My Office Blocks Blogger

Hello, zero people who read my blog. Countrywide has decided to block Blogger, so I can't kill twenty minutes writing something amusing. So, that's that update. Also, It's Still Football has been busy with our tickets to the Arena Bowl, which has made updates to this less critical. A side effect of the Arena Football focus is that I haven't had much going on to blog about on this side.

In other news, I was having a discussion over AIM with a friend, and she asked, "why do men always prefer the super skinny blond floridian type who prefer books like The DaVinci Code and like Dave Matthews Band?" Now, I don't mind The DaVinci Code, and as I recall, there were a lot of people once upon a time who thought that Dave was one step removed from the Second Coming. If he had written a song about his battles with Stigmata, it would've been ON. But the point's still valid: what's up with those girls? My immediate jokey response was, "Well, not all men like that. For example, I prefer redheads." But I managed to get a pithy philosophical argument out there, and that was this:

"If you're looking for a guy who's not a challenge, you're going to see a lot of girls who don't challenge themselves. Does that make sense?"

I'm not totally sure what I mean by that, but I thought it sounded very Zen. And so it goes on my Wall of Miscellaneous Ramblings.

This is the Jump.

Updates, In Sort of a Rambling Fashion

So, this is ye olde pointless rambly post, mostly to catch my brain up to my life. We'll see how it works out. Most of the funny has been going on at It's Still Football, so that's part of the explanation. I also haven't had much to say other than "Wow, Friday Night Lights is a good television show," or "The mortgage industry is comprised almost exclusively of the dregs of humanity," or random personal-life things that are kind of boring and would turn this into the livejournal-y emo blog that doesn't have the kind of tone I like to play in. Nobody really needs to read about my navel-gazing, and it's not as cathartic to get it in pixels as I thought it might be.

That said, let's play Pro v. Con/Yay v. Boo/Tip of the Hat v. Wag of the Finger with Things. But I'm not stealing those titles. Instead, we're playing

Victory Right/Wide Left

Victory Right - The following conversation this weekend actually occurred:

Riggs: "Yes, but when two girls make out it's sexy."
Josh: "When Riggs talks about two girls making out, it's not sexy
anymore."
Riggs: "Why isn't it sexy anymore?"
Josh: "I don't know, but I'm mad at you for making it unsexy."

Wide Left - I look hugely creepy in the pictures from this event.

Victory Right - Last week, I was walking out of the Hancock building, and passed two tourist-y types, which isn't out of the ordinary. This, however, is:

Woman: "The energy here is very bad."
Man: "So we shouldn't go in today?"

I should say not. Very weird, made me laugh. The energy? What energy? Is there a spooky aura around the Hancock that only wackos can see?

4-Yard Rush Up the Gut on 2nd Down - I've already broken my system, because I couldn't decide where to put this anecdote. On that same lunchtime walk, I also passed a clump of three or four protesters on the corner of Chicago and Michigan. I guess Cheney was in town briefly, though I don't know where he was specifically, and these people had three signs.

• One that said "Cheney War Criminal" (Points for brevity, I guess)
• One that said "You suck, Dick." (Right, I get the joke.)
• One that said "Don't shoot me in the face." (Oh, man, can we be over the face-shooting thing? Please? At least on protest signs?)

Please note that the face-shooting thing is still funny in satirical student films. Not that I'm thinking of one specificaly. Okay, I totally am.

Anyway, my point is that the only people who can get worked up over things sufficiently to exercise their rights to assembly and free speech and whatnot are the people who are least likely to be effective. These delightful examples of the American Spirit unfortunately were the wild-eyed, unwashed sort, with the poster-making accumen of a 5th-grade civics project. Well, plus the dick jokes. So, I initially got a chuckle out of it, and then was disappointed by the fact that we're kind of going to hell in a handbasket as much because of the gap between rich and poor as the gap between loony and cleverly industrious. I guess the difference is that those who are less-familiar with clever satire and the benefits of a regular shower end up with their signs on a (randomly chosen?) street corner, and those who are clever with the commentary are Steven Colbert. So, there's still kind of a meritocracy. That's good. I guess. I don't know what my point is.

Wide Left - Stupid timing-of-life stuff. No, emo-blog! Get away!

Victory Right - Mr. Marmalade, though my preparation for same might be sliding into the Wide Left category.

I Have No Idea - The Castle. I think it'll be good. I don't think I understand yet, necessarily.

Kicked Directly Into the Back of the Offensive Line, and Then a Meteor Strikes the Stadium, Leading to the Extinction of Life On Earth - This job is dumb.

This is the Jump.

Clearly, Our Dorkitude is Not Our Fault

This Easter weekend, I'm visiting The Sister in Alabama with The Parents. Of course, I brought my laptop, because, well, why not? This lead to the following conversation (slightly edited for clarity only) over Instant Messenger, with Megan, at a distance of approximately three feet:

Re: Bringing your laptop on vacay to your family's place...

Megan: yeah, apprently that's not a normal thing. Who knew?
Megan: Why is our family so weird?
Megan: Freakshow.
Me: Bad genes.

We laugh out loud, and can't explain why, because it's mean. We're awful people. Bad genes.

Update: Megan, upon reading this post: "Three feet? Not. Even. More like A foot."

This is the Jump.

Nothing Since March 19? Really?

Okay, so I think we can all agree that I've been remiss in doing anything other than make fun of arena football teams that haven't stepped on an indoor field since before I could drive, but certainly something amusing has passed through my head, right?

Checking my handy-dandy little notebook, apparently... I dislike my Mortgage Banking Overlords, for whom I will have to suffer through some sales workshop that has no bearing on my actual life next week. (Look forward to that, though I may avoid it, no matter what the chance for humor.) Oh, I watched the pilot episode of The Riches, which I rather liked. Even if Minnie Driver is the creepiest of the creepy when all strung-out. But Eddie Izzard is enjoyable, and I will steal his humor (he's British, so I suppose it's "humour") when it suits my fancy. And the daughter is good-looking and not a bad actress. (And not freakily-young, so no worries there.)

I also found out via Deadspin comments that John Spencer allegedly was a jerk to crew members, and made people cry. This bothers me deeply, but I can still want to be as skilled as John Spencer, and be nice to people. So, whatever. Also, a Google search on "John Spencer makes people cry" doesn't come up with anything. So, I'm going to file that under "L" for "Lies, lies! Why do you lie? What makes you lie?!?"

On the 21st, at 1:09 AM, apparently something happened that caused me to write the following:

iTunes Knows!
-Cecilia, Simon and Garfunkel
-Mr. Jones, Counting Crows
-Sheep Go to Heaven, Cake

So, that's cryptic. Not 100% sure what iTunes knew, because I can't remember what I was thinking about at the time, but iTunes in interestingly predictive...

I briefly considered taking the LSAT or applying to the CIA, but for the wrong reasons...

John Dixon looks like a young Dick Van Dyke, of which I'm envious, because I wish I was a young Dick Van Dyke...

That came up, because I'm understudying John for Dog & Pony's production of Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade at the Storefront Theater at/in/part of Gallery 37 downtown. So, that's going on. That and Kafka's The Castle, with the Right Brain Project, which opens at the Trapdoor Theatre on May 10.

The rest of my notes are my expenses and stuff. So, I guess I've been a little consumed with Mr. Marmalade and The Castle, and my Profiles Theatre class wrapping up. Kim had a going-away party last weekend that was delightful, and we'll miss her terribly. She'll be in Japan, teaching English for a year. Which is an excellent excuse to bring up this historical Conversation That Actually Happened, circa Spring 2001:

Why is she going there? [Ed. note - Prague, I think]
To teach English to people who don't know it.
For good?
No, for evil.

This has been another installment of Conversations That Actually Happened Theater. Good day.

This is the Jump.