The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.: 11.2006

11.27.2006:

9:41 PM

Just a teeny, tiny little piece of advice for you folks:

The folks at Wal-Mart don't care if you're filming a tv show or not - they absolutely WILL pull you aside and make your life hell if you buy sudafed, mason jars, tubing, buckets, drain-o, and paint thinner all at one time.

Just... Trust me on this.

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11.24.2006:

2:06 PM

Bill and I are writing up some episodes today that we will begin shooting on Monday.

I mention this because, well... I'm working on my tv show. The one I always wanted. The one that, when I wished for it and a pony, my parents' would always answer with "No, and you can't have a pony, either."

It's just a surreal experience to be sitting here working on that thing you never ever thought you'd ever get the chance to work on and have it succeed (because let's face it, I could have worked on it anytime I wanted - it's the whole "it's going to be broadcasted!!!" thing that makes this dream worth having, right).

So I thought I'd blog about it.

Bloggy blog blog.

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11.23.2006:

8:00 PM

I hope it's evident that my whining earlier today was mostly about how stupid it is to get upset over changes in tradition. If it's not... Well, I'm really sorry about that, mom.

In other news, my sister makes a killer pumpkin pie.

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1:32 PM

Today has been pretty much a total failure thus far.

First off: What the fuck kind of Thanksgiving is it if I can't watch football?

I mean, really?

I'm not the biggest football fan ever, but I enjoy the game quite a lot - and doubly so on Thanksgiving, since, like, they don't show much else on Thanksgiving except marathons, parades and the Lions and Cowboys. And I've spent nearly 29 years learning how to accept this fact. So, on that day I've come to look forward to because of turkey and gravy and ham and stuffing (all things I've learned to look forward to due to the fact that I have been conditioned to look forward to them), I also look forward to pigskin. And football. And this year, we're doing Thanksgiving at my sister's house (very very gracious of her to have it here - it's a beautiful house, and really, my parents' have done it for so long they need a break).

It's just that...

I dunno. I don't begrudge my sister at ALL for not putting football on the television by default. She chose a very classy and good jazz channel on the Sirius music channels on Dish Network to play. Very non-partisan, very equal-access. You don't have to like jazz to tolerate its presence (very much unlike football, where a lack of total and complete understanding about what's going on - every rule, every formation, ever team, every player and every square yard of field - renders the game unwatchable). And I actually DO like jazz.

But When my dad was in control and we had Thanksgiving at his house, football was on the TV in the living room no matter what; no matter who liked it or didn't; no matter if there was a national emergency or not. Fire could be pouring from the sky and Satan could be beginning his seven years of terror and reign over all the Earth and my father would stand up, point at him menacingly, and tell him to "knock that shit off until the game is over, will ya?"

Anyway. It's very jarring to be denied your conditioned traditions.

The other failure is that, before the game, I had planned to do something I've always, ALWAYS wanted to do.

Every year on Thanksgiving, my wife walks the Atlanta half marathon with her mother (she's run the full marathon as well, when her mom wasn't able to do the walk... Andrea loves to run. I don't understand it myself - man invented the wheel for a reason, I believe, and to run 26.2 miles in one setting without either a tiger chasing you or a message in your hand that absolutely MUST get to Caesar just doesn't make sense). Every year, I go and I support them with cheers and food.

Two years ago, I saw a group of cyclists riding through the city as I assisted Andrea. It occured to me - Thanksgiving is the ONLY day each year you can ride through the major streets of the city of Atlanta with absolutely no worry of being slammed into by a H3. I figured "Next year, I'll go and do that! It seems fun!"

That next year (last year to those of you non-timetravellers reading this now), my mother-in-law couldn't do the half, so Andrea ran the full. She needed full-time water and food support, and Andrea's mom wanted to be with me when I helped. Since I have a moral objection to putting her on the handlebars of my bike - not because it's unsafe, but because I really just don't want to stare at my mother-in-law's butt while pedaling my bike), I couldn't do the bike thing.

SO this year, I decided it was the year. I packed my bike, I got my clothing prepped last night, I made sure to include all of my gear - helmet, leggings, shorts, jersey, shoes, water bottle, food - and I went to bed. When I woke up, I realized that our alarm had never sounded and we were about 30 minutes late meeting the Team in Training group that Andrea and her mom were doing the half marathon with.

So, they darted out the door without me to make it as quickly as they could. I figured I'd get up, get out to the truck, and make my way to downtown and begin riding around like I'd always wanted... Except that Andrea was in such a hurry, she didn't have a chance to bottle-feed this kitten she's fostering, so it fell on me. Which I didn't mind - it's a sweet, sweet kitten. It likes to nuzzle up to the nape of your neck and purr and sleep and basically numb your brain to the point where you cannot help but take a little nap with it.

Which is what I did instead of riding my bike around the city. Because I am a total wuss.

I am a weak-willed big-hearted kitten-nuzzling footballless loser.

And now it's time to eat the turkey.

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11.19.2006:

8:36 PM

One of our stupid, stupid cats jumped into the toilet today.

The great thing is, it waited until the precise moment between ending the evacuation of the bladder and flushing the toilet make it's move.

I had to give it a bath, and once I was done, I figured "Hey, my wife would love to see this."

So I went looking for my phone. I went for my dresser - no phone. I went out to my truck - no phone. I went to the kitchen counter - no phone.

And then it hit me.

I opened the washer and pulled out the sweatshirt I had worn to the gym. In the little kangaroo pocket?

My phone.

Also, the Falcons lost.

So yeah, that was my day.

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11.16.2006:

2:35 PM

As a larger person, I have a pretty special relationship with the laws of Newtonian Physics. You skinny folks... You will never know the bond that large people share with Newton and his rules.

Take, for instance, this morning's events. I was headed down the stairs in my house when one of our cats decided it wanted to rub against my leg. I felt something fuzzy underneath my bare foot as I stepped down, and knowing that the little fuzzy thing would have quickly become a little fuzzy and squishy thing had I kept going, I immediately shifted my weight on my forward foot. I kicked out hard and quick - which led me to take three steps at once as I came flying down onto the entry foyer.

This is where I was able to prove that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, as I had absolutely NO backwards leverage with which to stop myself.

I ended up flying forward about three large steps as I tried to regain my balance. Unfortunately, the frame for the doorway into my library / sitting room is only two large steps from the landing of the stairs - which is where I was able to prove that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Action: I performed a full-speed Goldberg-style "spear" move into the door frame.

Equal and opposite reaction: I now have a saucer-sized bruise on my right shoulder and a broken door frame. I also have a very cranky wife, whom I woke by shaking the entire upstairs with my strange-yet-powerful maneuver.

You skinny people... You probably can't relate to this little sitaution. If it were you who stumbled down the stairs and basically sprinted shoulder-first into a door frame, you'd just bounce off and feel a bit of pain. But us behemoth-types, we know what it's like to collide against immovable objects and... well... move them. We don't bounce. We kinda smash through things.

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11.12.2006:

5:17 PM

Is it stupid to be excited over new products for daily hygene and such?

I just bought a new razor and a new brand of deodorant, and I'm actually genuinely excited to use them. I've always been this way, actually... Ever since my dad bought me my first razor. I pestered him for WEEKS when I was 14 to let me start shaving.

"Why on earth do you want to do that?" He asked.

"Because, I need to," I answered.

He took a good look at my face - I mean a REALLY good look... Like he was trying to prove a point. "You mean this fuzz here on your lip?" He asked.

I nodded.

"Bah," he said, "You don't need a razor... All you need is a kitten and a little fresh cream. It'll lick that right off."

I didn't really find that very funny, but he did have a point. I really didn't NEED to shave... I just wanted to. So, after a little more talking, he took me to Revco and walked me down the self care asile, where he bought me a bag of Bic razors and some shaving soap.

Yep, shave soap. He won't use shaving cream in a can or the fancy gel's they have now - he only uses saving soap, applied with an old-fashioned lather brush. He also only uses a straight razor - like the old style whet-block-sharpened fold-out straight razors. But neither he nor I believed I could handle one of those without lopping off my nose - and stupid and noseless is no way to go through life. So Bic razors it was.

It didn't take long to shave my face completely clean, seeing as how I had all of seven dark hairs scattered around in various places on my face. But I did it anyway. And then I did it again the next day, and the next day... I felt like a man. It was exciting. And it continued to be exciting for almost a whole week.

On Friday morning, I forgot to shave - as I did Saturday, Sunday, and the following 156 weeks until I was about 17 or so. And when I went to go shave again, I couldn't find the shaving soap and Bic razors my dad bought two years prior. By that time, I was buying my own groceries and such (mostly because my family was going through rough times, but also because - at that early age - i'd already become a picky pain in the ass when it came to what I ate and the things I wanted). And at that point, cool things like "Shave Gel" and "Ultra Dual Action Blade" razors were out.

To a kid heavily affected by how technologically advanced simple things could get, this was a godsend.

These days, there's so much Advanced Action going into simple products like soap and toothpaste that every trip down the cosmetics asile is an adventure. I just got back from the store where I bought a new, six-bladed razor that has a battery in it so it can vibrate and stimulate your face or something. I have a stick of deodorant with a colored stripe down the center. I have shampoo that tingles. I have soap that starts as a liquid and quickly turns to foam.

I actively love using these products. I genuinely, passioniately enjoy the process of being hygenic. It's COOL.

It may also be stupid. And I'm not sure about that part. But it definitely is cool.

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2:06 PM

Okay, I owe all my LiveJournal subscribers an apology.

I just switched from Blogger to the new version, Google Blogger. Apparently, when I did, it republished everything.

And I mean EVERYTHING.

But I didn't realize it updated my RSS feed with every single article I've written ever, and when the LJ feed picked it up, it pretty much flooded your friends page.

And I am very sorry. Please don't hate me.

Or, if you do hate me, please write publically about it so that more people will hear about me.

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1:19 AM

What in the holy fucking hell is wrong with people?!?

WHO THE HELL WOULD PAY $30,750.00 FOR SPEAKER CABLE???

We are talking about the price of a very, very nice car here - an amount greater than the average income of American citizens and greater than the GNP of half of Africa.

FOR SPEAKER CABLE.

I found out about the absolutely insane prices these morons known as "audiophiles" are willing to pay from this site. I will warn you, before you go... Get drunk. Or take some sort of tranquilizer.

Because you're going to be absolutely infuriated with yourself for not thinking of half this shit first and becoming insanely rich.

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11.09.2006:

12:47 AM

You ever miss something you never had?

Like... When you think back on it, you always think of it in luminous ways... Warm and welcoming; like home in the wintertime. You remember the way you felt and the things you thought about it back when you thought you had it, and you smile because it felt magnificient.

And then you really, really think about it... And you realize that, back then, you were naive... Or deceived... Or merely wrong. You never had it. It was never yours.

And for some reason, you simply cannot make sense of that fact? You can't accept that simple truth? You persist in remembering the good times, the great feelings and the happy thoughts; you keep that candle alight and focus on the simple beauty of the light it gives and the way it warms your mind and your heart. The logic is there, but the thought simply will not take form.

Your heart won't let your mind make that kind of distinction. It's not a conflict - it's more like someone speaking a foreign language on the other side of the train of thought you're on. It just doesn't register.

And then you wonder... Does it really matter if you had a poor perception of things back then? Does it matter if you were naive, or deceived, or even just wrong? Isn't what matters the fact that you took something wonderful away from the experience of being where you thought you were and having what you thought you had?

You don't?

Yeah... Me neither.

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11.01.2006:

2:14 AM

For those of you interested in the tv show Bill and I are working on, he's been posting quite a bit about it on his blog, showing a few teaser pics that I haven't shown yet.

He's a jerk, cause he's stealing all my thundery stuff.

If you don't feel like checking his lame blog out (and would rather get all your information from THIS lame blog), here's a pic from another day of shooting: