community service in lieu of jail time, and recovering cokeheads from halfway houses. Our finest student volunteer was “Emir”.

Meet Emir

Emir was our star volunteer. He was a symbol of everything good and right in the world. He was our little, brown beacon of hope. Emir was a high school sophomore of Middle Eastern descent, skinny as a rail, with dark black hair. He was soft spoken, which lead us to believe he must be the strong, silent type. Emir was an invaluable asset in the war on hunger. As our Food Bank boss noted, “[we] were in direct competition with migrant workers!” Despite that we were a nonprofit and also not competing with anyone, as the volunteer supervisors, we were under a lot of pressure to pick our veggies as quickly as possible. When we asked Emir to go pick green beans, he would silently saunter over to the rows and wouldn’t quit until his hands were thick with beetle blood and dirt.

Unlike most of our “volunteers,” Emir was working at the Farm for high school credits. He was a good kid, but one day, he didn’t show up for work. We didn’t think much of it. Actually, we didn’t think much about anything, except for lunch. Sick of eating dirt or 7/11-brand chips and cola, Lou, Geoff, Sam, and myself piled into the Food Bank’s ’82 Mazda Deathtrap pick-up. We were on the hunt for a decent meal. I can’t even recall if we ever found any grub, but I do recall that we ended up by the airport. We were lost, belligerent, and each screaming different directions at Lou, who responded by jerking the wheel left and right, slamming Geoff and Sam into the headrests on the front seats.

Lou had driven across Rhode Island and back. We knew we were in the same town as our Farm, but we weren’t sure how to get back. Slowly crawling past a park in our Mazda, we look out the window to see none other than Emir, equipped with a fresh cast on his arm. We pulled up alongside Emir and friends, with the windows rolled down.

“Hey Emir!” I yelled.

He was visibly shaken – as any little, brown fellow might be when a beat up, pick-up truck full of pungent, dirty, white boys rolls up to you. He lifted his cast, and quickly blurted out “IBrokeMyArmPlayingHockey, that’s why I wasn’t at the Farm today!” We assured Emir that we only wanted directions back to the Farm, we weren’t going to drag him across Rhode Island behind the Mazda.

Unfortunately, Emir was not nearly as skilled with directions as he was at picking tomatoes. However, the following week, Emir was back at it again, picking vegetables one handed. If only all of our workers were as silent and diligent as he.

Next Week: Adolescents.

Now imagine this happens every two weeks. Plus, they leave pamphlets in front of your apartment building. Also, they stick them on top of your mailbox, just in case you missed the last 5 “deals.” And you can see more “HOT DEALS!” taped to the wall as you exit your apartment. Once every September, they even slip a few ads under your door, like some sort of early-bird, uncaring Secret Santa.

Comcast, it’s annoying. Plus, by marking everything you send as “important,” then nothing you send is of any greater importance than anything else. Except the bill you make me pay for your services, which is often sent in an envelope with no markings. Well, how do you enjoy it?

Your move, Comcast.

Here is a bonus cat photo:

Please enjoy these other Villainous Valentines.

]]> http://hyphensite.com/2012/02/have-a-villainous-valentines-day/feed/ 3 http://hyphensite.com/2012/01/apply-yourself/ http://hyphensite.com/2012/01/apply-yourself/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:39:25 +0000 HP http://hyphensite.com/?p=815 Partly in thanks to a series of ritualistic animal sacrifices, I began 2012 with a brand new job. I do design now. I make posters. It’s nice and it took me about 5 years to get here. I have a number of friends who are currently hunting through the thick, dank forest of the Job Market. As such, I would like to share a bit of advice about how I acquired, tied down, and killed a virgin goat applied to jobs.

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, I signed up for Twitter to track my job application progress and to make light of it. This practice made me all too aware of the process. Particularly, how many applications I would send out, when I would send them out, and how I would never, ever hear anything back from anyone, ever. This is my first piece of advice though; Keep track of everything you send. Know when you sent it, who you sent it to, and try not to apply for the same job half a dozen times.

Found a job I really want. mailed heartfelt cover letter, resume, and business card on 9/04. Sprayed envelope with cologne. Now we wait. – Excerpt from Twitter

That particular Fall, I applied for about 25 jobs. I went through different methods; I uploaded resumes through the company’s job bank websites, I emailed my resume directly to the hiring offices, I even mailed hard copies on thick-stock paper directly to the hiring manager. I followed up with phone calls to HR, emails to each department, and I even showed up at the supervisor’s home with boxes of chocolates and a dozen roses.

Called design dept of Dream Job. Left a voicemail. Feel like I am asking girl to prom. Fear rejection. Will spend another prom crying @ home.

After following all the tips, doing all the tricks, I had managed to land a single call back for a job that I discovered would pay far less than my current job. This is when I resigned that my fate for 2009 was to remain at my current job. It was also around that time that my Twitter account was used to produce garbage. However, out of the 25 jobs I applied to, 20% notified me that I was not “what they were looking for.” The other 80% did not even bother to send me so much as a confirmation email, return my calls, or follow up with me in any manner.

Over the next few years, I would continue to send out resumes sporadically.

Embrace Rejection

Please bear with me for story time: In one particular situation, I had my foot in the door at an in-house design department for a travel company. I had a friend, Steve, who was leaving his position as a graphic designer to become Captain America. Steve passed my resume along to the higher-ups and they called me for an interview.

Weeks later, I sat through a very engaging 2 hour, group interview. I had a good rapport with the HR representative and I was immediately asked to speak with the head of the creative department. We chatted, I gave them my online portfolio information, and I left. Now we jump forward three weeks. I had not heard a peep from the company. I am spending my evening playing Halo 3 with Steve. I asked about the job between explosions and he tells me that I didn’t get it. That’s how I found out I didn’t get the job! During a game of Team Slayer on Coagulation. No one from the company ever contacted me.

Get use to that. I have been at my new job for about 3 months now and I still have 10 outstanding resumes floating around on some unloved HR employee’s faux-wood desk. Most of the applications you send out are going to be transmitted directly into the nearest black hole, never to be heard from again. You will learn to embrace rejection letters – much in the way a troubled child might learn to love his father’s belt – because it’s the only attention you’ll get for a while. During my latest job hunt, the quickest turn around time I saw from application to rejection was 3 days. The longest was 13 months.

I just applied to 3 jobs because what’s the worst they can do? Have me killed? If my resume is THAT bad, then I deserve Death’s sweet kiss.

Work Hard, Reward Yourself, Cry

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: 1 in 4 people in the job market will eventually give up, stop eating, and, eventually, die alone.  The other 3 might want to prepare yourself. Here comes the part where I actually give some advice:

First! Get yourself into a groove. Find a number of resources and check them on a regular schedule. Because I worked in higher ed, I would keep tabs a dozen or so university job sites. Every 2 weeks I would check them, again and again. Gather newspapers, do regular sweeps of job sites, even utilize Craigslist if you hate yourself and other people.

Secondly! Don’t let up. Every week, try to send out at least 5 new resumes and cover letters. Even if you are underqualified for the job, overqualified, or if it’s even only half interesting. This practice will keep your typing fingers limber and it will fortify your ability to lie about yourself.

Thirdly! This will suck, so reward yourself. You are putting yourself out there, to be judged by anonymous desk jockeys and people who hate you. Try to take the edge off. For every 4 cover letters you complete, have a brownie. My preferred reward was a shot of whiskey for every application I submitted. I apologize to who ever received my 5th cover letter of the night, which I am positive read only: “I’M SO SMART HIRE ME BY!“

Fourthly! Don’t send out your cover letter the same night you write it. Sleep on it, then re-read it the next day. This will prevent any drunk-applications or simple spellging errors. I would also recommend bothering a loved one, friend, or parishioner for proof-reading.

Lastly! Don’t give up. Midway through this process, you are going to feel devalued as a human being. You will just assume that there is some reason that no one deems you worth so much as talking to. You’ll probably consider a life of crime and drugs. If you think you can pull off being the new Kingpin of Crime, I’d say go for it. The rest of you: don’t give up. Just keep chipping away. Eventually, everyone else will give up, leaving you by default!

I hope that something I was able to write was inspiring or at the very least life-changing. Does anyone have an advice? What is your process? How do you cope with a thousand No’s? Tell the world!

Please remember that you can find me on Vimeo over at Hyphen Home Movies.