Anyone Know What The Chinese Character For "Jon Can Suck It" Is?

Oh, right; I have a blog.
On Wednesday it occurred to Scott that if he put his back seats down we could probably fit the mower I was thinking about buying in his cars, so we decided to meet at Lowe’s to find out.
Turns out it did, so after that we had dinner at Chili’s, then headed to my house and unloaded and unpacked the mower.
That, of course, left the question of what to do with the (not-so) old mower. As mentioned, I’m too lazy to try to go through the effort of actually selling it, and Scott stated that he didn’t really need a mower, even a free one.
However, after I mentioned that the mower mulches, he decided he could use a free mower, and thus room was freed up in my tool shed for the new mower.
And that was pretty much the big excitement for the week, so despite the fact that I haven’t been doing much in the way of regular posts, it’s clear that you haven’t really been missing out.
Today I got up, sat around, showered, dressed, and headed out to the comic shop. From there it was off the barbershop to get a haircut, and then over to Target to do some grocery shopping that consisted primarily of buying stuff to drink and things to snack on.
When I got home I broke out the weed whacker to deal with the dandelion invasion. It probably would have been easier to just mow again, but a. i hadn’t actually charged my mower battery yet and b. it’s 93 degrees out, so I didn’t feel like toiling away too long under the brutal and punishing sun.
After that I made some lunch and watched some recorded TV, then tried, unsuccessfully, to take a nap. After that it was more recorded TV, and now this.
I probably shouldn’t complain about how thoroughly unexciting my life is, as I probably wouldn’t like having an exciting life, if for no other reason than that it would probably require a lot more effort than I’d be willing to put forth. But even so, there’s no getting around it: my life is boring as hell.

Exciting New Developments Department:
Of course, my life isn’t all tedium and malaise, as there have been a couple of new developments, that, relative to what the rest of my life is like, are kind of exciting.
The first one involves TV. Some time back Verizon introduced a feature to their DVRs that allows customers to access their DVRs remotely from any computer to do things like schedule recordings. Further, Verizon Wireless customers could even program their DVRs using their cell phones.
The drawback to this new feature was that it was only available to customers with Verizon’s multi-room DVR setup. Given that I only have the one set-top box, this meant that I was excluded from using the feature.
However, recently Verizon made the service available to all of their customers. I got great amusement from being a jackass and sitting in my recliner, the DVR’s remote just inches from my hand, and using my laptop to go online to schedule a recording.
Verizon went even a step further, making it possible for customers to program their DVRs with their cell phone regardless of their mobile carrier. Of course, once again, I’m excluded from using this feature, as there’s some other service the customers have to use in order to be able to access their DVRs from their phones.
Oh well.
The other “exciting” development is considerably less cool – remember that the Chinese character for “opportunity” is the same one for “crisis,” which goes a long way towards explaining why I don’t really crave excitement – and it involves my downstairs toilet.
Last night while making use of the facilities I noticed a rather large puddle on the floor near the toilet. It seemed to me that I would have remembered if my aim had been that bad for long enough to account for the volume of liquid, so I suspected something was up.
I cleaned up the mess and decided that I’d check in again later to see if the puddle reappeared. Sure enough, about a half an hour later, it had.
Getting down on my knees – which isn’t something I’ve had to do in the bathroom very often since I quit drinking – I did some inspecting and found that the water was seeping out through a crack in the seal between the toilet and the floor. At first I thought that I could just get some caulk and seal it back up, but then it occurred to me that even with the crack in the seal, water shouldn’t actually be leaking out anyway, which means that there’s something else broken somewhere inside.
I’ve watched enough home improvement shows to know that replacing a toilet is a fairly simple and straightforward process, but I’ve also been Jon long enough to know that nothing is ever simple and straightforward, so I set aside any plans for buying a new toilet and engaging in a do it yourself project today and simply shut off the water supply and threw a towel around the base.
After all, I have a friend who’s always willing to help and who recently made some toilet repairs of his own.
(Interested in engaging in a project on Wednesday, Scott?)
I really should just replace all three of my toilets, given how old and eco-hostile they are, but eventually I want to do some major renovations and don’t really want to do everything piecemeal.
This is why, despite the fact that I would really like to get a bigger refrigerator with an ice and filtered water dispenser on the front, and I’ve seen some really good deals, I have not done so as of yet. I’d like to do all of the kitchen remodeling in one shot and get matching appliances at that time. I may eventually change my mind on that, though, as I really could use more freezer space.
Anyway, those are the two exciting developments in my life.

Hopefully This VD Won't Require Antibiotics

So we’ve got VD once again. Here’s hoping that everyone has a wonderful, romantic time, and that no one chokes on engagement rings hidden in champagne glasses, that the unfaithful manage to successfully double (or triple, or quadruple…) book themselves, and that no one thinks that “going to Jared” involves the guy who lost a bunch of weight eating Subway sandwiches.
As for me, it’s been a typical Saturday involving getting up, getting showered and dressed, heading to the comic shop, gassing up the car, and going grocery shopping and failing to get everything I needed because the human obstacle course was just too damned annoying.
Ah, romance…
Speaking of which, so far OK Cupid continues to be a terrible archer. Among its greatest misses have been a transgendered – but still functionally male – woman, a lesbian, a woman who lives more than 70 miles away, despite the fact that I limited the search to within 25, a lesbian, and a bisexual woman who states that potential matches should contact her only if they DO NOT (all caps hers) have a penis.
A blind, retarded, drunk howler monkey would probably be a better shot than OK Cupid.
But at least it’s free…
Yesterday found me spending too much damned time in front of the TV, catching up on the episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report sitting on my DVR, and actually watching some live TV, as last night saw the return of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
That was followed by the new series Dollhouse, which I’ve been kind of ambivalent about, but figured I might as well watch it once my ass was already planted in the recliner.
It was okay, and Eliza Dushku was as hot as always, so I figure I’ll probably give it another shot. It’s not like I have to worry about it being a long-term commitment; it’s a science fiction show on Fox. There’s almost no chance that it’ll survive.
Hell, moving The Sarah Connor Chronicles to Friday nights is essentially Fox moving it to death row, and the miracle that actually led the show to have a second season is bound to run out of steam.
In the promos for Dollhouse they mentioned that it was from “Joss Whedon, Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Oddly enough, they didn’t add “and that other show that we stuck in a deadly Friday night time slot and then canceled right away.”
After Dollhouse I watched Numb3rs, and then it was time for Battlestar Galactica. I’m patient enough to let it record during Numb3rs so that I can watch it commercial-free, but not patient enough to not watch it immediately afterwards.
The same can’t be said for Heroes, which has been sitting unwatched on my DVR since Monday.
When I got home from my grocery shopping I thought about making some sort of lunch but decided to just eat some yogurt and then take a nap.
During my nap I dreamed that I was going to a party with actress Katherine Heigl, who was, for some reason, driving a very old, rusted, and trash-filled car – with, I think, Jack Black in the backseat – and she was complaining to me that I don’t draw pictures of her nearly as often as she thinks I ought to, and wouldn’t listen when I explained that most of the pictures I have of her are too much of a pain in the ass, involving entirely too much lace and complex transparency.
She kept changing her position on what it meant that we were going to this party together. Sometimes it was as friends, other times it was as something rather more, then it was as friends, but with an unspoken understanding that there was more to it than that, but which we weren’t going to discuss, and then it was just that she was giving me a ride and I’d better keep away from her during the party, but maybe she didn’t really mean it and she wanted me to figure that out on my own and this was all some sort of test.
The whole thing was utterly baffling, and shortly after we arrived at the party I woke up and thought, “That was weird,” and went back to sleep and started dreaming that it was the day after the party and I’d gone back to the house in search of something that I’d lost while I was at the party (I think it was my contact case, though why I’d bring that to a party is beyond me, but it makes about as much sense as anything else in the dreams).
Then I got up, watched Wednesday night’s Law & Order on my DVR, sat around for a while, and started writing this.
For the curious among you, the picture I posted yesterday is a drawing of Starro the Conqueror, an old Justice League of America villain. In fact, if I recall correctly, Starro was the first JLA villain, the one whose efforts to conquer the world brought the heroes together in their first team venture.
(Yep. Just actually looked at the Wikipedia entry.)
I typically don’t have a lot to do on Friday afternoons, so I took the opportunity to quickly draw a picture of Starro on the whiteboard in my cubicle. The whiteboard that other cube-dwellers use to keep track of projects and deadlines and whatnot, but which I decided would be put to better use by having a picture of an obscure (and utterly ridiculous) comic book character drawn on it.
It’s my intention to have Starro say something different every day, and it’s my hope that other people on my floor will join in the fun by writing their own communiqués from the Star Conqueror.
Over the years I’ve actually thought about getting a tattoo of Starro, and there’s a blog post that I’ve been planning to write for a while in which Starro will have a prominent role. So there’s that to – eventually – look forward to, or to dread. Whichever.

Confessions Of A Cube Dweller

I never thought I would miss my cube, but this week I haven't spent much time there, and I've found that I kind of did miss it.
Monday I was off, so naturally I didn't spend any time in it.
Yesterday afternoon our SVP had an "All Hands" meeting, so that took up most of the day (and ran late, leading to an irritating hour-long drive home in rush hour traffic).
This morning our VP held an "All Hands" meeting of his own - at 7 AM, which was lots of fun.
The early morning meeting was for the benefit of the people working the overnight shift.
A second meeting was held in the afternoon for the benefit of the people working the swing shift.
At our VP's request some of us were required to attend both meetings for the purposes of mingling with those employees we don't encounter too often.
So, yeah, spending the afternoon sitting through a meeting that I'd already sat through early in the morning made sitting in my cube seem infinitely preferable.
That's pretty much all that's been going on. TV shows have been piling up on my DVR, as I've been going to bed early, so I've got a bunch of stuff to watch.
I suppose I should get to it.

Catch Up Post

It’s been a while since I’ve done a proper post, so I suppose a little catching up is in order.
At work we’re making the upgrade from Microsoft Office 2003 to Office 2007, and as part of the process various training sessions were held in which reps from MS came and discussed some of the changes and new features and to answer any questions.
I’ve been using Office 2007 at home pretty much since it came out, so I’m pretty familiar with it. However, at home I don’t use Outlook, but at work I practically live in it, so on Wednesday I went to one of the training sessions to find out what’s changed in the new version.
At the end of the session they asked some review questions and gave out prizes to the first person to answer the questions. In exchange for saying “The Office Button,” I was rewarded with a Microsoft hat.
I’m not much of a hat person – or terribly inclined to be a corporate shill via the clothes I wear – but who doesn’t like winning stuff?
They also gave away a grand prize to the person on the sign-in sheet who matched the random number that the MS guy picked (which wasn’t me).
The prize was a couple of X-Box 360 games. However, the person who won didn’t have an X-Box 360, so instead he was offered a full copy of Office 2007 Professional, which was actually pretty cool, especially considering that it can cost more than an X-Box 360 system.
Wednesday night Scott came over for Riff Trax night. We watched the Riff of Aeon Flux, and, out of a sense of nostalgia, watched an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Specifically, we watched Manos: The Hands of Fate, which is a perfectly dreadful movie, masterfully mocked by Joel and the Bots.
I had actually intended for us to watch the Ed Wood “classic” Bride of the Monster, but circumstances were such that it wasn’t an option.
On Thursday evening I was invited out to dinner at Outback with Scott, Stacy, and their friend Dawn.
As it would have been silly to drive all the way home to Leesburg and then turn around and drive to Centreville, I decided to head that way straight from work.
The Google driving directions suggested that the trip would take 22 minutes, but as I would be driving at around rush hour I assumed a considerable amount of time would be added to my drive.
This proved to be the case, but, of course, it wasn’t quite enough time. We were supposed to meet at 6. I arrived at around 5:15.
I killed some time by wandering around the Giant grocery store located in the plaza.
As an aside, I do my banking with Chevy Chase – the bank, not the comedian/actor – and every Giant I’ve ever been to either has a Chevy Chase branch inside, or at least a Chevy Chase ATM. Given that the sign said that there was a Chevy Chase bank inside, I assumed this Giant was no exception, so I intended to hit up the ATM, as I was rather low on cash. Turns out that the sign was a lie; there was a PNC branch and ATM inside.
At around 5:50 I decided that I could head over to the Outback and wait for the others to arrive. I assumed I would be waiting for the others to arrive because that’s generally how it works, especially when I arrive almost 45 minutes early.
So initially I sat in the waiting area, but as it started to get busier I decided I should get us a seat. Once I was seated I sent Scott a text telling him where I was seated.
This resulted in Stacy appearing and telling me that they were already there, and had been since 5:30.
D’oh.
This made me a little more surly than usual, but I took note of this and attempted to set my annoyance aside and enjoy my baby back ribs (and the company, of course).
On Friday when I got home from work I decided, as is typical, to take a bit of a nap.
I only dozed for about an hour or so, but throughout that time I had mini-dreams in which I imagined myself looking at my hands and finding that they were riddled with odd sores and covered with some sort of crud, which was weird.
I finally got up when my mind created a rather startling image of some random, masked person leaning down and putting his face right in front of mine and shouting something that was mostly unintelligible, but may have been, “I’m going to the drug store!”
As another aside, when I was 12-13, I shared a bedroom with my older brother Stuart. He had a habit of coming home late at night/early in the morning, walking over to my bed, and hovering his face just centimeters from mine until I would wake up and yell “Gah!”
It’s worth noting that he was, of course, drunk when he would do this. On other occasions he would just come over and pound on my chest until I woke up.
Other times I would wake up before he got in the room – he generally wasn’t terribly quiet when he would stumble his way into the house – and he would engage me in bizarre conversations before falling asleep.
The most memorable one was when he came in, said, hi, got into bed, paused, and then said, “Are you my brother?”
When I answered in the affirmative, he said, “Brad?”
I said no, and he responded, “Jon, right?”
I congratulated him on getting it right on his second try and told him to go to sleep.
In any case, after I got up and ate the leftover Chinese food from Riff Trax night, I set about the task of watching some of the TV shows that had piled up on my DVR - I still have an hour and a half worth of shows to watch – and then came back upstairs to download and watch the Thursday night episode of Smallville that I’d forgotten to set to record (and was too late to catch after I got home from dinner). I gave up on watching Smallville two seasons ago, but this was a special episode that I wanted to check out, and about which I’ll write more in a subsequent post.
At 10 I watched Numb3rs, then I watched the premiere of Battlestar Galactica, which I’d recorded while I was watching Numb3rs.
I slept for about 9 hours last night, waking up sometime close to 11.
I was preparing to take a shower and venture out into the world when my mother called.
After that I sat around for a while, then finally made my way out to get gas and go grocery shopping. I’d stopped at the comic shop on Wednesday, as it had occurred to me last week – after I’d gotten home – that I should have picked up a copy of You’ll All Be Sorry! for Scott. Since I was going to be seeing him that evening, I figured I should rectify that on Wednesday.
Somehow the grocery shopping experience seemed to be even more maddening than usual, so I tried to wrap things up as quickly as possible.
Once I got home I had a very late lunch/breakfast, then decided to take a nap, one from which I had to violently struggle to wake.
Apart from some random sitting around not doing much of anything and some more TV watching, that’s pretty much been it.

Sleek, Sexy, And Just Plain Cool. And My New Phone Is Pretty Neat, Too

As mentioned in my last post, I finally picked up my new cell phone, the HTC Fuze.
After Scott, Jamie, and I met at the food court and ate, we headed to the AT&T store and found that they had the phone. The sales guy brought one out so that we could play around with it, at which point we discovered that the reviewer who said it was sluggish and unresponsive was either a. smoking crack or b. didn’t bother calibrating the touch screen before playing around with it.
It did take forever for it to start the first time, as it had to install a bunch of stuff, but after that it was fine. Admittedly, when sifting through photos via “flicking,” it’s not as fast as an iPhone or iPod Touch, but that’s hardly a deal-breaker.
After playing with it, the question of whether or not one or more of us was actually going to buy it arose. Scott needed to talk it over with Stacy, while Jamie had already gotten the go-ahead from Casey, but was still somewhat reluctant to do so, and I, of course, had the “advantage” of being a loveless loner who doesn’t have to clear anything with anyone.
Even so, I was leaning towards waiting until after payday, but ultimately decided that I didn’t want to wait.
While I was being rung up and getting my service plan upgraded, Jamie decided to buy it as well.
I went with the accessories pack, which included a car charger, 2 GB microSD card, case (more on that in a bit), and a Bluetooth headset. There was some sort of issue with the headset that it was supposed to come with it – I guess they didn’t have it – so I ended up getting a better one, apparently. It is a pretty nice LG headset. Now I can be one of those jack-offs walking around everywhere with a Bluetooth headset stuck in his ear who, upon initial inspection, appears to be talking to himself. Of course, in my case the odds are pretty good that I really would be talking to myself.
Scott and I waited around while Jamie was being rung up, and were approached by another sales guy who was especially chatty. Turns out that he had worked at AOL for a while last year. He tried doing some namedropping of various AOL bigwigs he had worked with, but neither Scott, nor Jamie, nor I recognized the names, so when he dropped them they just kept on falling.
At some point – weirdly – he started telling Scott and I all of these places where we could get really good deals on unlocked phone.
We were both thinking, “Uh, you do know that you work at a place that’s in business to sell locked phones, right?”
Jamie, still being rung up, told Scott and I that we could leave if we wanted. Scott offered to stay, and I would have been willing to, but it was getting a bit late, given that we had yet to start Riff Trax night, so when Jamie found out that we had plans to watch movies she said again that we could leave, and when Scott started to demur, I said, “Meh, we can just ditch her.”
So we did.
When we got to my house and I started going through everything that came with the phone I discovered that I hadn’t gotten a case.
I also remembered that I’d intended to go to Wilsons Leather Store while I was at the Town Center to buy some gloves. I figured that because they’re (sadly) going out of business I could get a good deal.
So to deal with the issues of the case and the gloves, I stopped at the Town Center on my way home from work on Friday and I learned that I didn’t get a case because they were all out, and that the Wilsons has already closed and been replaced by some other store.
It was only two strikes, but I was still out.
In any case, so far I’m digging the phone, not because it’s somehow life-altering, but because it’s just got a lot of little “Hey, that’s cool!” features that set it apart from the simple functionality of my old phone.
And besides that, it’s sleek and sexy.
In terms of actual functionality that sets it apart from my old phone, it has a better keyboard that has the most commonly-used special characters (@, for example) right on the keyboard without requiring pressing the Function key, and it includes a full-fledged Web browser (Opera Mobile). Beyond that, the Touch Flo 3D interface is a marked improvement over the default Windows Mobile interface.
The 3.2 Megapixel camera takes unusually sharp and clear pictures, has an auto-focus feature, and has really good image-stabilization so that pictures don’t turn out nearly as blurry as they do on most cell phone cameras.
Among the “that’s cool” features are the fact that the stylus is secured in its storage spot with a magnet – something Jamie discovered – that actually pulls the stylus into place as you’re pushing it in, and the fact that the screen automatically unlocks when you pull the stylus out.
If you’re in a meeting and the phone rings, you can simply turn it over so that it’s face down and it will stop ringing. You can also set it so that it automatically switches to vibrate during times that there are appointments on your calendar.
It comes with a game called Teeter that takes advantage of the phone’s accelerometer (the video features the slide-out keyboard-less version of my phone). You have to guide a ball into a specific hole, past obstacles like walls and other holes, by tilting the phone. It even gives some tactile feedback so that you can feel when the ball “hits” one of the walls or goes into a hole.
It’s kind of addictive – and maddening.
Speaking of the accelerometer, there is one sort of…well, not complaint, exactly, but more of an observation about the phone that I have. Unlike the iPhone or iPod Touch, the screen’s orientation doesn’t automatically change with the orientation of the phone. At least, not always; it seems to be application-specific.
If I’m browsing in Opera, or using the camera, for example, and I turn it on its side, the orientation of the screen will change. But if I’m using the actual phone, or say Bubble Breaker, and tilt it, the orientation does not change.
Like I said, it’s not really a complaint; it’s just different from what I would have expected, thanks to my iPod Touch.
When I was upgrading my service plan, the sales guy asked me if I text at all. I said that I don’t do a lot of texting, but it is a feature that I use. I wondered why he was asking, as I thought that I had unlimited data and texting on my existing plan. He said that I didn’t have unlimited texting. Evidently I’ve been paying per text, which, given that I never noticed any major increases in my monthly bill, says a lot about how much, or rather, how little, I text.
In any case, I went with a different plan that covered texting. I also opted to add the GPS service. I doubt that I’ll get that much use out of it, but I might as well have it. I tried out the GPS software yesterday and was pretty impressed by its accuracy.
So, yeah. Digging the sleek, sexy new phone.
But what, you may ask, about my old, not-so sleek and sexy but still perfectly functional phone?
When I was home for my mom’s birthday I was talking to my niece Jourdan about the new phone I was eventually going to buy, and she jokingly asked if she could have my old one. The thought hadn’t occurred to me; I figured on just dropping it off in one of those charity boxes or whatever. So I said that she could, which surprised her. I’m not sure why; it’s not like I was going to have any further use for it.
Apparently ever since that time she’s been periodically asking my mom “Did Jon buy his new phone yet?”
So this morning when I headed out to go to the comic shop and go grocery stopping I stopped at the Postal Connections to ship it to her. When I got home I sent her a message on Facebook letting her know that I had shipped it out.
In response she said that I “must be the best uncle ever.”
Ha! In your face, Stuart and Brad, and Dean’s brother Rick! I rule!
Apart from the activities mentioned above, I haven’t done much today. After getting home and eating lunch, I took a rather lengthy nap.
I spent most of last night watching the recorded TV piled up on my DVR, and still have a few more shows to watch tonight.
In fact, I think I’ll go do that now.

Lethargy...To The EXTREME!

Scott came over for Riff Trax night on Thursday, and before we got into the movie watching we headed over to a local restaurant to get something to eat, ending up being the jerks who come into a place ten minutes before it’s about to close.
Still, how were we supposed to know? Who expects a restaurant to close at 5:00?
Taking our food to go, we got back to my house where I heard an all-too familiar sound: a squirrel trying to escape from the trap it’s stumbled into.
I went up into the attic to retrieve trap and squirrel (which doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Moose and Squirrel”), then set it aside while we ate and started watching the movie before finally attending to the…unpleasantness.
The first movie for the night was Jurassic Park (featuring guest riffer “Weird” Al Yankovic). I had burned the DVD the other night, and then on the next day I saw that Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton had died. Some people would call that ironic, but that’s just because they don’t know what ironic means.
I will grant that it was an odd coincidence.
After Jurassic Park we watched Missile to the Moon, a movie made well before 1969 that’s just rife with all of the kinds of bizarre notions about traveling to our planet’s natural satellite that you would expect from that time period, with guest riffer Fred Willard, who was a riot.
Then we watched the Thursday night NBC comedy line-up (minus that show with Molly Shannon).
I didn’t do much yesterday beyond watching the episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report that had piled up on my DVR. I also watched the premiere of Law & Order, which I’d recorded on Wednesday.
More TV watching was in order, as I watched that show Numb3rs at 10. Though I like the show I had been ambivalent about watching it this season, as I didn’t want to devote another hour to TV. Then I thought, “What else am I going to do on a Friday night?”
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the show centers around two brothers, one of whom is an FBI agent, with the other being a college professor and math genius. The math genius and his unrealistically hot genius girlfriend, who is also a professor, and one other professor consult with the FBI, using mathematical analyses and simulations to help solve crimes.
I think it should actually be called M3taphors, because the math geniuses are constantly using metaphors to explain their computations to the math-challenged FBI agents (and viewers).
Still, it’s an entertaining show, though I spend a good portion of it wondering what the hell is up with Rob Morrow’s mouth, as he tends to move it as little as possible when speaking. He looks rather a lot like he’s holding a big wad of chew in his bottom lip. I don’t remember him doing that on Northern Exposure, but then it’s been a while.
As for today I woke up – unwillingly – around 9:30 and got up because there was a bunch of stuff I intended to do this morning. It took me about two and a half hours to build up enough motivation to shower, dress, and head out into the world.
I hadn’t stopped at the comic shop this week because every day after work I just wanted to get home as soon as possible, and also because I hadn’t made my way all through the stack of two weeks’ worth of comics I’d picked up last week.
So that was the first order of business today. Well, actually the second, as I first stopped at the bank to deposit a check that I’d gotten from my mortgage company for an overage in my escrow account.
After that I stopped to get a haircut. Once again it wasn’t as short as I would have liked. I should probably either start being more vocal and descriptive about how I want it cut, or else stop going there entirely.
As for the latter solution, I’m not really inclined to stop going there because it’s (relatively) cheap and I very seldom have to wait.
And as for the former, well, I don’t really care that much, and there have been people who think it looks better a little longer. Not really having that much of an opinion about how I look myself, and only really caring about whether or not my hair is hanging down and rubbing against my forehead, or getting full of static and clinging to my forehead, I’m inclined to just go with the results I’ve been getting.
After all, it’s not like it’s going to be a haircut that suddenly makes all the difference. There’s not going to be some chick who looks at me and thinks, “Wow, that guy over there who’s mostly-unremarkable-but-unappealing-in-a-nerdy-creepy-sort-of-way has a great haircut! I should sleep with him!” or “That guy over there is mostly-unremarkable-but-unappealing-in-a-nerdy-creepy-sort-of-way, but I might still sleep with him…if he didn’t have such a dodgy haircut.”
The other thing about the place I go to get my hair cut is that I never know what kind of additional service they’re going to throw in randomly. Usually they’ll bust out some kind of massager and give me a – rather unpleasant, actually – neck and shoulder rub, as was the case today, sometimes including a scalp massage, and sometimes they’ll shave the back of my neck with a straight razor.
Today, in addition to the lousy massage, the girl trimmed my eyebrows, which was a new one on me. I will grant that they have gotten decidedly Kirby-esque of late, though.
After that I gassed up the car and headed over to Super Target to do some grocery shopping, then returned home where, after putting away the groceries, I ate lunch, sat around for a while doing nothing in particular, then considered either taking a nap or writing a blog post.
Guess which course of action I decided on.
I was awoken from my nap by a phone call. For some reason my cordless handsets frequently become unregistered from the base station, so until they’re power-cycled they won’t actually ring or be usable. That proved to be the case with the one on my nightstand, so I had to get up and answer the phone here in the office.
It was Stacy calling to invite me over for dinner tonight. The idea of not having to feed myself was tempting, but still feeling extremely groggy and listless, the idea of driving to and from Manassas seemed less so. Ultimately I gave in to my lethargy and demurred.
The start of what has now become a nasty headache that I woke up from my nap with didn’t help make me any more amenable to venturing out into the world either.
In any case, that pretty much brings you up to date on all things Jon.

Oh, Like You're Really Missing Out On Anything

I know I haven't been posting for most of the week, and today isn't going to be much of an exception, as tiredness and a bunch of TV shows piled up on my DVR are standing in the way between me and any sort of significant blog post.
I'll try to post something substantial tomorrow, but in the meantime I'm sure you'll find a way to get on with your lives.

Lord, I Was Born A Rambling Blogger

Wednesday night Scott and I watched the Riff Trax versions of Spider-Man 2 and Star Wars Episode 1, both of which were extremely entertaining.
However, as a result, on Thursday night I had some recorded shows waiting to be watched on my DVR, and I also had My Name is Earl and The Office to watch, so most of my time was spent in front of the TV, which is why I didn’t post an entry.
Well, that and laziness. Been a lot of that going around lately.
On my drive home on Thursday it occurred to me that sometimes I wish it were possible for me to pull people over to the side of the road and – no, not beat them within inches of their lives – ask them what the hell they’re doing and why. I was particularly interested in doing this to someone who was driving in the lane next to me. If I could have done so, the conversation would have gone something like this:

“Who the fuck are you, and why have you pulled me over?”
“Calm down. My name is Jon and I just wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Well, as we were driving along I noticed that you were, what, about fifteen car lengths behind the nearest car, right?”“Yeah, about that, I guess.”
“And you were probably going about five miles per hour under the speed limit?”
“Yeah.”
“And you were holding that speed pretty steadily, so clearly there was no immediate danger of you suddenly colliding with the car ahead of you.”“So?”
“Well, my question is, given all of that, why did you randomly slam on your brakes, nearly causing the car behind you to rear-end you?”

Of course, I can only speculate as to what the answer to that question would be, so I can’t provide an answer in my hypothetical conversation, but given how often I see this sort of thing happen, and generally in circumstances in which, unlike the situation on Thursday, I’m the person behind the inexplicable braker, I’m more than a little curious as to what the answer might be.
Any ideas out there as to why people just randomly slam on their brakes for no apparent reason?
I’d really like to know. Well, I’d really like for people to stop doing it, but barring that, I’d settle for understanding the reasoning behind it.
When I got home yesterday I immediately entered into a dialogue with my bed that resulted in the bed convincing me that I should climb into it and sleeping for two hours and waking up confused in darkness when, from my perspective, it had been bright and sunny just a few moments earlier.
Despite my rather lengthy nap earlier in the day I still ended up sleeping for nearly nine hours last night, waking up surprisingly late this morning.
As a result it took me until later in the day than usual to shower and dress and head out into the world to pick up some groceries, with said delay leading to an exponential increase in the number of children and old people I had to maneuver around in the grocery store.
In thinking about the whole National Novel Writing Month thing, I’ve found myself revisiting a very old story idea, grappling with some of the more problematic questions that had ultimately led me to abandon the idea, working out some possible answers to those questions, and coming up with a workable plot, complete with the requisite beginning, middle, and end.
However, that small victory isn’t quite encouraging enough to push me off the fence when it comes to deciding whether or not I’ll participate this year, given that the other problems of time and motivation are still in place.
So, for the time being I’m still in “we’ll see” mode.
In any case, this entry has been uneven and rambling enough that I should probably bring it to an end.
If I can build up the energy to work on and complete a picture, I’ll post the results later. If not, I won’t.

TV Is Devouring My Not-So Precious Time

I don’t understand how I can climb into bed utterly exhausted because I didn’t get enough sleep on the previous night and end up tossing and turning and getting even less sleep.
Well, I suppose the fact that I’m Jon is sufficient explanation.
I like the original Sci-Fi Channel series Eureka. In fact, before I finally got into Battlestar Galactica, it had been the only thing I watched on Sci-Fi.
This fact would, presumably, lead some to wonder why it was that when I was reminded by an ad on IMDb that season three starts tonight I would exclaim, “Goddammit!”Of course the explanation for this is that it’s yet another hour of my time that will be eaten up by watching TV, and with last night’s recorded episodes of The Closer (which was, as always, excellent; if you’re not watching this show, you should be), The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, as well as the 7:00 episode of The Simpsons, I’ve already used up two and a half hours watching TV.
I guess I just have to content myself with the realization that it’s not as though I would do anything worthwhile with the time.

I Get Phone Calls? Department:
Saturday night, while watching TV (of course), I got a phone call, which is, as most of you know, unusual.
What made it even more unusual was that it was a recorded message – that isn’t the unusual part; most of the calls I get are recorded messages trying to sell something or other – from Pastor something or other of the “Hurricane Church.” First time I’ve ever gotten a call from someone shilling a church.
At least, I’m assuming that was what the recording was shilling; I hung up as soon as I heard the ending “ch” on “Church.”
Sunday night I was sitting at the computer when my phone rang. This time it was an actual person, in this case a woman. A woman who was chewing some food as she said, “Hey, is crunch crunch there?”
To which I responded, “I’m sorry, who?”
This netted me a sarcastic response of, “Your wife?” (It was preceded by that condescending “god-you’re-so-stupid” tongue clicking sound that chicks make when they want to make it clear that they think you’re a complete idiot and are, in every way, beneath contempt.)
“I don’t have one of those.”
“Oh, sorry I must have the wrong crunch crunch.”
Yesterday evening my phone rang once, then went silent. The call duration wasn’t even sufficient for my Caller ID to register the fact that I’d gotten a call.
A half an hour later it rang again.
When I answered, a young woman said, “Hello, my name is Allison, and I’m calling for [some survey company]. Let me assure you that this is not – ”
I said, “Let me assure you that I’m not going to listen.”
Well, I didn’t say it so much as I just hung up on her.
Earlier this evening my mother called, making it four nights in a row that I got a phone call. This may be a new record.

Today’s Popsicle Stick Wisdom:
I had two Popsicles earlier this evening, and the riddles on the sticks served as a reminder of the fact that the simplest solutions are often the most elegant. To wit:

What time is it when you’re out of ice cream? Time to get more ice cream.
What did the bug say when someone stepped on it? Nothing. Bugs can’t talk.

This is a noble truth that we forget all too often as we struggle with the complex issues that we face every day, and it serves to demonstrate the fact that Popsicles are the answer to all of life’s questions.

Won't Someone Please Think Of The Threshold Readers?

I honestly don’t understand how people can work a M-F, 9-5 style job and actually manage to accomplish anything.
I mean, just watching a little TV takes up my entire evening, especially since I’m too tired to stay up to watch The A Daily Show and The Colbert Report and end up recording them and then watching them the next night.
It’s madness, I tell you.
Sure, it’s not like I have anything that I actually need to accomplish in an evening, but that’s hardly the point.
Of course, you’re the real victims here, as I find myself too tired to write anything of substance.
One thing of note that happened today was that Nita was surprised to learn how old I am, as she’d assumed that I was under 30. I guess the dye job worked.
Anyway, I have more TV to watch before bedtime, so that’s going to do it for this entry. Maybe I’ll eventually get the hang of this whole not having my days free thing.