eggs

Sometimes, I think to myself that hardboiled eggs aren't worth the effort it takes to eat them. Then I eat one and remember i need to stop being such a goddamn bitch and peel another egg.

Bad Taste

It tastes a little bit like month-old teriyaki. I want to spit it out, but I can't, because that would be a waste. Still, I can't wrap my mind around swallowing it either, so it sits in my mouth, foul and slimy, waiting for my next move. It's the first time my food has stared me down. My face srcews up in a grimace, my throat and tongue work furiously, and I finally swallow it down. I have to get an english muffin to deal with the taste left in my mouth. That was the worst jerky ever.

Bury my heart in New York City

And my brain beneath Fulmer Hall.

And my spleen near the Big Easy.

And my liver in Ireland.

And my kidneys at the SciFi Museum.

And my small intestine next to Walt Disney's frozen head.

That should freak him out when he thaws.

Haven't been posting lately because of finals. Give it another week or so and I'll be going strong.

Things I like

Here is a brief list of some things that I really really like:
- Treasure hunt movies
- Oranges
- Glasses on everybody except me.
- Erlenmeyer flasks
- Lithium
- Traditional Irish music.

High Efficiency

Today i wrote a script and drew the storyboard for it. I am on a friggin roll today. I attribute it to the coffee I was able to have today, after being without it for far too long. Go Go Caffeine Addiction!

I fell in love with a girl, and she got shot in the streets of her hometown. We grew up together, played together and laughed together even when it wasn't acceptable for a boy and a girl of our ages to be spending time together. She fell awkwardly, like her body had forgotten how to stand. Two hours ago, we ate ice cream under a ledge, hiding from the rain. I kissed her and tasted mint chip. There's a bit of blood running out of her mouth now. Two years ago, when we were still in school, she found a rabbit at the side of the road with a little bit of blood running out of its mouth. I picked it up in my coat and carried it down the road, and all the while she was talking to it, softly telling it that it would be okay, telling it not to be scared, that she would help it. Even through my coat, I could feel its heart slow down and stop. She cried for this little rabbit that she'd never known about until a few minutes ago. I cried for it too. That was the only time I'd ever cried for an animal. Now I can feel her heart slowing down through her jacket, but I'm not crying. I'm not crying because she's not dead. I'm screaming and trying to stop the blood and praying for the first time in twenty years that the only person I loved doesn't die tonight. Her blood burns my rain-numbed hands like acid. We watched Fight Club when we were young and impressionable and found ourselves some lye. There's a scar shaped like her lips on the back of my hand. Maybe I'm imagining things, but her blood seems to burn hottest there. It's our last kiss. After that, her slow heart stops, and I can cry.

Things I've noticed while catching up on Heroes

- So. Many. Blondes.
- Arthur Petrelli keeps his Pimp Hand strong.
- Peter needs to watch some more pro wrestling so he can learn to take people out with a chair.
- Arthur also has the power of Mindfuck. Not like Matt's mindfuck ability, but he'll still fuck with your head something fierce.
- Everyone is connected to everyone else, huh? I'm calling shenanigans on this.
- It's always about goddamn Claire, isn't it?
- Sylar kills all the pretty girls.
- The writers have no friggin clue how genetics or astronomy works.

Groucho Marx

A while ago, I wrote something about the necessity of a person to be damaged to be creative. It was about wto paragraphs, and it made a lot of metaphors towards fire and such. Today, I realized that many years before i was born, Groucho Marx said exactly the same thing, but much more simply.

"Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light. "


Some geniuses, you can never hope to exceed.

Hello 3 AM

Entropy is the most beautiful thing in the world. I love dirty streets and broken windows and dusty hallways. I love the inevitable decay and chaos of the universe. Nothing stays perfect. Art gets grimy, statues crumble, words get mistranslated. We can't stop it. Everything humanity does is futile in the face of entropy. Why bother? What's the point of building, of creating? In the long run, at the end of it all, everything just crumbles away and is forgotten.

How can this destruction be beautiful? Why do I say that the collapse of beauty is beautiful?

Because it gives us purpose. We should create BECAUSE our creations won't last. If we all gave up, if nobody created anything beautiful, then there wouldn't be any more beauty in the world. Entropy makes us create, by destroying everything we make. So we have to fight entropy. So that our children can live in a world at least as beautiful as the one we grew up in, we do what we can to make it beautiful. We sing, we write and paint and draw. We take pictures to preserve a beautiful moment. We film a story so that it lasts. Entropy is what we struggle against. The decay is what makes us keep going. We keep moving forward to keep ahead of the end just a little longer, so that we can make just a little more beauty for the world. Without destruction there would be no creation. Without ugliness there would be nothing beautiful. I'm going to keep running ahead of entropy, doing all I can to slow it down, so the ugliness of the world stays away for a bit longer.

What did clowns evolve from?

The primordial terror. Whatever it was that made our earliest ancestors hoot and shiver in the night, whatever it was that gives our species a fear of the dark, that is what became that which is known today as "the clown".

Currently..

I am listening to Pink Floyd, and reading an essay on the issues of gay marriage and polygamy as it relates to database engineering. Among the objects on my desk are a top hat, a neon green stuffed monkey, a one-eyed parrot made of foam, and a birdhouse that I made by hand.

Ladies. I am ripe for the taking.

Long time

Man. It's been a while since I posted, huh?
I'm not doing a good job of this "daily updates" thing.
Sorry, loyal readers.
I'll be better.
I promise.

Ever since

Don LaFontaine died, movie trailers have gotten a bit weird. I mean, most of us grew up with that voice narrating all our film trailers, and now it's gone. And they've tried to replace him with some approximation, but it never sounds right. It always sounds off, like in those parodies of trailers. It bothers me on a deep level.

I miss you, Don LaFontaine's Voice.

A Prophecy:

As the sun sets on the 6th day, look to the South. He shall approach, on the back of a Grey Hound. He shall have on him the clothes of a poet. In his satchel he carries undeniable truths of the universe. He shall stay among you a number of days, sharing his wisdom among all who ask for it. Then, with great sadness in his heart, he shall depart again for the frozen lands from whence he came. But cry not! For he will return after a brief time, wiser and nobler than even when he left. And there shall be great rejoicing and giving of gifts.

A goal of mine:

To be the top Google result for my name. That's when I'll know I'm famous.

Peaches.

There's something special about eating a can of peaches for lunch and having the song "Peaches" come on the radio.

Speaking of my highly satisfying lunch, I can't wait to go back home and eat some real food. Mmmm... Proper omelets.

Woo!

She's straight!

Also, we did long form in improv today, and it was the most fun I've with improv in a long time.

Today has been a good day, Jeb.

Three-Post Combo!

Like many young men of my generation and areas of interest, I find myself once again asking myself the question: Is she a lesbian? It would figure, wouldn't it? No girl that cute likes webcomics that much and is also into dudes. It doesn't happen. Still, she'd be fun to hang out with. Might as well call her.

Twix & Time Travel

Watching these Twix commercials, it occurs to me that whenever someone "needs a moment" and "chews it over" with a Twix bar, time literally stops for them. I think we're overlooking the time-altering potential of these candy bars. Just imagine what you could do if all you needed to freeze time was to munch on some candy. We'd see superheroes all over, armed with a trenchcoat stuffed with Snickers and Reese's, ready to bust out the candy appropriate to the task. Plus, given the fact that Twix bars cause some sort of space-time anomaly, I think they could be used as a fuel source for time-travel machines. We need to get our scientists working on this ASAP! Twix are the future!

Huzzah!

One more week till I get to visit home again! Yay!

He was a drifter. A tattered, run-down, out-of-luck borderline burnout. He wore a jacket older than he was, and shoes that didn't cover the heels so much as give him a feeble loophole around the "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" signs. He'd only been drifting four years, but he'd met enough of his fellows to know differences. There were drifters who'd been born drifters, in a sense. Those who could never find a home. Those born with what they call the wanderlust. No matter how hard they tried to root themselves, sooner or later they'd blow away again.

There was another type, though. They were the ones who'd been pulled up. They were the ones, like him, who'd lost something. They were the ones with darkness in their eyes. They'd lost something, and they couldn't stay around anymore. So they moved on, telling themselves they'd go to live in LA, to sleep in NYC. And days, weeks, months later they'd learn that nobody lives in LA, nobody sleeps in NYC. Some of them, they tried to go home. And when they got there, they learned that when you leave home, you can never really go back. Not once you've been marked a drifter. When you're marked a drifter, you stay a drifter. They leave again. Like every drifter, they follow the wind. Wind of the wanderlust, wind of the broken heart, it still blows you around the country all the same.

The drifter was scrubbing grease in another greasy spoon in another greasy town somewhere in the greasy country. He'd scrubbed so many plates in so many places like this that he didn't even think about it anymore. All the little greasy spoons had blended together in his mind, becoming the only constant left in his life. It was also the best time he could think. The clouds of steam, the rumble of dishwashers, the back-room isolation helped his mind focus and wander, letting him reflect on his life. When he scrubbed away grease, he scrubbed away the grease on his mind too, letting him see everything that had led him here, to this greasy diner and this greasy town a thousand greasy miles from what he used to call home.

Five hundred and fifty dollars. That was what had led him here. All he'd needed was a five fifty ticket out of that town. But he'd been in love too. He wanted to stay, and he wanted to go. And he stalled, delayed, made excuses. Quit his job. He couldn't decide to leave. So he took away his decision. Made it so he hadn't decided. Fate had kept him here. He missed his ticket. Missed his ride to the city of dreams. Chose love over dreams. But the dreams never left. They gnawed at him. Gnawed away his happiness. Gnawed away his creativity. Gnawed away his motivation. And when they'd gnawed everything else from him, they gnawed away his love. And it gnawed and gnawed and gnawed and gnawed. And it killed them both. Gnawed away so much he was a skeleton of himself. Gnawed her away so much, he came home to a smear of blood and brains and a note. Only five words. The only five words, it seemed, that mattered. I don't love you anymore. Five words that followed him. Stayed in the back of his head when he sold everything and stepped onto the first train he saw. Burning behind his eyes every time he looked another pretty girl in the eyes. Five words that made him into a drifter. Five words, four years, a hundred different towns.

He'd walked a thousand miles, trying to leave those five words behind. He'd wiped the grease from two thousand plates trying to leave those five words behind. He'd scrubbed a hundred and seventeen floors, slept with twenty seven women, stolen nineteen dollars and thirteen cents, fought eight gangsters, trying to leave five words behind. Almost tried one bullet and seventy little pills to leave five words. Four years he'd made himself alone, four years he'd had no home, four years he'd never known where he'd be the next night, and he still hadn't come close to leaving those five words behind.

The drifter wiped the grease from his two thousand, four hundred, seventy eighth plate. He walked across the greasy floor, out the greasy door. He tipped his hat to the scowling, greasy chef. He smiled at the nice clean waitress, ho turned away from something in his eyes she couldn't place and didn't want to place. The drifter stepped onto the street, and he took a step west. Another step of hundreds of thousands. Another single step further away from the five words that would never go away.

Avocados

Some facts about Avocados:

They are also known as Alligator Pears.
They are mildly toxic.
They make me vomit with just a taste of them.
They are not native to Japan.
People insist on putting them in sushi.
I cannot eat sushi because the avocado would ruin my day.

Why do Americans insist on putting avocado into all their sushi. No traditional Japanese sushi recipe incorporates avocado, yet it's nearly impossible to find sushi in this part of America WITHOUT it.

Thanks, America, for ruining an otherwise deliciously awesome foodstuff.

College Life: Chpt 2

It's Election Day. The winds are easily 30 mph+. It's raining like the world is going to end, the water is hitting the window so hard it sounds like a woodpecker knocking his head against the glass. I'm 80 miles from home with no car and no money in the middle of some of the meanest weather this town has to offer.

And my roommate.

Keeps.

Opening the WINDOW.



Does anyone know Dante's number? I think I've discovered a new circle of hell.

My Favorite Holiday.

Today is my favorite holiday. No, not Temporally-Displaced Halloween or World Vegan Day. I mean Stupidly Cheap Candy Day, the day when all the stores desperately mark down the prices of their massive bags of Halloween candy in a frenzied attempt to make more shelf space for Christmas candy. I was able to pick up a year's worth of candy for just over $25.

Also, I mailed off my presidential ballot today. Yay Democracy!

Orson Welles

I would like to hang out with Orson Welles. Not because he's one of the greatest directors of all time, though that is a bonus, but because I'd never get shot. The man was so big that any bullets fired at us would gravitate towards him and then harmlessly embed themselves in his copious flesh.

Part One of a short story about Johnny and the Devil

My Daddy played poker on a stump in the woods back when the world was gray
17.
Johnny took another swig of his rotgut and looked the Devil right in the eye.
“I ain't gotta agree to none o' yer bets, pal. I know y'can't do nothin' to me if I jus' walk away.”
“Ah, this is true my boy. But a bet must always be matched. Whatever you offer me, I must make an equal offer.” The Devil looked like he could be any one of Johnny's neighbors, just a man making his way in the world the same as anyone else. But the way he spoke, that was just how Johnny knew the Devil would talk. Smooth and cold like moonlight, but underneath it was something old and rough. The Devil sounded like a man trying his hardest to hide an embarrassing accent.
“Yeah, but momma takes me to Church every Sunday, an' I know the only thing yer after is m'soul. And ain't nothin' in the world worth a soul.” Johnny himself spoke with all the confident arrogance that 17 years of life afforded a boy, and continued to look the Devil right in the eye.
“My boy, I do not think you quite understand me. I am the Devil. You and I both know there is nothing in the world worth your soul. But I am the Devil. I can get you anything you want, and you know it.” If the Devil thought anything of a mortal boy trying to stare down the Devil, he didn't indicate it. His eyes wandered over the trees and the dirt path they enclosed.
“What are we gonna be betting on anyway? Fiddle-off?”
“Far be it for me to take my behavioral cues from country songs. I had hoped you would agree to something more along the lines of a poker game.”
As far as ordinary goes, Johnny almost fit that description perfectly. There was nothing that stood out about his height, his hair, his eyes, his nose, his ears, his manner or his posture. There were only two things about him that were special. The first was that he was staring down the Devil himself on a dirt path in the woods. The second was that he was the best poker player in the world. He'd never drawn a bad hand in his life, and he knew it. Now he had good cause to stare the Devil down.
“I guess I can take y' up on that one, Devil. I ain't never lost at poker in my life.”
“While I can always admire a man with the confidence to challenge me, you are a fool for that. I invented the game of poker, boy, and you have just signed away your soul.”
“I don' think so, pal. We still gotta draw them, and I still ain't gonna lose.”
“Very well. You already know what I expect as payment. But in the interest of fairness, I will let you set your payment from me.”
“Well... I say, in the interest of fairness, we make it an even bet. Your soul against mine.” Johnny took a pull from his jug and wondered how the Devil was going to respond.
For the first time since he was cast down to Earth, the Devil was surprised. He'd been doing what he did for thousands of years, and never once had anyone ever tried to play his own game against him. Wealth and fame and power, the life of a loved one, these were things he was used to paying. But he'd never had to bet his own soul against anything, and it made him scared.
Still, a bet is a bet, and the Devil always honored his bets. So he laid his soul out on the line, and shuffled up his deck. Johnny cut, and the Devil dealt out five cards to them both. The Devil picked out two more cards, and Johnny just grinned. With the powerful, potent unease that can only come from being truly scared for the first time in 6,000 years, the Devil laid out his Full House, king high. A split second of a hundred years passed, and Johnny showed his four aces, smiling like a man who'd just beat the Devil at his own game. The Devil set a big, tarnished silver cross with a chain around the wrong end in Johnny's hand without a word and walked off into the trees. Johnny finished off his rotgut and watched the Devil walk off. When he was sure the Devil had gone on his damned way, Johnny slipped the Devil's soul in his pocket and set back off down that little dirt path.

The Ballad of the Doctor

Oh baby just me and you and a TARDIS

We can fight Daleks in Paris

With their cries of "EX-TER-MIN-ATE

My scarf and Sonic screwdriver will save our daaaaate~

Parliament has been taken over by giant piiigs

We'll blow them up and then have delicious fiiigs

It doesn't make sense but at least it rhymesss

We'll eat figs through all space and tiiime~

It's a work in progress.

For Halloween- A Zombie Poem

Shuffling and thumping outside the door
Moaning and groaning, hungry for gore
No one knows from whence they came
We only know they want our brains
We've nailed up all our wooden boards
Trying to slow the zombie hordes
Every man, woman, and child clutches a gun
Praying they all live to see the next sun

Surreal

The outtakes on animated movies are quite strange. No matter how bad the actors screw up repeatedly, the characters on-screen never react, never change expression. This usually leads to one of two things: 1) Strangely appropriate reaction shots that were never meant to be; or 2) Completely disconnected words and actions, such as a man with giant eyebrows studiously sniffing a dissected loaf of curry bread while his assistant swears out the director for messing up a synch.

Erwin Schrödinger

Curse you and your orbital models.

I swear this owl is making up numbers.

Whoever thought to put black pepper in black tea is a mad genius.

This stuff is like crack.

Except without the whole teeth-rotting out thing, that is.

Unless I forget to brush...

I contend

that the greatest feeling in the world is putting on your favorite flannel shirt fresh and warm right out of the dryer.

Mmmmmmmm....

College Life: Chpt 1

As I was sitting here, working on atomic radiation models for hydrogen, a half-naked stoned guy that I'd never seen before wandered into my room and asked me for a bite of my pizza crust. I knew he was stoned, not because he asked a stranger for food, but because he was willing to eat the crust of a cafeteria pizza. I can only assume that the Led Zeppelin album I was listening to acted as a sort of beacon for him, leading him to believe he had found a kindred spirit. I ripped off a hunk of my crust for him and informed him that the cafeteria was open for another hour.

I love making people happy. I take a very distinct joy when something I say or do makes another person smile. I'm pretty good at it, too. But I think, out of all the happiness I could bring to this world, out of all the joy I could ever cause, I don't think any single action of mine could ever top the pure happiness that comes from telling a stoned college student that the cafeteria is open for another hour.

Tea

I think from now on I'll mostly be drinking tea instead of coffee. The cafe has a nice assortment of black teas, and they're 63p a cup rather than the 96p for a cup of coffee. Yes, I'm a cheap bastard even when it comes to my drugs.

Also, drinking tea will make me more British, which will make me a better writer. Science says it is so.

A Repost:

This is one of my personal favorite bits of my writing from my old blog, so I'm reposting it here so that even more people can read it.

Moondust

We'll trace her footsteps across the dust of the moon

Little patterns of the past

Tiny shadows that say

She was here

We don't remember her name

Not anymore

But she mattered

We remember that,

at least

She was here,

long cold years ago

She made a difference

Left her mark forever

We don't know what drew us here

Vague memories

Half-forgotten days in daylight

Places where there was grass and warmth and golden light

A long way away from

Dust and cold and light like old men's hair

We know the path is right

Nothing changes here

Not on its own

Nothing is clearer here than the past

So we walk

Tracing the old memories

We can't even remember now why she was important

But

We love her

Always will

So we keep following footsteps in the dust

Looking for someone long gone

Gone,

maybe,

before we were even born

Lost to the dust

Gone silver and cold

Nothing left of her but the dusty memories

Pulling us across a world

Looking forever

For someone we lost

And never had

In the grass and sun

Years past

Welcome...

to the blog. My blog. The blog which I have just created, at the insistence of several of my friends. Well, one, really. But he's a good enough friend that he counts as, like, 20 regular friends. So. I used to have a MySpace blog. But MySpace eats orphans. And also I think MySpace has the right to use whatever you post for their own profit. Which is hell no. Nobody but nobody will be profiting off my work except me. And orphans. Orphans, feel free to profit off my work. But only if you're a PROPER orphan. No 60-year old guys whose parents passed away at 100 or anything like that. Only REAL orphans can profit from my work. If you don't look like this, you ain't getting squat:
You can, however, have one of those newsboy hats as well. I will still accept you as an orphan then. No need to be hatless, little orphans.

Anyway. The first few posts will be a mix of original content and reposts of my favorites from my old MySpace blog. After that, though, everything will be all-new, all-fresh, all-original content.

Also look forward to contributions from some of my friends who I deem quality writers. Badwick Jacksonville Bravehome and Nick Friggin' will hopefully be semi-frequent contributors as well.

And hey. If you're reading this, Stumble it up, tell your friends, spread the link. Get me lots of traffic, and I'll get you a $sandwich.

The surest sign of the failing economy I've ever seen.

Forget the Dow Industrial Average, forget the pundits, forget the candidates. If you need proof of the utter inevitability of finincial collapse, look no further than this:


This is a bad infomercial. But not spectacularly bad, by infomercial standards. However, it does say something terrifying about our economy. Watch the video until you get to the part where they tell you how much it costs. Notice anything? No, not the ridiculous price, although the "Get A Grip Suction Handle" is absurdly expensive. What I'm talking about is the payment method.

2 easy payments of $9.99.

Back in my day, an infomercial product was 1 payment of $19.99. If anything ever cost more than $19.95, you can bet it would be divided up into X easy payments of $YY.YY, usually $19.95.

But now, now the economy is so busted, so hopeless, that the makers of the "Get A Grip Suction Handle" figure no-one can pay $19.95 all at once. They have to divide it up even more. This is a sign of the financial endtimes. Pretty soon we'll be back on the barter system, and then you'll be able to buy a 12-cd series of the greatest hair metal love ballads of the 1980s for just 4 easy payments of $chicken.

Incidentally, the Get a Grip official website ( www.buygetagrip.com where you can also watch a smaller, grainier version of their infomercial) looks like they paid their web designer in two easy payments of $9.99 too.

On an unrelated note, if anyone wants me to write for them, my services can be hired for the low low costs of 8 easy payments of $sandwich.