Schadenfraud

Look, I know it’s been a while, but fuck you. It’s 2011, which means we’re in our fourth year of recession, which further means that here at The American Jerk Home Office, the last quarter of 2010 was very interesting in that Chinese curse kinda way.

Funny little story you can take away: when the president of a potential employer tells you during your interview process that, “We are fully financed until March,” I have learned that it’s probably best to assume that the (allegedly) treacherous little knobgobbler is using the Royal form of “We” and continue your job search elsewhere. And if you don’t, I have learned that it is possible to take solace in the fact that at this point March is only seven days away, and therefore that President might soon learn that when an employee tells you during his layoff interview (less than 100 days after he left a lucrative job to join that little corporate disaster and well more than 100 days before March) that, “I will honor my non-disclosure agreement,” well, you can probably guess the rest.

But enough of all that. Bygones, right? Bygones and I would need to see a sweet litigation-precluding bankruptcy declaration on their corporate Website before I could even consider unveiling my long-rehearsed gravedancing routine (Step, ball, change, motherfuckers… emphasis on the ball).

And besides, in this economic climate, I was more fortunate than most: I found another job within about six weeks where they seem to like me and where I feel like I’m doing well… and most importantly, where they have kept me on longer than I was at the last job, which was an important psychic hurdle I felt I needed to clear before I could even think about writing anything longer than 140 characters… and even that was dicey considering the very ill-advised phrase “Dear Former Employer: I am the Angel of Death, and the Day of Reckoning has arrived” clocks in at only 84, which is entirely too few characters with which to ruin your life without being entered into a court docket.

So, what with last weekend being one of the three-day variety (Thank you, John Wilkes Booth!) for we gainfully employed, I took the opportunity to log back into the ol’ rag to clean up the cobwebs, throw down a new coat of paint, and do a little routine maintenance before trying to spin the old yuk factory back up.. probably just in time to grow distracted by something stupid like the Heartbreak of Psoriasis or the Ballbust of Constantly Wanting a Cigarette and therefore letting it go dusty until it’s time for another year of Comic-Con coverage.

So the general look of the site’s been updated, and the Twitter integration’s been bootstrapped to actually provide weekly digests again for those unwilling to join Twitter and therefore turn Six Degrees of Separation from Ashton Kutcher into one or less (I feel the same way about being that close to Ashton, but I figure you can’t catch herpes twice), and the commenting anti-spam captcha’s been upgraded to be clearer and include audible, vocal playback of the letters and numbers so that blind people can also call me a douchenozzle.

So take a look around, and if something’s not working, shoot me a message using the contact form so I’ll know that at least that works. Otherwise, I’d keep bemoaning my lot in life, but I learned a long time ago that the six people who read this shitty rag are only interested in my personal travails when they include whiskey and a taser. So just check back in for new stuff… which in a worst-case scenario will complaints about shoddy bag-handling on the way to San Diego, and all the delightful, cheap and easy double entendres that will bring.