This Just In...

I am officially over working.

So on Friday I got a job request from my temping agency. It was a quick 4 hour shot on Sunday mid-day, at a hotel. Because I needed to rationalize a bit of spending that I was planning for Saturday -

Sidebar: On Saturday I went to Best Buy and doubled the RAM in my computer. It was possibly the most satisfying experience I've had in months. I don't smoke, but if I did, I would have needed an entire pack afterwards. Considering I haven't used any of my computer science skills in months now, I don't think it should have brought me as much joy as it did. It was just like the Dilbert strip, where he does the same thing and Dogbert asks "Does the church know about this?" Because, damn.

- I went ahead and took the job. And it helped me realize an important fact: Temping is horrible. As jobs go, this one was actually very easy, and yet the entire time I had to resist the urge to just get in my truck, drive off and never return, all the while yelling "See ya, suckers!" out the window.

It was four hours of basically standing around so that once every hour we could move things around for 5 minutes. I mean, that sounds like an awesome thing to get paid for doing, but it actually combined most everything I hate into one compressed ball of pain:

• wasting time (weekend time for that matter),
• being bored,
• making small talk with people you have nothing in common with,
• ridiculously overmanaging bosses,
• people who are loud, sexist, racist, laugh uncomfortably about everything, and use the word gay pejoratively,
• lifting heavy things,
• cold weather,
• car exhaust fumes,
• wearing uncomfortable clothes,
• and the intense feeling that you're wasting away the prime years of your life.

I thought long and hard about it (during one of the hour long breaks in which we would stand in the cold inhaling as much exhaust as we could) and really, there was no reason for me to be there. I would make approximately $50 for the entire thing. Which would indeed cover the cost of my awesome computer purchase, but really, the cost-benefit scenario was so lop-sided, had it been drawn out, it would have needed the symbol for infinity.

So I think I'm going to hang up my temping apron for good. Sure it provides wacky anecdotes about carnivals, serving the drunken rich of Dallas, and quotes that you can't even make up (i.e. from the job yesterday (and I do apologize in advance): "Man, God is like a dick that never stops coming.") but it's just not working for me anymore.

It brings something of I a tear to my eye to think that I can never be a carnie again. Of course, that might just be the residual car fumes irritating me, because hell yes, I never have to be a carnie again!

Baby It's Cold Outside

One of my random tasks at work is to manage the multiple bank accounts for the different companies that operate out of my office. This usually involves much driving around to the different bank locations and waiting in a bunch of lobbies, which is never much fun.

One of the (usually) lucky things is that two of the bank accounts are held at banks which have branches in the big shopping center next to my office building. So for those I can just jaunt outside and take a quick lap around the center by foot and not have to waste time getting my TOM out of the garage and all that nonsense. (Plus, I'm still sort of skittish about driving since the bagging lady incident.)

Only today, it is freaking cold outside. Not like "kill me now here comes the snow" weather but more, "insidious frosty winds that penetrate all fabrics and your soul" weather. And of course, I still have no work-appropriate jacket, so when I headed out on the errands today, I didn't even think to look for something to cover up with.

Oh my God, my work clothes provide no help whatsoever in protection from the elements. And now that I examine my garb closely while in the warmth of my office, yeah these things are made of nothing but micro-thin synthetic fabrics. If it weren't for the fact that I'm wearing all-cotton undershirt and boxers, I'd probably be dead of exposure right now.

But in any case, I step outside and it is like a slap to the face. And ears, and arms, and pretty much the entire body. I really just want to run back inside and drink a gallon of coffee, but I soldier on with my job and head off towards the shopping center.

To get there, I have to pass through our courtyard that delineates the middle of the two towers of my office building. There is this huge-ass fountain in the middle of it that generally sprays 50 jets of water up in a cute little marble circle about ten feet in the air. Luckily (or so it would seem) they have lowered the water pressure and it is barely running any water at all on this particular, viciously cold, day. I walk by, completely oblivious, until suddenly it turns on full blast, right after I passed it. Shocked by my good fortune, I almost skip down the stairs, happy that I missed getting soaked by about 7 seconds.

As soon as I have my back turned to the fountain, a huge icy gust of wind comes up and I am drenched across my back with what I can only describe as the coldest water I have ever felt in my entire life, save that time I was at Lake Michigan in Chicago on December 28 when I was 10 and stuck my hand in because I didn't believe my dad that it was 'really cold.'

So, I had to complete the rest of my journey with my back slowly icing over and the pneumonia festering as fast as it could fester. Which was fun.

Oh, and then. So I'm heading back to the office after all the drop offs have been done. Another really cold gust of wind comes up and I groan inwardly, but then I feel a really cold breeze, um, south of the border. Which I have felt a couple of times today, but never really paid attention to. Careful examination of my person reveals that throughout the entire day, from the morning meeting with the affiliates, greeting the courier, talking to my boss and the partners, joking with the secretaries, at lunch, and through all the drops I just did, my fly has been wide open. Ever since I got dressed at dawn and failed to properly secure myself.

So that's awesome, as well.

Minton (You know you love it)

I really miss playing badminton.

For my last semester at SMU, I took badminton for my one required PE credit, figuring that it couldn't be that hard. I mean, you're indoors, on a tiny court, with a tiny racket, swinging at a little bird thing, there's no way too much damage could result, right? I am notoriously horrible at sports, or any physical activity for that matter, so I always choose my athletic battles very carefully.

I could not have been more wrong about badminton. For one, it is infinitely more difficult and interesting than tennis, at which I had some previous success. Everything moves way too quickly, there is almost no time to set up a shot, and many portions of a successful game depend on the ability to hit the shuttlecock hard enough to clear it from one baseline to the other. Do you know how many injuries are available to the enterprising klutz in this? Shuttlecock to the eye, causing blindness, swinging the overly light racket into your shin, or arm, or head, in a zealous attempt at clearing, and the many bruises, scrapes, and burns associated with diving for things on a hardwood gym floor. Yeah, I thought this thing through beautifully.

I managed to lose my first 14 consecutive matches. That was three whole badminton classes in which I was regularly schooled by girls half my size and weight and guys who had never held a racket in their life, up to that moment. But I took it with aplomb, I know that I suck at sports, you just gotta embrace the pain.

Then, a couple of weird things happened. 1) I started to get into the game, and 2) I started to get good. Not good in any conventional sense, in that my shots were never hard enough, my serves were never deep enough, and I had no sense of touch or placement of the bird. But it turns out I have incredibly fast reflexes in terms of racket handling (years of clumsiness paying off in random ways) and I would totally run down every shot on the court until I was ready to pass out. Sometimes illogical persistence works for you despite, you know, the whole lack of logic thing.

It's weird to say that you totally got into the game of badminton (when you say that, people look at you like you just said that you're really into Victorian-age ballroom dancing and/or the accordion) but seriously, I looked forward to that class so much. My doubles partner was Frank (he of the broken html page title) and we made an unbeatable force of him standing in one place cursing and swinging the racket wildly, and me running around spazzing out diving across the court bruising my elbows only to miss the shot by a clean 7 feet. We were an awesome force to be reckoned with.

We even had an arch nemesis team, John & Gina, to whom we usually lost, but played against constantly due to the win-loss tournament style of the class. There was an endless amount of trash-talking going on there, and you haven't really lived until you've heard badminton trash-talk.

Anyways, by the end of the semester, I was totally awesome at badminton. And by totally awesome, I mean that I sucked, but could parlay that sucking into winning a few games by being singlemindedly determined to always hit shots back at my opponent with no sense of skill at all, until they made a mistake and I won the point.

The last thing in the semester was a singles tournament. You would go around and try to play every person in the class and records were kept. The top 8 people then competed in a single elimination tournament to see who would be The Champion of Badminton. (The Champion of Badminton winning an awesome badminton class t-shirt, which I coveted with all my heart, even though I had never seen it.) I played my tiny unathletic heart out and tied for 2nd place in the rounds playing, but lost the tiebreaker, since one of my losses was to the guy that I tied.

But still, Oh my God, 3rd place overall in the class in the intro tournament from 14 straight losses to start out. I was so impressive that it made my brain hurt. Never mind that I fall down an average of 6 times per day and hit myself with the racket at least that many times. Impressive, I say.

In the final tournament, I totally lost in the last round to the guy who was seriously like the best badminton player in the history of time and space. (Not to play up his skills or anything.) But yeah, he just destroyed me. BUT, since we managed to complete the whole tournament in like 30 minutes, we got to have a second tournament on the last day of class. And in that one, my arch-nemesis John managed to beat the best badminton player in the history of time and space, which meant that after I finished an epic 28-26 victory over the guy who considered me his arch-nemesis, I got to play John for the title of Champion of Badminton, on This Particular Final Day.

And so, with the two of us the only ones playing in the entire gym, on the first court, in front of those many badmintoners who stayed (at least 5 people) I tasted the victory of badminton. It was good. Kind of minty, though.

The battle had been ridiculous, though, and included the longest point I ever played, which I swear had to have gone on for at least 5 minutes and involved John smashing the bird on my side and me barely popping it back and him smashing back on my side and me barely popping it back endlessly throughout time (which I ended up winning and should totally be on ESPN's greatest points of all time. Unfortunately there were no cameras. And no one cares but me. But still.). The best badminton player in the history of time and space then requested a match to determine who the real badminton champion was, but I deferred, preferring to stick with the version of events that the BCS goes by - who ever wins on the last day gets to be named the champion, never mind who the best team is.

So I won my very own Badminton Champion t-shirt, which actually did not mention badminton at all, and was in fact a blue Wellness t-shirt that you get your freshman year for having perfect attendance in the required health class at SMU and which I already had, in red form. But it was still awesome and I wear it often, telling everyone that I see that it is proof of my superiority at badminton. You know, on that one day. Without any skills, but plenty of tenacity.

Whatever, it's awesome. Y'all don't even know.

Sigh.

Marketing

Heh.

So on Sunday, I woke up at the crack of dawn for no good reason and could not get back to sleep. I blame the boomerang effect from the drinking and the up all night Friday, followed by the never getting off the couch all day on Saturday, football extravaganza. In any case, it was 8:00 and I wasn't getting any more rest.

So I did what any well adjusted person would do in the wee hours of a weekend morning, I busted out the World of Warcraft and decided to get my Undead warrior girl to a decent level so I could play in a group with my friends without dying every 4th second. Soloing with a weak warrior is hard when you're running about the undead forests of the world, so I was in it pretty thick, all swinging my gigantic sword at Giant Bears and missing every single time.

Around 9:30, I finally got into the area I had been working towards all morning and started on my quest to end as many werewolves as I could get my hands on. Of course, as soon as I get into it completely, with 2 and sometimes 3 werewolves crowding around, wanting to get a bite of little old undead me, the phone rings.

Luckily I have an extension sitting right next to my computer, so I don't have to actually leave my seat. But you have to understand, to play World of Warcraft, you must have both hands free at all times. Your left hand controls movement on the keyboard, while your right controls actions with the mouse. Using my keen gaming skills that I have honed lo these many years, I manage to get the phone answered and tucked into the crook of my neck without slowing down my vicious brawl with the werewolves (there is no pausing in WoW. Real time all the way.)

Phone Guy: Hi, is this Jason?

Jason: Uh, [hits the Rend button]...yeah...

Phone Guy: Hi, I'm [some random name that I didn't pay attention to because there was a werewolf on my back]. I'm calling on behalf of [some organization somewhere in the world, did I mention that there are 4 werewolves now?]. We are soliciting donations for all the hard work done by, blah, blah, blah, can I put you down for $50?

Jason: Uhh, [hits thunderclap, starts the little undead girl running up the side of a mountain to get away before death-of-the-undead can occur] What? No, I don't think so, not right now. [Turns warrior to fight off the one remaining persistent wolf.]

Phone Guy: Well I understand that it's a busy time of the year, blah, blah, how about just $25?

Jason [under his breath to the wolf]: Why won't you die? [to the phone guy] No, really I don't think so, thanks. Goodbye. [The wolf dies] Yes!

Phone Guy: Hmm, are you sure, come on, how about just $10 dollars? It's tax deductible...

Jason: Uh, what? [Suddenly, the wolves return in force. There are 3 more surrounding his already weak character] No! Monsters! Kill them! Swing you fool!

Phone Guy: Uhhhh...

Jason [realizes that he may have said that last part really loudly and that he is still on the phone]: Oh...

Phone Guy [very quickly]: Okay, youhaveanicedaynowbye.

[click]

So you heard it here first: Need to get rid of a telemarketer? Sound like a paranoid schizophrenic who's being hounded by imaginary monsters surrounding him from all sides.

I'm like a walking Public Service Announcement over here.

Woah Woah Woah

Some days it's just not your day. And other days crazy people become possessed of visions of your future and freak the bejesus out of you.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

So I left work and was desperately hungry. I went over the various options in my head of what I could make for dinner when I got home. This going over made me realize that I have nothing in my fridge besides a month-old gingerbread house, and nothing in the kitchen but the heel of a loaf of bread and a quarter bottle of rum.

I find these three things to be less appetizing than you would think, so I decide to go grocery shopping - braving the West Village for a chance at a real meal. Of course, it is right at rush hour, so it takes forever to get there. And the place is so packed that I get what I firmly believe to be the only available spot in the entire lot, all the way on the far side of the complex. I was closer to my house than I was to the store. Oh, and of course, it is pouring down rain.

But whatever, I have braved far worse conditions in search of food. I got all loaded up with things that are high in sugar and low in nutritional value (like you do) and beeline for the register, knowing that it will take a good half hour to get through the checkout portion of the night's festivities, because this is the most popular store in the history of mankind.

Surprisingly, my line moved very quickly. This was good, but inversely proportional to my mood, as the next two people behind me in line each have a small child with them, and each small child was vying for the title of World's Most Annoying Carbon-Based Life Form. By the time I got my items up on the little movable conveyor belt, my left eye was twitching uncontrollably and I was mere minutes from flinging a pack of baby carrots at one of their tiny little heads.

But blissfully I swiped my card and could finally get out of Dodge. The bagging lady pushed the cart over to me and says "Have a nice day!"

I am free.

Suddenly, the bagging lady grabs my arm.

[Note: This actually happened, as totally weird as it will soon sound.]

Bagging Lady: Wait!

[She starts staring off into the distance, her head cocked to one side. Her eyes are sort of unfocused, and she has a death grip on my arm just below the shoulder. ]

Jason: What?!

Bagging Lady: You must. Be. Careful. Driving. (suddenly she is channeling William Shatner)

Jason: Ooohh-kay...

Bagging Lady: It is. Raining and. Slippery. Don't crash. (on the "and. Slippery" she starts shaking me in time with each new word. "and (shake) Slippery (shake) Don't (shake) crash (shake)")

Thus far I have been sort of standing perpendicular to her and her crazy ranting. Meaning I am in position to push the cart and she is standing to the side of it. Following the last shake after "Crash" she does this weird sort of push release of my (now very sore) shoulder and looks down, sighing heavily. This push sort of pivots me so that I'm directly facing her.

I start to move to get the hell far away from her (Jason's brain: Ahh! Possessed baggers! This is exactly why we usually go to Krogers!), when all of a sudden she pops her head up and looks right into my eyes. And not to sound all sexist or anything, but bitch be crazy. She's got one mean dead-eyed stare in her that I haven't seen as well perfected since Children of the Corn.

Bagging Lady (all creepy and monotone): Don't crash. Don't die.

Jason's Brain: Woah, Woah, Woah, WOAH!

And the weirdest part (okay, not the weirdest part. That right there was the weirdest part) was that no one else noticed anything odd at all. Following this little declaration of my death, she turns around and starts bagging stuff again. I look over, and the woman with the hateful little child is writing a check, the cashier is running items through, and all the other shoppers are merrily (or wetly, y'know) leaving the store.

I frantically run from the store out into the pouring rain and stuff all my purchases into the cab of the Truck of Malfunction (Jason's Brain: She just predicted your death by car crash and you drive something call the Truck of Malfunction! Jesus Christ!). I am now sopping wet, my glasses are covered in water and nothing I do will get them clean enough to see out of (Jason's Brain: And you're now basically blind in a rainstorm! In a Truck of Malfunction!!!).

To say that the drive home was a bit stressful is an understatement so great that it deserves some kind of award. But it happened without much difficulty whatsoever. It was only 2 miles, after all. Still. I never want to drive again as long as I live.

Way to ruin my life, Crazy Bagging Lady.

New Year

I am tired. A deep and pervading tired that can only come from illness, too many video games, excessive celebration, alcohol, staying up too late, and getting up too early. Otherwise known as college, but damn. Actually, in college I would never be up before 12:00, so that's not entirely accurate. But it's college for most normal, non-lazy people.

Let's see, since it is the first post of the new year, one is obligated to discuss the new year's resolutions made, or reflect back on how last year you didn't actually follow through on any of the resolutions from 2003.

But I don't think I'll do that, 1) because I don't have any resolutions for this year, and 2) I only had one from last year, and I actually did it (Resolved: I will graduate from college. I like to aim low, so as not to be disappointed.)

Except, now that it comes down to it, I feel like I should have something to resolve. I've got to come up with it on the fly here now, but I'm totally gonna have something to plan on improving this year.
.
.
.
Okay.

1) I resolve to keep the weight that I gained last year. I finally made some progress at retaining my weight even when I don't go to the gym every single day, or ever for that matter. To make it measurable, I resolve to always stay above 150 pounds. This one will probably fail, since I invariably lose a ton of weight in the spring, but we can always plan, right.

2) Hm, I was going to resolve something about exercising, but it would directly conflict with #1, unless it was more "gym, gym, gym, weights, weights" which I don't really want to do. I could go back to the jumping rope, but that never seemed to work out without near-deadly injury, so this one will need some refinement. We'll go with "Resolve to in some way become fit enough that carrying groceries from the truck to the apartment does not make us winded." (Always aim low, I'm telling ya.)

3) I would put something in here about SOS 2005 (Significant Other Search - 2005, for those you who don't know me from back in the day) but we know how those always end up - with unflattering photos plastered all over the internet. So that's out. Two resolutions are enough, right?

Don't want to overexert ourselves this early in the year, you know.

Did I mention that I am exhausted?

Who with the What, Now?

Dude, cold medicine, cough medicine, and coffee is an unbeatable combination.

It's sort of like I'm swimming underwater on dry land, only I can swim incredibly quickly. And I can keep my eyes open. That simile probably doesn't make as much sense as I think it does, but it doesn't matter, because I am wired on caffeine, nodding in and out on cold medicine, and my entire mouth and throat are numb from the throat spray.

Heh. Throat looks like a very funny word on the second and third typing. Throat, throat, throat. It no longer has any meaning to me.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I am sick. Only not bad sick like I usually get, where I'm lying the futon yelling at imaginary dinosaurs. Just "Ugh, I'm sick" sick, where you'd just rather be in bed watching movies and eating soup than at the office wading through paperwork and trying not to look doped out of your gourd.

Ha. Gourd is a funny word too. Gourd gourd gourd gourd. I'm not even sure that's a word now. Spellcheck will tell me at the end of all the typing. Thank goodness for spellcheck.

Last night a bunch of people came over to the apartment for a mini party involving video games, pizza, and movies. Which is always a good time. Mario Tennis may be the most intense game I've ever played with 4 people. You think Halo is tense, when you're taking life-or-death sniper shots from across a grassy field? Try hitting a power shot from the opposite end of the court on a 5 minute rally. The howls of frustration that come up are primal in nature.

I think it speaks volumes to our geeky perseverance that I was able to have a complete night while doped up from this cold and Sean managed a full night while still recovering with a bout of mono. Who says video gamers are weak?

The reaction to the new apartment configuration was mixed. The curtains are a bit much, especially with the color the walls are now, but I think I'm gonna stick with them. Everything seems much cozier now.

Speaking of apartment related news, they got around to replacing the cute little faux-gas lightposts on my side of the street with those hideous flood lights as well. Man, and I said it was bad before. Luckily the new curtains in the living room take care of it quite well. The bedroom is another matter, but we'll worry about that after we pay off all the Christmas debt.

I wish I had some more coffee. There's no more left in the break room, I just checked. And the door to the pantry where the coffee is kept is locked for some reason. Some evil plot, no doubt. Without my coffee, I'm pretty sure a huge crash is gonna hit pretty soon. The cleaning crew will find me face down in a sea of documents and the imprint of a keyboard on my face.

That will be exciting. Huzzah for altered states of consciousness.

The Apartment, She is so Pimp

Since starting next week I will officially begin the second lease on my current apartment, it is only fitting that I got around to doing the one thing I said I would do the first day I moved in, lo those eight (?!) months ago: replacing those godawful blinds over the patio door.

You know which kind I'm talking about, right? Because there is only one kind of blinds that can be referred to as godawful. Those vertical, white, heavy plastic ones. The kind that don't even have a lower track, so they sway with the slightest touch. The kind that make the most annoying sound while swaying, by clinking together. The kind that block practically no light and no matter where you are in the living room, if you fall asleep in there, at the first light of dawn there will be a shaft of light directly across your face waking you up.

Dear lord, how I hated those blinds.

And I think they hated me just as much, considering the lengths I had to go to to get them down. Because it should be easy. The main track is attached to two little metal hooks. There is a little metal lever that you push to release each side and the whole thing comes down. Then you unscrew the two hooks. Voila.

Neither little lever would work. When I finally climbed up on the arm of the futon --

(Note: Do not wear just socks for this manuever - your feet need something to grip with. I'm leaving out the 15 minute break I had to take here when I didn't follow my own good advice and very nearly damaged a region of my body that would have made this experience less 'ha ha, oh Jason and his clumsy antics' and more 'why is Jason curled up in a tiny ball crying'. Instead I just bruised the back of my leg and hit my head on the ground. Good times.)

-- and physically ripped the track away from the little hook, the blinds decided to spite me and the other hook immediately gave way, sending an 8 foot long metal blind track directly towards my head. I did one of those weird, almost Matrix-like moves and managed to slide out from under it just perfectly as it clanged harmlessly on the arm of the futon. I was very impressed with myself, until it rolled off the futon and on to my foot. They are very vengeful and crafty, those evil blinds.

I wrangled it into the closet, never again to see the light of day, and then got to work getting rid of the hooks. Hook one - no problem. Hook two - no. . . it won't come out. No manner of brute force will remove this thing from the wall. And let's be honest, when you're talking about shows of pure strength, if I can't do it, ain't nobody gonna do it. I mean, have you seen my biceps?

Ahem.

So now I am stuck between two very difficult options. On the one hand, the hook is in the way of the new bar. It would probably be impossible to put the new one up with the hook still there and it would look horrible even if I managed it. On the other hand, fuck if I'm gonna pull that Rack of Blinds of Death out of the closet ever again.

So I go ahead and install the new fancy wooden hooks around the one painfully white and metal one that is still there. Dear God does it look hideous. But it is done. Now all that is left is to put up the new curtains on the rod and we are done.

Oh wait. I haven't mentioned the best part yet.

The new curtains.

I really gotten into it lately, but my apartment is looking pretty damn good. The new entertainment center is installed and it matches the television with a shocking color sense. I've actually hung pictures and posters and clocks on the walls. The futon is covered with darkly colored blankets that make it look less hideous than it really is. The rug is a testament to the pure, unadulterated awesomeness of the 70's.

Not to mention the lava lamp, the stoplight, the Mustang Band blanket, and the glowing, wall-mounted, color-swirling picture of the Virgin Mary that Devon got me for Christmas.

In short, the place is rockin'.

And as such, it is important to find curtains that match the decor that I've so boldly and seemlessly integrated. What possible style could match a black shag rug, a yellow plaid couch, and a black and sagging 5 year old futon, you ask? Without overpowering the glowing Virgin Mary, as well?

Dark brown faux-fur curtains, of course.

Let us all pause for a moment, lest we be overwhelmed by my own good taste.

The new curtains are not at all spiteful. They went on gracefully, confident of their newfound status as the coolest thing in the apartment. And I was able to place them, bar and all, onto the hooks without the slightest issue.

And they are perfect.

I dare anyone to walk into my house now and tell me it is not the epitome of flawless design. Because if you do, the curtains will destroy you.

Post Holiday Wrap-Up

So Christmas was fun, wasn't it?

I headed out early in the morning on Christmas Eve after a long night of World of Warcraft which continues to run my life.

(Sidebar: How much does it rule my life? That night I had a dream that the Undead had planted an evil plague in my office building that turned people into zombies. But you couldn't necessarily tell which people were zombies. So I enlisted Sean to come to the building to help me fight the zombies, but he just wanted to kill everyone in the office, regardless of whether they were zombies or not. And then one day he showed up to work with an axe and I was all "Dude, you can't bring an axe to work," and he was all "But it has, like, a 18.9 damage per second rate." And then I was like "Oh. Wow, that's really good. Okay then.")

I hit the homestead around noon and proceeded to lie about the house doing a lot of nothing and playing video games with the brother. We then had Christmas Eve church service, which never fails to delight, especially when the minister busts out his favorite line of the night "And on that day, there was a ripple in the fabric of space and time, which resulted in the miracle creation of our lord Jesus." It's like a freakin' episode of Deep Space Nine lodged in between carols.

After that began the ordeal that is gift-giving, which in our house is something of an extravaganza to say the least. It lasts from that night up through at least noon the following morning.

(Although the interlude that was that night was fun. Jason - falls asleep. Ishbu (the cat) - decides to come over and meow at him all night long. When this does not get the expected response, he climbs on top of Jason and begins to bat him in the head while meowing. Jason pets him to calm him down and then falls asleep again. Repeat all night long. Good times. Turns out the cat does this at night when he wants to go outside. No one tells me anything.)

That next morning, I rocked out with: a new video game, a new beaver, an awesome entertainment center to house my TV, replacing the current set up of two ugly end tables propping the TV up in the middle of the living room, much like a car up on cement blocks in someone's front lawn, a set of most awesome coasters, a new chair, and a branding iron (yeah, I don't know, but that's totally what it was).

All of my gifts I gave were very well received as well, which is awesome, considering my general suckiness at gift giving usually. So that's cool. Especially the video game I got my brother which features a 2cm tall Prince of All Things and his quest to roll everything in the world into one huge ball. I ran around the house for 2 days humming the theme song. And it was awesome.

The rest of Christmas was filled with: eating, football, more eating, cleaning, eating pie, moving furniture, more pie, emptying out what was once my old room, a little more turkey followed by pie, and the systematic disassembling of a bed. And then some more pie.

The Day After Christmas was a blur of packing up tons of stuff. My sister is moving in to the spare bedroom of my Apartment of Too-Coolness, so we loaded everything she owns into the back of my truck and I set off for home. Navigating the Truck of Malfunction weighed down with a thousand items, combined with a mattress blocking the entire back window and a computer monitor and television blocking the passenger side mirror is something akin to steering a cow on rollerskates across a frozen lake. While blindfolded.

It took forever, but I got home, recruited Frank to help with the heavy lifting, and got everything into the house with minimal injuries.

I then proceeded to break tons of stereotypes by building not one, but two pieces of furniture, as well as breaking down the old bed from hell, again with only the slightest injuries. Although I did wickedly bruise my index finger which is making it hell to type pretty much every 3rd letter.

After that I went on to reinforce several thousand stereotypes by redecorating the living room while listening to Mandy Moore's CD. The new arrangement is a little quirky, but I'm very impressed with its lack of sucking, thus far. Today I will get the new curtains that will finish the room. Putting those up will be an entirely new adventure, mostly in the art of tackiness.

We finished the night with a rousingly horrible movie, The Girl Next Door, which seemed to show so much promise, yet left that cute boy from Joan of Arcadia looking absolutely horrible, and caused us to constantly yell at the screen. Oh, and I kept prompting the actual dialogue in the movie 5 seconds before the characters said it, which either means that - A) I think like the screenwriter (DOOM) or B) It's really obvious dialogue and the screenwriter is a hack (YAY). Guess which one I'm hoping for. Oh, and I finally went through the process of getting an account at The Movie Trading Company, which means that it's official - I can never move.

Man, that was a lot of crap for one weekend. I rule.

Happy Holidays and Whatnot

In case it was not readily apparent from my lack of posting, I'm on Christmas sabbatical.

New stories after the holidays, when I will have a new roommate! Who is my sister!

Oh, I can already feel the wacky antics begining. It's like a sitcom. Or Devon's house. Either way, a laugh a minute.

Have a safe and happy Christmas, y'all.

Ice, Dorks, Whatev

Update on Blinding Death: Somehow I managed to engage Creepy Neighbor Across the Hall in conversation yesterday. He said that he had the same issue with the lights and went to the office to complain. They told him they were adjusting the brightness and it should be better that night. They were right, in that it was still bright but I didn't wake up constantly. Of course, that might have just been because I was exhausted from no sleep the night before, but whatever, we take what we can get.

Okay, so it is freezing outside. Literally freezing, as in I went to get in my car today and had to pick the ice off around my door lock. And I swear, on Saturday it was like autumn and too hot for a light jacket. Today I am still freezing indoors because I have no work-appropriate jacket-like object (the only one I have is blue denim/corduroy and barely works outside the 1980's, let alone a work environment) and I haven't done work laundry this week so I had to wear my one clean work shirt left, which is the white one that is about as substantial as old tissue paper. I might as well have gone to the office naked. Although, ew, scratch that. No one needs that image this early in the day. Anyway, I'm cold. And old, so I complain a lot.

Last night I went to Best Buy to complete the last of my Christmas shopping. Three presents and I was done. It's a very heady feeling, being finished before the 15th. Usually I'm scrambling through the malls on the 23rd, pushing aside small children for the last item on the clearance rack. So that is cool. Non-stressful holidays, I wonder if such a thing is possible. Not bloody likely.

Anyways, while I was finishing the shopping, of course I had to pick up The Return of the King EE, it's hard coded into my computer scientist DNA. Just the knowledge that I had a movie in my hands that was over 4 hours long, with 3 separate commentary tracks made me a little light headed. That's an easy 16 hours of entertainment where I don't have to do a damn thing but microwave the popcorn. And then there are 2 more discs with documentaries! Be still my tiny, dorky, heart.

I really have to get more dorks as friends, though. No one else seems to share my pure, unadulterated joy at this concept. They're all just very skeptical. Whatever, I shall soldier on alone then! It's not like there's a lot left to do elsewhere, considering I'll ice over if I step outdoors.

Bright Lights, Big City

Last night, I finished watching Monday Night Football (at like midnight. Do the games always go this late? It was the same way with the Cowboys game last week. This is what I get for starting to watch TV on Monday nights. Stupid enticing glowing box.) and decided it was time for bed.

I look around and realized that the promise I made to myself on Sunday to clean up the apartment tomorrow had gone completely unfufilled. I contemplated actually doing something to end the relentless horror of dirty dishes, clothes, and graham crackers everywhere, but in the end decided to just freakin go to bed, it's midnight, fool.

I go through the house and systematically turn everything off, lock the door and whatnot. I turn to head over to my room to get some sleep - hey, the light is still on in there! Jesus, I'm losing my mind again, aren't I? This is gonna be another butter fiasco, isn't it? Damnation!

So I go back into my room. No, the light isn't on. It's that there is a light so bright outside my window that it just looks like my light is on from the kitchen. I mean astonishingly bright. I have Venetian blinds on my window. In general, no light comes through during the night. This light, whatever it may be, can apparently penetrate opaque plastic.

I peek through the blinds. My apartment complex has decided to replace the cute little faux gas lanterns that line the sidewalk around the main office with huge, brilliant white flood lights. It's practically daylight outside. You could play sports or perform tricky surgery under these lights.

I try in vain to close the blinds even tighter. Now that my eyes have adapted, it just looks like the window is glowing. Better than any nightlight I ever owned as a small child. Brighter than my computer monitor. And, just for kicks, there is one strip at the very top of the window that is uncovered. So this one blinding shaft of light is painted across the opposing wall.

I am so doomed. I need intense darkness to sleep, these days. Once upon a time, I could manage to sleep with the television on and 3 roommates playing a rousing game of Halo less than 5 feet away. Now, the old man in me needs no interruptions, aurally or visually. I briefly consider commandeering the empty bedroom for my own needs, until I remember that I think it's haunted and rule that out. I briefly try the futon in the living room, but the lights get in there too, since I still haven't replaced the blinds on the patio door.

Doom.

My final solution is to use my comforter and my extra pillow as a blind against the light and sleep diagonally on the bed to minimize my exposure to the other wall. This is about as successful as you would imagine. I estimate the number of times I woke up due to blinding white beams of pure energy assaulting my eyeballs at 7. And somehow, I don't think tomorrow will be any better.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been looking for a new hobby lately. What do you think of the slingshot?

On Housing

A photo essay on the art of perfect gingerbread house construction:

1) Who needs gingerbread and icing when you have graham crackers, frosting, Skittles, M&Ms, and Fruit Roll Ups? We obviously start at the advanced level of house building.

Here we see the early levels of construction. Notice the multiple layers of crackers to create the soundest walls possible:



2) Soon, it becomes apparent that utensils are useless. We must forge ahead with the tools God intended for use with frosting: Our fingers:



3) With an exterior base complete, it is time to work on the roofing. Here Emily serves as point man on the careful construction of the dark shingled, most delicious chocolate roof:



4) As anyone who has ever watched Extreme Makeover can tell you, exterior decorations are just as important as a roof. Here Sean begins the laborious process of beautifying the place up as Emily prepares the roof for placement:




5) Emily's master design completed, it is time for the roof. Notice our precision in placement - we could very easily be mistaken for professionals at this point in the process:



6) Alas, it was not meant to be. The roof was too delicious, and also too heavy for the house. Here we reinforce the ground floor by adding an attic to what is soon to become the most awesome edible house not contained in a fairy tale:



7) Frank poses with the new attic level, while Sean points out the awesome attention to detail taken in his creation of the door. Yes, that is a door knob you see, and yes, it might be a Skittle:



8) Finally, while Sean looks on in disbelief, as a unit we hoist the roof and begin viciously spackling every available surface:



8) The world waits in breathless anticipation - will the entire house collapse under its own sheer too-coolness? The answer is awesomely no:



9) From here on out, it's all just detail work. Bonus features added on to the best house in the world at no additional cost: Fruit Roll Up tarp covering the holes in the attic walls to increase livability, Graham cracker dog with red eyes and red nose out on the front lawn (a lawn created entirely out of astroturf flavored Fruit Roll Up, by the way), and an Evil snowman to scare away burglars and unwanted children.



Triumph!

And just to show off the design team, here's a couple gratuitous shots of the master craftsmen:



AND



We are too cool for words, if you haven't realized it yet. Go us!

Bad Habits

I cannot stop any of the following:

• Biting my nails. I think it's more of a perfectionist thing than anything. I can't stand it when my nails look or feel uneven. So I bite them to get them more orderly, but then they are uneven in a different way and I have to continue biting them until, well you know, Doom. That's a little more OCD than I like to sound this early in the day, but whatever.
• Running my hands through my hair. Especially now that it's all long and unmanageable. Which is no good at all, because when I do mess with my hair, it retains the direction my hands took. Which makes me look all wild-haired and shifty. Or "more shifty" as the case may be. Sometimes when I go to the bathroom at work, when I go to wash my hands I physically recoil when I see my reflection in the mirror. Thank God I don't speak to many people face to face at this place.
• Saying the word 'totally.' Because I am an incredibly shallow 13 year old girl, apparently.
• Talking to Edgar in the TOM. Talking to inanimate objects is creepy, I am told. Naming said objects and then talking to them? More creepy. Blaming external events on the named object and discussing the blame with them? Apparently that's when people just start to back away slowly, no sudden moves, and don't make eye contact.
• Doing the little good-luck superstition move whenever I drive through a yellow light, wherein I kiss my hand and touch the ceiling of the TOM. I don't remember when I picked it up, probably from friend Brint back in the day, but now it's weird and automatic. And I totally (shit, see?) don't even realize that I'm doing it until someone calls me on it, and then I try and be all nonchalant about it, but they just look at me funny and sigh. I find it sad that I've become That Weird Guy. But that's a whole other topic.
• Using random quotes from Daria episodes in real life. This isn't a big deal to anyone except me, since I'm the only one who has watched a Daria episode in the past 3 years, but it annoys me to no end when I say something and then think "I totally stole that from someone. Where did it come from?" Because it's almost always some throw-away line from Daria and I feel very unoriginal. Stupid lack of imagination and/or conversational skills.
• Making really bad jokes in business related situations. This so not good, but it's one of those nervous tics that I picked up from my dad. I always add some stupid comment to the end of any stream of information that I give, or receive, that is completely irrelevant and grinds the flow of the conversation to a halt. It is usually accompanied by The Stare of Why Don't You Shut Up and Go Somewhere Else, which just makes things worse. And no one ever laughs. Because, really, who would?

One might say that since we're this close to the end of the year, it might be a good time for some New Year's Resolutions to fix some of these issues. I say "Nuts to That." I am an individual and I don't care what "The Man" or "Polite Society" or "Everybody Else in the World" says. If I'm already That Weird Guy, I'll be the weirdest damned Weird Guy out there. Dammit.

Vertigo

[Scene: Jason's Living Room. The Amazing Race has just ended. Jason is lying on his luxurious rug, finishing dessert.]

Jason: Mmm, cookies...

[The phone rings]

Jason: What the hell is that? [Jason's house phone does not ring very often] Oh right, I have a phone.

[Jason goes to stand up. He makes it 3/4 the way to vertical, before completely losing his balance and slamming back into the floor.]

Jason: Ooof. Woah, headrush, I guess.

[He tries again. He makes it to standing, takes two steps and then tips over and slams into the wall.]

Jason: What the hell?

[He tries a couple more steps and finds that he is so intensely dizzy that he's totally about to fall over again. Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing.]

Jason: Must...answer...phone.

[He drops down and attempts a fast crawl to the phone, finding that connecting to 4 points on the floor minimizes the chances of falling.]

Jason [answering the phone]: H-hello?
Goddamn Telemarketer: Hi, can I speak with Jason [Totally Mispronounced Last Name]?
Jason [the vertigo about to destroy him]: No, you really can't. Have a nice night. [Hangs up.]

[He slumps against the wall. What could possibly be causing this? He hasn't had anything to drink besides a glass of milk with the cookies. Bad milk? No, bought it two days ago. Bad dinner? It came from a restaurant. Unlikely.]

Jason [goes to the computer. On IM]: Jim! I'm suffering from extreme vertigo. If I die, I want you to avenge my death!
Jim: Okay. Who do I need to exact it on? Frank?
Jason: Yeah, Frank'll do. Not sure what is causing it. Maybe it's a carbon monoxide leak. I would open a window, but it's really cold outside.

[At this point Jason falls out of his chair. Deciding that frostbite would completely be worth getting rid of the falling, he stumbles out of the apartment in his pajamas.]

Jason: Christ! It's freezing out here.

[He runs back in, trips over a dining room chair, knocks over his big bowl of candy, which then begins to rain down Sweetarts on his head.]

Jason: This is not my beautiful life.

[He grabs his keys, runs back outside and to his car. Turns it on and waits for the heater to kick in. He waits out in the car, reading a book and hoping that this whole thing will blow over. 10 minutes pass.]

Jason: Well I feel better. Thank God. It is a carbon monoxide leak.

[Takes one step out of his car, tips straight over, trips on the curb, and slams into a tree.]

Jason: Maybe not.

[Deciding it's not an environmental thing, Jason goes back into his apartment and settles into his computer chair, determined to wait out the vertigo. He only falls out of the chair twice more, once when he goes to the bathroom, the other when he brushes his teeth. Eventually he gives up and goes to bed, still really dizzy. The night passes without event, and in the morning, everything is fine.]

[End scene]

Didn't my stories used to have endings to them? Or morals? Nowadays it seems like everything that happens is just completely random and pointless. Whatev. File this under: Not only is Jason clumsy, he now has Tennessee Williams-like spells.

So that's fun, right?

Traffic School

Okay, so I've tried to avoid this topic for months now. It's just so cliche. Before you know it I'm gonna start ranting on about the weather (Insanely sunny. Is there anything worse than bright sun first thing in the morning? (No.)) and/or how boring work is (you have no idea).

Oh well.

For the love of God, are all the drivers in Dallas sharing one collective brain? And is that brain the size of a small walnut? And is that brain always thinking about boys instead of watching the damn road? I know Dallas is a moderately big city. And that there are a lot of people here. There's bound to be accidents, and resulting traffic jams. I can deal.

But seriously people, when neither of those things exist, the highway is a place where you go fast. Rapid transit from point A to B, C, D, and beyond by ingenious design. It is not a place to decide that 45mph is God's designated speed limit and that you must convert every other car out there to your will. (There's an extended metaphor available here about Jehova's Witnesses, cars, and the highway but I don't think I have the literary skills to pull it off.) And this totally means you too, Mr. Police Guy Who Was In Front of Me on the Way to Work Today. I don't care if you have a shiny, pretty, able-to-flash light on top of your car, the actual speed limit is still your friend.

Last night on the way home from work it had rained pretty hard about 20 minutes beforehand and it was still sprinkling when I got on the highway. Traffic proceeded to move at 19mph the entire way to my exit. (The one thing keeping my sanity mostly intact is that my actual highway route home is only 4.3 miles long.) When I get to the salvation that is my turning lane, I speed up to get the hell off the Highway of Doom, Slowness, and the Occasional Ugly Couch (HDSOUC). As I'm heading off, I look over. There is no problem on the HDSOUC as far as I can see, and that's at least for the next 3 exits. These people just feel the urge to go 19 miles per hour, for their health, enjoyment, and the love of tormenting me. There are huge gaps in the traffic ahead. It is roughly 7 cars, apparently filled with people channeling sloths, doped up on morphine, and/or under water, that are keeping the traffic going at this pace.

That is not healthy for my rage.

Because when I am alone in the TOM (Or, for that matter, with friends and family. It don't mean a thing to me.) in addition to rocking out to the music on the radio, I develop a mouth like a longshoreman and will rant and rave at everyone from teenagers to nuns and the elderly. Anyone who feels the need to cut me off, or go slow, or, heck, mildly annoys me with their selection of car color (Who the hell buys a lime green PT Cruiser? Someone who should die, that's who.). My anger knows no bounds inside the TOM (Motto: "Where no one can hear your insults.").

I think it was brilliant advanced planning on my part to have preemptively not bought a gun to keep under the passenger side seat. Well, that and the fact that guns scare the bejesus out of me. Although I'm pretty sure I could get over that fear upon the 3rd time some church van merged into traffic in front of me going 30mph down Highway 75.

So that's that. Learn a lesson from your Uncle Jason: Don't incur my wrath. Especially on the highway. Or I might. . . seethe and call you names. . . from the inside of my TOM. . . where you can't hear.

Sigh. Leave me alone.

Check the Banner, Yo

Mad props to Frank for the influx of Christmas spirit up on top there. Isn't it awesome?

Heh.

And in one of those pictures I'm drunk. Guess which one.

Happy Holidays, y'all.

(Oh, and 'cause some people asked, here is the other Christmas banner. It'll be going up next week, probably. It's not as cool as Frank's, but I did it all on my own.)

Commercialism

It's been a while since I've watched actual TV.

Which seems sort of ridiculous to say, seeing as all I do these days is watch TV shows. But go along with me: I've discovered the joy that is Dvd box sets of TV shows; all the goodness of a serial, but no interruptions and multiple episodes in a row. So now when I actually sat down for some real-time prime time sitcoms (Arrested Development still rocks my world) I was shocked, shocked I say, by the levels to which commercials have sunk.

Although nothing reached the horrors that were the Levi's commercial of death, or that horrific Juicy Fruit debacle, instead we have hideous celebrity hawkings to deal with. Elton John for something resembling a bastard iPod? Sarah Jessica Parker running about in a GAP commercial? And did I just go temporarily insane or was that a member of nsync that I just saw?

People, this will not stand. It offends my delicate sensibilities when the weirdly famous start telling me I should buy stuff. As if Catherine Zeta Jones shilling for T-Mobile wasn't enough. At least she's smokin' hott enough to warrant an appearance on my television. Shouldn't that nsync kid be in some sort of rehab center by now?

Oh yeah, and in conclusion, each and every one of those Old Navy singers should be tracked down and shot. For the good of mankind.

---------------------------------------

In other news, my hair and I are in a vicious fight to the death. As of this writing, I am winning, but just barely. I'm attempting to grow it out at least some, to get out of the same haircut I've had for the past 6 years. (And we're not gonna count 2 summers ago when I grew out to that Dumb & Dumber chili bowl cut. That never actually happened.) This will be one of those historically epic struggles, so if you see me in real life, try not to shriek in horror at what may result in the immediate future. Sometimes good things can come of hair after a while.

Yeah, I've totally got nothing to talk about today.

Sharing the Pain

So yesterday I got to experience the joy of a hangover for the first time in, oh, 2 years or so.

For future reference, never skip dinner, eat a bunch of refined sugar in the form of 100 pixi sticks and then drink enough vodka and rum to sink a small ship. You will end up near death. And of course the sun will be shining so brightly that you will wish for a nuclear winter just to keep the rays from drilling any deeper into your skull. And you will get up, vomit, brush your teeth, vomit, shower, vomit, and then still need to go to work. And when you get there, you will have to deal with a thousand inane people all day who believe that their one common goal in life is to do and say anything that will allow them not to do their jobs and screw you over. And then you will get stuck in traffic for an hour on the way home because someone thought it would be cool to transport a couch on the back of their truck without anything tying it down and it managed to end up lying in the middle of 75, looking very forlorn. And of course everyone will then slow down to look at it, because it is 1) a couch on the highway, and 2) possibly the ugliest couch ever designed by human hands. And then you will get home and your house will reek of vodka and rum and spoiled bacardi mixer because you left the bottle out last night when you made up those daiquiris that got you into this mess in the first place. And then you'll try to make dinner, only to burn everything and make an even worse smell in the apartment. And so you'll make a frozen pizza for dinner, down enough Advil to make you wish you had stock in the company and collapse on your futon and end up in bed before 10:30 at night. And it will suck.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by Jason's 20/20 Hindsight.

Ancient History and Ice Cream

(Do you ever just feel like writing something even though you know that it's so boring that no one will ever care to read it? Sometimes I do. Why would I bring this up now? No reason. Just keep reading, fool.)

Way back when I was in high school, I was a big big dork.

I know, I know, shocking, but true. You'd think that being shy, unathletic, and both in the marching band and on the mock trial team would would naturally lead to popularity and acclaim, but you'd probably have suffered a recent blow to the head because, come on yo.

Anyway, where was I? Hmm.

For illustration, as a sophomore my friends and I would hold all night study sessions for what we assumed (correctly) to be the most difficult class ever conceived: United States History, as taught by General Rathburn. Now to be fair, it can't be said that all we did was study at these things, there was plenty of goofing off and randomness to be had (more on this later), but the amount of studying was pretty large - commensurate with the level of dorks that we were, which I have previously stated to be 'big big'.

We would hunker down in the little study off Julia's bedroom and quiz each other on the important dates during World War II, or outline every single chapter of the latest tome on depression-era railroad concerns that we'd been assigned. It was not interesting, but it turned out we were pretty good at it. Meaning that even if we were dorks, we were dorks with skills.

Brint could instantly pick up any history fact and assimilate it into his head - it still sort of shocks me at the amount of information he retains from that class. Smart people piss me off. Julia was astonishingly naive about every single thing in the world (again, more on this later) but after the sessions would still manage to have gotten enough out of it that she would regularly trounce us on the actual tests. And I had nothing going for me in that class (I am worthless with dates) but I have what I like to call short term photographic memory: I can stuff anything into my head word-for-word, but it only stays there for 4 days. After that, I remember nothing. Not exactly great for finals, but perfectly fine for a high school environment.

(I swear to God this is going somewhere. I think. I'm in a very strange headspace right now.)

Although we did a whole lot of studying, usually by 1:00 or so we would get a little off-kilter. You can only stuff so much into your brain before you have to blow off some steam. Now in my hometown of Orange, Texas (motto: Petrochemical capital of the USA; come for the plants, stay for the cancer) there ain't a lot to do in the form of fun. Especially when you are big dorks and don't engage in the usual sort of high school...um...revelry?

We usually ended up driving around in Brint's most-awesome classic Mustang convertible and hitting some sort of food establishment, whilst making bad jokes. Yeah, we were rebels. Our cause? History. As mentioned earlier, a majority of these jokes could usually be traced back to Julia's generally un-worldly nature. Nothing in poor taste, you understand, it was just that she didn't necessarily have the most refined common sense, especially at 1:00 in the morning.

So one random, incredibly hot night (In Orange, there are nothing but hot nights. They own the patent on hot.), we have hit the local Dairy Queen for some ice cream, all the while going over the main points of The New Deal.

(Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, let me summarize the important points of the story we need to have gleaned so far so the rest of the story is in focus:

• Brint has a sweet convertible.
• We all have lots of ice cream.
• It is very hot.
• It is very late.
• Julia has no common sense.

(Man, when I lay it out like that, there's just no mystery, is there?))

I'm sitting in the back, content with my frozen hot chocolate and contemplating the mysteries of such an antonymical dessert. Brint is driving, while expounding on his latest idea for an invention that will make us all richer than astronauts. And Julia is trying to eat her Blizzard, only to find that it is melting at an alarming rate. Realizing that her ice cream is about to drip onto the aforementioned sweet, sweet convertible, she panics and runs through all the possible solutions to the problem. The one she settles on? Let us hold the ice cream out the window, where it will fly harmlessly onto the street and not into the car.

Like I said, we were studying History, not Physics.

She shrieks and sticks the Blizzard out the window. Brint goes all into slow motion, very "Noooooo!!!!" and artfully reaching over to stop her. He is unsuccessful. All the dripping ice cream is met with the rushing wind outside the convertible and goes sweeping backwards, directly into my face. It was a very long time ago, and I can totally still picture it perfectly (Apparently somethings I can retain longer than 4 days. They're just completely useless in everyday life) this huge glob of ice cream arcing perfectly for my head. It was incredibly messy, and very dramatic. I still have a general fear of the back seats of convertibles. (There's a joke there, but I'm not going to make it, because I am classy.)

I remember thinking that this sort of thing doesn't happen to just anyone, perhaps I might be a magnet for this sort of out-of-left-field embarrassing incident. But I was young and just shrugged it off. Little did I know this would set up a pattern in my life that still haunts me today.

That happened at one of the very first study sessions we ever held. I had known Brint for some time, but was just meeting Julia. Apparently smashing someone in the face with a cup full of ice cream cements you together in a previously unknown way. All three of us have remained very good friends to this day. And I only bring up this most embarrassing incident for her maybe twice a year. Because I am an excellent friend, of course.

(Note: She's an investment banker now and could totally buy and sell me, which makes it even more fun.)

On How to be a Recluse

The holidays are awesome, y'all. I just spent three straight days during which I always had a plate of something next to me. And there were 6 kinds of pie. And 3 kinds of stuffing. And ye gods, so much turkey. It's a miracle I'm still ambulatory.

I also managed to put up most of the Christmas lights on my parents' house without falling to my death, which was sweet. I was using a rickety ladder, uneven ground, no spotter, and lights that must be at least 10 years old, which would usually signal some sort of wacky antic that would leave me in a full body cast with my hair all frizzed out like some cartoon character. But the holiday luck was upon me and there were no ill effects that are readily apparent.

Ooh, and I got a kick-ass Christmas tree to spruce up the old apartment. It is mesmerizing in its beauty and mystery. All shall love it, and despair. Some day I plan on getting ornaments for it too. And perhaps some sort of star to go on top. The sky's the limit, y'all.

Of course, besides gorging myself silly and attaching live wires to the outside of my house, we also engaged in the most time honored of American traditions at Thanksgiving: the-post-Thanksgiving-Christmas-shopping spree. And man, did I go to town. We were battling through the crowds, climbing over the backs of the weaker shoppers to get the great deals, field tackling each other to get the last box set in this particular aisle. . . it was completely awesome.

Not only did I get the majority of my shopping done in one day (actually pretty much in one store. God bless Best Buy, all is forgiven, you know it was always you. You had me at my 36'' television.) , I also got to reap the benefits of the early shopping specials that the stores put out there to encourage bloodshed at 9:30am after one day of peace and love. Specifically, I reaped the benefits directly for myself, picking up a slew of TV Show DVD box sets on massive sale so powerful I was completely at their mercy.

Thus, I present to you Jason's Tips on How to Become a Recluse:

• First off, you must be surly. People should get the feeling that you don't like them just by your general demeanor. This will keep people away from your house and deter them from asking you to go places with them. Excessive cursing is helpful but not always necessary.
• Then, build up a complete aura of wonderfulness in your apartment. Keep candy and pies and Christmas cookies on hand at all times. Get a very soft rug and an excellent blanket. Keep the temperature perfect at all times and keep a scented candle going so the house smells inviting.
• The third part usually takes care of itself: ensure that the weather outside is abysmal. Freezing cold, rain, snow, anything that keeps up the inside - good / outside - bad dichotomy.
• You can add to this one by not owning any warm clothing of any sort. This will make sure that even if you wanted to go outside for some insane reason, you would be physically incapable, lest you freeze onto the sidewalk and die a very unfortunate death.
• Finally, pick up 3 or 4 box sets of television shows on DVD. These will comprise literally days and days of continuous entertainment that you can enjoy alone or with friends that requires no movement whatsoever from the couch unless you need more pie. (Jason's recommendations: The O.C., first season, Arrested Development, first season, The Simpsons, fourth season, Home Movies, first season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, seventh season.)

And that's that. You'll probably never see me again. Not that you've generally seen me a lot before now. It's just a physical impossibility now. God, I love the holidays. Have I mentioned that lately?

Thanksgiving

Today, a Fourth Grade Entry:

I am thankful for:

• The fact that I got to institute Casual Wednesday today, since there would be no one else in the office and there are no meetings. Everything is more fun in a comfortable polo shirt.
• The complete lack of people in my building today. I swear I am the only person on my entire floor. On one hand it is sort of creepy in a scene-from-The-Grudge kind of way but on the other hand it's awesome because without people around I've gotten so much stuff done that next week is gonna be a breeze. Oh, and strike that "only one on my floor" business, because I just went to the bathroom and I turned the corner and almost ran into this guy and I was so sure that I was alone that I let out a little girl yelp. Not my finest moment.
• That guy in the red Saturn that was stopped next to me at the light this morning who was singing along to "Wishing and Hoping." How do I know that he was? Because I was too, and I looked over and we were totally singing in synch. The part that I am thankful for is that when we both looked at each other simultaneously and realized we were singing along to quite possibly the most girly song in the history of the world, he had the decency to just laugh and turn a little red, just like me. It could have been wicked embarrassing.
• The Amazing Race, which is turning out to be an excellent season only two episodes in. And the pre-season stuff made it look like it was gonna be so bland. Included in last night's episode: grand theft auto, a rowing challenge, archery, and about 50 takes of people on roller-skis biting it. Too cool. Also included at no extra charge: Jonathan, the biggest tool that ever tooled. I don't think I've seen someone on TV that makes me yell at the screen more, with the exception of Marissa from The O.C. Shut up, Marissa.
• The new Harry Potter on DVD, which is just as awesome as it was at the theatre. It has such a nice quality that I can't really describe. But it's totally unlike most movies and I just love the storyline. By far the best book and the best movie so far in the series. I just can't get over it. And that blender full of daiquiris last night sure didn't hurt the experience at all.

Hmm, we're gonna end it there. I'll be gone the rest of the week so nothing new until Monday. Back to the homestead for big time Thanksgiving, Christmas decorating, and holiday shopping. Totally one of the best weekends of the year. Here's hoping the TOM can make it all the way there in one piece. Lately I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.

Safe and happy holiday to you all, catch ya later.

Nacho Christmas

This story almost doesn't qualify as a holiday story, but it is linked to the holidays in my mind since it happened in the week leading up to Winter Break a couple of years ago, so it gets to go first.

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Once upon a time, I was a Computer Science undergrad. And one of my required classes was Operating Systems, a very boring place where you learned about things like semaphores and buffers and memory. It was a pretty straightforward class, though, in that there were only 3 grades for the entire semester: A midterm, an end-of-session test, and a project.

I bombed the first test (something in the low C range if I recall), as I so often do, so I really needed to do well on the last two parts if I wanted to get anything resembling a good grade. The project was a huge program that was mostly already completed. All we had to do was add some functionality to a framework that someone had created a long time ago. We had over a month to work on this thing.

Now I am a horrible procrastinator but I knew that I needed a good grade on this thing, for serious, so I got most of it done well before the due date. To get into a little bit of the boring details, we basically had to modify an instructional operating system, named the NACHOS Operating System for some acronymical reason (that will be important later, so remember it), so that it could do a couple of things besides sit there and blink at the user.

I had most of the things implemented in the program by the time finals rolled around. I just hadn't run the completed version all the way through, figuring I had the whole last week after my finals to get it up and running correctly, since my finals schedule had worked out so nicely. I took the end-of-session test in Operating Systems right before finals, so we got our grades back that same week. I had done strangely awesome, despite my complete belief that I had failed, so I was actually on track to get an excellent grade, provided there were no issues with the project.

So I had 8 days to get this program finished. Days 1, 2, and 3 are sort of a blur, but there was no rush and there was a lot of video games and movies going on. Days 4 and 5 were more focused, but still I couldn't get the final details to work. Day 6, suddenly my program stops working all together. Nothing compiles, the program no longer even blinks at the user. Very worried, I start working on this thing non-stop. I get maybe a couple of hours of sleep and suddenly it's Day 7. Still no working.

I seriously spend the entire day, skipping most meals and surviving only on my programming diet (Dr Pepper and Pixi Sticks), asking everyone who might know what is up with the program.
No one can figure out what the deal is. I can't revert back to the older version, because I would have to reload the entire program in, wiping out everything I've done so far (thanks, UNIX) so I keep plugging away at this thing. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep at all, as you will see from the events in Day 8.

Day 8. I have had 2 hours of sleep in roughly the past 65 or so. I can get nothing to work at all. I try loading in the old program into a magical new directory and plugging some of the things that I know work into it. I get nothing. I am completely freaking out, the project is due in 8 hours and I've got nothing. I run the math, I need a 50% to stay passing in this class. The professor has said that she will grade this strictly by the book, so if there is no executable program, the best I can make is a 40%.

With about two hours left, I abandon all hope of getting anything to run. I now focus on technicalities. In the instructions, it says the final 10% of your grade is meeting the submission requirements: basically turning in all 4 parts - source code, executable, your explanation, and the results file. In my sleep deprived mind I decide that it is now possible to get that 50% that I need, if she gives me full credit on the source code and I turn in all 4 parts to get that extra 10%.

My Addled Brain: Now where can I get an executable program to turn in...I know! I'll make one up. But what to make up? Perhaps something to lighten the mood! Yes! Brilliant!

Thus I began the stupidest adventure of my collegiate career. In the course of 7 minutes, I wrote a program that did the following:

[Begin Program]

[Pop up]
What do you call cheese that isn't yours?

[Press Any Key]
NACHO Cheese!
.
.
.
Please don't fail me.

[End Program]

So, with Devon and all my suitemates watching me, I paced the room, ran up and down the hallway writing strange things on everyone's message boards, and then I ran into the room, clicked send on the submit form to turn in the program, screamed "Dear God what have I done!" and then ran into my bedroom and curled up into a little ball on my bed for several minutes rocking back and forth and muttering to myself.

I then proceeded to get hammered that same night, convinced that I would fail the class completely (my professor was not know for levity of any kind). Thus I went home for break the next morning, hung over in time for my parents' Christmas party, dreading my grades and cursing the world in general, UNIX in specific.

On the second day back home, I got an email from the professor:

------------------------------
Subject: Re: Op Sys Final Project

Notes: Your changes were good, although the executable did not seem to relate to the project.... I was available through the month of November, if you were having problems.

Your final grade for the project: 63

Have a merry Christmas.
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And with that grade, I managed a B+, with curve.

A true Christmas miracle if I've ever seen one.

But I will always remember the time that I turned in a nacho cheese joke in place of a program that counted 30% of my final grade.

And a final note: That same professor became my advisor the next semester and stayed until I graduated. It was a good 5 months before I could convince myself to go see her, because I was so embarrassed. She always looked at me funny, but she was pretty cool about everything, overall.

Fast Times and Car Repair

Again, Mondays leave me completely at a loss and bouncing all over the place. No time to get together some cohesive, gotta write write write:

• Saturday I learned that I may officially be over my deep fried food love. When a turkey, ham, and swiss cheese sandwich deep fried and served covered with powdered sugar and raspberry sauce doesn't do it for me, you know something is wrong in the world. I'm a little bit scared, to tell you the truth. Although I think my heart is breathing a sigh of relief. Luckily, we're hitting the holidays soon, which are full of deep fried goodness, so I'll be able to tell if the new Jason has taken hold. Or if it's just a crazy fad, sure to fade away within the week - like the return of all the legwarmers that I keep seeing. Don't make me come over there, I will end you all.
• Also learned on Saturday: A cup and a half of rum split between two people is still not enough alcohol to withstand the pain that is National Treasure. On the way to the theatre, we had a discussion on whether or not a quick shot was in order. It so was. Damn our lateness to the car. It's The OC's fault, as we were hypnotized by all the glamour of the rich and all the cuteness of the Adam Brody, until it was too late. Oh well. It was sort of funny, in an Oh-My-God-Why?-Nicholas-Cage-Why? kind of way. There's always a place in my heart for complete ridiculous fantasy stories. Especially when they involve a funny computer geek.
• Sunday taught me that sometimes it is a bad idea to drink a bunch, go see a movie and then come home and drink some more because the movie was so bad. It wasn't necessarily a hangover, but I felt like I was moving slowly through water all day long. And I needed to give my TOM a thorough going-over, because it is in all kinds of bad shape. Instead, all I managed was to ascertain that my tires are all in trouble and to add a quart of oil to my strangely low engine. I don't take well to car repair, as I so often mention, so I take this as a great victory, but I am incredibly glad that I'll be back at home in a couple of days where my father is waiting with tools and mechanical knowledge. God bless people with common sense and a skill set that extends beyond television and ... well more television.
• On the truly geeky front, I completed my OC Sims neighborhood, so all the drama of the rich and famous can now be played out on my personal computer. There is something way too satisfying about the fact that everyone in the whole neighborhood hates Marissa so much. Shut up, Marissa. Also on the incredibly-uncomfortable-but-awesome-to-watch-it-go-down side of things, the Ryan-Kirsten / Ryan-Seth love triangle makes me hide behind my hands for almost the entire time I play the Big Mansion. And I don't even tell them what to do, these things just happen on their own. I almost feel compelled to add screen captures to share the horror, but I haven't fallen that far yet. Emphasis on the "yet."

In other news, the holiday season is almost upon us and I cannot wait. I love decorating for Christmas so much. And now that I have an apartment, I get to have a big tree and everything. Ah debt, my old friend, it's good to see you again. In honor of the new time of year, this week will have a retrospective of the coolest holiday stories of my past. And by coolest, I mean sort of dorky and embarrassing.

Can you tell I'm running a bit dry on things to discuss? There's not much one can say about the new Britney Spears CD; it's a greatest hits collection for goodness sake.

Musical Notes

Despite my tendency to be completely immersed in popular culture and my near complete obsession with The OC, here's something that shows exactly how off the radar I have flown in my old age.

So, popular music today is crazy right? All those young kids with their damn hip-hop and the shouting. I have three musical anecdotes to relate. Not that they are musical in form, that they are about music. Y'all know I don't sing right? There are people in the world who have seen me sing (George Michael's "Faith") but they number right around 5 and that number will never increase.

Anyway, the musical points of interest:

• One: I really love the new Greenday album. Two: The single from it that they play on the radio all the time is set at the exact tempo of my turn signal in the Truck of Malfunction. I found this out last week through amazing coincidence and I don't know why, but it amused me so much that I kept the turn signal on all the way down Highway 12 until the song was over. It turns out the reason I'm a bad driver is the radio. As anyone who has ever driven with me while a Britney Spears song is on can attest.
• Incredibly geeky, but I don't care: Every single time that Chingy song about people in the club getting "Tipsy" comes on, I swear that someone set a rap song to the music from Final Fantasy VI - The Magitek Factory. It sounds exactly the same. With all the banging metal in rhythm and the midi techno beat. Crap. This bullet point could also be called: The Perfect Illustration of Why Jason is Alone in the World.
• Last night on MTV2 they had the European Music Awards on. I only watched for about 45 minutes, but for every single person who came on stage I yelled at the screen "What are you Wearing! Nooo!" Most noticeably, the chick who was wearing the see-through maternity dress when she wasn't pregnant, and all the guys who would bring out the cards with the winners on them, who were all dressed in rubber kilts with no shirts on and little man purses attached to their sides. I obviously will never understand Europe. Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I think Usher came out during his acceptance speech for best male performance.

I think this finally proves that I will never again be hip with the young people. Not that I necessarily ever was before.

So Tired

Yesterday I learned there is a very fine line between someone who acts calmly in the face of adversity and someone who is so pessimistic that they react to horrible situations with dull resignation. I thinking I'm more a part of column B, but somehow this story ends up much more positive than a normal Jason Adventure of Woe.

So I'm driving home yesterday night. I had just kicked in another half hour of unpaid overtime, so I was not in the best of moods, but was gonna be home soon and I would get to see Lost and eat a frozen pizza and everything would be better. I pull into the right lane of the highway at my exit when the Truck Of Malfunction begins pulling to the right.

"Well it is the TOM, what do you expect?"

I figured I was less than a mile from my apartment, I'll get home and figure out what's wrong there. No need to stop here, it'd be suicide in rush hour traffic. Maybe 100 feet later, the TOM goes, and I quote "TH-WHUMP!" and suddenly I cannot drive at all. I pull over to the shoulder, get out and survey the damage.

My tire is no longer on the wheel. All I have is a metal hub, no rubber. I crawl down and have a look, sure enough, there is my tire caught under the very back edge of the rim, lying flat on the ground. As any of you know who read religiously, I have no spare tire and my adventures in wheel care are the stuff of painful legend.

I get back in the car and call everyone I know who is within driving distance of me, along with my parents, just because if anyone knows from car troubles, it is them. Apparently 6:25 is a bad time to call people, however, as no one answers their phone. I consider my options and finally land on throwing myself into oncoming traffic.

Then I remember that I have roadside assistance on my cell phone, which I picked up after all the TOM fiascos in the past. These people are awesome. They got me a tow truck within 20 minutes that had a tiny little man inside who managed to get the TOM onto his truck in like 30 seconds despite the fact that, according to him "The tire is gone. Would you like to bring it with you? I can keep it in the back of [the TOM]?"

I was all set to drive back to my apartment and then go driving about through the night looking for a place that could outfit me with a new wheel at 9:00 at night. But the tiny tow truck guy does not settle for second best. He drives me through the ghetto (AKA: The 4 miles past my apartment) to this tiny little auto place full of 4 men who don't necessarily speak English, but do get me a new tire and up and running in under 10 minutes. We then communicate through sign language that the cost will be $20. And then when I only have $19 on me in cash, the price becomes $19.

To recap: In under an hour, I had a blow out, a tow, a new tire replaced, and made it back to my apartment for a total cost of $19. I just used up every ounce of good will that I had coming to me, including the karma I had from that donation so that the kids could go to the aquarium.

So look out for me, I'm gonna be doing good deeds all over the place to get the ledger back in order.

This Will Be Exhibit B in my Commitment Papers

Okay, seriously y'all, I'm losing my mind.

Probably. It may just be that the whole butter-moving fiasco is just gotten me all paranoid to the point of no return...actually that's probably what it is. I'm demoting that statement from "Probably Insane," to "Probably Not Insane, Just Overly Sensitive Now That Someone Has Moved My Butter."

God, that looks even more insane. Scratch that one.

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People get wrong number calls all the time, right? No big deal. And sometimes people's cell phones will accidentally dial a number when they forget to hit the key lock. So occasionally you might get a call that is just background noise and it's just someone you know with a cell phone accident.

I've gotten 4 calls like that in the past 3 days. 3 at work, one at home. That were just weird background noise. The first one was a message left overnight at the office. It was really long (like 2 minutes) and was very creepy, because there was a lot of crunching/crinkling sounds. But I figured someone just had their phone in their purse or pocket and it was rattling around. No big deal. The second one was a call I picked up after the secretary had left for the day. It was the tamest of them all, just some very indistinct noise in the background. I hung up after 10 seconds or so. But two in one day, weird right? Could still totally be a coincidence though.

The third one was at home on Tuesday night. It was right before the Amazing Race and I figured it was Devon, because she usually calls around that time on Tuesday nights, saying we need to go out and drink because night class has sapped her will to live. Instead it is the weirdest noise. I would almost say it was someone breathing really loudly, only it totally was not. And so I was all "EEEK" and freaked out and hung up and then wrapped myself in my comforter. Luckily that was when The Amazing Race started, so I was calmed rather quickly.

THEN, so today I'm at work doing, y'know, work stuff when suddenly my voicemail light comes on. Which is weird, because you can't get into voicemail unless the phone rings first, which it didn't, or the Set Busy is on, which it wasn't. So I check the message and it's totally just some creepy raspy breathing with weird background noise. Oh my God, people, I cannot deal.

And then, just to show exactly how paranoid I have become, I remember from last night when I pulled into my parking lot at the apartment complex that there were two different really weird looking guys in big black trenchcoats in different parts of the lot.

I'm thinking it's time to trade in that tinfoil hat for a whole suit. And perhaps a firearm. Living alone has finally gotten to me.

The Day I Sold Out

I'm giving in to an Internet meme. Mostly because I can't think of anything good to write, yet feel compelled to put something out there. When did I become John Grisham?

Anyways (ganked from Whatever):

1. Open up the music player on your computer (if you have one -- the music player, I mean. Clearly you have a computer, because otherwise you couldn't read this).

2. Set it to play your entire music collection.

3. Hit the "shuffle" command.

4. Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That's right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It's time for total musical honesty. You can put the list in the comment thread, or write it up in your blog or Journal and then post a link in the comments.

Here's my list:

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Y Control"
2. Aretha Franklin - "Natural Woman"
3. Moonpools and Caterpillars - "Trampling Rose"
4. John Mayer - "Man on the Side"
5. Ben Folds Five - "Magic"
6. Dashboard Confessional - "Several Ways to Die Trying"
7. Count Basie - "St. Louis Blues"
8. The Shins - "When You Notice The Stripes"
9. Beastie Boys - "An Open Letter to NYC"
10. Dead or Alive - "You Spin Me Right Round"

I think it is totally awesome that nothing horrible popped up in there to destroy me. #3 is a little suspect, but I'm sure no one besides me has ever heard it, so I'm fine there.

Although I should probably go ahead and mention that 11. would have been an Ashlee Simpson song.

So what's yours?

Tags

Because no one wants to read about how I spent my weekend (Football, 10 hours of Halo 2, and The OC. Ha! You read about it anyway!) I instead present an old story that illustrates a current feature of my life.

Once upon a time, I was a very quiet person. Truth be told, I am still now, only it seems less likely, because whenever I'm around people that I know I tend to ramble on and on and on. But back as a freshman in college, I didn't know anyone, so I was pretty quiet.

At the same time, I was also incredibly sarcastic, y'know, as you are at 18. The only problem was, I didn't quite have the tone of voice down to indicate that I was, in fact, being sarcastic. So for about 11 months, people would constantly question me: "Are you serious?"

About everything.

Roommate: "Where do you go every night?"
Jason: "Oh you know, I fight crime in Highland Park. Vigilante style."
Roommate: "Seriously?"
Jason: "I go to band, dude."

Other Roommate: "Man, why are you in the band? It looks tiring."
Jason: "Mostly for all the cocaine. It's pretty much everywhere over there."
OR: "No way! Are you serious?"
Jason: "Yeeeeeeah."
OR: "Seriously?"
Jason: "No."
OR [sadly]: "Oh."

Eventually this became a huge problem. So much so that when attempts to correct the issue vocally failed --

(OR: "Sound more sarcastic." Jason: "Like this?" OR: "No, more sarcastic." Jason: "Your words mean nothing to me." OR: "Are you being serious?")

-- we had to move on to visual aids.

So for a period of over a year and a half, any time that I said something that was meant in a sarcastic way I would make the peace sign with both hands and then turn them 90 degrees towards my chest. These were known as Sarcasm Tags.

(Because the peace signs were intended to look like HTML tags, only in finger form:

My hands = "<" ">"
Because I am a dork.
...
...
...
Shut up, you don't know me!)

In any case, these became a staple of my everyday life. Anyone who was around me for an extended period of time was aware of them and it made conversations much easier. Phone calls were a whole other issue, but things were okay. Eventually I grew out of the tags, as I developed something of a reasonable approximation of a sarcastic tone. But it was an unconscious part of my life for a long time.

Why bring this up now, you ask? Because all of a sudden, lately I've been using them again, without realizing it. Like, I'll be talking to some random person who doesn't even know me at all, and they'll be all "What's with the gang signs?" Or in the case at work "You waving in airplanes there, buddy?"

I'm really not sure how to stop, because it's a completely unconscious action, but I better figure it out soon, before I'm carted off to the mental facility. Or shot by a rival gang.