So. I'm sitting in my office, and for the last couple of hours, there's been this 3/4" or 1" diameter spider randomly crawling around on my window. And I understand that overall, spiders perform a valuable biological service, eating bugs and all, but any spider you can hit successfully with a tennis racket is too damn large. Anyway.

Right now, the sun is low enough now that I have a spot where the sun is shining on the wall. My peripheral vision notices this blurry shadow moving in the sun on the wall-- and I look up to see the spider still on the window, but hauling ass in one direction. And just in front of the spider, there's a moth, flapping for all his might, right against the glass.

And the spider is HASSLING THE SHIT out of this moth. Chasing it around the window, and all. On-the-offensive-spider is offensive.

And then the spider gets a bit too close to the moth, who is still flying as HARD AS HE CAN. And the moth's wing grazes the spider, and it falls off the window, and the moth flies away.

I am amused.

So tonight I'm at the Saucer with my buddy Allen, right. And we see this random guy, walking a bike, when we're on the way back to the car-- in that "he's about to ask us for some money, see" way. It's Houston, we're downtown, this is what lots of slightly-less-clean-than-you'd-be-if-you-had-a-real-home people do. So this guy is, if I heard him correctly, "four cents short of being able to buy a beer."

Allen one-ups this. Allen pulls a beer out of a cooler in the bed of his truck and gives it to the guy. Warm, it's likely been back there a couple days. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK ON THIS GUY'S FACE. CLASSIC. There's no faking the "Aw, SHIT, this dude is awesome!" face.

(It was a pumpkin "Harvest Moon" beer, and by Allen's opinion, substandard, but hey, if you're panhandling, you take what you get, right?)

"Amusing" doesn't BEGIN to cover it.

(badger badger badger badger badger badger badger...)

if this makes no sense:
(WARNING: AUDIO. Safe for work, just... there's audio.)
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/badgers/

First, you get a funny picture.


I know several (a bunch, really) of y'all are knitters. THERE is a project. A knit Thing figure. GO. I found that through BoingBoing, here: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/24/hand-knitted-version.html

---

To answer questions I got earlier:
Tattoo? Nah. I can't think of anything I'd be willing to put on me forever. Maybe someday something will occur to me. Maybe someday something will seem like something I should tattoo on me... Just not my thing.
(And there's that little "I fucking hate needles" thing, too.)

Am I going hunting? Nah. Never actually shot at anything that has a pulse. I could more'n likely hit it, from a pretty good range, but, well... eh.

Nicole and I are going to see my family in Temple this weekend, so that should be fun. I'm kiiiinda feeling out job ideas and prospective places to look at, because someday (reasonably soon) we're (yes, I said we, *grin*) not gonna live in Houston forever... So I'm talking to a guy this weekend, if it works out, about a possibility. Woo.

I've been studying for the CMfgT certification. Aside from sounding like some major gastrointestinal problem, it stands for Certified Manufacturing Technologist. And I figure having some sort of official manufacturing able-to-be-backed-up-by-a-certifying-body knowledge (well, I mean, aside from my degree) would serve me well in finding jobs in the field I've wanted to be in...

So yeah. There y'go.

I very much need a haircut.

---

hearing someone say "barp and furt" is much funnier than the words "burp" and "fart" individually.

---

it would be really freaking cool to not have to get up so freaking early...

---

yesterday I got tagged (but not pulled over) by a cop with a speed laser-- directly enough that i could see the laser dot coming out of the laser-radar-gun. Strange.

---

Nicole and I went to New Braunfels with a bunch of people from church this last weekend. Lots of fun-- floating in the river, going to Schlitterbahn, not getting sunburned... it was cool.

Random things from the last few days:

Saw some woman driving a car with, um, real-no-bullshit bullet holes in the door. Had to look twice, because with all those people with the fake, stick-on bullet holes, it's not strange to see something that appears like that. These had clear packing tape over the concave dent in the door panel, though...To keep the wind out, I guess. *boggle*

Monday night, Nicole and I ate dinner with mig_unit-- who's pagan, right. And the silverware at the place we went was wrapped in these little waxed-paper envelopes with prayers for different... applications? Like, Spanish, and English, and Jewish. Something like that. I said something like "watch out, you might catch on fire" to mig_unit. She rolls her eyes, and then promptly burns the shit out of herself on the oven-heated plate that dinner came out on. Heh.

And I need sleep. Yes.

How's everyone doing?

Apparently I have the ability to speak to animals. lemme 'splain:

So this weekend Nicole and I went to College Station to go see baldeagle, right. (yes, that's the format that all my stories take, the "so... ______, right" thing. Whatever.)
While we were there, we stayed with faith47 and jefe41, that I went to A&M with. Sunday, though, we're riding in the car, coming back from all going for breakfast, and there's this livestock trailer, with a show goat in it. A show goat, you ask? It had a coat on. No, really, a coat. Okay, more like a thin jacket, but still.

And someone-- likely faith47-- said "John, you've got goats (and we do, seriously), say something"

They roll down the windows. I'm used to giving the goats hell out at our farm, right, and so I give it the best "maaaeehhh" I can muster. It's not too hard, but you gotta do it right to get the goat-y vibrato going. Just trust me on that one.

And hot damn, the freaking goat, looking rather distressed, goes "maaaeehhh" back.

Did I say "yo' momma is taco meat", or "damn, your kid (eh-hehehe) made some good gloves"?

I have no idea.

Just to check, though, see, I maaaeehhh'ed again. And the goat waited a second, and "maaaeehhh"ed again, too. All the while, looking sort of disturbed.

And there was one more maaaeehhh from the goat on the way out, spurred on by jefe41, who apparently has a minor in "goatspeak", too...

So, um, yeah. Got something you wanna say to a goat, I might be able to help you out. The fee can be negotiated. I might just piss the goat off, though. You can always eat them, tho...

I look like a movie star, it seems.

We went to a friend's house to watch fireworks for the 4th, and to shoot off some fireworks ourselves. one of the kids that was there is about... 9 or ten, I guess. He walks up to me, looks me square in the face, and says "You look like that guy on TV!", all excitedly.

It takes me ten minutes to get out of him which actor he meant. All this time I'm trying to think of who he might mean. Gimli in Lord of the Rings? Sure. Carrot Top? Man, I hope not. A Sharptooth from Land Before Time? (I got stubby arms, what can I say) Other options escaped me.

But Jackie Chan was not who I was expecting him to say. Apparently it's my eyes...

(I may have posted this before, but then again, I may not have. I laughed so hard when this happened, I figured y'all should get to, too)

So in college I had this Machine Design class, right. Dealt with manufacturing and the production of parts, stress analysis, stuff like that. Thoroughly useful information, if you wanna make something-- battle mech, gumball machine, cookie sheet, whatever.

One week the lessons were on metal stamping-- pressing a sheet of metal in order to manufacture parts out of it. And we're doing some exercise in class to determine who understands whats' going on.

Me and my redneck buddy Justin-- seriously, he has a thicker accent than I do-- sat near each other in class. The professor is a hell of a nice guy, but is originally from Taiwan. And one day, while we're furiously taking notes trying to keep up with what he's saying, I hear

"OK, so how many whores and sluts are we going to punch?"

And my mind totally boggles. For like, a minute.

Holes.

Slots.

The dude's still talking metal stamping, but...of all the words to mispronounce...

Oh man, you want to talk about having to stifle busting out laughing...

So this weekend was... pretty much totally amazing. Things are just... awesome. Things that were big stressors in my life, and Nicole's... those stressors seem to have dissolved, and we're great now. Not saying that anything in particular was wrong, but both of us felt something was weird. And that is gone.

---

At some point I should stop being all "ahh, I feel like a real adult now", since I've been a "real adult" for a good long time now. That's the way it comes up in my head, though. I think it's more the "Ahh, my life is working out just the way I've always wanted it to" feeling.

---

SO. I love Texas. We went to the flea market-- UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT there was a music "festival" at the same location, right. The "music festival" was akin to 'open mic night'-- during the day, at a flea market, though. The consensus was that it would take a lot of beer to make the singing tolerable.

So we're walking through this random area, and we (both, simultaneously) hear this woman behind us-- in a speech pattern I can't begin to replicate in dialectical writing--

"Ah ain't puttin' no trailer hitch on mah van!"

Ever try so hard not to laugh that it damn near makes you sputter? That was both of us, since this woman was right behind us. We just looked at each toher and walked until we could laugh with impunity.

The flea market, she is people-watching GOLD, I tell ya. There was another girl, right after we had decided to go, with the "I'mma bleach my hair and poof it up and comb it straight back, but with that lil' puff right above my forehead so it's AWESOME" hair, too. The woman with the tramp-stamp and the bikini top and the knit miniskirt... that was three pounds of trampy in a two-pound bag, there.

---

Yeah, every so often I get snarky. Sue me. You'd have laughed, too.

I know he meant "John Hancock", but hearing the sales guy at my job say "I need your John Henry on this document" conjures an image of a guy beating the hell out of a page with a sledgehammer...

In high school, i used to work at this random little dial-up internet provider, right. And there were, as techie people can tend to be, some pissed-at-the-users people working there. I'm chilling one day, and I hear this:

"Okay, you're at the prompt, right? Just type in this:

format, space, C colon, and hit enter. Good. Now press 'Y', and hit enter. Yeah, it's going to take a little while to run. Give me a call back if it gives you any problems."

And he hung up.

I jump up, with that what the fuck, you just told her what look on my face, right. And I ask "You did tell her to back all her files up and that it was gonna erase all her files, right?"

This guy-- his name was Pat, right. Pat looks at me and just goes "She's been bugging the shit out of me all day with random stupid questions. Her internet wasn't working like she'd like. She called and asked me, specifically, how to format her C: drive. I completely answered her question."

---

Moral of the story, kids-- just because you call Tech Support and they answer the phone doesn't mean they're always there to help.

tally_cat: i tell you, it'd be pretty awesome to take a wicked good piss and have confetti rain down

Highlights of the argument over safety slogans in the next room:

"Fuck that, I ain't dyin' today"

and

"When in doubt, run like a motherfucker"

I like this place, compared to many others...

Two cool things:

The random Chevy dealer commercial just now, with the "Rocco flips the fuck out and shoots people in the restaurant" music from Boondock Saints. AWESOME.



The random "WHAT IN THE FUCK, i'm not sure if this is awesome or not" moment of the day, though:

The unshaven guy driving a 80s-model Rolls Royce near my complex.
With a little ratty dog in his lap.
And a T-shirt with the SLEEVES CUT OFF.

Redneckalicious.

jspurlin out of context, the guy across the hall saying "Whoooaaahohooo, you ain't touchin' mine"
tally_cat HA HA HA
fantastical
jspurlin yeah, and then i heard
...it pops back out...
and
tally_cat ...
wow.
jspurlin ...it goes in here...
tally_cat niiiiiiiiiice
jspurlin OH WHAT THE FUCK
tally_cat ????
jspurlin ...your big sausages are not gonna be able to get in there...
tally_cat DEAR GOD
cleaning out the fridge?
jspurlin i have no idea
ahhaha
tally_cat ha ha
go find out!!
jspurlin "i just realizeed what i need to do. i need to superglue it in there so it won't pop out any more", he says
tally_cat god. post this shit to LJ
hah

---

And I love xkcd (it's a webcomic, and unlike many others, I always think this one is good)
This one: http://xkcd.com/c243.html
is funny because I have one of these pointing devices on the laptop I use all day long.

coolest college drinking hack ever:

Large trashcan

Slightly less-large trashcan

Urethane two-part A/B foam -- there are several kinds-- "two-pound" density should work.

one sheet Housing foam-- the polystyrene sheet insulating foam

can lids

piece of tubing for siphoning the water out


GIANT BEER KEG KOOZIE.

(have I done this yet, no. Am I gonna? Perhaps. Heard about this from a buddy. Louisiana (just this once) FTW.)

Take the big trashcan, put the little one in it. measure out the foam components-- it won't take much of either (the expansion is something like 25:1 on the foam), and it's usually equal parts of liquid components. Do the math, first.

Weight the small trashcan with water, something like that. Otherwise the expanding foam will just push the small can out of the big one, and you'll have a big lump of foam and a useless giant trashcan with a little one glued to the inside.

Bam, insulated keg trashcan.

Cut a round circle of sheet-foam for the lid, so the top stays cold. The guy I heard of this from-- they used a CO2 keg pressurizer, so there was no need to pump it. I'd figure you could cut a hole for the pump, and regardless, it'll stay a lot colder than a standard single trashcan.

somehow, fasten a piece of tubing inside the inner trashcan, to siphon meltwater out. No need to make the thing any heavier than it is...

My boss sent me an email with "well, that sucks for you" in it, today. Words fail me.

Talking a guy I work with, and he lives in a little, thoroughly Baptist town outside of Houston, right. The town "elders", you might say, can veto certain movies from showing up at the theater if they don't approve. That sort of small town, and that sort of Baptist. And when they first moved to town, and were looking to buy a house, he saw this thing that looked like a closet, with the double doors and everything. With a wet bar behind it. This, for those who don't know, is so you can hide the bar when people come over, if you're Baptist. A "Bad Baptist" bar, the realtor called it.

I love Texas.

---

I am excited. The weekend, assuming no god-awful weather tries to kill us (which is a real possibility), going to Dallas should be a hell of a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to meeting people this weekend, and going out and doing things in someplace-that-ain't-Houston. woo.

---

totally a relaxed, low-key day today. Love it. maybe another hour or so, and i miiiight be able to call it a day and jet. *nyeeeeow*

ahhh. It's been an oustanding week, again. Started working at a new plant. The Fred Hartman Bridge on Hwy 146 over the Houston Ship Channel-- that motherfucker is a good place for a bunch of wind turbines. Every time I drive over that thing... whoo, windy. and it's a zillion feet in the air. Kinda scary, actually. I just go faster; that seems to help. *grin*

I've seen... weird things in the past few days.

My first nutria. for those of you who've never seen a nutria (that's all you people who ain't on the gulf coast, i think)-- it looks kinda like a giant guinea pig. with, like, claws and shit. And they're everywhere, apparently-- there's a standing bounty on them in some places. This particular one has a mustache, and looked disturbingly like Wilford Brimley. SRSLY.

There are apparently poisonous snakes and shit at this plant, too. NOT FUNNY. these places, they are trtying to kill me. Thus far, all they succeed in killing is a shitload of birds-- you'd think the lil' buggers'd know not to drink these puddles-- and a bunch of random beetles.

A random Semi, with LADA II (which if i remmeber right-- the Lada was an old Soviet-era-piece-of-shit-truck-kinda-like-the-Trabant-but-not-a-car-in-East-Germany) on it, advertising (I'm assuming since it's in the same location and layout as American ones) the "WANNA BE A TRUCKDRIVER?, etc. etc.-- IN CYRILLIC CHARACTERS. wtf.

And I'll be in CS sometime soon. Might actually be sometime Friday night. No telling.

IT'S FRIDAY, GET EXCITED.

(ok, i'm going to sleep.)
((onoz, irony'd))

Strip mining prevents forest fires.

Hey, they have a point...

I'm gonna try the low-tech pencil-n'-paper journal thing, at some point, soon. I like writing with a real wooden pencil, sometimes. And God only knows, my handwriting could use some practice...

---

I went to Mojo Risin' Coffee House(yes, there was Doors shit everywhere, yes, the owners are sixty) in Houston last night, to see Mo Pair play a gig. Mo plays with a group called GRASS that I heard by... random chance in College Station one time. Not exactly "polished" by any means, but it's always fun to hear them play. And there was this emo kid there that played, too, named Cody. I hate emo. I really do.

But listening to a stoner (that'd be Mo) and a harmonica player (that'd be this guy named Wayne) cover "Dark Side of the Moon"? Entertaining. I thought they'd do... maybe two songs. No sir. one whole side of the record, at least... heh.

Found a new cool coffee place in Houston, though. That was one of my big goals, since they closed down Diedrich's Coffee. Diedrich's was, I think a franchise, but it's distinctly different than Starbucks. Last night, I saw THE Starbucks that Lewis Black refers to in this:

From the beginning of time, man has looked at the heavens and firmly believed that the end of the universe ends out in space. It's not true. The end of the universe happens to be in the United States. I have seen it. And, oddly enough, it's in Houston, Texas...I know, I was shocked too... I left the comedy club there and walked down the street. On one corner, there was a Starbucks. And across the street from that Starbucks, in the exact same building as that Starbucks, was a Starbucks. At first I thought the sun was playing tricks on my eyes. But, no. There was a Starbucks across from a Starbucks. And that, my friends, is the end of the universe. People have said to me, 'how do you know?' And I say, 'go there. Stand between those two Starbucks and look at your watch. Time stands still.' And if you turn this way, and look at just this Starbucks, immediately you think, 'You know, There cannot possibly be a Starbucks behind me. Nobody would have been that stupid, to have built a Starbucks across from a Starbucks. And if there was a just and loving God, he wouldn't allow that kind of shit to go down.' So you turn slowly, thinking, 'well, I'll see a Gap, or a Denny's, maybe even a Mobil Station... BUT THERE'S A STARBUCKS!'

( click here for a photo )

heh. I went out because it was my buddy Allen's birthday, right.

So it was his birthday, and we went to the Flying Saucer. Good idea. the
place afterwards (called, i shit you not, The Wet Spot), where it was dollar beer night-- NOT a good idea.
(only had two, and one more drink, honestly) but OH my God, I must,
seriously, have a crazy-woman radar beacon.

just chatting with the woman next to me, who looked like she was
having a crappy night, right. Asked her what was up, just making
conversation, right. And (this is the pretty much full-length
version)

Her husband (red flag one) won't let her divorce him (red flag two).
She makes a point to show me her ring finger, which has no ring (or
ring indent, either (red flag three)-- but i noticed that the instant she said
"husband") and she's been trying for MONTHS to divorce him(red flag
four, at this point I'm looking toward Allen and his buddy Hector,
trying furiously to get OUT OF THIS CONVERSATION...)

And right about then she got up and went outside. Oh man. You have no
idea how much I wanted to leave, right then, since I didn't see that
getting any better. I didn't drive to this bar, so I'm at the mercy
of the people I rode with...

She didn't come back. I was glad. Oh man...

I had two beers in that minute. the same amount of time it took you
to read it...I drank to keep from having to talk.

---

So that was my brush with the BATSHIT INSANE for the week. whooo.

I swear to Pete, what the hell is wrong with people...

meant to post this yesterday. (yes, this is turning into the regular "funny picture of the day" thing. eh.)

jspurlin: :)
xebra42: :P
I'm old
jspurlin: i know
*runs*
AAAA 2.5 months until i'm old
xebra42: HA HA
jspurlin: *goes skydiving*
*goes rocky mountain climbing*
*goes 2.5 seconds on bull named fu manchu*
xebra42: if you say bull riding
jspurlin: hahahah
xebra42: it will go very hard with you...
jspurlin: onoz
xebra42: *THWAP*
jspurlin: glad you got that
</timmcgraw>
hahhaha
i ween
xebra42: 2.7 seconds
btw
jspurlin: DAMMIT
so close

THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS BABYSERPENT IS HERE FOR YOUR SOOOUUULLL....

I like this. in that creepy "brb, getting the shotgun" kind of way.
(found on ambitious_1's journal.)

---

Working out is starting to show results. And I'm not even doing weights, yet. Cardio, she seems to be my friend.

---

I have lots to do for work, again. Nothing difficult, but I can see this being a quick day. And then, hopefully, stuff tonight. I like doing things after work, so that I can't say "well, I went to work, and then I went home and went to bed. I don't like saying that. Some friends have wondered how I can operate on 6 hours of sleep. I wonder how some people don't make the most of their time awake and alive, somehow. Seems a total waste to be asleep all the time...

mothoc, specifically, and gooch14 (since I know you know what I'm talking about)

Every time this week I've listened to "Every Day is Exactly the Same", I hear

"I think i used to have a porpoise..."

heh.

---

Gah. TEN MINUTES AND I CAN LEAVE. THANK GOD.

My Granddad was always a fun guy to talk to. But apparently knowing him when he was younger, would have really been entertaining.

He used to set the passenger-side windshield washer to spray at the passenger seat, so his date (my grandma, or before the two of them were dating, that I don't know) would scoot over next to him.

He was one of two students at high school who had a car. His was a red Model A with a rumble seat and black interior. (yeah, I wish I'd seen that one. He had some of the coolest cars, all his life.) The other one was a girl whose dad owned the dealership, and hers was white WITH BLACK POLKA DOTS. Yeah, like a Dalmatian. Yeah, in the early 40s. I think Temple had like 10,000 people back then. Would have been pretty small.

Hah, awesome. (It's great to hear funny stuff about him, really. I'm lucky that my family is so cool.)

He and my dad were out driving one time, and (back when it wasn't bad to have a beer and go drive) drinking beer, and the cops pulled them over. One of them put a beer in the glovebox, right. And the cops are talking to them, and (I think my granddad was the passenger, not sure) the beer is running out the gloveboxonto his foot...

I can just see that one today. Jeesh, they'd arrest the guy behind you for good measure if you did that now.

Heh.

SO... I just had a dream that someone stole my CAR.

I was, somenow, back at Temple High, in the parking lot. There's a brick retaining wall, and I was sitting on that, with... someone. Somebody stole my car, and I knew this when it was driven AWAY. Visually, this was the row in the very left side, up near the front of the lot on the end. I was walking over to it, When SCREEEECH-- off it went.

So I'm back on the retaining wall, somehow, watching these people driving the shit out of my car, in the parking lot, right. And it occurs to me that I'm not totally sure if it's my car, so I use the remote. I click the lock button and the turn signals blink-- That's how I knew it was my car, apparently.

Right after that, the car brakes, HARD. Leaned forward at something like a 30 degree angle-- back tires off the ground, and two people get out and walk over to me.

It's Jason (Emmy's friend's date) and Emmy. From this dance. In the dream, I consciously looked to see if she still had a wedding ring on, since I was surprised to see her with Jason.

And then, somehow, we were in the first level of a parking garage, and a motorcycle cop pulled up. And I told Jason "I'm gonna go report this." And he was like, "okay."

And right about then, I woke up.

So earlier I'm driving on Westheimer, right outside my apartment, and I see this towtruck with a purple Camaro on it. (yeah, what the shit, purple.) And then I see this thing resting on the hood, at some odd angle.

It's an AIR CONDITIONER. Through the hood. I can just picture that one. Parked in the apartment lot, minding your own business, then *WHANG*, window unit through the hood.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

found in the guns community:

Hush little baby, don't sound off
Daddy's gonna buy you a Kalashnikov
And if that kalashnikov ain't keen
Daddy's gonna buy you an M-16
If that M-16's a mess
Daddy's gonna buy you an SKS
If that SKS don't rock
Daddy's gonna buy you a brand new Glock
If that Glock, it don't shoot straight
Daddy's gonna buy you a .38
If that .38 breaks down
You'll still be the best armed baby in town.

---

hehehe. I find this amusing, for some reason. And I need to go shoot, sometime soon...

Two Jewish men, Sid and Al, were sitting in a Mexican restaurant. Sid asked Al, "Are there any people of our faith born and raised in Mexico?" Al replied, "I don't know, let's ask our waiter."
When the waiter came by, Al asked him, "Are there any Mexican Jews?" and the waiter said, "I don't know Senor, I'll ask the cooks." He returned from the kitchen in a few minutes and said "No sir, no Mexican Jews."

Al wasn't really satisfied with that and asked, "Are you absolutely sure?"
The waiter, realizing he was dealing with "Gringos" gave the expected answer, "I will check again, Senor!" and went back into the kitchen.

While the waiter was away, Sid said, "I find it hard to believe that there are no Jews in Mexico. Our people are scattered everywhere."

The waiter returned and said "Senor, the head cook said there is no
Mexican Jews."

"Are you certain?" Al asked once again. "I can't believe there are no Mexican Jews!"

"Senor, I ask EVERYONE," replied the exasperated waiter, "All we have is Orange Jews, Prune Jews, Tomato Jews, and Grape Jews."

I swear to Pete, if I hear "defibulator" ONE MORE TIME instead of "defibrillator".... once on CSI tonight, and once on the Houston News.

defibrillator: good idea. counteracts fibrillation in the heart muscle.

defibulator: YANKS OUT YOUR FIBULA. *hngk**poink*, no more calf bone. NOOOOO. WRONG.

do I not have the "what in the fuck is going on here" look on my face?


This is the worst date I've ever been on. This was in high school, my senior year. The senior girls pitch-in-a-ton-of-money and throw this big dance, right? It rivals prom, and most girls wanted to go to this more than Prom, since this was another popularity contest and all. This was an invite-only type of deal, but there were a ton of people, by the time it was said and done. And the girls invite their dates, since they,re paying, and all. Each senior girl gets to invite two people, from either the junior or senior class. Emmy was a junior. </setup information>

So this girl Emmy asks me, right. (after like four other people bail on her, but I didn't know that, or why, at the time) And I figure, hey, wh not, it'll be fun. Dance was in two weeks, at this point.

So we go out to dinner and all that next weekend, and everything seemed fine. dinner, movie, no OH-MY-GOD-I'M-AN-AXE-MURDERESS vibes (i'm sensitive to those, now).

The next weekend rolls around, and the dance is tonight, right.

I'm about to go pick her up, and she warns me that her dad is a little strange, and might not be real personable.

Her dad; the man did everything but offer me a beer, right. cue strange look from me, #1

So we go back over to my house, to take some pictures, since I'm in a tux and she's all dressed up.

Now ANYONE who knows me in person knows that I'm pretty much transparent when it comes to showing-what-I'm-thinking. And I come by that honestly, my dad is the same way. And that can be good, or bad, right?

So we take a few pictures, and then we're sitting there talking to my dad. I think my mom must have been in an exchange in Germany, then. This would have been much weirder with both my parents there, because there's no way I'd have kept a straight face.

...Y'ever have one of those dates where she says "I'm so glad we could do this as friends?"

Happened to me...

She's talking, and that phrase came up. THREE TIMES, in like ten minutes. And the first time, I got the "h'okay" look from my dad. Makes sense, that. The second time, the "....mmmm'okay... right right" look.

The third time got the "ok, where the hell'd you get this one?" look. I would have laughed, if I hadn't realized that THE DANCE STILL HADN'T HAPPENED.

So we leave to go to the dance, right.

As soon as we get there, Emmy meets up with her friends S_____ and Jeremy. Those two were going out, and proceeded to walk over to the table we had and make out for the rst of the evening. Emmy sat down. I sat down. A little time passes, and I asked her to dance. Nope.

Did she want to talk? Nope. Dance at all? nope.

So I went to talk to people. I do that. and this repeats. for five hours. but at some point we went to take pictures. OH WOW. You know how they say "ok, so put your arm around her here, and y'all scoot in" and you kinda draw up? YEAH. That wasn't happening.

I HAVE NO IDEA what her deal was.

going to drop her off, I was going to be nice and walk her to the door, right? hah. no. she was OK walking herself.

I had more fun listening to my CDs on the way home.

---

After I got home, my dad told me about a guy he knew that was at a dance like that. And his date did that, and this guy threw a ten on the table and just left. I'm glad he hadn't told me that, before, because it genuinely never occurred to me, or I'd have done that.

---

her wedding photos look JUST LIKE THAT. It was in the paper at home, a while back. CRREEEEPY.

"..okay, okay, so what you do, right, you go up This Way, and then you turn right-- go left, go That Way, and ..."

WHO DOES THAT? Who names their streets "This Way" and "That Way"?

I suppose the answer is "Lake Jackson, TX", but... y'get it.

(that said, i'm going to have to get a picture, since it's not terribly far from here...)

---

and this is awesome, too.
.
I'm gonna have to make one of these, because somehow, a small animal that looks like a transporter accident sounds like a good USB afternoon project.

"stupid shit that happened to John when he was younger, part the fourth"

So. You've all seen industrial velcro, right? The just-like-normal-velcro- but-heavier-duty stuff, right? And it's a bunch of little plastic rods, with little balls melted on the ends, k? (trust me, here.)

SO. At the same house of the guy from The Trap-Shooter Story, right, and there are three of us there. The guy who lives there--James (who's also lucky he didn't die, many times) and me and this kid Wes who lived in one of the other houses nearby. And James has the window open, and I think he might have been throwing firecrackers out the window. I'm not sure. I'm distinctly lucky, with all the experiments we did with shit that will burn or explode, that I have all my fingers. That, though, is neither here nor there.

So. There's a lighter, right, and this can of hairspray, right. And I'm sitting on the side of the bed, I think, and James and Wes are standing on the bed throwing shit out the window.

Or so I thought.

I hear, at some point:

chk *psshh*. and think nothing of it.

I then hear:

chk *psshh*
chk *psshh*
chk *psshh* FWOOOOSH.

And my head gets all warm, right.

Wes, that motherfucker, burned like an 1/8th of an inch off EVERY HAIR ON MY HEAD, with a lighter and hairspray.

Stunk like hell. (I'd say "like you can't imagine", but... I know you people. you can imagine what that smells like. 'Cause some of you've done it.)

See, hair, when it burns (for all you people who've never done this,) MELTS, down the hair, toward your scalp, when it burns.

Fast forward to me riding home, quickly, and trying to scrub my hair in the sink to keep from looking too much like I just GOT THE SHIT BURNT OUT OF MY HAIR.

And apparently it worked. Until I went to get a haircut the next time. Gene(rest in peace; he's deceased now), the barber I'd gone to for a long time, looked at me and said some iteration of "Son, what the hell'd you DO to your hair?"

Close-up, i apparently still looked like Velcro-headed Boy^tm....

---

crossposted to ishouldhavedied

"Why John shoulda died, part the third"
(now with new improved 12-year-old-me icon. woo.)

So, some friends of mine (the guys from The Wheelbarrow Story, specifically) and another guy from down the block, and me figured out at some point how to make smoke bombs, right.

(yes, this will be good, right from the start)

And apparently, twelve-year-olds buying saltpeter and sulfur at Eckerd's pharmacy isn't the most... inconspicuous thing you can do. (So we started going to HEB, the supermarket up the street. eh-heheh.)

I've never figured out the medical use for saltpeter, and sulfur is only good for keeping chiggers off your ankles, as far as I know. But hey, whatever.

So sulfur, saltpeter, and powdered sugar makes a decent smoke bomb, right? (trust me, it does. fun stuff. wahaha.) We tested it. It whited out Drew's backyard. I wonder what the dogs next door thought of all that...

And at the end of middle school (which is when this was), the teachers simply want to make sure no one dies before the end of school. So our science teacher decided that... a puppet show would be a good idea. Since, well, how much trouble can anyone be with popsicle stick puppets, right?

So one of these guys asks if he can use a little smoke in his puppet show. And she says yes. I think she thought he meant one of those "pssh" half-a-cubic-foot-of-smoke lil' party smoke bombs. This wasn't what she received.

The group with the smoke went last, right. Since she figured, I think, that it would make the room smell funny, a bit.

So Daniel (the guy who did this; lesliessexxy, you know of this guy, too) comes up, puts down a cookie sheet on the floor, and places this little flat package about 3"x4" on the cookie sheet.

And they do their puppet show, right... it was... dinosaurs or some shit, on the edge of a volcano. At the end, they fall in the volcano, and that's where the smoke comes in.

So the smoke starts, right, and goes... and goes... like 30 seconds worth of smoke. And the classroom has a layer, of thick, white, saltpeter-n-sulfur-n-sugar smoke at the top of the room. The teacher is wondering WHAT THE FUCK we just did, since, well... this is waaaaay more than she expected. WAAAY more.

so everyone stands in the hallway, and we go in a couple at a time to get our stuff. This is the only time I've ever had occasion to use the "crouch down 'cause smoke is lighter than air" thing, but it works.

And there was a smattering of smoke in the WHOLE SCHOOL from what leaked out under the door. I have NO IDEA how that was explained.

And the cookie sheet? had a hole burned CLEAN through it. The closest thing I've ever seen to it was the sled in national Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, when they grease the saucer sled and the hole burns in it.

(I'm glad they never watched the video of the puppet shows too closely, the flame is visible over the desks...)

---

(crossposted to ishouldhavedied)

yet again, it's time for another installment of "Why John shoulda died when he was a kid".

This time, it's The Trap-shooter story. (these devices are more commonly and more correctly called "trap-throwers".

This is a different friend who lived quite close to my house as a kid. I used to go over there a lot, since, well, his house had more crazy shit in it than mine.

So one day I ride my bike over to his house, and stop in the driveway, like always. and he's in the side yard of the duplexes he lives in. There are... something like six double-units them in a row, with about ten feet, tops, between the driveways.

And he has this case (like a hundred, I have no idea where he got them) of skeet clay pigeons. Little BLAZE ORANGE clay disks about 4 inches in diameter, if you're not familiar.

And a trap-clay-thrower. Like, the stomp-the-spike-feet-into-the-dirt gung-ho no-bullshit skeet-clay-thrower.

These duplexes, mind you, are across the street from an apartment complex. And the street between them goes from our WHOLE SUBDIVISION into the only mall in town. And it's one block from the largest street in town (five to six lanes, not a farm-to-market road).

SO.

So we're tossing the clays into the street, at the apartment complex, right. (look, we were like, twelve. easily amused is the name of the game, folks.)

Y'ever do something repetitive? You start to look for ways to spice things up, right?

(this is the same guy with whom I figured out that Black Cat firecrackers will detonate if you hit them with a hammer. Just to set the scene.)

So after we throw a shitload of these pigeons, and a couple of his dad's shitty LP records... we started to look for other things that would fit in the thrower.

(Yeah, that's a bright fucking thing to do, I know.)

We're gonna take a minute and go over the basic operating principle of a skeet thrower. There is a big spring, and a brace, and a C-channel throwing arm, with a deck on the bottom. Cross-section looks like this:
_____
| ___________
| /__clay pigeon_\
____________


the idea is that the pigeons roll down this arm, and as they roll down the arm, they pick up spin, and the spin makes the pigeon fly in an arc.

Okay. got that?

Now. back to the garage, and us scavenging shit to go in the launcher. Er, trap-clay-thrower.

So we find this bike chain, right.

Now, the bike chain, when folded into a block, is a little tiny bit thinner than the C-channel, but it kinda wedged when we loaded it. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

I was crappy at physics, then, 'cause, like-i-said-before, we were twelve.

Math dictates that an object will stay at rest until a force acts on it, right? That force is, most of the time, a rolling action along the edge.

This one was more of a tangential STRAIGHT SIDEWAYS thing, since the arm points toward the street.

And, um... there was this driveway, next door, like I said.

So the people from that house, right... they were driving down the street, and they pull in their driveway, in their new gold minivan,

And we pull the rope on the thrower, right. And the chain goes (not out-in-the-street, where our eyes were looking, since you always look at the goal...)

And, just as they cut off the car, right before they get out of the minivan...

WE HIT IT IN THE DOOR WITH A BIKE CHAIN. A spring-propelled, damn-we-thought-it-would-go-that-way, folded-into-a-block bike chain.

And just as they were flipping out (rightly so) and right before they screamed at his mom...

I got on my bike and rode home.

---

There is a community for this sort of thing, now. Go, join! Tell your friends.

ishouldhavedied

---

So, when everyone's little, it was lucky that a bunch of us didn't die, or just Darwin ourselves with stupid shit, right?

I had a buddy that DAMN NEAR physically Darwined himself, when we were in middle school. Didn't die, no danger of dying, just... ow.

My friend Drew and Cam (Drew's brother) had a house near mine at home, and the entire area we live on is on a giant limestone plateau. Like, until you hit water, it's limestone. OK. so they had this problem with the sewer in their house, and they're fixing it. So there are piles of limestone and dirt and rocks, every ten feet or so, and this giant hole in the backyard, right.

There is a wheelbarrow next to the hole. And Cam decides he's going to fuck around with the wheelbarrow, and run through the backyard. Now, there's a wall, and tree roots, and all sorts of obstacles and shit in the yard, right?

So he grabs the wheelbarrow, and RUNS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER around the yard.

Well, for like, thirty seconds. WHAM.

hits a tree root, flips the wheelbarrow. And on the way to flipping, the wheelbarrow NAILS HIM right IN THE NUTS.

So. The wheelbarrow is empty, and Cam is sorta... galloping around the yard, holding his nuts. (Place both your hands on your crotch, and try to jog without bending your knees. That.) So that goes on for a few minutes, right. We are positively dying laughing. Can't breathe.

Anyone who's ever been hit in the nuts knows, several things occur to you.
One, you have this "you motherfucker!" attitude toward whoever hit you in the nuts--girl, boy, giant-ass-dog, whoever.
Two, you'd really like to vomit.

SO. half an hour or so goes by, and we go back in the backyard, Cam, Drew, me, and their sisters.

And Cam gets this look in his eye. That "you piece of shit, I'll show you." At the wheelbarrow.

Yeah. That's a good plan.

He picks up the wheelbarrow, right. Not having learned his lesson, at all, he decides running with it is a good idea.

Now, mind you, the wheelbarrow was FULL OF DIRT AND ROCKS last time. Now, since it emptied itself when Cam flipped it... It's much lighter.

SO he runs, again, like a FUCKING MADMAN, around the backyard. For, like, a minute.

*CLANG* *wheelbarrow flips* "uh-oh."

(and yes, it nailed him in the nuts again.)

he goes in the house, right. We're, by this time, FUCKING LOSING IT. Again, Can't. Breathe.

His dad comes out. Apparently he, um, sorta tore something. That needs stitches.

(I'll reiterate in little words: TORE. THE. SACK. OW.)

Later in the week, I was over at their place, and... yeah. you know how people have those lil "donut pillows" for spine conditions and things like that? He was sitting on a soft pillow, VERY gingerly.

We still laugh at Cam for that.

(And he has a son, now, so... apparently everything still works.)

Listening to a group of like, 8 people argue last night was UNBELIEVABLE.

Over whether it was The Da Vinci Code or simply Da Vinci Code...(as if his name was Vinci, and this was "the Vinci code", but cool-i-fying "the")

OH MY GOD. SO STUPID, these people.

This "how about we fuck up definite articles in pop culture titles until people can't tell the difference" trend has apparently reached a peak.

Adrienne and I couldn't believe that conversation went on two full minutes.

RIIIIISE. RIIIIISE FROM THE DEAD, MY MINIONS.

bwahahahahahaahahaah.....

sooo... It's thursday. which is nine kinds of awesome. Flying trip to College Station tonight-- Bonfire banquet. whoop. I'm only going to be there a few hours, and then back to Houston. I'll be in College Station again this weekend-- Saturday night at least. Friday night is spoken for, I think. And Sunday afternoon is likely gonna be going to Galveston. *eyeroll* must...define...relationship...

---

um. holycrap, tomorrow is Friday. AWETHOME.

---

Looked at furniture last night... not sure if I'm going to get a leather couch, or not. But they are nice... I'm just not sure I'm not gonna be really hard on a leather couch. I kinda like cloth couches. hmmm. hmmmmm.
And I'm getting a recliner, most likely, and a coffee table and a dining room set. Holy crap. lots of spending all at once.

---

actually been decently productive at work... They're gonna move me to a real office, reasonably soon. with a real window (currently I have a piece of semi-translucent glass) and a door and everything. It'll be in a cleaner building, and closer to the front. So... should I have to run away from oh-no-noxious-gas-fumes, it's closer.

Hoooo man did they have a HUGE release of shit at the plant across the highway the other day... the smoke was visible for like five miles. There are three waste-gas flares (that I saw). normally, the flare should be... a few feet high, each. likely less-than-6. This was, I'd guess, a 25 foot flame. Three of them. They'd just started when I left, and i could still see new smoke twenty minutes later and PURPLE SMOKE. notgood notgood notgood!!!!</Edd>

And people ask why I work here. Lack of other options, at the moment. But if they think I'm staying for years and years, they are incorrect. And that's why i don't live over here. The air quality's not as good in the Galleria as it is at the farm at home. But it's for damn sure better than over here...

hearing my father refer to my dating history as "the Prozac-for-lunch bunch" broke my head, tonight.

so today in an email from a girl I know I got this, in response to a "so the hotel has a bed with springs instead of a piece-of-crap-block-of-foam mattress" line:

I am glad you found a matress with springs.... Just
think of the fun you could have with a real bed in a
real apartment (soon)...

And couldn't help but grin.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't quite how she intended that. But hey... whatever. *grin*

HOW, seriously, does someone not EVER HEAR OF THE GAME OF Uno?

wtf.

Please tell me the rest of y'all have heard of it. At least those of y'all in the US.

(I can pick 'em, eh? She's never heard of Uno, never heard of canned carrots, never seen Princess Bride... *sigh*)

---

holy shit-- "Current Location"? wtf? that's new.

This link (not terribly worksafe--pictures of cursing) is the winner of the, well, I don't wonder what you sell with this website" award for the day.

---

and this Google Answers page is... depressing, in what you can figure out from the answer exchanges...
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=710787

I just thought it was... interesting, somehow.

Last night, Adrienne and I went to the Houston rodeo, and we parked on row 37. and she was repeating "37" to herself a couple times, to remember the row.

And every time, my brain went "...in a row?"
</Clerks>

(for those of you who've never heard the sketch, a sound clip:click here(not really work safe, and there's sound))

And if you've never seen Clerks by Kevin Smith... you should. And Mallrats, at least.

So if anyone was wondering where the "OKAY. Please to be stopping with the fires and noxious gas releases." point on me was... yesterday passed it. WHAT THE FUCK. KEEP THE FLAMMABLE SHIT IN LINE, GUYS.

OK. better. I'm seriously starting to consider other options. and this was SO not what I wanted to have happen. A couple times, sure. but "everyone" says 'no, no, these are strange. this doesn't happen that often' BUT IT DOES. Three times in 5 months in two different locations? (oh yeah, there's the H₂S exposures, too...)

Nope. Not feeling terribly safe.

*studies for engineering exam*

honestly... I'm the hell out of this deal. Not sure what the timeline is... but eventually.

---

went to hang out with Danny and other people I know in Clear Lake... good stuff. girls who smoke... not attractive. Shame, really.

---

JESUS-H-CHRIST I ran into a weird girl yesterday--at the book store. I figured that was as safe a place as any. (I know, I know, I thought she was cute so she must be an axe murderer, I know.) lessee, highlights:
has a camaro, right? wrecked said camaro, by tearing the side off of it on a traffic-light-circuit-box. was quite drunk. no biggie, right? So she goes to get it fixed, and makes some deal with a guy to fix it, and she'd do some other work. she doesn't do the work, and he puts a mechanic's lien on her car. She FILES BANKRUPTCY (what the hell) for a 2500 dollar car.

then a few weeks ago, someone BACKED OVER HER CAR. Twisted the frame, all that. And then just... left.

Any time someone uses the term "... my soon-to-be-ex-husband..." in a sentence-- That is a deal killer, right there.

this whole story got better and went on for like twenty minutes. you have no idea. It's entertaining to be me. Wackos everywhere. Most of the time, people are secretly batshit crazy. This girl was conspicuously nuts. Pretty, and NUTS.

MEME: Google your name with the phrase "looks like."
ganked from telophase and kittikattie

John looks like:

...he has a lot of feelings
...a Rumanian refugee in that shot
...the cover of your book to me
...a monstrous spined robot with a large amount of weapons
...he is testing his new rear springs
...a cross between Vincent D'Onofrio and Vince Vaughn.

wow. this meme started kinda dumb and got weird in a hurry.

I swear to Pete, every time I turn on the TV and it's on KFDM my brain goes "wait, fuckwhat? KMFDM has a tv station? Sweet. Aww...dammit.

Every time, that happens. Stupid Louisiana.