My Twitter Resume

@ iclipse My Twitter Resume

RT @mom Congrats on graduating
RT @mom Now get a job
RT @dad RT @mom Now get a job
whois jobsforenglishmajors
RT @mom nudge iclipse
get pewhealthprofessionsprogram
RT @dukeu Welcome to the team
#pewtrusts Got a job baybee! But I am just a freelance Consultant, tho
RT @dukeu Want a full time gig?
#pewtrusts Hey, I got promoted to Communications Associate. Hello benefits!
leave pewhealthprofessionsprogram
get pewcharitabletrusts
RT @dukeu Best of luck in Philly
RT @pewtrusts Welcome to the team
#pewtrusts New job as Executive Asst at Pew HQ. Yea!
RT @pmahottie Whatchadoin? Look, peeps, I gotsa girl.
#pewtrusts Job sucks doode
RT @pmahottie Its not you its me. Aww man I got dumped
RT @pewtrusts Best of luck somewhere else. Anywhere else
#pewtrusts PCT fail! Heading to DC...
leave pewtrusts
get instituteforeducationalleadership
RT @iel Welcome to the team
#nhec Super fun new gig y'all; I am a Sr Program Associate
#nhec Can't believe its been 5 years
#nhec RT @iel Funding Fail. Woefully, I gotta get a new job
RT @grayciegrace Hey, we have a spot open at Nat Geo
leave instituteforeducationalleadership
get nationalgeographiceducationfoundation
RT @iel Best of luck at National Geographic
RT @natgeo Welcome to the team
#nattyg I am a Program Officer
#nattyg Hey Jane Goodall is in the elevator
#nattyg RT @natgeo Nice work-Enjoy the raise. Hey, I am Director of Strategic Programs now
#nattyg RT @natgeo Okay you have been verrry patient so heres a raise again. Woo hoo! I am full on Director of Grantmaking
RT @natgeo In lieu of a raise how about a title change?
Like what
RT @natgeo Like Associate Executive Director
Any hope on the cash?
RT @natgeo Shut it
#nattyg Hey, everboddie, I made Associate Executive Director

@iclipse References avail on request

PS - Wow, it's true, you can condense your life into 140 words or less! But I am still not gonna join Twitter; cannot say the word "tweet" with a straight face (or say the word "venti" at Starbucks -- enjoy giving me a "large" coffee or suck it). Oh, and "American Girl" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers is tight; now playing on iTunes.

Do It: Check Out Blog Wild

My pal, Ford, is doing a new blog for National Geographic. A great way to keep up with the planet via readable, photo-heavy entries with irreverent titles.

My favorite so far: the headline "Canada Rules World" on an entry about a team of three teens who won the National Geographic World Championship (the international version of the Geography Bee). Woefully, the "brand" could never come up with something so ironic and funny and relaxed.

So, do it: check out Blog Wild.

PS - You can learn all sorts of stuff at National Geographic. One of my favorite recent ah-ha moments was discovering Africa's "desert blues." Oh, and "Ai du" by Vieux Farka Touré is wild; now playing on iTunes.

5-4-Fri: Online Cartoons

The Internet gives and gives. One of its high points is the plethora of comedy. Within that genre, I am enamored of the cartoon/animated funniness. Here are five sites worthy of your attention:

1. Doonsebury. Gary Trudeau is America's premier satirist, has a hot wife, and still produces this awesome comic strip about Mike Doonsebury and his pals, which is so on-point that newspapers cowtowed to threatened politicians and moved it to the editorial page. Check it out daily.

2. Homestar Runner. This fully online animated series takes real advantage of the Net to produce an original virtual world of nuttiness. My favorite part is how Homestar's friend Strong Bad is a Mexican wrestler with boxing gloves and surplus attitude who manages to answer your emails despite an obvious typing impediment. I have never laughed harder online. This series is so funny that I still watch the by-now endearingly retro site intro.

3. New Yorker Cartoon Bank. Your pal, iClipse has been a die-hard New Yorker reader since he was approximately 11 years old. Now-a-days, Robert Mankoff offers you access to the magazine's predigous archive of cartoons online; but the best--and most frustrating--offering is the Caption Contest. Each week, you are presented with a captionless cartoon and the chance to suggest a caption and win a signed, framed copy of the cartoon after the New Yorker publishes your winning entry in the magazine. No, I have never won, woefully. Yes, I feel robbed.

4. Odd Todd. One day a dude got laid off and started a site about it. Odd Todd has emerged as one of the InterWeb's most interesting and amusing homes for humor and grown organically as its founder has grown up. If you've never been, start here.

5. Dilbert. By now, a classic. Still, the more and more I work in an office, the funnier this strip gets. Congrats to Scott Adams for keeping the effort up and remaining relevant (I'm talking to you, Cathy).

PS - My brother has suggested a pretty funny (but technical) humor site to me, which I am enjoying as well. Check it out. Oh, and "Fou de Fa Fa" by "Flight of the Conchords" is funny, funny stuff; now playing on iTunes.

Funny Thing: Kids Today

Time for another "funny thing happened" anecdote. This one highlights the truly sublime nature of intergenerational change.

I have a colleague who was recently in an elevator with a 13-year-old girl and a few 7-8-year-olds. No, no, not like Michael Jackson; he was just in the elevator with them.

The younger kids were discussing their distressing lack of phone signal in the elevator and the 13-year-old turns to my colleague and says without irony "Wow, what's happening these days? When I was 7, I didn't even have a cell phone! Today's kids are just ridiculous. Right?"

PS - I am flabbergasted by the woeful lack of perspective that some kids have these days, although I am quite sure that I came off this way a bit when I was a kid -- "You had to have big ICE BLOCKS delivered to cool the refrigerator?!" Still, I didn't have a cell phone until I was 37, much less seven years old. Oh, and "Amsterdam" by Guster is download-worthy, kids; now playing on iTunes.

Recipe: Crab Cakes

My people, I have brought down from the Blog Mountain a new tablet for you entitled "Recipe." Brace yourself: this feature will feature recipes that I like. Surprising, non? This makes 6 recurring "columns" for the Bloguscript:

* What is Going On? (Administrative Q/A)
* Do It (Advice you really should take to make your life better)
* Excellent Quotes (The pop culture references that shape my world view and any conversation with me)
* Funny Thing (Hee-larious stories; all true)
* 5-4-Fri (Weekly lists of related items or defining characteristics of a main topic; published each Friday)
* Recipe (See supra)

And now (drum roll, please) the inaugural Recipe: Crab Cakes.

CRAB CAKES

1) Mix the following:

2 large eggs, well-beaten
1/2 C chopped celery (1 large stalk)
1 C crushed Saltine crackers
1 T Dijon mustard
1 t Old Bay seasoning
2 t Worcestershire sauce
2 T finely chopped parsley
1/2 C finely chopped scallions (12 scallions)
Fresh pepper, to taste

2) Fold in 1 lb fresh-picked crabmeat

3) Shape mixture into hamburger-like patties. Dredge in 1/2 C fresh bread crumbs if desired (I make them w/o the bread crumbs). Saute 2-3 minutes on each side in oil over Med/Hi heat. Serve immediately.

REMOULADE SAUCE

1) Mix together the following:

1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 T Dijon mustard
1/8 C white wine vinegar
1/2 T paprika

2) Add in:
1/2 C corn oil (whisk this in gradually; no kidding)

3) Add and blend in well:

1 T horseradish
1/2 t finely chopped garlic (1 clove)
1 T catsup

Let diners pour the remoulade on the crab cakes individually to taste at the table.

PS - My Mom cobbled this recipe together from Craig Claiborne's NYT article on the famous Baltimore crab house, Obrycki's, and data acquired from diligent trial and error. It makes THE BEST CRAB CAKE I have ever had. Anywhere. Ever. Woefully, most crab cakes you get out at restaurants are nasty. The secret: juuuust enough other stuff to hold the crab together. Oh, and "Help I'm Alive" by Metric is delicious; now playing on iTunes.

Do It: Read Ross Thomas

I am by no means overcompensated, but I am fortunate enough to have enough spare change to need to develop a few ways to keep myself from amassing too much money in any one spot. This poses a bit of a quandary. I don't make enough money to pursue heli-skiing or to become a devote of traditional Nipponese archery. But, I make too much money to establish an enviable set of collectable plates from famous places or to get every Care Bear ever made.

Further: my ENT has strongly encouraged me not to take up with SCUBA gear; I find people who build elaborate train sets in their basement to be as scary as clowns or gun enthusiasts; and, woefully, I lack the truly OCD phenotype necessary to seriously collect comic books or really get into a paraphernalitic sport like fishing.

So, I need a few ways to occasionally bleed the pressure off my bank account without getting into a situation where I find that my hobby is acting as a burn-off flare on the oil rig of my net worth.

One of those ways is eating at South Austin Grill. One of those ways is traveling. But perhaps the most indulgent and unnecessary way is purchasing first editions of Ross Thomas novels.

Thomas wrote international thriller/crime stories, heavy on the political satire and character-creation and lite on the actual mystery. His claim to fame is creating Michael Padillo and “Mac” McCorkle, the bar-owning, booze-swilling, banana republic-hopping heroes of the D.C.-based subset of his oeuvre. Thomas' firsts go for about $50 but can run you more, depending on quality and desirability.

Here's a quote to entice you:

Booth Stallings shifted his gaze to the hurrying Japanese Imperial Marines, then to the dead American medic, and back to the Filipino guerrilla. It occurred to him that this was the second Filipino he had come to know well, the first having been Edmundo something or other from San Diego who, like a robin, had appeared each spring near Stallings' grade and junior high schools, dispatched by the Duncan Yo-Yo people to demonstrate their product. Edmundo could make a Yo-Yo do anything, and for three childhood springs Booth Stallings had taken a limited number of private lessons at an exorbitant fifty cents an hour until, turning thirteen, he had discovered masturbation, Lucky Strikes and girls in approximately that order. -- Thomas, Ross. Out on the Rim.New York (NY): Mysterious Press, 1987.

And, here's the cannon:

The Cold War Swap (1966)
Cast a Yellow Shadow (1967)
The Seersucker Whipsaw (1967)
Singapore Wink (1969)
The Fools in Town are on Our Side (1970)
The Backup Men (1971)
The Porkchoppers (1972)
If You Can't Be Good (1973)
The Money Harvest (1975)
Yellow Dog Contract (1976)
Chinaman's Chance (1978)
The Eighth Dwarf (1979)
The Mordida Man (1981)
Missionary Stew (1983)
Briarpatch (1984)
Out On The Rim (1987)
The Fourth Durango (1989)
Twilight at Mac's Place (1990)
Voodoo, Ltd (1992)
Ah, Treachery! (1994)

Do it: read a Ross Thomas crime thriller.

PS - I have all the books in bold. They sit on the bottom shelves of my vintage quarter-sawn oak, drop-leaf-secretary-topped, barrister bookshelf, which was purchased with this purpose expressly in mind. Oh, and "Fit But You Know It" by The Streets is worth adding to your collection; now playing on iTunes.

5-4-Fri: The Beach

There are many, many reasons to lurve the beach; here are five:

1. Hearts. The family obsession is playing the card game, Hearts. You need my brothers and another willing player. We only get to play at family events. This makes the annual beach trip--at which our entire generation gets together--ground zero for Hearts. The secret is in the passing of cards to other players. Play it.

2. Yahtzee. For the younger set -- the 3-10-year-olds -- there is the dice game, Yahtzee. Fantastic fun, especially when the occasional rain storm keeps you inside the house. Chance + strategy. Woo hoo.

3. Dinners. I suggest our family recipe for handling dinner at the beach. Each adult signs up to "own" one night's dinner. You shop, you cook, you serve, you clean up. Then, like magic, the rest of the trip you don't have to do nuthin'. Very, very cool strategy. I always make the same thing: crab cakes, rémoulade sauce, rice, salad, fronch bread, and some veggie, such as carrots or green beans. Yum.

4. Family Photo. There is nothing like the tension-filed process of arranging for the annual family photo. Does everyone look good? Are all the kids actually facing the camera? In which order should everyone sit? Will the piteous and woeful crying ever stop? But, there is nothing like having an annual family portrait, either. So, Uncle iClipse says, arrange for one.

5. Bodysurfing. This is what I would do all the time if I were stinking rich. I don't really understand the obsession with surfboarding when you can just lie down in a wave and scoot along. No paraphernalia necessary. Soooo much fun.

PS - Also, don't forget that there is the beach itself. Walk on it. Take a beverage out to it. Sit under a tent on it. Look at it. Fish in the surf. Etc., Etc. Oh, and "Take Me to the Riot" by Stars is good for listening to on the drive down to the beach; now playing on iTunes.