Calm before the storm

Unlike a normal job, running your own business has the most inconsistent hours. You might end up working over 80 hours a week, like the folks at the Fat Sandwich Company. Or you might have nothing to do. That's my current status. We might have a name, but we're waiting for our lawyer to approve it before we buy the domain, set up the LLC, design a logo, make business cards, manage the finances, find a PR intern, and all those other fun things. We're finishing up interviews with potential developers, so we can't start on the website itself until we know what the developer will need.

It might be for the best, though. I have one more week of work at StudyBlue. My frisbee team has at least one more game left, and those take up an entire evening. When I don't have a game, my friends are celebrating birthdays, the end of summer classes, or moving away. And this Sunday, I'm moving most of my stuff back to Milwaukee.

So I'm a little glad that when I finally have to do all that work, it'll be somewhere with fewer distractions. Granted, I still have a lot of friends still in the Milwaukee area, but I think my life will be a little more managable.

Funny link for the week: Three Sheets is a show I discovered that documents the various drinking customs of the world. In other words, it's about a guy who gets drunk in various countries.

What I've been up to

In my last update, I mentioned that I had seven more credits of college. As I discovered over the past seven weeks, there is a reason most people don't take summer classes. In my French class, we (hypothetically) covered the same amount of content as a semester-long college class that meets four times a week for an hour, or a year-long high school class that meets for about 50 minutes five days a week. Anyone who has taken college language courses can attest to how much homework and studying is required every week. Compress that into a daily requirement, then add a part-time job and twice-weekly Ultimate Frisbee games.

Now that my classes are over, I hope I'll have some more free time, but it's not likely. In addition to finishing up my StudyBlue internship with thirty hours a week until the end of August, I'll be starting up my own business. I have been refining an idea for a website over the past month, and now that my classes are over, I can dedicate more time and attention to making it happen. I will be using this blog to document the process of starting the business and its progress.

Most of what I have done so far is discuss my idea. I have the advantage of working at an Internet start-up, so I have plenty of relevant experience. I also have an opportunity to consult with my co-workers, who have all been very helpful and supportive. In particular, I am very grateful to our CEO, Becky Splitt, for helping me develop my idea, explaining what my first steps should be, and providing me with other resources.

The only other thing I have done so far is finding a graphic designer. I met her on the bus from Milwaukee, and I was impressed by her ideas, excitement, and talent. During the next week or so, I need to find a law firm for legal advice (if you are a lawyer with experience in helping start-ups, let me know) and a developer (if you know JavaScript/GWT, PHP/Java, and MySQL, let me know).

Funny link for the week: I'm sure most of you have seen this, but if you haven't, watch David After Dentist. This is what happens when you give a 7-year-old drugs.

Graduation

Today, I graduated from college. Well, kinda. I still need seven credits, so this summer I'll be taking Mass Media & Human Behavior and first semester French. But since UW doesn't have a commencement ceremony in August, I walked at the spring ceremony. As a result, I really don't feel like I'm done or that I've accomplished anything.

I had this same problem four years ago. My high school graduation ceremony also felt empty and meaningless. I only realized the reason months later. The summer after high school, I still saw all my friends, lived with my parents, and did all the same things I did throughout high school. As a result, that summer felt just like every other summer. It wasn't until I moved into my dorm room at the end of August that I really "finished" high school.

And the same is true now. I'm going to hang out with my college friends all summer (and high school friends when I go home). The lease for my current apartment doesn't end until August. The majority of my time (for the first two months, at least) will be split between classes, StudyBlue, and games of Ultimate frisbee. If I was graduating, my diploma would be mailed to me twelve weeks later anyway. So even though I walked across the stage today, I am still a college student at heart.

Funny link for the week: We all know newspapers are seeing hard times right now. Well, newspaper comics are suffering a torturous death, and this blogger can tell you why. Even if you disagree with his assessment, his creative insults makes this a hilarious read.

Romarian Chronicles I

Excerpt from "Origins" by the elven scribe Ylathian, 3743 New Yamir Count. Currently in the Aethis Library of Silver Bay.

In the beginning, there were only the savages, who prayed to the pagan Eldreth. The world was in chaos, as there was no civilization, no justice, no knowledge. Frailith saw this and was displeased, so she asked Teis the Joyous, Lothar the Rich, Maphai the Quarrelous, Aethis the Wise, Döllno the Just, and Cailith the Dark to help her bring the gift of society to the mortal races. And the Seven, in their altruism, gave agriculture to the humans, elves, gnomes, and dwarves.

The humans built their kingdoms of the plains, the elves grew their principalities in the forests, the gnomes settled in the hills, and the dwarves dug their great mountain smithies. The humans and elves discovered magic, and civilization prospered. But Yamir, the human empire grew too large. And men became arrogant, and reached too far. They angered the Glaithans, who crossed the Belt Sea, and besieged Romaria. For five bloody years, Romaria burned. Civilization collapsed, science was lost, and knowledge of the millenia before the War of Terrors was forgotten forever.

But the Seven took mercy, and helped the Romarians drive the invaders from our lands. So the humans, the elves, the dwarves, and gnomes, and the half-orcs rebuilt their cities and reclaimed their culture. Here follows a complete history of Romaria, begining with the crowning of King Revon the First or New Yamir, in the first year of the New Yamir Count...

********

Romarian Chronicles is a project for me to practice serialized storytelling and inventing a mythology. Feedback is always welcome.

Multi-Sensory Perception

As writers, our job is to convey a message through words. If we're telling a story, we have the challenge of managing a plot while utilizing as many of the five senses as possible. If we're providing information, we condense hours, days, or a lifetime of research and knowledge into a 400-word article, 3-paragraph blog entry, or a 5-page paper. If we're introducing a new idea, we take something that barely makes sense in our heads and lay it out in a way others might understand.

Spoken word artists have an easier job. They can use voices, body language, the space around them, and even the audience to share sensory information. Not that spoken word is easier. Even if you are comfortable speaking in front of a crowd, it takes considerable skill to keep that crowd entertained. And you have to avoid the rookie mistake giving your audience too much credit. Just because the audience can see and hear you doesn't mean you can skip sensory information.

Speaking of creative writing, I want to try something new. One of my dreams is to write comic books. To practice serialized storytelling, I'm going to start a new project. Once a month, I'm going to tell a story from a fictional mythology. I'll probably start on this next week.

Funny link for the week: This week's link is awesome rather than funny, but still needs to be shared. Two of my interests are the Blade movies and salsa dancing. This video combines both of them.

Media in Star Wars

The Star Wars movies are unrealistic. I'm not talking about the aliens, futuristic technology, or the Force. Nor am I talking about George Lucas' inability to write realistic dialog or direct actors. I'm talking about the presence of media in the movies.

We never see a character reading the space newspaper, listening to the space radio, or watching some space news. The only time we see any indication of mass media is in Attack of the Clones when there are some screens showing sporting events in a cantina. Nor do we see the presence of the press. There's no embedded reporters in Stormtrooper squads. There's no press corp hounding the senators or Jedi or democratically-elected royalty.

This raises a number of questions. Does the general public have any idea about what's going on? Do they know that their senators gave complete power to an evil-looking guy? How do they know that there's a rebellion going on? How well are the main characters of the movie known?

Funny link for the week: I wish all press conferences went like this.

Greek Tragedies: Origin of the Shared Universe

Over two and a half millenia ago, the Greeks would go into the woods every spring to honor Dionysus. The festival consisted of drunken revelry and ended with a sacrifice. Over the centuries, the Greeks decided that instead of sacrificing valuable livestock, they could just tell a story that ended in death. These stories avoided the problems of sacrifices while entertaining the audience. Thus, theater was born.

But these plays, called tragedies, also planted the seeds for another form of storytelling: superhero comics. Each playwright would take an event in Greek mythology and tell their version of it. Each author had his own perspective about the characters and events. Euripides wrote Agamemnon as an honorable leader trying to protect his people, while Aeschylus portrayed him as a cruel and selfish tyrant.

Today, each comic book publisher has a shared universe filled with characters, just like Greek mythology. Every writer picks a character or a group and uses them to spread his/her own message. Or that writer might retell a past story with a new interpretation. And like the Greek playwrights, each comic book writer might portray a popular character from any possible perspective.

Funny link for the week: Google Trends is a nifty feature that lets you see the popularity of search terms over time. The SomethingAwful forum members find the best use for it. There's some naughty words, so you might not want to read this at work. Of course, why are you reading my blog at work?

My first step towards wealth

Last weekend, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The book is about the financial skills that the rich pass on to their children, while everyone else struggles all their lives. After reading the book, I decided to open an E*Trade account and start investing.

You might be thinking that I just made a big mistake. I'm a college student with a $10 an hour internship. I have nothing to invest with, and I'm about to be hit with a lot of post-graduation costs. The economy is in the failing and the stock market is in the gutter.

But actually, this is the perfect time for me to start investing. If you've been paying attention to the news, the stock market has been rising these past two weeks. America's favorite indicator, the Dow Jones Industrial, made a net gain of almost 20% over the past two weeks. If we've seen the bottom and are starting to climb up, this is the perfect time to invest. And even though I'm on a tight budget, I'm fortunate enough to have parents that can pay my rent while I'm in school. I'll graduate with no debt. My income is low, but my expenses are even lower. I'm used to living on a tight budget, so instead of buying luxuries once I find a job, I'm going to put some of my money into stocks. But right now, I'm investing $200.

The best thing that could happen is that my $200 grows with the economy, and I start building a strong financial base. The worst thing that could happen is I lose the $200. But as long as I learn why I lost the money, it will be a valuable lesson.

Masters of Propaganda: Norman Osborn

He's the archenemy to one of America's most popular superheroes. He was the antagonist in 2002's highest-grossing movie. He's a psychopathic, murdering supervillain. But he's also a brilliant inventor, a successful businessman, well-connected, and currently the top cop in the Marvel universe. He's Norman Osborn and he's a Master of Propaganda.

To fully explain this, I'm going to throw some geekery at you. But don't worry; I'll explain everything you need to know, and I'll only mention characters that have been in movies in the past few years.

A few years ago, the US government in the Marvel universe passed the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA). This new law required superheroes to register their identity with the government and receive training. Once trained, they had the option of working as an official law enforcement agent. In exchange for a government paycheck and support, registered heroes would have oversight and accountability. While many accepted this new law, other superheroes declared it an infringement on their freedoms and refused to "sell out" to "the man."

Enforcement of the act was delegated to SHIELD, an international intelligence agency and peace-keeping force. Tony Stark, the superhero Iron Man and CEO if Stark Industries, was the most public supporter of the SHRA. Eventually, Stark was appointed Director of SHIELD. To help capture the renegade heroes, Stark recruited the Thunderbolts, a team of supervillains seeking redemption. The reorganized team consisted of villains such as Venom, Bullseye, and Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin) as the leader.

Osborn put a lot of thought into the roster and look of the new team. The previous leader was deemed unreliable, but was kept on the team because she was known to the public, "passably attractive," and "toyetic." A Chinese villain with radiation powers was given a hazard suit to calm unfounded fears and hide his ethnicity. Bullseye, a known murderer, was kept secret from the public.

We don't see Osborn's public relations work directly, but we see the results. News shows discussed the threat of "unregistered combatants" and cast a positive light on the Thunderbolts. A series of toys based on the team was launched, and advertisements portrayed the Thunderbolts as heroes protecting the public from dangerous, unregistered vigilantes.

Osborn and his new field leader also spun negative events in a positive fashion. When the Thunderbolts nearly botched a mission against a relatively weak hero, the field leader pointed out that this established unregistered heroes as a dangerous threat and justified the existence of the Thunderbolts. After Venom bit off a resisting hero's arm, Osborn allowed it to become public knowledge to intimidate other unregistered heroes.

At one point, a group of captured telepaths made the Thunderbolts go crazy and turn on each other. Even Osborn donned his Green Goblin armor and attacked members of his team. Once the crisis was averted, Osborn explained that the Green Goblin's appearance was a hallucination created by the telepaths, and that eyewitness accounts of the incident could not be trusted. However, a psychiatrist that had been present during the attack managed to steal security footage of the event.

Osborn's greatest opportunity came during an alien invasion. The aliens shut down all technology created by Stark Industries, including most of SHIELD's equipment. Since the Thunderbolts were using Oscorp technology, they were unaffected and Osborn rushed them to Washington, DC. There, the Thunderbolts publicly defended civilians and national monuments in front of news cameras. During a break in the battle, Osborn gave an interview criticizing Stark. When the invasion was finally averted, Osborn was portrayed as the hero who saved the world. In the aftermath, the US President dismantled SHIELD and charged Osborn with replacing it.

To be continued...

Happy Friday the 13th!

Earlier this week, I had a dream about a new TV show: CSI: Chicago. Due to intimidation by gangs and corruption in law enforcement, half the crimes in the first few episodes will go unsolved. However, criminals manage to avoid punishment for the cases that are solved. I also had an idea for CSI: Detroit, where the cast is to scared to even leave the station.

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. To most Americans, this is an unlucky day, especially if your significant other is a big fan of the movies and her high school friends had a tradition of watching one of them every time there was a Friday the 13th, and now that she's in college she expects you to watch those generic slasher films. Really? You think a guy in a hockey mask is scary? There are so many better movies out there, and you want to watch these?

But I digress. Unlike most Americans, I'm not afraid of Friday the 13th. In fact, I consider it a great day. In Judaism, Friday is the day before the sabbath. It's a chance to prepare for the day of rest and relax. In Israel, the weekend is Friday and Saturday. So Friday is not a bad day.

The number thirteen is a little more complex to explain. First, we need to understand why Christianity considers thirteen unlucky:

In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners. (source)

Judaism has no unlucky numbers. But some numbers are luckier than others. Twelve is also recognized as a natural number. But adding one more makes it "extra-natural" or even "supernatural." Boys have their Bar Mitzvah (the coming of age ceremony) at the age of thirteen. For the same reason, boys are circumcised and named on the eight day after their birth - seven is a "natural" number, so eight is the supernatural counterpart. So thirteen is a number to be celebrated, not feared.

So have a happy Friday the 13th. I know I will!

Masters of Propaganda: Virgil

Most people think that the father of public relations was Edward Bernays. But the origin of PR is much older by almost 2000 years!

In 44 BC, Julius Caesar was a little power-hungry and got assassinated. Rome spent the next fifteen years indulging in its second favorite pastime, civil war. Eventually, Julius' adopted son, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius, emerged as Rome's first official emperor, Augustus.

But Augustus had some image problems. Romans were wary of kings, and Augustus had to convince people that he had a right to be in charge of everything. Additionally, Romans were feeling a little inadequate. Barely five hundred years old, Rome had very little history or original mythology. Compared to Greece, Rome looked like an uncultured upstart.

So in 29 BC, the poet Virgil began composing The Aeneid. The epic tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan prince who escapes the burning city as the Greeks are pillaging it. Aeneas and the other refugees travel around the Mediterranean, piss off Carthage, and finally settle in Italy, becoming the Latins. Virgil takes every opportunity to point out that Aeneas is the son of Venus, the goddess of love. He also explains that Iulus, Aeneas' son, is the source of the Julian clan - the family of Julius Caesar, and the adopted family of Augustus.

Virgil died upon completing the epic, but The Aeneid became a popular tale. The Romans were actually the descendants of the Trojans, and therefore had a history as old as those snobby Greeks. And the Punic Wars were not just a trade dispute, but the culmination of an ancient rivalry. And their new emperor wasn't some tyrant, but the descendant of the hero Aeneas and the goddess Venus!

So what can we learn from Virgil, the father of public relations, the master of propaganda? If you want to make your client look good, find a way to link them to a heroic past. The GOP likes to point out that Lincoln was a Republican, while Democrats idolize FDR and JFK. Old companies worship their founders.

The other lesson is to link the audience to your client. Virgil made an implicit deal with Roman audiences: "If you accept that Augustus has a right to be emperor, you can have a glorious history. But if you reject Augustus' pedigree, then deny yourself of greatness." Philosophers know this as the "appealing to vanity" fallacy.

Virgil never crafted press releases, organized events, or did any of the other things modern public relations professionals do. But he improved the image of Augustus and made Romans proud of their heritage. That is why Virgil is our first Master of Propaganda.

Would You Hire Me?

As a graduating senior, I'm looking for a job in the real world. Unfortunately, three of my dream jobs - superhero, Jedi, and vampire hunter - don't exist in the real world. Number 4 on the list, James Bond, has strict barriers to entry. Currently, I work at StudyBlue and would love to stay there, but it never hurts to have a back-up strategy (it's thinking like this that makes the James Bond option feasible). Other options I've considered fluctuate based on what TV series I've been watching. Here are some of the possibilities I've considered over the past year:



Hollywood Manager - Last summer, my friends introduced me to the show Entourage. Partially based on Mark Wahlberg's life, it follows a rising Hollywood star and his friends. However, my favorite character was the manager, Eric. His job description includes hanging out with celebrities, enjoying an extravagant lifestyle, and handling all the money issues. My only problem is that none of my friends are aspiring movie stars. If you are, call me up.





White House Speechwriter - Politics has always been a hobby of mine, but I didn't want to invest hours every day reading the news. Watching most of The West Wing last semester turned that hobby into a hobby I know something about. Sam is one of my favorite characters, and I could totally do his job. As a member of the speech team and an econ major, I'd be perfect as an economic speechwriter. I use that line during job interviews.




Secret Agent - Okay, I'm not British, named James Bond, or in peak physical shape. But I still dream about being a spy, like Michael from Burn Notice. This category includes similarily talented TV characters like Jack Bauer, Shawn from Psych, and the cast of Chuck.





Can you detect a pattern among these characters? The first two have marketing-related jobs. And if you can do the math, you can guess that I'm looking for a job in marketing.

And that leads to the purpose of this blog. People tell me that writing a blog really helps in the job search. Yes, I love expressing myself and getting attention for it, but let's be honest - this is also a way for me to show off for potential employers. Here, I will chronicle my job search, collect crazy writings, and occasional muse about the marketing and PR fields. Let's hope I find a job before I get ideas from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.