9.30.2005:
12:06 AMYou know... I never really felt old until they put the 90's music channel on MusicChoice. Now, I'm officially listening to "oldies", and I actually like it.
And that is sad. But honestly, there hasn't been good music on the playlist of any public formatted radio or music station since 1997. Soooooooooooo I'm old, and I guess that's what I'll have to live with.
And now, I must end this posting, for I must go change my Depends and apply a topical hemmorhoid cream to my ANUS. And drink FiberCon or something... Whatever old people drink or eat that makes them smell like aspirin and formaldahyde all day.
Just a small note before I go: Ugly Kid Joe covering Harry Chapin's "Cat in the Cradle" was, and still is, a fucking travesty.
Just thought I'd mention that.
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9.29.2005:
12:18 AMI don't really consider myself a Road Rager. I mean, I yell and I scream at traffic when it's stupid, but that's because, well... It's stupid. If it weren't stupid, I wouldn't have to yell and scream at it, now would I? When morons cut me off, I honk. When idiots ride too close to my bumper, I tap the brakes and give them a bit of a start. I flash my brights at people who litter and I scream at dorks who brake the second a light goes from green to amber (you hear that? I called it amber. That's because it's amber, not yellow. If it were yellow, it'd be yellow. As it stands, it's amber. I don't go around calling oranges "purple" and I'm not about to start calling the amber light "yellow". Cause it's not. Okay? Okay). Overall, I'd say I'm a pretty average driver, especially in Atlanta.
But there have been times I've actually gotten mad enough to get out of my car and confront someone who's done something especially nasty or grim. I've stepped out of my car and flipped someone off for throwing a Coke bottle at a dog, and once I even hopped out of my car with the full intention of kicking a guy's ass for yelling something lewd at my sister, but because I was so mad, I accidentally left the car in gear when I went to get out and it rolled forward, causing me to trip and hit the asphalt.
The guy actually got out of his car to help me up. It's probably only because I was dressed as Santa Claus at the time and he felt guilty for asking my sister, who was dressed as an elf, to sit on his lap. And I wouldn't have even heard it if it weren't for the fact that the windows were down. And why would the windows be down during the time someone might get it in their head to dress as Santa? Well, we were on our way to make balooon animals for an orphanage's "LEON Day festival". It was apparently a huge deal with the kids, because they got presents in the middle of the summer (For those of you who may not be "In the Know" or "Hip to the groove" or whatever the cool EMO kids are saying these days, If you look closely, you'll note that LEON is "Noel" written backwards. This is because LEON day is celebrated on June 25, exactly half a year away from Christmas). So yeah, a guy who's ass I was going to kick for being rude to my sister ended up helping my jolly and bleeding self off the dirty asphalt and back into my air-conditionless car, where I then sweated another two buckets into my costume before I arrived at the orphanage. I was the worst Santa EVER.
But as bad as that was, I never actually acosted the guy, so it still can't go into the Hall o' Road Rage fame. There is only one incident in my history where I ended up attacking someone for being an idiot on the road... And I did it with a brownie.
I was on my way home from work in the middle of July, sometime in 1998 or so. I had just bought my first ever new car, a Pontiac Sunfire (shut up. No, seriously, seriously, shut it. It's NOT a chick car, okay? It happened to be a good deal and... Shut up), and was inching my way through traffic on Georgia 400 (notorious for it's half hour wait time just to get on Intersate 85 at rush hour). It wasn't too bad for me, because I thoughtfully stopped off at Chick-Fil-A before getting on the interstate to pick up a delicious frosted brownie and a large lemonade - and man, if you haven't tried this, you are seriously depriving yourself of one of life's finer experiences.
ANNNNNYWAY, I was just sitting in traffic, wasting gas and bopping along to whatever hardcore band I was into at the time as they thrashed through the CD player when this jerkoff in a Lexus about 4 cars behind me decided that he was too good for traffic and began to pull into the emergency lane to pass everyone who was doing their part and waiting paitently in line to get home.
Now, when I was a little kid riding around with my dad, anytime someone would try to bypass traffic in the emergency lane, he'd pull into it and just stop, or inch forward extremely slowly, expressly to piss them off. This is a habit I very proudly inherited from him and will continue to do until I breathe my dying breath, because any dipthong who thinks he's better than I am and attempts to get around traffic by abusing the emergency lane deserves to be held up. And yes, this means you. If you ever get it in your head to try this and someone blocks you on purpose, it's me. And don't even try to make nice with me by getting out of your car and saying "Dude! This is so cool! I totally read about you doing this on your journal! OMG LET'S BE FRIENDS ON MYSPACE!" because I will just throw something at you -- just like I did with this guy. Only he actually did something more than just get out of his car.
We were sitting there, me blocking him, him in his overpriced suit yelling and cursing at me, everyone around us giggling and giving me a thumbs up about the whole situation, when Mister Small-Down-There got the bright idea of BUMPING my car with his.
Yes. He BUMPED me, that motherfucker.
I immeidately went from "La la la, this is funny, you deserve what you get, la la la" to "KXENHBIEHIEGAAAAAAAAERRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" It was like my body had become possessed by Thrag the Traffic Viking. I immediately flung the door open and leaped out of the car. Almost immediately, this prick's face went from befuddled amusement to "OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO DIE" as I launched into a screaming fit that - I am absolutely positive - could be heard clear across the highway in the opposing lanes of traffic. I pointed at him and screamed "You're DEAD!" as I reared back with the object that happened to be in my hand at the time, and with a loud and determined grunt, I hurled it as hard as I could in his direction.
I am not proud to admit that there has been a time in my life where I was so angry, I threw a brownie at a man's car.
The brownie landed frosting-side-down on the windshield with a very unsatisfying *PAFF*. I took a moment to reflect on the situation as it began to slide slowly down the windshield of the gold Lexus PR300 (the PR stands for "Penis Replacement" because that's what gold Lexuses are), and, rather than further the wonton distruction of the dipshitmobile by lobbing my drink at it, or perhaps even the forlorn condiments I had sitting in the dash cubbiehole, I opted instead to just get back in my car, take a deep breath, and continue heading home at a snail's pace.
He decided to stay where he was at a while. Possibly to put some distance between us, but more likely to scrape my drivetime treat from his windshield.
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9.28.2005:
2:06 PM--------------------------------------------------------------
Step 1: Create Book Layout Template for Chapters and Stories
Step 2: Include Forward
Step 3: Write End of Book stuff (thanks, appendix, etc.)
Step 4: Write Beginning of Book stuff (copyright, legal info, title page, etc)
Step 5: Write Introduction & Table of Contents
Step 6: Put it all together, Print Test Copies
Step 7: Mail Test Copies to Test Readers
Step 8: Receive Test Copies, Make Edits, Include Bonus Stories
Step 9: Finalize Book - final sweep
Step 10: Print & Ship
--------------------------------------------------------------
You may notice I took Step 1 off my "done" list. This is because I didn't follow the 2nd piece of advice I gave you all about laying out a book. I've found a much much much better way to do it all, so I'm starting it over. Whee.
But I did get a lot of the beginning crap done. This Is Not Art is now an official company in the eyes of B&N and Amazon, since I got my block o' ISBN's and SAM number.
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9.27.2005:
2:02 PM--------------------------------------------------------------
Step 1: Create Book Layout Template for Chapters and Stories
Step 2: Include Forward
Step 3: Write End of Book stuff (thanks, appendix, etc.)
Step 4: Write Beginning of Book stuff (copyright, legal info, title page, etc)
Step 5: Write Introduction & Table of Contents
Step 6: Put it all together, Print Test Copies
Step 7: Mail Test Copies to Test Readers
Step 8: Receive Test Copies, Make Edits, Include Bonus Stories
Step 9: Finalize Book - final sweep
Step 10: Print & Ship
--------------------------------------------------------------
I can say the following things concerning laying out a book:
1) Thank GOD for Adobe InDesign, because Quark is an absolute peice of crap.
2) If you decide to lay out a book, read the book about doing it first. You'll save yourself a lot of time and headaches.
3) After all the hiccups and do-overs and oopses, it's actually a lot of fun to do.
and
4) Next time, I'm hiring this out.
But it IS really exciting and I'm having a good time doing it. I'm actually getting nervous... The more I put into the final book, the more interested I get in hearing feedback and wondering what people will think, which makes me nervous. All I can imagine is a bunch of people getting the book in the mail and going "Uh... I paid for THIS?!?"
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9.26.2005:
6:37 PMHave you ever had that feeling when listening to an album or reading a book or viewing a painting or (insert enjoying a form of media here) where you just wish, just for a second, that you were the one who made it?
Not that you wish you could do something LIKE it - I get that feeling all the time. I constantly daydream and wish that I was much more brilliant than I am ever capable of being and could come up with some of the things that I've seen and enjoyed.
I'm actually talking about taking a work and literally going back into time and doing it yourself from square one, then releasing it. Not for the glory of it all, but just for the knowledge that you were genius enough to come up with it yourself. You could even put it out under the original artist's name and it wouldn't matter to you at all - all you want is to know you were capable of doing something that fantastic at least once in your life?
I am listening to Pink Floyd's "Animals" right now, and that's the feeling I have about this record. I know that most Pink Floyd / classic rock chronicalists will pick "Dark Side of the Moon" or "The Wall" or "Wish You Were Here" (or, if they REALLY know what they're talking about, "Piper at the Gates of Dawn") as the greatest records in Pink Floyd's catalogue, and I agree with them. It's just that "Animals" has that... thing. I can't explain it at all and would sound like a complete buffoon if I tried. All I can say is that the coheison of this record, from beginning to end, is stunning. It plays like one piece, each individual part geniously written and performed. It speaks to me on a level that the others don't.
So there you go. If I could hijack one work created in the history of the world and do it myself, "Animals" by Pink Floyd would be it. Or maybe "De-Loused in the Comatorium" by The Mars Volta. Or "Grace" by Jeff Buckley. Or maybe the movie "Fight Club" (because - and I know I'm going to piss someone off with this statement, but I don't care, it's just a fact - the book sucked). Or perhaps the painting of the dogs playing poker... I don't know.
In fact, I'd just take everything. Because that's how much of a hack I am.
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9.23.2005:
2:37 AMI was contacted by an old friend from high school recently who found me through a search on Google. He told me he performed this search after being informed by another classmate of ours that I was writing stories on the internet and, contrary to the news of the day, I am -- in fact -- still alive.
Yep. Still alive. Which is great news, I have to say.
Apparently, there was a rumor going around that, shortly after graduation, I had died. Now, this is shocking news in and of itself. I was quite taken aback by my impromptu obituary, because as far as I have been able to tell, I've been missing out on sweet, sweet release from this mortal coil for the past 9 years or so. But more shocking than the fact that I was supposedly dead was finding out the manner in which I met my demise.
According to rumor -- and I am not kidding here, this is the way by which someone decided to start telling people I had left this mortal coil -- I fell out of the Mind Bender roller coaster at Six Flags over Georgia after removing my safety restraint and standing up in the car while in the middle of a loop-de-loop. I apparently slid past the lap rail and fell several hundred feet, where I died on impact.
I FELL? Out of a fucking ROLLER COASTER? THIS is how I died?
Come the fuck on, man... I mean, yeah, it's amusing, and it definitely sounds like something I'd do (mostly because I had a season pass to Six Flags for a few years while in high school and did this all the freakin' time). But how fair is it to spread rumors about someone that they died on an amusment park ride?
I mean, wouldn't that make the papers? Surely my death would have been at least somewhat newsworthy -- not by virtue of the fact that it was me, but because someone sliding from the car of a roller coaster at Georgia's largest amusement park would have caused the reporters in our area to salivate uncontrollably.
Wait.
Maybe I AM dead.
Maybe I'm imagining all of this, trying my best to cope with the fact that I'm stuck in some sort of internet-enabled purgatory. And all of the goofy crap that happens to me is just God and the Devil having fun taking turns at the "Joe Dial" all day. That's gotta be it... That's the ONLY explination for the reason people keep coming up to me and singing Hendrix tunes, thinking they're so friggin clever! And that fucking "Hi, My name is Joe, I have a wife and 3 kids and I work in a button factory" song... The mere fact that it exists is proof that I'm at least headed to hell.
Nah. That's silly.
But I will say that I'm flattered that this particular individual was so moved by the news of my persistant mortal state that he felt compelled to email me. You're a good man, Charlie Brown (not his real name, but he knows what it means, and he'll probably hunt me down and kill me now, thus sparking NEW news for people to discuss at the next reunion that, even if I was alive, I wouldn't go to, because reunions exist for the sole purpose of proving to everyone you knew that you aren't nearly as pathetic as they all thought you would be, and I am. So there's no use in going).
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9.21.2005:
10:25 PMThis song smells like fall to me
I can feel the cool autumn breeze in the bright ring of the strumming of the opening chords
The fallen leaves are swept up and dance right through me
And I can smell the coming winter on the wind
I'm whirred around
I spin with my arms out and my eyes closed and a smile on my face until I fall to the ground
All without even leaving my chair
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9.19.2005:
8:54 PMStep 1: Create Book Layout Template for Chapters and Stories
Step 2: Include Forward
Step 3: Write End of Book stuff (thanks, appendix, etc.)
Step 4: Write Beginning of Book stuff (copyright, legal info, title page, etc)
Step 5: Write Introduction & Table of Contents
Step 6: Put it all together, Print Test Copies
Step 7: Mail Test Copies to Test Readers
Step 8: Receive Test Copies, Make Edits, Include Bonus Stories
Step 9: Finalize Book - final sweep
Step 10: Print & Ship
Above is the 10 step process I have to follow to finish the book and get it out the door. I'll be updating this blog as I finish each step in the process, including whatever notes are included in the process. Fun crap, eh?
I won't be including the website template for MI2 or any of the sales / marketing crap here, mostly because I don't yet know what I'm going to do for all of that. But when I do, you better believe I'll bore the living crap out of you with it!
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9.12.2005:
Re: ---
11:09 AMYou look MAHHHVALOUS
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