Saturday, December 03, 2005
Wasted Time, Foiled Fraud, What Not To Watch, And I've Still Got It
There’s an expression that states that youth is wasted on the young.
I’m of the opinion that time off is wasted on Jon.
Of course, at least today, that’s not entirely my fault.
Given that I didn’t have to get up early for work today, Kathleen and I were going to check out “First Friday” in Leesburg.
On the first Friday of the month the various downtown shops stay open late to encourage people to shop downtown. I figured it was something to do, so I agreed when Kathleen had suggested that.
Sometime yesterday afternoon she IMed me to let me know that thanks to tiredness, crankiness, and the lack of a winter coat, she wanted to forego First Friday.
It didn’t really matter to me, so I was content to simply go home and enjoy the novelty of being awake on a Friday night.
The novelty wore pretty thin in a hurry, but more on that later.
Originally our plan for Saturday was to check out some kind of craft show, though that was going to be interrupted by her having a hair appointment at noon.
Then she decided to enlist my aid in helping her to defraud The Room Store, and decided that she wasn’t going to have the extra money to spend at the craft show, and so we were also going to just call that a miss, head to the Room Store, Burlington Coat Factory for her to get a coat, and have lunch before she dropped me off at home and went to her appointment.
She actually surprised me this morning by being on her way to pick me up well before I expected her to, so when she called to let me know she was on her way I had showered but had not gotten dressed.
We stopped at a Costco, as I was going to give her the money (I’m not a Costco member) to pick up a “Napoleon Dynamite” DVD gift set that Scott had told us about yesterday, but ultimately I decided against it.
While we were there, Brian sent me a picture of work with a text message asking me if I wished I were there instead.
On Kathleen’s suggestion, I was going to respond, “No, I’m having too much fun with your wife,” but I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the phone’s T9 predictive crap (as you hit a key it tries to predict what word you want to type).
From there we went to the Room Store.
Currently they have a deal in which you get 20% any one item. She wanted to buy a dresser and a set of nightstands, and was going to give me the money to buy the nightstand so that she could get a discount on that at the same time she got a discount on the dresser. She was going to go to another Room Store location to purchase the other nightstand separately and get the discount on that as well.
The vagaries of delivery charges, however, would have meant that after all was said and done she’d only end up saving $10.
So ultimately, after calling to consult with Brian, she ended up shelling out thee times as much as she’d intended to spend and bought the entire bedroom set, including a new bed.
That took much longer than anticipated, despite our early start, and so she only had time to quickly pick out a coat, drop me off at home, and then be late for her hair appointment.
We may get together to do something else after her hair appointment’s done, but I doubt it.
So that was my exciting day off, which pretty much involved not doing any of the things that I’d originally planned to do when I took it off.
Once I got home, I decided to brave the cold and go for a walk, but then decided that I’d rather go home, get in the car, and drive somewhere to get something for lunch, so I turned around and headed back.
I drove down to the nearest McDonald’s, but the number of cars in the parking lot and in the drive through made me say “screw that,” and so I came home and, still unfed, here I am writing this.
As I said, time off is wasted on Jon, and yet after tomorrow I have a whole lot more of it ahead of me.
I’m almost inclined to take a nap, but that would be foolish, given that I’d never be able to get to sleep tonight if I did, and I do still have to get up early tomorrow.
Tonight is my company’s big holiday party. Because we’re not going, Brian and I will be the only people in at work for the first few hours, as the others opted to come in late, as they will have been up late at the party.
I should think I wouldn’t need to explain why I have no interest in attending the party.
I did actually go to the party two years ago, but that was only because I actually had a date, though, again, even if you don’t already know the story, I should think I wouldn’t really need to get into explaining how that turned out.
The whole thing was actually this sort of weird self-contained thing: I only went to the party because I had a date, and I pretty much only had a date because I was taking her to the party.
(Our party’s tend to be big, impressive, and expensive affairs, and she was very eager to see what the fuss was all about. Eager enough, in fact, to be willing to go with me.)
As for my Friday night spent awake rather than asleep, the highlight was watching a holiday episode of “Monk.”
I didn’t do much with the extra time beyond a little bit of computer hygiene, and from 9 until 10 (at which point “Monk” came on), there was pretty much nothing on TV.
While I didn’t have any interest in sitting down and watching anything (if I did, I could have watched any of the various movies that have begun to pile up, unwatched, on my DVR), I did want to have something halfway decent on for background noise.
In the end, I settled for “What Not to Wear,” which is kind of funny, for multiple reasons.
For one thing, I think the last time I watched that show was last December when I took a weekend off to burn off my remaining vacation balance.
For another, despite the fact that I haven’t watched the show in almost a year, and wasn’t even sure if it was still on, for the past couple of weeks I’ve just found myself, at random times, fantasizing about banging the chick from the show.
The thing is, she’s not even that hot (and her nose is truly ginormous), but I guess I don’t always have full control over where my mind will wander…or what it will do when it gets there, but we won’t get into that.
Now the chick who does the make-up on the show is much, much hotter, but is a total bitch. I seriously can’t get over what a bitch she is. Sure, the two main people on the show make lots of catty comments about the fashion victim’s tastes, but this chick is just vicious, and her comments aren’t restricted to just bad taste.
For example, on the episode I watched, as she was plucking the fashion victim’s eyebrows she made numerous “Chewbacca” references and made a big show of being exhausted from how much work it took to pluck them down to reasonable levels.
But in general she’s just this uber-bitch who exudes an attitude of “I’m going to show you a few tricks that will allow you to use cosmetics to cover that Quasimodo face of yours and manage to almost look like a human being, you worthless, unattractive pile of un-exfoliated skin, but, of course, you’ll never be as attractive – and therefore worthwhile as a human being – as I am.”
If I had been that girl – who actually was, even by the catty hosts’ own admission, despite her lack of fashion sense, adorable – whose brows she was plucking, the bitch would have been on the floor with her tweezers shoved someplace extremely uncomfortable.
There’s actually a show on HBO that, like “What Not to Wear,” and pretty much every show on TLC, is an import from the BBC, though rather than making their own version of it HBO actually just airs the original, called “Sex Inspectors.”
The basic set-up of the show is almost identical to “What Not to Wear,” except that rather than overhauling someone’s fashion sense they overhaul a couple’s sex life. I guess you could call it “How Not to Fuck.”
On the topic of bitchy hot chicks who don’t approve of the existence of lesser beings, yesterday was the last day at work for a young woman who’s leaving to work for another company. I’m not saying that she’s a bitch, as I don’t know her at all, and basically have only ever seen her, from afar, at a handful of departmental events – the bitchy hot chick thing will come into play shortly – though she is extremely hot, and it was my observation after learning that she was leaving that our company needs to add hot chicks, not lose the hot chicks we already have.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon they had cake for her as part of a going away celebration. The remnants of the cake were brought into our break room. There were actually two kinds of cake, a chocolate one and a strawberry one. I’d had a piece of the chocolate, and later stopped in to try the strawberry.
When I walked into the break room I was surprised to see a hot chick in there, as chicks, hot or otherwise, are a rarity in the sausage factory that is my workplace.
I saw that she was eating the strawberry cake, so I asked her if it was good.
In a tone of voice that served to reinforce the disdainful look she had given me, she let me know that, yes, it was, and also that she not only disapproved of me having the audacity to speak to her she was deeply offended by the simple fact of my existence.
As I did my best to shrug that off and cut myself a piece of cake, another, not nearly so hot chick came in. The hotter chick said, “I wonder what our cake would say if we left? They say they’ll miss this person.”
In an effort to make up for the bad first impression I’d made by…well, by existing, I decided to throw out a little self-deprecating humor, and said, “Mine would probably say, ‘Who are you?’ or ‘Did you work here?’”
…
I thought it was funny.
My attempt at humor was greeted by the two of them deciding to finish eating their cake elsewhere.
Anyway it was nice to see that I’ve still got it; I can still make a woman feel utter contempt for me in under a minute.
In any case, I suppose that I should try to find something to do with what remains of my time off. Eating would probably be a decent way to pass some of it…
I’m of the opinion that time off is wasted on Jon.
Of course, at least today, that’s not entirely my fault.
Given that I didn’t have to get up early for work today, Kathleen and I were going to check out “First Friday” in Leesburg.
On the first Friday of the month the various downtown shops stay open late to encourage people to shop downtown. I figured it was something to do, so I agreed when Kathleen had suggested that.
Sometime yesterday afternoon she IMed me to let me know that thanks to tiredness, crankiness, and the lack of a winter coat, she wanted to forego First Friday.
It didn’t really matter to me, so I was content to simply go home and enjoy the novelty of being awake on a Friday night.
The novelty wore pretty thin in a hurry, but more on that later.
Originally our plan for Saturday was to check out some kind of craft show, though that was going to be interrupted by her having a hair appointment at noon.
Then she decided to enlist my aid in helping her to defraud The Room Store, and decided that she wasn’t going to have the extra money to spend at the craft show, and so we were also going to just call that a miss, head to the Room Store, Burlington Coat Factory for her to get a coat, and have lunch before she dropped me off at home and went to her appointment.
She actually surprised me this morning by being on her way to pick me up well before I expected her to, so when she called to let me know she was on her way I had showered but had not gotten dressed.
We stopped at a Costco, as I was going to give her the money (I’m not a Costco member) to pick up a “Napoleon Dynamite” DVD gift set that Scott had told us about yesterday, but ultimately I decided against it.
While we were there, Brian sent me a picture of work with a text message asking me if I wished I were there instead.
On Kathleen’s suggestion, I was going to respond, “No, I’m having too much fun with your wife,” but I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the phone’s T9 predictive crap (as you hit a key it tries to predict what word you want to type).
From there we went to the Room Store.
Currently they have a deal in which you get 20% any one item. She wanted to buy a dresser and a set of nightstands, and was going to give me the money to buy the nightstand so that she could get a discount on that at the same time she got a discount on the dresser. She was going to go to another Room Store location to purchase the other nightstand separately and get the discount on that as well.
The vagaries of delivery charges, however, would have meant that after all was said and done she’d only end up saving $10.
So ultimately, after calling to consult with Brian, she ended up shelling out thee times as much as she’d intended to spend and bought the entire bedroom set, including a new bed.
That took much longer than anticipated, despite our early start, and so she only had time to quickly pick out a coat, drop me off at home, and then be late for her hair appointment.
We may get together to do something else after her hair appointment’s done, but I doubt it.
So that was my exciting day off, which pretty much involved not doing any of the things that I’d originally planned to do when I took it off.
Once I got home, I decided to brave the cold and go for a walk, but then decided that I’d rather go home, get in the car, and drive somewhere to get something for lunch, so I turned around and headed back.
I drove down to the nearest McDonald’s, but the number of cars in the parking lot and in the drive through made me say “screw that,” and so I came home and, still unfed, here I am writing this.
As I said, time off is wasted on Jon, and yet after tomorrow I have a whole lot more of it ahead of me.
I’m almost inclined to take a nap, but that would be foolish, given that I’d never be able to get to sleep tonight if I did, and I do still have to get up early tomorrow.
Tonight is my company’s big holiday party. Because we’re not going, Brian and I will be the only people in at work for the first few hours, as the others opted to come in late, as they will have been up late at the party.
I should think I wouldn’t need to explain why I have no interest in attending the party.
I did actually go to the party two years ago, but that was only because I actually had a date, though, again, even if you don’t already know the story, I should think I wouldn’t really need to get into explaining how that turned out.
The whole thing was actually this sort of weird self-contained thing: I only went to the party because I had a date, and I pretty much only had a date because I was taking her to the party.
(Our party’s tend to be big, impressive, and expensive affairs, and she was very eager to see what the fuss was all about. Eager enough, in fact, to be willing to go with me.)
As for my Friday night spent awake rather than asleep, the highlight was watching a holiday episode of “Monk.”
I didn’t do much with the extra time beyond a little bit of computer hygiene, and from 9 until 10 (at which point “Monk” came on), there was pretty much nothing on TV.
While I didn’t have any interest in sitting down and watching anything (if I did, I could have watched any of the various movies that have begun to pile up, unwatched, on my DVR), I did want to have something halfway decent on for background noise.
In the end, I settled for “What Not to Wear,” which is kind of funny, for multiple reasons.
For one thing, I think the last time I watched that show was last December when I took a weekend off to burn off my remaining vacation balance.
For another, despite the fact that I haven’t watched the show in almost a year, and wasn’t even sure if it was still on, for the past couple of weeks I’ve just found myself, at random times, fantasizing about banging the chick from the show.
The thing is, she’s not even that hot (and her nose is truly ginormous), but I guess I don’t always have full control over where my mind will wander…or what it will do when it gets there, but we won’t get into that.
Now the chick who does the make-up on the show is much, much hotter, but is a total bitch. I seriously can’t get over what a bitch she is. Sure, the two main people on the show make lots of catty comments about the fashion victim’s tastes, but this chick is just vicious, and her comments aren’t restricted to just bad taste.
For example, on the episode I watched, as she was plucking the fashion victim’s eyebrows she made numerous “Chewbacca” references and made a big show of being exhausted from how much work it took to pluck them down to reasonable levels.
But in general she’s just this uber-bitch who exudes an attitude of “I’m going to show you a few tricks that will allow you to use cosmetics to cover that Quasimodo face of yours and manage to almost look like a human being, you worthless, unattractive pile of un-exfoliated skin, but, of course, you’ll never be as attractive – and therefore worthwhile as a human being – as I am.”
If I had been that girl – who actually was, even by the catty hosts’ own admission, despite her lack of fashion sense, adorable – whose brows she was plucking, the bitch would have been on the floor with her tweezers shoved someplace extremely uncomfortable.
There’s actually a show on HBO that, like “What Not to Wear,” and pretty much every show on TLC, is an import from the BBC, though rather than making their own version of it HBO actually just airs the original, called “Sex Inspectors.”
The basic set-up of the show is almost identical to “What Not to Wear,” except that rather than overhauling someone’s fashion sense they overhaul a couple’s sex life. I guess you could call it “How Not to Fuck.”
On the topic of bitchy hot chicks who don’t approve of the existence of lesser beings, yesterday was the last day at work for a young woman who’s leaving to work for another company. I’m not saying that she’s a bitch, as I don’t know her at all, and basically have only ever seen her, from afar, at a handful of departmental events – the bitchy hot chick thing will come into play shortly – though she is extremely hot, and it was my observation after learning that she was leaving that our company needs to add hot chicks, not lose the hot chicks we already have.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon they had cake for her as part of a going away celebration. The remnants of the cake were brought into our break room. There were actually two kinds of cake, a chocolate one and a strawberry one. I’d had a piece of the chocolate, and later stopped in to try the strawberry.
When I walked into the break room I was surprised to see a hot chick in there, as chicks, hot or otherwise, are a rarity in the sausage factory that is my workplace.
I saw that she was eating the strawberry cake, so I asked her if it was good.
In a tone of voice that served to reinforce the disdainful look she had given me, she let me know that, yes, it was, and also that she not only disapproved of me having the audacity to speak to her she was deeply offended by the simple fact of my existence.
As I did my best to shrug that off and cut myself a piece of cake, another, not nearly so hot chick came in. The hotter chick said, “I wonder what our cake would say if we left? They say they’ll miss this person.”
In an effort to make up for the bad first impression I’d made by…well, by existing, I decided to throw out a little self-deprecating humor, and said, “Mine would probably say, ‘Who are you?’ or ‘Did you work here?’”
…
I thought it was funny.
My attempt at humor was greeted by the two of them deciding to finish eating their cake elsewhere.
Anyway it was nice to see that I’ve still got it; I can still make a woman feel utter contempt for me in under a minute.
In any case, I suppose that I should try to find something to do with what remains of my time off. Eating would probably be a decent way to pass some of it…
Friday, December 02, 2005
Random TV Observations
Down in the Boondocks
Given that I don’t usually find the comic strip especially funny, it was surprising to discover just how hard each episode of “The Boondocks” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim makes me laugh.
This show is hilarious, and I highly recommend it…but not to everyone.
The focus of the show, like the comic strip, is on race relations, politics, and other hot-button topics, all of which it deals with quite frankly and with no apologies. While the end result is a show that can make you laugh your ass off, it’s not a show for the easily (and even the not-so-easily) offended.
If you’re someone who’s of the opinion that the use of racist terms and racial stereotypes is never okay in any context you’ll want to stay away from the show, which throws the “N Word” around as casually and frequently as a teenage girl uses the word “like.”
It’s exactly that sort of shock tactic that gives the humor so much power, though, and which robs the racial epithets of whatever power they might otherwise have.
So with those caveats, check the show out Sundays at 11:30 pm on Cartoon Network.
The War at Home (not that crappy sit-com on after “The Simpsons”)
On a different TV-related front, maybe it’s just me, but every time that Army recruitment commercial in which the dad tells the son he’s a “changed man” because he looked his dad in the eyes when he shook his hand, I can’t help but think that we’re not getting the whole story.
Sure, it’s a heartwarming moment in which we see a father recognizing that his boy is all grown up, and it lets you know that the Army can make a man out of you, but what they don’t show you is what happens six or seven beers later when the cops have been called, mom has ushered all of the younger kids up to their rooms and is hiding in the kitchen, praying, and the father, broken bottle in his hand and stripped down to his wife-beater shirt, is screaming, “So you’re a big man now, aren’t you Army boy? Think you’re big enoug to take on your old ma? Come on, Army Boy! Who’s the big man, huh? Who’s the big fucking man?”
Honestly, you would think that something like that would help drive up recruitment. After all, I’m sure that Baghdad is a lot less chaotic than some people’s home lives:
“Join the Army and see the world...and get far away as possible from your fucked up family.”
Given that I don’t usually find the comic strip especially funny, it was surprising to discover just how hard each episode of “The Boondocks” on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim makes me laugh.
This show is hilarious, and I highly recommend it…but not to everyone.
The focus of the show, like the comic strip, is on race relations, politics, and other hot-button topics, all of which it deals with quite frankly and with no apologies. While the end result is a show that can make you laugh your ass off, it’s not a show for the easily (and even the not-so-easily) offended.
If you’re someone who’s of the opinion that the use of racist terms and racial stereotypes is never okay in any context you’ll want to stay away from the show, which throws the “N Word” around as casually and frequently as a teenage girl uses the word “like.”
It’s exactly that sort of shock tactic that gives the humor so much power, though, and which robs the racial epithets of whatever power they might otherwise have.
So with those caveats, check the show out Sundays at 11:30 pm on Cartoon Network.
The War at Home (not that crappy sit-com on after “The Simpsons”)
On a different TV-related front, maybe it’s just me, but every time that Army recruitment commercial in which the dad tells the son he’s a “changed man” because he looked his dad in the eyes when he shook his hand, I can’t help but think that we’re not getting the whole story.
Sure, it’s a heartwarming moment in which we see a father recognizing that his boy is all grown up, and it lets you know that the Army can make a man out of you, but what they don’t show you is what happens six or seven beers later when the cops have been called, mom has ushered all of the younger kids up to their rooms and is hiding in the kitchen, praying, and the father, broken bottle in his hand and stripped down to his wife-beater shirt, is screaming, “So you’re a big man now, aren’t you Army boy? Think you’re big enoug to take on your old ma? Come on, Army Boy! Who’s the big man, huh? Who’s the big fucking man?”
Honestly, you would think that something like that would help drive up recruitment. After all, I’m sure that Baghdad is a lot less chaotic than some people’s home lives:
“Join the Army and see the world...and get far away as possible from your fucked up family.”
Thursday, December 01, 2005
USA! USA! USA! US...Err..What Do You Mean She's From Canada?
Now that it’s finished, I’m finding that I like this picture a lot more than I thought I was going to while I was working on it.
Basically, I just didn’t think that it was going to work out very well, but I guess it did.
The picture, for those of you who don’t know, is of Erica Durance, the actress who plays Lois Lane on the TV series “Smallville.”
The role of Lois is one she seems to have been born to play, and her Lois is the best on-screen Lois I’ve ever seen. Of course, that could seem like faint praise (though it isn’t intended that way) considering that pretty much everyone else who ever played Lois has totally sucked. Margot Kidder? Not hot enough. Not even close to hot enough.
Teri Hatcher…well, if you’re of the opinion that she did a good job of playing Lois there is something fundamentally wrong with your brain and I’m afraid that I simply can’t continue having any discussion with you on the subject.
Dana Delany has done well as the voice Lois in her various animated appearances, but for live-action there’s no one who can compete with Erica.
I’m sure Kate Bosworth will do okay in the upcoming movie, but…well, let’s just not get me started on the subject of that movie.
In any case, this image of Erica as Lois, which is my first attempt at drawing her, is from a recent episode in which she went undercover as a stripper.
In fact, she went undercover as the Worst. Stripper. Ever.
Not only is her clunky, awkward dancing even more painful to watch than Elaine’s dancing on “Seinfeld,” but she only dances for one song, and remains fully-clothed, yet no one seemed to mind or to see this as out of the ordinary, as, apparently, at the exclusive men’s clubs in Metropolis which cater to the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, the exotic dancing doesn’t have to be especially exotic, and strippers aren’t required to actually strip.
Still, as you can see, she remained incredibly hot, despite her awkwardness and the fact that it was a TV show strip club which necessitated that she not actually strip.
You can make up your own lewd comments about raised flag poles or whatever, as I’m just not up to the task of thinking up any salacious double entendres right now.
What’s interesting is that she wears our flag so well, and yet, like Margot Kidder, to whom she is, as mentioned, superior in every way as Lois, Erica Durance is actually Canadian.
The producers of the show have been making use of her assets quite a bit lately (I’m not complaining at all). Early in the season there was an episode that featured multiple scenes of Erica in a dripping wet bikini.
It’s my intention to draw one of those scenes, but the screen captures I have, while in HD, are kind of fuzzy and would be difficult to work with. Still, I’ll see what I can do one of these days.
For the sheer hell of it, and because I thought that maybe some of you would be interested in seeing it, I decided to also include a copy of the picture at a much earlier stage in its progress:
I actually have quite a few pictures on my hard drive that have made it this far and no further. Why? Hair. I hate hair.
Sometimes I’ll get everything except the hair finished, and I’ll just stop, unwilling to even try to tackle the tangled mass of lines that lies ahead of me.
It’s occurred to me that I should consider drawing the hair first, but I don’t think I’d even manage to get a start on a picture if I tried that.
You can see that there are some changes I made from the original. For example, I changed the texture of the outfit, which seemed to be sort of rhinestone-studded or something. I also got rid of the junk that was stuck on her arm.
In any case, I thought you’d like seeing this little glimpse into my workspace.
My work week is nearly upon me, though I actually took Saturday off this weekend so that I can spend the day hanging out with Kathleen. We’ll be doing the sort of things that she would be doing with her girlfriends if she had any, but since she doesn’t, really, and Brian has less of a tolerance for things like crafts shopping than I do, I got drafted.
To burn off some of the vacation time that I can’t roll over to next year, I’ve also taken all of next weekend off, though I don’t have any actual plans for how I’m going to spend that time.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry.
Random Funny (To Me) Quote
I stumbled across this quote at Mark Evanier's blog:
There are other means of getting your product into comic book shops but no known success stories that prove that. If I were publishing and Diamond wouldn't carry my wares, I'd stop publishing and go do something more promising than distributing to comic shops without Diamond. Like opening a CompUSA in Amish country.
The number of people reading Threshold who are likely to understand why I find that comment funny is probably extremely small (I'm looking at you, Scott), but take my word for it; it's funny. Not necessarily "roling on the floor in a paroxysm of uncontrollable laughter" funny. Just funny.
I'm not going to bother explaining it, as that would rob it of whatever power it has to amuse.
In any case, the whole reason I was at Mark Evanier's blog in the first place was that I had followed a link from www.neilgaiman.com about super-hero postage stamps.
Pretty cool, and apparently there are Marvel Comics versions in the works as well.
There are other means of getting your product into comic book shops but no known success stories that prove that. If I were publishing and Diamond wouldn't carry my wares, I'd stop publishing and go do something more promising than distributing to comic shops without Diamond. Like opening a CompUSA in Amish country.
The number of people reading Threshold who are likely to understand why I find that comment funny is probably extremely small (I'm looking at you, Scott), but take my word for it; it's funny. Not necessarily "roling on the floor in a paroxysm of uncontrollable laughter" funny. Just funny.
I'm not going to bother explaining it, as that would rob it of whatever power it has to amuse.
In any case, the whole reason I was at Mark Evanier's blog in the first place was that I had followed a link from www.neilgaiman.com about super-hero postage stamps.
Pretty cool, and apparently there are Marvel Comics versions in the works as well.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The Triumphant Return Of Regular Threshold Entries!
Well here we are again, back in the old grind.
Last year the first couple of days after completing my novel were sort of bittersweet in that I felt relief and a sense of accomplishment, but I also had no idea what to do with myself without having that word count hanging over my head.
This year…well, I’m a little older and if not wiser, I am at least lazier, so I feel less of a need to have some kind of goal driving me.
The one problem I am encountering, though, is that while last year I just sat down and wrote sort of stream of consciousness style with no real forethought and was, therefore, not really disappointed in the end result because I had no real expectations for it, this year I had much more in the way of a plot and much more developed characters, and there was something that I was hoping to accomplish beyond simply hitting my word count.
To make the obvious play on words (which Neil Gaiman made last year in encouraging people to participate in National Novel Writing Month), I had hoped to do more than simply make my word count, I wanted to make my words count.
I don’t think I accomplished that goal, as there are any number of thematic and plot elements that had to be sacrificed for the sake of expediency, and, like last year, with the deadline looming and the word count already met, I simply rushed headlong toward an ending.
To tell the story I really want to tell would require that I double the current word count - and that’s after cutting some of the extraneous text that was thrown in late at night simply for the sake of hitting the day’s word count requirement – and putting in much more than a month of work.
In the meantime, for the sake of feedback, a select, lucky(?) few will have the opportunity to read through it and rip it to shreds, and from there I’ll decide if it’s worth trying to salvage, and will then, presumably, provide the rest of you with an opportunity to read the finished version that results from my efforts…assuming that there are any additional efforts.
In any case, after a long month of rather sparse entries, I’m back and ready to crank out numerous entries so long (bear in mind that I’m coming off a month spent doing my best to be as wordy as possible) and involved as they detail every piece of minutiae in my life that has gone undocumented while I worked on my novel that you’ll soon find yourself wishing that it were National Novel Writing Month all over again…
First Things First Department:
Since I heard about it last week I’ve been meaning to document the instances of extreme retardation that Kathleen reported to me.
So now, with the novel out of the way, I will do just that.
On a day in which she was feeling more than a little “out of it,” Kathleen made her way downstairs to the café at work and stopped to use the restroom along the way.
Thinking that things would follow the same layout as on her floor, she blindly walked into the “Ladies Room,” and was struck by the fact that unlike the facilities on her floor, this one only had two stalls, but soon went about her business.
It was while she was washing her hands that she noticed the reflection of the urinals in the mirror, which went a long way towards explaining the two men who were coming in as she was walking out.
It doesn’t end there, however.
Later, on the phone for a business-related call, she was attempting to multitask, engaging in an Instant Message conversation with Brian.
As he was signing off, Brian told her that he loved her (awww…that’s so sweet), and she responded in kind.
The only problem was that the multitasking caused some wires to cross in her brain, and so, thinking that somehow Brian would be able to actually hear her, she said “I love you, too” aloud, which the person she was actually talking was, understandably, surprised to hear.
This is, of course, something that I will not let her forget anytime soon.
For example, as I was preparing to head out into the world yesterday, I decided to hit Kathleen up over IM to see if she wanted to have lunch. She told me to “hang on,” to which I responded, “no, you hang on!”
She then let me know that she was on a call, so I said, “Are you multitasking again? If I were to tell you that I love you, would it cause you to make another faux pas?”
My Own Acts Of Retardation Department:
To be fair, back in the Stone Age when I was still a college student, I had a cross-peeing (sort of like cross-dressing, only with bathrooms) misadventure of my own.
In a hurry to get to class from the library, I had to make a quick pit stop, blindly pushing way into the nearest bathroom on my way out.
In an act of retardation much more extreme than Kathleen’s, I stood and wondered what kind of men’s room doesn’t have urinals for a moment before shrugging and making use of one of the stalls.
Unlike Kathleen, I didn’t actually realize my mistake until I was out the door and a female student was making her way in.
More recently, I came thisclose to actually brushing my teeth with hair gel the other day. Sure, it’s not exactly telling a business associate I love him, but it’s still pretty retarded.
Random Links Department:
I discovered this site at work over the weekend and found that it’s a good place to go to waste time that could be better spent working on writing your novel (or, alternatively, doing your job). It was a dispute over the complete words to the “Fruity Pebbles” Christmas commercial that led me to discover the site.
This site allows you to search its database of information about shitty tippers. You can only hope that you’re not listed among the regular people, athletes, politicians, and celebrities. It doesn’t really come as a surprise that J Lo is among the worst offenders I encountered in my searches.
Cancelled? Check.
While this Threshold is going to enjoy a resurgence thanks to the end of National Novel Writing Month, the other Threshold is going to enjoy cancellation as a result of Sweeps Month.
It’s a shame that the lovely and talented Carla Gugino hasn’t been able to find a successful vehicle. She was pretty much the only reason I kept watching the show, which, while somewhat entertaining, just didn’t live up to its potential.
Hopefully we’ll see you again soon, Carla…preferably in an outfit similar to the one you wore in Sin City.
Also leaving the airwaves is the critically-acclaimed, and very funny, Arrested Development. I think everyone knew it was just a matter of time, as it had only very narrowly managed to dodge the axe on more than one occasion.
Natural Wonders Department:
Some time ago a few of us at work ordered food from Chili’s for lunch. In his role as Food Bitch, Chris went out to pick up our orders. While there he encountered Scott, who had stepped out to have lunch with his family, and the hostess with the mostest: an extremely top-heavy young woman.
Scott and Chris spent a great deal of time talking about the “Natural Wonders” they had beheld, with Scott commenting that even Stacy couldn’t help but stare.
So this past Saturday when we decided to order from Chili’s again, I decided to accompany Chris in the hopes of seeing what all the fuss was about.
She was there, but the outfit she was wearing and the fact that she was standing behind something lessened the impact.
However, while we were waiting for our food she came out into full view and I discovered that they were, in fact, just as massive as advertised.
They were so big that they had their own gravity; you could see Space-Time bending around them. You don’t stare at them because you’re being rude; your eyes are inexorably drawn toward them by the force of their gravity.
I used to know another girl like that, one whose assets couldn’t help but draw stares from men and women alike. I used to say that it was almost a shame that they did, as they drew your focus away from her face, which was extremely pretty.
I say it was almost a shame because, well, those boobs were amazing, so it could hardly be considered a shame that you were looking at them.
After learning from Scott that I had seen the eighth and ninth wonders of the world, Stacy IMed me and encouraged me to ask her out.
I’m not certain what tack I was supposed to take. I would assume it would be something like “I couldn’t help noticing that you have ginormous knockers. Want to go out sometime?”
In any case, I advised Stacy of the pointlessness of such an endeavor and she tried the old “You never know until you try” argument, which I countered by stating that if you never try, you always know. By not trying, you get the failure out of the way without even having to put forth an effort.
I would say that it was nice of her to be hopeful on my behalf, but at the same time that she was encouraging me to ask her out she was also encouraging Chris to ask her out, so I’m not sure if she was hoping to help me land a date or to get me into some kind of competition with Chris, which she would then sit back and watch with sadistic glee.
I’m not certain that Stacy is that devious, but she does have purple hair, so who can say for sure?
Quesadilla Explosion Department:
On that day I had ordered a salad from Chili’s called a “Quesadilla Explosion,” which had been threatening to become “the usual” for me.
That all changed as a result of Chili’s using a different dressing for the salad, one which caused an entirely different kind of “Quesadilla Explosion” to take place inside of me.
Because I think that it’s only fitting that I go out on a potty joke, I will end this entry, which covers at least some of the main points I wanted to cover, now.
Last year the first couple of days after completing my novel were sort of bittersweet in that I felt relief and a sense of accomplishment, but I also had no idea what to do with myself without having that word count hanging over my head.
This year…well, I’m a little older and if not wiser, I am at least lazier, so I feel less of a need to have some kind of goal driving me.
The one problem I am encountering, though, is that while last year I just sat down and wrote sort of stream of consciousness style with no real forethought and was, therefore, not really disappointed in the end result because I had no real expectations for it, this year I had much more in the way of a plot and much more developed characters, and there was something that I was hoping to accomplish beyond simply hitting my word count.
To make the obvious play on words (which Neil Gaiman made last year in encouraging people to participate in National Novel Writing Month), I had hoped to do more than simply make my word count, I wanted to make my words count.
I don’t think I accomplished that goal, as there are any number of thematic and plot elements that had to be sacrificed for the sake of expediency, and, like last year, with the deadline looming and the word count already met, I simply rushed headlong toward an ending.
To tell the story I really want to tell would require that I double the current word count - and that’s after cutting some of the extraneous text that was thrown in late at night simply for the sake of hitting the day’s word count requirement – and putting in much more than a month of work.
In the meantime, for the sake of feedback, a select, lucky(?) few will have the opportunity to read through it and rip it to shreds, and from there I’ll decide if it’s worth trying to salvage, and will then, presumably, provide the rest of you with an opportunity to read the finished version that results from my efforts…assuming that there are any additional efforts.
In any case, after a long month of rather sparse entries, I’m back and ready to crank out numerous entries so long (bear in mind that I’m coming off a month spent doing my best to be as wordy as possible) and involved as they detail every piece of minutiae in my life that has gone undocumented while I worked on my novel that you’ll soon find yourself wishing that it were National Novel Writing Month all over again…
First Things First Department:
Since I heard about it last week I’ve been meaning to document the instances of extreme retardation that Kathleen reported to me.
So now, with the novel out of the way, I will do just that.
On a day in which she was feeling more than a little “out of it,” Kathleen made her way downstairs to the café at work and stopped to use the restroom along the way.
Thinking that things would follow the same layout as on her floor, she blindly walked into the “Ladies Room,” and was struck by the fact that unlike the facilities on her floor, this one only had two stalls, but soon went about her business.
It was while she was washing her hands that she noticed the reflection of the urinals in the mirror, which went a long way towards explaining the two men who were coming in as she was walking out.
It doesn’t end there, however.
Later, on the phone for a business-related call, she was attempting to multitask, engaging in an Instant Message conversation with Brian.
As he was signing off, Brian told her that he loved her (awww…that’s so sweet), and she responded in kind.
The only problem was that the multitasking caused some wires to cross in her brain, and so, thinking that somehow Brian would be able to actually hear her, she said “I love you, too” aloud, which the person she was actually talking was, understandably, surprised to hear.
This is, of course, something that I will not let her forget anytime soon.
For example, as I was preparing to head out into the world yesterday, I decided to hit Kathleen up over IM to see if she wanted to have lunch. She told me to “hang on,” to which I responded, “no, you hang on!”
She then let me know that she was on a call, so I said, “Are you multitasking again? If I were to tell you that I love you, would it cause you to make another faux pas?”
My Own Acts Of Retardation Department:
To be fair, back in the Stone Age when I was still a college student, I had a cross-peeing (sort of like cross-dressing, only with bathrooms) misadventure of my own.
In a hurry to get to class from the library, I had to make a quick pit stop, blindly pushing way into the nearest bathroom on my way out.
In an act of retardation much more extreme than Kathleen’s, I stood and wondered what kind of men’s room doesn’t have urinals for a moment before shrugging and making use of one of the stalls.
Unlike Kathleen, I didn’t actually realize my mistake until I was out the door and a female student was making her way in.
More recently, I came thisclose to actually brushing my teeth with hair gel the other day. Sure, it’s not exactly telling a business associate I love him, but it’s still pretty retarded.
Random Links Department:
I discovered this site at work over the weekend and found that it’s a good place to go to waste time that could be better spent working on writing your novel (or, alternatively, doing your job). It was a dispute over the complete words to the “Fruity Pebbles” Christmas commercial that led me to discover the site.
This site allows you to search its database of information about shitty tippers. You can only hope that you’re not listed among the regular people, athletes, politicians, and celebrities. It doesn’t really come as a surprise that J Lo is among the worst offenders I encountered in my searches.
Cancelled? Check.
While this Threshold is going to enjoy a resurgence thanks to the end of National Novel Writing Month, the other Threshold is going to enjoy cancellation as a result of Sweeps Month.
It’s a shame that the lovely and talented Carla Gugino hasn’t been able to find a successful vehicle. She was pretty much the only reason I kept watching the show, which, while somewhat entertaining, just didn’t live up to its potential.
Hopefully we’ll see you again soon, Carla…preferably in an outfit similar to the one you wore in Sin City.
Also leaving the airwaves is the critically-acclaimed, and very funny, Arrested Development. I think everyone knew it was just a matter of time, as it had only very narrowly managed to dodge the axe on more than one occasion.
Natural Wonders Department:
Some time ago a few of us at work ordered food from Chili’s for lunch. In his role as Food Bitch, Chris went out to pick up our orders. While there he encountered Scott, who had stepped out to have lunch with his family, and the hostess with the mostest: an extremely top-heavy young woman.
Scott and Chris spent a great deal of time talking about the “Natural Wonders” they had beheld, with Scott commenting that even Stacy couldn’t help but stare.
So this past Saturday when we decided to order from Chili’s again, I decided to accompany Chris in the hopes of seeing what all the fuss was about.
She was there, but the outfit she was wearing and the fact that she was standing behind something lessened the impact.
However, while we were waiting for our food she came out into full view and I discovered that they were, in fact, just as massive as advertised.
They were so big that they had their own gravity; you could see Space-Time bending around them. You don’t stare at them because you’re being rude; your eyes are inexorably drawn toward them by the force of their gravity.
I used to know another girl like that, one whose assets couldn’t help but draw stares from men and women alike. I used to say that it was almost a shame that they did, as they drew your focus away from her face, which was extremely pretty.
I say it was almost a shame because, well, those boobs were amazing, so it could hardly be considered a shame that you were looking at them.
After learning from Scott that I had seen the eighth and ninth wonders of the world, Stacy IMed me and encouraged me to ask her out.
I’m not certain what tack I was supposed to take. I would assume it would be something like “I couldn’t help noticing that you have ginormous knockers. Want to go out sometime?”
In any case, I advised Stacy of the pointlessness of such an endeavor and she tried the old “You never know until you try” argument, which I countered by stating that if you never try, you always know. By not trying, you get the failure out of the way without even having to put forth an effort.
I would say that it was nice of her to be hopeful on my behalf, but at the same time that she was encouraging me to ask her out she was also encouraging Chris to ask her out, so I’m not sure if she was hoping to help me land a date or to get me into some kind of competition with Chris, which she would then sit back and watch with sadistic glee.
I’m not certain that Stacy is that devious, but she does have purple hair, so who can say for sure?
Quesadilla Explosion Department:
On that day I had ordered a salad from Chili’s called a “Quesadilla Explosion,” which had been threatening to become “the usual” for me.
That all changed as a result of Chili’s using a different dressing for the salad, one which caused an entirely different kind of “Quesadilla Explosion” to take place inside of me.
Because I think that it’s only fitting that I go out on a potty joke, I will end this entry, which covers at least some of the main points I wanted to cover, now.
You've Won...Absolutely Nothing!
Well, I did get a picture.
Final count: 51,624 words.
That's less than last year's count (I think; I don't remember last year's count), but at least I did it.
The "novel" itself is decidedly incomplete and is really little more than an extended outline. It's not something that I see as being fit to post anywhere. Now that the pressure's off, though, maybe I can bring myself to go back and revamp it and flesh it out, especially now that I actually know what the story is.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
I Come Not To Praise The Sanyo SCP-4900 But To Bury It
For three years you served me well, Sanyo SCP-4900.
But now you're dead to me.
Tomorrow my cell phone contract with Sprint ends.
Though it's now the same company, I decided to switch over to the Nextel side of things because I wanted to make use of the Direct Connect technology, so I had to get a new phone.
I picked up a Motorola i275.
It's not the latest and greatest, but I didn't really want the latest and greatest because, quite frankly, as far as I'm concerned it's just a cell phone, so who really cares what kind of bells and whistles it has? I mean, I already have a PDA, so I don't need those features, and I already have an MP3 player (two, in fact, since my PDA plays music), and to get a phone that actually does any of those things well (in addition to being a decent phone), I'd have to shell out a lot more money than I'd be willing to spend on a device that I'll seldom use.
I did get a camera phone, though, which brings my total number of digital cameras up to three (counting my PDA). And, of course, the picture of my decommissioned phone was taken with the new one, so the torch has truly been passed on...
On another front, at this point I only have about 2,500 words to go in order to hit my word count on my novel, so it looks like I'm going to make it. I'm going to try to actually finish the story before submitting my text for the official word count, but if I can't I'll submit what I have.
In any case, that means that we'll soon be resuming our regularly-scheduled Threshold entries.
I'm sure that's cause for celebration.
Monday, November 28, 2005
You Have To Wonder...
…just how desperate is American Movie Classics for programming if they’ve resorted to airing “Tommy Boy” as a “classic” movie?
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