Friday, November 10, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The Girl Of My Dreams vs. The Girl Of My Nightmares
Kathleen joined us for the second day of the Project training today, and at one point, in reference to the news about Britney getting divorced, Scott asked her, “Did you hear that Jon’s dream girl is on the market again?”I said that Britney is not my dream girl, and Scott said, “Oh, right, Jessica Simpson is.”
That’s not really true either.
I don’t think I have a dream girl, actually.
Okay, in one sense I have nothing but dream girls, seeing as how I don’t have any real girls, but what I mean is that there isn’t any one woman out there that I’ve seen, celebrity or otherwise, who can be called “it.”
I mean, there’s no one woman who seems to have all of the qualities, physical and non-physical, that my ideal woman would have.
Jessica Simpson does come in pretty close on the physical front, but I still don’t consider her my dream girl.
Certainly she doesn’t appear to have many of the non-physical traits I’d look for (though the physical traits would go a long way towards making up for those deficiencies).
Still, I’ve come to realize we would need to go the Dr. Frankenstein route to construct my dream girl, which can be kind of a disturbing, semi-misogynistic and serial killer-y imaginative trip, but it is only imaginative, so there’s no real harm done.
So let’s build Jon’s dream girl.
The first order of business would be to take the brain of comic book writer/hairdresser Gail Simone and place it in the head of Rachael Leigh Cook.
Next up, attach RLC’s head to Jessica Simpson’s body, throw in a dash of Michelle Collins’s sense of humor to supplement Gail’s, add in Sasha Cohen’s flexibility, and then add in some kind of cognitive dissonance that would make it possible for her to be interested in me, and voila! My dream girl.
Overall, though, despite the fact that she’s not quite so voluptuous as I might like, RLC probably comes closest in the dream girl race, with just a slight margin on her pop singer competition (Carla Gugino might be slightly ahead of the others as well).
I’m sure she’s thrilled and that Jessica and Britney are crushed.
On the topic of dream girls, or rather the exact opposite, the phlegm box was back for a second round in class today, giving Kathleen the opportunity see and hear it for herself.
Kathleen’s conclusion? “She’s totally disgusting.”
The worst part of it all, I think, was that there was this sound she continually made, in addition to the coughing and sniffling, that was like she was blowing her nose.
The thing is, this wasn’t something she was doing to clear out her sinuses or the result of whatever was wrong with her, this was the sound of her laughing.
I can’t imagine a human being who, in order to express amusement, or joy, or contentment, makes a sound like the snorting of a wart hog.
And yet, there she was.
I told Scott that perhaps the worst thing, now that I’m free from having to be near her, is just knowing that she’s out there, in much the way that knowing that Hannibal Lecter was now out there made the end of Silence of the Lambs so horrifying.
(And no, I did not give a spoiler warning: the movie is over 15 year’s old for god’s sake! The book is even older. If you haven’t seen/read it by now, all I can say is that in Citizen Kane, “Rosebud” was the name of the sled he had as a child.)
Anyway, the Project class, McSnotbag aside, was pretty good. I’ll pretty much never use it in my current job, but I could see how knowing how to use it would come in handy in the sort of job in which you would use a program like Project.
Or something.
The cute girl sitting to my right proved to be even more clueless today. At one point she actually had to ask me to help her find Project on the Start Menu so that she could open it.
It was a matter of me pointing to it and saying, “Microsoft Office Project 2003, right there.”
Later, some other (male) good Samaritan had to step in and help her find a file, as she wasn’t able to handle discrepancy created by the fact that the book was operating on the assumption that we’d saved all of the practice files in My Documents when in reality, at the instructor’s urging, we had saved them into a different directory.
I can’t help but wonder what was going on in her head. Didn’t she wonder why, not even a half an hour earlier, we’d unzipped all of the files into a specific folder if we were supposed to be looking in the My Documents folder?
I guess part of the problem is that guys like me and the other guy are all too eager to help her out because she’s cute.
The thing is, though, she wasn’t that cute. At least she wasn’t quite cute enough to justify that level of helplessness.
After all, the cuter you are, the more helpless you can be. In fact, at some level of cuteness the helplessness actually makes you seem even cuter.
The point is, in the Darwinian world of natural selection and Survival of the Cutest, I can’t see how she’s managed to make it this far in life.
Of course, maybe she was just adapting to her environment. After all, she was the cutest chick in the class by a wide, wide margin (no offense Kathleen; you don’t get entered into consideration in this), though said margin was not quite so wide as the wart hog’s ass, and so she adjusted her behavior to best take advantage of her environment.
Or something.
Anyway, it’s getting close to the end of my day, as work looms heavily in the pre-dawn future, and so I will bring this entry to a close.
That’s not really true either.
I don’t think I have a dream girl, actually.
Okay, in one sense I have nothing but dream girls, seeing as how I don’t have any real girls, but what I mean is that there isn’t any one woman out there that I’ve seen, celebrity or otherwise, who can be called “it.”
I mean, there’s no one woman who seems to have all of the qualities, physical and non-physical, that my ideal woman would have.
Jessica Simpson does come in pretty close on the physical front, but I still don’t consider her my dream girl.
Certainly she doesn’t appear to have many of the non-physical traits I’d look for (though the physical traits would go a long way towards making up for those deficiencies).
Still, I’ve come to realize we would need to go the Dr. Frankenstein route to construct my dream girl, which can be kind of a disturbing, semi-misogynistic and serial killer-y imaginative trip, but it is only imaginative, so there’s no real harm done.
So let’s build Jon’s dream girl.
The first order of business would be to take the brain of comic book writer/hairdresser Gail Simone and place it in the head of Rachael Leigh Cook.
Next up, attach RLC’s head to Jessica Simpson’s body, throw in a dash of Michelle Collins’s sense of humor to supplement Gail’s, add in Sasha Cohen’s flexibility, and then add in some kind of cognitive dissonance that would make it possible for her to be interested in me, and voila! My dream girl.
Overall, though, despite the fact that she’s not quite so voluptuous as I might like, RLC probably comes closest in the dream girl race, with just a slight margin on her pop singer competition (Carla Gugino might be slightly ahead of the others as well).
I’m sure she’s thrilled and that Jessica and Britney are crushed.
On the topic of dream girls, or rather the exact opposite, the phlegm box was back for a second round in class today, giving Kathleen the opportunity see and hear it for herself.
Kathleen’s conclusion? “She’s totally disgusting.”
The worst part of it all, I think, was that there was this sound she continually made, in addition to the coughing and sniffling, that was like she was blowing her nose.
The thing is, this wasn’t something she was doing to clear out her sinuses or the result of whatever was wrong with her, this was the sound of her laughing.
I can’t imagine a human being who, in order to express amusement, or joy, or contentment, makes a sound like the snorting of a wart hog.
And yet, there she was.
I told Scott that perhaps the worst thing, now that I’m free from having to be near her, is just knowing that she’s out there, in much the way that knowing that Hannibal Lecter was now out there made the end of Silence of the Lambs so horrifying.
(And no, I did not give a spoiler warning: the movie is over 15 year’s old for god’s sake! The book is even older. If you haven’t seen/read it by now, all I can say is that in Citizen Kane, “Rosebud” was the name of the sled he had as a child.)
Anyway, the Project class, McSnotbag aside, was pretty good. I’ll pretty much never use it in my current job, but I could see how knowing how to use it would come in handy in the sort of job in which you would use a program like Project.
Or something.
The cute girl sitting to my right proved to be even more clueless today. At one point she actually had to ask me to help her find Project on the Start Menu so that she could open it.
It was a matter of me pointing to it and saying, “Microsoft Office Project 2003, right there.”
Later, some other (male) good Samaritan had to step in and help her find a file, as she wasn’t able to handle discrepancy created by the fact that the book was operating on the assumption that we’d saved all of the practice files in My Documents when in reality, at the instructor’s urging, we had saved them into a different directory.
I can’t help but wonder what was going on in her head. Didn’t she wonder why, not even a half an hour earlier, we’d unzipped all of the files into a specific folder if we were supposed to be looking in the My Documents folder?
I guess part of the problem is that guys like me and the other guy are all too eager to help her out because she’s cute.
The thing is, though, she wasn’t that cute. At least she wasn’t quite cute enough to justify that level of helplessness.
After all, the cuter you are, the more helpless you can be. In fact, at some level of cuteness the helplessness actually makes you seem even cuter.
The point is, in the Darwinian world of natural selection and Survival of the Cutest, I can’t see how she’s managed to make it this far in life.
Of course, maybe she was just adapting to her environment. After all, she was the cutest chick in the class by a wide, wide margin (no offense Kathleen; you don’t get entered into consideration in this), though said margin was not quite so wide as the wart hog’s ass, and so she adjusted her behavior to best take advantage of her environment.
Or something.
Anyway, it’s getting close to the end of my day, as work looms heavily in the pre-dawn future, and so I will bring this entry to a close.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Blasts From The Past
In honor of Britney filing for divorce I thought I would post a couple of pictures I did of her back before she descended into the trailer park and traded in tight abs for stretch marks.
Mucus McSnotbag Or Imagining Brian Going All Rainman
Today started out far too early, as I woke up a bit before my alarm was due to go off. Too close to when it was set to go off to make it worth trying to get any more sleep.
And so I got up, did the whole morning thing, and was soon on my way to HQ for training.
One good thing about the recent round of layoffs: a lot more decent parking spaces available at HQ.
(Word is that there are bigger, even bloodier cuts coming in December. Yay! The daily fucking uncertainty just never ends!)
As per usual I was a bit early, so I stopped in the cafeteria to grab a quick nutritious breakfast (read: a donut). After making my selection I headed to the empty register and waited for someone to come along and ring me up. Around the corner I noticed a heavy, shabbily-dressed woman burning (based on the smell) a bagel in the toaster oven.
In addition to looking a bit like a homeless person, the woman was sniffling and coughing very loudly and phlegmily in a way that was making my breakfast look less and less appealing with each sloppy-sounding sniff.
Eventually someone came to ring me up (and apologized for making me wait), I paid, and went to sit at a table.
The bagel-burning schlub – I guess she was too congested to smell it burning – approached the register to pay for her bagel, revealing that along with her mucus-related problems she also had an extremely thick, almost satirically thick, southern accent, and while she was there she let out this throaty, phlegmy sound which I couldn’t possibly describe and which will no doubt haunt my nightmares for years to come.
(Am I making it clear that this woman was a walking horror show, pretty much offensive to all of the senses? At least I’m guessing that she’d be as offensive to touch, smell, and taste as she was to sight and sound.)
Anyway, I ate my breakfast and made my way to the training room, only to discover that, to my horror, the snot-filled woman from the cafeteria was one of the people taking the class.
Once class started she asked the instructor a question that demonstrated that not only was she a disturbing audio/visual phenomenon she was also dumb as a post.
The woman who came in and sat to my right was extremely cute (and married), so that served as a good balance to Mucus McSnotbag…as much as anything could balance things out, at any rate.
(By the way, Scott can – and no doubt will – attest to what a nightmarish figure this woman is.)
Throughout the class McSnotbag continued to sniffle and snort, occasionally breaking up the routine with a nice juicy coughing spell.
Seriously, if you’re in that kind of condition, just stay the hell home. You might have my sympathy for being sick if you weren’t right there making me want to lose my breakfast with the noises of your various secretions. Just because you’re sick that doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the rest of us. And it’s not like you would have been missing work; you had the day off for training anyway.
The one thing that might have made the whole experience entertaining, though, is if Brian had been there. He has this borderline autistic aversion to the noises people make. He’s mostly bothered by loud chewing, but I think the sheer volume of noises coming from this woman would have driven him to a Rainman-esque freakout that would have been a joy to behold.
Speaking of Brian, Kathleen was supposed to be in the class today as well (I had no idea that she was going to be in when I signed up for it), but didn’t make it in as a result of the impact that being away for a week had on her sleep schedule.
McSnotbag wasn’t the only dim bulb in the class today, and I observed a disturbing phenomenon that I’ve seen all too many times in my company.
See, I work for a technology company. Computers are at the very core of pretty much everything we do.
However, so many of our employees don’t have even a basic level of computer literacy. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad (and irritating).
During class today the cute chick sitting next to me – and I’m not exaggerating – needed help from the instructor in order to open a file.
Let me repeat that with emphatic punctuation.
She. Needed. Help. To. Open. A. File.
It would be one thing if her level of computer illiteracy were an exception, but it’s the rule.
So many people working for this company have a knowledge of computers that’s limited to using the specific application that they use every day, with no real general knowledge of how to actually navigate or perform simple tasks.
They can open Excel and edit that spreadsheet they have to edit every day, surf the Web, and maybe play Solitaire. But move a file to another location, or rename a file, or even open understand what a file is? No chance.
When I see things like that I realize that it’s no wonder that we’re in such dire straits that we need to eliminate 5,000+ employees.
And so I got up, did the whole morning thing, and was soon on my way to HQ for training.
One good thing about the recent round of layoffs: a lot more decent parking spaces available at HQ.
(Word is that there are bigger, even bloodier cuts coming in December. Yay! The daily fucking uncertainty just never ends!)
As per usual I was a bit early, so I stopped in the cafeteria to grab a quick nutritious breakfast (read: a donut). After making my selection I headed to the empty register and waited for someone to come along and ring me up. Around the corner I noticed a heavy, shabbily-dressed woman burning (based on the smell) a bagel in the toaster oven.
In addition to looking a bit like a homeless person, the woman was sniffling and coughing very loudly and phlegmily in a way that was making my breakfast look less and less appealing with each sloppy-sounding sniff.
Eventually someone came to ring me up (and apologized for making me wait), I paid, and went to sit at a table.
The bagel-burning schlub – I guess she was too congested to smell it burning – approached the register to pay for her bagel, revealing that along with her mucus-related problems she also had an extremely thick, almost satirically thick, southern accent, and while she was there she let out this throaty, phlegmy sound which I couldn’t possibly describe and which will no doubt haunt my nightmares for years to come.
(Am I making it clear that this woman was a walking horror show, pretty much offensive to all of the senses? At least I’m guessing that she’d be as offensive to touch, smell, and taste as she was to sight and sound.)
Anyway, I ate my breakfast and made my way to the training room, only to discover that, to my horror, the snot-filled woman from the cafeteria was one of the people taking the class.
Once class started she asked the instructor a question that demonstrated that not only was she a disturbing audio/visual phenomenon she was also dumb as a post.
The woman who came in and sat to my right was extremely cute (and married), so that served as a good balance to Mucus McSnotbag…as much as anything could balance things out, at any rate.
(By the way, Scott can – and no doubt will – attest to what a nightmarish figure this woman is.)
Throughout the class McSnotbag continued to sniffle and snort, occasionally breaking up the routine with a nice juicy coughing spell.
Seriously, if you’re in that kind of condition, just stay the hell home. You might have my sympathy for being sick if you weren’t right there making me want to lose my breakfast with the noises of your various secretions. Just because you’re sick that doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the rest of us. And it’s not like you would have been missing work; you had the day off for training anyway.
The one thing that might have made the whole experience entertaining, though, is if Brian had been there. He has this borderline autistic aversion to the noises people make. He’s mostly bothered by loud chewing, but I think the sheer volume of noises coming from this woman would have driven him to a Rainman-esque freakout that would have been a joy to behold.
Speaking of Brian, Kathleen was supposed to be in the class today as well (I had no idea that she was going to be in when I signed up for it), but didn’t make it in as a result of the impact that being away for a week had on her sleep schedule.
McSnotbag wasn’t the only dim bulb in the class today, and I observed a disturbing phenomenon that I’ve seen all too many times in my company.
See, I work for a technology company. Computers are at the very core of pretty much everything we do.
However, so many of our employees don’t have even a basic level of computer literacy. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad (and irritating).
During class today the cute chick sitting next to me – and I’m not exaggerating – needed help from the instructor in order to open a file.
Let me repeat that with emphatic punctuation.
She. Needed. Help. To. Open. A. File.
It would be one thing if her level of computer illiteracy were an exception, but it’s the rule.
So many people working for this company have a knowledge of computers that’s limited to using the specific application that they use every day, with no real general knowledge of how to actually navigate or perform simple tasks.
They can open Excel and edit that spreadsheet they have to edit every day, surf the Web, and maybe play Solitaire. But move a file to another location, or rename a file, or even open understand what a file is? No chance.
When I see things like that I realize that it’s no wonder that we’re in such dire straits that we need to eliminate 5,000+ employees.
Monday, November 06, 2006
The New Bikini Cavegirl
Looking at the Threshold traffic stats I can see that a lot of people are coming here looking for information on Jon Betts. I imagine it's mostly family and friends.
I wish I had some information to provide that could lead to finding him, but I don't. Anyone who knows that he's missing knows as much about his status as I do.
Some people may just be looking for information about him as a person, hoping that I could provide some insight into why he's disappeared.
I don't know that I can really do that either. I know that he was very sad, right to the core of his being, which is something that I can certainly understand, and that for him life often didn't seem worth the effort, which I can also understand, and that he was very lonely, which, again, I understand, but what I can't understand is the kind of selfishness that would lead him to hurt the people who care about him like this.
I suppose that from where he stood things looked much worse than they did from where we were standing.
I really don't know what else to say, or what insight I can provide to anyone looking for answers. I could use a few answers myself.
And I really don't want to say too much more about him, as it will eventually start to feel as though I'm eulogizing him, and I just don't have the strength for that.
One thing I will say about him, though, is that if he knew that people were coming here in pursuit of information about him, he'd be very amused to hear me tell him that he's become the new Bikini Cavegirl.
(For the uninitiated, an offhand reference to a really bad low-budget soft-core porn movie titled Bikini Cavegirl in an entry was, at one time, leading scores of people to this blog as they did Google, Yahoo, and even Alta Vista searches on the movie. It was the number one search term that led people here.)
I know that might seem frivolous, flippant, and irreveratn, but right now I'd rather think happier thoughts about him, and I certainly don't mean to make light of the situation.
On totally unrelated topics, I just got back from the party planning meeting a bit ago.
We didn't do much other than pick a date (December 3) and decide that we're going to have it be open to homeowners and renters as we don't really have the details on money and catering options and whatnot. Jen, the cute music teacher, is going to compile it all in an e-mail and send it off to our HOA representative.
I volunteered to design the flyer for it, graphic design skills are about the only thing I can bring to the table given my aversion to actually dealing with people or doing actual work.
It came out in conversation that - of course - Jen has a boyfriend. I never really had any doubt that she did.
Beyond the boyfriend, though, there was definite flirting going on with Mr. Firefighter.
"Hey, look at me! I fight fires, and I look like I just walked off the set of some movie about a fraternity! I'm not all creepy and scowly and nerdy like that Jon weirdo, and you sure as hell won't find me having enough free time to write about what a loser I am on a blog that nobody reads anyway!"
*Sigh*
I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person, what with being all civic-minded and helping people for a living and all that jazz. It's not his fault that he seems like a total meathead and that chicks probably hurl themselves at him in much the same manner as they hurl themselves away from me.
On the topic of annoying firefighters, though, I have to run to the airport later tonight and pick up Brian and Kathleen.
Okay, I'm kidding about the annoying part...mostly. The part that isn't kidding is the one that will have to miss The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and that has to get up early to go that MS Project training tomorrow.
Anyway, that pretty much brings you up to speed on my exciting evening.
I wish I had some information to provide that could lead to finding him, but I don't. Anyone who knows that he's missing knows as much about his status as I do.
Some people may just be looking for information about him as a person, hoping that I could provide some insight into why he's disappeared.
I don't know that I can really do that either. I know that he was very sad, right to the core of his being, which is something that I can certainly understand, and that for him life often didn't seem worth the effort, which I can also understand, and that he was very lonely, which, again, I understand, but what I can't understand is the kind of selfishness that would lead him to hurt the people who care about him like this.
I suppose that from where he stood things looked much worse than they did from where we were standing.
I really don't know what else to say, or what insight I can provide to anyone looking for answers. I could use a few answers myself.
And I really don't want to say too much more about him, as it will eventually start to feel as though I'm eulogizing him, and I just don't have the strength for that.
One thing I will say about him, though, is that if he knew that people were coming here in pursuit of information about him, he'd be very amused to hear me tell him that he's become the new Bikini Cavegirl.
(For the uninitiated, an offhand reference to a really bad low-budget soft-core porn movie titled Bikini Cavegirl in an entry was, at one time, leading scores of people to this blog as they did Google, Yahoo, and even Alta Vista searches on the movie. It was the number one search term that led people here.)
I know that might seem frivolous, flippant, and irreveratn, but right now I'd rather think happier thoughts about him, and I certainly don't mean to make light of the situation.
On totally unrelated topics, I just got back from the party planning meeting a bit ago.
We didn't do much other than pick a date (December 3) and decide that we're going to have it be open to homeowners and renters as we don't really have the details on money and catering options and whatnot. Jen, the cute music teacher, is going to compile it all in an e-mail and send it off to our HOA representative.
I volunteered to design the flyer for it, graphic design skills are about the only thing I can bring to the table given my aversion to actually dealing with people or doing actual work.
It came out in conversation that - of course - Jen has a boyfriend. I never really had any doubt that she did.
Beyond the boyfriend, though, there was definite flirting going on with Mr. Firefighter.
"Hey, look at me! I fight fires, and I look like I just walked off the set of some movie about a fraternity! I'm not all creepy and scowly and nerdy like that Jon weirdo, and you sure as hell won't find me having enough free time to write about what a loser I am on a blog that nobody reads anyway!"
*Sigh*
I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person, what with being all civic-minded and helping people for a living and all that jazz. It's not his fault that he seems like a total meathead and that chicks probably hurl themselves at him in much the same manner as they hurl themselves away from me.
On the topic of annoying firefighters, though, I have to run to the airport later tonight and pick up Brian and Kathleen.
Okay, I'm kidding about the annoying part...mostly. The part that isn't kidding is the one that will have to miss The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and that has to get up early to go that MS Project training tomorrow.
Anyway, that pretty much brings you up to speed on my exciting evening.
Turn-Down Day
It's a turn-down day
Nothin' on my mind
It's a turn-down day
And I dig it
There's nothing easier I can do
Than lyin' around doing nothing
Okay, sure, in the song quoted above the group The Cyrkle was actually singing about hanging out at the beach on a nice summer day, but that doesn't mean that the same principles can't be applied to hanging out in my condo on a cold autumn day.
The fact that I did it proves that.
Okay, I did actually do something, as I went out and did some proper grocery shopping (to the tune of $59), but after I'd gotten home and watched the latest episode of Dexter I was back in bed for the rest of the afternoon.
And now I'm writing this.
Up next is dinner, followed by a meeting with the other homeowners at 7 to plan for our upcoming holiday party.
I'm sure that will be exciting.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be at HQ with Scott racking up some OT while being trained on using Microsoft Project.
I lead an exciting life. It's no wonder I have to have these occasional turn-down days to recuperate.
Nothin' on my mind
It's a turn-down day
And I dig it
There's nothing easier I can do
Than lyin' around doing nothing
Okay, sure, in the song quoted above the group The Cyrkle was actually singing about hanging out at the beach on a nice summer day, but that doesn't mean that the same principles can't be applied to hanging out in my condo on a cold autumn day.
The fact that I did it proves that.
Okay, I did actually do something, as I went out and did some proper grocery shopping (to the tune of $59), but after I'd gotten home and watched the latest episode of Dexter I was back in bed for the rest of the afternoon.
And now I'm writing this.
Up next is dinner, followed by a meeting with the other homeowners at 7 to plan for our upcoming holiday party.
I'm sure that will be exciting.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be at HQ with Scott racking up some OT while being trained on using Microsoft Project.
I lead an exciting life. It's no wonder I have to have these occasional turn-down days to recuperate.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Some Articles About Jon Betts
Car, driver could help in case of missing man
I hope something turns up from this and that they're able to find him.
I have to be honest and say that I don't hold out a lot of hope at this point that he'll turn up unharmed, but in the worst case I want his family and friends (like me) to get a little closure either way.
Here's another article from KVOA in Tucson:
Police pursue new lead in missing-man case
And another one, also from KVOA:
Tucson man still missing after two weeks
I hope something turns up from this and that they're able to find him.
I have to be honest and say that I don't hold out a lot of hope at this point that he'll turn up unharmed, but in the worst case I want his family and friends (like me) to get a little closure either way.
Here's another article from KVOA in Tucson:
Police pursue new lead in missing-man case
And another one, also from KVOA:
Tucson man still missing after two weeks
An Open Letter To Comedy Central
Dear Comedy Central,
Just once, just one fucking time, I would like to be able to randomly change the channel to Comedy Central and not see one or all of the Blue Collar Comedy guys on my TV.
Do you think you could arrange that? I mean, how hard/expensive can it be to find some other programming to fill the spaces between your multiple airings of South Park and whatever other supposedly funny animated shows you have on? (Oh look, they're making fun of blacks/Jews/gays/Asians on Drawn Together! How fresh and original and totally unlike what they did last week or the week or the entire season before!)
Speaking of your animated shows, why the hell isn't Freak Show funny? Talented, funny people are associated with it, so I don't get how it can be so suck so hard.
Anyway, the point is that it would be great if you could "git r done" and make it possible for me to not see Jeff Foxworthy and the rest every damn time I pop in to watch something other than The Daily Show and The Colber Report.
Thanks,
Jon Maki
P.S. Putting on anything involving Carlos Mencia would not be an improvement and would not count.
Just once, just one fucking time, I would like to be able to randomly change the channel to Comedy Central and not see one or all of the Blue Collar Comedy guys on my TV.
Do you think you could arrange that? I mean, how hard/expensive can it be to find some other programming to fill the spaces between your multiple airings of South Park and whatever other supposedly funny animated shows you have on? (Oh look, they're making fun of blacks/Jews/gays/Asians on Drawn Together! How fresh and original and totally unlike what they did last week or the week or the entire season before!)
Speaking of your animated shows, why the hell isn't Freak Show funny? Talented, funny people are associated with it, so I don't get how it can be so suck so hard.
Anyway, the point is that it would be great if you could "git r done" and make it possible for me to not see Jeff Foxworthy and the rest every damn time I pop in to watch something other than The Daily Show and The Colber Report.
Thanks,
Jon Maki
P.S. Putting on anything involving Carlos Mencia would not be an improvement and would not count.
Gunpowder, Treason, And Plot
Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night over in the UK.
Too bad I just watched V for Vendetta not too long ago, otherwise it would be appropriate to do so again today.
Last week while I was still in Michigan, my company underewent its latest (and presumably last...for a while) round of layoffs.
I survived; others in my group did not.
We lost one person from my shift, one from the weekend overnight shift, and one from the weekday overnight.
My first day back to work proved to be one of the most longest and most excruciatingly slow days I can remember having.
It didn't really take long to get back into the routine, though.
Lots of people asked the obvious questions and extended their sympathies, but there were several who didn't say anything. I wasn't offended, though, just a little surprised.
This morning after I took a shower I took a look in my freezer, my cabinets, and my cookbooks to find out whether or not I needed to venture out into the world. I found a recipe that I thought I had all the ingredients for, but discovered that I was missing two, and so I made a quick trip to the grocery store.
I've discovered over the past couple of days that I apparently no longer have a downstairs neighbor. This won't impact my behavior at all, as it's not as though I will now be dancing the Watusi now that there's no one downstairs to complain.
However, as the temperature dipped into the 20s over the past couple of days I've come to realize that this may be the first winter in VA during which I'll actually have to have the heat turned on on a regular basis.
Usually I can get sufficient heat rising from downstairs to keep it in the high 60s on all but the very coldest days, making the simple expedient of putting on a sweatshirt a cost-effective means of staying warm through the colder months.
Not so now, apparently.
On Friday night my mom ended up in the hospital after slipping and falling and knocking her head in the parking lot at Wal-Mart.
She evidently suffered temporary amnesia, not recognizing my sister or remembering that she'd moved to an apartment or that my dad had died. She did recognize Jourdan, though, and the memory loss wore off on the way to the hospital. She still doesn't remember actually falling, though.
To be on the safe side she was given a CAT scan. The results showed - and I think that she should get this in writing - that her brain was normal.
In fact, the doctor said that, like my gums, her brain is "beautiful."
Not much is going on here today. Just doing the laundry and waiting for tonight's new episodes of The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, and Metalocalypse.
Speaking of animation, last night I watched a Hellboy animated movie that Cartoon Network had run last week. I was very pleased with it, as it had a good story, decent animation, and featured many of the cast members from the live-action movie providing the voices for their characters.
One interesting exception with the voices was that David Hyde Pierce, who provided the voice of Abe Sapien in the live-action movie, did not provide the voice for this. Instead, the voice was provided by the actor who physically portrayed Abe (with Hyde Pierce doing the voice-over) in the live-action movie.
Anyway, Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms had a very entertaining story, and I was pleased to discover that another animated movie is in the works. This is good news, as the sequel to the live-action movie won't be out until 2008.
In any case, I still have some TV watching to catch up on, so that will do it for this entry.
Too bad I just watched V for Vendetta not too long ago, otherwise it would be appropriate to do so again today.
Last week while I was still in Michigan, my company underewent its latest (and presumably last...for a while) round of layoffs.
I survived; others in my group did not.
We lost one person from my shift, one from the weekend overnight shift, and one from the weekday overnight.
My first day back to work proved to be one of the most longest and most excruciatingly slow days I can remember having.
It didn't really take long to get back into the routine, though.
Lots of people asked the obvious questions and extended their sympathies, but there were several who didn't say anything. I wasn't offended, though, just a little surprised.
This morning after I took a shower I took a look in my freezer, my cabinets, and my cookbooks to find out whether or not I needed to venture out into the world. I found a recipe that I thought I had all the ingredients for, but discovered that I was missing two, and so I made a quick trip to the grocery store.
I've discovered over the past couple of days that I apparently no longer have a downstairs neighbor. This won't impact my behavior at all, as it's not as though I will now be dancing the Watusi now that there's no one downstairs to complain.
However, as the temperature dipped into the 20s over the past couple of days I've come to realize that this may be the first winter in VA during which I'll actually have to have the heat turned on on a regular basis.
Usually I can get sufficient heat rising from downstairs to keep it in the high 60s on all but the very coldest days, making the simple expedient of putting on a sweatshirt a cost-effective means of staying warm through the colder months.
Not so now, apparently.
On Friday night my mom ended up in the hospital after slipping and falling and knocking her head in the parking lot at Wal-Mart.
She evidently suffered temporary amnesia, not recognizing my sister or remembering that she'd moved to an apartment or that my dad had died. She did recognize Jourdan, though, and the memory loss wore off on the way to the hospital. She still doesn't remember actually falling, though.
To be on the safe side she was given a CAT scan. The results showed - and I think that she should get this in writing - that her brain was normal.
In fact, the doctor said that, like my gums, her brain is "beautiful."
Not much is going on here today. Just doing the laundry and waiting for tonight's new episodes of The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, and Metalocalypse.
Speaking of animation, last night I watched a Hellboy animated movie that Cartoon Network had run last week. I was very pleased with it, as it had a good story, decent animation, and featured many of the cast members from the live-action movie providing the voices for their characters.
One interesting exception with the voices was that David Hyde Pierce, who provided the voice of Abe Sapien in the live-action movie, did not provide the voice for this. Instead, the voice was provided by the actor who physically portrayed Abe (with Hyde Pierce doing the voice-over) in the live-action movie.
Anyway, Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms had a very entertaining story, and I was pleased to discover that another animated movie is in the works. This is good news, as the sequel to the live-action movie won't be out until 2008.
In any case, I still have some TV watching to catch up on, so that will do it for this entry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
