Wow. Just...freaking...WOW.

Remember that recruiter I posted about recently who was working on getting me a primo job in Malvern, PA? He finally called back today to say that the client wants to phone-interview me (thank God; I was not looking forward to having to scrape up the cash for a last-minute plane ticket—the airlines invariably gouge your ass off on those) this Friday morning. Even if my trial run at ProTech starting tomorrow ends up running into Friday, I should be able to sneak away (I hope) for a half-hour chat with these guys on the cell.

And this afternoon, I have an in-person interview with an intown ad agency for a creative position (looks like an interesting place: Match Inc.). So I've managed to get lots of irons in the fire; now if only one of the damn things will heat up already...!

A buttload o' celeb birthdays today

Courtesy of USAToday.com, today's celebrity birthdays, in descending order of age:

• CBS News' resident pit-bull, Mike Wallace, is 89. Amazing; must be true that doing what you love (and loving what you do) keeps you young. Many more years to you, Mr. W., and sic 'em!
    
  
• Actor Albert Finney is 71. (Daddy Warbucks lives!)
    
• Actress and epitome of class Glenda Jackson is 71.
    
• Producer-director James L. "Hell" Brooks (The Simpsons) is 67.
    
• Actress Candice Bergen (Shirley Schmidt of Boston Legal, currently, but to many of us she will forever be Murphy Brown) is 61.
    
• Singer Billy Joel is 58. Hope Alexa Ray throws a big-ass party for her dear old Dad.
    
• Actor John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Sex and the City, Northern Exposure) is 46 and still hunky. All you single ladies and gay men may commence drooling now. :-)

Many happy returns to all and sundry.

Discovering a song about the town of my birth

I was born and (mostly) raised in Lafayette, LA, the unofficial capital of Cajun country. When I left, I had a lot of reasons to leave, many of them having to do with being an oddball geek of a kid with gender issues in a solidly, stolidly Southern red-state family in what seemed to me then, at best, a farm-country small town with delusions of being a big city.

But as my Songbird has been at some pains to point out to me when we have visited there each Christmas the last five years, the place has changed. A lot. (My family has also changed at least in some ways, as she also reminds me, but that's another rant story.) ADDENDUM: Politically speaking, Lafayette hasn't really changed all that much; its Wikipedia entry cites it as being the ninth most conservative city in the US. And it has more restaurants per capita than any other US city, even New York. That shouldn't shock anyone who knows Lafayette or Cajuns at all—most places, folks just eat to live; us Cajuns, cher, we live to eat!)

And now comes this song, originated by Lucinda Williams and covered by John "Don't Call Me 'Cougar' Anymore" Mellencamp (AKA the poor man's Bruce Springsteen—and that's not meant as a putdown in the least) on his 2003 all-covers album, Trouble No More. Hearing it, with its echoes of the waltz-time rhythms and accordion stylings I grew up hearing via French-speaking local DJs on my daddy's kitchen and workshop radios every weekend, almost makes me want to go back. Almost.

Quotes of the day

Ran across these on zaadz.com, the new social-networking-for-social-change website I joined last week; thought I'd share them. Credited to Hannah Whitall Smith, though not all of them may actually be hers:
( Common sense rarely is. --Unknown )