Odd Jobs and Random Tasks

Following on yesterday's report, one reader provided an interesting essay on why some book-to-movie adaptations fall short of our hopes.  (Hint: It's got something to do with the "master" part of masterpiece.)  We'll see if Baz proves up to the test by making something Great this summer...  Another reaches further back into literary canon and provides another Fleetwood Macbeth quote, this from Duncan's ghost's monologue: "I know there's nothing to say.  Someone has taken my place."

As today's Report headline suggests, we're tackling the working world today.  (Sorry for those who thought we were discussing diminutive Bond villainsand their Austin Powers parody counterparts...)  Specifically, we're taking a behind the scenes look at 15 different jobs, from dominatrix to paramedic.  The stories these men and women at work tell provide interesting glimpses at what actually goes on in worlds we may not know about.  Trust me, it's worth pushing through the shocking disturbingness of the dominatrix profile to get to the rest, though hers is probably the only place you will hear "I can be in my dungeon for up to seven hours" today.  The Undertaker's perspective proves HBO's Six Feet Under did its research, while the five year unpaid intern suggests maybe something about the intern system is broken and/or illegal.  Plus, if you don't feel like reading, you can just check out the cute little graphic representations... Though in real life I've never encountered a cab driver who looks like Travis Bickle.

Finally from our continuing Coincidences series, an extended story (to make up for a short report) about a college interview:

Georgetown was the first of my college interviews. I remember feeling incredibly nervous as I pulled up to the house of my alumni interviewer, a local judge who lived in the next town over. I was wearing a newly acquired navy suit skirt (the first time I actually had use for such an item of clothing) and uncomfortable grown- up shoes. I rang the doorbell, hesitantly. A dog started barking wildly from inside.

"Come on in", I hear, " I just need to put the dog away." As I open the front door, I see the alum interviewer struggling to gate off the kitchen in order to keep some large animal inside.

"Oh, that's fine, I don't mind. I love dogs. We have a brown-and-white Brittany Spaniel at home named Molly."

The interviewer stopped trying to wrestle with the dog. He looked a little taken by surprise. I took one step closer, peered  in the kitchen, and saw none other than a brown-and-white Brittany Spaniel.

"Her name's Molly", he said.

It's an odd world!  It's also Nathan Fillion's birthday!  If you don't know who that is, maybe you've seen him at the gym?  No, he doesn't go to the gym. He's just naturally like that.