Dear University X

Dear University X,

Words cannot express my admiration for your environmentally conscious decision to eschew printed rejection letters in favor of a single "Dear Candidate" e-mail that you copied to all rejected applicants. Leaving the names and e-mail addresses of all the other 19 candidates visible helped to make me feel like part of a broader community of rejects. What a fun pay-off to the three and a half months of suspense during which you never even acknowledged having received my application in the first place!

Best regards,

Me

I'm glad I found a new job two months ago, or I'd have been feeling really upset and not sarcastic right now.

condescend much?

Ack, you guys. On my way to work this morning I heard a most unfortunate news story about three young GOP hacks who are living across the river from my fair city and preparing for the upcoming asshole-fest (Republican National Convention).

It's annoying enough to hear how the talking heads and reputable journalists keep effing up the difference between the twin cities, but now I have to hear three little GOP clowns talk smack about St. Paul? "We landed in Mayberry"?! Yes, that's right, she went there.

So I'll go here: Nice blouse, bitch. I didn't know the Mall of America still stocked Laura Ashley circa 1992.

For all the Birbigliophiles

Mike Birbiglia on This American Life

would have been totes helpful three years ago

Google Maps keeps getting better and better, right? I just noticed that there is now an option to choose walking directions when you're mapping out a route. This is helpful in my current neighborhood, where there are a lot of one-way streets. Plus, I'll be walking more often as gasoline becomes unaffordable on a librarian's salary.

I just wish that Google would have had this feature during my first year of graduate school when I was living on the isthmus and completely confounded by the weird downtown grid. I used Google driving directions, which were not very efficient on foot!

Cake Wrecks

I don't often laugh out loud at things I see on the Internet, even if they're really funny. But I was truly LOL over this blog, featuring photos of very...unfortunate...professionally decorated cakes.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

There's a wedding cake that is a life-sized replica of the bride, a psychedelic monstrosity intended for a Sweet 16 party, some truly hilarious errors in the messages written on cakes, and a disturbing number of baby shower cakes in the form of actual babies.