31 reasons why my worklife sucks less

so i'm bored at work, but even a boring day is better than the days i used to have at my old job.

therefore, let's pen an official unofficial list of reasons why i like my job.

1. no dress code, aside from clean and tidy.
2. massive windows that make up one whole side of my cube.
3. i have an ottoman.
4. RESOURCES! (oooooooh....aaaaaaaah)
5. i get to continue working on an iMac.
6. i get to ignore phone calls from annoying PR firms and no one yells at me for it.
7. i'm second on the masthead *vanity*.
8. Visible tattoos and piercings are okay here.
9. it's a FREAKING magazine!!!!!!!
10. free coffee.
11. vacation days can be rolled over year to year.
12. nice people.
13. i get to work on layouts, which i perversely enjoy.
14. the cafeteria downstairs has really good (and healthy!) food.
15. dunkin donuts is in the lobby.
16. i like my boss.
17. i am MUCH less stressed.
18. no stupid busywork projects.
19. my boss is a qualified journalist that understands the usage of semi-colons, commas, and hyphens.
20. the hallways have TONS of amazing artwork on the walls.
21. the company has a museum.
22. the ladies room has nice soap in it.
23. the health insurance is decent.
24. they have an annual catered xmas party.
25. did i mention i like my boss? she laughs at my jokes.
26. i make $8k more than i used to at the old crap job.
27. i can take public transit into the city...which means less driving.
28. whenever they have big meetings, they feed people.
29. you get stuff done in meetings.
30. they recycle.
31. did i mention a lack of a dress code?

tmabb

ray has decided to retire from taco man and burrito boy for a number of reasons. though it makes me sad, i support him 1 million percent. not just because it frees up more of his time and we can begin brewing together, but because he really thought it out. though he has a great story to share, he's realized that he wants to have the time to do other things: learn the bass, brew, paint, write a fiction blog, do a journal comic.

these are all great projects to look forward to, and i'm excited to see what comes of them. it would be a completely different story if he retired from tmabb so he could sit on his butt. but he's not the type to do that (plus he doesn't sit much anyway).

it's been a hard few days for him because a lot of fans are coming out of the woodwork and telling him how sorry they are to see tmabb go, but they support him. it would have been nice if they had been a bit more supportive BEFORE he retired, but that's my opinion and i'm leaving it at that. ray has really grown as an artist and i'm proud of him. the things he can do with photoshop and a tablet blow my mind. and he's not too shabby with an ink pen either!

so ray, i love you, and i expect great things to come of this: great creative endeavors...as well as a couple great brews.

when the cat is gone, the mice will play

so it's quiet here at work since we're waiting for the ad breakdown and editorial count, but even so, I can't do a ton with the layout since my EOC is out of town on a photo shoot. speaking of which, i just had one of my own so we can update the editorial staff page, so good times there. the photographer, elliot, even said he could remove the nasty little blemish that decided to make itself comfy by my eyebrow. little bugger.

work has been going well...my first issue has already printed and looks great, and we are on to june, which is the first issue that will have my writing in it (a book review of the green marketing manifestoby john grant...pretty decent, if not frighteningly thorough). we have been hunting for “green tips” for businesses, since our focus for the month is sustainability (hey senge, have you FINALLY finished the necessary revolutionyet?)

i'll be writing another review on a book about landing pages (oh that's gonna be a fun one) and then in september i'm slated to work with the EOC on the cover story. eek!

hmmm...i think there are better picks out there

sooo...when i went to check my e-mail on the grand yahoo, i was greeted by this. at first glance it intrigued me, but as i scanned the article, i was a little bummed that there weren't more interesting titles...luckily to kill a mockingbird and catcher in the rye were represented, but i dunno. i have definitely read many more books that have moved me and entertained me more than gone with the wind. unfortunately, since it's not even 9:00 AM yet, i can't think of any. gah...zombie brain.

in other book related news, i hope to have a review up of inside steve's brain soon. i am so close to finishing it, but i have been distracted by other more enticing reads. i can say this now: it's jam packed full of interesting things about jobs and apple, but the organization is horrendously piss-poor, with a lot of repetition. it is simply a book that must be read cover-to-cover in order to glean all the information from it (not that you shouldn't read books cover-to-cover). i guess it just annoys me to read a paragraph that seems hauntingly familiar...simply because the same core idea was in a paragraph 15 pages prior.

oh well.

oh...and i made a job change, which is amazing. now i'm calling a magazine home, and really enjoying it. yesterday afternoon, my editor in chief and i approved the editorial for the may issue...when only a week and a half ago i was assigned the layout. my first real magazine layout...given to me 3 days into working here. woo-hoo!

speaking of which...i think i have an article to content edit. onwards and upwards!

it's here!

it's finally here!

Taco Man and Burrito Boy Books 1 and 2

go buy it! now! now! now!

oooh!

this one looks good too...



ALL THE WORLD’S A GRAVE: A New Play by William Shakespeare
(August, Drama)

In ALL THE WORLD’S A GRAVE, John Reed takes Shakespeare’s plays, with a primary focus on Hamlet, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Henry V, cuts them up and recombines them into a new play. All the language is Shakespeare’s, but it has been rearranged and reassigned, creating a new story for these characters to act out their fatal loves and flaws, jealousies and betrayals. Shakespeare often sourced his plays from existing plays and this book takes this practice a step further creating an exciting and innovative new work.

John Reed received his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in journals, newspapers and magazines nationwide.

hodgman lives!

so this one will be of special interest to ray...and maybe someone else out there that reads my blog.

i got a hold of the upcoming penguin catalog, and found the following entry:

MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE
(October, Humor/Reference)

MORE INFORMATION THAN YOUR REQUIRE picks up exactly where John Hodgman’s previous book left off—down to the continuation of the page numbers—and consists of brief articles, overlong lists, frighteningly complex charts, and beguiling narratives on such new and familiar themes as the past, the future, cryptogeography, sword canes, and the mole men.

John Hodgman is the author of THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE. He has written for the New York Times Magazine and Men’s Journal. He is the “resident expert” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has been seen in the nationally televised Mac ads as “PC”.

gods behaving badly

i found out about this book by marie phillips in one of the reviews in entertainment weekly. the cover caught my attention (i love it! the color is great) and then the brief synopsis drew me in. i knew i would be spending some of my xmas money on this hardcover (though i tend to be a paperback girl).

now, i've read a few not-so-favorable reviews of the book, mainly on amazon, that made me a little worried (that stuff always worries me, especially when i'll be spending a fair amount on a book). more than once i shelled out the cash for a title that, well how should i put it, should have only been library book material. those are always a disappointment, and usually end up on half.com.

but i digress. i enjoy phillips' story-telling technique, and it probably helps that i'm a big fan of mythology. her characters are clever, the story is engaging, and we have two mortals that are a nice blend of sweet and "normal." not gorgeous or popular or trendy. and that is awesome.

i highly suggest this book...though i have to say an early sex scene (well-written) was a little of a "whoa." not because i'm unfamiliar with sex scenes in the book...but because it's between a specific god and goddess, who are technically aunt and nephew. there's a little bit of an eww factor there but at the same time, anyone who has studied mythology knows that's how they rocked back then. in egyptian mythology osirus and isis are siblings and husband and wife. that's what happens when you don't have a lot of partners to choose from.

so, who can't love a book where aphrodite is a phone sex operator and dionysus is a night club owning dj? i've already suggested the book to my professor friend to teach in her classical literature class (she likes throwing in modern adaptations to shake up her students' trees from time to time).

so on a scale of 1-5, i give it a solid 4. good book, good fun.

october `08 will be a good month

so i was just looking through my catalog of knopf fall 2008 titles, and at the very end i saw something very exciting:

breakdown: portrait of the artist as a young %@&*! by art spigelman

all right, maybe it's really exciting for just me, but i really loved maus I and maus II.

while some people may find it very hard to read these graphic novels, i found it to be completely necessary for me (aside from the research i was doing for a graduate paper). were they tough to read and look at some times? yes. do i shun other people who don't want to have that experience? no.

having read them, i learned things about the holocaust i was not aware of, things that disgusted me, as well as things that opened my eyes. i highly recommend them to anyone interested.


but i digress...spigelman is a great artist and now he is putting out an autobiography via the confines of a graphic novel. this fascinates me.

it's here!

no, i'm not dead...i've just been *busy*. nevertheless, here is a video podcast from the talented mr. ray of tmabb fame. go to his site. read his webcomic. enjoy the humor.buy the book!

in other news...i have been reading up a storm and plan on posting some book reviews one of these decades...maybe 2020.

until then.