Fish are dying, I'm happy

Hey, what up internets. The static has cleared and I'm back, live and direct. Magnificently captured above, you'll see a very happy white man, a very short black man, and a reasonably large dead Barracuda. The very white man is of course truly yours, the very black man is my erstwhile companion Charlie, a notorious Belizian pimp and part-time fishing guide. This may seem like a strange combination, but it means he can cut thick nylon fishing line with his gold teeth. The late Barracuda depicted was caught trolling behind Charlies boat with a whole sardine, cunningly concealing an enormous hook. The fish and I were equally surprised when it took the bait and leapt clear of the water, in a spectacular spectacle for the benefit of Charlie, his cousin, KT and I. After some serious grappling, in which the line cut poor Charlie's finger rather severely, we brought the fish aboard, and Charlie's cousin set about tapping it on the head with a short, wide board, which seemed to mostly just annoy the fish and make KT squeal in a fascinating combination of terror and delight.

That's a keyhole view of what's been going down in this patch of the rock. Stay tuned.

Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday to the Coon, Happy New Year, and in anticipation, Happy (?) Martin Luther King Day, which is the next long weekend scheduled in here in the land of the red, white, blue, brave, free, fat, loud, and yet totally awesome.

You've had too much to think.

Oh bloody hell, where to start.

So, I signed the lease today on my studio apartment. It is a massive effort finding somewhere to live here. The market here moves so fast, due to so many people and something ridiculous like a (100 - 10^7)% occupancy. The brokers are sharks, the landlords are greedy, and other would-be renters have a headstart on me with fancy things like "credit history", "permanent addresses", "social security numbers", "bank accounts", and "actual money". For about 2 weeks, I was hopped up on wheelbarrow loads worth of Starbucks rocketfuel, hitting refresh on craigslist like it was the fire button on Space Invaders, then ducking off several times a day to see places, often with several other people viewing the place at the same time. Not only that, it has been a heatwave since I've been here (35 to 40 degrees most days), with intermittent torrential rain* complicating matters.

I managed to put an application in on a place, and then it almost didn't happen. I was categorically assured by work that I would have the funds available in my account on time, via wire transfer, in order to pay bond, rent, and broker's extortion fee. That is, I sent this plain-as-day email:


I have an appointment to sign my lease at 11:30am on Wed Aug 2. Can you let me know between now and then if it looks like there is going to be any delay which would mean that I wouldn't be able to hand over certified cheques then? That would be greatly appreciated.


and was given a positive response. I go to the bank today, no funds. I contact Ms. Bumblefuck McTwat in HR, and she says cheques would be issued at the end of the day. I became, um, lets call it... exasperated. Thankfully, my supervisor overheard the commotion, and offered to pop down the bank and get the 8-odd grand required out of his own personal funds, which I would pay back later. What a champion, I can't imagine what would have happened otherwise.

But I can't move in there until 9/1 (That's numerologically significant, man. Also, American date formatting smokes mollusc reproductive appendages). So in the mean time, I've managed to arrange a sublet for a month in a flat with a bunch of sweaty untidy men. I had to clean the furnished room before I moved in, and among the magical surprises left behind was a used dinger. What a crappy way to brag about getting your end away. It's only for a month, so I can hack it. Walking into the bathroom when I'm half asleep means that I'm actually able to use the dunny and shower, although after being woken up in the shower, I become queasy and make a hasty exit.

It may sound like I'm bitching a lot, but I'm having an awesome time.

Perks are best summarized in point form:

• With my work ID, I get free admission (plus four) to all the museums and stuff in NYC. Rad, eh? And no waiting in line with the common plebe, it's straight through to the members/patrons desk. Not last weekend, but the one before, KT and I did the MOMA. Then last weekend I spent Sunday arvo at the Museum of Natural History, and it was awesome. Dinosaurs galore. Also, ancestors of mammals are highly underrated, at least by me till now. I have photos, but they are possibly too awesome to post. **
  
• A totally awesome gym just for employees, with every possible cardio/resistance machine you could ever imagine even in your wildest fever induced dreams. 30 bux a month, ka-ching. Also, all you need to take is shoes, and they give you shirt/shorts/socks/towell.... and.. a jockstrap, which they launder when you're done.***
  
• If you knock off after 9, free taxi home!
  
• Like, health, dental and other dreary but important stuff.
  
• I forget the rest, but I've already written more here than either you or I deserve.
  

Heads up: I can't access/use Gmail from work, or any other new-fangled form of communication (including mobile phone) for that matter, except my work email and work phone, due to compliance regulations. That is, apparently I'm privy to market sensitive information, and all communications has to be monitored to make sure there's no insider trading going down. That is despite the fact that, at the moment, I barely know which end of the office chair to sit on.

Funny story. There are these god-botherers who hang around public places called "Jews for Jesus". I think that's a pretty funny name for a movement for some reason, and they have these awesome t-shirts with that emblazoned on them. I know Steve would love one of these shirts, especially since he buys Christmas cards and then turns Santa Claus into a Rabbi by giving him long ringlets, a Jew hat, and "Oy, Oy, Oy..." voice balloons. Anyway, I was cruising down the markets on Bleeker st on Saturday, and momentarily paused at one of their stalls, scoping for J4J t-shirts. The guy there bails me up and goes "Oh HI, who do you think Jesus really was?", to which I imperiously replied "A myth!". He starts banging on in reply, and I attempted to rejoin with my opinion several times. Eventually, I spat the dummy and said "Look mate, do you want to have a conversation or would you prefer to talk to yourself?", turned on my heel, and strode off into the crowd. He cried, "come back!", and then when I was about 10 metres away, yelled "PLEASE COME BACK! I'M READY TO LISTEN NOW!!!" More than a few people turned around at this point, and it must have looked as though I dropped some bombs on his faith, then left him high and dry! Brilliant.

Anyway, I know I've gone off the radar on a number of fronts, but the last three weeks have been, um, involved.




* Like, wall of water rain. One day I got absolutely, completely saturated when hiking back from the East Village, after looking at some spectacularly overpriced, vermin infested, delapidated apartment, which was so tiny you had to open the window to talk. When I got back to work, I went downstairs and got someone to dry my clothes. Sweet, as.

** Or possibly I can't be arsed unloading them from my camera.

*** I don't know how to use a jockstrap, and initial experiments have been a bit traumatic. The first time I tried it au naturale (with shorts over the top, of course), and after 20 minutes on the bike, I had a red, inflamed scrotum for a few days afterward. This was due to the coarse nature of the material, not at all due to the, um, communal nature of the jockstraps. Not to be deterred, I tried it as a layer between the old Reg Grundies and shorts, which didn't seem to do much except make that whole region really, really hot and sweaty by the end of the workout, which is a great look. Honestly, what are they for? Google Image search seems to indicate that they are indeed worn au naturale, and that they are for men who specifically prefer the company of other men.

Is this the ONE?

I bloody hope so. I put in an application today. Bastards want 2 grand "brokers fee" (rough translation: daylight robbery / blatant extortion), plus 3 months rent "security" because I have no credit history, plus 1 months rent in advance! Sand for dinner again.

Provided the wind is blowing south west, it's pissing distance to work (Locations: work, home). No rubbing up against the unwashed proletariat in the sweaty subway for me.

Also, it's a studio, which is like a one bedroom where kitchen/lounge/bedroom are combined. So, visitors are most welcome, there's tonnes of room.

The reception of the building where I work. For real.

Oy.

Honestly, FUCK FLICKR and its flaky ability to auto-rotate images via the EXIF infomation. I'm in an inconsolable rage right now.

HELLO
Originally uploaded by dockta-cok.

So this is where I work now.

Fist shaking ensued.

"Fondling the eye of the bull" is a new euphemism for what's going on here.

NEVAR FORGET

NEVAR FORGET

NEVAR FORGET

The personal touch.

My hotel in the foreground, Chrysler Building in the background. Little of interest at medium distance.

I roll like Kelly Bundy

BONUS MATERIAL:


This photo was taken today at the local supermarket.

Yep, those are flannelette shirts.

PS. Listen to the album YoYoYoYoYo by Spank Rock, esp. the track Bump.

I <3 Free Trade Agreement

Me and the old man causing trouble at Bear Island in Sydney.

After a couple of lovely days with Wen, I headed back to Melbourne last Thursday, en route to a school reunion on Saturday night, pulled into town around 12:30. I hadn't had any luck for the last week or so getting in touch with Steve, as through some as-yet not understood coincidence, he changes his mobile number roughly as often as he gets blotto. So I decided to send him one last text message, as in, I went to his house and left a note on his kitchen table. (Chris, I promise that this is the last time I trundle out that joke). Then I hooked up with Choco, whoe had a BAC high enough to make his breath ignite near an open flame. Using the modern magic of a corporate CabCharge card, we found ourself at the Laundry on Smith St not long afterwards ($3 spirits, way-hay). 'Tis then that I realized I was back in Melbourne. We were playing pool with a pair of likely lads of the indigenous persuasion, when one of them dumped (what turned out to be) 3 grams of sweet Mary Jane on the bar and started tearing it apart coarsely. Choco called me over and asked if I would roll them some blunts. I agreed, and set about it. Partway through, the barmaid came over, and I panicked, trying to be all cool like I was just rolling a durrie. She peered over the stacked glasses, saw what I was doing, and said, "You want some scissors?". Right on. They smoked their way through the whole lot, the smoke was so pungent and thick in the room one could barely see. I was trying do dodge any passive inhalation, moreso than usual, conscious of the fact I have a drug test in NY in a few weeks.

The text message paid off, and Steve was able to wrangle things to head down to the re-union with me. On the way down, I got an email from my Mum on my mobile, telling me that Steve probably didn't know that his parents had moved house. It would have been awesome to drop Steve off at his old place, to have the door answered by complete strangers who would recoil at his wild appearance. The re-union itself was good, most people haven't really changed all that much in 10 years, just become bigger versions of what they already were. From our year, one has died from cancer (at 19), one has died from a heroin overdose, and one is physically and mentally retarded after a car accident. The re-union itself wrapped up fairly early, so myself and three others (two of whom I'm quite familiar with) went back to a hotel room and kept the dream alive. But, like all dreams, we woke up the next morning feeling hollow with broken glass all over the place.

Since then, I had a good day on the farm with Steve, helping one of the neighbours whose house burned down put up the frame of their new two-story kit house. This involved nail-guns and treacherous heights, so overall an awesome day.

Thanks to the US/Au free trade agreement, there is a rad new visa which will allow me to work indefinitely in the US, called the E-3 visa. So, I've been getting the stuff for my visa application together (the application itself will be handled by a company which specialises in corporate immigration, fancy that!). It's all a bit unreal and surreal, but totally real.

Gettin' stupid.

It's on.


Dear (Dr. Cok),

It is with our great pleasure to confirm our offer to you as an Associate in the Global Modelling and Analytics Group in our New York office. Our HR department has FedEx an official offer letter to the address below.

In order to confirm your place in our Class of 2006 Associate program, we need to receive your acceptance of the offer by 13-Jun-2006. Attached <> please find a xerox'ed copy of the offer letter so that you could have a preview of the terms of the offer etc. Please let us know if you have not received the actual letter by Saturday.

Once you have signed the letter and posted it back, could you please get in touch with our immigration advisors a.s.a.p. to start the visa process (the info will be in the package you will receive).

Please feel free to email us if you have any question.

Congratulations on the offer and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Rgds,

(NY dude)


Also


Hi (Dr. Cok)

To echo (NY dude)'s email: you impressed everyone in the interviews (both in London & New York) so we're delighted to extend this offer to you & very much hope you'll accept.

If you have any queries, feel free to email either (NY dude) or me - or you can call me on (some number).

Best Wishes,
(London dude).


Right on!

Post with actual content to follow soon. I'm driving to Melbourne tomorrow to go to a school reunion, and to get my gear together to fly to NY.

Disparate Housewives

I have a new phone with a 2 ba-jiggapixel camera, a highly stimulating sliding motion, blue teeth, and though it lacks actual bells and whistles, does a faily passable polyphonic impression of such. And this is a photo I took with it. The guy who sold it to me was quite keen to tell me about its myriad features, which would have been fine if he wasn't quite so visibly erect at the time.

I had my graduation last Friday, with dinner at the Opera House. Possibly best meal ever, definitely top 10 (not implying that I keep such a list). Thanks for all the congrats, conveyed at various times using various mediums.

I had my VC interview (this means video-conference. I use this word so much now I abbreviate it. Also, GM = good morning.) with NY yesterday. It went pretty well, although I wasn't expecting so many finance questions. But I think I impressed the guy that mattered at the 11th hour, by vaguely remembering a proof of a Brownian motion stopping time question I'd read on an aircraft flying over some godless region of the earth many weeks earlier.

Also, yesterday evening I did a phone interview with a big IB (investment bank, hurr) which was organized for me through a recruiter. The guy at the other end was a condescending, bored, knobjockey. He asked me a few maths problems, which I blundered my way through with no help from him, eventually getting the right answers. He didn't appear to be listening most of the time, as if he were browsing the web at the same time, or perhaps toying with his lifeless member, trying in vain to remember the last time he'd felt any sensation from the wretched thing. When I came to an answer, I'd ask if it was correct, there would be silence, and he would ask me to repeat myself!

The final question he asked was in an area I am not familiar with (this should have been apparent from my CV, also I told him this immediately after he asked the question). So, he got a bit pissy and said to leave it at that, and asked if I had any questions for him. I asked him several questions, which he answered in a bored manner in as few words as possible! Bizzarro!

I have a telephone screening interview (TSI? no.) with "a rather significant search engine company" tomorrow morning at 7:30am, regarding a position in Sydney. It will be interesting to see what happens there. At that time of the morning, I'm most likely to tell them to go eat a penis. Tuff talkin'. Actually I'll just be vague and polite.

News flush

Finally some word from the monsters who toy with my destiny like so much fluff.


Thank you for coming back in to see us. Unfortunately, we are not able to offer you a position with our group in London at this point, however, if you are interested in working in New York we do have a potential opportunity there. If this is of interest please let us know, we can arrange video conference interviews from our offices in Sydney.


WTF? I fired off the following abrubt email to my man on the inside.


Here's (names)'s response. What does it mean, i.e., is this a pass or a
fail on the interview?


The following reply wended its way through the wires to me, and lay gasping at my feet.


I heard about this the moment after I emailed you yesterday. Trust me, it is excellent news for you!

mate, how do you feel about working in Manhattan, NYC??!!

We are full up in London at the moment but we generally find it harder to get decent people in the US, so we are thinking about sending you over there. In fact, the position is in my own group - Credit, and (name) is my line manager, sits next to me, and is global head of credit in GMAG. You would be working with me!

Basically it is a scrape-through pass on the interview - but the NY guys may want to interview you in the video conference - or they might just want to talk to you to see what you are like, I'm not sure how it works from here as I have not seen them do this before.

Unless you have major issues about working in the Big Apple rather than London I'd give a very positive response to (name) and (name) and get the ball rolling. Ask them if the vid conf will be a technical interview, so you know what to expect.

NYC would be great mate, I'm actually thinking of asking for a txfer over there at some point in the future myself (but that's between you and me)

well done mate, nearly there,


So now you know all that I do, and can ponder over what's said, what's left unspoken, the choice of phrase. Only I will be privvy to the original formatting.

What say you, o internet?

Weasels ripped my flesh

Update: Ok, so they've got back to me:

"We would like to invite you in for a second round of interviews. Will you be available to come in on Friday at 1pm?

In the first round you did quite well on the implementation side but we were hoping for a stronger result on the maths/problem solving side. Friday's interviews will put more focus on maths/problem solving."

Also, I got the following random email from Google:

Hi (Dr. Cok),

Your name came highly recommended to us to contact for Engineering opportunities, so we would like to invite you to submit your resume and transcripts or course list for consideration. We're looking for exceptional students with strong programming skills, excellent algorithmic and analytical skills and a strong aptitude for building high-performance, scalable computer systems. We offer a very challenging technical environment in a collegial atmosphere. More details about working at Google can be found at http://www.google.com/jobs/great-people-needed.html.

We are actively hiring for our Sydney R&D office, so look forward to hearing from you soon!

Hmmm.... Having gmail account, personalized google search, a google blog, etc, makes one worry about privacy, eh.



Still haven't heard back from Numbnuts inc. about the job interview, which is frustrating. Some friend of a friend of B-roq's, whom I met on Saturday night, works for HR at another big investment bank, so I sent her my CV on Monday. She's passed it on, and we'll see where that leads. It looks like I'm going to have to do some temporary work as a Walker and Turner (Dad joke: (requires Italian accent for maximum groan-inducing hilarity) walk around the corner and turn around the corner).

pop77 has a new mix, new site layout, and the promise of resuming weekly mixes.

Went out on Saturday night with B-roq. Predictably, we ended up at a massive gay club mid morning the following day. There were so many people, and they were all looking great. As things normally get exponentially seedier after daybreak in Sydney, it was strange.

Bugger me gently.

My niece and nephew. A photo I uploaded a while ago, but haven't had a chance to use.

I shall use the modern miracle of bullet points to explain my wonderous and harrowing journey so far.

• I spent most of the time in Chicago pretending to work on the book chapter, by making superficial changes to it and rambling on with reassuring technical nonsense when quizzed about it. In the interim, I was furiously swotting away on learning the theory of options pricing. Also decided that Chicago was a gay place to do a postdoc.
  
• More recently, I discovered the above probably warrants as a paragraph, but grimly pressed on.
  
• I flew to Trondheim in Norway for a postdoc 'interview'*, and gave a seminar. Loved the place, learned a lot of fun facts about Norway that I shall use to both amuse and bemuse people in bars.
  
• Flew to Oslo (also in Norway, duh) to have an 'interview' for a position in Nice (which is in France). START THE CONFOUNDERON 5000.
  
• Flew to Nice to have a look to see if I like the place. I was also meant to meet someone there, but this fell through while I was in Chicago. Chia picked me up at the airport, and we had a look around and visited the offices. I decided Nice as a city is crappy, that the position is too bound up with French beaurocracy, and that the pay was crappy.
  
• Spent a few days with Chia driving from Nice to Rome, while still cramming for the finance interview. Had a fabulous time. I dropped a whole load of bling on an Italian suit in Siena for my interview** in London.
  
• Got to London yesterday, rolled up to B-roq's, got a haircut, bought a shirt and tie. The shirt turned out to be some sort of clown suit which required cufflinks (A fitting room assistant at Marks&Spencers has been added to my "People to send to forced labour camps when I'm ruler of all the known multiverses" list). Thankfully, B-roq had an appropriate shirt.
  
• Went to the finance interview today. Which is where we resume our regular format.
  

The interview went from 1pm to 6:30pm and involved 5 people. They rode me 'round like an drunk, unconscious hooker in a distopian, post-apocalyptic, seedy bar movie scene. The questions involved brain-teasers, calculus, probability, and some basic option pricing stuff. It was nerve-wracking, and a little surreal to be sitting around in a luxurious interview room, dressed up like a funeral director, pondering over some silly question about arranging marbles, while being carefully observed by people with doctorates in physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science, and finance. Strangely, I nailed some very difficult questions, and fumbled around like a buffoon with some very, very basic ones. I honestly have no idea how I went.


Footnotes:
* Not so much an interview as a sales pitch. The positions are mine if I want them.
** Not so much an interview as statutory rape.