8:55 PM >> There's Another

I discovered today yet another among the sweetestly sweet things in life, like warm socks, freshly tuned guitars, and hard shell tacos. And that is setting up a TV and stereo equipment while listening to the Dead and drinking a beer. Ahhhhh. Everyone say hello to my new enormous 26" television. Ahhhhh.

9:39 AM >> Hilarious

Everything started out as gas. Think about it--with each fart you may be creating whole new universes!

7:55 AM >> On the Road of Evolution

Complete complacency versus comfort on the road of evolution - there is only one clear path. That path is the one of comfort. Comfort with your situation steers toward evolution. While complacency is a brick wall. Once you are grounded and built upwards from a cornerstone there's no hope of making change. But if you just continually remain comfortable with the state of things, you've got room to grow.

Which all reminds me of an Airforce saying that I likey very much.

It is:

"Flexibility is the key to air power;
Indecision is the key to flexibility."

Did you know that Monkeys and Apes were once Toads and Fishes which were once Tiny Cells and Mid-Sized Cells which were prior just Flakes of Dirt and before that it was all just a mess of Gas. Before the Gas was Nothingness.

So, Chicken or the Egg?

Easy. Nothing. Before the Chicken begat the Egg or Eggie begatted Chick-a-dee there was a Fluff of Smoke. Poof! Then things all started rollin' off the roof - dust, cells, amphibians, primates, on up to we bi-pedular, thinking, fighting, creating humaniods.

No, we don't lay eggs and most of us are afraid of heights. But that's no damn reason not to jump in a plane, just because it might crash itself somewhere between here and Canada. Fly, man. Cross the puddle, jump the moon, climb the tree, leap off the top of the barn. And land your previously gaseous little ass in bucket 2 feet in diameter full of water. Make a splash. Belly flop. Dry out the lake. Dredge the bottom. Get down, man. But first climb high. Get down, boogie.

When it's done, there's a clean towel in the cabinet. It's just been taken out of the dryer. It's warm and smells like a mountain spring, but pleasant without all the fishy, muddy, peat scent. Dry yourself off. Lay down and resty a bit.

Call me when you wake up.

12:40 AM >> Go Hard or Go Home

[The need to go to sleep must be balanced with the need to blog something when I think of it so as not to forget.]

I figured out what I want to get for my tattoo today. It is a phrase: Guns Blazing. I picked up this phrase from the title of a DJ Shadow (posing as U.N.K.L.E.) song. I love this phrase. I wish I could do everything in my life in Guns Blazing mode. You know, hardcore. Hard as hell. Etc. For the tattoo I have many decisions to make: what font to use; whether to go ALL CAPS, Init Caps, or lowercase; whether to add quotes or brackets and/or an exclamation point. Or points.

But I am not getting a tattoo because I think they are dumb. (No offense) [The one tattoo I liked was a date to commemorate and ACL tear.] So instead I will add this list to my life mottos.

Then, later on, at Target, another motto came to me, this time lifted from a sample in an Herbaliser song. (Battle of Bongo Hill, I think): "In, bang, and out." This phrase is in the Guns Blazing vein (as well as the vein of my third to be told tonight but first to be adopted in my life motto) as it conveys that same sense of not fucking around. Go where you're going, do your shit, then get the fuck on to the next thing you're gettin' into. And do it all Guns Blazing, or you'll get sidetracked.

So, my mottos >>

In, bang, and out.
Guns Blazing
HULK OUT

If the last is not self-explanatory, stop what you're doing, go to Blockbuster, and rent The Hulk. You will learn.

[And it could be worse, I coulda lifted a motto about the moon being made of green cheese.]

12:17 AM >> iLife

There is so much crap on the internet. Not crap as in crappy stuff, just crap as in so much crap. Like, a huge pile of crap. Or, an A-ton of crap. Crap like “Look at all that crap!” when you open your desk drawer. But I digress. To return, I have lost at least 15% of my sleep from getting stuck on the internet at night. Kind of like right now.

10:58 PM >> Shop 'til ya drop

Channel 455 (Four hundred and freakin' fifty-five, for god's sake!) is Jewelry Television.

Now seriously, what the fuck is that about?

P.S. Have you ever tried to type while eating a popsicle? It is tres difficulte.

11:17 PM >> Hot, so hot!

As you well know, Hot Pockets these days come equipped with a "crisping sleeve." On the sleeve is a warning: DO NOT REUSE CRISPING SLEEVE. What happens if you do? Who knows! But as soon as I find something that needs crisping in the microwave, we shall find out... [Better use the backup microwave for this one.]

P.S. If you do not let your Hot Pockets sit for the recommended two minutes after cooking them, you really gotta start doing that. They still taste great, and there is so much less pain involved.

9:55 AM >> Whoa!

Why is everything spinning and sliding? I feel dizzy.

11:46 PM >> The Spiral

What if there were a blog that chronicled someone's slow, spiral descent into madness? (Of course this would happen unbeknownst to the user and the readers, until the process was complete.) That would be neat to read after the fact, once the loon was locked up.

What if that blog existed right now, except it was only partway through the descent, and people read it every day without knowing what they were reading? (And the writer wrote it without knowing where he was sliding.)

It would be pretty cool to get in on that. Not on the ground floor, mind you, but about 3 months into the blog.

7:17 AM >> Sunflower Sutra

"...Poor dead flower? When did you forget you were a flower? When did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? The ghost of a locomotive? The specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?"
- Allen Ginsberg, 1955

6:56 AM >> Did you know?

It is the innocent young hooligan breeds that slide and slither through the hands of jubilant snakes. Sad, huh. Or scary is it? Are you scared? I am. I am no hooligan though. I am nice. Nice as can be -- on average that is. It really just an above average state of niceness, cause I only get nasty on occasion and typically I am nice. That means I am not nice as can be (100%). I do slip up here and there. We all do. There may in fact be studies out there that prove that we are all crazy. To some extent. Can you imagine? What if there was (there is) a little crazy in all of us. It is prolly good we're not all out getting diagnosed. What would the world come to if it came out that everyone was crazy and unless we all got medicated soon the entire earth would soon wiggle free of its axis? There'd be some sort of trial for that one. Someone would be to blame for either instigating the craziness or for leaking the secret. Oh, my God. I hope it's not me. I had no intentions of starting some witch hunt. I was just pointing out that no one is 100% perfect.

8:24 AM >> "Hey, you look like David Arquette."

Cashier: "Hey, you look like David Arquette."
Corporal: "Yeah, I get that a lot."
Cash: "Oh yeah?"
Corp: "Sure, about once a week--it's great."
Cash: "Well, you really look just like him."
Corp: "I drink energy drinks so I can act like him, too."
Cash: "Really?"
Corp: "Yeah. Today, I am drinking Rooster Booster."
Cash: "Uh huh."
Corp: "This is so disappointing."
Cash: "What is?"
Corp: "This conversation. Every stupid conversation about how I look like David Arquette."
Cash: "Why is that?"
Corp: "Because every one ends with an awkward moment. Like this one."
Cash: "That's just in your head, bro."
Corp: "You think? It happens every time."
Cash: "Here, take this vial of ginseng."
Corp: "For free?"
Cash: "Yeah dude. Don't worry about it."
Corp: "Thanks."

10:20 PM >> Slim with the Tilted Brim

This is typically how the conversation goes:

"Hey, you look like... Um... What's his name?"
"David Arquette?"
"Yeah, you look just like that guy!"

You see, apparently I look 94 - 98% like David Arquette. [I believe we especially have the same eyes.] And I honestly get told that I look like that spaz [not that I care about his spazzisity] an average of once a week--typically by cashiers at various stores. I have to admit that it is pretty neat that so many people think I look like "ole DA"--especially if I one day meet Courteney Cox and she thinks the same.

The only downside is that I always feel these conversations end awkwardly, at least to me. You see, after exchanging a few sentences about how I look like David Arquette, I am never sure what to say.

"You look just like that guy!"
"Yeah, I hear that pretty often, actually."
"Oh yeah?"
"Sure, about once a week--it's great."
"Well, you really look just like him."

At this point, the transaction is typically completed, and the ball is in my court. But what to say? "Thanks?" That's what I always feel like saying. But how weird is that? Am I being paid a compliment? "I'm glad you noticed?" That's a little creepy. But, I guess I am kind of glad. [That's why I say "it's great."] "See ya?" Too blunt. "You look famous, too." Too much of a lie. [Unless it is a hot chick. Because lines like that always work.]

Hmmm...

"Thanks for noticing." Yes, I think that will do. Either that or drop everything and run like hell.

11:14 PM >> Crack of Dawn, yo!

[Here is a fun game. Look through my blogs and count how many deal with food.]

So now they sell Rooster Booster [Energy Drink] in the soda fountain at QT. That means you can get 64 ounces for 99 freakin' cents. [RULE >> Write out anything from 1-10, use numbers for anything greater. I can still remember learning this lesson from my friend Andreas. He has a baby boy now.] The point is:

99 FREAKIN' CENTS, PEOPLE!!!

Do you understand the ramifications of this. [Used period instead of question mark on purpose for emphasis. Look for a future blog dealing with the nature of question marks in the future.] Normal energy drinks (Red Bull, KMX, etc.) cost $1.99 for 8.3 ounces. [I am not sure of the rule when dealing with decimals or fractions.] So for half the cost you get almost eight energy drinks. Holy crap. I have already learned how dangerous it is to have 44 ounces of Rooster Booster in the refrigerator, ready to be drunk at a moments notice--without that awful guilty feeling that you just wasted two dollars on 8.3 ounces of bull piss. [The cost adds up when you are an obsessive-compulsive with miserly tendencies.] I drank approximately 10 ounces of Rooster Booster tonight at 9:13 PM. Why?

BECAUSE IT WAS THERE.

On the plus side, I have a feeling I will be getting a lot more accomplished nowadays.

9:10 PM >> One Simple Ingredient and Some Catch-Up.

Before I begin, Captain, I thoroughly enjoy yer standard old blog. Forget the crap I was spluttering about you entering yourself into some lunatic blog experiment. It is satisfying as is. As for Vonnegut's use of Arabic symbols, I have always preferred the grammatically designed design of number, which is something like write out anything that is shortly written, otherwise resort to Vonnegut's preferred Arabic system. Corporal, toilet paper is a tough sell. We all know it is. You can show butts in commercials and you surely can't show streaks of doo, so a guy dropping out of a plane with a roll is as close as we're gonna come to reality in the unreality of the TV commercial. I personally hate it when my frickin' cat (which is really my brother's cat) destroys half or more of a roll of my toilet paper roll when he sneaks into my bathroom. Some engineer needs to spend his time in the prevention of that. Captain just add some peanut butter to your celery and you'll be in the clear -- no fear Captain, no fear. I wish Passions was a tad bit funnier. Where's the comic relief? Corporal could you get any more mathematic about your fruit snacks. Nice. good work.

So now. One simple ingredient can make all the difference. I will testify to that. I recently came into about 6-8 cups (or six to eight, rather) of coconut this week and needed an outlet for it. I searched Google for a coconut cream pie recipe. Then I made sure I had all the necessary things. Then I cooked. It wasn't so creamy. I realized why when I went to the fridge the next morning. I had forgot the milk. Batch #1 was more cake-y than pie-y, but still good. It was a sort of coconut cornbread, sans cornmeal. Batch#2 worked better, though I would have liked to experiment (my Mom said no. She said go by the book.) If I don't experiement or comtemplate very hard about experimenting, I feel like an uncreative wastoid. So from now on I vow to experiment. If I didn't add cinnamon, you can be damn sure that I thought hard about it. Batch #2 is pretty damn good, especially with a little butterscotch squirt on it.

9:00 PM >> Three Jobs

I am working three jobs now. I am developing good habits, working on the bad ones, and struggling like hell to keep the two separate.

1:15 PM >> Zzzzzz...

Zzzzzzzzzz Zzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

2:12 AM >> Fruity fruity, y'all!

Apparently the researchers for Kroger fruit snacks think that kids only want blue fruit snacks. Blue is a good flavor and all, but I prefer to eat my fruit snacks two at a time, and I like to have two separate flavors. Unfortunately, these days it seems you get 75% blue snacks per pack. There has never been a more appropriate time to ask: WTF man? I guess I am just out of touch with the 8-to-10-year-old snacking demographic.

Ahhhh... Opened a fresh pack, and only one out of nine pieces is blue! How e-mazing is that? The blog isn't even posted yet! You gotta hand it to the internet--it's got a quick turnaround!!!

If you have never had a vegetarian corn dog, you really should give them a whirl. Actually, no you shouldn't--there is no point in that because the cool thing is that they taste just like regular corn dogs, but they are more expensive, so what is the point? (There is no point, pay attention.) But if you are on a low-fat anti-cholesterol diet [like me], THEN you should eat them. Now!

Always bake your corn dogs. Do not microwave. But plan ahead because it takes about 20 minutes. It is super-worth-it, though.
Trust me.

Next, coat the CD in Texas Pete Hot Sauce. Fill a small bowl with yellow mustard (or squirt onto plate). Then dip and enjoy.
Obey me.

12:15 PM >> The Passion of the Media

I saw The Passion of the Christ last night. About 30 seconds into it, I realized I was not going to enjoy it. Not because I already had decided I would not like it, and not because I could tell within 30 seconds it was bad. I realized I was not going to enjoy because I had already started a dialogue in my head about everything I had already heard about the movie to such a degree that I could not possibly watch the movie as I would have liked... as a movie watcher. From beginning to end, I was in analyzation mode. I analyzed everything at every moment. I kept telling myself to stop, relax, and just experience it, but I never succeeded in doing so.

I blame myself for reading too much about it. But it does bring me to another point. The media are hell bent on destroying any redeemable value of anything someone creates these days. For instance, take this poor kid William Hung from American Idol. He innocently auditioned for AI in a very hilarious way. I would like to have seen the kid move on with his life, but Fox takes his funny little episode and turns it into a huge mockery at the expense of Hung. I would have enjoyed having that funny memory of Hung at his original audition and was content with it. The kid did me a favor. He made me laugh. But Fox come along and supersaturates the cablewaves with Hung-Mania. Memory tainted. And the same with The Passion. Before I got a chance to like it or dislike it, I had fallen victim to what the media was telling me to think - on both sides. I could not even engage it.

Ensign, good luck in your sans media venture. I am considering joining you.

12:04 AM >> Bad Vegetable, Bad!

Ever since I found out that the amount of calories used to eat celery is greater than the amount of calories you receive from digesting said celery (thanks, Jim), I kind of get stressed out when eating celery.