Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Editor for hire, and other oddities

It's Wednesday and it's been a droopy and drippy day on the East Coast. After sending out several more job applications (yup, me and half of the civilized world) I decided I needed a break to just clear out all the cobwebs. I watched some very bad (and utterly useless) television--who knew Maury Povich was still on? Or that he is now apparently taping here in Connecticut? Mon dieu!?

When that failed to cheer me (and how could it not?) I goofed around tweeting for a while and then this silly thing came along...a pseudo-sports video from The Onion. While I'm not a fan of the "sweet science," I found this amusing in that both boxing and horse racing are suffering from the same fan drought. They both appeal to a much smaller audience than they used to and both industries are trying to find new ways of bringing in a broader fan base. While I don't for a minute propose anything along the lines of what they do in the spoof, it's still funny. And the production value is pretty top notch, too, like most things The Onion does, as the fake ESPN set and anchors look totally real. I'm not sure that boxing and horse racing can really help each other (and I know that wasn't the point of this little exercise) but I have to believe that there is something out there that can make the sun shine a little brighter on the racing community.

So after a few giggles watching the video, the torrential, tropical downpours came. I'm guessing that the turf races at Saratoga will not be on turf. I don't live all that far away and unless the weather was significantly better there than here, which is unlikely, they got poured on today. That said, there appears to be some more unsettled weather in the works for the next few days, so let's everyone keep our fingers crossed for good weather and HUGE attendance at The Spa for this weekend's races. (And how about a massive finger crossing effort to help me find new employment, too!!)

After I finished all my other work, I started trolling the newspapers for fun stories. I came across this piece from yesterday's news about a group that is going to try to identify some remains and other artifacts as being those of Amelia Earhart. I love these unsolved mystery sort of stories and Earhart is a fascinating character all in her own right. Here's the original story from ABC News on Amelia Earhart and where they think she may have landed, etc. It's both interesting and tragic to think of her surviving for a few days on an island after the plane crashed/landed.

And apparently there's a movie coming out about Amelia herself this fall. It stars Hilary Swank (sorry, not a fan) and the trailer does make it look like a pretty standard bio-pic, but with some good ancillary characters (like her navigator, etc.) played by Ewan MacGregor and Richard Gere.

I think that's entirely enough frivolity for a Wednesday, so I'd best get back to the job at hand, that is, finding a job. That and wondering what in the world the world needs with a vibrating mascara brush. Really? Maybe I'm just old-fashioned (gee, what was the tip off??) but I think we've all done pretty well up to know with our non-pulsating mascara brushes. But that's just me...

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