Tessa at the pool

My mother has a new six-week-old German shorthair puppy. I went out to her house today to take some pictures of Tessa Pearl Stoltz Blust. Not very many of them turned out well, since although it was a beautiful day, the sunlight was a little harsh. This one, though, I love – I think it has a sort of David Hockney feel to it. I also made one with a paint filter in Photoshop, just to emphasize that painted feel.

It’s been months and months since my last tirade about movie focus. Maybe Melissa, as a former movie theater employee, can shed some light on this. But lately when I patronize my local Mega-Google-Plex, the movie is more often than not slightly out of focus. It’s just enough to annoy the hell out of you for the entire film – am I alone in this? Even when it’s more than slightly out of focus, people will gladly sit there, sluping their 96-ounce soft drinks, and apparently not care. And when I go and ask the 10-year-old usher to have someone check the focus, they either do nothing, or peek their head in from the back of the theater and think to themselves, “He’s crazy – it’s fine.”

Once, when I complained that the “UltraScreen” (that’s the actual name) was badly out of focus, the gum-snapping, bow-tie-wearing girl’s advice was “Sit further back.”

They’re charging $7.50 for me to see a movie that will end up sounding and looking better on DVD at home. They want $3.50 for a breadstick masquerading as a pretzel. Many of the floors could use a periodic hosing down with Lysol. So I don’t think checking the focus on every showing of every film is too much to ask.

Thanks for your attention.

Interesting news: on the basis of my recently completed job-hunting guide, my friend Amanda asked me to speak on job-hunting strategies at Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce’s upcoming Business World event. High school students from around the state attend to hear speakers from all areas of business. I haven’t written a book on it, and I don’t have any advanced degrees or other marquee value for the event, but Amanda says that’s OK. It should be fun and a great new experience for me. It’s a good thing.

I wonder if this is how Tom Peters got his start.

Mixed Feelings Spam of the Week

FROM: Would YOU
SUBJECT: want to JUMBO size your PENIS ADAM?

Here in Wisconsin, we have common sense. Case in point: even Republican James Sensenbrenner gets “very, very queasy” with Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft’s plan to expand domestic spying powers.

In effect, what Ashcroft’s saying is, “Well, since you didn’t think we did such a great job with that 9/11 deal, how about allowing us to spy on people in any situation? That should help matters.”

Sometimes I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

This story reminds me of when I was a reporter, and sources had all kinds of ways of not answering your questions. It was maddening. Of course, none of them had the skill and audacity of Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary. But I guess that’s why he’s the press secretary, right?

Inspired by Mike, I’ve decided to write down a few of the things I’ve learned after applying and interviewing for countless jobs. The result is my concise but perhaps helpful job-hunting guide. Let me know what you think.

My Internet Explorer is acting weird. When I spawn a new window, the status bar (which I like having) always disappears. When I do a “View Source,” nothing happens – this is bad for a web designer wanting to steal stuff. And when I try to download images, it wants to save JPEGs as giant bitmap files.

Reinstalling doesn’t help. And you can’t uninstall, since as we all know by now, IE is an intrinsic part of Windows. Ugh.

Any ideas?

“Do you have blacks too?”

I can’t believe this story isn’t being carried by the mainstream media in the U.S. Just when you think you’re heard everything from Dubya…