It was snowing large, dream-like flakes on my way to work today. By the time I got to work, it had become the kind of snow where the flakes are so huge that they float more gently and in larger numbers than any Christmas movie you’ve ever seen, and white out everything that isn’t near at hand. It was the kind of snow insulates and shrinks the world to something much smaller than the already small corner of the world that I participate in.

And I felt like I could breathe.

Pulling into the parking garage further compressed my world until it was like a blanket tucked around me. Like a set of Russian nesting dolls, I was inside the car, inside the garage, inside the storm. As I sat there listening to Neutral Milk Hotel staring out into the swirling field of white, the whole world somehow seemed serene. I sat there for 5 minutes feeling snug and consumed, distracted only by the streams of melting snow streaming down the windshield.

The moment that I opened the door and heard the rumble of the train and the lumbering traffic below, the magic was somehow washed away and the world once again became a blizzard of white noise.

Good…

1. I upgraded from WordPress 1.5 to 2.0 in under an hour thanks to good backups and better instructions.
2. Conforming mortgage limits have been raised from $359,650 in 2005 to $417,000 in 2006, so we all can borrow more without paying the extra 0.25 percent for the jumbo loan.
3. IRA contribution limits were raised to $4,000 in 2005 and 2006, allowing us to sock away a little more this year for when Social Security goes under. (You can open an IRA regardless of if you have a 401k plan. If you haven’t contributed to either year, a contribution can me made for 2005 up to April 15th of this year.(IRA Basics from About.com).
4. I received CD #8 for the CD challenge from QuietlyGoingMad, which is in the car and ready for the morning commute. It even came with a custom cover! Thanks!
5. “Crop circles are Chuck Norris’ way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie the fuck down.” -ChuckNorrisFacts.com (via boingboing)

Not so Good…

1. The WordPress upgrade did not make my blog funnier, more interesting, or more exciting in any meaningful way. In fact, you probably can’t see a single difference.
2. At today’s Massachusetts prices, $417,000 will purchase what Bostonians call a “fixer-uppah.” The property may or may not have a room to make what we call a “numbah two.”
3. Putting $4,000 into an IRA to upgrade my dinners from regular cat food to fancy feast or to support the coke habits of the disaffected youth that will eventually be born to me seems like a major waste of money while used CD stores are in business now.
4. I still haven’t figured out who sent me CD #7. It came from Minnesota, but no one has claimed it…
5. I was not born, nor can I ever hope to become, Mr. Chuck Norris.

As of today, I have officially been writing posts to this blog for 4 years. In that time, I’ve written nearly 950 posts, not one of which has convinced a single young woman to randomly send naked pictures along.

I’m convinced that the internet must be busted.

On the other hand, I’d like to extend my thanks to all the people who have submitted CD’s to the CD challenge. It’s really cool to unexpectedly get mail, and it’s even cooler to be in on your dirty little musical secrets.

Oh! And to the person who recently sent me 5 Stages, (the 7th(!) CD I’ve received), drop me an e-mail if you can so so that I can match up the CD with the web personality. Include the city that you wrote on the envelope in your e-mail, just to keep all the plethora of super-vixen cam-tramps from claiming it as their own.

Thanks for stopping in and reading over the past year. I’m glad you were here.

The second week of my Vacation consisted of sitting on my ass watching my 2 daily episodes of Springer and avoiding the shower. Didn’t I go anywhere? Only to heaven, baby. My life never seems more together than when I’m watching the genetic bouillabaisse on that stage.

A few of my favorite Jerry moments were:

During a Q&A session, a little Caucasian valley girl in the audience stood up with a comment for a very large African-American woman on stage…

Girl: Like, um, you like y’ know have to like totally stop messing with like her flay-va ’cause you gats ya own flay-va… like Kool Aid.
Jerry: ?
Audience: [crickets]
Woman: First of all…you need to stop trying to be black.
Audience: [cheers]
Girl: You don’t know me! Like, you totally don’t know where I’m from!
Audience: [crickets]
Girl: You don’t know me!
Audience: [chants to girl] You-are-black. You-are-black.
Woman: Sit down, honey.

…

In the background of 2 people fighting on stage, I saw a man and a woman in the audience put their foreheads together and smile wide as if to say, “This was the best vacation idea, ever!” I rewound that 10 seconds at least three or four times.

…

Woman: Oh yea? You know your daughter?
Man: Yea…
Woman: She’s your neice.
Audience: AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!

Saturday: Attended 4 Xmas eve parties.
Highlight: [from the other room] Oh Shut The Fuck Up!
Kid: [running into crowded room] Mom Mom Mom Mom Mooooom!
Kid’s Mom: WHAT?
Kid: [tattling on Dad] Dad just said “Shut the Fuck Up.”
Mom: [exasperated] Well…shut the fuck up then!

Highlight2: No matter how innocent “Hey, could you grab my package” may seem, you have opened yourself up to a barage of comments.

Sunday: Attended 2 XMas day gatherings.
Highlight: (Too many. Will follow up)

Monday-Wednesday: Went away to a cabin in the woods with the family.
Highlight: Uncle dad and me are standing in a room
Me:[to Dad] Hey did you give him his tickets, yet?
Dad: What tickets?
Me: The tickets I gave you.
Dad: What tickets?
Me: [rolls up sleeves] The tickets to the gun show. Oooooh yeaaaaaa.
Uncle: Seriously. You can’t be related to me.

Highlight2: Name that tune with a 100 TV tunes CD set.

Thursday: Had a doctors appointment and visited with my aunt.
Highlight: I got an ultrasound where the lady showed me some spots on my kidneys that look a lot bigger than they did 3 years ago. In a previous visit, I thought it would be funny to ask if it was a boy, to which the radiologist gave me a look that seemed to say “Stop fucking around.” This time, the radiologist beat me to the punch and asked #1GF! if she wanted to know the sex of the baby.

Friday: Went to the gym and did some shopping.
Highlight: BestBuy and Circuit City!

Saturday: Sat on my ass and did some cooking
Highlight: Made lasagna and 9 quarts of sauce with #1GF!

I can’t say much about them because they are a part of my sister’s XMAS (or B-Day?) gift, but the Cowbell CDs are complete. I started them in October at my sister’s offhand request. I’ll post more info and maybe a track listing after she gets them. After all, they are part of her present. I Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.

One thing that bugged me about the whole process was how wrong some of the sites are about what songs have cowbell in them. “September” has 0 cowbell in it. It’s all bongo. And some other songs listed didn’t have a faint whiff of cowbell. Yet the same list of cowbell songs is copied over and over and over without regard to accuracy. I think I’m rambling. It’s 1 AM on a school night.

The set is far from complete, but it was all drawn from my CDs, and I really think I went way beyond the call of duty on this. Does anyone else find “Super Duty” to be a funny statement?

Oh man, I need sleep.

I go to the doctor, and she goes to the gym. I only go to the doctor if an appendage is hanging off and there is no duct tape available. This is not really a good thing.

So, today #1GF! offered me a deal: if I made an appointment to get a checkup, she would join the gym. I did, she did, and now both of us are a little freaked out by accepting our ends of the deal.

Although staying healthy is the goal of both ends of the deal, I totally think that #1GF! got the short end…

System of a Down and Nelly both released their new albums today, so after work I decided I’d go pick them up. It’s a rainy night, and because everyone was driving like grandma on downers, I decided to cut through the blue hills to reduce the number of chances for people to slam into the back of my car, as they so love to do.

Despite my detour, I was rolling along behind Sir Brakes-A-Lot, lazily contemplating whether it’s “cheaper” to get 2 CDs for $8.99 each at Circuit City or to get the CD’s for $9.99 each at BestBuy where I have an unused gift card to burn.

Sir Brakes-A-Lot makes a right, I make a left, and it’s a clear shot back to the semi-clogged main road. I clear 4th gear and out of MOTHERFUCKING NOWHERE, a DEER runs in front of my car. I may be a city kid, but it’s not like I haven’t seen a deer before. I’ve seen like two million in Maine and like half a million in Taxachusetts. That’s not to mention the elk, deer, and deer-like animals that I’ve witnessed grazing lazily on the roadsides of Washington state.

What I have NOT seen, is one bombing in front of my car at top speed at dusk. Maybe I have seen one gracefully crossing up the road or something, but not five feet from my hood at 35 MPH. That, my friends, is a first. After it made it into the woods and my brain stopped yelling “FUUUUUUUUUUCK!”, all I could think was “Thank you, Brembo,” and then, “Man, that thing had a huge ass.”

I would officially like to thank Brembo and the guy who designed the Lancer Evolution for not giving me the opportunity to write a more exciting post or test the WI-FI capabilities at South Shore Hospital.

(As a side note, which do you think? Is it “cheaper” to buy 3 CD’s at $8.99 ($26.97) at CircuitCity, or to buy 2 CDs at $9.99 and one at $11.99 ($31.97) at BestBuy where you have a $25 gift card to burn?)

Two things I did this weekend: Began recording the Cowbell CD for Jo, and started growing my annual beard for me.

After running some errands for #1GF! the following took place:

Me: Hey you want to go to Building 19 (local seconds store)?
#1GF!: Sure.
Me: BestBuy?
#1GF!: Whatever you like.
Me: Are you just giving in to me because I’ve been so good?
#1GF!: You can have anything you want.
[moment]
Me: I’ll Take Tiffany Amber Theisen.
#1GF!: What? You want another Girl??
Me: Eh. She’s got thick legs and great boobs.
#1GF!: What?? Ok. She does have good boobs.
Me: Yup.
#1GF!: Actually she has good everything, doesn’t she?
Me: Wha???

This is one of those chain mails that I got recently. I figured posting it is easier than annoying a whole bunch of people with it. Copy and put your answers in the comments if you are so inclined.

What is your ideal amount of sleep?
8.5 hours

Diamonds or pearls?
My testicles reject said question with authority.

What was the last film you saw?
L4yer Cake

What is your favorite TV show?
How I met your mother/Jerry Springer

What did you have for breakfast?
Same as the last 20 years: A bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

What is your middle name?
Edward

What is your favorite cuisine?
Italian

What foods do you dislike?
Fucking bananas

What is your favorite footwear?
Vans.

Your favorite CD at the moment?
Lyrics Born - Later that Day

What kind of car do you drive?
A black, tinted out Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII with a big ass wing on it.

Characteristics do you despise?
Bitches, be they male or female.

Are you superstitious?
Nah.

Favorite item of clothing?
The Amoeba music T-shirt that my cousin gave me.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Hef’s Grotto. (I really wish there was an emoticon for wiggly eyebrows.)

What is the best color for a room?
Red, orange, or any color with a high saturation. Don’t be a pussy with color.

Favorite brand of clothing?
Brooks Brothers.

Where would you retire?
Someplace cheap and safe that has LAN in the rooms and naughty nurses, hopefully. Female ones.

Favorite time of day?
As an Italian, I should say dinner, but I’ll have to say lunch.

Where were you born?
Dorchester, MA

Favorite sport to watch?
Motocross or X-games type stuff, maybe. Anything where people flip and twist through the air. The rest of the sports can just suck it. Seriously.

Last book you read?
It was a tie between “Early Bird” and “Bleachy Haired Honky Bitch”

What are you afraid of?
Sharks swimming underneath me.

What laundry detergent do you use?
This sounds bad, but whatever #1GF! uses (I’ve done my own laundry since the age of 12, so don’t start).

Favorite non-alcoholic drink?
Coffee Milk or coke. Maybe a strawberry shake, though.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I hit my stride from noon until three.

Do you have pets?
If people can say their fucking dogs are their children, then I can say my PCs are my pets. In that case, I have a newborn thoroughbred, 5 I can’t teach new tricks, and one that I dismembered and threw around my office before he went and died on me.

Any new and exciting news you would like to share?
No gnus is good gnus.

What (who) did you want to be when you were little?
Alex P. Keaton or a mobster.

Favorite Candy?
Turkisk Pebbar from Sweden. It tastes like battery acid dipped in salt.

Favorite childhood memory?
The day I stopped taking shit and started throwing punches. I think I was 8.

What are the different jobs you have had in your life?
Lifeguard, dishwasher, office temp, pool guy, propane guy, LAN admin, and corporate whore.

The piece of technology that you would make out with if it had lips:
my PS2. Oh the PS2. I would kiss that little bitch like it’s never been kissed. I think this question is really unhealthy.

Piercings:
2 in the ear that may be open, but I ain’t testing ‘em.

Eye color:
Bluer than you remember.

Ever been to another continent?
Ireland, Sweden, and New York City, so yea.

Ever love someone so much it made you cry?
Yep.

Ever hate someone so much it made you scream?
Afraid so.

Been in a car accident?
People ram my cars. THEY FUCKING RAM ME ALL THE TIME.

Croutons or bacon bits?
Yes.

What would you be if money didn’t matter?
Very, very good at video games, and probably really, really fat. Or an electrician, maybe.

Favorite restaurant?
Tosca. Hands Down.

Favorite flower?
Cherry Blossoms are nice I suppose (I wish could think of a stripper name for this one).

Favorite ice cream?
Brigham’s Big Dig.

I like the smell of _______ but hate the smell of _________.
homemade sauce, NYC

If they paid me to _______, I’d me a millionaire.
Take things apart

Favorite fast food restaurant?
In n Out Burger, but I just won’t touch the stuff anymore.

Do you believe in Karma?
I’ve run out of illusions.

Pay the pros or do it yourself?
RTFM & DIY

From whom did you get your last e-mail?
Probably the bank.

Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Amoeba Music in Fan Francisco

What do you do most often when you are bored?
Stare at things or flail around.

Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire?
Buxom Swedish models.

Who’s the last person you went to dinner with?
#1GF!

What are you listening to right now?
The hum of a 120 mil fan

City mouse or country mouse?
City

What is your favorite color?
Red.

Lake, Ocean or River?
Ocean.

How many tattoos do you have?
Just one big, badly thought out one.

Do you go for the best, the best deal, or the best price?
I am the eternal deal hunter.

All Time Favorite Concert?
Probably Monsters of Rock because I was a teenager and made out with this fat chick in the 3rd row. Plus one of our friends kept yelling, “YOU SUCK DAN DOKKEN!” until we told him that the guy’s name was Don. Gooood times.

What makes you smile?
Kids, Dremels, electronics, CDs, and the whooooosh of a turbo.

What puts you on edge?
Truly unpredictable people.

What soothes you?
Slayer or any tumultuous music. It’s weird.

What physical attribute attracts you to those you’re attracted to?
Make ‘em tall, short, dark, light, whatever. Just give them curves.

What personality trait does it?
They have to be nice to me for chrissakes.

What’s your best physical feature?
My eyes.

What’s your worst?
My kidneys.

What’s your best personality trait?
A tie between a sense of humor and a sense of loyalty.

What’s your worst?
Procrastination.

I’d rather be…
Fixing something.

So I took a couple of days off last week, and I’ve been in a bit of a slump ever since. Sometimes that means more posts, sometimes less. I don’t know if it has been the inescapable “Welcome to London” weather or my job that brought it on. Maybe it’s a combo of the two. Don’t get me wrong: By no means can I sit here and pretend that my job is bad. It isn’t. I get paid ok, I don’t have to wear a uniform, my co-workers are generally smart and funny, but it’s not like I’m a playboy photographer or race cars for a living, either. After 11 years with the same company, it’s feeling like a walk down a dead end road. It’s a relatively pleasant walk down a tree-lined dead end in a safe suburban neighborhood, but it’s a dead end just the same.

So, I’ve been in one of those funks where I start bouncing my crazy ideas like the drift racing team, the bikini car wash, and other ways to make a million dollars off of my friends. Then, I try to calculate how long I could live work-free on my current savings. Most of the time thinking is done without showering while staring blankly at the walls. And the malaise usually fades away over time like a nagging cold.

And today, something changed.

I threw on a couple of t-shirts and set out for the beach, where the waves were crashing so heavily that they sounded like a busy highway from a quarter of a mile away. And when I got there, I just ran until I was sufficiently worn out. And then, I simply walked home in the rain.

When I got to my mailbox, two things were there. The first put an instant smile on my face. Brian over at www.schuss.net answered the CD challenge all the way from the great state of Washington (one of the few states that I have personally and aimlessly toured in a rent-a-car). Although the world champion distance in the challenge so far has come from the home office in Eskilstuna, Sweden, I think this edges out San Fran for the Continental US distance title.

Thanks, Brian. Way cool of you.

The other thing was a letter containing all the newspaper articles about Chris, my childhood friend, who died back in August. His mom sent them along with a really nice note thanking me for the post I wrote about him. When a mother loses a son, and she thanks you for a small post in some small corner of the internet, you might feel very, very humbled. And when you stop to think that Chris’s sisters and parents live with his death every day, while you sort of dumped your heart into a post and moved on, you might feel like you really don’t deserve the praise.

I can only say that the articles were fucking heart breaking, but had the right effect of making me think: I’m sober, I’m alive, and the small stuff really doesn’t matter.

Thanks, Barbara. I mean it.

If you can’t get an embarrassing picture put on a cake for your friend’s birthday because your idea of 24 hours notice is showing up at the supermarket 2 hours before you need the cake, you will be forced to buy that weird cake decorating gel and do your best.

My best happened to be, “Happy Birthday Shit Lips”.

My mother’s birthday was this weekend, and my sister got a last minute flight in from Oregon for the occasion. She flew 14+ hours in 2 days even though she was only staying for 23 hours. Without telling my mom that she was coming, we picked my sister up from the airport, gave her a cell phone and dropped her off 3 blocks from my parents house with instructions for her to make a “happy birthday from Oregon” call as she walked to the house.

My Mom had been talking to my sister for 10 minutes when my sister walked in the door and stood behind her. She actually had to say “just turn around” 3 times before my mother figured out that she was right behind her and dropped the phone on the floor.

That trumped any damn gift that I could’ve come up with.

After spending 2 full days massaging SQL data that really didn’t deserve it, I came home to find that my Ghetto CD Divider Post got linked at Hack-A-Day!

Finally, a massage with a happy ending.

I searched the web last night to find something interesting. After a couple of hours this is what I found:

Ugh.

Wait. I did find ratemyjugs or ratemyboobs or ratemyjubblies or something .com, which held my interest for 5-6 minutes. It was very similar to amIHotOrNot.com but with boobs. If I remember what the hell it was, I’ll post it.

Update (Sept,2005):I never went back and posted the site, but I seem to get a lot of hits from google on this. What you’re looking for is Rate My Boobs.

Good Movie
Bruce Almighty: Corny, funny, B+.

Bad Mechanics
If you have an integra, an Autozone “OEM” oxygen sensor will not fit in your car. You will have to return that oxygen sensor, and drive all the way to the dealer and pay $220 for a real OEM one. As you don’t have a lift, you will have to pay a mechanic to install it. Most places that you call will tell you that it will take more than an hour to install and try to charge you $80 or more to install it.

If it takes a person over an hour to unplug, unscrew, plug new, and screw back in, they really don’t deserve to earn an $80 per hour labor charge. Maybe they find the whole concept of lefty-loosey, righty-tighty to be a half hour struggle. I don’t know.

The more I try to do things myself on my car, the more I realize that most mechanics will completely bullshit people. Most repairs are not as complex as a mechanic would have you think.

Now when you find one who can install your O2 sensor in ten minutes with minimal cost, stick with him even if he’s a little drive away and answers questions with a less than reassuring, “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.”

Bad Mama Jamma
Happy Birthday to my beard, which is now 3 months old. It almost lost it’s life this weekend…Until I put on a bandanna. The scary biker look appealed to me enough to breathe new like into my beard. Said bandannas can be found in Wal-Mart next to the Dale Earnhardt baseball hats, wrestling t-shirts, and blade sunglasses.

Wal-mart brings everything that’s wrong with middle American fashion right to my home town for me to enjoy.

The weather hit 40 this weekend, and I came to the realization that I am really, really tired of winter. I think that I feel this way at this time every year, but with the extreme cold of this winter keeping activity at bay more than normal, I think I feel more so. I’m antsy and lethargic. It’s like pacing.

I was trying to figure out a place to just go and sit that conveyed the relaxation of ocean or the solitude of the woods. It may be time to hop a plane and take a vacation. Unfortunately, my imagination provided me with no solutions outside of my house. There are probably places, but my imagination was as frozen as the New England air.

Then, I drove by a three year old walking down the street. He was walking ahead of the rest of his family by ten feet or so, and completely unaware of anything beyond his feet.

pick up foot…slam it down…bam…pick up foot…slam it down…bam…shake my body…wave my arms…pick my foot up…slam it down…bam.

He was not only completely happy with walking along, but was actually enjoying every step. And I wondered to myself, at what point did I cease finding pleasure in every single step?

Giga Joe
Joe is an engineer. Joe is a good photographer. I told Joe that he should build a gigapixel picture for his girlfriend for Christmas.

The interesting thing about tawbaware.com is not only that this person build a gigapixel picture (think of a 1000 megapixel camera), but that the resolution of the resulting clarity of the picture is better than the human eye can detect on its own.

If anyone has any ideas on this, I’m open. And I’ve reserved giganudes.com for our um projects.

Giga Jo
My sister and parents returned from Barcelona. My parents saw architecture and pubs, while my sister saw poop.

My sister brought back stories of the Caga-tio (Spanish for “Uncle Shit,” which I actually had to confirm, as it seems too odd to be real). The Caga-tio is a log with two legs and a face on it. Before Christmas, the children of Barcelona put a blanket over it, and “feed” it. On Christmas, the kids beat the thing with sticks while singing for the Caga-tio to shit presents for them, lest they beat it more.

The Caganer is an extra figurine included in the back of Nativity scenes in Barcelona. My sister somehow remembered to look for it and confirmed that it indeed exists. What’s the big deal about an extra figure? The caganer is a figurine squatting down with his pants around his ankles dropping a deuce.

100% Increase in Size
April, 2003: a friend bought a shirt from the dyers.org store. I told him he was nuts.
June, 2003: Jon thinks about getting rid of the store, but it doesn’t cost or generate anything, so he keeps it.
November, 2003: A co-worker doubles the sales of the dyers.org store by buying a baseball shirt. Jon tells him he is nuts.

I will never understand people.

(If anyone else wants shirts or logos or custom crap, I can print it out from my printer and you can iron it on, saving you wait time and extra expense.)

Hitman 2
While shopping for others for the joy of X-Mass, the clerk must’ve accidentally rung up Hitman 2 because I would never buy something for myself while holiday shopping. No way. Not me.

Thanksgiving
As my parents have fled the country yet again this year, I am free to have any Thanksgiving I damn well please. For the 2nd annual Jon-a-thon I will again play video games, watch a James Bond marathon, and eat whatever is available in my fridge. I will also avoid showering and moving off of the couch. I will brush my teeth, but not my hair.

While I feel that avoiding obligations is the greatest form of holiday, most people that I encounter think that spending a holiday this way is not a holiday at all. Some even get really irritated and tell me that I can’t be alone on Thanksgiving. They even go so far as to inform me of what I must eat, as well. I usually just humor these people, as fighting a war of words against tradition is an uphill and fruitless battle.

Most of the people with the strongest opinions of what is required of me on holidays are women. Men actually get doe-eyed and say things like “No way,” or “I wish.” One woman surprised me, though. She had obligation after obligation on Thanksgiving. She posed the question to me, “Why should I have to go to visit people just because someone declares it a holiday? I mean, if I want to visit someone, I can on any other day.”

I was stunned. I have always felt that the obligational aspects of holidays actually ruin the holidays. Instead of being about relaxing, it’s about bustle. Instead of doing what you want, it’s about doing what you have to. I’ve never heard that sentiment vocalized before, and certainly never from a woman.

So, for the second year in a row, I have done what a lot of people dreamed of this holiday: Absolutely Nothing.

Thanksgiving 2
If someone tries to tell you that Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, ask them how stuffing yourself until you are sick makes you thankful.

The times when I am most thankful for food is when I have been without it; for health, after I have been ill; for friends when they have been away.

Thanksgiving 3
History is written by the victors, and we all see what we want to see. The first Thanksgiving might have been declared not in 1630, but in 1637, not to party with the Indians, but to celebrate a massacre of 700 Pequots.(More). Or in 1676 (More). Or in 1869, or 1941. The more you look, the more elusive the truth becomes. Oy.