HOROSCOPES


Scorpio (October 23 to November 21) Te romantic sparks should start spewing like a keg party in a fireworks store lacking a no- smoking policy. If you’re not looking for a long- term romantic flare-up, shield yourself with a serious relationship’s best extinguisher: jealousy. Take on an opposing-sexed roommate – his or her mere presence will stomp out any caller’s attempts to build a fiery romance.


Sagittarius(November 22 to December 21) Te rainbow of Life hardly ever leads to a pot of gold – it usually leads to a cesspool of disappointment. Adopting a “money isn’t everything, love is the answer” attitude looks good on paper and sounds even better read aloud, but in today’s materialistic world, money solves problems – whereas love usually just creates them.


Capricorn (December 22 to January 19) You don’t need to bring giſts to every event to which you’re invited. Te human resource is in short supply these days, especially on the friendship front – that you take time out of your life to show up at the event is giſt enough. If you’re planning a party, make your guests aware that while their presents mean nothing, their presence means everything.


Aquarius (January 20 to February 19) You’d be better off buying a new car than taking your current one to a mechanic, even for something as simple as an oil change; it’s hard enough to get mechanics to do a job, let alone do it right. Tat’s because professional gearheads draw the same hourly wage whether they’re tearing their hands apart on your bearing assembly or scratching their ass with an oil dipstick, and unfortunately, most of them are even money to botch both jobs.


Pisces (February 18 to March 20) Te interest that others show in Pisces is genuine; they want to know why nothing bothers you. Funny, the only thing that really does bother you is all these people asking you why nothing bothers you. Let them know that just because you can hold your own doesn’t make you responsible for holding everyone else’s own. Tey lock people up for that.


Aries (March 21to April 19) Aries has all the spontaneity of an atomic clock – shadowing you for an aſternoon would bore even Helen Keller into ditching you for something more stimulating. If you’re smart, you’ll begin combining your lack of spontaneity with your anal tendencies to develop full- blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which will at least be a clinical excuse for being such a freak.


Taurus (April 20 to May 20) If you think you have a superior mind just because you understand what makes things tick, remember, so did Te Unibomber. Over-thinking everything is about as mentally healthy as working full time at a Renaissance Festival; you could easily lose track of what is real and what


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is fantasy. Tinking is not the same as living; people who think they are capable of working everything out in their head are invariably the same people who believe David Copperfield actually made the Statue of Liberty disappear.


Gemini (May 21 to June 20) Gemini realizes that mankind was not meant to wake up before noon. Tere’s an old saying that goes, “Morning would be a whole lot better if it came later in the day,” which is true, but try explaining that to your boss. Well, as long as you have to get up with the chickens, feel free to curse those foul creatures and taunt them with a sunny-side up reminder of their place on the food chain.


Cancer (June 21 to July 22) Te fire hose of good advice will be blasting you right in the face this week – it’ll be hard to ignore, but as always, Cancer will find a way. Sure, you act interested in self-improvement, but the mere


book doesn’t correct anything (except kleptomania). Try to at


act of buying a self-help least


thumb


the damn book before filing it atop the “ignore” pile, if it will fit – all that unused exercise equipment is chewing up a lot of space.


Leo (July 23 to August 22) Leo is about to have an encounter with an old flame. Beware; that old flame intends to douse your heart with gasoline and throw a flaming matchbook cover at it. Remember, the term “old flame” is not a misnomer – old flames will burn you just as badly as they did the first time. Tere’s only one way to get rid of a flame: cut off its oxygen supply.


Virgo (August 23 to September 22) If you’re still searching for evidence of a higher power, just mull over this theorem for a few ticks: God is love; love is blind; Ray Charles is blind; therefore, Ray Charles is God. Study the logic. Tere really isn’t much room for argument.


Libra (September 23 to October 22) Don’t trust anyone who speaks more from a spreadsheet than from the heart; would you listen to a preacher who simply read his sermon from a legal pad? Of course not, and you shouldn’t listen to me either. Astrologers are the bottom-feeders of the already-corrupt publishing business, and you’d be a fool to take advice from a person like me, who spends his leisure time writing death threats to Survivor contestants.


Above: Nervous job applicant Becky Tompson attempts to explain her credit situation to a potential employer’s human resources manager.


Buffalo, N.Y. – Becky Tompson, a 38-year-old job applicant at Murphy’s Furniture Outlet in downtown Buffalo, is not nearly as worried about the company’s human resource department running her social security number through a thorough occupational background check looking for indications of bad references from past employees or signs of a criminal record nearly as much as she fears their acquiring a copy of her personal credit history, Tompson admitted Tuesday. “My employment record is fairly solid,


and I don’t have any arrests or anything like that, so that sort of investigation doesn’t scare me at all. It’s just that my credit report probably makes me look like some sort of human Enron, the way


her employment records show no considerable gaps or include any fictional information or questionable references, one look at her current credit report would likely cause potential employees to question Tompson’s credibility. “I’m not sure how you get this across


to employers on a job application, but a person just doesn’t bounce back that quickly from a bankruptcy,” said Tompson, who claimed to have recently explained to a number of human resource


representatives about the


unique circumstances surrounding her 2002 divorce from ex-husband James Reece, which she credited as having directly caused her credit problems. “It’ll probably be decades before I can rebuild my credit up to a point where banks and


“My employment record is fairly solid, and I don’t have any arrests or anything like that, so that sort of investigation doesn’t scare me at all. It’s just that my credit report


probably makes me look like some sort of human Enron,” said Tompson.


my unpaid debts are stacked up,” said Tompson. “I don’t know how far they go with these checks these days, but if they do look at my credit record I’m sure they’ll be sufficiently unimpressed. My credit score can’t be more than about four hundred these days, and I’ll bet you anything that if those two car repossessions are still on my report, that’s going to leave them with a really sour taste in their mouths.” Tompson explained that although


loan officers will even agree to talk to me again, let alone seriously consider my job applications.” Added Tompson: “I just realized that


one of my outstanding creditors is also one of my old employers. Tat can’t look good at all.” Tompson noted that she would be


more than happy to comply in taking a pre-employment drug test so long as she doesn’t have to pay for it.


EMPLOYMENT


Applicant more worried about potential employers running credit report than background check


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