Posts Tagged consumerist
Hooray! (Kinda)
Currently Listening to: The Tornado Lessons
By: Cloud Cult
Ch’yeah!!! (Cue Tiger Woods-esque fistpump)
So, yes Tiger won the U.S Open AGAIN yesterday, so this is a slight homage to him. However, I definitely did a tiger-esque epic fist pump yesterday when I got my phone call from Ben Popken, Chief Editor over at Consumerist.com, who called to say that I GOT THE INTERNSHIP! (cue the Hallelujah chorus…). I start on Monday, assuming that all of my Comcast Installations go according to plan and free of corporate shenanigans, and that I get my phone charger back sometime within the next week. My entire connection to the outside world has basically been cut off now that my cell phone is dead. I am a baby whose umbilical cord has just been severed from it’s mother and I’m not sure yet where I’m going to get my daily dose of essential nutrients.
I’m pretty excited about this internship, it was all I could do from doing an epic fist pump in the middle of the open studio surrounded by coworkers, but my overflowing enthusiasm resulted in a somewhat awkward conversation with Ben, since I really would just leave long bouts of silence as my mind raced all over the place. He was as dazed and confused as I was I think. We’ll see how impressive my work in the Gawker Media Network becomes. Maybe I will conquer them.
Oh I will conquer. Yes I will conquer. I will conquer to the point that Gengis Kahn will shit his pants — IN HIS GRAVE.
Okay, now that I finally got that out of my system, I can move on to the meatier stuff. Savage Grace has released in theaters and I am shooting myself in the foot because I don’t know if I have the time to go see it this week and I highly doubt that it’s going to stay in theaters thru next week — you know how the indie film circuit goes. I already missed Mongol when it released and even though there’s a download online it’s harddubbed with Russian (it’s confusing enough to be reading subtitles– I don’t want to be jerked around with two audio sequences). I did, however, get a successful and acceptable (and awesome) download of In Bruges and Charlie Bartlett, and I’m quite excited about those. I apologize about not writing reviews for films lately, it’s just that they’ve all been so lackluster. Besides — I don’t really tell anyone this but I have this small little place in my dark heart for Romantic Comedies, I know, I pretend like I’m a high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou kind of person when it comes to movies. But sometimes a girl really needs to kick back and watch that pornography-for-the-female-mind bullshit that the media is feeding us today. I’m sorry, I know I will likely burn a thousand years in hell for it, but it is a habit I don’t think I can shake. But the jist of it is that I’m far to embarressed to write about THOSE films. Besides, the Great Debators, Dewey Cox, and We Own the Night hardly make up any solid writing material.
So, one little ferret ball of stress has been completely eliminated. Only to be replaced with some other bouncy beings which are constantly rotating about my head like electrons. There are some personal issues with some specific relationships and friendships, then there’s the whole stress of moving, which has been near to impossible to completely finish with the lack of a car, and the fact that I’m still working full time. I’m angry, frequently tired, and I’ve developed an eye twitch that makes me akin to Mr. DeMartino from Daria.
I’m not kidding.
This stress may just be killing me.
1 comment June 17, 2008
Feeling that time crunch.
For the past week I have been what I can only describe to be a stressball with the energy of a crazed ferret — bouncing around the walls of its cage and searching for an escape when it eventually dies of self-inflicted internal injuries and foaming at the mouth. There has been the recent acquisition of the new apartment, which, due to several epic three-hour long trips to the gleaming beacon of Ikea, has now been somewhat furnished. I’ve been spending this week running about like a crazed madwoman, calling the gas and electric company to transfer service, contacting the devils I know to be Comcast to get my (hopefully) high-speed internet connection set up in my name, rushing about to find the perfect fathers day present (which turned out to be a 1-year netflix subscription and a Roku Box), arranging for the locks to be changed, scheduling plans for the week, and most importantly worrying about my internship application to Consumerist.
Yes, that Consumerist. You know that one that is part of the almighty Gawker Media family, once home to Emily Gould and still a parent of one of my other favorite blogs to read, Gizmodo (they just have that sense of humor that Engadget lacks, and the blogging skills that would make Geekologie writers weep). You know that Consumerist that has an Alexa ranking of 5,316 and was in PC magazines list of top 100 classic websites. Anyways, all of that said, I was more than overjoyed two weeks ago when I saw their posting requesting an intern, nothing too serious, it was simply asking for someone who will basically filter through all of their gmail to find the juicy stuff for their posted stories. I, being the easily excitable person that i am, nearly shit my pants and then proceed to try and write the most witty and memorable e-mail ever while flying by the seat of my pants (after all I only have two to three paragraphs with which to impress Ben Popken). That said, a copy of the original e-mail is getting pasted below as-is, please ignore any grammatical errors, those are because I was as excited as a fucking chipmunk when he finds out he has musical talent and his name is Alvin. My fingers trip over what my brain is trying to say to them.
“Hey Consumerist!
So I just wanted to tell you what an ideal and awesome intern I would be — I fit into all of your requirements, I suppose I’ll just go through them one by one. Because, you know, that’s the most orderly way to do things.
Requirement Numero Uno : Love The Consumerist.
Okay, so I don’t walk around wearing an “I Heart Consumerist” t-shirt butchering of the original Milton Glaser design. But you guys are on my Speed dial (yes, the Firefox add-on) and I read you with a sort of religious fanatacism. Not so fanatically religious that I’d burn myself or bomb anyone, but you get the drift. I live for your Morning Deals and your eternal bashing of everything that is Dell.Requirement Two: Can commit 1-3 hours every other weekday, without fail.
I am on the computer at work for nine and a half waking hours of the day, then I return home and after cooking myself a splendid college meal (Ramen Noodles) and then usually turn to the internet for some form of entertainment. It’s either that or me working on my latest Vimeo Video, WordPress entry, or Portfolio update. Once my present fulltime job is over (June 25th) my freetime is bound to just exponentially increase, and 1-3 hours a day on Gmail really isn’t going to slow me down one bit.
Requirement Three: Enjoy asking strangers for followup information.
Of course not everyone is most adept at talking to strangers in social situations, myself included, if you’re asking me to do so via the internet or by phone, I’m 100% there. No Problem.
Requirement Four: Are adept at sniffing out the one good needle in a pile of haystacks.
Okay, so I’m not very adept at “sniffing” and distinguishing a tiny piece metal from a bunch of dead overgrown grass. I will however jump in that haystack from the second story of the barn, roll all around in it and either find the needle and hold it up with an epic stance, or have it get stuck somewhere in my flesh. Either way I found it and I found it with enthusiasm!
Requirement Five: Are a Gmail master.
G-mail master?! More like G-mail guru. Paris Hilton totally considered to hire me to walk next to her so she could appear more “web savvy”. I have multiple accounts, forwarding galore and I have the keyboard shortcuts down pat. Did I mention that I also read through the entire Lifehacker article when it released?
Requirement Six: Live for Labeling
I don’t have a secret stash of label machines laying about (I used to have one on a keychain somewhere) but I did label all THREE of my drawers at work “Pirate Hats”, “Secret Stash” and “Self Defense” respectively. No, there is no alcohol sitting in my secret stash drawer and YES Self-Defense is full of plastic knives from the kitchen.
Requirement Six: Rock Gmail macros
I’m totally rockin’ the Firefox extention for that — I’m a big fan of Quicksilver and this totally saves me time.
So, basically. I’m a hard worker, incredibly enthusiastic, a college student, and a fan of your site. If you wanted something a little more serious I can send that your way. I have a list of references who attest to my completely professional demeanor in the workplace. I only figured that since you guys were after all a part of the Gawker Network — you’d appreciate my fine writing.
Thank you for the opportunity,
Rachel Mercer”
Contact information was redacted
So that was that, I sent that e-mail and a couple of follow-ups. I started being paranoid of being “that annoying overreaching girl” and stopped sending anything at all. I basically sat at my desk at work 10 hours a day incessantly checking my e-mail. The following week I receive a response e-mail from their weekend editor, Carey, who basically says that they’re now reviewing applications. Great, they received my email and now I am crossing my fingers so hard they might break because I really want this job.
One week later…
SUCCESS! Ben Popken, the editor of the site, e-mailed me back!
from Ben Popken [redacted]
to
date subject mailed-by
Hi Rachel,
Thanks for your (enthusiastic!) application. I’d like to interview you for the position. Do you have some time to talk over the phone this week?
Hallelujah! It was a complete surprise, I had just worked my third16 hour day in the span of a week and I was totally bushed, it was 10:30 at night, and I was frantically calling my best friend to tell him and bounce response ideas off of (we kind of have a bet going on as to whether or not I’m going to get the job, his bet is that I will, my bet is against me, after all I’m probably competing with 250+ applicants, all of whom have amazing blogs of their own, he says that I’m going to get it — but has no real argument as to why.) Anyways, I ended up very quickly writing a general response read it aloud to my friend asking if it was funny but not, you know, that “I’m trying hard to be funny” funny, and sent that e-mail through the intertubes.
from to
date subject mailed-by
Hi Ben!
(that exclamation point indicates the ridiculous amounts of enthusiasm with which I am presently writing this e-mail.)
I am still working my full time job/internship/indentured servantry but I (hopefully) don’t have any late nights ahead of me this week. I am free on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday after 5:30 pm or if you’d rather schedule something during normal business hours I can actually take a lunch break and talk to you sometime in that ambiguous three hour period when people actually take lunch.
Looking forward to speaking with you,
Rachel Mercer
Huzzah! It was sent. There it was, he had e-mailed me at 7pm on a Monday, I responded within 4 hours, I figured I was solid. Now it’s nearing the end of Wednesday and I’m wringing my hands again, I swear I should learn to knit or something constructive so I don’t end up biting my nails to an oblivion. At least work requires me to use both of my hands because I’m using all the shortcuts ever needed in InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator and the mouse to clickity click everything in sight. Then there are the times when I’m writing these posts, which are borderline ridiculous. Anyways, I finally got approval from Chris to go ahead and call the guy, we’ll see how it goes, I’m probably just going to do the follow-up email, because I don’t want to appear to be a stalker.
In the meantime, I realized that when I’m walking to work, I’m incredibly frustrated that I can’t blog while I do it, or at least have a rapid transfer device to transfer the words in my head somehow to paper or and editable format (wow, that was almost edible…that’d be weird. TOAST …brain… transfers…words on TOAST!…anyways…). I find myself having a lot of thoughts that I really want to write about and I never really get a chance to. I also kind of see different film shots in different places, that very strangely replay in my head. Sometimes I enjoy splicing them together and then adding a soundtrack or Michael Bay-esque special effects, but that’s only when I’m sleeping.
One of my favorite scenes is in the mornings when I am walking from Downtown Crossing towards South Station when I am walking against the flow of a lot of the foot traffic. I sometime like to walk in the middle and watch the people break apart and walk around me, looking at all of their faces. Then I find myself walking across the bridge with about 15 different thoughts that I really need to have written down.
I came across some really interesting broadcasts which I recently discovered (by that I mean read about on consumerist) from PBS.com, one of the ones that I readily grasped and listened to while I was working was their Frontline piece on Universal Healthcare, which went to 5 different successful Capitalist countries and compared their national healthcare methods to ours. It was really interesting, and I found it incredibly enjoyable and informative — you can find it here. It’s a very large topic in the upcoming presidential elections, so I feel like it’s good to be well informed. I also spoke about this last week with Philippe who is from France, and felt like I didn’t really know what I was talking about.
The other one that I’m listening / watching to presently is Growing up online. It’s really quite interesting considering that I was one of those kids, heck I am one of those kids. You know that whole thing, blogging and having a myspace page, facebook, etc. I was laughing my ass off because to kick off the show they were playing hardcore music and showed some nerds having a LAN party in their basement playing Counterstrike. I’ll have more commentary on this later … probably in conjunction with my completion of reading Generation Me.
Add comment June 11, 2008
