The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.: 10.2008

10.29.2008:

Now THIS is eatin'

4:20 PM

One tricked out sandwich!!

turkey, roast beast, ham, goat cheese and raspberry preserves. MMMMMM

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10.18.2008:

Motivation... What a tricky thing

10:05 PM

It's safe to say that the past few weeks have been rather demotivating.

I have been looking for ways to break out of that funk, to no avail. And then today, I got an email notifying me that the Georgia Force tryouts are going to be November 22nd.

I was really happy to see this email. I thought the Force had decided not to hold tryouts, which made my whole Could I Have Made It thing pretty damn useless. I actually gave up on it, since I figured "What's the use anyway?" I already missed the tryouts in Florida (both Orlando and Tampa Bay), so what's the point?

So yeah, like I said, I was pleased to get this message. I really need something positive to focus on right now, and this tryout is just the ticket. I've trained for over a year and a half for this, and I'm ready for it. Even if I don't make the team, I'm ready to go out and put it all on the line for a chance to try.

So, starting tomorrow, I'll be updating the tryout site again. I've been working out (6 days a week, just no football-specific stuff the past month or so), so it's not like I have to start over or anything. I just have to post my updates and make more stupid videos.

This will be fun.

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10.16.2008:

A strange way to conduct an experiment...

12:57 PM

Since the theft of my truck from my FREAKIN' DRIVEWAY!!!! on Sunday, I've been unknowingly conducting an experiment.

Usually, when I work (or when I'm not working, or when I'm thinking about working or not working, or basically 24 hours a day) I have music playing. I cannot live without music. Music is my blood. Music carries oxygen and Doritos dust to my brain. If my house caught on fire, and I could only save one thing, I'd probably be listening to music while I saved that one thing.

So yeah, music.

Anyway, since Monday morning, I've been working in total silence. I didn't even realize it until literally 10 minutes ago. I haven't been watching CNN, I haven't been listening to music, I haven't had anything on that might drown out the sound of some sneaky masked thieves creeping down my driveway and stealing my FREAKIN' TRUCK FROM MY FREAKIN' DRIVEWAY again.

Those motherfuckers.

So yeah, all week this week, I've been drawing pretty pictures and writing code and emails to the sound of the ceiling fan, and not much more... And I've also noticed this week, I've been quite a bit more productive.

I don't know if it's the fact that I have no music (and thus no distractions), or if it's that I want to just focus on work so I don't think about FREAKIN' THIEVES and the violation of my little sanctuary back here. But productivity has abounded, and how.

So now that I'm 100% conscious of the fact that I'm not playing music, I'm going to attempt to work the rest of the day without it, and see if the awareness of lack of music does anything to screw with this seemingly harmonious state I've developed for myself. I am going to focus solely on the work itself, not allowing my mind to realize that all I can hear is wind and some electric buzzing from above. I'm going to see if this lack of... Um... Arranged noises, or whatever it's called, makes me more creative.

I can feel myself straining to find... Um... That thing that means a collection of letters that expresses ideas. For writing.

Yeah.

Screw this. Pantera ahoy!

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10.13.2008:

The theft and recovery of my truck

4:25 AM

The San Diego Chargers had just beaten the New England Patriots, and Mike headed off to go home. I was watching the post-game show. Not ten seconds had passed since the front door slammed closed when Mike called my cellphone.

"What," I said, annoyed.

"Uh... Where's your truck?" He asked.

"What do you mean, where's my truck?" I asked back.

"Your truck... It's not here, dude."

"You're kidding..."

"No, seriously," he replied. "Get out here."

I ran downstairs and sure enough, there was a void in my driveway where my truck once was. I panicked for a minute, looked around to see if the perps were hiding in the bushes laughing at me, and finally decided that yes, the truck was seriously stolen and I needed to call the police. So I did, and filed the necessary reports about both my missing truck and my wife's missing iPod (they rummaged through her car - which is where the found the keys to my truck, which were left in her center console).

I woke Andrea and we talked about the situation. Not an hour had passed when the police called to let me know they found my truck. I asked where, and he said he shouldn't tell me.

"Come on, dude, I'm not going to go out there," I lied.

"Well, it was on [a road very near my house]. The officer just called it in and is waiting for backup, in case the perps are still in the area - especially consiering that you had a knife and a Mag Lite in the vehicle."

So, we knew we had a small window with which to find the police cars and follow them back to my truck. We hopped in Mike's car and headed out, searching all of the neighborhoods and apartment complexes up the main road from my house, when we spotted a police car turning into a newly-developed subdivision which isn't completed yet.

This video picks up from that moment. It's long, so feel free to skip ahead - I am very tired and didn't bother to do much editing:

And here are some pics I took after I got the keys and came back to take the truck home, just in case you don't feel like watching the video:

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Found the Truck...

2:13 AM

Found the truck...

I have video of the search, and the find. I'll upload it in a bit.

It's a mess.

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10.11.2008:

I have to stop. THIS has to stop.

12:12 PM

(This is not a political post. This is my recounting my media intake this week. So hush.)

The G7 and G20 are meeting in DC this weekend to discuss a massive overhaul of banking and lending institutions - worldwide. The Dow has lost any and all value it has built since 1995. One presidential candidate, in an effort to turn his slumping poll numbers around, has sufficiently convinced his predominantly-white, predominantly-uneducated base that Obama is an Arab terrorist hell-bent on destroying our nation - and is now backtracking due to realizing the tiger he has let out of his cage (and by the way, he's part of the only ticket in history where both candidates have been found to have violated ethics standards before a national election).

We have United States Army troops deployed - not stationed, DEPLOYED - for operations on US Soil for the first time since the Civil War, actively spitting in the face of the Posse Comitatius act. The president has now, in his sole possession and at his sole discretionary spending, 100 billion dollars from the 810 billion dollar bailout passed last week.

I can't keep watching this shit. I can't keep reading it. I seriously have to get away from it. It's driving me up the wall. I should probably cancel DirecTV, disconnect from the internet, and go play football all day for the next 3 months, hoping my way of life doesn't change and everything will be alright.

But I can't do that. I SHOULDN'T do that. That's a horrible thing to do. In fact, it's utterly unpatriotic.

I am a patriot. Not a "Patriot" but a patriot. I don't need my news programming to be wrapped in red, white and blue with pundits yelling at me all day to tell me how much I love my country. I don't need to wear American flag underwear or adhere to the nonsense jingoistic bullshit that has somehow replaced true, honest to God concern and love for this nation and the document which founded it, our Constitution.

I actively hate everything that's taking place right now. I hate the idea that we even have to talk about troops deployed on our own soil, or the risk of a president who now has his own funds and own police force deciding he doesn't want to leave office. I hate that we have to consider the topic of a World Bank due to events happing globally due to insane lack of oversight by the people we elected to do that very thing. I hate that my friends are being laid off from jobs they've worked five, ten, twenty years because their companies can't get access to credit to pay payroll, due to this insane greed-and-incompetence-based economic collapse.

And I'm sitting here blogging about it, because I actually have no idea what to do about it. It's gotten so big and so rotten, I haven't the first clue what the response should actually be. Part of me wants to get a bunch of like-minded folks and march on Washington and show these lazy civil servants of ours who the real boss is. Part of me wants to stock up on food and water and Xbox games and just ride it out.

There is no reason whatsoever why a guy who got his start writing about poop left in toilets and porn on Wal-Mart televisions; who makes his daily appearance on the net with stupid observations about bubble gum expiration dates and handshake secrets between men, should get to the point where he's blogging about the state of the fucking union. That's not supposed to be my role. My role is making you laugh at the banality of life and my absurd talent in finding my way into the dumbest situations imaginable.

But we're all there now. We're ALL in the dumbest situation imaginable... This is not our fathers' America, folks. Things are changing... They HAVE changed. We're in the history books right this very moment. We are teetering on the brink of a massive change in direction here. I'm not suggesting a New World Order is being disuccsed in DC this weekend, and I'm not saying it'll be Martial Law -- I'm saying we're at a point where we are actually having a disucssion considering it and how absurd or real the idea might be - AND THAT SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING IN OUR COUNTRY.

Not us. Not US.

This shouldn't be happening. And it is. And I wonder what we're all going to do about it.

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10.09.2008:

News Junkie

10:54 PM

So I broke the resolution about writing in this journal every day, and the one about writing a new story every week. I figure, what the hell, I might as well break the information junkie resolution too.

Every single day, nearly 14 hours a day, for two and a half weeks, I've been watching CNN, reading Fark and Reddit, and generally going on a news binge. It's been impossible not to for me - I just can't resist. I've been riding the Palin pony. I've been snorting long, descending lines of Dow Jones reports. I am completely hopped up on the juice. Off the wagon. I've got track marks.

But really, who could look away the past two and a half weeks? I mean... The Dow has lost every ounce of value it's accrued since 1995. My house is worth less now than when I bought it 7 years ago. My 401K is now a 7K and declining. There's a g-dropping hockey mom with no common fucking sense in position to possibly become president, and people think the other presidential candidate is a baptist muslim terrorist communist - but really, they just think he's a black fella, and that makes them queasy. Our government just used our money to effectively nationalize our banks and buy our homes. And Barry Melrose is back to coaching hockey again.

I JUST CAN'T STOP.

It occured to me last Friday as I walked through the casinos in Las Vegas that this year - 2008 - will be one that our children and our childrens' children will read about in their history books. We're living history right here and now. A fundamental shift is taking place in the course of our national development - and I haven't decided yet if it's toward overt facism, a corporate oligarchy, or setting the stage for a "state of emergency" sometime at the end of this month, the result of which will see our elections suspended and the current administration in power until the 'crisis' is over.

Interesting times, my friends.

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10.05.2008:

Last political post, I promise

6:32 PM

I'm going to say this, and then I'm going to leave the political shit off this blog for the rest of the time it exists. This is a promise to you, my reader (singular). If I ever get my political dander up, I'll start a new blog called Joe Can't Keep His Big Mouth Shut About Politics and put it there, but as for this one, I know you don't come here to read my thoughts on politics. So I'll say this and I'm done:

If you believe that Barak Obama is "affiliated with" Bill Ayers (of the weathermen), and thus supports terrorism;
If you believe that Obama is a Muslim;
If you believe that Obama is a socialist bent on reviving the communist party in America;

You are a racist who does not want a black man as president, and are using these bullshit arguments to screen your inherent racism.

I am not a Democrat, and I am not an "Obama supporter" - I do not like John McCain because he lost his nuts in South Carolina in 2000 and allowed Karl Rove, Cheney and Bush to black-ball him into backing down on knocking them out of the race, and has played the patsy to them ever since.

I do not like Sarah Palin because... Well fuck, I guess it's because I actually THINK and I don't see her as being even the slightest bit qualified to run a PTA meeting, much less have a tiebreaking vote in congress or, God forbid, take over the office of the presidency if McCain were to die.

I am voting for a major party for the first time since I've been allowed to vote because a) the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, is a fuckstick with not a single honest bone in his body and b) the Republican candidate is John McCain and his running mate is Sarah "I'm so pretty and cute, gosh darnit!" Palin.

And if you aren't voting Obama because of his policy on healthcare, or his tax policy (which would rock, because that means someone making over $250,000 a year reads my blog - PLEASE send me money! I need a backer), or because Biden just rubs you the wrong way, you're one of the 20% who thinks the nation's current administration is a-ok, which makes you... Well, I don't want to call you stupid, because of the chance of you making more than $250,000 a year and possibly sending me money.

But if you're not voting for him because of one of the three reasons I mentioned at the beginning, you should just come clean and admit you don't like them coloreds. Because you're a racist who can't admit they're a racist.

Either that or you're a fucking moron, but I doubt that since you're reading this on a computer, and it takes at least an IQ of 80 to turn one on and work it.

And that's it. That's my last political post ever.

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10.04.2008:

A $12 000 dollar dress

2:17 AM

No shit. 12,000 dollars.

Considering even owning $12,000 is a cause for celebration, this is not a dress Andrea is going to own