I graduated from college in 2007. The economy was still going strong. Although my overall GPA was sort of blech, my GPA from my last two semesters after returning? Pretty damn good. And guess how long it took me to find a job? Almost ten months.

When I found this job? I had the best interview ever. Seriously, I never thought I could laugh so hard (serious!). I also hold the record for the fastest job offer: they called me ten minutes after I left. And you want to know something?

Because of the economy right now? They probably wouldn’t hire me today — they’d probably pass me over for someone with a master’s degree or two. Because the resumes that are coming in now (like, fifty a day) are apparently so crazy in terms of education and job experience as to be ridiculous. It’s an employers’ market today — they don’t have to settle for the lady with the so-so-GPA when they can get a guy who got laid off from being a director of applications somewhere else with years of experience — and I don’t think Trina Thompson realizes that:

On July 24, she filed suit against the college in Bronx Supreme Court, alleging that Monroe’s “Office of Career Advancement did not help me with a full-time job placement. I am also suing them because of the stress I have been going through.”

The college responded that it offers job-search support to all its students.

In her complaint, Thompson says she seeks $70,000 in reimbursement for her tuition and $2,000 to compensate for the stress of her three-month job search.

As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe’s career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims.

“They’re supposed to say, ‘I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right — can you interview this person?’ They’re not doing that,” she said.

Maybe I’m wrong here? But I always viewed the career center at Towson as a resource, y’know? They provide you the tools so that you can go out and create a resume and submit it around and get hired. I wonder if Thompson was expecting them to interview for her, too?

Finally:

Asked whether she would advise other college graduates facing job woes to sue their alma maters, Thompson said yes.

“It doesn’t make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald’s and Payless. That’s not what they planned.”

It’s the economy, stupid. Oh, and by the way? Good luck getting a job at McDonald’s or Payless — they’ve probably got more applicants than they can shake a hand at either, and if I were hiring? A college grad with a chip on her shoulder and an apparently unwillingness to be proactive on her own behalf wouldn’t be my first pick.

I confess, I shop at Target. In fact? I even have a ritual.

(It’s only a “ritual” in the most loose sense of the word).

Saturday mornings I walk out of my building by 7:40am, walk a block or two south, and jump on the Circulator bound for McPherson Square. Even that early on a Saturday, they’re already running every ten minutes. I ride the bus to 14th Street, get off, and make my way half a block to the Columbia Heights Target. And I shop: I buy replacement blades for my razor, cat food, cans of chili and bags of cat food, and giant boxes of cereal that cost considerably more at the Van Ness Giant. I buy cleaning supplies, and paper towels, and underwear and socks and whatever it is I need (or, yes, want: even the occasional DVD, or Lego Indiana Jones game for my PS2 which has been packed away somewhere since I moved here fourteen months ago).

The Target in Columbia Heights opened a little over a year ago, part of a complex that includes a Best Buy. Today, in The Post:

The sordid secret is that everyone, even hipsters, has always shopped at Target. Here is how it used to happen: Once every four months, you rented a Zipcar with some trunk space, and then you zipped out of D.C. and down to Jefferson Davis Highway, land of the big-box stores. Along the way, you talked about how glad you were that you didn’t live down there, and how ironic it was for you to be going there at all, as you normally just bartered on Freecycle, and how your dad still tried to be cool by pronouncing it in French, Tar-zhay. You got to the Target, and you bought a microsuede storage bench, a duvet and a doormat, and on the way home you stopped at Outback Steakhouse (which was totally hilarious), and in polite company you never spoke of these suburban adventures again.

Target was amusing, when it was located in the suburbs. NIMBY, Target.

Not anymore.

You know the experiment: You put a frog in boiling water, it will try to jump out, but if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat it will just sit there and die. Residents of Columbia Heights: They are the frogs. Columbia Heights is Jefferson Davis Highway. Columbia Heights is Tenleytown. Target has made us into suburbanites, right in the middle of the Green Line.

So awful. So convenient.

Full disclosure? My apartment search was rather frantic, and if I’d more time to look, I would’ve considered Columbia Heights or Mt. Pleasant … in fact, as I consider moving (I mean … I’m not going to move, moving is a pain in the ass, and expensive, and time consuming, but I do think, “Hmm, what if I lived…”) I think those two neighborhoods would be top on my list: Metro convenient to downtown, the Circulator, the number 42 bus … and the Target!

Yeah, I’m totally hooked. I’m a city transplant from the burbs who has failed.

On the other hand, I’m also not a hipster. I’m a guy who needs to be careful how he spends his hard earned moolah.

Look, I need personal “me” time, okay? Like, time where I can just, y’know, put my feet up on the table and fart and watch bad 80s cartoon shows on DVD (He-Man? GI Joe? I’m talking to you here) and swoosh my hands in the air like they’re WWII fighters while making “bwaaaaap! bwaaaap! kabloooie!” sounds. Also, so that I can torment the cats, run the dishwasher, and do laundry.

Given my hectic work schedule, “me” time usually tends to happen on Friday nights. Yes, because I’m a loser.

(But I’m a loser who was at the O’s game yesterday, so suck it, especially if you’re a Red Sox fan)

But being home Friday night, running the clothes through the dryer a second time because the first time through didn’t actually do anything, I decided it was the opportune time to watch the director’s cut of Watchmen. My original thoughts on the film are here.

I got into an argument with a colleague at the Office (it’s a recurring argument) Friday. He argued that the changing of Rorschach’s defining scene made the movie unwatchable. Allow me to say this (and stand by it): while I do agree that I liked the version better where Rorschach chains the child-butcherer to a pipe, hands him a saw, then sets the place on fire (as it’s portrayed in the novel), having him instead drive a knife into the guy’s head over and over again (as it’s shown in the film) are both the acts of a complete psychotic lunatic.

The argument? Started because I said that Zack Snyder tried to the copy the book too faithfully, instead of being willing to Order of the Phoenix it*.

The director’s cut adds in just over twenty minutes worth of material. Admittedly, not having seen the movie in almost half a year, I only picked up a few scenes where noticeable material was added or inserted:

1. At the beginning of the film, Rorschach is in the Comedian’s apartment when two police officers enter. In the theatrical cut, they see the torn police tape and the scene ends. In the director’s cut, the police enter the apartment and split up. Rorschach punches one and makes his escape out of the window as the second officer opens fire on him. This also explains Dan’s line, “I heard you assaulted a cop”, which was left into the theatrical cut.

2. Hollis Mason, the original Night Owl, is seen briefly at the beginning of the film. The scene where he is killed is inserted into the director’s cut, and it’s possibly, after the opening montage, the best sequence of the film. The score is beautiful, and even though he’s outnumbered, his final assault on the thugs out to end him is intercut with similar instances from his glory days.

3. After Dr. Manhattan pulls his “LEAVE ME ALONE!” and goes to live on Mars, Laurie is interrogated by several government handlers worried she upset him. Finally, she beats one up, steals his gun, and makes an escape.

There’s a more extensive list here.

I think I enjoyed Watchmen more on DVD than I did in the theaters — I don’t know how much that has to do with the ability to hit “pause” on the DVD and take my time going to the bathroom. In any case, I very much doubt that I will pick up or watch a copy of the super-additional-extended cut of Watchmen, which incorporates The Black Freighter and is going to be like forever long.

*To Order of the Phoenix means that you take a really long book that would be very difficult to bring to the movie while staying completely true to the plot, and instead of worrying about assorted plot points, you just try to capture the bare bones of the sucker. I think David Yates did a great job with the adaption of Order of the Phoenix from page to screen.

xkcd