Letters to the Boy
Posted by nopa in Uncategorized on November 23rd, 2009
I’ve started a project (I started it a good while ago actually) where I am writing letters to my son as he gestates. I have a couple of them already, and I haven’t decided yet if I want to share them with the world or if I’m going to keep them as a private note to my son — however… I want ideas on topics to write about. So far I have written (and rewritten, and rewritten) about his name, and I have one written about B and I met. Some other topics I’m thinking about writing are:
- Real Men Cry: What every man needs to know about emotions
- The easiest thing is not always the right thing, unless it is
- If you use 3 words when you could have used 10, you’re not trying hard enough
- Don’t Be Like your dad and drop out of school twice
Some of them won’t happen, and more (hopefully) will… but any ideas would be awesome.
-J
Things I Wish I Had Said
Posted by nopa in Uncategorized on October 1st, 2009
- To that girl I knew in High School, “I’m not saying I’m not an idiot, I’m just saying you’re a bitch.”
- To that guy who was at my store that time, “Yes, I understand there is a long line, And I understand that you have better things to do, but do you understand that by sitting here and yelling at me you don’t move up in line and, in fact, you make the line go much, much slower?”
- To that guy, “What the fuck man, what the fuck?
- To that lady in the store, “NO! Please don’t call the police, it was an accident.”
- To the mall security guard that kicked me out of the mall, “Dude, you’re kicking me out becuase I ‘did not purchase anything?’ Seriously? I BOUGHT LUNCH AT THE FOOD COURT!!!! BOOH YAH!!!!!!!!!!!“
- To my old boss that time, “You said you’d give me a promotion for transferring stores against my wishes, and you said you wouldn’t transfer me stores without talking to me again, and you did it again. You’re a dick, Dick.”
- To my wife that time, “You have an unhealthy relationship with peopleofwalmart.com, but I still love you.”
Terror
I’ve been thinking about being a parent a lot lately… more accurately, I’ve been catching myself forgetting that I’m going to be a parent then feeling awfully guilty about it. I mean, it’s something I’m thinking about more often than damned near anything else right now, but there are times where I’ll completely forget, for a time, that I have a little fetus doing a little “hug-me” dance in my wife’s belly.
When I stop to really think about it, I don’t think it’s so terrible, and I’m sure it’s not that uncommon, but damned if I don’t feel guilty about it. I mean, that was some time I could have been working on the nursery (it’s fully modeled in Sketchup, by the way), or trying to get into shape, or figuring out what I want to be when I grown up, or anything that would help me be a better parent. As excited as I am about being Dad to some little guy or gal, it’s really really terrifying to me that I sometimes forget that it’s growing. Hell, it’s terrifying to me that I still think poop is funny and I’m about have a kid (although: since poop is so funny to me, I’m hoping I’ll at least get a good laugh out of the diaper changing)… I don’t know what all is going on in my head, but darn it if it isn’t going on a lot.
Alright, to bed.
-J
Thanks Brain, You Suck.
Seriously, what the hell. I was very tired, yet not sleepy at all three hours ago when the wife was going to bed. I knew that it wouldn’t be too long and I’d head off that way, but I’d play some vidja games first. Except, I was starving so I made a little late-night snack (Velveta, salsa and chips if you must know) with the intention to head straight to bed after. But, wait… I need something to do whilst I munch, and so on went TNG. And there went my night.
Somehow I managed to make it from working on just a nice easy evening to trying to figure out how to make my Rock Band drum kit work for “Actual Recording” so that I didn’t have to pound out a drum track one drum at a time on a midi-keyboard. Yup, I know, right? That’s the next logical thought to have during a Star Trek episode with nacho-breath.
Next thing I know I’m watching a second episode of Star Trek and doing serious Googley research (thank you O’Riley, for the ability to hone my searching. Fuck you O’Riley for the ability to hone my searches) into the methods for getting the Rock Band drum kit to work on my Mac. Apparently it’s not possible without for-pay software, however, if I become an electronica artist Steim’s junXion will certainly be my ace in the hole for creating crazy music stuff. That thing will turn my freaking dishwasher into an orchestra (I… … I might be exaggerating on that… but only a bit… a bit… just a bit…)
I have no idea who these people are, if they’re a school, or what… but they seem to have some insanity when it comes to electroic controls for music. And I like it.
Anyways, I’ve got a conference call in less than 8 hours, and then a day full of beer, BBQ, Beer, and perhaps R/C Cars… because Wednesdays are my Saturdays.
-J
Burned is as Burned Does
Nope, I will never understand why I made a Forrest Gump reference there either… anyways… Went on a trip this weekend. Worked Friday and Saturday and then headed off from work to Muskegon, and a couple hours later I ate some of the thinnest pizza ever. Pretty damned good if it weren’t for the gas later (well, ok, the gas ruined nothing, but still). Then I tried to make a fire.
The fire was less than particularly successful despite the copious amounts of lamp oil (from ‘06) and lighter fluid. Stupid green wood having to season and dry out before it’ll burn like fire… crazy ass lightning storm that night? Totally made up for firefail.
Today at the beech was, to be brief: sunburnalicious. To be less brief: Great time, lots of playing in the waves like a five year old (can’t wait to have a five year old of my own to watch do the exact same things I like doing, only it’s age appropriate and not at all weird), little sitting in the sun, not nearly enough sunblock. Which brings us to the HOLY CRAP MY NECK IS ON FIRE! IT’S NOT ON FIRE? IT FEELS LIKE IT’S ON FIRE! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, LET ME STOP DROP AND ROLL!!!!!
And that was my weekend. I will call it successful.
-J
Well… Here We Go Again
Posted by nopa in Uncategorized on August 3rd, 2009
So, here I am at the desk in my office. I’m trying, desperately, to work on getting a space put together where I can be productive on all the many, many projects that I have going. Not the least of which is making a new layout for this site. I kinda hate the way it looks right now, but it’s got a lot of neat javascript things going on and that makes me happy. Whenever I actually go to make the layout myself I will, of course, cease all javascripting goodies because I’ve never learned how to effectively use them (read: they always break when I use them).
I am trying a few plugins here at QuoCentral (new title needs to happen also eventually — just haven’t gotten there yet). phpMarkdown is the most important of the two. The other is Akismet, which is comment spam filtering. So once I get that configured, I’m going to try to turn on open comments again. Why? Because I know how many of you internetziens are out there trying to comment and just can’t figure out the WordPress Captcha to make some pithy remarks regarding my prose. I also want to work in some Twitter plugin to allow my tweets to be archived here as well. That’d be swell. I will never, however, make a tweet regarding one of my new posts. Because I’m not important enough. Only Wil has that right.
Anyways, I’ll try to write something of consequense here later today. I’ve got a few projects that I’m working on right now. So, peace out homey.
-J
Tomorrow
Posted by nopa in Ruminating on June 23rd, 2009
I’m currently riding an Amtrak train from Kzoo back to the other side of the state to buy a van from my Mom. I have access to the complete internet because my phone works as a broadband-speed modem (even while traveling 80mph in a giant metal tube), I have multiple weeks worth of music in my pocket that I’m listening to (including such trash-pop icons such as Kelly Clarkson, Peaches, and Lady GaGa), and after I’m done with this post, I’m going to read about What to Expect when I’m expecting (or, my wife in this case).
I’ve been thinking about what it’s going to mean to be a father a lot lately, as is probably expected from someone who recently realized that he’s definitely, for sure, not sterile. Will I be a good father? Will I be able to help this little bundle of cells that is, as I type, growing “arm nubs” become a generally well adjusted, contributing member of society? Will I have any frame of reference to discuss anything with my child? That’s the big one there… I’m terrified that I won’t know what to say, how to say it, or what important things I need to listen to. I’m sure that throughout my childhood and adolescence I gave my parents all sorts of clues as to what was actually going on in my life and I’m sure that my interests made it increasingly difficult for them to talk to me.
Oh sure, when I was younger all I wanted to know about was dinosaurs and explosions in movies. But after about 9, I wanted to know not if Messrs. Stallone, Schwarzenegger, or Van Damme would be O.K., but rather what ratio of various explosive substances made it so that they were O.K.. I didn’t want to know just how to play a video game, but I wanted to read the entire DOS/Windows manual (and I did. No really. On vacation. Because I’m cool). I fear that I’m going to become the old and jaded out of touch parent that (I always felt that) my parents were.
All in all, of course, they really did a good job by me. They let me learn my lessons in my own way, in my own time (sometimes in my own lots and lots and lots of time), and I just want to make sure that I’m going to be able to do that for my little Baby K.
-Jon
Still Thinking…
Posted by nopa in Uncategorized on June 10th, 2009
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to be trying to do here. I think that I may, in fact, retire the blog to start a new one with a purpose that is more than just listening to myself try to be witty. Except, that’s all the new one would be with a so-called mission statement, so that’s kinda pointless, and I’d loose many years worth of archives. So we’ll see. But more than that, right now, I’m thinking about how in the world I’m going to try to keep myself organized.
I have a habit of sending myself notes about things that I want to follow up on. Ideas that I might want to follow through on. Crazy ass shit I see on the street I don’t want to forget. The thing is, I send this stuff all into my e-mail, and then I don’t really go through it anymore after that. It’s not organized except as being labeled as notes to myself. I’ve thought about implimenting a personal database of schtuff but devonThink and Circus Ponies Notebook were lacking a key feature. The ability for me to add crap easily, while on the go, and look it up when I was bored. Meaning: they didn’t sync with my phone.
Thank the good lord for Evernote. Mobile app? Check. Tags? Check. Ability to search images for text for later searching? Check. Magic? Check.
-Jon
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p>P.S. Holy crap. To do lists within notes? Sync’d to-do lists from my phone to the web to my computer has been a dream. A wild fantasy. Good crap. I might be in love.
Dreamweaver
Posted by nopa in Uncategorized on May 16th, 2009
I Had some seriously strange dreams last night. The first was that I was in the Veronica Mars universe in ROTC… I was all Army-ing it up when all of a sudden the focus shifted to Wallace Fennel. He was busy getting out of a huey (that’s Army talk for Helicopter) that was hovering over a river. He had on a safety harness and was still clipped on to the chopper when something got caught in a poorly placed series of wheels and gears on the side of the huey and started pulling in the line that was connecting him to the chopper. For some reason he had forgotten he was still attached until the moment when the line went tight… He fought against it, hard, and it finally snapped off him, swung around the pivot point where it was getting pulled from and the carabiner that was attached to his harness came back with incredible force and went right through his helmet and killed him… … in the dream it was extremely graphic and my dream-self puked.
Then I had a dream that B and I were going out of town… we had gotten everything ready to leave, and slept in the car. But then in the morning we had to use the bathroom, so we went inside and the couch was gone. So was the table in the kitchen. So we made out for a few seconds, then my dream self realized that the furniture was missing and I started to freak out. At which point B ran upstairs, I followed… and of course we were then in my house from high school. We were trying to get it ready to sell, and our realtor was there — crying.
I’m not sure what it means, but I’m pretty sure it means that I had some messed up subconscious that likes to mess with my conscious self.
-Jon
Clichéd Open Letter to The Heroes Creative Team
Posted by nopa in Boob Tube, Emote!, Geek Out, Rants & Raves on May 5th, 2009
Dear Mr. Kring, etc.,
I know the whole, “Open Letter” thing is now so common it’s a joke. I’m also confident I’m not the first to voice my disapproval of Heroes of late but, dammit, I just can’t keep it in anymore. Mr. Kring, you’re killing your show.
First off: why, oh why, can you just not follow the rules you’ve set? You start off with a few people having abilities, all of them seemingly getting them from their parents. Only, if they get the same ability (Matt Parkman, Sylar) or a different one is totally arbitrary and serves only the plot. But then, why does Parkman suddenly get the crazy eyes and painting ability. He didn’t even get it from anything. Apropos of nothing, suddenly he was “a prophet.” Then he stops painting, but we don’t know if he can’t or doesn’t. So, what is it? Does he see the future? Does he not? Was it a weird manifestation of swine flu?
Second: If you make a character have strong morals, extreme ethics, and the ability to take any other ability… don’t you think he’d do something about loosing the girl he loves in a horrible dystopian future as a prisoner? Maybe he could take his time-traveling friend’s ability so that he can go save her? No? Ok, how about get his time-traveling friend to take him to the future to help? No? Maybe… mourn? Even just mention her… to anyone… ever. No? Ah-ha! I get it! Having a character make any fucking sense is apparently anathema to you and yours. Asshole.
The biggest thing I’ve been having a problem with is your immortal characters. And not just the cheerleader. Let me ask you this, why don’t you give your story some sort of emotional weight by killing off a character? What? Oh, Veronica Mars? You want to use the Veronica Mars defense? Ok, how’s about the “Who Gives a Crap” gambit? You haven’t heard of that one? Ok, it goes like this. No one gives a crap if you kill off a character you introduced that season that has no moral center and is, frankly, mostly annoying. Any other characters that you introduced only to die before you could make them interesting enough for us to care? Nope, we don’t care about them either. You have a huge cast of really interesting characters that people love. They would be well-served to be thinned out like the deer population. Kill off a few so that the others can thrive.
No, seriously. I stopped caring about these people because they are immortal like Jack Bauer; except it’s a very different show you’re running. Sure, Jack Bauer has testes the size of an elephant and can yell hard enough to get that vein in his forehead this close to popping; but he’s the show. He is the show. After 6 full seasons and most of a seventh, if he died, it’s because they were ending the show. In the universe of 24 if Jack Bauer wasn’t alive to be in the right place at the right time to do something just outside the rules, the terrorists would win. Always. In Heroes you have a bunch of people who, literally, have super powers. Show us that they are, in fact, human. Kill one and let them be dead. Don’t bring back Ali Larter to be her heretofore unknown third identical. Or, if you do, MAKE IT INTERESTING! Have Nathan have some sort of crisis of conscience about screwing this girl that looks just like that other girl he screwed. Have ice-girl have the thought that maybe Nathan isn’t really into her, but he’s really just trying to relive the crazy Vegas weekend he had with her twin that she never met. Maybe just have someone else comment on the fact that it’s really screwed up and nearly incestuous that he’s just going around boinking the triplets-McSuper.
Oh, and killing off Nathan in the Volume 5 finale? Yeah. Would’ve loved it if you had let him just, for the love of all that’s holy, let him stay dead. But no, that just isn’t good enough for you. Suddenly Matt Parkman is able to make Sylar forget who he is to the point that he’s no longer a threat. What? Where was that four seasons ago? By giving Parkman’s ability that kind of power (weird sentence, but that was seriously the best I could do) is to make the previous everything-that-has-happened-on-your-show meaningless. It could have ended the first time Matt met Sylar. Maybe stretching it out to the third… sure. But… four seasons? Blow me.
I’ll give “Volume” 5 three episodes. If you don’t let Bryan Fuller do what he does best (and that would be: Make a show that contains insane fantastical elements make sense(Pushing Daisies anyone?)) we won’t be on speaking terms.
-Jon