Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Lies I Am Not Sorry I’ve Told

You look great in those jeans. [duh.]

I don’t know PowerPoint.

I’m almost out of gas. I can’t take you to the airport tomorrow morning.

I love you.

I don’t know who ate the last of the $_YUMMY_THING_WE_NO_LONGER_HAVE_ANY_MORE_OF [odds are high it was me]

I won’t make a sound.

I was so asleep I didn’t hear the baby crying and I’m sorry you had to get up in the middle of the night. [OK, I do feel bad about this one. Sorry, Re.]

That is a cute baby.

I only had a very small bowl of ice cream.

Yes, please send me a copy of your band’s demo CD.

I’m sorry, I don’t know how to dance, but my friend Mark would love to dance with you.

I’m allergic to tripe.

Sorry, I’ve never read Harry Potter. Is that like Pokemon?

I’ve never voted Republican.

I don’t own DVDs of “Friends.” I don’t watch that kind of low-brow television.

Of course I won’t peek.

No, I won’t write about that and post it on the Internet.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/20/08 at 12:02 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Thursday, May 15, 2008

From the Office of Mis-directed Email

Yesterday I got this email which wasn’t supposed to come to me, she just can’t type very well:

On May 14, 2008, at 6:12 PM, pants wrote:

Just a reminder to look for your FM radio iPod adapter thingy… :-)

Later gator,

Mads

My reply is as follows:

Mads—

I looked and looked and looked EVERYWHERE for my FM radio iPod adapter thingy and I’m sorry; I can’t find it.

Of course, this saddens me greatly and for the following reasons:

A) I don’t have an FM radio iPod adapter thingy.

Having torn the house up looking for the misbegotten device I can only come to the conclusion that I don’t own one. In retrospect it would have been much easier simply to head over to a local consumer electronics store and purchase an FM radio iPod Adapter thingy. Instead I emptied every drawer, rummaged through closets and in a move I’ve come to regret mightily, ripped out the drywall in the living room to try and find something I don’t even own. The repairs to our rumpus room walls alone will be far, far, far more than the cost of an FM radio iPod Adapter thingy. Those are only like $40 or so. I’m still getting estimates on the wall repairs.

Also, the cavity search of members of my family and immediate neighbors was a very bad idea.

B) An FM radio iPod adapter thingy would really help me and my self image.

I currently use a super cheap cassette adapter in my car, so I can listen to my iPod while I drive aimlessly and lethargically around the city on my meaningless errands and to and from my pointless and soul sucking job. It cost me around $6 at the grocery store and though it is serviceable, it is not sexy. It does nothing for either my self-image or my self-esteem.

And you know so well how desperately I need to be sexied-up.

I went online and looked at a few of them.

Holy guacamole on a toasted onion bagel, they are GORGEOUS!

How very cool they appear and how nicely they would gleam if mounted on my dashboard. My pathetic cassette adapter trails an unseemly wire out of my car stereo and I have to stare at that disgusting wire all the time, even when it’s not hooked to my iPod. Though the sound quality is average at best, I had previously thought that given my poor taste in music (my predilection for bubble gum pop from boy bands of the early 90s rears its ugly head, yet again), sub-standard to middling sound reproduction was the best I should hope for. As I read the specification for various FM radio iPod adapter thingies, my enjoyment of my precious Backstreet Boys bootleg recordings could be increased substantially through the use of one of these wondrous doo-dads.

And obviously, that is not all.

How much better my life would be with the soothing warmth of a tiny LCD screen or the torch-y sultriness of an FM adapter iPod thingy, like I’ve seen online and in catalogs? My heavenly stars on a beach ball, can’t you just see how much more attractive my visage would be if it were bathed in the greenish glow of LED lights? Maybe if I mock something up in Photoshop?

Obviously, I’m missing out on a lot.

C) “Later gator,”

Are you just trying to be mean here?

You know how deathly afraid I am of alligators, crocodiles and other reptiles ever since that unfortunate trip to the Everglades in 1982 when I could feel the baby alligators staring me down and inspecting my shoes and then, though you have always ridiculed me for this, I swear up and down on a stack of stolen Gideon Bibles that those little reptilian slot eyed demons were accusing me of “wearing their mommy.”

Is this some kind of twisted joke on your part, trying to send me into a panicked frenzy, when you know I am out of Atavan until Dr. Chandrasekhar comes back from Dehli in June?

If so, then “Job Well Done,” Mads. Really, you have outdone yourself this time.

This even surpasses the time you snuck up behind me and draped tinsel over my head which caused me such consternation and shock that I gasped and subsequently swallowed an entire strand of garland and I pooped silver filaments for a month afterward.

Though it is difficult to discern tone and meaning from mere words in an email, I can’t help but surmise that you truly don’t want to be my friend any more.

I can sense from your hateful closing that my presence in your life is no longer necessary.

I will also stop going to the bi-weekly Cosplay meetings, which is just as well, since I can tell that my outfits (the “Barbarian in Chains and a Loincloth” ensemble in particular) were making you uncomfortable.

Best to you,
—jon

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/15/08 at 12:39 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post Favorite Entries. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

That Special TIme

SCENE: Early morning. Reha is getting ready and Lucas comes in the bathroom to take a shower.

Reha: “Whoa, Lucas what happened?”

Lucas: “Wha?”

Reha: “Your face is all bloody. You must have had a nose bleed in the middle of the night.”

Me (from my nice warm bed): “Lucas, you know what this means, don’t you? It means your body is starting to change. Now that you’ve gotten your period, you’re going to start noticing other changes in your body.”

Lucas: “Huh?”

Me: “I mean, now that you are becoming a young lady, we should have a talk about what it means.”

Lucas (finally catching on, racing into the bedroom and pounding on me): “Dad! You jerk!”

And with that, I have assured my candidacy for Father of the Year yet again.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/14/08 at 08:12 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Math Homework is for Suckers

Me: “Jonah, bring me your backpack and let’s do that math homework!”

Jonah (9) wanders around for a while somewhat aimlessly, but really he’s making a beeline to his Legos so he can finish his latest blocky masterpiece.

Me: “Jonah! Homework! Now. Please.”

I stroll back to his room and say the same thing over again, though a little less like “patient Dad who loves his children more than he likes breathing” and more like “slightly grumpy Dad who wants to get on with life this evening.”

As I’m walking back to the kitchen he yells out: “Um. I left my Math homework at school.”

Reha to Carrie in the kitchen: “Dad’s gonna kill him.”

I get back to the kitchen and through gritted teeth say: “I’m gonna kill him.”

Seriously, sometimes our lives really are like a sitcom.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/13/08 at 08:13 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Fighting the Urge to Give Out TMI*

Let me start of by saying this:

I finally realized the other day that because our oldest daughter is a vegetarian, at home I am effectively a vegetarian.

This blows on many levels.

1) I’m not really big on things that grow in the ground. i.e., fruits and veggies.

2) I like meat.

3) I hate animals passionately and want to eat all of them. (see #2).

Not only has the flesh of dead animals mostly been banished from our house, but we also have a bunch of organic food in the kitchen. Fake meat, free range eggs, milk from “happy cows,” etc. I don’t mind it that much, really. It’s healthier and it doesn’t taste that bad.

In fact, I *really* like this one cereal: Kashi’s Go Lean Crunch (the original flavor, not the fancy pants stuff with flax)

Also, flax is just some made up thing, isn’t it? The hippies got together and after passing the “doobage” around said to each other, “Dooooode. Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a plant that was all good for you and stuff? Let’s make one up and put it in the cereal, man!”

But I digress.

The relationship between this excellent organic cereal and my intestinal tract can be summed up thusly:

It’s complicated.

I really love the taste. Like, it’s the best tasting cereal, EVER; above even Frosted Mini-Wheats and Cap’n Crunch (with Crunch Berries, yo). That’s how good the stuff is.

But if I have more than one bowl in the morning?

How can I put this as delicately as possible?

My insides freakin’ EXPLODE in the late afternoon and I spend a simply inordinate amount of time in the little boy’s room, wishing I were dead.

That was Factoid Deemed TMI #1.

Factoid Deemed TMI #2:

The plumbing in the building at work appears to be from the late 1800s, so the toilet clogs by wafting even one teeny piece of TP over the bowl, never long putting anything in the thing; it’s enough to start brackish and vile sludge swirling around and slowly creeping up the side of the bowl. The toilet is going to overflow. This elicits yelps from me and I begin to pray in that shouting whisper that means I’m panicked, but I don’t want the rest of the studio to know that I’m FREAKING OUT right there in the men’s room and I commence pleading to any and all deities within earshot to “Oh, please, please, PLEASE, Zoraster! I’m begging you! Make the water stop! Make the water stop!” I look over to where we usually keep a plunger, but it’s gone; it must be in the Ladies’ room. I think I’d rather be dead than have to deal with the mess that is about to happen.

Oh… and did I forget to mention that I still have my pants around my ankles?

Welcome to my Wednesday.

Which brings me to my main point.

If you are going to be a semi-forced vegetarian and eat organic, hippie granola cereal?

Always know where the water shut off valve is.

*Too Much Information

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/08/08 at 04:50 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link
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