A Bit More Optimistic

Today was a pretty rough day.

I was planning to film a sketch that I’m very proud of with two of my friends, but we got rained out for hours and had to reschedule for another weekend.

I didn’t stick to any of my writing goals today at ALL.

Instead I played Halo Wars until I beat it and was extremely disappointed in it.

Then I lost a cage match show at Coldtowne.

I didn’t feel that we lost because we didn’t have enough friends in the audience voting for us.

I feel that we lost because we didn’t give a strong performance, which made me feel even worse than I was feeling already.

And to top it off, I felt weird around three of my closest friends after the show.

So I finally called the day quits and decided to head home and do one of two things:

1. Vent all my frustrations into a notebook.

2. Watch a movie and try to shut my brain off for a bit.

 

I got in the door, and I noticed a tiny blue Risk 2210 game piece in the corner of my dining room on the floor.

Because of the dramatic and depressed mood I was in, I thought “Dammit, now I have to go find the game, open the huge box, lift up all the papers and boards and put this one tiny piece in. Then I have to replace everything and put the box back up. What a fucking hassle! (mental groan).”

 

So I got the game box and set it on the arm of the couch. I lifted the box lid off the huge box and as the lid finally slipped off, the ENTIRE BOX went ass-over-teakettle bouncing off the couch and onto the floor.

It landed completely upside down.

All of the pieces exploded over my couch cushions, flew under my couch and coffee table, and scattered on my floor.

 

I could have thought “This is the last fucking straw!” or “Seriously?! Can’t one thing go right today?!”

Instead I actually laughed out loud and thought “Perfect. Now I have a mindless manual task I can do while I reset my brain. This is perfect timing for a mess to clean up.”

 

So I happily picked up every single one of the FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE little game pieces, as well as the dice, chips, and huge deck of cards.

And when I was finished, I felt much better!

 

You view life the way you choose to, every minute of every day.

I’m choosing to let this ridiculously-timed, clumsy accident be a good slap in my mental face.

I’m choosing to be more optimistic starting now.

it'll be a cold day in hell...

All of my improbable wishes have come true, ever since that swine flew...

Sunflower Oil Is Better For You

So here’s a thought I just had.

We as Americans feel guilty about being fat.

And while a lot of us are overweight, I’m not, and I’m still forced to feel bad.

BUT, the way things are going, we’re starting to trick ourselves into thinking things are good for us, instead of just accepting that not everything has to be good for us, and we can and should actually decide to be healthy.

 

Here’s my example: I purchased a lunch from panera today. The sandwich was great, the pickle was good. And it came with a small bag of potato chips. I also bought some apples, and I thought I’d eat an apple instead of the chips, but then I saw the bag and it says “honestly delicious---natural---cooked in 100%sunflower oil” and I immediately thought. “oh, it’s just fine to eat.” I know NOTHING about sunflower oil! Only that is sounds prettier than other oils. Advertising is so sneaky! They’re just kettle chips! Potatoes cut into thin pieces and deep fried in oil, then topped with salt. They aren’t GOOD for me even with three absolutely natural ingredients: oil, potatoes, salt. But they are delicious, and I did just buy a lot of apples, and wait a minute- why the hell should I care anyway? Who the fuck has warped my brain into thinking this way? It makes me feel like a wuss. Advertising and media have turned me into this second-guessing-21^st-century-pansy-just-health-conscious-but-not-health-crazy-and-who-made-up-these-labels-anyway-for-me-to-stick-on-my-forhead-so-they-can-stick-me-in-an-easy-demographic-group-those-ASSHOLES!

 

Maybe I should start eating raw steaks that I cook with bullets.

Then people won’t say

“Oh, there’s Jon Clinkenbeard. He looks like he’s taking good care of himself.”

 

They’ll say

“WHAT do you MEAN you haven’t heard of Jon Clinkenbeard!?! He eats raw steaks that he shoots all to hell with a fucking .44 magnum, just to warm it up first!”

 

Here’s an idea: why don’t we all enjoy life a little more and not let media dictate how we feel and think about ourselves?

Seriously. Be conscious of your thoughts. It’s so easy for us to fall into a trap of thinking things that we’ve heard.

That’s why there’s always that one guy at a party whose friends all tell him he’s funny because he constantly quotes funny movies.

You know what happens to that guy? One night, he tries to be funny on his own.

He thinks “I’ve seen enough funny movies. I’m sure that makes me funny! Now it’s my time to shine. Tell em a joke Derek!”

All of you will have been talking all night about what a horrible human being he is

And then he will turn to you and your friends and ask “do you wanna hear a joke?”

 

Your wise friend will say “no” and walk away.

You and your morbidly curious friend will both say “absolutely” and lean forward in your chairs, expecting the verbal equivalent of a bad movie.

And he will tell you a joke that everyone’s heard before, only he will add details that detract from the story, he will use dialogue that exemplifies his lack of formal education, and he will butcher the punchline so horribly that you won’t even recognize the story is over when it’s over and he’s waiting expectantly for you to laugh your head off. The worst part about the realization you will have, is that he didn’t fuck it up because he’s drunk. It’s because he’s an idiot, incapable of a single original idea.

And it’s not a funny thought for you to have.

It’s a sad thought.

It’s a “what happens to make people like this?” thought.

It’s a “he’ll never ever amount to anything or add anything of value to the human race” thought.

 

That man’s brain has turned into a sponge, unable to generate even the one thing which makes him happy. We’re all unique. We all have something to add. We need to think for ourselves and be true to our passions.

Everything else is just a distraction.

 

I’m going to start by helping my friends.

I’m going to go buy a big bar of chocolate and find three people who are close to me to share it with.

And if I even hear ONE word about how they aren’t supposed to be eating chocolate, or how they’re being “bad,” I’m going to slap them in the mouth. HARD. I’m going to tell them to enjoy having a friend who buys them chocolate and better yet, to enjoy the fact that chocolate exists so that we don’t have to eat cold tofu morning, noon, and night.

The Birds, Starring Rob Zombie

Ok.

I just saw the birds recently.

Why hasn’t anyone remade this yet???

Ok, picture this: rob zombie is putting on a concert.

Then birds start attacking, and the crowd is all scream-city and the audience is like “why are those birds attacking?”

And then rob zombie is like “follow me.”

And this cute girl, and her geeky little brother are all like “I guess we have no choice.” So they follow him into the secret concert-tunnel.

And he has a candle and he’s like “I’ve dealt with this before.”

And the geeky kid’s like “whatever.”

And rob zombie hits him up against the wall and he’s like “you think this is a game?”

And the kid’s like krap-his-pants-city.

So the girl says “what do we do now?”

And rob zombie cocks his shotgun and says “we pray,” but really he has a plan in mind that we will see later.

So the birds are all like pecking people’s eyes one minute and all chillaxin on the rooftops the next minute.

So people don’t know whether to freak out or not, so they freak out and some guy’s like a hero or something and he’s like “everyone be cool.”

And then he walks outside to test the birds, but it was totally a trap and they’re all like peck-city on his face.

Then rob zombie shows up, and people are like “mr. zombie, what do we do?”

And he’s like “we have to set off the bomb.”

The audience at this point is like “(gasp) what next?!”

So he tells them about this secret bomb that was put in place by an ancient civilization a long time ago in the past, 

and the girl’s like “how will we get to the lost city of the birds in Cairo?” 

(Cairo’s a real ancient city of the dead in Egypt with pyramids and shit, so people will be like “I’ve heard of that place. This is a good movie.”)

And the geeky kid brother suddenly remembers that he knows all about the ancient Romans, so he offers to take them there.

They take a boat, and have to use an anti-aircraft laser gun that they stole off a battleship in order to take out the birds who are attacking them on the way.

So they get to Cairo and everything seems real chillax, until they see this big swarm of birds in the sky like a thundercloud, 

and the laser gun jams and the birds swoop down like they’re going to attack, but then instead, they form up into one giant werewolf-bird, 

who swipes at them with his claws, which are made of bird beaks.

And rob zombie’s like “get outta here!” to the other two, and the girl kisses him. French-style.

Then she runs off and rob zombie has to shake his head a bit because it was such a good kiss, and he pulls out his axe, which turns out to be a real axe too!

The werewolf-bird hits him a lot and he’s really beat up, but then when rob zombie is all on the ground and he’s like totally toast that’s done for, 

we hear his song “more human than human” play and he turns to the werewolf-bird and his eyes are all lit up and blue 

and the audience is like “holy sh*t, what the F*ck, this is so awesome! I’m gonna tell everyone to come see this movie!”

So the big werewolf-bird swipes for a finishing blow, but rob zombie catches the bird-beak-paw in his hand and says “I don’t think so.”

And then he axes the head of the thing and it flies into a million birds, and they all explode red guts everywhere like rain.

Then he gets the other two and the girl’s like “what was that?” and he’s like “it’s a long story” and they go to the secret underground bird mummy tomb.

They make their way through a series of traps and the geeky kid almost eats it a couple of times, 

but then they get to this big wall with hiero-hero-hiro- with ancient Egyptian picture-words all over it, and the geeky kid’s like “I can read this.”

And he reads it and as he says things, a button comes out from the wall, that just looked like the eye of a cat before 

and rob zombie presses it and there’s this red shockwave that goes around the world, and we see everyone in a montage like “whoa.”

Then all the birds in the world are dead.

We see rob zombie and the girl making out, and we fade to a nest with three eggs in it, and one of the eggs starts moving a little, 

and then it cracks a little and the audience is like “oh no a baby bird! I’m seeing the sequel so HARD!” And then rob-zombie-music-credits!

 

(a tribute to Erik Blevins/Patton Oswalt)

you need more growth solution

If you’re a scientist, you need more shrinking solution than you do growing solution.

If you want to shrink an elephant, you have to cover the entire elephant in the solution to start it shrinking.

I’m sure having a vat of solution you can dip something into would help.

Then there’s the question of how the formula would work.

It could work as a constant as far as shrinking percentage goes.

That would be best as it wouldn’t involve anyone or anything shrinking out of existence.

You could infinitely apply it to someone and they would never disappear, they would just get smaller and smaller.

Unless there’s some kind of smallest matter rule, where they basically turn into an atom, then a proton, then a quark or gluon. 

I think turning into a gluon would count as not existing, at least from a quality of life perspective.

It isn’t as versatile as a time-solution though.

Where you can dip someone or something for a set period of time and they will shrink at a constant rate. 

That would mean you could use the same vat for any shrinking problem you need solved. This would also let you solve any “other” problems you have. Just drop anything into the vat and ta-da, it’s gone. 

Sometimes magic tricks are done with science.

However, if you shrink anyone unconscious, it’s not like they’ll be able to reverse the process.

They could still be saved by someone though. Either before the shrinking finishes, or afterwards with a microscope and a bit of growing solution.

Which brings me to my next point: you need very little growth solution.

It would still be a good idea to have the vat, for safety reasons.

Anything that grows large will need a good safe place to grow large.

A big vat’s a pretty good solution.

Now on this one, I actually think I would prefer to have a time solution.

It makes the most sense.

Well, unless someone can only grow so big before they explode, or the rules of nature cause the person to collapse in on themselves like a neutron star.

But barring that, it makes sense to have a timed solution.

Wait.

Maybe not.

If the solution has to be covering the entire surface, a salve might make more sense.

If it’s a time salve, you’ll have to keep reapplying, but if it’s a percentage salve, you can get the right percentage right off with one application.

 

I haven’t even raised the question of having an injectable solution.

I imagine this would be a certain percentage solution both ways, although, you could have a time-release solution, which in point of fact, is technically just a percentage solution.

I would treat it like a poison, so that whenever you make a solution, you make an anti-solution that will return you to your body status quo.

Injecting someone with a growing solution so that they’ll explode is a HORRIBLE way to get rid of them. I can’t stress this enough. Most likely they will do a lot of damage before they go, and the only way it would work is if you were stabbing them in the back and they were unaware that they were going to grow more than they were planning. EVEN THEN, when they figured it out, you’d be in trouble boy howdy!

Although if you were going to plan a lot of back stabbing, having injectable solutions is the way to go, because who’s to say what’s in the serum? You are, that’s who.

This might make you think that this is grounds for making some sort of unique characteristic for your solution, like a solution that glows.

Let me tell you the fault with that horrible plan.

You will begin to trust the solution without verifying because of that characteristic.

Which, if replicated, say with a broken glow stick in a hypodermic (which would absolutely kill you), you will be more apt to trust that it is the correct solution.

No my friend, the best solution is to make it look like water so you absolutely have to be certain that it’s the real deal.

I suppose if you have injectable solutions, you could have equal proportions of each. 

Although technically you will need higher parts per million for the growth solution, coupled with a time release mechanism so that when you start growing, the new tissue that is created will receive new growth solution. 

Would the same be true with shrinking solution? No, it would not. Because your tissue would all be soaked at the top and no new tissue would be created.

Although if no tissue was created during the growth process from an injectable solution, and your tissue was soaked from the top, you wouldn’t need more.

That’s probably the only argument for not needing more growth solution than shrinking solution.

Distracted

I’m going to try just putting words down and see what happens.

And I’ll try not to be distracted by my friends texting me or by terminator: the sarah connor chronicles, which is only on so that I won’t miss the beginning of dollhouse while I type this. Btw, dollhouse better not completely suck tonight. Last week was great FINALLY.

I feel weird about online things now.

Ever since watching that twitter video. It’s like twitter and blogs don’t really create a community, they just create more places for people to spew their thoughts about whatever. I suppose that’s fine, but there’s something to be said about the effort that goes into writing a novel or screenplay or sketch, or short story.

I suppose a coherent blog can be similar to a short story, or more accurately, a poem.

It can develop a rhythm an overall theme.

But it seems like there’s a question of attention span floating around, or skill, or what not. For heaven’s sakes, I keep looking up as I’m typing to see what’s happening in a show I don’t even care about, and I’m not losing my train of thought because I’m so used to doing it.

Hat happens when we become so adept at multi-tasking? What would other species think of us? Are they even better and faster? Can they process an unfathomable number of things at once, or do they know the value of fully exploring one thing at a time.

Maybe I’ll write a short story about it and find out.

That’s the best way to do it.

I like starting to write and then just channeling whatever comes my way. Moving things forward naturally.

I’m not sure if that’s the “correct” way to write or not, but I like it.

And I get to add my own connections and spiderweb threads throughout the writing.

It’s strange to think about that, considering that it all flows from my brain.

Ooh…

Dollhouse is already good.

I should probably go and try to focus completely on something I enjoy.

insomnia ramblings

It’s 12:27  and I’m trying to think of what to write.

I’m not in the mood for short stories, and I feel more like reading.

Hopefully this little blog will feel like a combination of both.

I don’t know why it would… unless I reread what I’ve written.

I’m listening to Gymnopedie 1 by Erik Satie.

http://songza.com/z/ylt15b

 

I wish I had larger speakers. I also I wish I had an lp player to play this and some other classical works.

I could open up my windows and play it. Some times it’s ok to be “that guy.” If I’m the “guy that always plays classical music with his windows open,” I can absolutely live with that. I love how classical music changes with you depending on your mood. I feel very thoughtful, but listening to Schubert’s Ave Maria (which is actually a different song, but known as Ave Maria), I could be contemplative, sad, or content, and it would enhance any of those feelings.

 

One of my landlords in Chicago used to play piano every once in a while during the summer. It was nice to come home to. Maybe that’s just the pretentious side in me, the immodest intellectual.

Which leads to my snobby side. And I’m VERY judgmental about classical music, the tempo, instruments, musician’s interpretation, etc. I’ll tell you what though, Ave Maria isn’t Christmas music. I found it on two separate Christmas collections while searching. No sir.

 

Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole. The end. Oh, and those starbucks cds you can buy with Christmas music that’s new and improved. They took all the old songs we love and jazzed em up and made them BETTER. I seem very bitter for some reason. I could care less I suppose, I still listen to the music I want. I guess it just grosses me out that people like stuff that I hate. I’m sure that’s the same with everyone. Even people open-minded enough not to make a face when someone says “yeah, I like the Jonas brothers. They’re really talented for being so young.” I always make a face. Like when Calvin’s dad is trying to take a Christmas photo of him. Anyone who gets that reference must have had at least a decent childhood. If you had Calvin and Hobbes to escape to, things couldn’t be all that bad, right?

i'm going to go read a short story and do some self-hypnosis.

 This was certainly a short and strange blog… but good for me to get in the habit of doing this regularly. Like the old saying, "practice makes you better at whatever you're practicing at."