Regrets
I was just daydreaming about someone asking me if I had any regrets in life. This person said to me, "Hey there Jon-boy, what do you think you'd tell your son if he asked you if you have any regrets..." I thought about it, and replied, "Well Bob," the dude in my daydream was named Bob I guess, "Well Bob," I said, "I think I'd have to tell him that the only thing I regret in life so far is that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member (founding or otherwise) of a comedy troupe."
This, of course, begs the question of WHY I would want to be a member of a comedy troupe. Well, frankly, I think that it'd be nice to one day have my son ask me who those weirdos are in that picture up there on the shelf (in this mythical future I'm building in my head, we keep pictures on a shelf you see). My response would be something along the lines of, "Oh son, that's my old comedy troupe. We used to to sketch comedy for strangers on the streets of Buffalo for spare change and used cigars. That one, Ol' Big Jim Bob, would sometimes get dressed up as a woman so that the sketches could make more sense. Also, I think he liked it. After we worked together for a while, we made a few movies, had a TV show and I ended up playing Q in a few of the Bond movies. After my movie career I had a rough patch where I had to go to the Mary Kate and Ashley Rehabilitation Center to get over my addiction to US Weekly. Eventually I cleaned myself up, got a good job and that's the story of how I met your mother."
You know how you can have lucid dreams? Yeah, this was the opposite of that. I was awake and had no control of the daydream.
-J
PS: Then I woke up and got a call from the operator and she was screaming, "THE CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE YOUR HOUSE! INSIDE YOUR HOUSE!!!!
Letters to the Boy
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
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."
Well… Here We Go Again
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
Still Thinking…
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
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
Do You Have Any Babies?
There was a couple looking at the house across the street from ours. I thought it'd be nice if I went over and let them know how nice the neighborhood is.
"So... you're looking at this place, eh?" "Yeah. This seems like a really nice neighborhood." "Oh it is. It is. We've only been here a couple of months, and we really love it. Except for the full moon of course." "... .... .... uh. What?" "Oh, they didn't tell you? Yeah, we've got a pretty bad werewolf problem around these parts." "You've got... wait. What?!?" "Yeah. Werewolves. Pretty bad this time of year. It's not too bad as long as you get used to watching the lunar cycle. Oh, unless you have babies. Do you have any babies? You'll want to set up a panic room for them if you do. Werewolves eat babies you know." "... ... ... ..." "Oh, and, if you're interested, we have monthly smelting parties to melt down old jewelry to make silver bullets. Do you have a problem smelting your jewelry?"
It was about then they slowly backed off and left. I didn't even get to the point where I would "hear" a wolf howl and then run away like a monkey. Oh well.
-Jon
Well Crap.
Crap crap crap crap and crap. Seriously, I had broken the habit. I had stopped. I went cold turkey, and did it. And what happens? I just get sucked right back in. That's right. I'm back on the DaveMatthewsCrack.
I've always really loved the Dave Matthews Band, and that's absolutely no secret to anyone that knows me. I'd moved on though. I'd gotten what I could get out of the band, still loved their music dearly, but not been particularly interested in what's going on with them lately. Then (a year or more ago) Doc goes and tells me that the Stand Up tracks don't suck so hard when they've been played live for a while. And today B suggests that perhaps we play one of those songs for our first dance. I don't have any recollection of the songs on the album except the exceptionally annoying clap-synth on Old Dirt Hill and that American Baby is... shall we say... repetitive. So I go and listen to the song she suggested and... I'll admit. I really dug it. Don't know why two of the last three albums they've put out took multiple years between listens for me to start to like, but I'll be. I like it. It's not, not, not the Dave Matthews Band I fell in love with back in the halcyon days of high school. But, I have to admit, the keys don't suck the life out of the music like I used to think. And, truly, Glen Ballard isn't such a dipshit.
Thing is, now I want some of this stuff from the live shows. And... they've been playing some crazy stuff at live shows lately. Rhyme or Reason. In 2008. No, but really. If you follow them, it's crazy. I've been to four shows myself, and have over 90 archived here at Casa de Nopa, and I'm not sure that I have a single live copy of that tune.
And I found a source. So... this could get worse before it gets better. But. At least it's not the most unhealthy addiction.
-Jon
Homestar Ruiner
There was a time where my week was made, without fail, by Homestarrunner.com (it's Dot Net!). I would watch the e-mails every week and monday was a special holiday for me. A 2-5 minute holiday. I've since stopped being as on the ball with watching, but I've never lost my absolute adoration for Mr. Bad and his friends. Therefore, when Strong Bad's Cool Game 4 Attractive People was announced, I made a mess of myself. I started playing it last night. Now, while not everyone in the house "understands what the hell is going on," this thing is taking me back to middle school. Seriously, this is a point and click adventure the likes of Lucas Arts before Dark Forces turned them into a All-Star-Wars-All-The-Time game shop. Anyways, I'm super excited to keep playing. Love you internet, kisses.
-Jon
Mother. Of. Crap.
Dunno about the title... just seemed to fit somehow... but I'm not sure how because I got distracted after I wrote it and forgot how I was going to open this post up... ... oh, maybe it was that my toe's been throbbing all day and it might have something to do with the fact that it looks like it's been bleeding under the nail since this morning... that might have something to do with it. Perhaps also that I just cleaned up dog poo, and pee, after I stepped in it and dealt with less than the most helpful pharmacist in the world (as if there's such a thing as a helpful pharmacist... ... ... actually, there is. I'm just mad. Keep dem pharmaceuticals coming ladies and gents, papa needs his heart not to a'splode).
Right now I'm missing being in Mexico. I got some Pacifico beer, which is like Carona if it was something that Mexicans drank and was good, and damned if it doesn't make me miss the mind altering humidity and skin searing sun. Only, I really did mean those both in a good way. I guess it's a good thing I'm going there on my honeymoon, eh? I also miss using a desktop computer. Really, really miss a desktop computer. I miss having a keyboard on my lap and a screen on my desk. I want a new one, like woah. I'm probably going to get one soon, I will have to devise a secret hiding place in my room I can squirrel away money in my room... someplace secret. Someplace safe... ... mostly from me. And my desire for lunch.
-Jon