Dilbert

Okay, I'm not complaining about my new job. I love it. I am doing less and getting paid more than ever before. I guess I'm just not used to corporate life and society. Before, when ever I'd see three or four guys with short sleeves and ties in a group somewhere, I'd think to myself in a dorky inner voice: "Hey, did you guys see Dilbert this morning?" It kind of summed up that kind of guy. After a few weeks here in Corporate America, I have seen that exact scene play out more than once. The guys errupt in laughter so full, they start crying.
I have seen people go totally ape shit because someone brought in bagels. Those horrible 40 packs of cup-cakes with the massive ammount of icing that you see at the grocery store, are cause for great celebration. People would buy special hats if they could on cup-cake day. And the treats disappear faster than a pack of smokes at an AA meeting. The same guy comes back over and over again till they're gone.

I'm not saying these are bad people either. I'm sure they are on the whole very nice and lead very full lives outside of work.

They just kind of scare me.

JP

moving

Off to Stillwater we go!! Jen's job gave her a giant thumbs up for working out of her house in Stillwater after the baby gets here. This means we are a movin' again. This also means that we get to keep our surprisingly large salaries (for us at least) and we don't have to pay for day-care, which costs a surprisingly large ammount of money. Cost of living is a little cheaper, and we get all the amenities of a college town, like cool shows and interesting people, and attractive college kids wandering around, and better coffee. There are only 50,000 people here, not counting students. This is a big deal for us. I'm really excited. We can get a bigger house, as we have to allot a room to use as a home office, and get to write that off of our taxes. I know there are a few of you out there who think I'm going soft. But I just want to dispel the roumers and reassure everyone that I am still the urban rebel I always was. I'm just doing it from a small town with a family, working for one of the largest electronics companies in the world. Punk's Not Dead

the book of Job

So, after almost two months of searching and searching, wondering if Jackson was going to be born into the welfare system, I have finally landed a job. A real one. With an office or a cubical or something. It is as a graphic designer for Creative Labs Inc. You may have seen their Zen brand of MP3 players or have a Sound Blaster in your computer. I'll be designing a little for their website, but mostly their print stuff. It pays more than double what I've ever made in my life. The only shitter is that it is in Stillwater, OK, about an hour away. The town is smaller than Tulsa, but is where OSU is located, so its pretty cool. We may move there depending on how the job works out, and what Jenn can swing with hers after Jackson gets here. Houses and cost of living up there are really cheap, so Jenn probably won't have to go back until she wants to. But I will have gone fronI an really excited that I didn't have to take a shittier job just to get by, and that it is a direct hire and not through a temp place, as one is responsable for me being unemployed in the first place. fuckers.So I start on Tuesday, and I have to find a new car soon because my POS truck can barely make it to the coffeeshop. Wish me luck!

Bandwagon

This is another list thing.
I compulsively make lists because I don't trust my own memory.* This was passed along to me by my good friend Brian who will now have to suffer through reading it. It is a Top Five thing about music. None are in any real order.

Top Five Lyrics That Move My Heart: Luckily Brian has renamed this one to something more managable.

Lyrics That Make My Inner Unicorn Cry:
1 That Was The Day - The The
Seriously. I met my wife at a the the show, and we danced to this song at our wedding. I get a smile every time I hear it. Some commercial is using it, and when I see it, a little aww comes out.

Well you didn't wake up this morning'Coz you didn't go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red
The calander on your wall is ticking the days off
You've been reading some old letters
You smile and think how much you've changed
All the money in the worldCouldn't buy back those days
You pull back the curtainsAnd the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying accross a clear blue sky
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day when things fall into place
You could have done anything if you'd wanted
All your friends and family think that you're lucky
But the side of you that they'll never see
Is when you left alone with the memories
That hold your life together like glue

2 The State I Am In - Belle and Sebastian

There is always a moment in one's lives when one realizes that they need help.The line: Oh Love of mine would you condesend to help me 'cause I'm stupid and blind. That always gets me.
I was surprised, I was happy for a day in 1975
I was puzzled by a dream, it stayed with me all day in 1995
My brother had confessed he was gay It took the heat off me for a while
He stood up with a sailor friend Made it known upon my sisters wedding day
I got married in a rush to save a kid from being deported, Now she's in love
I was so touched, I was moved to kick the crutches From my crippled friend
She was not impressed cause I cured her on the Sabbath, So I went to confess
When she saw the funny side, we introduced my child brideTo whisky and gin To whisky and gin
The priest in the booth had a photographic memory For all he had heard
And he took all of my sins and he wrote a pocket novel called"The State I Am In"
And so I gave myself to GodThere was a pregnant pause before he said ok
Now I spend my day turning tables round In Marks & Spencer's
They don't seem to mind

I gave myself to sin
I gave myself to Providence
And I've been there and back again
The state that I am in

Oh love of mine, would you condescend to help meCause I'm stupid and blind
Oh and desperation is the Devil's work, it is the folly of a boy's empty mind
Now I'm feeling dangerous, riding on city buses for a hobby is sad
Why don't you lead me to a living end
I promised that I'd entertain my crippled friend

3 Untitled - The Cure.
There is a nasty teenage break up in there.

hopelessly adrift in the eyes of the ghost again
down on my knees and my hands in the air again
pushing my face in the memory of you again
but i never know if it's real never know how i wanted to feel
never quite said what i wanted to say to you
never quite managed the words to explain to you
never quite knew how to make them beleivable and now the time has gone
another time undone
hopelessly fighting the devil futility
feeling the monster climb deeper inside of me
feeling him gnawing my heart away hungrily
i'll never lose this pain
never dream of you again

4 Tom Traubert's Blues - Tom Waits.
This is a great song antway, but now I always think of Basquiat every time I hear it.

Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did
I've got what I paid for nowsee ya tomorrow, hey Frank, can I borrow
a couple of bucks from you, to go
Waltzing Mathilda,
waltzing Mathilda,
you'll go waltzing Mathilda with me
I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
and I'm tired of all these soldiers here
no one speaks English, and everything's broken
and my Stacys are soaking wet
to go waltzing Mathilda,
waltzing Mathilda, you'll go waltzing Mathilda with me
now the dogs are barking
and the taxi cab's parking
a lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me
you tore my shirt open
and I'm down on my knees tonight
Old Bushmill's I staggered, you buried the dagger in
your silhouette window light go to go
waltzing Mathilda,
waltzing Mathilda, you'll go waltzing Mathilda with me
now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her
and the one-armed bandit knows,
and the maverick Chinamen,
and the cold-blooded signs
and the girls down by the strip-tease shows go
waltzing Mathilda,
waltzing Mathilda, you'll go waltzing Mathilda with me
no, I don't want your sympathy,
the fugitives say that the streets aren't for dreaming now
manslaughter dragnets and the ghosts that sell memories
they want a piece of the action anyhow go
waltzing Mathilda,
waltzing Mathilda, you'll go waltzing Mathilda with me
and you can ask any sailor, and the keys from the jailor
and the old men in wheelchairs knowthat Mathilda's the defendant,
she killed about a hundred
and she follows wherever you may go
waltzing Mathilda,
waltzing Mathilda, you'll go waltzing Mathilda with me
and it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
and a wound that will never heal
no prima donna, the perfume is on
an old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
and goodnight to the street sweepersthe night watchman flame keepers
and goodnight to Mathilda too

5 Danny boy.This is the best song. Ever.
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.
And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.
And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.


More to come.*on many levels

H2G2

A lot of people don't realize exactly how important that book is to some people. Although not my first, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was one of the first actual novels I ever read. I think the first was the Hobbit, but hhg was much more important. My copy has a copyright of 1984, which means I was 9. $3.95. Those were the days. This book was my first sci-fi-humor book but more than that, it was the first time I seen Brittish wit written down. Jeff and I were already fans of Doctor Who, Monty Python, and what ever else channel six showed late on saturday, and early on sunday, so to actually see it written down made me understand what creativity meant a little more. I was pretty creative, but I didn't really get it the way i do now. Things just came to me. Now I have to "think of something" and I hate it sometimes. I read all of the books as fast as my meager allowance would muster, and then read them again. Soon after that we were amazed to see the brittish TV version, which seems so cheap now, but we didn't care. Jeff ordered the tapes of the radio drama all the way from England, and they seemed so special, beacuse we had no idea where it was. We only knew that it was very far away and full of people who seemed so much smarter and more exciting than the people we saw every day. Later we learned that this was not the case, and they just had something called "wit" and we had "reckless abandon" and should just leave it. Jeff and I listened to those tapes over and over and over. Then we reread the books. Then we listened to the tapes again. We quoted it the way people quote Napoleon Dynamite do now. We drew that grinning planet on every notebook, trapper keeper, or sheet of paper we ever owned. When our family finally got a computer, Jeff got the Text Game and i was really jealous because by that time, we were living with different parents, and I couldn't play with it. This soon went away when Neither Jeff nor any of his friends no anyone we ever heard of could get past the dog in front of the pub.

enter pub
YOU CANNOT ENTER PUB
why
A DOG BLOCKS YOUR WAY
move dog
YOU CANNOT MOVE DOG

And so forth. I really hated that game. When they collected the series into a single volume, and had a signing at the Tattered Cover, holy crap, we lost it. partially because we could meet Douglas Adams, but also beacuse there was a story called "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe" included. We followed his career through out Dirk Gently, Starship Titanic, and what ever else he was doing. I remember being truely saddened when I heard of his death on NPR one day in may car. I still remember it. Jeff was the first person I called, and there was this sad sense that something ended and we wouldn't get any more of the material that we loved so much. That is, until jeff sent me an email with a pic of Mos Def holding a book with "Don't Panic" written on the front. I hadn't been this excited about a movie since Episode I. Luckily, I was not robbed of a pay off this time. I re-read the book last night, surprizing my self that I could still read a whole book in one night with out drugs. Then I went and saw the movie today. I have to say I was very very pleased. The problem with Star Wars for people of my gen is that it didn't grow up with us. They are exactly the same thing as before, but we all grew up. "Gosh, they don't seem as sophistocated or cool as they did when I was 8". Ask any 8 year old, and they can't tell the difference between the two. Hitchhiker's did it. It grew at exactly the same pace as we did. Our visual expectations grew and our attention spans shrank. The movie had more than enough of the story and style of old to keep a dork like me not only satisfied, but riveted. It had enough new twists and turns to make me think I was seeing something entirely new. The plot changes onlyt improved the dramatic nature of the whole story. The cast were awesome. Hhaving larger parts for the Vogons, and adding a villan made it more of an adventure and less just a bunch of odd things happening that the characters then had to deal with. I am sure I did not catch all of the cameos, but the ones that I did catch had my eyes popping out of my head (Especiallythe old Marvin). Yes, some of my favorite lines were missing: "You know, its times like these when I'm trapped inside a Vogon air lock with a man from Beetleguese about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.""Why, what did she tell you?""I don't know, I didn't listen!"But that's OK. I might have done without the singing dolphins, beacuse the close up of the book was a cooler opening anyway. All in all, Adams gave this world something really really cool, and he would be happy that nobody has fucked it up.

Fabrisuck

Okay, so I applied for this print shop job through a temp agency, and they tell me to come down and fill some shit out. When I get there, they say that they gave that job away already, but have this other job that they think I can do. It is in the design dept of that fabric place of blogs past. I say fine. They want me to start the next day. I say I can't, cause I have a job and it would be rude to just leave. I say I can be out in a week. they say fine, come back in six days to fill some shit out. So I tell the coffee shop, and they're all upset, but wish me good luck. I get to the temp place and they tell me that the company gave that job away. But there might be another one open in that dept in the next week or so. Good thing I quit that job. She calls me the next day and tells me I can start the next day. Good. I get there, and they tell me that they gave that job to someone else, and they'll just put me in the warehouse till something opens up. Okay, same pay, less demanding work, no prob. After abut two weeks, they offer me a promotion to the "cutting" dept whatever that is. I say fine. They tell me to come in the next day at 10:00 instead of 8:00. I ask if that is the shift hours always, and they say yes. I tell them that might be a prob, as I have baby classes in the evenings. They say okay, and that they will get someone else, but if one opens up, they'll let me know. That was on friday. Sunday night, the temp place calls and says that the company has cancelled my contract, as I cannot work the required hours. How fucked up is that? They tell me not to go in anymore, and to bring my badgr back in and they'll try to get me this other job at a print shop. When I go in, they are total asses to me, and act like it's MY fault that they didn't put me in the right job, or tell me that the hours would change whenever they felt like it. I ask about the print job and they blow me off and tell me that they will call me if anything pops up. Dicks. They make me quit my job, and stick me in a place that dicks me around, and now they won't help me find a new one.I'm gonna burn the building down.

Job Schmob

I started a new job last week. I finally quit the coffee shop and the service industry in general, and took a non union wharehouse job. The company is called Fabricut and they distribute fabric. They are based here but distribute all over. They have a pretty extensive graphics department, and I hope to break into that some day. Not my first choice, but neither was the coffee shop. It's like a grown-up's job. Has insurance and a decent paycheck. I woke up the other day and realized that I was 30, married, a home owner, contributing member of society, and a father. Then I set a cop car on fire and felt much better.

El Patrick

So I'm almost in an auto accident thursday on my way to work. The Highway is elevated, and at one point I pass the Marquee for a Nudie Bar called "Cloud 9", and it reads:

ST PATRICKS DAY SPECIAL
FREE TACO BAR TILL 600


Lord all mighty.

Red Hot

Holee crap I love Frank's Red Hot.Heather O got me hooked on it back in the mid '90s. I got Jenn hooked soon after. Now i put it on all things humans can consume. I use it as a training tool for my dogs. I am collecting wrappers to get the free Frank's Red Hot Offical Dart Board. I started buying the smaller size so I could get it faster. Usually I get the medium size one. Heather O used to get the huge container from Sam's that had a pump attached to it. I was always jealous of that thing. I have a bottle at work, I have secretly stashed one at each of the in-laws houses, and I used to keep one in the car, specifically for use on Sonic's Cheddar Peppers, until I gained too much weight, as I was quitting smoking and eating enough cheddar peppers to choke a Rhino. I guess hgh cholesterol is preferable to black lungs, in which case I'm basically a solid.

sonogram crackers

Hey guess what? our kid is gonna be a boy. Jackson Wesley Powers Pretty cool. He'll be born late July/Early August. Pretty cool. I don't like it when fuckers babble about their kids so that is all you get. You'll have to read the timelife book when it comes out after he gets the death penalty.

true dat

Okay, for those of you who don't know, or who have heard but just didn't believe it. Jenn and I (mostly Jenn) are pregnant. I know what you are thinking, and yes, it is mine. So there you go. Pappa J. Daddy-O. Father Tuck. It is a little weird. It is not as freaky as I thought in most ways, but really freaky in others. I do know this: This child will have blue eyes, freckles, poor eyesight, and a double chin.

Okie - Dokie

My new life as an okie.
This is a weird place. Ypu talk to people throughout the day, and they seem normal enough. Most of them are. But then you see how the people here feel as a whole and it just boggles the mond. I thought this was true for just Oklahoma, but then the election came. I always had a suspicion (especially after Ashlee Simpson's album opened at .1) that most of the people out thee were blind, moronic sheep. Now I have statistical proof. Where are these prople and what on earth are they doing all day. I used t think that it had a lot to do with religon, but I now think that God is just the quickest and easiest excuse to back up an existing political belief. And most of the people don't seem weird until you get ont conservative subjects, then they go wild. It's like when you ask that seemingly normal person about what sports they like, and they go: "RED SOX RULE!!!!!!! WOOOO HOOOO!!! FUCK YEAH!!! REDSOOOOOXXXXX!!!!!!" Only more creepy.