If there were a TV show based on my life...well, it would have extremely low ratings and would be canceled after, at most, two episodes, and would probably run as a mid-season replacement or during the summer.
However, that’s not the point, so let me start again.
If there were a TV show based on my life, I think the ideal theme song for it would be Every Day is Exactly the Same by Nine Inch Nails.
The opening line says it all: I believe I can see the future ‘cause I repeat the same routine.
(As for the visual that would run in the opening title sequence, you would see an endless chain of Jons following the same paths over and over again.)
It seemed an appropriate thought, given that today is Groundhog’s Day and the movie of that title explored the idea of the same day being repeated endlessly.
They could have just filmed me and made it a documentary.
Of course, yesterday was a little different from most days, though not really in a good way, or a bad way, really. It was just different in a way.
Nita, the person whose position I took, is pregnant, and yesterday there was a surprise baby shower held for her.
I ended up being much more involved in the shower than seems likely or even sensible.
Honestly, baby showers are something that should be thrown by girlfriends and should not involve male co-workers you barely know, particularly when said male co-worker, like me, really doesn’t care.
I mean, sure, you’re having a baby. Wonderful. Congratulations. And?
Sure, it’s a miracle – a slimy, gross, fairly mundane miracle, given that it happens all the time – but it’s not like I’m going to squeal with girlish delight at the prospect of seeing little baby booties or whatever the hell it is that people get so excited about.
Certainly as the new guy it’s nice to be included in events, but really, my total involvement should have been to show up and, grudgingly, provide a gift.
As far as the gift goes, I went to her Target registry online, found something suitable – not too expensive but not cheap – and confirmed that it was available in the store, then drove to Target to pick it up, only to discover that the claim that it was available in the store was a complete fabrication. It’s not that they were sold out, it was that they didn’t even sell the product there.
Not knowing what else to buy, I left, annoyed, and decided to just pitch in towards the group gift.
Shortly before the shower I got drafted as food bitch and had to go pick up the pizzas.
(The worst part was that no one even noticed my clever bon mot about how the hot pizzas had steamed up my car windows like two teenagers at Make Out Point, even though I threw it out there twice. Also, I ended up having a hungry ride home, as my car still smelled like pizza at the end of the day.)
From there I was drafted to haul in the group gift (a car seat), and help rearrange the tables and chairs.
At the shower itself I even participated in two of the three games. One was a “baby words” word jumble – I got 14 out of 20 – and the other was a baby name game in which we had to take the names of the mom and dad (Nita and Rick) and use letters from them to come up with baby names. Specifically boys’ names, as they’re having a boy. “Art” never occurred to me, but “Nick” did.
The only other name I could come up with marked me – appropriately enough, I suppose – as a weirdo: Cain.
Somehow this went over a little worse than “Rat,” which someone else came up with.
I hadn’t intended to actually share my list, but someone who’d noticed what I’d written felt the need to point it out.
Oh well.
I didn’t participate in the “diaper game,” as I have no eye (or nose) for identifying melted candy bars.
Yesterday was “Jersey Day” at work, though apparently it wasn’t intended as a venue for us to show our appreciation for the Garden State, but rather to showcase our enthusiasm for some sort of sporting event. Apparently there’s some major soccer match or something happening tomorrow.
I didn’t participate in that, as I have neither a jersey nor any enthusiasm for sporting events.
And yes, I do know that tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. In fact, I’m going to take advantage of that fact to do my grocery shopping while everyone else is at home watching TV.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
What Day Is It?
I’ve found myself having trouble figuring out what day today was.
After being off for two days and then returning to work, part of me thought it was Monday, though another part of me was convinced that it was Friday.
Stopping at the comic shop on the way home to pick up my new comics only added to the confusion.
My eyes handled the return to work pretty well; driving directly into the sun this morning wasn’t pleasant, but it also wasn’t the hellish nightmare that it had been on Monday morning, so that was a plus.
The only real problem is that I haven’t been able to wear my Gentle Molding lenses for days, so my vision has been receding to its previous levels. It’s not quite there yet, resting instead in a sort of hazy middle ground in which I have to wear my glasses to see any significant distance, but unable to see near objects when I do wear them.
One of the more unpleasant aspects of my recovery from ill-health is that my nose is no longer stuffed up, which is good, but my sinuses are constantly draining, which is bad, or rather, gross, as I essentially have snot running down my throat all day long.
On a more pleasant note, I completed my first major piece of documentation today and sent it out to a rather large group of people. So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
(That I’ve only gotten feedback from one person is neither here nor there.)
Last week when I went to the comic shop I noted something that made me laugh, though it didn’t occur to me to take a picture.
Today it was still there and it did occur to me to take a picture, albeit a really crappy, blurry picture (which pretty much only Scott will appreciate), as can be seen below:
The sign is in response to the recent much-maligned (and rightly so) Spider-Man story in which Peter Parker (Spider-Man) makes a deal with the Devil that retroactively voids his marriage to Mary Jane (AKA MJ) in exchange for restoring his beloved Aunt May to her normal (fragile) level of health after she was hit by a sniper’s bullet intended for Peter.
Not wanting to say anything more about that story than I have, I will say that the sign has a very good point, in that Spider-Girl is an existing comic that has pretty much all of the elements that Joe Quesada claims that Spider-Fans have been clamoring for, which was, ostensibly, his motive for undoing Peter and MJ’s marriage.
For the uninitiated – which is pretty much all of you except Scott – Spider-Girl is a comic set in an alternate universe in which an older Peter and MJ are still married and have a teenaged daughter who inherited her father’s powers and has taken up the family business after Peter retired from his web-slinging career.
It’s very much like old-school Spider-Man.
And I mean it’s seriously old-school – writer Tom DeFalco once titled a story “If This Be My Destiny!” – which in many ways is a good thing, as it touches on most of the same themes that Spider-Man used to before the character actually progressed and grew up and the Editor-In-Chief decided that he needed to regress and go back to the way he used to be, because, after all, the fans were demanding it.
But that’s rather the point; there was no need to go back to telling old-school Spider-Man stories in the main Spider-titles, as those stories are already being told in Spider-Girl (and Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man Adventures...).
Of course, the one big problem is that it’s Spider-Girl, and if there’s anything that we can learn from comics – particularly Spider-based comics – it’s that girls are icky.
Thus, even though it presents exactly the kind of stories that Quesada claims the fans want to read, Spider-Girl doesn’t count, because it’s about a girl. A girl who isn’t just a piece of hyper-sexualized eye candy. And who wants to read something like that?
Also, it has that whole icky Peter and MJ being married thing, which is such an impediment to great storytelling. Much more of an impediment than, say, being a shitty writer.
But whatever. The whole point is that the sign is funny (because it’s true).
(In case you can’t read it, it says, “Peter & MJ? Still married! Aunt May? Dead and buried! Mephisto? Not in this book! Spider-Girl. Not magic, just makes sense.”)
After being off for two days and then returning to work, part of me thought it was Monday, though another part of me was convinced that it was Friday.
Stopping at the comic shop on the way home to pick up my new comics only added to the confusion.
My eyes handled the return to work pretty well; driving directly into the sun this morning wasn’t pleasant, but it also wasn’t the hellish nightmare that it had been on Monday morning, so that was a plus.
The only real problem is that I haven’t been able to wear my Gentle Molding lenses for days, so my vision has been receding to its previous levels. It’s not quite there yet, resting instead in a sort of hazy middle ground in which I have to wear my glasses to see any significant distance, but unable to see near objects when I do wear them.
One of the more unpleasant aspects of my recovery from ill-health is that my nose is no longer stuffed up, which is good, but my sinuses are constantly draining, which is bad, or rather, gross, as I essentially have snot running down my throat all day long.
On a more pleasant note, I completed my first major piece of documentation today and sent it out to a rather large group of people. So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
(That I’ve only gotten feedback from one person is neither here nor there.)
Last week when I went to the comic shop I noted something that made me laugh, though it didn’t occur to me to take a picture.
Today it was still there and it did occur to me to take a picture, albeit a really crappy, blurry picture (which pretty much only Scott will appreciate), as can be seen below:
The sign is in response to the recent much-maligned (and rightly so) Spider-Man story in which Peter Parker (Spider-Man) makes a deal with the Devil that retroactively voids his marriage to Mary Jane (AKA MJ) in exchange for restoring his beloved Aunt May to her normal (fragile) level of health after she was hit by a sniper’s bullet intended for Peter.
Not wanting to say anything more about that story than I have, I will say that the sign has a very good point, in that Spider-Girl is an existing comic that has pretty much all of the elements that Joe Quesada claims that Spider-Fans have been clamoring for, which was, ostensibly, his motive for undoing Peter and MJ’s marriage.
For the uninitiated – which is pretty much all of you except Scott – Spider-Girl is a comic set in an alternate universe in which an older Peter and MJ are still married and have a teenaged daughter who inherited her father’s powers and has taken up the family business after Peter retired from his web-slinging career.
It’s very much like old-school Spider-Man.
And I mean it’s seriously old-school – writer Tom DeFalco once titled a story “If This Be My Destiny!” – which in many ways is a good thing, as it touches on most of the same themes that Spider-Man used to before the character actually progressed and grew up and the Editor-In-Chief decided that he needed to regress and go back to the way he used to be, because, after all, the fans were demanding it.
But that’s rather the point; there was no need to go back to telling old-school Spider-Man stories in the main Spider-titles, as those stories are already being told in Spider-Girl (and Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man Adventures...).
Of course, the one big problem is that it’s Spider-Girl, and if there’s anything that we can learn from comics – particularly Spider-based comics – it’s that girls are icky.
Thus, even though it presents exactly the kind of stories that Quesada claims the fans want to read, Spider-Girl doesn’t count, because it’s about a girl. A girl who isn’t just a piece of hyper-sexualized eye candy. And who wants to read something like that?
Also, it has that whole icky Peter and MJ being married thing, which is such an impediment to great storytelling. Much more of an impediment than, say, being a shitty writer.
But whatever. The whole point is that the sign is funny (because it’s true).
(In case you can’t read it, it says, “Peter & MJ? Still married! Aunt May? Dead and buried! Mephisto? Not in this book! Spider-Girl. Not magic, just makes sense.”)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Quesada On Colbert (Again)
Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada breaks some bad news (and good news) to Stephen Colbert:
Interesting coincidence: the Captain America costume re-design - as well as the cover of the issue featured on the show - was done by superstar artist Alex Ross. The name of Stephen's guest that night? Alex Ross, albeit an entirely different one.
Bonus Colbert video featuring a true blast from the past:
Also, I enjoyed this quote from Mark Evanier's blog:
Don't you feel smart? Rudy Giuliani has spent more than $30 million dollars trying to become President of the United States. You've spent nothing and you have almost the same chance that he does.
Interesting coincidence: the Captain America costume re-design - as well as the cover of the issue featured on the show - was done by superstar artist Alex Ross. The name of Stephen's guest that night? Alex Ross, albeit an entirely different one.
Bonus Colbert video featuring a true blast from the past:
Also, I enjoyed this quote from Mark Evanier's blog:
Don't you feel smart? Rudy Giuliani has spent more than $30 million dollars trying to become President of the United States. You've spent nothing and you have almost the same chance that he does.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Perfect Timing
I got an e-mail from my first-ever Heroic Portraits customer today!
What perfect timing - I can't stand to look at the computer screen for more than a couple of minutes.
Hopefully, though, I should be able to work on it this weekend.
What perfect timing - I can't stand to look at the computer screen for more than a couple of minutes.
Hopefully, though, I should be able to work on it this weekend.
Monday, January 28, 2008
It Figures
Under normal circumstances I pretty much never get sick.
In five years at AOL I called in exactly three times, and only one of those time was for any sort of ailment (a painful abcessed tooth that kept me up all night). The other two times were when I was in a car accident and then when I had to go home when my dad was dying.
In any case, somewhere along the line I apparently caught a cold, and said cold got into my eyes via my contacts, giving me an infection in both eyes.
So after struggling to work while feeling like someone was sticking hot needles in my eyes for about half the day I came home and eventually had Kathleen take me to urgent care (in addition to the eye problem I had a fever, my head was pounding, and my nose was totally congested). So I'm off for two days and have three different drops that I have to put into my eyes and a cortical steroid to spray up my nose.
It figures that the one time I do actually get sick it happens so soon after starting a new job.
Anyway, one of the drops dilates my pupils, making my eyes even more sensitive to light than they already were, so writing this is painful and I will now stop.
In five years at AOL I called in exactly three times, and only one of those time was for any sort of ailment (a painful abcessed tooth that kept me up all night). The other two times were when I was in a car accident and then when I had to go home when my dad was dying.
In any case, somewhere along the line I apparently caught a cold, and said cold got into my eyes via my contacts, giving me an infection in both eyes.
So after struggling to work while feeling like someone was sticking hot needles in my eyes for about half the day I came home and eventually had Kathleen take me to urgent care (in addition to the eye problem I had a fever, my head was pounding, and my nose was totally congested). So I'm off for two days and have three different drops that I have to put into my eyes and a cortical steroid to spray up my nose.
It figures that the one time I do actually get sick it happens so soon after starting a new job.
Anyway, one of the drops dilates my pupils, making my eyes even more sensitive to light than they already were, so writing this is painful and I will now stop.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
When Disparate Interests Intersect
I’ve mentioned several times that I watch a lot of HGTV. As Scott said, it’s become my life.
As I’ve sat on the couch powerless to look away I’ve thought about the other thing I spend nearly as much time watching as I do watching HGTV, and what it would be like if they were combined.
And what would be the result of that combination? Why, BJTV, of course, an all-porn channel with shows whose titles are based on their HGTV counterparts.
What follows are the names of shows currently on HGTV in bold and the names of their BJTV versions in italics:
My House is Worth What?
My Ass is Worth What?
Buy Me
Blow Me
Color Correction
Color Erection
Hidden Potential
Hidden Slut-tential
or
Hidden Butt-tential
Designed to Sell
Designed to Suck
Don’t Sweat It
Don’t Swallow It
Deserving Design
Deserving Behinds
House Hunters
Whore Hunters
Offbeat America
Beat Off America
World’s Most Extreme Homes
World’s Most Extreme Orgies
My First Place
My First Facial
…and so forth.
It would seem like Over Your Head would be an obvious choice as well, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything suitable.
On a related note, I have to say that I’m amazed that I’ve never encountered anyone making porn based on the titles of the Harry Potter books and movies, given that there’s such an obvious way to pornify the protagonist’s name: Hairy Twatter.
Thus you would have:
Hairy Twatter and The Sorcerer’s Bone
Hairy Twatter and The Chamber of Sluts
Hairy Twatter and The Prisoner of Ass-kaban
Hairy Twatter and The Goblet of Jizz
Hairy Twatter and The Order of the Penis
Hairy Twatter and The Butt-Plugged Prince
Hairy Twatter and The Deadly Swallows (Starring Peter North)
If someone has, in fact, gone this route, than my apologies for not recognizing your porny pun skills.
(And my apologies for scarring anyone’s childhood/inner child.)
In any case, feel free to share your own BJTV or Hairy Twatter title suggestions in the Comments.
As I’ve sat on the couch powerless to look away I’ve thought about the other thing I spend nearly as much time watching as I do watching HGTV, and what it would be like if they were combined.
And what would be the result of that combination? Why, BJTV, of course, an all-porn channel with shows whose titles are based on their HGTV counterparts.
What follows are the names of shows currently on HGTV in bold and the names of their BJTV versions in italics:
My House is Worth What?
My Ass is Worth What?
Buy Me
Blow Me
Color Correction
Color Erection
Hidden Potential
Hidden Slut-tential
or
Hidden Butt-tential
Designed to Sell
Designed to Suck
Don’t Sweat It
Don’t Swallow It
Deserving Design
Deserving Behinds
House Hunters
Whore Hunters
Offbeat America
Beat Off America
World’s Most Extreme Homes
World’s Most Extreme Orgies
My First Place
My First Facial
…and so forth.
It would seem like Over Your Head would be an obvious choice as well, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything suitable.
On a related note, I have to say that I’m amazed that I’ve never encountered anyone making porn based on the titles of the Harry Potter books and movies, given that there’s such an obvious way to pornify the protagonist’s name: Hairy Twatter.
Thus you would have:
Hairy Twatter and The Sorcerer’s Bone
Hairy Twatter and The Chamber of Sluts
Hairy Twatter and The Prisoner of Ass-kaban
Hairy Twatter and The Goblet of Jizz
Hairy Twatter and The Order of the Penis
Hairy Twatter and The Butt-Plugged Prince
Hairy Twatter and The Deadly Swallows (Starring Peter North)
If someone has, in fact, gone this route, than my apologies for not recognizing your porny pun skills.
(And my apologies for scarring anyone’s childhood/inner child.)
In any case, feel free to share your own BJTV or Hairy Twatter title suggestions in the Comments.
Why I Love Fables Reason Number 71
The cover for the March issue is, as I said to Scott, wicked awesome:
--The wicked awesome cover to Fables #71 by James Jean, featuring, I'm guessing, not knowing the story, Little Red Riding Hood decked out in a spiffy new outfit.
--The wicked awesome cover to Fables #71 by James Jean, featuring, I'm guessing, not knowing the story, Little Red Riding Hood decked out in a spiffy new outfit.
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