Let's Eat Paste

Public Service Announcement

2007-08-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

FYI... In case you are bleary-eyed and confusable some morning, you should take note that this is not, in fact, toothpaste.

Slash City

2007-06-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

We spent two nights in Derry, officially known as Londonderry, depending on if you are a Republican or Unionist. A lot of the road signs even refer to it as "Derry/Londonderry." When we were touring George Lowden's guitar making shop, he told us that they often refer to it as "Slash City" because of the /.

U2 wrote the song Sunday Bloody Sunday about a tragic event that happened in this town where British soldiers fired on some protesters. As we were walking from our hotel to the bridge across the Foyle River into the city, we walked a bit with an older gentleman who was actually on a boat on the Foyle when the shooting and rioting broke out.

The city center is surrounded by a wall, though the town has expanded far past the walls. The walls were built in 1618 and have never been penetrated.

Here's my wife modeling her star-studded USA flag belt, purchased at a Salvation Army in Londonderry earlier in the day... It was the only suitable belt they had there, the ladies working there thought it was pretty funny.

The city is rich in history, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend spending much time there as a tourist. We were surprised at how trashy the city was, garbage and graffiti everywhere. In the city we walked past a heavy steel door that was just covered with graffiti, even graffiti over other graffiti... I looked up and saw that it was the entry to the motor vehicle licensing office. I'm glad we went, but it was still sort of a depressing place.

More photos of Inch Abbey

2007-05-30T05:54:00.000-07:00

Inch Abbey lol

2007-05-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

This picture was taken at the ruins of Inch Abbey in County Down, Northern Ireland. The ruins of this monastery are over 1000 years old. In the distance across the water you can see the Down Cathedral, where St. Patrick was buried (at least part of him). I was taking this photo from the nearby cemetery and this cat was perched on the stone wall. I almost shoo'd it away, but thought it'd be a fun odd thing in the picture. After a while, we talked to a mother and daughter who were out walking their dog near the cemetery. It turns out they come twice a day to feed the cat, his name's Gravy. He's lived at Inch Abbey for about four years. He feeds at the same spot on the cemetery wall every day.

Two souls are pasted together as one

2007-03-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

Breaking news...

Last week, Monday, February 26 to be exact, Joy and I were married at Saul Church in Northern Ireland.

More details on the wedding and the honeymoon to follow over the next few days.

My favorite local TV commercial

2006-07-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

I decided to post this after reading through the advertising trade secrets that Todd W wrote about on his Cavalcade of Whimsy.

Here are just a few of the many things I've observed in this ad:
1.) In contrast to most used car lot commercials with the screaming megaphone guy, this ad has only six calmly spoken words of dialogue.

2.) It illustrates that monkeys and bananas are natural enemies.

3.) Monkeys are trying to help the homeless by giving them sandwiches, while protecting them from bananas.

4.) Towards the end of the commercial, you can see the banana start to slow down, as if he thought the scene was over. This was probably the twenty-seventh take and the banana was worn out and just didn't have the energy.

5.) The record needle scratch sound effect, indicating that things are suddenly not as they seem.

6.) I feel like buying an automobile, so that the homeless may eat.

Tag

2006-06-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

Melty

2006-06-14T07:37:00.000-07:00

On most weekdays, I drive a 1990 Dodge Caravan that my grandpa gave me a couple years ago. It saves miles and wear and tear on my 1995 Toyota Camry, which I plan to drive to about 1,000,000 miles. As a result, the Camry can sit out in front of my house untouched for days on end.

Here's what happens when you leave your favorite cd in the front seat of a closed up car for several days during an Arkansas summer.

What's funny is that I actually used to have an extra copy of this CD, and gave it away a couple months ago.

You can't handle this

2006-06-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Remember when I used to post stuff on my blog? Yeah me, too. Those were good times.

I've been working the crazy shift at work, which has meant working till at least midnight every night for the last couple weeks, and also regular office hours, all at the same job.

I woke up at about 5:30am on Thursday, I was actually stressing about Autocad details in my dreams. I decided then and there that I needed to get out, get some fresh air, a change of scenery, and focus my eyes on something further than my computer monitor. I decided to go for a bike ride.

I used to spend all my spare time on a bicycle, but I haven't ridden very much at all since college, especially in recent years. So I pulled my Jamis Diablo mountain bike down from the hook, aired up the tires and took my out of shape body for a spin. It felt great, I'd forgotten how much fun it is to ride. I decided to ride out to where my special lady friend is house sitting, though I wasn't going to wake her at 6am. I was just about to her street when all of a sudden the right side handlebar snapped off completely, sending me to the pavement. I scraped up my knee and I think I pulled or bruised a muscle on the heel of my left hand. I ended up riding it back one handed, with my right hand working the brake and shifting on the broken handlebar. I don't know how I did that, because right now I can't even use my left hand to turn the door knob to get into my house. I guess that's what I get for naming my bike after the devil. And exercising.

Oh, and I just realized I got a flat tire as well.

To top it off, I went into work at 7am on Thursday and worked straight through the day and night until 2pm on Friday afternoon.

Anyway, the reason the handlebars broke was because in previous years I was quite the X-treme cyclist, riding skateparks and jumping over cars and whatnot with my mountain bike. Well, I made up the thing about the cars. This is actually the second time I've done this, though. The other time was in college when I was trying to pull off a 360 on a little jump we made behind the maintenance building.

If I get ambitious, I'll scan and post some pictures from my more X-treme dayz.

Top Ten Random Funny Facts about Chuck Norris

2006-05-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

1. Chuck Norris was born on March 10, 1940 in Ryan, Oklahoma.

2. Chuck Norris played the lead role in a television show called Walker, Texas Ranger from 1993 to 2001.

3. Chuck Norris won the World Professional MiddleWeight Karate championships in 1968 and held that title until he retired it in 1974.

4. Chuck Norris starred in the movie Sidekicks in 1992.

5. As a hobby, Chuck Norris races powerboats at speeds up to 140mph, and once broke a record by driving a 38-foot Scarab across the Great Lakes from Detroit to Chicago.

6. Chuck Norris published his autobiography in 1988.

7. Chuck Norris has involved his brother Aaron and his sons Eric and Mike in directing, writing, and producing Walker, Texas Ranger.

8. Chuck Norris is involved with a number of good causes, including the Make-a-Wish Foundation, United Way, and the Veterans Administration.

9. Chuck Norris is half-Irish and half-Cherokee.

10. Chuck Norris joined the United Stated Air Force in 1958 and served in South Korea, which is where he developed his interest in the martial arts.

Which one is your favorite? Make up your own! Post it in the comments!

A Christmas Rerun

2005-12-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

I sincerely apologize for the lack of posts everybody, I've been getting pre-empted by baseball. One day I'll be empted.

In the meantime, enjoy this special Christmas message from one of my very first blog posts.

Notice there is no "P" in my blog's "_opularity"...

2005-10-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

Let's keep it that way. Oh, wait, there's still one. You know what I mean.

Thanks to Google's image search, people searching for "pee in public" and "how men pee" account for about 70% of the hits on this blog. I'm no math whiz but that makes this photo from an earlier post the #1 reason people come to my blog.

ROCK CONCERT - Sufjan and Wilco

2005-09-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

"But I want to go to the Rock Concert!"

Or something like that. Joy-Z will have to correct me if I'm wrong on that quote.

Last week, I was able to go to two rock shows in a row. Sufjan Stevens played on Wednesday in Lawrence, KS at The Bottleneck. And then Wilco played at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa.

The following anecdote will probably only seem funny to me, but I'm going to type it anyway. We all know I've run out of things to write about anyway.

I rode to the concert with my friends Casey, Traci, and Vance. Casey and Traci were in the front seat and Vance and I were in the backseat, I was riding on the passenger side. About forty minutes outside of Lawrence, traffic slowed to a crawl for some reason. After a while, three fellows got out of an SUV a couple cars ahead and walked off the interstate down a hill to some trees where they could relieve themselves. Traffic started moving a bit, so by the time they were done, their car had moved up quite a ways. They started walking, then jogging back to their car. As they jogged by our car, I rolled down my window and stuck my finger (index) into the air and started yelling "Woo hoo! Number one! Woo woo, Number One!" The first two guys looked confused and maybe a little nervous, but I think the last guy caught on.

We had dinner at a nice brew pub in downtown Lawrence, which turned out to be a pretty neat town. I left my fellow travelers a little early at dinner so I could be sure to catch Liz Janes, who was opening for Sufjan Stevens. I had seen her open for Sufjan last summer, along with the amazing Joanna Newsom, in San Diego. She started off accompanying herself with a ukulele, and then gradually her band joined her on stage. Sufjan was her drummer, and the rest of the band was made of other "Illinoisemakers," Sufjan's band.

Not from the show I attended...

So Sufjan Stevens and the Illinoisemakers came out all pumped up and cheering, dressed as an Illinois cheerleader/pep squad. The opening song was the 50 States song, with the chorus "It's part of the act, the 50 states, pack up your bags, it's never too late" and they mention every state and say a little phrase about it. Everyone laughed when he sang, "... go to Nebraska, there's nothing to do." This song can be heard on this concert recording from Toronto. They would often do coreographed cheers between songs, which was very fun and it kind of broke the pretension found at many indie-minded shows. The people that make up his band are extremely versatile, and they were constantly switching around instruments. At one point, I noticed the banjo player playing banjo at the beginning of a song, then picking up a trombone to play a horn part, then playing banjo again.

Almost all of the material was from his newest album, "Come On! Feel The Illinoise!" He played only one song from Seven Swans and for an encore he came back out by himself and played the song Romulus from the Michigan album, and the crowd was hushed. That's probably my favorite Sufjan song ever, so that was a treat for me.

If you're not familiar with Sufjan's stuff, Illinois is his second effort in the 50 States Project, which entails recording an album for each state. his first state project was Greetings From Michigan, which is still probably my favorite of his albums.

I have a feeling there would have been a longer set and more encore songs, but this was by far the hottest concert I've ever attended. It was crazy, and we were even standing in the back where it wasn't quite as crowded. It was a sold out show, so I know they were packed to capacity, but there must have been something wrong with the AC or something.

At the show I acquired what is likely to be a rare Superman edition of the vinyl LP version of Illinois. They had covered Superman with a balloon sticker. Earlier this summer they almost had a recall of the CDs because they hadn't licensed the image of Superman with DC comics, so all the newly pressed ones have that image removed.

We rolled back into Siloam at about 4:30am. Luckily, I had the day off from work, so I got a decent amount of sleep before I got up and prepared to head to Tulsa for the Wilco show Thursday night.

I had yummy homemade pizza with my friends Stephen and Joy-Z in Tulsa, and then we headed out to Cain's Ballroom.

Cain's is my favorite place to see a show these days. A few years ago they renovated it back to it's original state as a western swing joint, "Home of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys." Jeff Tweedy complimented it several times during the show.

I don't have a whole lot to say about Wilco, except that they are one of the tightest bands I have ever seen, and it's amazing how they reinvent their songs in a live setting. They leaned pretty heavily on material from A Ghost is Born though they played a wide variety of material, including a couple tunes from the Woody Guthrie Mermaid Ave tribute albums. They played two long encores, and closed with a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released."

So that was my Rock Concert excitement, hopefully that was sufficiently coherent.

Clean up... and up!

2005-09-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

This upcoming week is Cleanup Week in Siloam Springs. That means that all week the city will pickup old furniture, appliances, etc... for free. The rest of the year you have to pay for them to pick up stuff like that.

I bought the house I'm in now about five years ago, and I like it here. Whoever used to live here did some kind of screwy things, though. One feature I kind of hated about the house is that it had built in desks in the bedrooms upstairs. This wouldn't be too bad, but they're kind of crappily built, and they're not big enough for a non-flat screen computer monitor. I tore out one of them last year. That one was in the bedroom that I turned into my guitarmaking shop. In order to help the town celebrate Cleanup Week, I decided to tear out the desks in the other two rooms.

Here's the aftermath of the second one I took out.

There's a few things that are dumb about this desk. The genius woodworker that installed it used nails instead of screws to attach it to the wall. This means you have to tear the drywall up and pretty much destroy the desk to remove it. If he'd used screws, I could have taken it all as one piece instead of board by board. I'm going to have to patch a bunch of drywall. Also, there's an area with no carpet now, since they installed the carpet around the desk.

Another dumb thing is the built-in ladder that you can see in the photo. It goes to the attic, but the entrance in the ceiling is only about 24" by 24" or so. So it's impossible to put any large-ish boxes up there. Of course, who would ever want to put boxes in an attic?

Here's the interesting part. I bet you didn't think there was going to be an interesting part. When I pulled out the desk drawers, I found bits of a torn up photo, a small bag of white powder, and a bottle wrapped in electrical tape.

I think the picture was just there as a result of falling out of a stuffed desk drawer, but the bag and bottle were definitely there on purpose. Now I'm an innocent cornfed Nebraska boy, so I don't have a clue about this stuff at all. The bottle is made of glass and has some sort of metal nozzle or something stuck in the top. Then the whole thing was wrapped with electrical tape, apparently to hold the nozzle in and seal it to the bottle.

I almost took the powder to the police just out of curiosity to see what it is, but I didn't really want to waste their time. I've been in this house for five years, and it was empty a year before that, so it's not like they would be able to bust anyone. So I flushed it. I should have called the police, and then when they knocked on the door I could have scrambled to the bathroom and flushed it like they do in the movies and on Cops.

Anyway, I feel dumb for asking. Does anyone want to hazard a guess on what it was based on the bottle/nozzle thing?

Wurl'd Peace

2005-09-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I have a bad habit. I guess it's really just more of a habit, it's not so bad. I like to buy instruments that I don't know how to play, just because I think they're cool and I like having the instruments around. It's part of my neverending quest to be mediocre at many different things. It also explains the banjo, accordians, mandolin, and other instruments that are littered throughout my home. I'm terrible at playing all of them.

Here's the latest, it arrived a couple days ago from Texas. It's a late 60's Wurlitzer electric piano, an EP-200 to be exact. It's not a synthesizer, it has a real piano mechanism inside. Instead of hitting a string, it hits a little metal bar, and there's a pickup that amplifies that vibrating bar, kind of like an electric guitar pickup. It can be quietly heard even when it's not plugged in. It has a really cool jazzy sort of sound to it. Or at least it would if someone played cool and jazzy things on it. It needs quite a bit of work to get it fully functional.

As a little kid, I loved dinking around on the piano and playing things by ear, figuring out melodies and whatnot. My debut was at AWANA when I was five. AWANA is kind of like Boy Scouts except you memorize Bible verses and play games instead of learning to tie knots and start fires, and also there are girls. So there was a talent show, and at the end they asked if anyone had any other talents to share in front of everyone. I have no recollection of this, but apparently I stood up very quickly and announced that I was going to play Joy to the World on the piano. And I got up and did it, single note style as I had learned to play by ear at home. It's easy because the first line is just descending note by note for an octave, all white keys, C-B-A-G-F-E-D-C. It's weird hearing people tell me that story, because I've always thought I was naturally an introvert. Maybe the problem was that I hadn't heard of the Myers Briggs test, so I didn't know how to act like an INTP yet.

I'm also told that when I was five or six years old, I almost convinced my Sunday School teacher that I was adopted. So apparently, I was a show-off and a liar.

When I was nine or ten, I was told that I had to take piano lessons for two years no matter what, but after that I could quit. Even while I kind of enjoyed playing the piano, I hated the lessons. My mom got my sister and I these cool piano books that had a bunch of popular songs like Eye of the Tiger or a bunch of TV show theme songs like Cheers or Hill Street Blues. My favorite was the theme to Young and the Restless because it always got a laugh. The piano teacher was very rigid and traditional, and I suspect she didn't want me playing such drivel. She totally sucked the joy out of those songs by making me play it precisely as written which just didn't quite sound like the actual songs.

My worst piano lesson memory didn't involve the piano at all. I usually rode my bike to the teacher's house, which involved riding across the schoolyard at Laura Dodge Elementary. One winter day I was riding past the playground and there were some older kids up to no good. As I passed they started chucking snowballs at me and I almost fell off the bike (a sweet blue Murray BMX bike with yellow pads). I was so shaken up by the time I got to the teacher's house that I couldn't do a piano lesson and just had her call my mom to come pick me up. I think I secretly liked having an excuse (although the trauma was very real at the time) not to have to take the lesson. I bet the boys wouldn't have thrown snowballs at me if I had stopped and explained that I was an orphaned piano prodigy, then they wouldn't have hassled me.

And that's how come I bought an electric piano.

Tripping

2005-09-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

I've got three things working against me in this post about my road trip:
1.) I'm not one of those people that thinks to carry around a camera everywhere to take interesting pictures.
2.) Road trip stories are only good when they involve going with other people. Since I can pretty much do whatever I feel like, there's no conflict. Conflict is a major part of good storytelling.
3.) I'm not very good at vacation.

So I'll just post some photos I have with a few comments.

The first day I drove to Springfield, Illinois.

Thanks to Motel 6 and Hardee's, I was able to keep my budget for the night at under $40.

I saw some fire so I took a picture.

A bridge too far.

Working on vacation sucks. The joke's on them, though, as I wasn't very productive. I had my days free since the class was at night, but I mainly sat in my hotel room and read and took naps when I wasn't working. This doesn't make for good vacation stories, but it makes a nice vacation. Plus, it was too dang hot out. I was reading Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.

This is the shop where I took the guitar finishing class. There was only one other person in the class, so it was basically the three of us sitting around that workbench learning stuff. We weren't allowed to take pictures for security reasons, this is lifted from their website.

After Chicago, I went to Dover, Ohio to visit some friends. This is me and my fan club in Ohio. I'm a gentle giant.

This is my sweet ride parked in front of one of the finer Motel 6's at which I've ever stayed. It's plain to see that I enjoy the finer things in life. This was in Missouri on the way home from Ohio.

This photo would be much funnier if I would have gotten the camera out in time to get the Motel 6 that was right before the Hotel 7. My guess is that the Hotel 7 is an empty shell of a building and is only there for joking purposes.

You can see why it took me two months to get this posted. [cough]

The Listener

2005-07-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Nope, this isn't my road trip post. I haven't felt inspired to write that one yet. Actually, I'm just building up the anticipation. What's that one showbiz motto? "Always leave them wanting something else." That sounds about right.

In the meantime, if you enjoy the Raps Music and the Hip-Hops, check out some tracks by The Listener, his new album Ozark Empire got a lot of airtime on my road trip. You can listen to some tracks here. In particular I enjoy "When No One Else Will Be Your Friend I Will Do the Job."

My favorite song title on the album is "I've Been Waiting For This Moment For All My Life, Hold On" and I've been trying to drop that sentence into everyday conversation as much as possible. That's gotta be the first time a rapper has referenced Phil Collins.

boondogs

2005-07-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting a short synopsis of my recent trip to Chicago and Ohio in the next day or two.

In the meantime, I wanted to point out that the boondogs are streaming their new album. There's also a free EP for download on the music page.

Fun Facts About Letseatpaste

2005-07-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

I sleep on the floor without a mattress. On purpose. The one bed in my house is in the guest room.

When I was 5 years old, we took a trip to Florida and Marlin Perkins was on the plane. He was the host of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

When I was 2 years old, I jumped out of a shopping cart and landed on my head, fracturing my skull. I'm probably why they put seatbelts on those now.

When I was in high school I spent all my spare time riding a BMX bike, and being rad in general.

I used to play with Legos, a lot.

Once, in high school, I was walking under a stairwell/balcony thing and someone dumped out a bottle of cologne on me.

I once got two strikes in a row bowling backwards.

In 7th grade music class, the teacher challenged us to guess what song she was playing on the piano. She just kept playing one note over and over in a steady beat, and I guessed it correctly. The song was Eye of the Tiger. I knew it because I was playing that for piano lessons.

I once threw an aerobie (kind of like a frisbee, but it's a ring) about 200-250 feet and it landed ringing around an antenna of an RV out in the middle of a field, not on purpose.

Hackey sack is my favorite sport. I still have a hackey sack that was given to me for my birthday when I was in the sixth grade.

I can do the Pillsbury Doughboy laugh pretty well.

I never saw any Star Wars movie until long after they were popular. I probably didn't see the first one till after Return of the Jedi was out.

I own two accordions. It's always a good idea to have a spare.

When I was in the very dorkiest stage of my teenage years, with bad acne, bad thick glasses, bad hair and bad braces in full effect... On a family vacation, we stopped at a very busy Dairy Queen and I ordered a Blizzard with Nerds candy mixed into it. When it was ready, the DQ girl yelled "Nerd!", and I walked up to get it and everyone was laughing. My family was laughing the hardest.

When I was 3 years old, I tossed my favorite toy motorcycle into the alligator display pond at the zoo. My dad fished it out through the fence with a stick.

A couple years ago, I wrote a "fan letter" to Fabio telling him I thought he did a great job in the "I Can't Believe It's Butter" commercials. It was returned unopened and I sent it to my friend Jim who has long hair.

The minivan I own now is the second one I've owned in my life. I'm single, with no kids. And super cool.

Coming to Terms with Searching

2005-06-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

I should have been keeping track longer so I could have a better post about it. Today it made me laugh when I saw that someone found my site by searching for "robot emotion." I'm sure they found exactly what they were looking for in this old post.

Some other search terms:
"Why am i so lame"

"how do spider eat"

"las vegas graveyard"

"steak eating challenge"

"shoes from gadzooks"

I hope the guy wondering why he was so lame felt a little better about himself after visiting my blog.

Spider, man.

2005-06-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up, like I do nearly every morning. I sat down for a second to check email and then tossed my white t-shirt into the laundry basket as I was about to jump in the shower, like I do nearly every morning. As it was hanging over the edge of the basket, I noticed a dark spot on the tail end of the shirt (I know what you're thinking, and no, it's not that). There was a smashed spider on the tail end of the shirt. I thought maybe I had sat on it this morning as I checked my email when I first got up. So I grabbed a tissue to wipe it off and it was dry and encrusted on there as if it'd been like that for a few hours ore more. It was probably about to kill me in my sleep, and then I rolled over on it. Story of my life.

Alive

2005-04-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of posts. Nothing funny or interesting has happened to me. I just wanted to post this to let you know that...

Iiii-eeee-iii, ooooohhhhhh-ohhhhhh, I'm still alive.

Ahh, sweet early 90's.

I am a Liar - Corrections and Misprints

2005-04-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember this post. In it I claimed to have won third place for an essay contest and complained about having to go the awards ceremony. Well, it turns out that I was lying. I only got an honorable mention. Now I'm trying to figure out how my mom could have conned me into sitting through some awards ceremony for a mere honorable mention. This week while I was at my parents house, I found the trophy that I won for my brilliant essay.

And no, I'm not standing naked in the background, so don't bother looking in the reflection.

Mixed Bag

2005-03-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

Hey there. So, geez, how long has it been? Well, you look great, looks like you've been taking care of yourself. Me? Oh same old same old, you know the drill.

I had the longest workday ever this weekend. I worked from noon till 2am on Saturday, but that's not it. I skipped church Sunday morning, came in to work at 9am, and I worked straight through until 5:30pm on Monday. That's a 32-1/2 hour stretch, including a one-hour lunch break on Sunday and a one-hour lunch break on Monday. It was a big drafting/engineering project, and for the record it did get done on Monday when it was due.

The sad thing is, the drawings will likely sit on someone's desk for a week. The really sad thing is that the all-nighter is all my fault because I'm the hugest procrastinator ever and I underestimated what it would take to finish the job. Self-employment and bad procrastination habits do not comfortably mix well. At first they do, but it gets worse.

On the plus side, last week I wasted valuable time driving to Oklahoma City to see the band Clem Snide play. It was very awesome. One of the guy played the banjo with a bow. It's too bad noone was there, only 40 or so people.

Well, I should probably let you go, I'm sure you're busy these days. It was nice to catch up with you. We should definitely get together sometime, I'll give you a call.

Remnants of a Web Page

2005-03-10T08:09:00.001-08:00

So, you think I don't update this page very often? Here is my first ever website that I think I've touched once since the day I made it, about 6 years ago if I remember correctly. It is a website dedicated to celebrating a good work ethic.

None of the links work, they never did, which was part of the joke. It is a good example of what happens to a website when you abandon it to fend for itself on a free webhosting site. It started off with one small Prohosting banner at the bottom of the page.

http://thunder.prohosting.com/~toolboy/

FYI, when viewing it in Mozilla, I had to scroll way to the right to see the main picture.

Stop Getting on My Case

2005-03-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

This is one of my prized possessions, it's an old Samsonite travel cosmetics case from the late 60's. My parents took it with them to Hawaii on their honeymoon, hence the awesome flower sticker.

The reason I like it is because it's a perfect case for holding guitar accessories like picks, extra packs of strings, tuners, capoes, extra batteries, etc... I always have it with me whenever I bring my guitar anywhere. I was playing bass this Sunday at church, but I brought the Samsonite case this week with me to church since I was letting the woman who was leading music use my guitar since she can't plug her own guitar into the sound system.

After the service everyone was kind of milling around the sanctuary talking to eachother and whatnot. I was packing up my stuff, and the woman who borrowed my guitar asked me, "Do you keep your capo in the guitar case or do you keep it with your tuners and cables and stuff?"

I said, "I usually keep that in my cosmetics case." Which isn't worth blogging about, except that I said that right as my face was passing in front of a microphone and the sound system was still on for some reason. So everyone in the church building heard me loudly mention that I have a cosmetics case.

Looking back, I should have added, "What, do you think my head is this shiny when I roll out of bed?" [note: my head was freshly shaved yesterday]

I choo choo choose you!

2005-02-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

Ahh, the memories come flowing back, like a stopped up drain, of foil-covered Valentine's Day boxes, kids running around the classroom, giggling while putting Valentines in everyone else's decorated box. And it was so wonderful to know that nearly every girl in my class, from nearly every year of elementary school, does indeed like me as a friend. Girls that had no reason to believe that I had a crush on them or anything, still wanting to be certain that I knew I didn't have a chance. Pre-emptive rejection, that's real nice. I guess that's what I get, though, for thinking it would be cool to make my box look like a computer.

Well, for the record, when I put that Superman Valentine's Day card into your box, I didn't actually think you were super, I was just being polite. I didn't really even want to go steady with you. I do now, though, so please email me.

Superbowl Sunday!

2005-02-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well, today I wanted to write a piece about the Super Bowl since everyone seems to be talking about it. It has come to the end of the day, and I just couldn't make a decision about what to write about. These were the themes I was batting around:

1.) Humorous piece about how the real reason to watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials.
2.) Informational piece about how those ads are so expensive.
3.) Op ed piece expressing indignance about some aspect of last year's Janet & Justin fiasco.

I hope some other writer will pick up one of these torches and carry it.

Bandwidth

2005-01-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry about some of the pictures being gone, they will be back up at the beginning of February... I exceeded my bandwidth this month.

MLK300 and Award Ceremonies

2005-01-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

In seventh grade, we were required to write a 300 word essay about Martin Luther King for some sort of city-wide essay contest in Omaha. So as has always been my nature, I waited until the last minute to start working on it. Of course, now I actually write things for fun, but back then this was an excruciating experience. I'm sure I wanted to do nothing else but to go outside and ride my awesome bmx bike. Every word was a battle, and I was being slowly defeated as the afternoon wore on. Then I remembered a trick... You can quote other people, and those words you quote count towards the 300! I don't think I still have a copy of the essay, but I'm positive that over half of it was written by the Omaha World Herald.

So you can imagine my surprise that I won 3rd place, not out of my class, but out of all the essays from the other schools in the citythat participated. Some of you would think that's neat or some kind of honor, but you'd be wrong. Winning things means you have to dress up and go sit through some ceremony for the winners of the essay contest and stand up and be recognized, receive some kind of award certificate, etc... How could this have happened? I was being punished for my reluctant brilliance. I learned an important lesson that day.

I was able to put that lesson to use, though, when I graduated from high school. If you were one of the top 25 students in the class of about 350 or so, you received some special honor, and had to go to a whole other ceremony in addition to graduation. So I was extremely pleased with myself when I found out that I was #26. I had reached my goal of being as good as possible without being noticed. And that was the proudest moment of my life.

By the Hair of my Chinny Chin Chin

2005-01-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

(This is not me pictured, I am pasty white.)

A few months ago, I had a goatee, but trimmed all but the part right below my lower lip. Some people call that a "soul patch." And I have to admit, it's true: I do have loads of soul, and it had nearly worn clear through my lower lip.

So a couple weeks ago as I was walking out of church, I stopped briefly to say hello to a lady at church who is very nice and well-meaning, but she often says things without really thinking them through. I think she also feels a little awkward around me because she is very extraverted and I am very introverted, which of course is something I need to fix. Anyway, she pointed at my soul patch and said, "Is that new? That's hilarious!"

If we wouldn't have been in church, I would have punched her right in the mouth.

Not really, but that would have been hilarious to tell her that.

Tim Allen was maybe in it but I think it might be a different one

2004-12-24T09:27:00.000-08:00

This Christmas, I'm going to watch my favorite Christmas movie. It's about a person who gets caught up in the commercialism and the busyness of Christmas, some things happen to this person, then this person realizes the true meaning of Christmas, and then saves Christmas at the last minute. I can't remember the title, but I'm sure the person at the video place will know which one it is.

A Christmas toast to all of my faithful blog reader:

Rock Around the Clock

2004-12-16T08:05:00.000-08:00

.
Oh how I hate my alarm clock. I was up till 2am at work last night. I did manage to watch four episodes of "24" yesterday afternoon, though. I had my radio alarm clock set for 7:30am. So it went off this morning, and I decided that I desperately needed another hour of solid sleep without hitting snooze six times.

So I was trying to reset the time on the clock, but I held down the wrong button. I thought it was the button to hold down to reset the alarm time. It was the button that you set to make the radio play for an hour or more longer and then automatically shut off, like you would use if you wanted the radio to play you to sleep. There's no going back, after hitting that button just once. You have to hold down that button and then hit the minute button sixty times or more to get the minutes down to 0:01 so it will shut off the radio and stop the awful Christmas music. Otherwise, the only option is to unplug the clock or turn the volume way down.

I chose to turn the volume way down, thereby sleeping too long and getting to work later than I needed to be. Luckily for me, I'm not actually really employed.

This is literally the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Worst Post Ever.

I am lame.

2004-12-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Why haven't I updated my blog?

Excuse #1: I've been so busy with work lately.
Why it's not true: While I do occasionally get busy with work for short periods of time, I do not have a real job. I watched 8 episodes of "24" in a row the other day.

Excuse #2: It's the holidays, and this is just a really busy time of year.
Why it's not true: I ate Thanksgiving dinner by myself at Wafflehouse. (Don't cry for me, this was on purpose.)

Excuse #3: I am not online very much these days except to check email occasionally.
Why it's not true: Internet = breathing.

Excuse #4: Nothing else funny has happened to me to write about.
Why it's not true: Funny stuff is constantly happening to me. TV producers should come spend some time with me and my friends, now there's a sitcom.

Excuse #5: I am very lazy and never finish anything I start.
Why it's not true:

It's the little things.

2004-11-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

It's the little things in life that make me think of the Dukes of Hazzard.

Today, I was at Walmart walking through the automotive section looking for some grease. I walked down the aisle where they sell all the car cleaner and wax and stuff like that. I immediately noticed that the floor was very slick in that aisle. Obviously that floor has seen it's share of car wax spills, leaving a pristine shiny slippery floor that would make water bead up. Anyway, I noticed after I left that aisle that the wheels of my cart were sliding around a bit when I went around corners. Pretty soon, I was doing it on purpose, taking corners too fast and sliding out. I felt so cool, like Luke Duke. I raced around the store, never slowing down for the corners and taking great joy in the fishtailing of my cart, and doing donuts with my cart in the bakery section. I imagined I was racing for the county line and Roscoe had Flash buckled up and they were in hot pursuit. The store manager asked me to leave when I shot a flaming arrow into the Snackwells display. I was never meaning no harm, though.

Another fun way to imagine that you're in Hazzard County is when you are driving your car over a bridge. My friend Jim and I discovered this on our rides to and from high school. When you come up to the bridge, the pavement raises up to the bridge like a ramp. When you hit this ramp, stiffen your back and straighten your hands and you will get the sensation that you are flying through the air, right over a pond or stream. Hold this position until the end of the bridge. When you get to the other side of the bridge and the pavement slopes away from the bridge, loosen up and lunge forward, absorbing the landing. Then look back and laugh as if you are watching Roscoe drive into the pond since he didn't hit the right ramp/bush. Someday the mountain might get me, but the law never will.

Tear The Roof Off

2004-10-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Block Party

2004-10-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

I apologize to all of my faithful readers for the writer's block over the last couple weeks. There has been nothing funny that has happened to write about.

I'm just kidding, I don't have any readers.

Here are my current top 2 addictions:
1.) Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Everything I love about liquid in one single can.
2.) The tv show "24," seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Now I don't trust anyone and I think everyone around me is a terrorist.

Oh, here's something... I suspect they're about to tear down the house next to mine, which is awesome. Lately the fire department has been using it for training exercises, and yesterday they parked this huge thing in the driveway. So I'll try to post pics as they demolish it.

My More Exciting Camping Story

2004-10-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

So our family used to go camping sometimes when we went on vacation, because camping is cheaper than staying in motels. Camping is way more fun, anyway.

When I was 12, we took a trip to Wyoming to go camping at Yellowstone National Park. Usually we would just use a tent for sleeping and shelter. But this time our pastor loaned us this crazy looking homemade camper that we pulled behind our lime green '76 Chevy Impala.

So we were all set up at our new campsite in Yellowstone. My folks were tired of driving and setting up the camper and all that, so we were all just relaxing and having some dinner. I was getting a little restless having been in the car all day, so I decided I'd go explore a little bit. So I grabbed a sandwich and told my parents I was gonna go walk around, but assured them that I would stay on the road and wouldn't go too far. But as soon as I walked around the bend out of sight of my folks, I spotted a trail and thought that a little hiking through the woods would be fun.

So I hiked into the woods for about 15 minutes, and decided that pretty soon I ought to turn around and head back so as not to worry my parents, plus I wanted to get back before dark. I was taking the last bite of my sandwich, and I thought I could hear a branch break or something not too far away. It didn't worry me too much, it was probably just a squirrel or something, then it happened again and I swore I could hear something walking around, crushing the leaves as it walked. It seemed like a good time to get the heck out of there. So I turned around and picked up the pace quite a bit... But then I saw it, about 30 feet ahead standing in the path I just walked, looking intently in my direction. I've seen pictures of wolves before on TV and whatnot, but I would have never imagined they'd look so huge in real life. I really only have a faint recollection of it, because as soon as I saw it, my first instinct was to turn and run. As soon as I started running, I could hear it following me and I knew I had to do something. I decided to head off of the trail, I don't know why I thought that'd be a good idea. I didn't have a lot of time for decision making. I ran as hard and fast as I ever had in my twelve years of life. I was jumping over the trunk of this small tree that had fallen when I felt my ankle twist as my foot landed wrong on a rock. For a second, I couldn't hear anything running after me, though, but then I heard some leaves crush and a heavier panting, and for a just a second I saw a big brownish shape in my watery peripheral vision. I looked up and saw the biggest animal I'd ever seen in my life, this grizzly bear, lumbering directly towards me... I knew I couldn't run with my twisted ankle, but thought I could at least climb a tree or do something, anything but just lay there. As I turned I saw the wolf standing about ten feet away from me, as if it was just waiting for me to catch my breath before the chase continued. I looked at the rock I had twisted my ankle on, thinking my only chance for immediate survival was to at least scare off the wolf by hitting it with the rock. I quickly reached for the rock, and as I jumped to my feet, the bear bit my head off. This is a good story to tell people at parties when they start to one-up eachother with stories of being chased by wild animals.

Personal

2004-09-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

So every now and then, I peruse the online personal ads. I'm not signed up for any pay services and I don't have my own profile online or anything (other than alumni directories). It's interesting to read between the lines to get a clue about a person's troubled past or personality quirks. The following are some of my favorite outtakes from Yahoo personal ads.

"I'm a very outgoing, good looking, intelligent & fun girl with a great personality. I am definitely a delight to have around & know exactly what I want and expect of others. I enjoy nice dinners, great wine, good conversation (among other things of course). "

"No mullets or marrieds please" (Title)

"seeking nice man for a change!" (Title)

"No Psychos please! Next" (Title) - First off, If your still living with parents that are crazy then please step back and let others through because im not about to deal with anymore situations like that anymore...."

"...To the guys that are older then 25 years old do not bother because if you send anything to me that means you can't read . So don't be idoit."

"Alright, I'm going to be perfectly honest - at the moment, I have consumed entirely too much wine and am feeling more than sociable. Tomorrow, my ad will most likely change, if not disappear entirely..." [This ad's been up for well over a year]

"I am a very nice woman that has just been with the wrong man for a year and realized that i dont have to put up with him treating me like that. I am a good person and know there is someone out there that will treat me nice "

"Hey guys! My seven year relationship just ended so I'm looking for someone to talk to." [Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me!!!"]

"hmmmmmm. Not much to say. I really enjoy the outdoors. As far as everything else I like to many different things to mention. If you need more information or questions, just let me know!" [I do have a question... Do you also like the indoors? Yes or no will suffice, I don't need the whole story.]

"Alone and in NEED!!!!" (Title)

This one is my personal favorite:

"I started out a couple years ago, younger, thinner, but very active. Now I may be a little bigger, larger tights, my butt is larger but so nice. I love all things possible, I am very outgoing in most ways. I am adventurist, somewhat of a tease towards boys, men, girls, I love to go shopping at the malls, tons of people there. I love wearing my short sun-dresses, and 8" spiked heels. I am wealthy, own my late father business, which has great income !!!! Email me guys, will not be sorry !!Love Nancy & friendThe men must be active, most of the time, enjoy shopping, outings, travel, going to many parties, outgoing, adventurious, willing to go the extra mile, willing to share all things, you do not have to be rich, (I am), educations make no difference at all, looks are really unimportant, being active is most important! "

And she's right, educations make no difference at all.

Other online alumni profile

2004-09-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot about my alumni update profile thing for where I went to college. The reason I just remembered it is that I got an anonymous message emailed to me because of it.

The message was, "Can't believe how snobbish your info is. You suck!"

The profile this person was responding to is as follows:
"I do some important and impressive stuff at Ryan Engineering here in Siloam Springs. I`m single and desperate, so if you know any nice young ladies you`d like to set me up with, please let me know. I`ll take pretty much anybody at this point."

I guess I need to update it, since I got laid off from my job months ago.

New other blog

2004-09-24T05:54:00.000-07:00

I started another blog to document some of the instrument making stuff I've done. At first it'll mainly be about a guitar making class I was able to take in January. I'm mainly doing that as sort of a diary for myself, and so that I remember to take pictures and stuff while I'm working.

http://guitarmaking.blogspot.com

If you use an RSS reader, the site feed is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GuitarMaking

The site feed for this site is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/letseatpaste

Virtual Highschool Reunion!

2004-09-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

So a few years before spam was a big problem, I signed up on the high school reunion site www.reunion.com which is a great way to get in touch with old high school pals, and it's also a good way for them to harvest and sell your email address.

I thought it was kind of funny when people would describe their jobs and stuff, they would try to blow it up into something more than it probably was, giving dollar amounts for the accounts they handle, elaborate job titles, etc... So I decided to go the opposite direction.

Here's my reunion.com profile:
"I really need a new job. Bad. I'm in Northwest Arkansas right now, I work as a draftsman. It's a pathetic job, I get no respect, women make fun of me and children mock me. Everyday I walk the streets hoping that by some weird twist of fate, I will be run over by a bus (later the bus explodes). I sit at the local Wafflehouse, by myself, at the counter, reflecting on the poor decisions I've made in my life. "It's all come to this," I think to myself. All these years of education and hard work, and this is what it all led up to. A greasy piece of chicken and some scrambled eggs, served cold and rudely by a smug waitress with a huge tattoo on the back of her neck. I ask her if she considers the tattoo to be more of a demon, or is it a gargoyle. Then I asked her if she was single. She rolled her eyes and said "No" and sauntered over to the other waitresses and regular customers ("locals" they like to call themselves) and they started laughing and pointing. "I have an engineering degree!" I screamed. "Any one of you would give your left arm for the success I've experienced in my life," and with that I plunked down a generous tip and stormed out. I could see them laughing through the window. They knew I was bluffing. If you're ever in the area, give me a call! -Jonny"

None of those stuck-up preppy bastards from my high school has tried to contact me through the site yet, so I guess it's working.

Gadzooks!

2004-09-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

I really hate the mall. You'd think a single fella like myself would like to be at a place where so many hott chicks congregate, but there you have it.

Sometimes, though, the stuff I need is at the mall and I have to actually go inside and get it. But before I talk about that, let me type some stuff.

I've worn Vans brand shoes since I was in junior high, back in my BMX-bandit days. Old school canvas, not that new bulky junk that makes your feet look huge. They make horrible running shoes, because they have almost no support at all for your feet. In junior high school on certain days, we had to run laps around the track, and you could always hear me and my fellow biker friend Sean coming 'round the track, because both sets of feet were slapping loudly against the track with each step.

It used to be that in Omaha, the only place to buy Vans was at this little bike shop called Earl's, which was actually south of town in Belleview out in the middle of nowhere in a warehouse with a tiny sign on the door, and it was about a 45 minute drive. This is also where I got all my super cool bmx shirts that the ladies loved (I assume). I kind of enjoyed that my tastes were so eclectic that I had to go through this much effort to find an acceptable pair of shoes.

So Vans enjoyed a re-surge of popularity in the late 90's, so I was able to find the shoes that I wanted at the mall and didn't have to make the trip to the bike shop south of Omaha, which is good since I live in Arkansas.

The downside is that to get the Vans, I had to go into the most mallish of mall stores, Gadzooks, where rebellion is always 20% off list price. It's almost the same store as Hot Topic, another place where teenagers who don't know about street cred buy black t-shirts and studded belts.

I've worn size 11 Vans for a long time, I don't need to try them on, I know they'll fit. So I found the plain old-skool black canvas low-tops that I like, and asked the sales-girl working there if she had that in a size 11. She went to the back and got them, I told her I didn't need to try them on, and she smiled and handed me the box. No hassles so far.

So I take the box up to the cash register where there was a guy behind the counter (calling him an employee might be a stretch). I set the box on the counter right in front of the guy, and the conversation went like this.

Guy Behind The Counter: "Did she get these for you?"
Me: "Yes."
[awkward silence as I stare at him staring at the shoebox]
GBTC: "Umm... Do you want to try these on?"
Me: "No."
GBTC: [Looks at me trying to comprehend why I'm there]
[more awkward silence]
Girl That Got Me The Shoes: [leans over to GBTC and whispers in his ear] "I think he might want to buy these shoes here."
GBTC: "Oh..."

And as he was ringing up my shoes, it still didn't appear that he had fully grasped what the situation was. I bet when he flips through the channels on his TV at home, he thinks every show is Unsolved Mysteries.

And that's how come I love the mall.

Challenged

2004-09-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

My biggest fear in life is that I'm mentally challenged, but that I don't know it, because I am mentally challenged. Maybe one day I'll figure out for sure what the truth is, but that could take a long, long time.

In related news, you need to see this really excellent movie, which is out on DVD:
http://www.howsyournews.com/

It'll be particularly enjoyable for you if you have a family member or friend with a mental disability.

Online Barber Shop

2004-09-08T19:03:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things is going down to the local barbershop on the corner downtown, a few blocks from my house. Or it used to be one of my favorite things, before I decided to start shaving my head, because, you know, that's the only dignified thing to do when your hair starts thinning.

What I like about the barber shop are all the cliches that old men say, and they all laugh at as if it were the most clever thing ever, which in turn makes me laugh. Sort of making fun of them in my head, but not really because I like it. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. "Working hard or hardly working?" etc...

If you hang out much in online forums or newsgroups you will quickly recognize other cliches, or "Lowest Hanging Fruit" as some of my friends call it. These are not endearing or quaint or fun in the old-man-at-the-barbershop kind of way. Here are some samples of what I'm talking about.

Situation: Someone types a message in all caps, such as "SO IS ANYONE ELSE AS EXCITED AS ME TO FINALLY GET TANGO AND CASH ON DVD?"

Lowest Hanging Fruit Cliche Response: "Stop shouting!!!" ... It's also followed by a explanation about netiquette and how all caps is the equivalent of shouting in a face to face conversation. This is WORSE than the person that types in all caps. And yes, I meant to yell that word.
___________________________________
Situation: Someone types a message making an inquiry about something, such as "Does anyone know where I can find some plans to build my own go-kart?"

Lowest Hanging Fruit Cliche Response: "Google is your friend." This is usually not accompanied by any other sentiment, and definitely not any helpful info for the person who asked. You know what? I've been friends with Google a long time, and we talked and we don't really want to hang out with you anymore.
___________________________________
Situation: Someone types an unequivocal statement, such as "I hate Lucky Charms, it's definitely the worst cereal in the world, and I wish that stupid little cartoon leprechaun would just curl up and die."

Lowest Hanging Fruit Cliche Response: "Tell us how you really feel!" This is sarcasm for people who aren't actually sarcastic. Let's leave that to the experts folks.
___________________________________

I'm sure I'm missing some, feel free to clue me in on any that I missed.

Kirk D's Greeting Card Ideas

2004-09-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

My friend Kirk (http://www.secretfunspot.com) works for a greeting card company. These were some greeting card ideas he emailed to some friends a few years ago.

1. Front: "Inside this card you will find a small strip of foil positioned to reflect your own image."

Inside: (small strip of reflective foil attached.)
Caption underneath: "Your face is horribly ugly."
---------------------------------------------------
2. Front: (written in colorful large cartoon print) "FREE BEER!"

Inside: "Now that I've got your attention, I offer my deepest sympathy regarding your recent loss."
----------------------------------------------------
3. Front: (picture of beautiful woman in revealing, red, two-piece bathing suit)
Caption: "I thought I would get you something extra-special for your birthday..."

Inside: Message to recipient stating that the text on the front of card is deceptive, and in fact, they are not getting a gift that is sexual in nature.
----------------------------------------------------
4.Front: Caption: "So you're getting older."

Inside: "good natured ribbing" that tends to really sting.
----------------------------------------------------
5. Front: (Image of enthusiastic cartoon man on white background)
Caption: "It's your 21st birthday!"

Inside: Some mention of alcohol
----------------------------------------------------
6. Front: (Cartoon figure standing near flashy sports car. Extended hand is holding car keys.)
Caption: "Now that you're 16, I thought I would get you a NEW CAR for your birthday..."

Inside: "If you go to the driveway you will find a late model sports car. It is your birthday gift. Insurance for it is extremely high."
----------------------------------------------------
7. Front: (Cartoon image of savvy looking woman sitting at a table with a cup of coffee, speaking to recipient.)
Caption: "Men, you can't live with them, you can't live without them."

Inside: "My negative view of men was caused by a lengthy series of failed relationships and meaningless sexual encounters."
----------------------------------------------------
8. Front: (Photograph of vintage fishing paraphanelia)
Caption: "To Dad"

Inside: "You're almost like a father to me."
----------------------------------------------------
9. Front: (Photograph of lighthouse beside serene ocean waters)
Caption: "In Sympathy"

Inside: "You don't come across as such a big shot now that you face enormous proportions of pain."
----------------------------------------------------
10. Front: (Image of small cartoon squirrel superimposed onto photograph of stacks of U.S. currency)
Caption: "I'll bet you're wondering if there is money in this card."

Inside: "You are in luck." (Inside a slot is a twenty dollar bill) "... or are you?" (Closer inspection reveals that the money is printed on the card.) "... then again, would I do that to you?" (Real money has been placed behind the fake money.) "... I just might" (As recipient attempts to remove money they discover it is attached with strong adhesive.) "... but I'm not that mean" (Small packet of adhesive remover pops up.) "... or am I?" (Bills are infested with germs.)
----------------------------------------------------
11. Front: "SEX!"

Inside: "Now that I've got your attention, I want to let you know that you are hurting the people who love you the most."
----------------------------------------------------
12. Front: (Cartoon image of the latest, top-selling children's toy)
Caption: "Happy Birthday!"

Inside: "My soul has deserted me. (Image used with permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. All rights reserved.)"
----------------------------------------------------
13. Front: "To a wonderful couple on your wedding day."

Inside: "As you stand at the altar before all of your friends and family, you are basically asking the audience to imagine what you and your spouse look like while having sex."
----------------------------------------------------
14. Front: (Cartoon image of turtle in a recliner)
Caption: "I'll bet you're wondering why this birthday card is belated."

Inside: I'm in the final stages of a serious bout with Alzheimer's disease."
----------------------------------------------------
15. Front: "Directions: 1. Hold this card at arm's length. 2. Shake three times. 3. Repeat "My birthday wish will come true." out loud three times. 4. Open card."

Inside: A real leprechaun appears to grant wish.
----------------------------------------------------
16. Front: (Cartoon elephant sitting in the witness stand being cross-examined by a rabbit in a lawyer's outfit.)

Inside: "You are in pun Hell."
----------------------------------------------------
17. Front: (Photograph of orangutan wearing human clothes, in human office environment. No caption.)

Inside: Degrading insult comparing recipient's appearance to that of the primate seen on front.
----------------------------------------------------
18. Front: (Cartoon image associated with a funeral)
Caption: "Uh-oh, look who's 'over the hill'!"

Inside: "Happy ninety-sixth birthday!"
----------------------------------------------------
19. Front: "SEX!"

Inside: "Now that I've got your attention... FREE BEER!"

Mickey Got Served

2004-09-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic my friend Jamey took after they caught a mouse in the office where he works.

Best Job I Ever Had, Part 2

2004-08-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Note: The particular truck I rode was not actually built from Lego blocks.

So I reached the end of my first day of work, at about 3pm. I had gotten to work that day at 12:30pm, only noone else showed up until 1pm because they were all on lunch break. So I worked for 2 hours that day, and then I discovered the good news. When you work for city sanitation, you get paid for 8 hour days whether you work 8 hours or not. If you finish the route early, you get to go home. There's no need for me to explain why this was so awesome.

So the next day I arrived at about 7:30am and we're all standing around talking amongst ourselves. Trash talking, literally. One guy told about this lady who had recently complained because they didn't put the recycling bin back on her porch when they emptied it. He said in a low-whispery-shifty-eyed-garbageman kind of voice, kind of like he was making sure noone was eavesdropping, "You know, I know it wouldn't be good for business. But some days I'd just like to tell that lady to take that bin and stick it square up her a#@." This was met with much laughter and approval from the others. It's funny because it's true.

Later on that morning, we were back at the transfer station to empty the truck before we finished our route. One guy stormed into the little office extremely upset. Apparently, he had just noticed that some sunnuvab%#$ had taken a grease gun and run a GD MF'ing bead of grease down one side of his sweet 70's Corvette with a paint job that cost three F'ing grand. So he informed us that if one of us didn't come clean, he was going to start taking a baseball bat (which he was holding in his hand) to every car in the parking lot until one of us confessed. It was a very tense and dramatic moment, like sands through the hourglass. Noone confessed, and the only thing that kept him from bashing windows was that someone may have done it at his house and he hadn't noticed because it was on the passenger side.

Five minutes later, I rode with him in the truck. He was sorry I had to see that.

On my third and last day, it was a short day on the route, so I finished up by helping out in the recycling center. My job was literally just to unscrew the caps off of pop bottles and throw them in a separate bin. They're different kinds of plastic, you see, so they're recycled differently. I did that for about two hours and, because of the unnoticed prizes under bottle caps, I got four or five free 20oz sodas out of the deal. I was instructed to throw all the Pepsi product bottles into a different bin, to be sorted later by the guy running the recycling center. He was collecting Pepsi points. He had earned two jean jackets, three beach towels, five t-shirts, two sweatshirts, six hats, and a number of other Pepsi prizes. That guy must live like some kind of king.

So as you can see, this was clearly the best job I ever had, or will ever have.

There was a downside. At a trailer park in town, for some reason they seem to put out their trash way way in advance of trash day, so it's been sitting there in the Arkansas summer heat for days. Much of it is food trash, too, so it smells a bit. This wasn't as awful as it sounds. The awful part was when we tossed one bag into the truck which we found out contained a half-full gallon jug of milk that had been fermenting in the sun. When the crusher deal on the truck comes down to push the trash back, it pressurized the milk jug and it squirted everywhere. I got a little bit on my shirt and jeans, and it nearly made me vomit. My partner however was not so lucky, as he was pretty muched dowsed by it, some right in the face. To my surprise he did not vomit, but he made that motion like he was on the verge. I lost a little bit of my innocence that day.

I only add this so nobody mistakenly jumps into a career as a garbageman expecting no downsides, based on my blog.

Best Job I Ever Had

2004-08-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've been unemployed now for a few months, and it's great. When I continue the search to find something that I really want To Do For a Living, it causes me to reflect back on my employment experience so far.

The best job I ever had was being a garbageman for three days.

Note: This is like the truck I rode on, only there were fewer children.

It was the first summer that I lived in Siloam Springs AR, the city where I went to school, and where I still live. I had just finished up my junior year in college, and I had wasted a month trying to get a drafting job that had seemed like a sure thing. Anyway, I swallowed my pride, and went to the temp agency to see if I could get on at the Dayspring greeting card company where my friends worked. It's basically a warehouse job.

So on a Tuesday morning I went to the temp agency. The lady there said "We can start you on Dayspring next Monday, but if you want to earn some money, we need someone at the City Sanitation Dept today."

"What would I do there?"

"Ride on the back of a truck and pick up trash, probably."

I almost said no, but the need to eat and pay rent was getting to me, so I said yes, and I went to the Sanitation building at about 1pm.

I got on the truck to go out picking up trash. The guy driving the truck asked me, in a voice you would expect from a trashman in a southern state, "You ever haul trash before?"

"Umm, no."

Then he said "Do you know how to pick up a bag?"

"Yes."

"That's about all there is to it."

To be Continued...

Fun in Public Restrooms

2004-08-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

Want to turn heads in a public restroom, men? Try standing at a urinal with your pants and underwear dropped all the way to the floor. When a five year old does it, it's cute. When a thirty-one year old man does it, it's creepy. When a group of thirty-one year old men do it, it's very funny to see.

I am the Best

2004-08-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

My friend Jamey had told me about this, and I hadn't even seen it and just thinking of his description of it made me laugh out loud. If I ever work in an office again, I'm definitely getting one of these to keep on my desk.

In case it's not clear in the picture, the caption reads "I Am the Best."

Denny's + Lifejacket = Fun

2004-08-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

So back in the day, I traveled with some friends to Dallas to visit other friends, go sailing, waterskiing, etc... We arrived late and decided a late night hot tub soak would be a nice way to wind down after a long drive. Hunger set in at about 2am, and it was decided we would go to Denny's, one of the few eateries open at that hour.

Since we were going to be on the water the next day, the car I was riding in had some of the waterskiing equipment in the back. As we were getting out, my friend Matt grabbed a lifejacket out of the back and put it on and zipped it up as we walked into the restaurant. Of course everyone was looking when we walked in, but Matt showed no self-consciousness or showed any sign that he was fooling around.

So the waitress got to our table to take drink orders. Matt was last and he said "I'll have a glass of water, but let's keep it shallow."

She, of course, rolled her eyes as far back as they would go. Matt looked right into her eyes without smiling and said, "Water safety is no joke, my friend."

The waitress' shift apparently ended before we were done eating, because she never brought us a check.

And that's what happened at Denny's in Dallas.

Plastic Jesus Cup

2004-08-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

Normally, I'm not big on buying cheap plastic products with Bible verses and pictures of Jesus on it. Technically, I didn't buy this, my parents bought it or acquired it somehow.

This was my favorite cup as a little kid... If I was in bed already and I was thirsty, I wanted water out of this particular cup. Looking back, what a good lesson to be taught so young.

John 4:13-14 - Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Of course, I used to also like to drink water out of the honey-bear container, so who knows if I really learned a lesson or not.

Big Texan Steak Challenge

2004-08-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

For those of you traveling along Route 66 as you pass through Amarillo TX, you need to see two things.

The first thing you'll need to do is head out to the Cadillac Ranch on the west side of town. Don't forget your spraypaint.

The second place you'll need to go to is The Big Texan restaurant, home of the 72oz Steak Challenge. The challenge is to eat a 72oz steak and the meal that accompanies it, which consists of a baked potato, a salad, cocktail shrimp and a roll. If you complete the meal within an hour, you get the meal for free, and a T-shirt proclaiming your victorious eating of so much food. If you lose, you get to shell out $50 for your dinner. They put you up on a platform at the front of the restaurant, and people will come up and cheer you on as you eat.

I and two of my friends (that's me on the right) decided we were up for such a challenge. Our other friends with us had even ponied up some money, offering a grand total of $90 to whoever could not only finish the meal, but finish it first.

We are all failures.

I learned a few things though, and I'd like to share my thoughts on how I could have won, looking back. Most of these lessons I learned from Kirk, who was able to eat the whole steak, but none of the meal. I was the only one who completed most of the side items. The steak you see on my plate is what I couldn't finish.

1.) Drink a lot. You'll find that the hard part about eating that much is not that you become so full (even though you do)... The hard part is that you get dehydrated. I was only sipping occasionally on water, not even half of the plastic boots that they gave us to drink out of. After a while, you get dehydrated and you can't make spit, which makes it very very hard to chew and swallow the steak. When it's so dry going down, it gives you a gag reflex which is something you don't want, at least until after the contest is over. Kirk downed three or four boot fulls of Diet Coke and was able to eat the whole steak.

2.) Don't eat gristle and fat. Don't eat anything you don't have to. You don't have to eat the gristle and fat on the steak. You'll need to have the kitchen verify it at the end.

3.) Make sure they give you your salad dressing on the side. That's the way I ordered it, but they didn't bring it out that way, and it made the salad very filling.

4.) Ask for your drink in a regular glass... That plastic boot is kind of sharp around the edges and will scrape up your lips.

5.) Be friendly with the crowd, you'll have time to talk, and they'll cheer you on which makes it pretty fun.

6.) Clean out your system well in advance of when you arrive. Every extra bit of space you can muster will help.

7.) Bring a toothbrush, so you can go back in and brush your teeth after you puke in the parking lot.

I hope this helps lead someone else to victory in the 72oz Steak Challenge.

Robot Emotion

2004-08-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

It's hard to be a robot.

Neon Sign Graveyard - Las Vegas

2004-08-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

If you ever happen to be in Vegas, make an effort to visit the Neon Sign Graveyard. This is the place where all the cool old Vegas hotel and casino signs from the 50's-present go to die. There was one company that made all those signs, and instead of selling them to the hotels and casinos, they leased them. So when they redecorate or re-theme the hotels, the signs all go back to one place, and this is it. It's just a big fenced lot full of these old signs.

This place is not open all the time. You have to call and make an appointment, and they like to do tour groups of 10 people at $5 each. If you're nice, you can talk them into coming out for $50 for a smaller group. We had four guys and split the cost, it was worth it. If you call way ahead, you can probably get in on a tour that's already scheduled. The tour guides were great, and very knowledgable about the history of the signs, and Las Vegas.

One interesting thing we talked about... We stayed at the Treasure Island hotel, which we were disappointed to find out had been stripped of all the pirates and the hotel has been renamed "TI." The pirate show out in front of the hotel was replaced with the "Sirens of TI" show, which is basically a big midriff-baring dance routine with horrible music, kind of like a Britney Spears concert. We were talking about this with the tour guides. They said that the big "family-friendly" push in Vegas was basically a failure, as their casinos were quickly filling up with people pushing strollers just looking at everything and not gambling. The new buzzword now is "sexy." The neon sign graveyard has the giant skull that used to watch over the Treasure Island hotel.

For an interesting read about Pirates in Advertising, check this out:
http://jove.prohosting.com/sfspot/pirates.htm
or go to http://www.secretfunspot.com and click on the Pirates in Ads button.

A Christmas greeting

2004-08-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I should be saving this for December.

A few years ago my friend Jim sent me a Christmas card, and he had scribbled the following message inside. I talked to him a few months later, and he didn't remember what he had written.

Dear Jon,
Remember: Whenever we say "Christmas," Christ always comes first. And whenever we say "X-mas," X comes first. Not many people know that Jesus Christ's real name is "Jesus Little." He changed His name to "Jesus X" to show that He was His own person and didn't need the white man's slave name... He was His own man. Which explains the meaning behind X-mas. It's just short for "X-Man's." Because the X-Men had superpowers... just like Jesus.
Jim

Clueless Boldness

2004-08-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

So there I was sitting on the steps of the engineering building at the small private college where I attended in the mid-90's. My friends and I often sat on these steps between classes, people watching. It proved to a great spot for people watching, as it was kind of a main thoroughfare through the central part of campus, so there was a lot of traffic between classes.

That day I saw what was probably the most inspiring thing I've ever seen. There was this guy who was a classic nerd. If there would have been tape on his glasses, you'd think it was some kind of joke. He was walking alongside this pretty girl with long blonde hair, talking very excitedly about something... Or at least it was obvious he was excited he was talking to her. We noticed that her pace was quickening, and she was looking straight ahead, never making eye contact. Of course, he quickened his pace to keep up with her. As they were passing in front of us, he made his big move... He reached out and put his arm around her. As soon as his hand touched her shoulder, she bolted. She ran straight for about thirty feet over to two of her friends and started shaking uncontrollably as they consoled her. The would-be suitor never broke the smile on his face. He raised his hand goodbye and yelled "Welp... See ya later!" and did a 180 and walked off in the opposite direction.

So what's the lesson in all of this?