Sad music for sad times

January 28, 2009 at 6:29 pm · Filed under music

For reasons I won’t go into this year’s holiday season sucked.  The sucking had nothing to do with the generosity or thoughtfulness of my family and friends who blessed me with gift cards to itunes and amazon.com, where I’ve been making most of my music purchases lately.  I used a good portion of the gift balances to purchase albums I’ve wanted to buy but passed over in favor of new albums, and to purchase albums that I had downloaded when I was in college but never paid for.  In reviewing the albums I noticed that I bought mostly sad music made by white people for white people.  In place of the usual short reviews I write about albums, I’m going to create a few superlative categories and pick from my newly purchased albums to fill them. The nominess, in no particular order, are:

Sufjan Stevens: Seven Swans || The National: Boxer || Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant EP || Jars of Clay: Closer EP || Beck: Mellow Gold; Modern Guilt; Midnite Vultures; The Information; Sea Change || Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago; Blood Bank EP || The Black Crowes: Warpaint || Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot || Iron & Wine: The Sheperd’s Dog || Rufus Wainwright: Poses; Rufus Wainwright Read the rest of this entry »

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USA 3 Sweden 2, International Friendly

January 28, 2009 at 12:39 am · Filed under soccer

The past several years the US has held a camp in January for players on a winter break, mostly from MLS but some from the Scandinavian leagues.  The camp is used to evaluate fringe players and to help key players get sharp for important matches that are scheduled for dates before the domestic club season; the camp typically concludes with a friendly against a domestic based team from Scandinavia.  This year’s opponent was a Sweden side mostly comprised of U21 players.  The US team was a mix of fringe first-choice players (Sacha Kljestan, Ricardo Clark and Brian Ching), 2008 Olympians (Klljestan, Marvelle Wynne, Robbie Rogers, Michael Parkhurst, and Charlie Davies), players looking to earn more prominent roles (Dan Califf and Jonathan Bornstein), and Internationally inexperienced players (John Thorrington and Troy Perkins).

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Recruiters Who Can’t Write Good

January 12, 2009 at 12:35 pm · Filed under life

When I launched ahelms.com I did not realize that posting my résumé would result in the receipt of copious emails from recruiters looking to fill “very urgent” and “critical” positions for “well-respected”, “Fortune 5/10/50/100″ companies.

I am not a big fan of recruiters…and not just because they abuse exclamation points!!! One small part of why my dislike of recruiters is growing is the awkward, inappropriate language they use in emails to candidates like me.  A small sampling and my commentary is below.

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