Conan on TBS

One of the biggest stories in pop culture of the last week was the announcement that Conan O'Brien was going to be taking his show to cable. To be more precise, he'll be on TBS as the lead-in to George Lopez at 10pm central time Monday-Thursday. A lot of people couldn't and still can't figure out why Conan wouldn't want to go to FOX to be on one of the major networks and directly compete with Dave and his new arch nemesis, Jay.

Something that everybody needs to remember is that Conan has a lot going for him at TBS. First and foremost, he owns his show, or at least a portion of it. That allows him to have even more so than he would have at a network. Another great thing about being on TBS is the ability to do more on cable than would be allowed on network television, even FOX.

Something that I'm sure has been discussed, but I haven't been able to find on the internet is the possibility that TBS is trying to become one of the mainstream networks to turn the big four into the big five. I'm not basing this off anything other than the progression of programming on the network. A network has to start somewhere, right?

After thinking about this, I decided to look into the history of FOX and how it became a network. Much to my dismay, the evolution of the two networks does not have a similar trend. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't him similar endpoints. The thing I noticed that is familiar is that prior to beginning a slew of original programming, FOX was basically a grounds for syndication. Similarly, TBS is mostly syndicated shows at this time, but has a few shows on the table for the fall 2010 season as well as I'm sure many others in development. Ted Turner is an excellent businessman, and it wouldn't surprise me in any way if he was able to turn TBS into a big time station.

The absolute most annoying thing

To me, being unemployed is something that has not necessarily caused me heartache or anything, but there are a lot of feelings about self worth or my lack thereof. When push comes to shove, I know this isn't my fault and that I'm just a product of a bad economy, but some days just aren't good. Maybe I didn't get the job or maybe it's been two weeks since my last interview. Usually something triggers it and it just makes me feel like a complete failure. That feeling typically lasts anywhere from three hours to a full day and then I'm over it.

One thing I should say about my time during this whole unfortunate process is that I've been pretty lucky. I'm not sure exactly how many interviews I've been on, but since getting laid off in December I've been on over 30. That's good and bad. On one hand, I've been impressive enough on paper to get called in, but on the other hand, I haven't been impressive enough in person to get the job. Oh well. Small victories.

Anyway, on to the point at hand. There are two things that drive me nuts as someone without a job. They're both connected. The first is that it absolutely drives me crazy when people want to talk to me about being unemployed. People saying things like, 'So what do you do with your days? It must be boring!' just makes me so angry. Thanks for reminding me! The other thing is when people send you jobs that are found incredibly easily online. For example, whenever I go to CareerBuilder, I typically search for both "journalism" and "advertising" every day and then mix and match with other keyword combinations. A friend of mine who I get the feeling is feeling sorry for me sent me a job the other day that was literally the first match when you search under "journalism." Honestly, I feel like that's sort of a slap in the face to me. It just drives me nuts.

I think tomorrow's post will be more cheerful. Thanks for paying attention, though!

The worst part of unemployment

Being unemployed sucks. There's no way around it. Unless you get a fat severance package from losing your job, being unemployed is quite the opposite of the cat's meow.* For a few days after losing your job, it's kind of nice to sit around the house in your underwear catching up on all the daytime television that you haven't been able to watch since college. Drew Carey's gotten better as host of The Price Is Right, you know, if anyone was curious. While sitting around, eating and watching television, you start to think, 'hmm...I've got no more income...that can't be good.' But you're currently in vacation bliss.

*My first Pozterisk! I'm so excited. Where did the phrase, "the cat's meow" even come from? Doesn't it seem ridiculous. Lucky for you, my loyal reader, (no, I didn't forget the "s") I'm unemployed and have time to look things like this up. What I learned is that in the 1920s, cats were apparently awesome. In doing some basic internet research, I learned that The Cat's Meow was a 2001 film staring Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Tilly and a couple other people. In short, what happened while I was researching the phrase I originally meant to research was that my newfound ADD kicked in. Sorry.

Anyway, back to the original purpose of this post, my first on this blog. The worst part about being unemployed is not the money, though that part sucks. It is the sheer boredom that comes from having absolutely nothing to do. Ever. Well, aside from an interview. I have been one of the lucky ones. Since losing my job in December, I've averaged about eight interviews per month. Though I'm not sure if that should make me feel good considering the fact that I'm sitting here, writing about still being unemployed.

Hopefully this time of unemployment will make me wiser. It has certainly made me more inquisitive, if for no other reason than sheer necessity to shake the cobwebs from my brain. Today, for example, I tried to determine if there was any kind of correlation between the stock market and April 16, the day after Tax Day. There's not. I spent 37 minutes looking at it.

If someone who recently lost their job has stumbled upon this blog, I have some advice for you that you've almost certainly heard before. Well, a couple pieces of advice. One is to set a schedule. Don't let yourself sleep in too late. You're going to develop bad habits because you WILL go back to work at some point. Set time to look for jobs, go for a jog, write a stupid blog, etc. A schedule will help you, I promise. The other thing is do as many puzzles as you can. Your mind needs to stay sharp and sitting at home watching The View ain't gonna cut it. Don't watch The View anyway. It sucks.

Well, that's my first post. I will almost assuredly be back soon.