where nobody knows my name

I'm not complaining, by any means, but I don't think people like using my name.

One of the guys I work with either calls me "Round Head", "wingnut", "G-off", "Fuzz Nuts" or some other nickname.

Almost everybody I've worked with at TGI Friday's pretty much called me Geo, or G-off. A select few would even call me, "G".

Pet names don't really count, but I had an ex who called me Monkey.

My soon-to-be-married friends, Andy and Megan, call me Pablum Geoff. Good story behind that one.

Hell, even my dad calls me Julio. It's such an old nickname, I can't remember why or how it came about.


It was funny. I met my roommate's uncle last night.
She says, "This is my friend, Geo."
"Eh?" the uncle goes, confusedly.
"Geoff," I say.
"Oh! Well, how are ya?"
It made me smile.

I did, at one point in my life, literally wish to be called some kind of cool nickname.

I think that wish came through. Tenfold.

blogging to get some

I think I might have a new goal for blogging.

To get some.

Some what?

..at this point, I'll take anything. But money and sex are right at the top of this list. Power, recognition, popularity, free stuff and stalkers are pretty darn close to the top, also.

office scams

if there's one thing I've noticed, it's that by working in an office, you eventually will become familiar with office scams. These are the workplace equivalent of the 419 Nigerian Scams. Basically a company calls you up, saying that they're the supplier of the toner for your copier, and that they need the model of the copier for whatever reason.

Well, there's a few ways to deal with these asshole liars.

1. You can commit to what they're selling, and get ripped off. BAD IDEA.

2. You can hang up on them. LAME.

3. You can fuck right back with them, and make their jobs so much more exciting than what they had planned on.


The girls in the office like to choose option 3 100% of the time.

The most recent ploy was as follows:

Sheryl takes the call, and immediately figures out that the fake copier people are calling, and puts them on hold for a second, to talk to Julie. Sheryl asks Julie what her name should be. In this case, Julie picks "Twyla". Sheryl pops back on the line saying that "Twyla" will be right with them.

In the meantime, the call gets put on speaker and Sheryl and "Twyla" proceed to argue to each other as to whose responsibility it is to take care of the toner. They argue until the caller hangs up. I think this was record time. Less than a minute.

Needless to say, it's funny to overhear, and even funnier to see the girls hootin' and hollerin' over their latest scam-scam.

movie locations

When I was in Chicago earlier this year, I wish I'd come here, but I'm glad I didn't. But the record store John Cusack's character owned in High Fidelity, looks like it's boarded up and graffiti'd, circa whenever GoogleCorp drove their surveillance vehicles through that neighborhood.


View Larger Map

I mean, yeah it's sad, but it's Chicago. They'll do whatever the fuck they like. Movies are always temporary to cities like that. They'll never commemorate the fact that a good chunk of a great movie was filmed there.

There's no Filming Location Preservation Society (FLPS). People driving by most likely just look at that corner property and go, "Hrmph...there's that old 7-11 I used to go to as a kid. Now it's nothing."

That is, if they even actually care.

All I know is that whenever I drive past the place that used to be the cafe where Marissa Tomei worked in Untamed Heart, I shed an invisible, misty tear. It's a good thing I don't drive past it often.

View Larger Map

Labor Day Weekend!

Enjoy it!

I miss my blog

It seems I get more readers when I don't write than when I do. It's weird.

I'm still waiting for that light at the end of the tunnel where it finally doesn't seem all that bad. I'm not depressed or feel like I'm in a hole or anything. It's more like the carrot dangling in front of the donkey, and I'm the ass. Well one day, I'm going to figure out that sitting down is going to get me that carrot. After that, I'll be one happy burro. (I don't know...is burro/ass/donkey the same thing?)

I really can't wait to get home tonight. I get to paint my new room. Well, ok...I get to "prime" it first, and then probably paint tomorrow, because hey, what's more fun to do on a Friday night than paint? Ok, there's 3 bars within walking distance, and I need to "prime" my stomach for a bachelor party on Saturday night, too, so I'll see if my roommate is up for shots and tall beers.

The bachelor party should be a good time. It's starting off with horse racing, but I'm not so into the whole gambling scene, so I'm skipping out on that, but meeting up with everybody at 7:30 at Rudolph's. Should be a good time. I've never eaten there. I've only had their famous cole slaw dressing from the grocery store, and lemme tell you, I might just get a plate of that and deal with the CS farts later.

The night will end at the Vegas Lounge in NE Minneapolis. From what it looks like, if you want to get your karaoke on with a cold PBR and Grandma Betty, this is the place. We'll see. I'll wear my Saturday night best and aim to please.

Can't wait for Saturday, lemme tell ya.

worst blogger ever

So much has happened in the past month, it's hard to want to sum it all up. I've been really sad/upset/confused/angry lately that it make me not want to write about it and just keep it all inside.

So, a basic summary. My dog was put to sleep, I went to Six Flags and Chicago, I joined the ranks of the dating crowd, I saw dragsters and funny cars, I set foot in a lake for the first time in 20 years, camped, decided to move into a house in Anoka...

And that's not even including the filler. Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to sit down and write some more, and do it on a regular basis. I'm setting goals, and doing whatever I can to achieve them.

This is going to be good.

Hurts my friggin eyes to watch this:

talking 'bout my, my va-ca-shun

Saturday, 7/12/08
Woke up at 6:30 to get the oil changed in C's car. Drive to the Edina Toyota, arrive at 7:30. Oil changed by 8:30, grab breakfast at Perkins, then leave for Chicago. Oh wait, gotta drop some paperwork off at C's work in Minneapolis. Not a problem, we'll just cruise on up 35w and...SHIT...it's closed. How about we hit up Cedar. Just a hop skip and a jump away....aw shit...there's a triathlon running all across Uptown and South Minneapolis. We finally get out of town around 10:30. Still not bad.

Saturday night we arrived in Chicago. We stayed at the Silversmith Hotel, which was way more luxe than I'm used to or really care for, but it was pretty nice. Walked around town. Hit up Milennium Park again, walked to Buckingham Fountain, and back to the hotel. and ended up at Navy Pier. At the pier, I saw the most fantastic fireworks display I think I'd ever seen. And some crazy trapeeze artists ringing bells and doing stunts. Crazy. End of the night.

Sunday 7/13/08.
At midnight, I got a little older, and that was ok. We woke up the next day and decided to go to the Art Inisitute of Chicago. We saw priceless works of art, and I got to see American Gothic:

 American Gothic by Grant Wood

And Nighthawks:

 

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Two of my favorite paintings. I also learned that the woman standing next to the man in American Gothic is NOT his wife, but his unwed daughter. You can tell she's unwed because she's UGLY.

More to come...

future zombie

We got a fella here at work who is pretty much on his way to zombie-dom. He's already showing signs of becoming one, including the glassy eyes, a penchant for brains, and most of all, the awkward, stumbling walk, as seen in many of George Romero's "... of the Dead" flicks.

I'm thinking about wearing a helmet to protect my cranium from any attacks. As stumbly as he is, he's pretty quiet on the feet. The sucker could sneak up on me, and I wouldn't even know it.

Can't read? Click here!

I'm trying to send my Portable Firefox 3 from my home computer to my work computer. I didn't want to do this until the final version of FF3 came out, which it did in the last 24 hours. I decided that an online file sharing service would be the best option, since most web email providers have a size limit on their files, and the zip of my Portable FF3 is roughtly 90Mb.

I decided to choose my method based on having to register for the service or not. I just want to quickly upload the *.zip file, and then download it here at work. That's it. I don't want to register, verify my email address, wait for a beta invite or anything. Upload, then download. U/l or d/l speed didn't matter...the only thing I needed was a service that provided sending and receiving of files bigger than 90Mb.

I selected GigaSize.com to do the dirty work. No registration at all...just upload up to 300Mb, and download with the link they provide after the file is uploaded. I didn't care how long the file was to remain on their servers or anything since I was going to get the file almost immediately after downloading it.

The process went painlessly, and I now have the file. The only funny thing I noticed was this:



"Can't read?" Well...if I can't read it, how am I supposed to know that I'm supposed to click it? And even then...why am I on the internet at all, unless I'm on Hobo Internet, and there's nothing but Hobo Signs showing where it's safe to sleep.

Ok. I understand that the "Can't read?" is referring to the CAPTCHA right above it, but I think it could be a little more descriptive.

root beer smell

The morning commute has become more trying these past few weeks. It's construction season, and the two most straightforward routes I can take into work (Snelling Ave. and Hwy 280 from 35W N) are both being constructed on. I've personally hated 280 from the beginning so I ended up taking Snelling in for the past 2 months, and it's been a fairly smooth ride.

But this damn construction is really testing my mettle. And then...I brought a can of root beer to consume today. As I was driving this morning, all of a sudden there was an abrupt stop. The can rolled off the seat, and I didn’t think anything of it. 5 seconds later, I smell root beer, and I look down, and my can has a puncture wound in it, and it’s spraying all over the floor. Long story short, I had an extra shirt in the truck that had to serve as the sponge for my floor, and I lost a can of pop as a casualty of war. Kind of upset about that, but oh well…what can ya do?

sorry for not posting

I've been going to bed at like 8:30 at night, and I've just been busy at work.

Although this is no excuse, it's the best I've got right now.




I lied about this being the best excuse. Imagine if you will...butt probe aliens.

'nuff said.

to the baby bird I buried this morning

I left Caroline's this morning, and walked towards my truck. On the way there, I stepped over you. Featherless and motionless. I ignored you for two seconds, but I stopped and thought about you for a second. I didn't want you to be stepped on, and I knew you would. In a nearby flower pot, I dug a hole for your body to be placed in. I picked up your cold, lifeless body, placed you in the hole and covered you up. I looked around to see where you came from, but I didn't see any nests. I figured you came from one of the many nook-and-cranny nests that surround that building.

I feel bad that you never got to experience life, but I also realized, that is life. Things don't always work out they way everybody wants it to.

I'm sorry you had to die. I thought burying you was the best decision.

seriously

Could this day drag on any longer? I've got stomach acid crawling up my throat like Mario crawling up a vine that appeared after he hit his head on a brick block.

On the bright side, I'm enjoying a tasty Mountain Dew Voltage that tastes like DEW Charged With Raspberry Citrus Flavor and Ginseng.



It's got good flavor, and of the two flavors that I've tried, I like this one better.

those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer

I don't know if I've even been this lazy. I guess it doesn't totally feel like lazy, more like unmotivated to write anything.

To my one reader out there, I apologize. I know that there's nothing better than reading about my exploits on a fairly daily basis, and how it all boils down, you're right. I try to write, but sometimes it's difficult to get the time, since I do most of my writing when I'm not supposed to. Whoops.

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

I watched two movies on the big screen this past weekend. Here are my reviews, in haiku form:

Indiana Jones and the Bifocals of Destiny:

Boy, Indy. You're old.
How long has it been? That long?
Oh. That explains it.

Speed Racer:

Something to ponder:
Is the chimp is his brother?
Go, Speed Racer, Go!


Basically, both of the movies were fun. The chimp in Speed Racer and Shia LeBouph could have traded roles and made BOTH films better, but I'm really not complaining. I was slightly disappointed by Indiana Jones (but come on...who didn't see disappointment coming?), and quite impressed with Speed Racer. And with a summer full of blockbuster fanboy releases, they were both a good lead in to 2 more months of entertainment. I can't wait.

a week

that's how long it's been since I last posted. I've been so tired and busy and internetless and about a billion other excuses.

The past three nights, I've wanted to go to bed at 10pm, although last night I wasn't able to do so until midnight. That hurts. I feel exhausted right now.

I was fed genetically engineered water this morning, and was told that it balances the acids in your body almost immediately. I'm as big a skeptic as they come, but I love humoring people. I was asked to try and touch my toes before taking the water. I got to about an inch from my toes. Then after taking a literal sip of water, and waiting 20 seconds, I was asked to try again. I touched my toes. WOW! It works!

Common sense tells me however that water DOES balance the acid because most water has a pH level of 0. As far as being instant, well sure...it'll change the acidity of your stomach acid, but not change your ability to stretch. That's snake oil, man....snake oil.

who would do this. really?

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/apa/681689434.html

What woman in their right mind would participate in something like this? I mean, don't get me wrong...this sounds like a fantastic deal, but really...get your rocks off like any other normal pervert, you freak.

stomach ache

I hate fast food.

suck e. cheese

It was my nephew's 7th (!) birthday on Mother's day, so his mom invited her favorite brother-in-law to the party at everybody's favorite: Chuck E. Cheese's!

Now, I grew up going to about 5 CEC parties a year when I was a kid. There were ball pits, skee ball games, ticket prizes, countless fun video games, party rooms, pizza, pop, beer and animatronic anthropomorphic performing animals. The room where the animals performed were dimly lit, and the shows were entertaining. Sure the animals weren't realistic, but how can you be when you only have 6 points of articulation, and 4 of them are in your head?

But goddammit, when I was a kid, this shit was FUN.

Fast forward 20 some-odd years later, and let me paint a picture for you.

First thing I notice is the place is bright as a strobe light showroom. Neon everywhere. Next thing, is this place is two levels. Upstairs and downstairs. Design flaw in my opinion. Sure there's an elevator, but there's kids running everywhere, and the stairwell is not the widest thing in the world.

DOWNSTAIRS

Downstairs has the eating/stage area. Tiny. Very bright, and you could barely hear the sound coming over the overhead speakers for the canned television CEC channel, which loops every 30 minutes or so some very uninspiring CEC themed skits and music videos.

The front stage was very tiny, with some kid controlled video cameras and a little mini stage with a non-working blue screen that the kids could perform in front of. Animatronic animals? One. Mr. Cheese himself from the waist up. Close enough to the edge that kids were all over him, sticking their fingers in his mouth while he performed. If this shit was real, he would NOT go for that. At all. The only really entertaining aspect of the dining/stage area were the television show themed posters which all had a disclaimer stating that these were parody posters. The first poster spoofed Seinfeld as "Cheesefeld", and had a picture of Chuck dressed as Jerry. The second was The C Files in homage to The X files. The last was a spoof on ER. Instead it was called ERrr. I didn't get it. And it had a surprisingly buff looking Chuck E. Cheese dressed in a white lab coat.

The rest of the stuff downstairs was mostly kiddie rides and video games. Nothing spectacular.

UPSTAIRS

Upstairs is strictly video games and ticket games. Lots of light-gun shooting games, racing games, skee ball, little "rides" and seating. All in all, totally uninspiring. There were about 3 games that looked interesting or fun, and that's just not enough. The arcade is dead. Long live the arcade.

THE EXPERIENCE

It was painful. I showed up early. Waited for 20 minutes. Apparently, showing up early is not as important anymore to anybody else except for me.
My brother and dad show up, and we all sit up front waiting for the rest of the gang. The kid working the front door (job? I think he was the gatekeeper. I didn't see the keymaster anywhere.) spent most of the time up front wearing plastic glasses with a big nose and a black moustache and checking his height on the "I think the criminal was 'this tall'" sticker on the door. My sister in law showed up with my nephews and my oldest nephew's friend. Good. The attendance is getting better.

I told myself that the only redeeming thing would be for some hot mom to be there and at least give me someone to stare at. Everybody who was invited showed up, including some hot moms. My joy turned into disappointment because kids were just dropped off. This is bad for me.

Ten seven-year-olds running around and having a good time. This was fun to watch. Little kids bragging about how many tickets they won and everything.

Pizza shows up and we eat. The pizza was sub-par, and no amount of crushed red pepper and Parmesan cheese could save it.

Let me tell you, though. This kid SCORED present-wise. Holy crap. Toys galore. Good for him. His uncle only got him a gift card, but that's like gold to a kid who wants anything and everything. GOLD I tell ya.

It came time to leave, and I was glad to go. Hot moms came back to pick their kids up and that was good again, but quickly turned to bad. I'm not going to say that I didn't have a good time, but I did find myself checking the time quite frequently near the end of the party.

So, to sum it all up: lame pizza + sub-standard entertainment + 2 levels of ho-hum + a rat with Bell's Palsy = happy little kids.

I guess it really isn't all that bad.

In researching the links for this post, I did come across an interesting word. Exonumia is the study of coin-like objects such as token coins and medals, and other items used in place of legal currency or for commemoration. My favorite line in the wikipedia entry for this is:

"The words exonumist and exonumia were coined in July 1960 by Russell Rulau, a recognized authority and author on the subject, and accepted by Webster's dictionary in 1965."

Do you think they intentionally said that the terms were coined in July 1960? Because that would be funny.

dumb stimulus package

What the smart government should have done was base the schedule for payments on the promptness of when people filed. I know it's just easier to do it in numerical order, but some of us who fall into the latter end of the social security numbering scheme (me...98) want our goddamn money and we want it now. I've got habits to uphold, people! And I filed fairly early.

The bastards.

Super Thursday!

I had a great day, yesterday. The workday went by fairly quickly, which is always a bonus. My friend, Lance, invited me out to an early screening of "Ashton Kutcher screams, and is funny" or what everybody else calls it, "What Happens in Vegas....".

Now, I usually jump on early screenings of everything if I can help it. The ones that happen during the week are an issue, but I'll skip work to see shit like Spider-Man. But I had to politely decline the invite because I already had a super Thursday planned with Caroline.

I leave work at 4:30 and speed down 94, 35W South, and hit the crosstown to Southdale Mall. I meet her at the AMC theater there, which she says I've been there before, and I tell her, "Nope...never have."

We're there to see Iron Man. As we're getting our concessions, one of the girls behind the counter noticed my "potato shocked by seeing french fries" t-shirt (I should really scan it in. I can't find an image of it on the internets, and I got it from goodwill) and said something about how cute it was. Then she asked if I was seeing Iron Man (do I look that nerdy? Awesome!). If I was, I should make sure that I waited until the end credits (which I already knew about. I *do* have the internet). A girl after my own heart. Too bad she was a solid decade younger than I was and working at a movie theater, coated in more popcorn oil than I care for my women to normally be.

The movie: Fantastic. So much more true to the comic book than a lot of the superhero movies out there. I wish they played up the alcoholism a little more, but they did a good job establishing Tony Stark's fondness for the booze. Good chemistry between the characters, although I wasn't entirely buying the whole Rhodey/Stark relationship. It just didn't seem 100%. More like 80%. All in all, I'd totally recommend it to anybody who likes comic book movies, or who has an affinity for geeky science and gadgets.

Then the movie ended, we zipped quickly to Chipotle because Caroline was about to pee her pants. We gorged on burritos, then we headed back to her place to watch ABC's LOST.

No review, but I do love that show.

helpful

Lately I've been helpful. This isn't entirely self-diagnosed. I helped Liz carry this GIGANTICALLY heavy-assed T.V. up to her apartment. My friend Andy needed support the other day. My brother is moving and has an entire house to move in the span of a month (technically his lease for his current house is up in September, but his words were, "Fuck it.").

I feel particularly better, karma-wise.

what's YOUR demographic

Diet Coke just wished me a happy Mother's Day.

Or they were saying, "you look like a chick, and you're fat."

Or they were saying, "you look like a 60 year old woman who has had 3 kids, needs to go on a diet, and is probably going to get her only 'Happy Mother's Day' greeting in a mass emailing from a company that doesn't care to discern their male audience from their female, mother audience."

friend indeed?

Last night I was planning on meeting up with some people to play bar bingo at Baggan's Pub, formerly Sharx Sports Bar and Nightclub, winner of CityPages "BEST STRIP CLUB (MALE DANCERS) of 2000" on East River Road in Fridley. I have never been to Baggan's at all, I'd been to Sharx, but after it was Sharx and before it was Baggans. I've never played bar bingo before.

Needless to say, I was kind of looking forward to this.

It never happened. I ended up being a friend in need, therefore being a friend indeed, for my buddy Andy, the comedian.

After one beer, a good burger, a long talk about relationships, Martin Short, and countless other things talked about, Andy got his drunk on, I drove him home, and hopefully I helped out a little.

hate spoilers

I hate myself for needing to know the storyline and secrets. I ruin it for myself.

With NBC's Heroes, I could never get enough information. I played their little ARG, participated in all the viral marketing I could to find out all of the information I could possibly find.

Then there's LOST. Hoo, boy....don't get me started. Really. I did everything with LOST that I did for Heroes, but like....times ten. There was a fantastic ARG during Season 2 that I didn't entirely participate in, but I followed on a very regular basis. And you can find me every Friday, going through countless sites trying to find out next week's storyline.

But, what I hate worse than finding out things I want to know, are things I don't want to know. When people post spoilers to things that are better appreciated when they aren't previously unknown. This is the reason I stay until after the credits roll. Ferris Bueller's Day Off and X-Men United (lamest name for a movie ever) are two great examples. One movie provides humor, the other, hope for a sequel.

NOW...when a movie less than a week old, DO NOT POST SPOILER INFORMATION, Mike Krumboltz, you asshole. Now, I'm not going to post the link that I read, or even reveal the subject I was reading about. But what was revealed shouldn't have been because I wanted to see it for myself.

All you needed to say was, "Go see the movie, and stay until the credits are finished." Instead, you blew your load in one tug, you pre-ejaculating, spoiler fuck.

There's gotta be a spoiler rule.

attention to detail

I bought Grand Theft Auto 4 yesterday, and I'm happy, as usual, with my purchase. It's games like this that continue to amaze me. The game world itself is HUGE. HUGE, I tell you. But it's not the size that matters....it's the detail. There's roads in the game. But they just aren't paved roads, they're roads with litter that blows around. Visit your brother, Roman, who's hiding in a dumpster, and when you talk to him, notice the flies that are buzzing about. Run over countless lightposts, and watch the sparks fly out.

It's little nods and homages to things that I really appreciate in video games, as well as movies.

With Marvel Studios finally taking control of it's properties, instead of optioning them out, a la Spider-Man to Sony, we can finally see movies starring the Avengers, instead of it's members. I just read about the first baby steps to something like this happening with a cameo appearance by Robert Downey, Jr. in the new Hulk movie. A little birdie also told me that Wolverine might make an appearance near the end of the movie.

And that's my biggest beef with comic book movies. With the exception of the X-Men movies, when did you hear even the slightest mention of another hero in such a movie. Oh yeah, that's right, Aunt May mentioned Superman in the first Spider-Man flick. This shouldn't have ever happened, and is the worst part of that movie.

In a world where all I want is a mentioning of another hero in a movie, or a glance at a newspaper headline in a Spider-Man movie saying something about Thor, or whatever....I finally might get what I want.

the future

The future is uncertain. I've got so many ideas in my head that it's hard to focus on one at a time. I'll stumbleupon a site or two that seem to offer suggestions for maintaining ideas or getting things done, but I never really take that advice to heart. It's hard to follow instructions that seem to go against what I'm all about.

For instance, I want to design another t-shirt, but since I've moved, everything needed is strewn about multiple boxes. It's hard to get things done when you don't know where everything is.

Another thing is that I want to get to drawing a comic strip with original characters. I have a great origin story for him, and a general idea on how I want him to look, but I feel like I'm 'borrowing' too much from existing sources. Sure, I'm changing things up a little, but it might be straying too far from homage, and leaning towards, "your mother's a tracer!"

twitter and followers

I guess I will never fully understand Twitter. It's an interesting service, but I never really understood it's purpose other than to let people know what you're doing right at that time. And even then, people have to pretty much subscribe to your Twitter feed.

That being said, since I've registered this blog with 4-5 some odd blog registry sites, I've been getting 2-3 people (probably robots...whatever) following me on Twitter. To me, this is odd.

Of course, when click on their profile, they're following 10-20,000 people. As I look at it, however, that's not a lot of people. It does encourage me to Twitter a little more. I was Twittering once every 90 days, literally.

Who knows...maybe I'll benefit from letting people know what I'm doing.

Top 3 Halo Games (in no particular order)

1. Halo 2

2. Halo 3

3. Halo: Combat Evolved

rssHugger

I've decided to try and get some kind of promotion out for this blog. I demand more readers. More readers=more posts. More posts=more things to read. More things to read=more funny.

My first attempt is rssHugger.

It's pretty easy. Join their site, register your blog with their service, then you can write a post promoting the site (which is what I'm doing.) or pay a fee (which is what the rich and lazy do, I imagine).

We'll see if rssHugger works. I don't want to have to turn it into rssDumper.

Phun!

Phun is a 2D physics sandbox that allows the user to play and create to their imagination's content.

It has a YouTube group filled with some pretty decent creations like the Master Chief Warthog Loop, and my current favorite, Baby's Got Problems (shown below), complete with slow motion suspense:

masturbation, the cancer killer

According to an Australian study, men who ejaculated more than five times a week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life.

I'm trying to find a way to work that into preventing other kinds of cancer. Right now I'm at "excessive" masturbation.

granny photoset

I love this collection of photos. This would have been fun to sit in on, hear about or even imagine.

beauty in the Dark Ages

Last week my friend and I were talking to someone about standards of beauty in the Dark Ages. We were really shocked by that stuff, so we asked my friend Beth about it, and she screamed:

"No kidding?!.. Wow! I am so sick of hearing about the Dark Ages all the time!"

But then when my friend and I got to the part about the standards of beauty, Beth quieted down and began picking her nose. Then this morning, Beth's niece told me that the reason Beth was so freaked out was because she was watching about standards of beauty on TV. Sometimes Beth can be a little cool like that, but I have to live with that...

Link of the day: Joke Ratings | Randomly generated by Flooble Instant Blog Post Generator

T.Hanks

You're W.Elcome.

this might be my favorite comic

I have to be careful where and when I read it. I get teary-eyed whenever I do.

It conveys the best message ever, and makes me think every time I read it:

Enjoy.

dolphin bubble rings

I can't get over how amazing this is, and how playful the dolphin is with the rings. I love it.

losing my lid

I'm moving up to Andover. So, in one of many stages of the "movement", I brought all my board games there. They were in the back of my truck. As I’m going down 280, sure as shit, I see CRANIUM fly out of the box. I’m like…FUCK MY ASS. I can’t believe the entire goddamn game blew out of the back of my truck. I saw people swerve to get out of its way and everything. Whoops.

I pull off at the exit past energy park drive and inspect my losses. Well, only the cover blew off, and it was the cover to the non special edition, so…not a huge loss. After I saw that it was just the cover, I was a little better.

I rearranged my belongings to prevent future unauthorized flights and drove off again. We all made it home safe and sound.

I think it landed open side down. It's probably thinking to itself, "Man, this is awesome. Hopefully someone will stop to pick me up thinking I'm the entire game. When they finally grab me, BAM! They'll realize that I'm not the real game. Haha."

I was going to write something else after the "BAM", but I chose not to.

rrr wwwww

Have you ever thought about why we call them the 5 W’s, even though one starts with an “H” (I get the logic, but still).

That, and have you ever thought that of the Three R’s we were taught in school, only one starts with an “R”? I guess the

WTF? No wonder other countries are smarter than we are.

Pirates should be the only ones who are allowed to use three "arr's", in my opinion.

wow!

I had 5 visits to this site yesterday! Although this doesn't even come close to the most hits in one day (6), this is still monumental. I'm curious as to why, but I'm not going to argue.

That being said, I did notice that someone came to my site using the keywords "camel toe youngsters". Granted, I did have a post referring to "Camel Toads"...but I don't know where the youngsters came from. I swear.

I'm gonna change professions

This one seems to pay better than what I'm making now. And I can meet so many interesting people.

Dog + Computer

Ok. Maybe I want this dog. If only to try and kick it over a bunch of times:

Dog vs. Computer

I don't know if I want the dog, or the machine, or both. I think one compliments the other:

Beware the Camel Toads

This kind of stuff writes itself.

Death Loves Nickelodeon

He does.

Disney: scarring the minds of youngsters FOREVER

Disney on Ice, more specifically. Seriously...I can buy "Peter Pan on Ice", "The Incredibles on Ice"( Frozone, Anybody?) and even "High School Musical on Ice", but Walt Disney must be spinning in his cryogenic chamber right now. (haha...Walt On Ice)

That's right. "Finding Nemo on Ice". Now, I'm not balking at how ridiculous the concept is. (Fish on skates?) My worries stem from my first and ONLY impression of the show that I've seen in the commercials shown:

The eyes on some of the costumes look like boobs.

Trust me:

Pictured above are Dorry and Nemo, with crazy leg fins outstretched, and strangely weird, nightmare inducing eye boobs.

EYE BOOBS!

And if that's not frightening enough, it looks like some of Dorry's friends have fishface torsos:This has gotta stop, Disney. If I see friggin "Cars on Ice", I'm gonna flip.

How to get your Facebook account deleted...

Just do this!

I mean, it seems pretty easy. It looks like there's a lot of preparation to do in order to get it taken care of.

I'm going to go harass someone right now!

it's what you say that kills you...

Well...more like the language you use, according to this site.

Spider-Man's deal with the devil

Hi, my name is Peter Parker, and I made a deal with the devil, Mephisto. I did this in order to save my dear, old Aunt May from dying from a sniper bullet intended for me. In exchange for her life, all the cool shit that's happened to me in the last 25 years got erased. I'm not married. My secret identity that I stupidly revealed to the entire world is now secret again. After fighting a dude that wants to kill spider-powered beings (yes...beingS...there's more than one of me out there) and almost getting killed, only to form a spider-cocoon and come out of it healed and with enhanced powers...well..all that cool stuff is gone. No more organic web-shooters, no crazy wolverine spikes that pop out of my arms, no enhanced strength or senses.

I'm back to normal.

All that to save the life of my 150 year-old aunt.




Marvel would call this a retcon. A recton is this: To retroactively change the continuity of a character or title.

Basically it goes like this: Marvel realizes that it entirely fucked up on its history of Spider-Man, and decided to right the wrong, and make things easier for them to create entertaining stories. To me, creating stories with a stronger version of their flagship character would open up things. Bigger, badder enemies? Eh...maybe.

On the other hand, marriage is a bitch...especially if you're a photographer, and you're married to a friggin' supermodel. I wouldn't want to write about that shit. No way.

So...people are crying foul.

"Thanks for erasing 25 years of Spider-Man history and memories from my life."

That's the big one.

But think about it. It's not like the editors just woke up one day and said, "Let's fuck up Spider-Man, and piss off all of our fans." No. They thought about it. They thought about, "What's the best way to tell new and interesting stories while introducing a new fan base to their favorite hero?"

"And...how can we make a little money on it."

Ahh...the money.

16 days ago...

I decided to post my last entry. The first week after I broke my elbow, it just flat-out hurt to use. After that first week, it's been usable. I just guess I needed a typing break.

So, I'm back.

I haven't even really looked at my site. For all I know it could have been taken over by renegade bloggers, hell bent on the destruction of bloggerkind as we know it. Imagine a dystopian, Mad Max-type future where blogs are scarce and fueled only by scarce sources of Mountain Dew, Bugles and Easy Cheese. Imagine going to the Bloggerdome: TWO BLOGS ENTER, ONE BLOG LEAVES! Imagine Mel Gobsom (Yes...in the future he is known as Mel Gobsom) typing furiously, avoiding flame-wars, while writing about his kitten.

This is the future, my friends.

my blogging history

I'm not exactly sure when the term 'blogging' took over the phrase 'online journal', but I'm pretty sure it was after I started my own online journal. I had a website, copey.com (which now redirects to this site, I believe), that I had started back in 2000. I had recently graduated from art school with a degree in multimedia design (can we get any more generic of a title?). I couldn't design shit at the time, and doubt I could, even now. But that didn't stop me from dabbling in some html, javascript, and a little dthml. I had what was basically my own little online journal where I'd post random thoughts and events, much like I do now.

Except back then, I think I was funnier. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still think that I'm funny, but I could express myself so much easier. I had this wit and wry cynicism that I can't seem to tap into in writing anymore.

Here's an example of my writing, found on archive.org:

December 20. 2000 6:25 AM

It's a sad day.

I have finally achieved geekdom. As of 6:30 PM CST, December 19, 2000, I have become one of the Playstation elite. After dropping the girlfriend off at her house, I decided to go "shopping". First stop; Shinder's to get my big bro a few comic book related Christmas gifts. Then to Barnes and Noble for another gift to me. For kicks, I decide to go to the local mall. After a 20 minute bout with idiot drivers, a mindlessly organized parking lot and inane pedestrians, I finally make my way inside. Extremely crabby, I stomp inside through the HomePlace entrance. Directly past the mall entrance of HomePlace is a little store called Best Buy. I walk inside. Every checkout lane is asshole to asshole. Needless to say, I make my way to the computer stuff, because, well, I'm a geek. As I walk past the Video Game stuff, I notice a line of about 6 people deep. Shorter than any other checkout lane, yet more intriguing. I notice a little blue box being passed from one cashier to another, who puts it in a bag, and gives it to a customer. I don't think anything of it, so I walked past the line and the cashiers and the Playstation 2's. As I reach the aisle of choice, it donned on me. They're selling PS2's! I make my way towards the line and notice that it hasn't gotten any deeper than was it was before. I place myself in the back of the line and wait. Curious, I ask the idiot next to me how many are left. I get a mumbled answer and respond with an equally mumbled grunt noise resembling an "Oh". As the line gets shorter, I come to the realization that the checking account my check card draws from has the low, low amount of roughly 100 bucks. I decide to go ahead with the deal, knowing that I'd quickly forget the possible 27 dollar overdraft fee I would be charged. To make a long story short... I have a Playstation 2 and you probably don't. So there. copey

one armed waving

It's busy, we're down some people at work, and I'm missing an arm. And boy, do I miss it.

The plus side is that I can now type my password right-handed like a friggin' pro.

The negative side is that when it comes to certain things, I am a true lefty. It makes things difficult.

But, unlike Richard Kimble's nemesis to the right, I will eventually get my arm back.

The bastard (the arm, not the OAM).

broken or bruised?

Snowboarding. Afton Alps. 7:45pm.

I go and try to break my arm. I really haven't been in this kind of pain before. It's hard to describe, really.

The x-rays were the most painful. Rotating my wrist from palm down to palm up couldn't have been more painful than it was last night. I wanted to Hulk out. I truly felt like Bill Bixby. I told the nurse, "You're hurting the fuck out of me. You're not going to like me when you're hurting the fuck out of me."

At least we got a free pass to go back there again.

Never.
Say.
Die.

undies? check. handcuffs? check? both silver? check.

Just gotta love the stories you come across on the internet.

Do's and Don'ts of baby care

This is some good stuff.

Legally Drunk

I'm a little confused.

I'm reading an article that tells the story of who was responsible, and should be responsible in an alcohol-related automobile accident that resulted in the death of a minor. Details of the story aside, the term "legally drunk" was used multiple times.

Now. I know I'm reading waaaaay too much into it, but one would think that being legally drunk would mean that you had consumed alcohol, but had maintained a BAC of less than your state's legal limit, usually .10 or .08, depending on how cool your state is.

Everybody says, "the legal limit in (my state) is .08." That would mean that the illegal limit is anything above that. .09, .10, .40.

Now in the article, it says the girl who was driving was legally drunk. They mean that her blood alcohol level was above the legal limit. Of course, she was underage, so anything above a .00 is illegal. They should be saying that she's illegally drunk, right?

Am I just being weird about this, or do I have a valid argument?

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if you are drunk, and you are above the legal limit, the you should be called illegally drunk. If you are drunk, and you are below the legal limit, then you should be called legally drunk. If you are sober, and not a celebrity, you should be called legally sober. If you are a member of Congress, then you can be called illegally sober.

'nuff said.

acidy

Stomach's kind of churning. It's acid-y. What do I have in front of me for relief? Life Water, Pringles Select Parmesan Garlic potato crisps, and an orange.

Maybe I can MacGuyver them together to make a stomach-easing paste or something.

Sweet fucking Jesus. Why did this happen?

Seriously. I would like you to meet Devo 2.0, or Dev2.0 as they as also known as.

These "child actors" perform family friendly covers of DEVO songs as part of their schtick. Because, why wouldn't they? Making a sequel band, with child stars no less only goes to show that there are no more original ideas left. They have all been used up and recycled as kiddy versions of 80's new wave goodness.

I personally can't wait for their family version of DEVO's cover of the Rolling Stone's (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. That'll go over well with the over 30 crowd.

What next? Happy Happy Joy Joy Division?

Come on, Disney. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I will own this dog one day

Cloverfield

Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Do yourself a favor. Go see this movie. See it with friends. See it early so you can talk about it afterwards. See it with a Lost/Alias geek for full effect.

SEE IT.

Busy.

Can't post. Angry like the HULK.

Local Superhero!

Minnesota's got a superhero! In today's write up in City Pages, we get to learn about Geist (warning! Myspace Page!). His Myspace Friends are also Suburban Superheroes. There's also a local costume maker. A Google Maps link to heroes across the U.S. and Europe can be found here.

It's interesting to see people dressed up the way they are and do the things they do. Who wants to be a superhero? I want to be a superhero!

Stop saying "after the jump". Please.

I hate it. Where am I jumping to? I've set up a filter in Firefox to change every instance of "after the jump" to "I'm an asshole author". It startles me a little every time I see it, then I remind myself, that they truly are trend following bastards, and that any fingers that touch the keyboard keys that form that phrase should be removed.

It's good to know I'm not the only one who doesn't like that phrase.

Although in my search for information I did find the history of its use.

The Fonz would call it: After the jumping the shark. Aaaaaay!

Top Ten Bowling Movies

In no particular order:

1. Uncle Buck

2. Kingpin

3. The Big Lebowski

4. ......Um...

4. ....uh...


That was the Top 3 Bowling Movies, in no particular order.

My ass.

It hurts. I went snowboarding for the first time in 7/10 of a decade, and I had a blast.

We went from 10 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon. Buck Hill has a deal during the week where if you ski/snowboard between those times, your lift ticket is only $10. They should rename it, "Ten Buck Hill". I could buy so much candy for less than $10!


10:20 - 11:30:
Bunny Hill. More like Benny Hill, really. All I needed were a bunch of snow bunnies chasing me in fast motion, whilst I fall down, that'd be it. There was much falling, much exhaustion, much pain. I did so much falling on my rear end, that there were butt prints every 10 feet. The tow rope was more exhausting going up that it was sliding on my ass down. Moving around on the board? HA! Impossible at that time. I don't know how those kids can do it. Hill-1, Me-0.

11:30 - 12:00:
Lunch. I was getting shaky. Had the worst hot dog I've had in a while. Drank some Vitamin Water. Felt better.

12:00 - 1:00:
Green Circle Hill. I started feeling comfortable with my abilities, so we decided to hit the slope where normal people ski. With the exception of a few wipeouts (I have a hard time avoiding people sometimes...so I had to take a few falls to not hit them) I did pretty well. It got to the point where I could land myself right near the ski lift with little to no major effort.

Definitely want to go again. Soon. Tomorrow if I could.

I hate my truck

I don't really, but it's causing trouble right now. Trouble enough to have to head up to Brainerd to get it fixed. It kind of digs into my weekend, but that's ok. I didn't really have much planned, and if going up there gets it fixed, then so be it.

On a semi-related note, when I was a kid, my best friend, Tim, had a much younger step-brother. He was a cute kid, but totally rambunctious and loud. One day, we found out that he couldn't pronounce some words correctly. One of these words was "truck". He would pronounce it, "Fruck".

Now, this leads two mischievous adolescent buddies to take advantage of this happenstance. They had a little pre-fab fort in the backyard, so we sat in it, and had him say words and phrases like, "Mother Trucker!" and "Truck you!". Wait...did I say "say"? I meant "scream at the top of his lungs".

Holy crap did we get in trouble. After about a solid hour or two of this happening, Tim's dad came home and chewed our asses out so much, we sat funny for a week. It was such a severe tongue lashing, that his dad's face was bright red, like those heat lamps they used to sell to keep you warm, that you'd accidentally put something plastic on, and it'd melt to it, eventually burning the plastic, and creating a smell that your mother would eventually smell it, and ask you what you've done, and you'd lie to her, but she'd shut the light off and she'd see melted/burnt plastic on it and then she'd chew your ass out too.

Man...my ass was chewed out a lot when I was a kid.

I might be a liar.

I'm only saying this because I told no less than two people that I was going to rearrange my apartment, and/or clean it. This was a complete lie. The worst thing about lying is that one of the people I told the lie to was my mom. Bless her heart.

Instead, I'm going to be playing Beautiful Katamari, drinking a local beer and finding things to link to on Wikipedia.

And finally, greetings to all of my new reader. Thank you for coming, and please clean up before you leave.

Bullshit and the price of parking tickets

Another parking ticket. This time, it's for being within 20 feet of a crosswalk. Before it was for being within 30 feet of a traffic sign. Now, at least in Minneapolis, they pretty much post where you can and can't park with clearly visible signs. St. Paul must be lacking the proper funding needed to get these signs in place and to avoid having people get fined...ooh! I see what they did there.

The fines I've paid this year alone (year starting June, '07.) would have most likely funded the proper signage in the immediate areas where I park my vehicle.

I'm just worried that I'm going to get a ticket for "parking within 20 feet of (random colored) house".

Ridiculous.

Tagging

Tagging is exhausting. Especially tagging after the fact. Del.icio.us bookmarks and Blogger posts.

Delicious at least makes an effort to know what you want to tag stuff with, and then makes it easy to implement that tag by simply clicking it. Whoops! Don't want that tag? Click it again, and it disappears from the entry box. Brilliant.

Blogger, however, makes an effort by showing "autocomplete tags" as you type, but for some reason, when I wanted the word "me" as a tag, since I already had "meat" as a tag, it wouldn't settle for anything less. Now, I realize that I am meat, but that's taking it a little too far. I had to add extra letters and commas and manipulate the cursor and backspace a little. Got it to work, but not without effort, and blogging should be effortless.

One last point. Blogger, get rid of the comma separation and just leave the separation to the spacebar. Having to type that comma in after every tag is tiresome, especially after tagging 20 posts. If I want to group words as a tag, I'll put them in quotes. Ugh!

Maybe it's "Happy Nude Year":

I think I'm going to try to be more naked. Mostly in my own home, and mostly by myself. I'm not a public nudity kind of guy, and that's probably because I'm not a thrown in jail due to public nudity kind of guy. And that's totally fine with me.

Winter might be an issue, and living in the ground level of an apartment building poses threats to letting the wang hang, but other than that, consider me Austin Powers in that opening scene to his second movie.

New Year's Resolution?

To have no resolutions, what-so-ever. That's all. I always make them, and never follow them. This way, I can one-up myself if I do accomplish something noteworthy.

Brilliant? Yes.

Flu? Bah.

There's gotta be a reason why "flu" is spelled with an "f" and a "u". Christ.

This time, it's been weird. Fluctuating temperatures, strange sleep patterns, crazy shivering...out of all the flu bugs I've had over the past 30 years, this one's been just odd.

I did vomit once, and even that wasn't bad. Not typical. Usually it's violent and in the middle I tyically make two offers. One to a god, and one to a devil. The one who makes it go away gets to do whatever they want with/to me. Nobody decides to step in and intervene, so I just suffer for a few days and get on with my life.

But this time it sucks. It's December 31st. And what's my chump ass doing for New Year's? Eating chicken broth and watching someone's ball drop. I might slam a beer, just for gits and shiggles.

On the bright side of things, I doubt I'll miss work at all. I hate missing work. I understand and completely comply with the fact that I'm probably contagious, and if they want to send me home, they can and should...but that doesn't mean I'm not going to show up. I'm not that asshole employee who goes home sick when his pubes scratch him the wrong way or when he gets an eyelash stuck between his eye and eyelid. No. I'm better than that!

Save the toddler, save the world.

Screwdriver head child.

Apparently the tot in this story has some amazing regenerative abilities, a la Claire from NBC’s Heroes. With barely any bleeding, and a slight scar on her eyelid, she’s just fine, vision and all.

Now, my twist on the story is that every time I was dragged to church, I felt like sticking a screwdriver in my eye. I never had the balls to do it, but this kid? I’m impressed.

Another question; If one does not believe in god, do they still have to capitalize every reference to it? Him, He, God, His Lord Al Mighty, the Father, the Big Guy…etc…etc? I don’t ever remember reading in the “Yellow Book of English Rules” we had in our possession in the 8^th grade (follow the Yellow Book rules! Follow the Yellow Book rules!) about having to ever use that kind of capitalization, but I only ever just skimmed the thing. I remember it having rules for pre-internet internet references. That was weird.

I miss the 8^th grade. That was, um, 1990? Wow. The lottery was just introduced, and Doug Engel was getting his ass kicked by my friend Chuck Williams for being a prick. Those were the days.

Down with the sickness.

I’m not sick. But I fear that I soon will be. Everybody at work has some form of the shit that monkey had in Outbreak, starring Dustin Hoffman.

Poor monkey.

Jawbreakers and T-shirts

Today I’m eating Jawbreakers that are no less than two years old, and I’m not ashamed of doing so. There’s so many foodstuffs out there that spoil within a much smaller timeframe than Jawbreakers, that I’m 100% confident that doubly wrapped candy spheres pose no immediate threat to my well-being. Now, tooth decay and the occasional bit tongue are always a possibility, but those are expected, provided that I choose to be careless about maintaining the cleanliness and safety of my mouth. I’m not too worried about being careless.

I’m retiring my Khan/Kirk design in the next few days and I’m trying to figure out what to make next. In the meantime I want to make a few more shirts and do a couple of prints, to sort of commemorate the retirement. I’m going to miss my first design, but I need to make more. MORE!