Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Call me a...

dirty tree hugging, in-bed-with-satan, goat-fucking-liberal but I thought the present situation regarding the U.S. military in Iraq was bad enough. You have an ill-equipped fighting force, being attacked from all sides, never really knowing who the enemy is. Not to mention the ongoing, abduction, torture and murder of non-military personnel, ie. journalists and civilian contractors, who are there doing their jobs.

Now, some of you may say that, "well no one forced them to go to Iraq to work." I'm sure in a good number of cases that's true. However, take into consideration the present state of the economy in this country and the lack of good paying jobs. If you are just starting out or maybe have a family and are tired of not having two nickles to rub together, the sign on bonuses alone are attractive enough to lure some to work in Iraq. People think they will work for a year or two and possibly, after all is said and done, come back a half a million dollars richer. It never does cross their mind that they are making exponentially more money than the civilian reconstruction specialist, doing the same work, being forced to be there by his country.

It never crosses their mind that this is not a safe nor stable region of the world. That we as Americans are viewed as evil (and in some respects I can see why) and we're intruding on holy ground. Americans going to work in Iraq are thinking of bettering their lives and their is nothing wrong with that. It's the American dream. But let's be honest, the United States military is not in Iraq on a mercy mission, Iraq has been liberated from the "great oppressor." They found his ass in a filthy hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere, yet a dude over 6feet tall, who needs dialisis, is harder to find than, "Where's Waldo."

In trying to keep up with current events in the world, one can become flustered. You kind of have to pick and choose whether or not you want to totally side with all of these watchdog sites and in turn take everything with a grain of salt. However human rights are just something I can't compromise on. I have more than a few favorite blogs, I try to check in with at least once a day, if possible.

While stoping by Matthew Good's blog this morning, I found something I can't get out of my mind and there is nothing anyone can say that will be a satisfactory excuse. This should not happen, to anyone...ever. I emplore you to read this short article and really think about who it is we have in office and if our, "total blind support" is what he and the other higher-ups really deserve.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Monday, January 30, 2006

Preach on Matt...

preach on!

While I'd like...

to brag about how much I drank this weekend...while I was conquering the world...fucking twenty-something women...three at a time, I won't.

The only people who do that are those so not at home in their own skin that they have to make up a fictional life, just so they can have conversations with their friends & those fucking white hat wearing bastards, who made drinking in public so much fun. Just because a woman is conscious,does not mean she wants to be hit on by you, you Abercrombie & Bitch wearing genome experiment. Yeah, do me a favor and play, "free-bird" again, cause you can never hear that song too much.

The weekend was acceptable. I was up for most of it. I find the older I get, the more I suffer from that "first year-living at college-I have to stay up cause I might miss something" kind of thing. I don't know why, & I agree that being as old as I am, it's just recockulous. Part of me thinks all of the insomnia is due to stress over not feeling like I have accomplished anything on this rock in the moderate amount of time I have been here. After talking with several key individuals, I've found this sentiment resonates among most of my friends, who are generally in the same boat as me, but are about 5 years younger.

The "W" and I hung out some this weekend. I must be a funny bastard cause I notice whenever we get together, the guy laughs at pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth. In what I thought was a landmark move to break tradition, we stopped going to Dunkin Blownuts for coffee, and migrated down the street to the newly opened and cheaper, T-Ho's. The change in latitude was good. Hanging out in the center of town provides greater possibilities of seeing weird shit late at night. Plus there is a fucking huge inflatable coffee cup in the parking lot.

Yesterday started off slow. Being the guy that used to sleep until 6pm on a Sunday, like it was no big deal, "W" loves to now get up early and see what is going on in the world. Saturday night I went to bed pretty late, cause I was hanging out with a sweet young lady who has a love of diet soda (please read between the lines and find that what the author really means, is that he played video games, drank to much Diet Dr. Pepper and went to bed defeated & cracked out on caffeine) So, when my cell phone rang at 11am on Sunday, I woke up thinking it was October and that the Germans were coming.

Luckily for me, "W" just wanted to grab some lunch at, "the blah" and as the "Dr." as that sodiferous bastard sometimes likes to be called, had forced me to shit out the lining of my stomach, I though putting something in there to soak up the remaining evil would be a good idea. Plus I wanted a tuna sandwich like, I've never wanted one before. So we lunch and then drink more coffee, cause that's what we both needed. "W" had a "red alert" of the lower-abdominal-region and we were back in the F1 and flying down the 7 like it was never going to be there again.

Not overly exciting but better than stories of me sitting around, masturbating to old grape-ape cartoons and eating mexican food.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Thanks for nothing...

you scheming fucking cunts!

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com with your concern.

I am sorry to hear that your replacement shipment has also
experienced a delivery problem to the shipping address

As two attempts to deliver a package to this address have been
unsuccessful, I hesitate to send you another replacement.

Instead, I have requested a refund of $63.83 to cover the cost of the
original shipment. This refund should go through within 2-3 business
days and will appear as a credit on your next credit card billing
statement.

If you'd still like to purchase the item, you could place a new order
using a different shipping address.

If you do receive either the original package or the replacement
package, please let us know at http://www.amazon.com/contact-us so
that we may take appropriate action.


The appropriate action should not have been like trying to pull teeth from a great white shark. If the one or both of the original shipments arrive, I am telling you fuck all and I will be the lucky recipiant of an early birthday gift. Piss off, you fucking tossers.

And so my battle with scAmazon is over and they will not see my money again.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

While I think...

it's a great idea. I mean we are way to fat as a nation, present company included, but I'm not sure that this is the way to go. For one thing, I think like anything that shows quick results, people become to involved. I have seen television programs where kids who were overweight, used DDR as an exercise program. For some it worked and worked almost too well.

Kids experiencing a moderate amount of success equate their weight loss with video games and although DDR does provide a good work out, I think we are naive in thinking this is the answer to our obesity problem. What about kids who decide to stop life beyond DDR and spend every waking moment possible on that dance pad. Let's also keep in mind teens do not always look at the effects of their actions.

Example: Johnny is over weight. Instead of sitting in his room on his computer, shoving ding-dongs down his throat and pints of ice cream up his ass, he plays DDR and experiences a drop in pounds. Happy with his initial success, he continues to play and while he is still losing weight, the pounds are not coming off as fast as he would like.
Maybe Johnny decides he is not going to eat as much. A good decision, but what he means by not as much is, he will eat only salad and water. However, Johnny decides that he can play DDR much longer if he drinks Mt. Dew instead of water. The ramifications of scenarios like this are horrible.

Now I don't think this is going to happen to anyone who decides to take up DDR as an exercise program. I just think we need to be mindful of things like addiction, nutrition counseling and repetitive stress injuries when offering the new "weight loss, quick fix."

But then again what the hell do I know? I love diet soda and lard.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The Good Guy...

Today was not action packed by any means, but I did manage to get some stuff accomplished.

First off, I drove to the administration building at work and dropped off a check for my health insurance, since it is not covered as I am on medical leave. Afterwards, I came home and did some work around the house. Straightened here, dusted there and by the time it was finished, it was half one and I was starting to get a case of the grumbly tumbly.

I jumped on the puter to check email and such. No love in the inbox, not a hell of a surprise. As I was answering a message from a few days ago, the W called and asked if I was interested in lunch at, the stuf. I picked him up about twenty minutes later and buy 2:15, lunch was served. My wrap, the "dude ranch" was awesome. Chicken breast grilled, with bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato & a little bit of ranch dressing. W's chicken parm looked good but, if I am going to have italian, I am going to have it at an italian place.

The highlight of the meal for me was the soda. Having drastically cut down on my consumption, as in I don't buy it at the store anymore, I very much enjoyed my diet coke with real lemon. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed three of them. After lunch we stopped at the dunk for cafe con leche and shot the shit some more. W is having server issues and I pretended to know what he was talking about.

I dropped him back off at home, and when I got home, I found the postman left me some love in the form of netflix. I watched the football factory and I will be posting a review shortly but in case you are insanely curious, you can skip this one. When it was done, I put it back in it's envelope and drove it back to the post office. While out, I drone into the heart of the beast and went to the coffee exchange. 1 Cafe Mocha and 2lbs of beans later I am home and typing to you.

See I used to buy coffee at the dunk, bu their beans are not fair trade and as I'm a guy with a conscience and a responsible shopper, I usually try to buy fair trade coffee. I usually get it from scAmazon.com but as I am fucking hating them, like going to bed with a woman with a dick, right now, scAmazon will see no more of my cake until they have righted the wrong done to me.

I dropped my third and hopefully final email to them today. Wish me luck.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

So here I...

am, patient. I wait and wait and wait. Lately, most of my days have been filled with ways of trying to pass the time. Normally, I feel as though there are not enough hours in the day. Now it seems like there are too many. If I was not injured, plagued with a knee that is a source of pain like I've never experienced before, things might be better.

I might be inspired to go for a walk in the woods, to take more pictures of stupid shit, to read more books about nothing and write more shitty poetry.

My goal for today was to stay awake long enough to meet the postman. While that was no problem at all, (since I drank a whole pot of coffee,) netflix or the motherfucking postman skunked me. There was no dvd-love in this guy's mailbox. I am waiting with baited breath for my copy of, The Football Factory, a film recommended me by the guys on VGN Radio. Looks like a pretty good and gorey foreign film on soccer hooliganism. What's not to love about hooliganism?

In other news...

FUCK scAMAZON RIGHT IN THE SHIT-BUCKET!!!! In their attempt for global, retail domination, they have managed to take my trust and loyalty and throw them right out the fucking window.

Long story short, I bought a present for a friend for Christmas / Birthday and what not and the delivery got delayed...and then never showed up...and was then reordered and I was told if the other delivery was not found, I would be charged for that too. So after several heated emails with amazon customer service reps, I noticed I was already double charged for said gift.

Yeah, fuck that noise. I am about at my wits end and just want to get my friend his gift and not pay $200 for it. In the amount of time this debacle has gone on, I could have purchased the gift myself, driven it to CA and been back already.

A word to the wise. If you have a wishlist on amazon, & you have your address hidden for privacy reasons, just know that this will keep you from being able to track your orders. Helpful amazon reps will also not reveal tracking info, EVEN IF YOU CAN PROVIDE THEM WITH THE ADDRESS IT IS GOING TO. When this is all said and done, I am most likely going to try and avoid shopping with amazon, though this is probably going to be impossible since they are hosting most major online sites.

Fuck Jeff Bezos, his lackluster, less than helpful customer service dept. and his mountain of fucking money!!!

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Saturday, January 21, 2006

The Ongoing Saga of...

my busted ass knee.

I went back to Sports Medicine Central on Friday. Doctor Good-guy came in and agreed progress had been made in my three week vacation from work. All of the sitting around, doing nothing, with the immobilizer from hell on, paid off. My knee looked better, less swollen at least, but was still fairly painful and as luck would have it, gave out on me as Dr. Good-guy put me through my paces.

Therefore...

Heir Doktor gave me another three week vacation and signed me up for physical therapy with the knee nazis. I look forward to building up my withered, Simon Birch-esque leg and being yelled at by women who played hockey and football in college and think I am a, "pussy" and should "just suck it up."

Yeah, so even more time to hang out and do nothing. I mean, read, blog...be productive and read books and watch movies and try not to freak out about not being able to do normal things like, not walk like a pirate.

Tonight I am heading down to the coast to hang with my parents. They are having a treadmill delivered tomorrow and as they both play mass at church on Sundays, the heathen must be there to accept the delivery at 7:30am. What the fuck? Who delivers that early? I know these clowns are not gonna show until two in the afternoon. If anything, I will get a good meal, a great nights sleep as there is no traffic at all on the island, and I will attempt to kick my moms ass at scrabble.

Wish me luck.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Friday, January 13, 2006

Today...

tonight...

right now I have been conscious for the longest stretch in a few weeks. I think I am going on 9, maybe ten hours.

This is big considering I needed the painkillers in a muy importante way today.

I am debating what to have for dinner, but I can assure you it is going to come from Golden Crust cause their grub is tasty and thrifty, and when you are out of work and broke, bargain hunting and thrift is a necessity.

Not that I'm dead broke. I'm still getting a check even though I'm hurt, but if doc says I need surgery next friday, who knows how long I'll be on the injured reserve list?

Golden Crust delivers but I will pick up. Sorry driver, but Jackass needs the extra dinero for something.

I know once I eat, its gonna be lights out cause, well...I have been awake all fuckin' day!

Still, i received a very nice package from Naughty Michelle today, filled with rainbows, love notes and several books I have yet to read. Consciousness would help me to make a dent in those. She went through all the trouble of sending some twin-cities love to me, least I can do is finish the books toot sweet.

I still say the hardest word in the engrish language to pronounce is Pahlinuk, as in Chuck, the guy who wrote Fight Club and some other shit. When I used to work at B&N, the corporate bookstore from hell, I used to laugh as adults would shit themselves with embarrassment trying to say that name.

Followed more of Reverend Tony Pierce's advice today and downloaded some Matthew Good Band from iTunes. I was NOT disappointed! Beautiful Midnight is good in that listen & smile kinda way. I wanted to buy "In a Coma" but I'm not ready to shell out the $52 bucks scAmazon is asking. Maybe I was looking at the wrong page? It was a bit early and the cobwebs were still in effect.

Spinach Calzone w/ cheese or Roast Beef Slamwich?

I dont know...

I have been eating a ton of veggies lately. Losing some lbs and my rectum, damn near killed em' seems to be in good shape. I may just well go with the finest of lunch meats.

How are all of you? What's on your mind? Let's talk about it. Don't be shy, I have a link up top to g-mail me if you don't want people all in your business. Take the plunge.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

P.S. I've never, ever had a boner in math class.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Wishful thinking...

I sit here...

and it's almost as late as when you and I would stay up and talk about nothing and everything at the same time.

on the red velvet couch
or
under the stars
or
in your room

and to be honest, I really have know idea who you were/are to walk into my life. to have that profound of an affect on someone amazes me. I admit sometimes it does more than that, sometimes it just fucking scares me...

shakes me to my core and makes me think more than when we would imagine countless possibilities.

and it's cold
and quiet
and ever song reminds me of you
or some thing we
did
said
talked about

and its all just bullshit

cause if I had the power to
I would travel back in time
and say everything I needed to
when it needed to be said
and then maybe things would be right
maybe we'd be ok
maybe you'd still be happy
maybe I wouldn't be used to seeing 4:00am on my clock
cause I had a dream about you so real
I woke up with tears in my eyes
cause I wanted to sleep forever
just to have five more minutes with you

and I want to hate you cause it would be so much easier...
so much easier

but whether you want to admit it or not

I love you. I always have and always will

and if by the grace of God I find someone to distract me from this lonely race, know you are not forgotten
ever

cause I'd drop everything in a minute for you
and that may
sound
weak
pathetic
or like I need help

but to bring out the best in someone is the greatest gift you can give.
and around you I didn't feel like such a misfit
and not a day goes by where I dont see your face someplace
and for that split second, I smile and its all ok

I know you probably will never see this
and if you do, it won't matter
cause we havent spoken in forever +1
and I dont even know who to blame for that
but even friends keep in touch

and so I'll remember those long nights on the red velvet couch
where we said nothing
and stared into each others eyes
and connected.






I hope you all are well.

cheers,
JJ

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Come as you are...

I’m not gonna lie. Right now, my sleep schedule is totally fucked. It’s the exact opposite of where it needs to be. However, I can take some solace in the fact I have at least, eight more days away from the Agency. I will admit I am getting a little stir-crazy sitting around the house, healing the knee (which is coming along, thanks for asking) but I don’t miss my job all that much.

Anyhow…

Lately, I have been filling my evening hours with:

watching movies
playing video games
reading blogs & books
attempting to write in my blog & otherwise
and building of my forearm muscles *wink wink*

All of these being worthwhile pursuits but, when one has a “limited window of consciousness” due to painkillers, well there is only so much a guy can do, right?

For Christmas I received the Live 8 concert on dvd. I haven’t watched the whole thing yet. Hell, I haven’t even made it through the first disc yet, but I was a little sad watching Sir Paul McCartney trying to crank out, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. It was good but it’s always tough to watch musicians you grew up with, start to fade away. The other day, W and I were getting a sandwich and Nirvana’s, “Smells like teen spirit” came on. A nice young lady, no older than 17 working behind the counter said, “Oh, I just love this song.” I smiled a little and took comfort in the fact there are still kids today who like the rock.

Everything thing was gravy until her young, co-worker turned up her nose and said, “Eww…who is this?” and without flinching, the first girl said, “The Offspring.” It was as if all the muscles in my neck suddenly disappeared and my head hung in shame. I let out a sigh and politely corrected her, “it’s Nirvana” I said. “Nah, I don’t think so mistah” she replies.

“Trust me” I said and gave her the one-eyed wink of wonder. The wink saying, “I’m older than dirt and when I was rocking out to this song, skipping classes at junior college, you weren’t even torturing your parents with the fucking purple dinosaur yet.”

I took my lunch and sat down. W and I ate in silence, partially due to hunger, partially bathing in the realization we’re not 19 anymore and Kurt’s still gone.

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Unplugged...

I have been sitting around for the past few days, trying to come up with some cool end of the year/beginning of the year post. Let's just say I've been less than successful.

So here I sit, at 7:45 in the AM, chilling with a steaming cup of coffee, some Harry Connick, Jr. and nothing but time to write. I apologize in advance but this is gonna jump around alot. Think of it more as a, "stream of consciousness" than an actual post.

Christmas, the eve and the day went over very well. I spent Christmas Eve with broseph's girlfriend's family. Yeah, I know it seems a little weird but at certain times of the year, there just factions of my family that I can't deal with. I was going to make the drive to the coast to celebrate with mom & pop, but they were both playing masses late at night and it would have been a royal pain in the ass for everyone.

Dinner and companionship with broseph's other family was good. I supped there last year and forgot how filling the food was. As a self-proclaimed fat kid, I have been know to do some damage at the dinner table. Last year as well as this year, I had one plate and was full until ten am the next morning. Broseph's mother in law can cook, and we're not talking about hige plates either. I get angry with myself cause I am always to full to even think about dessert but as I have the big, "D" (diabetes for the uninitiated folk) it's probably not such a bad thing.

Later on in the evening, I went to exchange gifts with my friends. Age old tradtion dictates we meet at, "W's" for drinks, the exchange and some early Christmas day merriment. I think it was the first Christmas there were no, "mentally scarring" presents. In our younger days, when we had little to no $ to spend on each other, we would try to find the most outrageous/sarcastic gifts. Most of the time you'd end up with something painful but useful. As we grew older and had better jobs with better paychecks, this tradition slowly died out. However, last year, I received a book about Dick...and I ain't talking about a dude named Richard. I however vowed to take the high road and not retaliate and to this day, feel good about my decision. Someone gets you a horrible gift and you hook them up, well the look on their face is present enough for me.

Let's just say I got hooked up this year from friends and family.

Christmas day was special for several reasons. The biggest for me and I'm sure for her as well, was my mother did not have to play any masses Christmas morning and was able to get to celebrate on time with everyone else. Since I have been alive, this has never happened. It was nice to see her relaxed from not having to drive all over hell and back just to get to where she needed to be.

Breakfast at my Aunt & Uncle's was as always...off the hook. My uncle, UD for short, can cook his ASS off and as the dude needs to lose some weight, he can make the women cry in the kitchen. Besides taking care of everything that needs a responsible touch, I can see why my aunt married him. I had eggs/bacon/sausage/a homemade muffin that puts Dunkin or T-Ho's to shame/raspberry walnut french toast/ and fresh squeezed orange juice. The big "D" usually does not permit a feast of this magnatude, but that was a present to myself. The best part of the day was that we all ate, relaxed and got along...which made the fact I had to go to work @ 3pm a little easier to take.

Work sucked infected donkey rectum and I had a melange of shit to deal with that normally would have not been an issue but my job was in the x-mas spirit and provided gifts that kept on giving. It was not that big of a deal, just aggrevating. I left early and went back to my aunt & uncles for dessert and coffee and some ha-ha's. UD made a banana cake with Splenda that was recockulously good. Seriously, you would have never known that it was not the real deal.

All in all there were no complaints this year, Santa yet again screwed me on dropping off Ms. Jackass, but he did say he'd like me to try a little harder on that issue.

Last but certainly not least, my friend Boom got engaged to his beautiful & wonderful ladyfriend. Congratulations to the both of you!!!

I hope you all are well.

Cheers,
JJ