Shuck N Jive

Another Cold Hard Truth brought to you by the Shuck 'N Jive

2009-11-05T21:48:00.001-06:00

We have a growing problem in this country. Belly Itchers. Nobody wants them. We seem to prefer pitchers over Belly Itchers almost universally. From little league all the way up to the major leagues, it seems as if Belly Itchers have no place in this world.

BI's have been around for centuries. Not a lot of people know this, but prior to 1845, Belly Itchers were a well respected people with a rich history and a lot to offer the various towns and cities that they occupied. Of course, we all remember what happened in 1845. The amount of negative Belly Itcher propaganda at that time would be considered excessive even in today's world of 24 hour news cycles and the internet. Just look at this old anti-Belly Itcher flyer I found in the Shuck 'N Jive Archives:

It boggles the mind how these kinds of hate crimes start, but it's never to late to end the mistreatment of a group of people and prove that the human race is really decent and kind and should not, I repeat NOT, be wiped out by Alien with superior technology/morals. I'm challenging all of you to be a better person and befriend a Belly Itcher today. I think you'll find that they aren't as disgusting as you've been led to believe. Once you've done that, go ahead and print out the picture below, use a safety pin to attach it to your shirt like you're a 2nd grader bringing home a note to your parents and take a photo of yourself wearing said picture in front of a well populated area so that I can see you spreading the word. Post that picture online somewhere and leave a link in the comments. I'll chose the best one and give the winner a prize*. Please don't photoshop the picture unless you're really good at photoshop. I don't want to look at any poorly photoshopped pictures.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's topic: Broken Ladders and their unacceptable use as a replacement for a batter.

*There's a well above average chance that the prize will consist of a series of "attaboys," virtual high fives and a picture of me giving you the thumbs up, but you never know, if enough people bend to my will, I may actually send you something.

Vices (oddly enough, that's not even what this post is about. I really should have called it Addictions.)

2009-11-04T21:00:00.000-06:00

Everyone has vices. I have surprisingly few. Actually, I have annoyingly few. I think that's why people punch me in the kidneys when I walk by. Something about the way I walk. Whatever.

While I may have few vices, I have a ton of addictions. Let me list them for you in no particular order: Air, Basketball, Baseball, Football, Tennis, Guitar Hero, not dying, not watching commercials about foot disease, washing my hands, sunflower seeds, good music, love, pens, triangular shaped paper clips, iPhones, cherry swirl coffee cake, television, monetary compensation, learning about nose blowing etiquette, the number 9, puzzles about left handed scissors, custom made earphones and compressed natural sunshine. That's the short list anyway.

These addictions have had a profound effect on my life, but none more than my addiction to sunflower seeds. Let me show you a picture I took of my sunflower seed room the other day (yes, I have a room dedicated just to sunflower seeds. I imagine it's similar to the rooms alligator addicts* have.).

As you can see, I have two giant piles of sunflower seeds. My love of sunflower seeds is so great that I feel the need to swim around in them Scrooge McDuck style. The fact that I am unable to resist the urge to swim around in my giant pile of sunflower seeds necessitates a second pile just for eating. Swimming around in my sunflower seeds means that some of them will touch my feet and that's just gross. I have a rule about how once something touches my foot, or anyone's foot for that matter, it is no longer eligible to enter my mouth. If you don't have a problem with that sort of thing though, go ahead and help yourself to the swimming pile.

I know what your thinking. The answer is 3. I bring in 3 truckloads of sunflower seeds a week.

*Word to the wise, you do not want to be at an AAA meeting when someone relapses.

Another bad idea brought to you by the Shuck 'N Jive

2009-11-03T19:45:00.000-06:00

Some of you may know that awhile back, I took some improv classes. I cannot recommend this enough to anyone and everyone. You don't have to want to be a professional improver (in fact, I recommend against that as it doesn't pay jack squat), you just have to have an open mind. I think the benefits of improv in your everyday life would make it worth your while. You will spend several hours a week with other people that will create a safe, nurturing environment for you. You will learn to treat everyone as though they were a genius and in return, everyone will treat you like a genius and you'll feel a sense of support I've never found anywhere else. You'll also get to make a lot of dick and fart jokes, that's worth the $200-$300 price tag alone!

Ok, now that I'm sure all of my readers have signed up for an intro improv class, I'll move on to tell you about one of my favorite improv books. It's called Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier. There's a lot of improv books out there and they say a lot of different things. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong. People are different and some books help certain people more than others. I happen to do well with this one. One of the things I like about this book is the exercises it gives you to help you train your mind. One of my personal favorites is the Dada Monologue. The basic idea behind it is to not make any sense. This helps you work on free association. To get started, just look at something and start talking about it, but don't try to make any sense. In fact, the second you feel yourself starting to make sense, turn it around and crazy it up a bit. I find this helps me when I'm in a writing rut. I almost never do it, but when I do, boy does it work wonders! Here's an example:

Pine tar is often used in the elaborate recreation of tombstones for monkey lemons. The best way to fight cats is to use broad words and mannerisms most often tickled by the idea of a sandwich making a hot dog eat frugal mints. Often lost is the hasty retreat of the television gone shopping at the colloquial benchmark brought to the staple of a timely diet. Champion telestrators are one of the many philosophical differences between keyboards and typists. Among all glass fixtures surprised by the lack of intermittent markers is the jump rope of my best friends lost dynamo. Paper clips seem like harmless hamsters compared to the finite amount of cheddar ice cream in the world of Walt Disney.

Ok, I screwed up. I feel like the sentence, "Champion telestrators are one of the many philosophical differences between keyboards and typists." actually makes sense. And if it doesn't, I don't want to hear about it, I just want to draw a picture of what I think that means.

I'm pretty sure that picture will crystallize it for you, but for those of you that don't quite get it, let me explain by saying that keyboards, by there very nature, are logical. Typists on the other hand, are an extremely sad people. You'll notice that the typist in the picture above doesn't even have a flat panel monitor. In this day and age, it's demeaning to be forced to use a CRT monitor. You can't even give those things away.

I'm glad I could clear that up for you. I'm going to go play Guitar Hero 5 now.

The Stanky Leg

2009-11-02T23:38:00.000-06:00

I have recently been alerted to a threat I believe everyone should know about. It's called Stanky Leg. I don't have any idea what it really is, but I do know that there is a song about it that I've never heard. I have no choice but to make something up and accept it as truth.

Stanky Leg, or the get-away-from-me-your-leg-smells disease as it's known on the street, is an illness affecting more than 17 billion people today. You may not have it yourself, but chances are everyone you know and/or are related to is infected. There is no known cure, but there is an intern with a C+ average that has been assigned the task of creating a chart to track the average lifespan of those currently engulfed by this disease. He's at lunch right now, but I'm sure as soon as he gets back, he'll be all over it. Until then, we'll just have to wait and hope for the best.

Symptoms of Stanky Leg include foul odors emanating from the leg area, crazy bad arthritis in the shoulder, left handedness, ankle bearding, Chinese checkers infatuation and purple burps. It can affect either leg, but not both at the same time. It has a one leg Stank rule. You may notice your friends walking away from you and pointing at your leg as they cover their mouths with any available gas masks or bandit style handkerchiefs they may be wearing around their neck. It is most commonly transfered through diaper sharing, but you may also catch it from shaking hands or open mouth talking.

Please distribute the flyer below to help spread awareness. It's up to us as a community to stomp out this vicious disease. I'm counting on you.

The Unavoidable Truth

2009-11-01T16:29:00.000-06:00

So last night I was with my fiance heading out for dinner when we saw a group of people in costumes walking down the street. I wish I could say that it was to be expected due to the Halloween holiday, but sadly, it was to be expected because that's what people in downtown Chicago do. Every day I go to work, I see people dressed up as "business men/women" and "students" and "homeless people." It's fun for the first few months, but after awhile, you think to yourself, give it up! Especially all those homeless people. They lay it on thick. Always asking for change for food/bus fair/clothes/investing. I get it guys. Nice costume, but leave me alone, I have to go tend to a blind lady.

Last night was different though, there was a lot more variety. I will attribute that to Halloween. Most of it was pretty standard fare, girls dressed as nuns/various-other-uptight-prudish-women, guys dressed up as women dressed as women who don't know how to dress like women because they're really men. The usual. But then there was Death. Normally Death is a standard outfit, but this guy took it a step further. He was on stilts. This made him approximately 10 feet tall. Awesome. Or so I thought.

Sure, a 10 foot tall Death costume is great, but really, where are you going with this thing? Outside works out well, but as soon as you get to your destination, you're screwed. The best part of the costume is towering over everyone. As soon as you lose that, you're just another guy in a Death costume, only you're tripping over your pants because they're way too long. Then there's the stilts. What are you going to do with these? You can't just leave them in the corner, they'll get stolen. I know that because I was looking into stilts a few years ago as an alternate means of transportation (I figured if I got long enough stilts, I could cut my work commute down to three steps*. Who wouldn't want their commute to work to be three steps?!?!?) but I stopped looking when I saw the cost of insurance would be five times more than owning a private moonship used only for recreation and the occasional escape from interplanetary apocalyptic collapses. The theft rate is nearly 95%. It's almost impossible to hold onto stilts. They're difficult to store and a giant pain in the butt to carry around. You ever see anyone carrying around their stilts while not using them? Exactly.

* I saw this ad in the paper a few years ago. Looking back on it now, I don't know why the poor craftsmanship of the ad didn't tip me off to the "too good to be true-ness" of it.

32nd Anniversary

2009-10-31T18:40:00.001-05:00

For thousands of years I have struggled with the same question. How can I tell people that it's my birthday without actually using audible words or sock puppet miming?

The fact that I haven't answered this question in thousands of years is a little on the pathetic side, but maybe that's all in my head since I'm only 32 years old. That's what all the legal documents say anyway.

As of today, this is no longer an issue. My oldest sister, the one with the PhD, has given me the solution to end my misery. Enjoy!

I'll be sporting this fine new fashion accessory every Halloween. It is ok to be jealous.

-- Posted From My birthday iPhone. Birthday checks welcome!

Dinner

2009-09-28T21:43:00.001-05:00

I made a sandwich for dinner tonight. It was simple in its construction. Bread, black forest ham, Cajun turkey, mustard, mayo and pepper jack cheese. It was toasted and delicious. As you can see below, I did have to take one unusual step in order to complete this mouthful of happy sunshine.

First of all, yes, I do have amazing arm strength. Second, no, this was not dangerous. The photograph clearly shows that I am holding my iPhone. It has a built in accelerometer. There's no conceivable way my iPhone allows me to make a mistake without alerting me with a vibration, text message or custom ring tone. Third, false, the cheese is not on the ground, that is gross. In reality, I am about to slice down with such force that I am actually hovering above the ground at countertop height.

It is for that third reason that I cannot advocate using a knife of this size to cut cheese. Is it cool? Obviously. Is it easy? Not at all. Turns out, cheese posseses an unusually high friction coefficient. It's almost impossible to slice even the smallest block of cheese without summoning the strenght of seven men. Fortunately I took a summer course at the local junior college in order to master that very skill. I'm just not sure everyone will have the same forethought as I did to register for that class. It's an elective, but it fills up fast.

If you've got a normal sized knife though, I highly recommend this sandwich for your next lunch or dinner meal.

-- Posted From My iPhone using the strength of only four men. I save the seven man variety for special occasions and crime fighting.

I Liked it, so I put a ring on it.

2009-09-22T08:31:00.001-05:00

-- Posted From My engaged iPhone.

DIY Custom Ear Phones

2009-09-08T19:03:00.016-05:00

Section 1: The Back story*

(If you don't care about the back story, go ahead and skip to Section 2: The Reckoning. Don't worry, I won't be offended, I'll probably skip most of this section myself. It's going to be loaded with typos and incomplete sentences as well as long, incongruous soliloquies about the merits of post it notes in an email society. Do yourself a favor and scroll down several paragraphs.)

As all three of my hardcore readers know, I have an iPhone. It does many a wondrous thing for me from perfecting my ability to create as many words as possible out of six letters to allowing me to watch Dodger games from pretty much anywhere I can get a decent 3G signal (not as easy as you'd think in Chicago). But one of the most useful things it does for me is play music. I listen to music pretty much wherever I go. Up until recently, I'd been using the stock headphones that came with the phone when I bought it. Then this happened:

Anyone that's purchased an iPod or iPhone in the past few years is familiar with that scene. I thought I was immune because that sort of thing only happens in the movies, right? Wrong. So I went down to the Apple store find a new set of headphones that would work proper with my iPhone because I also like to use my headset to take phone calls. If I had been in the market to spend a few hundred dollars, I would have been in luck. They offered several choices for millionaires and the like, but pretty much nothing for my $50 budget, save for another pair just like the ones I already had that would also fail in another six months or so. I had a small temper tantrum, cried a lot, then settled on these:

Yes, they are the Apple brand in-ear headphones. My logic was this: They received good reviews, they would be covered under my Apple care policy and they were roughly half the price of the competition. They were still more than I wanted to spend, but I was hoping for something that would last me more than six months. I put them in for the walk home and learned three things:

1. You have to lock that cord down or you will hear every step you take as the cord hits your chest and transfers the sound right up to your ears.

2. After about five minutes, those "soft" ear buds start to hurt my ears.

3. The music I listen to has a melody, lyrics and a healthy amount of base.

I was blown away by the sound quality. I had always heard that the stock headphones sounded like crap, but I just passed that off as audiophiles spreading their nonsense and figured the headphones sounded just fine. I no longer hold that opinion.

The sound was phenomenal, but what to do about the pain? I tried to tough it out for a few days thinking I would get used to it, but like my Grandmother always said, I'm a huge sissy. I couldn't hang, so I started looking into alternatives. I briefly considered having my ears removed and sculpting the remaining sound holes into perfect circles to better accommodate the ear buds, but then I realized I'd have to gouge out my eyes because I wouldn't be able to wear sunglasses anymore and all the squinting would give me a headache, so that was out. Then I accidentally stumbled across a website for custom molded earplugs while googling "custom molded earplugs." Custom headphones seemed like a good idea, but spending another $120 did not. Did I mention that I'm currently 14 months into a game of "Which bill shall I skip this month?" Well I am. So I did some research on do it yourself options and didn't find much. The closest I came was some guy who shoved epoxy in his ear, let it dry, broke open an existing pair of headphones and rewired them to his freshly drilled ear shaped glue blob. I respect the spirit of do-it-yourselfers everywhere, but my Grandmother branded sissy status precluded me from attempting such a thing. So I climbed into my thinking tree, got arrested for trespassing and came up with an alternative while trying to avoid being asked to join a "club" of some sort in lockup. Here's what I came up with:

Section 2: The Reckoning

The first thing I did was order some ear molding kits from here because I'm no chemist and when it comes to sticking things in my ears, I prefer those things to come from a source that purports to know what they're talking about even though I have no way whatsoever of confirming it. Next, I bought a plastic/silicone mold making kit of this variety. After three agonizingly long days, everything showed up in the mail and I was ready to begin.

Step 1: Read the instructions.

Step 2: Put the junk in your ears. For this step, I recommend having a partner help you out unless you're prone to giggle fits, then just do it yourself. It's a lot harder to do on your own, but not as hard as coming back from the dead because the person that's trying to put this in your ears will kill you if you move around too much. Not because this stuff is that dangerous, but because your moving around will be so annoying that death will be the only option available to the person formerly known as your assistant. Wait about 10 minutes and see if it's ready to take out. The instructions that come with the ear impression kit tell how you'll know when it's ready. Yeah, I could tell you right now, but then you might not read the instructions and I could never forgive myself if that were to happen.

Step 3: Prepare to make a negative of your new ear impression. For this step, I utilized the latest in paper cup and paper clip technology to suspend the ear impression. I thought this would be the easiest way to make a proper negative. It worked on my first try, so if there's a better way to do this, I didn't have to find it. Feel free to try out something new, but this worked for me.

Step 4: Mix and pour the plastic. I was probably a bit impatient at this point and I didn't really read the instructions for the plastic. You might want to do that and see if they give you any tips on how to measure out equal amounts of the two liquids you'll be mixing. I spilled a little bit more than I'd care to admit. Just be careful not to fill up the mold cup past the part of the impression that would be considered outside of the ear, otherwise you might not be able to remove the impression from the plastic once it hardens.

Step 5: Once the plastic hardens (about 15 minutes), you can pull the impression out. After I finished pouring in the plastic, I was 95% sure I had made a horrific mistake and I would never be able to get the impression back out, but I was wrong. It took a little doing, but I got it out completely intact and it's only gotten easier to do since. I've made impressions for my girlfriend as well and the second time around, everything was much easier.

Step 6: Prepare the headphone adapter. For this step, I first took the existing soft ear bud (most headphones of this type come with at least three different sizes: small, medium and large. I recommend using one of the sizes that doesn't fit you at all in case you screw up completely and just want to use your headphones the way they came in the package.) and cut away almost all of the outer portion leaving behind just a little bit on the bottom to help serve as an anchor inside the silicone once you pour that in and around your new "adapter." Then I took a small section of coat hanger and wrapped it in scotch tape until the ear bud fit snugly on it. Then I took a drill bit the size of the coat hanger sans tape and drilled a small hole in the center of the ear canal on the mold that will help keep everything in place when the silicone is poured in. I then made a small notch in the paper cup on the other side to help steady the headphone adapter contraption doohickey as well.

Step 7: Mix and pour the silicone. It takes a very small amount to actually fill the earphone mold. I found it impossible to mix just a tiny bit, so be prepared to pour the excess into whatever you deem appropriate so that you don't feel like you're wasting it. I seem to find half a plastic egg worthy of such a thing. (Yes, silicone bounces) Fair warning, once you start, you might find that there's almost nothing that you don't want to pour this stuff on. It takes about 6 hours to properly cure, so consider doing this at night before you go to bed so you can wake up to a nice treat.

Step 8: You're pretty much done now. Just carefully remove the new ear buds from the mold and shave off the excess.

Having used these for a little over a week now, I can honestly say that they are the most comfortable thing I've ever put in my ear. Not only do they sound great, but they do a great job of blocking out background noise. I walk under the trains as they go around the loop here in Chicago and I can still enjoy my music and better yet, I can still hear what someone is saying to me if I'm on a phone call. When I made a pair for my girlfriend, I used a pair of Sony MDR-EX36V headphones, and they sound every bit as good as my Apple set (in some ways, they are even better because they really lock into the ear bud. Not that mine are falling out, but hers are much less likely to slip off). They go for $30 at Best Buy, but lack the phone functionality that I need. From the mold making kit I bought, I'd gather you could make 4 or 5 pairs of headphones easily enough, so get some friends together and you can probably bring the price down to about $50/pair (Sony buds, molding kit and impressions kit included) for headphones that will sound phenomenal and feel even better.

I probably missed something in there, so if you have a question, leave a comment and I'll try my best to answer it. I realize this is a pretty short post, so I apologize for not taking up more of your time. Here's some additional pictures if anyone is interested:

earphone project

*Some of this back story is probably true, most of it is probably not.

Hey Jon, what have you been doing?

2009-08-31T22:53:00.001-05:00

Funny you should ask. I just finished up a fairly elaborate pie chart that breaks down how I've been spending my time lately. The first thing you'll notice is that I don't track how much time I spend in the bathroom. Now you know where I draw the line. The second thing you'll notice is that I can't draw very good circles. I drew this while watching The Fast and Furious. Maybe now that you know my brain was completely numb at the time, it's not so bad, is it?

As you can see, I lead a pretty fulfilled life. Yet another reminder of why you want to be me. Some of the things I do are related, like pretending to be busy and sleeping. They just go hand in hand. I would have preferred to spend a small portion of my time purchasing winning lottery tickets, but it was not to be. There were two winning tickets sold in that 333 million dollar megamillions jackpot. One was sold in New York and one in California. I've lived in both of those places in the past. Sounds like someone needs to update their address book, megamillions.

Suddenly I'm overcome with bitterness. I've gotta go.

* Eating sunflower seeds and watching the Dodger are the same thing, so you can use those interchangeably.

-- Posted From My iPhone while eating sunflower seeds.

Topical

2009-07-28T12:33:00.001-05:00

I'm guessing (mostly hoping) that a lot of you misread the title and are expecting a post about either fruit punch or an exciting tale of romance and intrigue in the south pacific. You'll find neither here. Instead, horror, mayhem, shock, awe, disgust, nausea, giddiness and a little bit of constipation.

You may or may not know this, but there has been some talk of healthcare reform lately. You might have missed that though as it was pushed off the news desk in favor of a story about what will be happening to the official pictures of the after party for the flowers that were used in the dress rehearsal for Michael Jackson's backup memorial plan in case the first one ran into problems, which it didn't. (just so we're clear here, I'm trying to belittle the television news media, not MJ. I'll do that later when enough time has past. )

A little background info for you: I currently have a job that gives me no medical, no dental, no vision, no retirement, no vacation pay, no sick pay and no bonus options of any kind. Of course, if I can find a little overtime, I do have the potential to clear 22k/ year. Before taxes of course. It's about 17k/ year after, which should be more than enough to live on, right? I should be able to afford my own medical coverage and still be able to pay for wild vacations to the suburbs AND buy that fancy yacht I've had my eye on. I don't do that though. I spend my money on frivolous things like food ( what a waste, I'm always hungry again), the mortgage, electricity, college loans and a cellular phone.

For the most part, my complete lack of medical coverage hasn't bothered me. Then this happened:

I don't know if it's obvious in the picture, but my left arm has become completely separated from my body at the shoulder area. Turns out, I use that arm all the time. I didn't even realize it.

Why is this such a big deal you say? Because I've been asked to play softball again and I can't resist the chance to unretire like so many other great athletes. It's my achilles heel. Sure, I can play with one arm and start a new trend of one armed softball teams, but I don't think the world is ready for that. I think we all still remember how badly Jim Abbott failed and he didn't even go full one-arm. He was like one and three quarters arm...

My point is this, I'll be playing softball again in about two weeks. My shoulder better heal the crap out of itself, or I'll be forced to get a better job with health benefits and a better salary, and I know nobody wants to see that. *

Ps. I don't know why I just wrote any of this. It doesn't even make sense to me either. It took a long time to write what with the one arm and all. Probably a lot of my problems can be traced back to the blood loss caused by my missing arm. Well, missing isn't really an accurate term. I can see it right there on the table next to me. That's a self diagnosis though, so it might just be bursitis of the shoulder and require some rest. Either way, hope you enjoyed the picture attached to these rambling words. I really don't have a compass right now.

*I've actually been searching for said job for quite some time. No one seems to be hiring though. Is there some sort of problem with the economy that I'm unaware of? I've got to read those memos I keep getting.

-- Posted From My iPhone. Jealous?

Hair loss

2009-06-30T21:48:00.000-05:00

Below you will find my future. I need to face facts. I'm not going to have hair on the top of my head forever. I can already feel it thinning out. I've taken the time to create another stunningly accurate picture of what my future will look like.

As you can see, the hair on top of my head is completely gone. It's still growing strong on the sides. In fact, it looks like my future hair will actually be quite thick on the sides. A combover could be an option. If that fails, my eyebrows also seem to be coming in nicely which means I could also have the option of a combback. Allow me to demonstrate.

As you can see, I've cultivated a unibrow at this stage in my hairloss so that I can have a nice uniform combback. Obviously I've done this to avoid looking creepy and weird. I can only imagine what kind of horrible things children would call me if I had a gap in the middle of my combback. Probably something like gappy. I don't ever want to be called gappy.

That's all I've got. I apologize here and now where an apology most certainly belongs.

-- Posted From My iPhone. Where hairloss is just a fact of life, like Tootie, or Tudy, or Toodee, or however the heck you spell it.

History Lesson

2009-05-26T16:14:00.000-05:00

What is the definition of Greek tragedy? While no one person could ever completely and accurately answer that question, one thing is sure: I will try to do so with a series of pretty terrible drawings.

Most of these pictures speak for themselves and the ones that don't you can bet will be elaborated on by yours truly.

What follows is an entirely accurate and truthful tale of a truly true story about what happened to me this morning. Some of it may be made up, but that is only to protect the guilty.

This is how my day started. Almost every day starts with jazz hands. It's how I mentally prepare in case the morning commute turns into a dance number. I like to be loose and I don't know of a better way to do that than with jazz hands. I also have a marble plaque cemented into my bathroom floor that says "Noble Jon" so I never forget where I came from. I never want to slip back into that painful place in my life again. I also make loud bellowing declarations in case it's not just a dance number, but a song as well.

As you can see, putting on deodorant is pretty important to me. It also makes me smile. That plays an important part on the tragedy of the next drawing. Please take a moment to prepare yourself for the atrocity to follow...

I'm not going to lie to you. I knew going into the deodorant application phase of my day that this could happen. I use a clear stick type deodorant ( the brand of which will go unnamed until they pay for their product placement) and when it gets down to the end, it often falls out or goes all crooked. A design flaw that nobody seems willing to address. But I digress. I guess what I'm trying to say is, this could have been avoided if the deodorant gods didn't have it in for me.

When I realize something is both Greek and tragic, I say it out loud. Doesn't everyone?

Try not to look at this picture for too long or you may end up crying yourself. It'll happen, trust me. I wouldn't even show you this if I didn't want a life like depiction of the raw emotion I felt this morning.

The end result was that I had to use a differently scented deodorant to finish the job this morning. As you can see above, it didn't go over well. The general public can be very cruel when they put their collective minds to it.

I hope you can all learn from my mistakes.

-- Posted From My iPhone. For a list of all product placement fees, email my assistant at jonsassistantnoreallynotjustanaddressjonmadeuphimselftomakeitlooklikehehasanassistant@gmail.com.

What if?

2009-05-13T19:56:00.001-05:00

A little while back, I twittedededed that my body was not leaking from anywhere and that that was a good thing. That was an entirely factual statement. It has not changed. My body is still leak free. But what if the circumstances were different? What if I WAS leaking? What would that be like? Today we're going to play a game of, "what if?" I should warn you, the image below is intensely graphic and not suitable for children over the age of 3.

As you can plainly see, I am leaking from my elbow. The above artist's rendering is in HD, so you know that it is stunningly accurate. That's what HD means.

A thorough inspection of this picture reveals significant details about what my life would be like with a leaking elbow. For instance, you may have noticed that I am smiling. This is important because it shows that a L.E.L. (Leaky Elbow Life) is not a painful thing. Further more, I must not be expected to clean up the elbow fluid myself and it must not be ruining my clothes. If any of those things were true, I can assure you that I would not be smiling.

Another notable observation is the lack of facial hair. Not only are my beard and mustache absent, but I seem to have removed my eyebrows as well. Couple those facts with the additional hair on top of my head and we can only assume that I felt the need for extensions and wanted to use my own, natural hair. This is most likely because I thought the leaky elbow made me look like I was balding. In an attempt to look younger, I added my facial hair as extensions and went with a messy looking hair style that is all the rage with the kids today. I'll be honest, I think it's working.

Finally, let's take a look at that puddle of elbow fluid developing around my feet. It's a fairly substantial amount of fluid, so we can draw a couple of conclusions here. Either the Lakers are on the verge of winning another championship and superstition precludes me from moving or changing position, or the flow rate of elbow fluid is abnormally high, creating E.F. puddles around me everywhere I go. I'd like to think it's the former rather than the latter because if it's the latter, I probably won't get invited to many guitar hero parties and that would make me sad.

I hope I've answered all of your questions concerning a world wherein my body leaks from my elbow. If for some unthinkable reason I haven't, you know where to place you queries.

-- Posted From My iPhone, which is also completely leak free.

Clarification/ update

2009-05-06T19:15:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure why, but that last picture seems to be unpopular. I can assure you that it is, in fact, chapstick on my lips, not frosting. I wouldn't be able to leave frosting on my lips long enough to take a picture, let alone the 38 I did take to get the right one for the post.

I have prepared a very thorough illustration to explain what happened to create the scenario which seems to be causing nightmares among children ages 23 to 78.

I hope that clears things up.

If further clarification is required, I'm sure you'll let me know. Be warned though, an equally impressive illustration like the one above will be used to explain why I use illustrations to explain things.

-- Posted From My iPhone. Illustrations brought to you courtesy of my girlfriends wacom graphics tablet. All typos are subject to copyright and are totally intentional.

C. A.

2009-04-30T21:22:00.001-05:00

Hello, my name is Jon and I'm addicted to chapstick.

Discuss.

And for those that were not aware, this Boston/ Chicago series is freaking AMAZING!!

-- Posted From My iPhone. Do they sell chapstick in bulk?

A very necessary list

2009-03-25T15:01:00.003-05:00

Below, you will find a list of thing I am not afraid of, but would be if I were a cat. I'm going to count them down in order of fear. I'm sure you'll find this list to be very enlightening. It should also give you some good insight to the current state of my mind.

7. Escalators.
- This is definitely a cat fear. However, it isn't something they are likely to encounter very often unless they either live in a super fancy house, or are one of those creepy cats that is led around on a leash by its equally creepy owner.

6. The Ocean.
- Ever see a sail boat crew made up entirely of cats? Yeah, I didn't think so.

5. Kids Dribbling Basketballs.
- How many times have you seen a pack of cats minding their own business on the basketball courts at the park only to have a group of kids ruin an otherwise nice day of BBQ-ing (Blacktop-Basketball-Qourt-loungING*) by dribbling their basketballs all over the court? Worse yet, the kids don't even play basketball. They just mumble some nonsense about working on dribbling fundamentals.

4. Radio-Controlled, Cat-Catching Robots.
- Pretty self explanatory.

3. Cat Leukemia.
- Who among us doesn't fear cancer? Cats are no different.

2. Ensemble Casts.
- to be fair, this high ranking comes from a decades old misunderstanding that cats have of the word "casts." When said quickly, as this phrase often is, cats don't hear the word "casts," they hear the word "cats." For whatever reason, cats tend to imagine a Voltron like creature comprised of several cats joining together as one, immensely powerful cat. This is something cats find utterly terrifying.

1. The Number 10.
- Turns out, most cats we interviewed were already on their 9th life. 10 is considered to be the most unlucky number world wide by cats of all types. In Colombia, the drug cartel cats mark the houses of those they intend to kill with a red 10. In the state of Texas, a cat motorcycle gang known as "The Death Tabbies," show their loyalty by getting the number 10 tattooed on their foreheads. Kittens are taught to fear the number 10 from birth by having their mothers follow every ninth cleaning lick with a hard bite to the ear. It's harsh, but effective.

Well, that about wraps it up. Just to clarify, I am not, nor have I ever been, afraid of any of the aforementioned things.

Ok, bye.

*Cats are notoriously bad spellers and even worse at coming up with good acronyms.

-- Posted From My iPhone, so you know it's factually accurate.

Clarification post

2009-03-18T13:08:00.000-05:00

There seems to be some serious confusion regarding my wearing all pink as a terrible idea. I was not merely suggesting that I wear a pink shirt. I said ALL pink. That means pink shoes, pink socks, pink pants, pink underwear, pink shirt, pink gloves, pink hat, pink cape, pink spats, pink glasses, pink face paint, pink tie and a pink pinky ring. All pink. What say you now?

Just a pink shirt is easy. I've done that before. One comment references an outfit I wore every Monday night for over a year. See below.

As you can plainly see, whether the shirt itself proclaims its own toughness or not is irrelevant. I wear it tough, and that's all that should matter. The name of our bowling team was "Bowling With Scissors." If that isn't the very definition of dangerously tough bowlers, I don't know what is.

I hope that helps clarify thing for you. Trust me, all pink is a terrible idea. Me dressed as pictured above is tough.

-- Posted From My iPhone. Tough enough for you? Enjoy the spelling errors courtesy my iPhone.

Terrible Idea

2009-03-16T20:23:00.005-05:00

For me, life is a constant struggle not to make terrible decisions created by my own terrible ideas. Here are some examples from today:

Terrible Idea: Wear all pink today.

Terrible Decision: Averted. I ended up not wearing any pink today, but that decision really had nothing to do with my own common sense and almost everything to do with not having a single pink item of clothing in my wardrobe.

Terrible Idea: Remind all of the Cubs fans I work with that I'm a Dodgers fan and we totally destroyed them in the playoffs last year.

Terrible Decision: Averted (Temporarily). It's way too close to St. Patrick's Day to be tossing that kind of smack talk around. I'm pretty dumb, but even I know better than to remind Cubbie fans just how cursed their team is. I'll wait until September to do that.

Terrible Idea: Try to post more often.

Terrible Decision: The jury is out.

Terrible Idea: Make shirts that say, "Punch me, in the face, I'm a jerk."

Terrible Decision: See below.

As you can see, I went ahead and followed through with this one. I see these more as a gift you would give to someone else rather than something you would buy for yourself. Most likely, these will be given to illiterate people that you don't like. I'm not really sure there's a market for this, but that obviously didn't stop me. I added the commas for a little extra emphasis on the overall statement I want these shirts to make. I'd like to encourage everyone to click on the shirt, buy several dozen (they're cheaper when you buy in bulk, and lets face it, you're probably going to want to hand these out to a lot of people. Am I right?), tell all of your friends, and let's get to face-punching jerks ASAP.

Not that any of you were wondering, but the Government has yet to purchase a single shirt regarding the bailout. I'm pretty shocked by this. I only mention it because I don't want anyone to get upset that they haven't yet received their official 2009 Bailout T-Shirt.

Dear lurkers,

2009-03-10T10:50:00.001-05:00

If I promised to post twice a week, every week on a permanent basis, would you stop lurking and start commenting?

-- Posted From My iPhone. Which I could do more often if I felt there was a need for it.

My economic stimulus plan

2009-02-15T23:36:00.003-06:00

I think we've all heard about the economic stimulus plan by now. It's a lot of money, there's no question about that. From what I can tell, most people feel like they are giving away their future money to people that are already rich without having anything to show for it. Well, I have a solution. T-Shirts*. I propose that the US Government purchase the following t-shirts to send out to all tax paying citizens.

For as little as 1.6 billion dollars, the US Government can purchase enough shirts for all of the country's tax payers. Considering the numbers they've been throwing around, that's really not too much to ask, a drop in the bucket really. Plus, now everyone feels like they're really getting something out of this whole "stimulus" package. What better way to remember this gigantic economic catastrophe than with a t-shirt? Years from now we'll all be wearing them with pride as we mow each others lawns for extra cash.

If it ended right there, I think we can all agree that would be pretty sweet, but it doesn't. I've always considered myself a big picture kind of guy. I don't look at a puzzle one piece at a time, I look at all of the pieces at the same time, turned face down. When you look at it that way, you realize that each piece really isn't so different. You see where I'm going with this? Yeah, I thought so.

When the government ponies up and buys all those shirts, I'm going to make a small profit. I'll take the time to remind you that the title of this post is "MY economic stimulus plan." With that in mind, not only will everyone feel better about where their tax money is going because they'll be getting a shirt, but there will be a giant ripple effect that will reach everyone. I will make enough of a profit to quit my job. Guess what that means? You got it, there's going to be at least one more job opening in this tough economic climate. You can't argue with those kinds of numbers. Can you feel the waves?

Not only will I quit my job, but I'll start my own company where I will be hiring people to work with me. I've already got a list of people I will be hiring and guess what? They already have jobs right now, so when I hire them away (there will be a 1 million dollar signing bonus, they'd be crazy not to leave their other jobs), that will create even more job openings. Multiply the number of people I hire by the number of jobs they leave and you'll find that the numbers grow exponentially. Bigger numbers mean more jobs, am I right? I will help make some of the biggest numbers out there by multiplying them all together!

I think I've illustrated pretty well how a small 1.6 billion dollar drop can turn into an economic tsunami if it's handled right. Now it's time for Big G to step up and get this economy moving again by buying my shirts!

*For those of you that think I set up an online store just for this post... well... you know me too well.

Status Update:

2009-02-12T23:36:00.005-06:00

It's time for my annual status update. There's a lot going on in this world today and I'm sure you're all wondering how it's affecting me. Please read on and cease wondering.

1. Manny Ramirez. Seriously, why has this guy not been signed by someone? Anyone? You got me.

Sure, he's got a DB for an agent and the market is tough right now, but so what? Other guys have been signing huge contracts without as much justification. (I'm looking at you Mark Teixeira...) I'm obviously biased in this whole thing, so keep that in mind. The Dodgers need to sign Manny and Manny needs to sign with the Dodgers. It's pretty simple. They both make the best fit. Manny seems happy in LA and LA is happy to have Manny. I think Ned has been pretty fair in his offers, so I'm not upset with the organization. I wouldn't want to lock into a long term, expensive contract with him either. I think the idea of guaranteed money is what's really screwing this up. I don't know much about the inner workings of baseball contracts and what not, but that's not going to stop me from thinking I have a fairly reasonable proposal. Manny gets a four year deal that looks something like this:

Year 1: 30 Million guaranteed.
Year 2: 15 Million guaranteed, 10 Million in incentives (don't ask me to break down the incentives because I really have no idea what I'm talking about.)
Year 3: 7.5 Million guaranteed, 17.5 Million in incentives.
Year 4: 7.5 Million guaranteed, 17.5 Million in incentives.

That means that he could potentially be worth 105 Million over the next 4 years if he produces. I'm sure the Dodgers would be happy to pay him that much if he produces, but let's be honest, the guy is 36 (almost 37) years old, these are not supposed to be the years that he gets better. Is he going to be worth a guaranteed 25 million at age 41? I'm guessing no.

2. Michael Phelps. I could not be more sick of hearing this guy apologize. Holy crap, a 23 year old smoked pot at a college party? What is this world coming to? Look, I get it, he's Michael Phelps, phenomenally good swimmer, arguably the worst SNL host ever. I'm just sick of everyone getting up on their soapbox and condemning him like they've never made a mistake in their lives. From what I've heard, you'd think that he was drowning kittens in the blood of unborn babies... I refuse to believe that with all the things going on in this world today, that this could even crack the top 100 for things we should care about.

3. Bud Selig. Get him out and get him out now. I don't think he's good for baseball and his recent comments regarding Alex Rodriguez are almost too much. He's "saddened" by A-Rod's steroid use? Are you kidding me? Anyone that believes he knew nothing about the steroid use in baseball is fooling themselves. I think the Selig era needs to end.

4. My Terrible Fantasy book. Yeah, it's not doing so well. Turns out writing books is hard! I thought just writing a terrible one would be easy, but even that takes work. Even when you ignore stuff like plot, character development, coherence and proper grammar, it's still difficult to write a full chapter, let alone an entire novel. I'm not quiting on this one yet, but I'll be brooding in a corner for awhile...

That about covers it for now. You probably didn't think it would be so sports heavy, but what can I say, pitchers and catchers are reporting... it's time for Dodger baseball!! Of course, Laker basketball is still keeping me quite happy as of late.

Gone baby gone

2009-02-03T15:28:00.001-06:00

I carefully weighed all of the comments and thought for what seemed like a full thirty seconds (it was actually twenty nine seconds, but it really felt like thirty) before I made my decision. As you can see below, it was a compromise. I decided to keep the beard, but I also decided to make it very short. It's just under 1/2 millimeter right now. We'll see how long this lasts.

Pay no attention to my uneven ears. (which should be really hard to do now that I've called attention to them)

-- Posted From My iPhone. Zealous?

Beard Status Update

2009-02-02T15:39:00.001-06:00

It's been awhile since I last updated everyone on the status of my beard. Judging by the heavy Internet chatter as well as my desire to post pictures of myself taken by myself on myself's iPhone, I feel obligated to post. Of course, I am posting this from my iPhone. I recall not that long ago promising that I would post more often once I obtained the object of my gadget desire. Yet another promise fulfilled by the Shuck 'N Jive!

On to the status update...

As you can see, it's been awhile since my last shave. If I'm not mistaken, the last time I shaved was some time around my birthday. That means it's been well over three months. At this point, the hair on my chin is longer than the hair on my head. This needs to change soon. It's not itchy, but it is starting to feel weird. Maybe if I could grow hair between my jaw and my head it wouldn't be so bad, but as this next picture illustrates, I have a distinct "no grow" zone.

I am physically incapable of growing sideburns. They must be painted on by a team of three special effects artist, and that ain't cheap. Consequently, I only paint on the s'burns when I'm attending an Elvis Presley charity bake-off or when I want to convince random people to purchase slacks that are a half size too small for them. Unfortunately, due to the economic downturn, I've been forced to cut back on both occasions.

I'll most likely be making some beard alterations this evening, so if there are any requests, better get them in early!! I'll be checking my comments incessantly until after Chuck this evening. I'm going to need the distraction from looking at the tv during the show tonight because it's in 3D and I was unable to procure any glasses for proper viewing. I'll probably cry about that some more later. I'm kind of a ninny like that.

Comment early and comment often!!

-- Posted From My iPhone. Jealous?

Me Me time. (That's how I think it should be pronounced anyway.)

2009-01-15T19:53:00.006-06:00

Rules: Something about six non-important things about yourself? Not really sure. I skimmed that part. Looks like the rules were pretty loose anyway. By this time, I’m sure all three of my readers have seen what’s coming next, so really this is just an exercise in repetition.

1. I wear socks. All the time. I hate being barefoot. This is of utmost importance; so don’t think that I’m trying to pass my sock-wearing habits off as non-important. To the contrary, I’m working on a piece of legislature right now that would require all people within a radius of 2 miles of my person to be wearing socks at all times. Yes, even in the shower. I know you’re thinking, “How the heck are we supposed to know when we’re within 2 miles of you?” If this were five years ago, I would have suggested a rotating shift of three, brightly painted helicopters with several orange lights hovering above me at all times. Basically, if you can see the helicopter, put on your damn socks. But it’s not 2004, it’s 2009. If you don’t have a smart phone already, move to Montana because we don’t need your kind around here. We need you in Montana, where the only form of long-distance communication is a series of 43-year-old tin cans connected by some fishing line. It’s true, look it up. I have an iPhone, and that’s really what’s most important. I will commission a government-approved team of iPhone developers to produce an app that monitors my location via the built-in GPS. Everyone else in the world will then get a separate app for their smart phone of choice that will alert them once they step inside my 2-mile radius. A simple text message telling you to put on your damn socks will be sent to you. Obey or be forced to wear a red letter “S” on all of your clothes for a period of no less than 17 years.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “that Constitutional Amendment will never pass.” But you forget that I’m in Illinois where we [are in the process of impeaching our governor]. Anything goes. I also possess a dangerously low comprehension of how Constitutional Amendments are made. That combination could just be crazy enough to work!

All that aside, what you don’t know is that when I put on my socks in the morning, I analyze them to determine which one looks like it would be more comfortable on my right foot and which one would be more comfortable on my left foot. I consider this to be non-important.

2. I still believe I have a shot at being a professional athlete. As a result of this, I spend the majority of every day not practicing because I also believe that I am naturally gifted. I keep changing the sport though, because I still haven’t found the one that I’m naturally gifted at yet. Is procrastination a sport? Don’t get me wrong, it would be awful television, but I would accept a simple 10-year, $40 million contract to go pro. That’s only $4 million a year, which for a professional athlete, especially one of my caliber, is pretty cheap.

3. I suffer from trichotillomania. Don’t think for one second that I’m going to tell you what that is. Today, you will learn something. You will learn what trichotillomania is, or you will learn that you don’t like me. Either way, I’m an educator now and I get to update my résumé.

4. I love to solve puzzles. Fortunately, I’m ok at it, otherwise number four here would be designated, The Sad One. Imagine a world where the only thing you like to do is the one thing you are exceptionally bad at… That is the definition of tragedy.

TRAGIC YOUTH

By Jon

1/15/09

INT. LIVING ROOM – JUST AFTER SCHOOL

A small child comes bursting through the front door and runs to the coffee table. A few seconds later, the mother appears at the door.

CHILD

Mommy, can I do a puzzle? Pretty, pretty please?

We see the mother’s eyes slowly start to swell with tears. When she can no longer bear it, she runs to the bedroom hysterically, with tears streaming down her face.

FADE TO BLACK.

5. I use Google’s Chrome as my primary desktop web browser. I think I’m alone on this one. It can’t do everything that I want it to, but it handles most things quite well. For those rare times when I need to do something that requires IE or Firefox, I just open them and have at it. The only problem I ever run into is with the address bar in every other browser. I’ve become so accustomed to that also being a search box in Chrome that I probably look like a moron to strangers when I accidentally forget that I’m at work and IE doesn’t support that feature. I’m sure they feel sorry for the sad little boy that can’t even surf the interwebs properly. It is my fault for trying something new and sticking with it when virtually no one else did. I like to think Google will offer me a job based solely on the fact that I’ve been a Chrome user since day one and refuse to turn my back on it. I will become their Chrome shill should they so choose. I have almost no experience at being a professional shill, but my amateur shill efforts in the Tivo and iPhone arenas are pretty well documented.

6. Daily lessons are an important part of life. I take these lessons in and ponder them at length over a glass of sherry and a slice of Brie. The other day, it was brought to my attention for probably the fifth or sixth time by my Girlfriend that a double space is not required after a period at the end of a sentence. My Girlfriend is a person with a very special set of skills that make her an authority on this subject. I had rejected these claims of hers in the past citing my own degree in English, but they were always met a dismissive, “ok.” You know the kind, it’s usually paired up with a slight head nod and it smacks of your-an-idiot.

--Quick aside—

A degree in English requires almost no knowledge of proper grammar, spelling or neat penmanship. Those sorts of things often accompany an English degree simply because you are required to read an exhausting amount of literature and write endless papers that no one really wants to read. Some of this literature **cough** fantasyandfairytales **cough** is written with such reckless abandon for the English language that it aptly gets filed under the category of Abomination.

--End aside—

For whatever reason*, I picked up a professionally printed book and took a close look at it. I blacked out shortly thereafter, so who knows what I saw. All I know is that I put two spaces after a period because that’s how I like it. The point is that my Girlfriend is probably right, but we’ll never really know for sure because I blacked out and can no longer read anything printed that I didn’t write myself. It’s weird but true. You can’t make this stuff up.

Well there you have it Madelyn. I’m sorry it was short, but I like to be brief. That’s just how I am. Hope it was worth the wait.

And now, I will tag Google. I tag them to offer me a job. I’ll do anything as long as I can do it from home and it doesn’t require that I eat any mysterious meat-substitute products that show up at my door.

*If I’m not mistaken, this was the only time we’ve ever had that conversation where a professionally printed book was within arms reach.