Archive for October, 2008

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

BoumanBlog Vlog #2

Here is a quick vlog I put together. I still don’t have any video editing software so I’m still doing these on one take. I think you’re going to like the evolution of this vlog, I sure enjoy doing these. One thing I forgot to mention in my vlog…Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Please Vote on November 4th

The election is fast approaching, less than a week today. I am encouraging everyone to go out and vote, no matter what party you are affiliated with or who you cast your ballot for. I just ask that you make your decision in an educated manner. Please don’t let petty campaign stunts influence you and distract you from the real issues at hand. We are facing rough times now and in the future. We need to elect a leader based on his abilities, not his middle name.

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Inaugural BoumanBlog Vlog

It’s finally here, my first vlog. It took me a while to configure everything, so I hope you like it. I know it’s a bit long, in the future I will attempt to edit it down. I will continue to vlog in the future and I hope that it gets better over time. I hope you enjoy this, I do get a bit long winded.

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Vlog Postponed

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I have to postpone my vlog launch. I’m having some technical difficulties (when am I not?), it will hopefully be up by this weekend.

In the mean time, I will leave you with a few videos of my favorite Hollywood crush. She is the lovely Natalie Portman. The reason why I bring her up is because I just found a video of her that made me fall in “love” with her even more. Yes, it’s semi-pathetic (ok, 100%) to be posting my school girl crush on Ms. Portman, but quite frankly I don’t care. This blog is about me and why not get to know me a little more?

The first clip is Natalie Portman in the movie Garden State. You can’t help but love her character in the movie and coincidently, get a ‘lil doe eyed for Ms. Portman as well.

The second clip, the one that spurned this entry, is quite funny. It’s the antithesis of the first clip and every other perceived tid bit we think we know about Natalie Portman. However, upon seeing this clip, I had to watch it 10 more times. Can an SNL short really make you fall in love? (sigh)

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

Where the Hell is Matt?

Hey everyone, let me start this entry by PROMISING a vlog (video log) next week. I have been meaning to do this for some time, and I know everyone is missing a story straight from my lips rather than my finger tips. I will be recounting to you the half marathon I finished last week. It will be enjoyable.

This entry is about my yearning for world travel. Having traveled seems to be both a curse and a blessing. I know how fortunate I am to have world travel experience, but it only leaves me wanting more. I have been able to suppress my travel bug for some time, allowing myself only to look at my old photos a few times. I don’t allow myself to read the travel section of any periodical or watch the travel channel, no matter how hard that is for me. However, my new (and awesome) job has exposed me to two factors that have spurred this insatiable itch once again.

Everyday I drive to work and when I get off the freeway I see LAX. I am so “fortunate” to see the international airplane tarmac. Everyday I sigh and look at these planes and think about all the cool places they are going and the adventures that people on board will have. Secondly, Friday at work, I was watching viral videos to get ideas for my videos (I work in the viral marketing department) and I came across, “Where the Hell is Matt.” It was a video of this guy who just travels the world , doing this goofy dance, and compiles it all together and puts it on the web. After I watched the video and saw all the amazing countries he’s been to, I visited his website and read his story. He’s basically living the dream of millions of world travelers. He made this silly video of himself, put it online, it went viral and caught the attention of Stride Gum. They footed the bill for the rest of his travels, as long as he kept doing what he was doing. So rad.

I might not get sponsored by corporate America (but I will try) to travel the world, but I WILL travel again. My next desired locations are Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina. After that, whenever I afford it, I want to explore the rest of South America, head over to Africa, then swing by Australia, head up to South East Asia again, and finish off with Europe. Maybe I’ll drop south to Antarctica if I am so fortunate. I probably won’t do that all in one trip, but that’s my desired order as for right now. So, until I can live out my dream and travel the world and bring you along with me via my blog, I will leave you with one of Matt Harding’s many international dance videos. (I recommend watching them all, so cool)

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

It’s 4 AM in LA

It’s 4:00 am right now and I can’t sleep. Not even remotely tired. My best guess is because I’m still baffled by the job interview I went on today, er yesterday now. I’m really excited about the opportunity with this online marketing company, but I can’t gauge how well it went. I can only surmise that I fell flat on my face.

Why do I think I fell flat on my face if I just said that I can’t gauge how it went? Because I had nothing to do today but reflect. Sixteen hours of reflecting can really mess with your psyche. The interview lasted approximately 10 minutes. I’ve worked a booger longer than that. However, I’ve gone on 10 minute interviews where I was hired on the spot before. They seemed to have not even taken a good look at my entire resume, just the part that said ‘viral marketing’. The entire interview entailed me speaking about my viral experience and them giving me the bullet points to the job. Boom. Done like a cheeseburger.

What is really keeping me up is the fact that I didn’t self promote at all. I left my big brass balls at home or in the car and came to the interview with my 9 year old sack. I feel like there were a lot of yes sirs and no sirs in the interview. If they wanted to hear that pedantic drivel, they could hop on down to the local Home Depot and pick up some day labors.

“Do you want to build me a porch?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Do I have to pay you minimum wage?”

“No sir.”

I’m not saying that I should have gone in there, mouth blazing, falsely proclaiming that I started the Obama Girl campaign, but I could have shown more life. At one point one of the interviewers asked if I had any problems with racy topics or ideas. I simply answered, “No.” Then meagerly followed that up with something like, “I push the limits” or something equally as lame. Um, HELLO! If anyone knows me, Jesse Bouman, you know that I don’t push limits when it comes to story telling, or topics of conversation, I go over the edge. I join the bandwagon of story telling and then at the very end I take over the wheel and shift into high gear, leaving my friends in a confused, grossed out, and disturbed state. Yet, in this interview I can only muster a, two letter answer. Sickening, I deserve to be unemployed and fighting other bums for bottles to recycle.

Maybe these two guys are complete geniuses and could see my ’skillz’ underneath my tender and polite suburban demeanor. Hopefully this is the case, but these hours of self reflection have allowed me to convince myself they looked at each other like there was a turd on the floor after I left the office. I feel sorry for the next HR lady who will feel the wrath of this recent interview debacle. I will likely make outlandish and unsubstantiated claims of my marketing genius, stretch the truth of my resume so much so it will look like the stomach of mother who just bore 12 children. I may even pound my chest, yell, and use the adjective ‘awesome’ to describe myself. She will probably not call me back for another interview. Not because of my idiotic self promotion, but rather out of sheer terror that I might make good on my claim that I could turn her into an internet superstar with the help of a digital camera, floss, and a jelly doughnut. Yea, it’s 4am and my ideas are representing this time of night. Time to pack it in Bouman. Good night everyone and send any job leads my way.

*Editors Note: Wpromote hired Jesse Bouman a mere 14 hours after this blog was originally posted.