Be careful what you wish for.

Music QotW: Favorite Soundtrack

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:47:25 -0500

What's your favorite soundtrack?

Will always be (until it's not):

The Battle

Hans Zimmer

I love picking it out in trailers for other movies now. Often imitated, never duplicated. ;)

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QotD: Kindgergarten Rules of Wisdom

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:42:01 -0500

What did you learn in kindergarten that you wish you did a better job of applying to the way you live your life today?

Share the red pencil.

When I was in kindergarten, we all sat at round tables, about 5 or 6 kids to each. Our room had about 6 of those round tables, with little plastic blue or orange chairs, a cubby section in the corner where we'd put our jackets and lunch boxes, a couple of play areas where you could paint on pads attached to clunky easels, or play house with the girls, or build forts out of big wooden blocks with the boys. The teacher had one of those standard grey metal teacher-desks, the kind where you could hide beneath it and no one could find you, and the carpet was a lovely shade of industrial indoor-outdoor school green. We did half-days in kindergarten, and I had the morning session. For some reason, I was late coming into class the first day, and my mom dropped me off to a classroom full of kids already seated, and I did the Long Walk to my blue plastic chair under the feral glare of a bunch of 5-year-olds I didn't know. It was horrifying. I think I covered my ears.
Whether it was my fashionable lateness, or my un-fashionable homemade sweater-vest, I'll never know, but the kids at my table had it out for me since day one. The boys scowled at me, the girls pretended I wasn't there. I had no previous experience dealing with Other Kids, and I had no idea what the proper response was to pretty much anything they'd do. I was fine with the teacher, for the most part, except for trying to understand where her attention to me fell in her agenda of dealing with an entire classroom of kids.
One of her dubious teaching methods was to give each table a red pencil. We all wrote with stubby, thick black-painted pencils with no erasers, but one pencil at each table was coated with red enamel paint. They were the most sought-after objects in our carpeted world, those pencils (other than the wond'rously sharp and shiny lefty scissors) and every day, the pencil would rotate around the table to the next person in turn. It made one feel really special, to grasp that sanguine-hued writing implement in one's chubby little fingers, and hold it aloft for all to see. It made life worth living, and knowing that today was going to be your Red-Pencil Day made the sun shine a little brighter, the birds sing a little sweeter.
Until, that is, they skipped you.
"Ah, pardon me," the lad says to the girl to his right, "but I do believe it is my turn to wield the red pencil today. For you see, yesterday Ricky here had it, and since the progression has traditionally moved counter-clockwise around our little round table here that would logically place me as the next-in-line. So if you would, I'd like the pencil you are now holding. Tomorrow it shall be yours in turn." He holds his own typical black pencil forth, awaiting the trade.
"Ha ha. Shut up." She sneers.
"Excuse me?" The boy looks incredulously around the table, meeting the bemused eyes of his classmates...they know! They all know....it's a conspiracy! It wasn't an honest mistake at all, they had purposely skipped him! He can't believe the audacity of it. "But....it's MY turn!"
"No it's not. It's mine." The girl says pointedly, daring a claim to the contrary. To which the 5-year-old lout to the boy's left side responds crassly, "We skipped you."
The rest of the day was a bleary-eyed haze to the boy, who had just been taught a cruel lesson of How The World Works. Sometimes people don't like you, and aren't afraid to let it be known. It doesn't matter if there's a reason behind it or not. If you aren't liked, all rules of society are forfeit. You won't get preferential treatment, you won't be chosen for any Teams, you'll very likely find yourself the subject of Uncomfortable Confrontations, you may become the butt of private snickers, you'll have issues with anxiety during much of your waking hours, you'll never build up any of the confidences that will allow you to attract members of the opposite sex and chances are you'll be either home alone or volunteering to work on the nights of your school's various social events.
And you definitely won't be using that red pencil.
So, whether you're 5, 15 or 55, remember to include others in a sincere, fair manner. Those are the Rules. Even if their mom makes them wear homemade sweater-vests. Share that red pencil. Tomorrow it'll be your turn. It will make for more well-adjusted people in this world, and that's just better for everyone.

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QotD: Fictional Friend

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:51 -0500

What fictional character do you relate to most and why?

Seems pretty obvious to me.

Calvin

Actually, elementary school Calvin was really close to elementary school Jay....self-absorbed, over-imaginative, under-achieving, athletically-challenged bully fodder. With a marked lack of knowing When To Shut Up.

Be careful or be roadkill

And they said it was just a phase. Hah.

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QotD: My First Car

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:12:32 -0500

What was your first car?

Uspiazza

When I was 17 I inherited my mom's Isuzu Impulse (it was called the "Piazza" in the international markets.) It was a hatchback, silver, and had headlights that partly opened up that were so popular in the 80s. I really liked this car, and was lucky to have gotten it actually since most of my friends drove serious pieces of crap like Omnis and Hyundais, if they had new cars at all. The kind of cars that leaked oil like sieves, with squealing belts and rusty floors. This was luxury in comparison.

I just liked it because it had a cockpit-like dashboard, and kind of looked like the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

Unfortunately it was not the turbo model, and the automatic transmission was a pig. It had some serious delay on hitting the gas, and had its fuel injection changed more than a few times. In fact, it was in the shop more than I'd like to remember.....I became quite familiar with the mechanics in the neighborhood.

It also came standard with a Bad Mojonator....it was plagued by awful luck like having its mirrors sheared off by garbage trucks, having a deer run full-tilt into the driver's side (fun!) and then the head gasket cracked. Twice.

Eventually it was in such bad shape, I just scrapped it for $50 to a junkyard owner in a trailer with a one-eyed bulldog on the steps. Grrr.

Still.....it was fun while it worked.

Had a phat cassette-player with 10-band equalizer, yo. :P

PIAZZA

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QotD: Personality Trait = Trouble

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:18:30 -0500

What personality trait has gotten you in the most trouble?

Oh! Why, it must be a tie between my flippant irreverance and my propensity to tell the truth as far as I see it.

Don't you agree? ^__^

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QotD: Ghost Stories

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:25:20 -0500

Do you believe in ghosts? If so, have you ever seen one?

Ha. This sounds an awful lot like one of my recent posts.

(If you're gonna rip a QotD idea, at least give some cred. Ffft.)

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QotD: The Perfect Crime

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:39:40 -0500

What was the last thing you "got away with?"

You got no body?

You got no crime.

Now leave me alone.

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QotD: Friends Forever

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:28:51 -0500

What do you bring most to a friendship?

No drama.

These days, I think that's pretty good.

I won't bitch and whine non-stop about my friends, my family, my bad decisions.

I won't constantly make bad decisions, and look to my friends to help me cope with them over and over and over again.

I won't cancel plans. If there are plans, and I have committed to them, barring illness or grave emergency I will be there.

And I definitely won't just pull a no-show. If I can't come, I'll let you know.

I won't burden you with my shitty friends. We all have one or two. People we think deserve some company, but are too much maintenance to bring along with others. Know when to leave them aside.

I won't forget you exist every time I get even moderately involved in a romantic relationship.

I won't be crying on your couch when said relationship comes screeching to a halt. (Oh, and I did told you so.)

I won't expect you to deal with my plans at the drop of a hat. I know you have a life, and it doesn't hinge on what I feel like doing at any given moment. If you can make it spur-of-the-moment, great. If not, I understand.

I know you have your friends, and I have mine, and everyone doesn't have to do everything together every time, like some sort of friend commune. If you went to dinner with your friends, and didn't invite me, I won't feel bad. It's ok. (Now, if you went to dinner with my friends and didn't invite me, I'd be feeling a little excluded. Because I would never do that.)

I won't call you at 3AM to talk me through my insomnia.

I won't just assume you will watch my cats when I'm gone.

I won't just assume you're my ride to the airport. Every. Time.

In other words, I treat my friends like I'd like to be treated. Maybe sometimes this makes me a little distant, because I don't need constant attention, but I think it's better than the alternative.

No drama.

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QotW: Hollywood Hottie

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:02:08 -0500

Who is the hottest person in Hollywood right now?

I could really care less. The tarts in Tinseltown are so over-made-up, overmedicated and overpublicized, I'm over them. Besides, I know what makeup and Photoshop and good lighting can do, so all we end up seeing are glorified printed puppets anyway. No wonder our country's youth is so disillusioned.

Don't believe me? Check it out.

I've never been into actresses* anyway. I see dozens more interesting and attractive people every waking day of my life. The coffee girl at Starbucks makes me swoon spades more than any screen heroine. I like reality.

My own skewed perception of it, yes, but reality nonetheless.

*This does not apply to either Christina Ricci or Keira Knightley, both of whom make my insides roll over like a trained dog. Woof.

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QotD: Tears of Joy

nobody@vox.com(Jay) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:03:49 -0500

When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
Submitted by Maraschino.

I was watching an episode of Ren & Stimpy on DVD....it was one I hadn't seen before, where Ren goes to the Fake Dad Store and signs up to be a foster dad for the weekend to an eleven-year-old, except that the eleven-year-old is actually a gigantic 300-pound homicidal inmate named Kowalski, an apish wall of a man who speaks in one-word grunts. It was great.

So they're having a picnic, and Ren asks Kowalski what kind of sandwich he wants.

"MEEEAAT!" screams Kowalski. So he just gives him some pieces of meat. Then he asks him what he wants to drink.

"MEEEEAAAT!!!" Kowalski yells.

"Go pour the man some meat, Stimpy," says the exasperated Ren, and Stimpy gets a glass of red gloppy juice from the cooler spout. Ha!! A glass of meat!!!

Then there was this whole part about Kowalski having a tummyache and needing to be burped. Ren's underneath the gigantic guy, patting him on his hairy back as his stomach gurgles......I was just losing it. This goes back to all the cartoons I loved as a kid where burping was a major gag.....you know, those old Tex Avery ones with the puggish dog and he'd have to run up the hill to make any noise.....hahaha.......plus I always find food and body function humor a riot. So there I am, laughing so hard I'm drooling, as Kowalski launches into an explosive belch complete with flying chunks of picnic lunch covering both Ren and Stimpy. AHAHAHAHAAA!

This was just, like, two weeks ago.

I loved that show.

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