Hanging it up

Well gang, we had a good run.  And after very little consideration and no loss of sleep I’ve decided to call this blog quits.  I’m tempted to use a well-known metaphor involving broken-legged horses and guns…

I’ve thought about starting a new blog from scratch over on Tumblr.  I have some fun ideas but I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to following through with any of them.

Anywho.  Thanks for reading!  I’ll leave the archives on the right should you feel inspired to reminisce about our time together.

Much love!

J

Thinking Outside the Box. And the Pants.

The following is another Lowercase J story.  It’s a story of courage, youthful rebellion and raw, stubborn energy.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder how I ever learned to function in polite society*.

Here in a simple living room lying on the floor we see a young absorbent mind watching television.  It’s an educational show of sorts and we’re learning how to dress ourselves.

“You should always put your pants on before putting on your shoes,” says the glowing box.

“Challenge accepted,” says the young absorbent mind.

A few minutes later the young absorbent mind is again on the floor, but in quite a different position.  It’s a position of angst, determination and flailing pant legs.  A more picturesque description might be that of a crab lying on its back trying to make the number 44 out of its legs and claws.

A pointed sneaker here, a shove there and an ever-so-subtle tearing sound and he’s managed to get a heel well and truly crammed into one leg.  His ankle hurts a little but that’s probably just part of growing up and being unique.  If he could get the other foot started then he’d no doubt be fully panted in no time.  And most importantly he will have defied the glowing box that so casually assumed his conformity.

Unfortunately for our creative thinking hero, the second foot was quite a bit harder than the first.  It was soon realized that when ones left leg is stuck at a 90 degree angle and both hands attached to a pant waist, getting the second leg started became… complicated.

After rolling around a while our hero tires, succumbs to physics and begins to put his pants on the boring ol’ way the rest of the boring ol’ world did.

He’s upset, but wait!  What’s this?

SHORTS.  He sees a pair of loose-fitting shorts.

With shoes still on he grabs the shorts and flings himself onto the bed.  In one fluid movement both feet are through and the shorts hit his waist with a satisfying elastic snap.  Both legs and not just that – he put them both in at the same time.

He leaps off the bed triumphantly.  It wasn’t the original goal, but is still counted as a victory.  Off he runs to play and to search for new rules to break.

- j

*I didn’t.  So I moved to NYC.

Philly Fling

Last weekend I absconded to Philadelphia, PA if for no other reason than to use the word abscond.  It was a great solo weekend and a much needed get away from the city.  I intentionally had no itinerary.  It was basically a day and half of wandering and exploring and talking to locals.  A brief and highly amateur photo gallery is below.

Two Bits

It’s disturbing what my brain decides is worth getting excited about.

The card swiper at the Key Foods near my previous apartment used to silently drive me insane.  I’ve never shared this with anyone because these are the kinds of things you hide from loved ones lest they force you into a mental hospital.  I’m sharing it with you now because I don’t love you it finally worked itself out.

The checkout person would ask ”Credit or debit?” and I’d say “Debit”.  I’d enter my 4 digit pin number and then hit “Enter”.  That 5 button combination makes an absolutely perfectly toned Shave and a Haircut.  But only. the. first. part.  So I was forced to tap something twice to finish it.  The swiper, the counter, the checkout lady, etc.  Because we all know few things in life are as frustrating as an unfinished Shave and a Haircut.  Total strangers will honk back if you start it in your car.  It’s the audible equivalent of keeping your hand up for a high-five and being left hanging.  It’s like having one shoe tighter than the other, but its your ears and not your shoes.  You get the idea.

This has gone on for the last 5 years.  Five, y’all.  Five years of slow bubbling rage.  But now that I moved I go to another Key Foods.  And this card swiper has two additional prompts asking “Is this amount correct?” and “Cash back?”.  I answer Yes and No and these two tones perfectly complete the Shave and a Haircut and all is finally right with the world.

And everyone in line looks at me funny because of the enormous smile on my face and then wonders why I’m so happy about buying frozen pizza.

- J

Well Worded Wonderment

It’s time once again for my monthly monotony, made mainly by my melancholy mental meanderings.  I’m making my mark here in a meaningful motif, though my mission is mostly mischief.  Maybe you’re mad at me for my meager attempts at mirth, but my miscellaneous mentality is mine and my own.

Creation of content comes awkwardly and can often cause complications.  Kicking and cussing I crawl to the keyboard to carve out some consumable crap.  But it crumbles under my conceit so I put the kibosh on it.  And constant re-crafting of a crummy incantation creates a crabby and uncomfortable creator.  Candidly confessed, I just don’t care enough to continue.

And because blogging about blogging is a bland and boring!  Nobody believes that’s becoming of a brilliant blogger.  But that’s barely all I do.  So why bother?

Someday I’ll stick with a serious subject and share some sad or special stories.  I’m sure I’ll save myself some struggle if I stop censoring myself so severely.  See some subjects just scare me and so my system shuts down and I simply stare at the screen with a scathing scowl.   Staying in such secrecy sort of screws with my sanity and my new single subterranean domicile hasn’t assisted my stability.

Please prepare for the last paragraph of this preposterous post.  I apologize as I presume you probably pulled a pupil plowing through these painstaking pronunciations.  But if there is a plus to this piling up of P’s, it’s all part of the process of imparting inspiration and partly promising more pages to preview.

 - J

Finishing Touches

Hi Internet!

I successfully moved all my crap from one place to another with the help of some amazing humans.  Being a basement dwelling there were some logistical obstacles to negotiate.  For instance I only just got my satellite installed last weekend.  Here’s part of the phone call setting up my Direct TV:

Nice Lady – “So how soon do you need your satellite installed?  I’ll find out what dates we have available for you.” 
J – “Okay let me think.  Um, do you know when season 3 of Justified starts?”
Nice Lady – “Haha!  Yeah I think it’s the 17th.”
J – “Great, put me down for the Saturday before then.”

Internet is being set up Tuesday so pics and other apartmenty stories will come shortly after.  Seriously, I’ve been living like a caveman for almost a month.  I’m getting Verizon internet so we’ll see if it lives up to the hype.  I have greatly enjoyed all the e-mails I’ve been receiving from Verizon regarding my installation appointment.  All the e-mails.  About my internet being… installed.  We all have smart phones so it’s not really as funny as it should be, but I still find the concept amusing.  Reminds me of the time a few years ago when I called someone about my cell phone not turning on and they asked me if it was the one I was using to make the call.

Anyway, still here just crazy busy.  Happy Friday everyone.

J

‘Tis But an Update

It has been suggested I should write something and that’s true enough.  In recent months I’ve neglected to mention anything about my 5 year Newyorkiversary in September, Countdown ending at work in October, my upcoming vacation or my recent mysterious injury.  I have also not discussed politics, celebrity gossip, the Occupy Wall St movement or reality television.  But that’s because those topics all make me feel throwuppy and mad.

I will now attempt to rectify the aforementioned bloggational shortcomings before the year-end.

With regard to the injury, worry not dear reader.  No serious harm done, just a very uncomfortable few days involving my shoulder seemingly attempting to separate itself from its body.  However it should be noted for posterity that I have reached The Age of Inexplicable Ailments, whereby one can simply sleep incorrectly and injure oneself for more than just a few minutes after waking up.  Aleve’s stock has officially increased by one more surly and decrepit 30 plus.  I have humbly accepted this as my first step in becoming a lawn-defending curmudgeon.

I’ll be inflicting myself upon the Lone Star State next week which (for reasons that will blamed on the Ali’s) has been colder than New York till just recently.  Standard Christmas merriment and cheer to be had by all with the exception of holiday air travel.  Fully embracing the Christmas Spirit, each season I take a moment to pray for the person I’ll be sitting next to on the aeroplane.  I pray that any conversation had will be uplifting, I pray for their spiritual wellbeing, and I pray that they will not have small children in tow.  Or a cold they wish to share.

I think I’ll discuss the ending of Countdown and my New York City quinquennial in a separate post*.  Being that they are a tad emotional and not matching the feel of a simple status update.

Till then,

Jasonius Maximus,I, Esq.

* I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the hardworking employees at Google, Wikipedia and Mr. Webster, without whom this post would not have been possible.

I Feel All Growed Up

I live a relatively simple existence.  I do my best to maintain a drama free social circle and I have my daily/weekly/monthly routines and rarely deviate from them.  But every now and then I like to take my comfortable little life, pack it into a proverbial food processor and mix it without the lid on.

Pictured: Change

At the ripe old age of 30, I’ve decided it’s time to get my first apartment to myself in the city.  I lived on my own a few times in Texas and I loved it.  Of course I was also paying somewhere around $400 a month.  Up here roommates are more or less required if you also intend to eat regularly.

 

Through the connections of some truly wonderful people I’ve found a great Astoria studio in my price range and I’ll be moving around the first of January.  We haven’t drawn the paper work up just yet but I have verbal confirmation from the landlord and that’s enough to get me excited and to start the wheels spinning.

 

I’m really looking forward to taking a space that is singularly mine and putting my personality into it.  I’ve never looked at NYC apartments as long-term things and so I’ve never bothered accumulating much or going out of my way to decorate.  As a result I’ve always felt like I live in a dorm room.  I consider having matching furniture to be a sign of refined living.  But I’m convinced I can (and need to) do better.  Truthfully I expected to be married by now and had hoped to avoid making the really difficult life decisions like what color paint to use in a living room.  Seriously.  I see those little paint sample cards and just freeze up.

 

Fortunately I’m blessed with a lot of amazing and creative friends to help in the process.  And lord knows I’ve helped enough people move I won’t feel guilty calling in a few favors come moving day.  

 

And hey!  Blog fodder for months!!

 

- J

 

 

 

Meow Get Back to Work

Well, JaBloUpaSto went about as I anticipated.  Started off really into it, had a few weeks of fun and then it fizzled out.  Not unlike my gym habits and the reaction from most women I’ve dated.  Say la vee.

So this happened at work today while helping a co-worker who couldn’t understand an invoice:

Her – What are these numbers?
Me - Those are the disbursement lines.
Her – And those?
Me – Those are the fee lines.  The fee lines are separated by the types of work done.  The billing fee lines, of course.  Not cats.  It would be hard separating cats based on work they do.  I mean, they don’t do much so they’d all just end up in one big pile.
Her – *walks away rolling her eyes*

I continued this unfortunate train of thought all the way to its awkward caboose of an ending, whereupon in my head there was a cat wearing a tie explaining what an H-1B Visa was and what processes the government filing fees covered.

And that’s when I came to the conclusion that it was time to take a break from the LOLcats.

J

Metallica.jpg

Give me

Give me

Give me

Give me 

Oooooooh yea-heah

This one’s mostly for my brother.

I enjoyed Variations on a Famous Phrase, so here’s another one in a different style.

A Variation of a Variation of a Famous Phrase, if you will.

In case the above clues didn’t give it away, it’s “Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.”  Lyrics from the Metallica song “Fuel”.  I’m sure this song inspired many a speeding ticket since its release, as it strongly encourages life in the fast lane.   Fuel, easy enough.  Fire, sure I can find that for you Mr. Hetfield.  But that which you desire?  Well you’re not being very specific there are you?  I can only assume you intended us as the listener to fill in that particular blank for ourselves as we sing along.  So those are some of mine.

I openly admit this post would be a lot funnier if my photoshop skills were up to par and I had more time.  Perhaps I’ll add some more later.

- J

FTW??

I knew I shouldn’t have picked the busiest month of my year to attempt a writing challenge.  I blinked and missed a whole week.  But if I’m not mistaken (and I never am *), I pretty much promised I’d fail at this.

Anyway.

From an understandably confused reader of the comments:

“Please explain ‘trunk wuzzle’”.

This will come as a shock to many of you, but I’m not always up to date on the latest slang.  I fake it better than most, but more often than not I’m just hoping I’m using it right.  Basically, I wouldn’t be able to function in social settings without context clues.

Case in point – we all know what WTF stands for.  It’s a little rude, but mostly universally known.  Suddenly, some new version of it showed up on the internet.  I started seeing people proclaim “FTW!!!!”

Come to find out, it means For The Win.  For instance, let’s say I do something awesome.  You know, the usual.  I could do said awesomeness and then might shout, “Jason for the win!”

Embarrassing fact:  For the longest time I had no idea what it meant…  So I started saying fut the whuck when I was confused by something.  I knew it was wrong, but it was funny to me.

In an email chain between me and two friends I shared this story and a few other possibilities that I considered it might mean.

For the women!
Found the water!
Felt the wombat!
Fled the weather!

And my favorite…

Fugly Trunk Wuzzles!!!

I’ll leave you to Google Wuzzles.  And fugly for that matter.  If it bothers you, fuzzy is an acceptable substitute.

Some inside jokes are best left indoors.

- J

* going to admit it

A Landmark Entry

This is my 250th post!!

 

- J

Crispy Hipsters

Step 1 – Listen to Crispy Critters by C.W. McCall

Step 2 – Substitute the word “Critters” with “Hipsters”

Step 3 – Laugh till you cry

This is probably only funny to me and 4 other people on the planet, but by golly it’s worth sharing here.

- J (got the one with the silver t-shirt, you get the rest with the net)

Week One Won With a Weak One

Post five of week one.

First official crap post is…

Another haiku.

Goodnight!

J

Speak Not of thy Pied Moons

I should have said I’d update 3 times a week.  I knew I should have said 3.  It would have been easier and also given me an excuse to use the word “thrice”.  However, technically I started this on a Tuesday so this is my last day of the first week.  So I’ll need to update twice today.

I am occasionally proud of the random crap I put on here.  But during this month of frequent blogging I’ve forced upon myself I’m going to take a moment to express frustration with one post in particular.

That dang Moon Pie post.

I’m not linking too it because it gets enough attention as it is.  It got 64 hits last week.  161 the week before – 50 of which were in one day.  It’s the most frequently viewed post on my blog by hundreds.  Out of sheer bewilderment I searched Google for moon pies and I was on the second page.  Shouldn’t I be receiving some sort of advertising bonus or something by now?

It’s not like I’m cranking out Shakespeare or anything, though I never miss a chance to make up or a word.  I don’t expect any legitimate accolades or compensation for blogging*.  I’m just a bit shocked that of all posts that’s the one that gets the most hits every day.  I even started an entry with a ridiculously oversized letter once.

And of course I’m only going to make it worse by bringing it up again here.  But such is the nature of the universe (which has surprisingly comfy seats).

Anyway, long delayed rant over.  More shenanigans to follow this afternoon/evening.

- J

* However if someone wanted to hand over the keys to the universe, I’d take it out for a spin.  I’ll bring it back at a reasonable hour and park it on the right side of the street.  Promise!