July 2002 Archives

Whittling

Well...I'm sitting here at work waiting for a 260mb postscript file to finish distilling into a PDF that I can email off to some clients. La lala la la.

Been getting some grief for not updating this blog often enough. It's true. I'm slacking. Darn slackers.

I've been burning myself out over at Worth1000 creating Photoshop images (under my pseudonym "Isam"). I payed for five bucks worth of credits and started entering contests about a month ago. I've won two so-far, which is a big ole ego boost.

Like I need that.

Big fat head.

But it's definitely been a change of pace to do some totally freestyle creative stuff. I haven't done watercolor or pencil art in years. It's a totally different media, but the satisfaction is the same. If only the front yard didn't need my attention, I might get some sleep now and then. Stinking hobbies.

I just about killed a thirty dollar rosebush earlier this week. We bought a bunch of perennial groundcover plants and the rosebush a couple weeks ago. We managed to get all the small ones planted, but had to put off planting the rose. Then one thing led to another and I screwed up and didn't water it every day, and it dried up really bad. Oy. So I got it planted Monday, and now it looks like it's on the road to recovery. I just have to be sure I fall down on it or something in the next couple days. Nothing should be easy.

Oh! We got Giselle's eye exam, and she ended up needing glasses. So those came in a couple weeks ago. She's been really good about wearing them. Although when she and Harrison wrassle around or he punches her in the face or whatever, they end up getting all tweaked, so we have to bend them back into shape every couple days. Kindergarten starts in less than a month. She's stoked.

Jeremy

Bait & Switch

So I walk into the living room this morning, and Giselle and Harrison are squatted down in front of the TV. And on the screen is this vivid scene of flames engulfing a playground--the monkeybars on fire, the swings swinging on fire, the merri-go-round spinning on fire, and the opening credits to Terminator 2, Judgement Day flashing on the screen. And I'm like OH MY GOSH, WHAT CHANNEL DID YOU GUYS CHANGE TO?? as I'm racing to switch channels to Nickelodean or The Weather Channel or anything. I mean, they were watching cartoons just moments before. So I'm musing to Amanda later about the silhouettes of our two kids in front of a burning playground. So she flips open the TV-Guide, and allow me to share this with you:

KPHO TV-5
07:00 AM Bob the Builder
07:30 AM Dora the Explorer
08:00 AM Blue's Clues
08:30 AM Little Bill
09:00 AM Franklin
09:30 AM Oswald
10:00 AM Terminator 2: Judgement Day

...uhhh

right.

I mean, I know it's my fault for not being in there at the top of the hour as the programming switched instantly from preschool kids programming to atomic bombs and burning playgrounds. But sheesh, couldn't they have at least put on a half-hour boring show like the news or something so that if I'm sitting on the can at 10:01 AM, I could hear the kids griping about the boring grown-up show instead of staring mezmerized at apolcalyptic playground scenes? Still, I have been laughing since then at how absurd it is.

Here's to vigilance.
Jeremy

Hypertension

Grrrrr. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate Green Grass & High Tides? It's playing on the radio right now and driving me batty. On and on and on and on and faster and Faster and FASTAR@!#%! Yug. Freebird and Meatloaf songs are like that. Ptooey ptooey. I mean, sure, if I was out in a dirt barnyard, dancing with my pot-bellied-pig and a jug of firewater in the crook of my arm, I guess I'd get all worked up by the 10 minute long continuously accellerating conclusion to that song, just spinning and spinning and hopping around until I cracked my skull open Jethro's lumpy noggin. And then once the song finally does that falling-apart thing at the end, and mercifully shuts down, then the radio announcer always comes on totally hyped up and excited "THAT WAS GREEN GRASS AND HIGH TIDES FOR YA! GETTIN YOUR BLOOD PUMPIN THIS AFTERNOON etc etc...." Get OVER it you goofball. My blood's pumpin alright, just about enough to drive my car up the mountain and crash it into your radio antenna.

Sheesh. Is this the best I could do after 3 weeks? Shoddy shoddy work.

Jeremy

Weak-minded Jedi Fodder

Well, stupid people are everywhere...as I sit here pointing at myself.

An hour or so ago, a couple college kids came to the door and yadda yadda yadda, I bought a magazine subscription from them. Argh. You know, it's funny, there's times when it's very easy for me to say no, like the guy who came to the door this weekend trying to unload a box of frozen steaks on me because he can see I "have a barbecue" and he wants to "save me money". Sorry buddy, I tried that crap out a couple years ago, and now I wear dentures. Buh bye.

But this time, I guess my mind was in "I want you to like me" mode. Blah. Due to the fact I was pleasant when I said hi, the boy had the excuse to tell me "Wow, you're the nicest person we've met in your neighborhood so far...Everybody else was...well, they weren't very hospitable, etc." And so, of course, I had to live up to that picture. I mean, how could a kind, hospitable person like me not want to help two hard-working college kids earn money for books and tuition as they travel the country selling magazine subscriptions for $5.00 more than I could get it at Amazon.com? Travelling the country you say? Well they must be. The fact he said, "Aren't you guys having a drought," would've been a major clue they weren't locals. Oh, and then get this, as I commit to the sale, he tells me I need to make the check out to "cash" because the Florida marketing company that sells the subscriptions can't take out-of-state checks. So of course, since I didn't want them to think I was a horrible person, I made it out for "cash". I mean heck, he DID have a laminated ID card with his picture & program mission statement on it, and the receipt was on 3-part NCR with black & red ink and was sequentially numbered. See, Lookit! I've got an honest-to-goodness receipt number! Oh wait, I could actually go out and get the exact same thing layed out, printed up and numbered for less than $200 myself. All I'd have to do at that point is make 7 or 8 bogus magazine sales and then the rest would be gravy.

So, I'll probably never see my overpriced magazine subscription. But if I do get it, I could feel good knowing the money went to a good cause right? Pshyeah. They're probably illegal Norweigan immigrants, schooled to have midwestern English accents, and are working in the slave trade to pay off their overseas smugglers. Or hey, if they ARE legit, then I've helped teach them that weasely sales tactics are lucrative, and they'll breed the next great telemarketing company.

I'm so dissapointed.

In happier news, it rained today. Rained, I tell you. I celebrated by mowing my chemotherapy-lawn. It's cute how it looks like a tortoise-shell cat when it's been freshly scalped.

Craving acceptance
Consumes my integrity.
Checkbook hates me too.

Jeremy