6/30/06

Cam Cloudhammer, Director of Human Resources, Order of the Jedi

Dear Mr. Cloudhammer,

As a recent graduate of the Tatooine Academy of Arts and Sciences, I was excited to hear about the opening with the Jedi Knights for an entry level Force Technician I. I have long dreamed of joining the Jedi Order and I think I will be a valuable asset to your organization.

As you can see from my enclosed resume, I graduated with a 3.2 GPA and I scored a 1242 on the Force Assessment Test. I did particularly well in Advanced Midi-Chlorianology and Pre-Imperial History. I believe I could have performed even better academically, but I worked my way through school recalibrating moisture vaporators. I think the combination of my rigorous coursework and practical experience will serve me well as a Force Technician I.

I'm available for an interview on short notice on most weekdays. I know my resume probably isn't the most impressive you will receive, but I think you'll find that I'm "good Jedi material" if you take the time to meet me in person. I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,
Kenny Skywalker

P.S. I forgot to mention that I can type 40 words per minute and levitate small objects with my mind.

P.P.S. Not to name-drop, but in case you're wondering, Luke is my second cousin.




8/21/06

Heinous Vlaak, Personnel Director, Order of the Sith

Dear Mr. Vlaak,

I recently graduated from the Tatooine Academy of Arts and Sciences and was interested to learn of the part time Tractor Field Operator position that was recently posted on the Sith website. I have long been intrigued by the shadowy workings of the Sith, and have recently begun to consider a career in the service of the Empire.

As my enclosed resume indicates, I am an above average student, but I think that the highly structured nature of the Tatooine Academy prevented me from reaching my true potential, as I am something of an "outside the box" thinker. It's true that my experience with the Dark Side is limited, but my current job at the Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina requires that I be very assertive with droids and others whose kind we don't serve. I am also led to believe that my destiny lies with the Dark Side by my co-workers' frequent reminders that I'm "really not a people person."

I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

In Your Service,
Kenneth Skywalker (No relation)

P.S. I once pantsed a Jawa, which is considered pretty evil around here. I am also good with Excel.




9/29/06

Boba Fett, Proprietor, Fett Investigations, Bounty Hunter and Polygraph Service

Dear Mr. Fett,

Boy, are you hard to track down! I got your contact information from a mutual acquaintance who indicated that you may have an opening for a henchmen/tough. I know that with my B.A. in Force Theory I may seem overqualified for this position, but I've decided that I'm more interested in a life of adventure than a stable job with a reputable organization at this point in my career. I've dealt with my share of rough characters at my current job at Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina and my neighborhood is pretty regularly terrorized by Tusken Raiders, so I don't think I'll have much trouble adjusting to the life of a bounty hunter. Please contact me as soon as is convenient for you, because I'm anxious to get started!

Sincerely,
Ken Skywalker

P.S. In case you're concerned about my academic background, I only attended the Tatooine Academy to get my parents off my back. Trust me when I say that I have learned that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.




11/4/06

Jabba the Hutt, C.E.O., Hutt Enterprises, Inc.

Dear Mr. Hutt,

I recently learned of an opening with your crime syndicate here on Tatooine. I'm not sure what the job entails exactly, but I think I'm up for just about anything after working as the Assistant Manager of the Mos Eisley Cantina Spaceport. Since I was put in charge of marketing, we were named 2nd runner up for "Most Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy" by the Imperial Travel Bureau. Although I've never killed anyone myself, I am often expected to clean up the charred corpses of bounty hunters and other scoundrels, and I think I'm becoming rather inured to the spectacle of mutilation and manslaughter.

I know I probably don't fit the typical profile of your applicants, but I think that if you give me a chance you won't be disappointed. All I'm asking for is a chance.

Eagerly awaiting your reply,

Ken S.

P.S. I don't need health insurance and I don't mind sleeping on the floor or whatever.





12/27/06

Dear Uncle Skip,

Do you still own that Chili's in the Dagobah system?

Your loving nephew,

Kenny

I think Barnes and Noble is on to me.

I think they've figured out that I'm one of those people who just browses through books for an hour, leaves them on the wrong shelf, and then walks out without buying anything. How else can you explain the fact that the alarm goes off every time I enter the store?

I've gotten into the habit of holding up my hands and shouting "It's just me!" whenever I walk into the store, which is usually pretty effective at negating suspicions. Except, of course, on those rare occasions when the alarm doesn't go off for some reason, in which case it has precisely the opposite effect. Funny how a preemptive declaration of harmlessness freaks people right out.

One time I carried a book from Barnes and Noble into Starbucks next door, picked up a coffee, then brought the book back into the store, at which point the alarm went off. An employee shot me an accusatory look. I sheepishly held up the book, demonstrating my willingness to cooperate.

"You can't take books out of the store," she said.

"Apparently I can take books out of the store," I replied. "What I can't do, at least without getting a lot of unwanted attention, is to bring books back into the store."

She clearly wanted to punish me in some way, but couldn't settle on her next course of action.

"Do you... want me to take the book back into Starbucks?" I said. "I promise not to bring it back into the store this time."

She grumbled something and walked off. You just can't satisfy some people.

I don't know how Barnes and Noble makes any money. Actually, I have my suspicions. I think they make all their money on those "bargain items" at the front of the store. You know the stuff I'm talking about: those oversized books and boxed "kits" that promise to teach you everything you need to know to get started with Feng Shui or drawing manga characters or mastering the art of the tarot.

I find these displays fascinating, because they're like a smörgåsbord* of lifestyle options. I like how they are always marked down from $19.95 to $14.95 or something. I imagine a young woman walking out of the store with her girlfriend, clutching one of those boxes.

Woman 1: I thought you were going to convert to Buddhism.

Woman 2: I was, but Calligraphy was on sale.

Barnes and Noble has something for everybody, including people who hate to read. The last time I was there I saw an audio book of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Now that's niche marketing. It's the book for people who want to hear someone read a movie to them.

Guy 1: You know what I really loved about Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?

Guy 2: The hot chick terminator?

Guy 1: No...

Guy 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger kicking ass?

Guy 1: No...

Guy 2: The awesome effects?

Guy 1: No...

Guy 2: The ever perky Claire Daines, in her best role since My So-Called Life?

Guy 1: No...

Guy 2: Okay, I give up. What did you love about Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?

Guy 1: The lyrical dialogue and rich thematic subtext. It's too bad I never learned how to read.

Guy 2: Ooh, have I got a book for you!

Every time I go to Barnes and Noble I have to spend half an hour browsing through the "humor" section. As a humor writer, this is therapeutic for me. Just when I start to feel a little guilty about shamelessly hawking my own book in every one of my posts, I pick up a book that is made up of 80 pages of "lessons" gleaned from Napoleon Dynamite -- one per page. The book was priced at $9.95, even though it looked like it had been written over a long weekend by a hungover middle schooler. Most of the books in the "humor" section are so painfully unfunny that they made me want to go to the literature section to take in a few pages of The Brothers Karamazov just to lighten my mood a bit. Not that there aren't any funny books there -- This book made me chuckle, and the Deep Thoughts collections are always good for some laughs. And of course there are books by the old pros, like Dave Barry and Woody Allen. But generally speaking, if you want to see something funny, you're better off browsing through some of the books they're trying to pawn off as "serious."

For example, I always find the "...for Dummies" books amusing. Well, mostly what I find amusing is the ambiguity of the titles. Fishing for Dummies, for example, sounds pretty cool. I have to admit that catching a dummy would be more exciting than landing a trout. Plus, dummies are way easier to gut. And when you're done cleaning your dummy, you can rely on your trusty copy of Sewing for Dummies to help you stitch your dummy back up so that it's suitable for hanging in your den.

And if the Dummies books are too advanced for you, there are also books for Complete Idiots. There's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sex, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Accounting, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astrology -- which, now that I think about it, is redundant.

Some day I'm going to launch a line of books for people who are too dumb for the Complete Idiot books. I'm going to call them ________ for Total F---ing Retards Who Can't Even Read So they Don't Know this Book is Filled Entirely With Lyrics from Def Leppard Songs. I'm not even going to bother to fill in the blank in the title, because what difference is it going to make? I'll just change the color of the cover once a month to indicate that a new edition has been released.

I'd love to write more, but I've got to go smuggle some more copies of Antisocial Commentary into the "summer reading" section.


*I'd like to thank the developers of the Firefox web browser for "correcting" my spelling by adding those funky alien symbols to that word.

Humor-blogs.com is like an online version of the Barnes and Noble "humor" section. Except it's funny.

As you know, Dr Pepper is my muse. I therefore took it particularly hard when the marketing wizards at the Dr Pepper company turned out to be no more wizards than, well, than Dr Pepper is a real doctor. From the Buffalo News:

Less than a month after Boston's highways and bridges were shut down during a bomb scare touched off by an advertising stunt, a new marketing scheme has led angry city officials to shut down a historic site.

A clue in a Dr Pepper promotion suggested a coin that might be worth as much as $1 million was buried in the 347-year-old Granary Burying Ground, the final resting place of John Hancock, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and other historic figures.

After contestants showed up at the cemetery gates early Tuesday, the city closed it, concerned that it would be damaged by treasure hunters.

Read the rest of the story here.

I did some digging (ha!) and found out that, astonishingly, this wasn't even the worst marketing gimmick the Dr Pepper people came up with. I present to you...

Ten Rejected Dr Pepper Marketing Gimmicks

10. Mysterious packages are left unattended at airports all over the U.S. If you find one of the packages and bring it on a plane, it will automatically open at 20,000 feet, revealing twelve glass bottles of Dr Pepper and a solid gold bottle opener shaped like a hand grenade.

9. Win a million dollars by finding the Diet Dr Pepper can buried under a mountain of ten thousand dead lab rats.

8. The "Forrest Gump" promotion: Get a picture taken of you drinking Dr Pepper within ten feet of the President and win ten thousand dollars!

7. One of the paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been replaced by a fake hiding a hundred one thousand dollar bills. The false veneer can only be dissolved by a spraying it with a fine mist of Dr Pepper.

6. The "Movie Lover" promotion: 10 Dr Pepper cans in the U.S. are filled with highly corrosive acetic acid used for developing film, instead of Dr Pepper. Find one and win a trip to the Cannes Film Festival!

5. T.V. Commercial: A man lies on his death bed, unconscious. Close-up of a doctor's hands hooking up an IV, as a voice says, "There's only one thing we can do for him now." Zoom out: We see that the IV tube is connected to a can of Dr Pepper. Cut to a concerned nurse who says, "Are you sure that will cure him, doctor?" Cut to the doctor: "Cure him? I just figured if he's going to be a vegetable, he might as well be a Pepper!"

4. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper -- now with a hint of nutmeg!

3. Free Dr Pepper for life for all type II diabetes sufferers.

2. A new beverage specifically designed to make people crave Dr Pepper: Dr Salt!

1. Picture this: Race car driver Jeff Gordon is at a gas station, refueling his car. Next to him is his 5 year old son. "Now for the secret ingredient," Gordon says to his son, with the air of someone imparting fatherly wisdom. He opens a can of Dr Pepper and pours it into the gas tank. When he's finished, he says, "And that's the secret of great performance, son." Gordon looks around, but his son is nowhere to be found. Finally Jeff sees him: His son is guzzling gasoline directly from the pump! They share a good laugh.


In doing research for this post, I came across this. I'd thank the person who put this together, but I'm guessing he's dead.