The Rumors are True…

Nearly 3 years in the making… totally not worth the wait.

Dear Ned,

Please, I’m begging you, do not trade Cesar Izturis.

Napkins Please?

Can we just take a moment here to dissect my eating habits? I’m going to make one of those lists now. One of those, “who the crap cares what you ate today, guess what I ate? It’s unbelievable what I survive on compared to what you ate.” Lists. Undaunted, I carry on.

1. 2 oz bag of Cheez-its followed by a Snickers bar and then washed down with a bottle of Lemon Gatorade. Time: 9:42 AM
2. 1 burrito Supreme with no lettuce followed by 1 soft taco, also with no lettuce but with hot sauce from Taco Bell (although really, is that hot sauce from Taco Bell really that hot? I don’t think so. I’d call it more of a low grade mild at best.) and then washed down with a bottle of Orange Gatorade. Time: 3:06 PM
3. Some cookies??? I don’t remember. I think I took a nap, but I’m not sure. Time: ???? If this alleged event did happen, it happened some time around 8:00 PM, but again, there’s no evidence to suggest one way or the other that this actually did happen. I might be confusing today with yesterday, or possibly even tomorrow. I’m extremely fuzzy on the details.

So that’s the list. It’s after 11 PM right now and I’m debating whether or not to go to Jack In the Box to order a Big cheeseburger with a regular order of Stuffed Jalapenos (3) which will be washed down with a bottle of Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade OR stay home, nuke a Ham and Cheese Hot Pocket followed by some Chewy Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies (also nuked), then washed down with a bottle of Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade.

By now I’m sure you can probably see my problem. Am I too much of a health nut? The last thing I want is to be made fun of for keeping such a healthy lifestyle. But at the same time, eating well and treating my body like a temple is very important to me. I mean, I’ve been this way for so long now, I think it would be almost impossible for me to stop anyway. Why does society have to ridicule those of us with a sensible diet? It’s just not fair!

Obviously, I feel the most pressure from my family and peers to give in and eat more salads, but the random strangers that pass by me during my meal times (which never ceases to amaze me because I eat all of my meals at my desk. You wouldn’t think there would be a lot of foot traffic there, but you would be more wrong about that than probably anything you’ve ever been wrong about before in the past decade. I say the past decade because I don’t really know for sure what your life has been like and I do know that anything that happened between 1980 and 1996 was absolutely freaking nuts, so I can only safely argue that you’re more wrong now than in the past ten years.) really lay it on thick too. They say things to me like, “That looks good, but have you ever tried a salad?” or, “Taco Bell, one of my favorites. You know what else I like? The salads they have over at TGI Fridays. They’re pretty good. You should check them out some time.” I mean, for the love of the A-Team, how is a guy supposed to stand up to that kind of pressure? It takes less pressure to make a diamond out of coal. I just want to tell those people to go listen to Hootie and the Blowfish. I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I can’t help it. You push a guy into a corner and he’s liable to lash out. I’m just saying you should know with whom you’re messing before you start telling him how to live his life by trying to manipulate his eating habits.

Hmmm… this ended abruptly…

What I can’t describe

I have some shocking news to report. You’re going to want to sit down for this. I may be jumping the gun here, but the preliminary reports are in, and if things stay the way the reports indicate, it would appear as though my readership is down. I know, I’m shocked too. Once I verify that this information is indeed true, I’ll have to order a full 100 member task force to investigate exactly how and why this might have occurred. It’s utterly baffling.

Some time ago, I was tagged with a meme by SNJ HOF member Cadiz. As it is written in the Shuck N Jive Constitution Page 4, Paragraph 4, Item 4, Line 4. Edict 4.4: “When in the course of blogging, should a meme be issued by any member of the most glorious and exclusive Shuck N Jive Hall of Fame ©®, said meme shall be ignored for a period of no longer than 20 months before it’s completion. Said meme’s completion is also mandatory under the August 14th proclamation of 1978 which states: “All meme challenges issued on behalf of any blogger whose name starts with the letter “C” and ends with a number and is a member of the Hall must be completed, even if that means doing so begrudgingly.””

As you can see, my hands are pretty much tied. I’m required to complete the meme tag issued to me by Cadiz. You may also note and praise me for attending to this meme long before my 20 month grace period is up. Also note that I am not doing so begrudgingly, that was just some legal mumbo jumbo to ensure the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law remained intact. It’s an odd law to be sure. In fact, I was only recently made aware of it by our research department after I inadvertently spilled 6 gallons of ketchup on the research department’s jeans. I assume this is some sort of crude attempt to get back at me, but the jokes on them because I don’t mind doing this meme. In fact, I had slated it for mid July anyway. I swear though, sometimes, the research department just needs to get a life. Granted, they were white jeans, but seriously research department, let it go. Those jeans didn’t look good on you anyway.

But I digress… on to my 10 simple pleasures. These come in an order so amazingly specific, not even I can figure it out. To the uneducated, it might look like this was just the order that they popped into my head, but that would just be too easy. No, this order was predetermined several thousand years before I was born. I’m sure of that.

1. Gagné in the ninth. I have had the pleasure of being inside Dodger Stadium when Eric has jogged in from the bullpen with the good guys up by 3 runs or less at the end of the game. Welcome to the jungle.

2. The 4th gear shift. This doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, but sometimes, I’ll be accelerating, and I’ll drop down from 3rd to 4th gear, and it will be so silky smooth on and off the clutch that I can’t help but smile.

3. Sneezing. It’s just a nice little release. And as much as sneezing for 30 straight minutes puts me into a state of euphoria rarely matched in any other way, no one sitting around me seems to share in my delight… (sigh)

4. Highway One. Particularly when driving through Malibu on a nice clear day, with the windows rolled down and the music up loud.

5. Watching two of my favorite teams play at the same time. And by that I mean, watching teams in different sports play at the same time on two or three TVs right next to each other.

6. A Double Double with spread and tomato only and an order of fries with a side of spread from In N Out. For those of you not in California and select parts of Nevada and Arizona, I apologize.

7. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Well, pretty much anything that traditionally has a wire, if you remove it, I like it a lot more. But my keyboard and mouse have been quite handy in the wireless area. Nothing used to bug me more than having my mouse cord get hung up on something and make it hard to move. USED to bug me…

8. Gatorade Tropical Intenso. It’s delicious.

9. Turbulence on an airplane. I think I may be somewhat alone on this one, but I enjoy turbulence when I fly. The pilot is always spouting some nonsense about how he is going to fly around it and I’m like, “No, fly right through the heart of it!! Maybe circle back around and hit it again?”

10. The Transplant’s “What I can’t Describe” as my ring tone. Mainly because of who it’s assigned to. Although it is a great song to boot.

And there you have it. Meme complete. I plan to tag everyone else in the universe that hasn’t done this yet, so give me some time to research and compile that list. I should have it ready by 2367.

Worth a dozen words… give or take a dozen.

Yeah, I totally blew it. It’s been over a month. I know no one is asking, but for those who may have accidentally wondered it, I’ve been having fun with my digital camera. It’s a Canon SD200. Nothing fancy, just gets the job done. When the time is right, I’ll be upgrading to a much fancier, although still reasonably priced, digital SLR. I’m leaning towards the Nikon D50, but we’ll see. In the mean time, enjoy some questionable amateur photography by yours truly and if you find it that horrific, blame the camera and donate some money to me for the purchase of better equipment.



I feel it necessary to also point out to everyone that in the past month, I have spent approximately zero weekends at home. I know that this is a painfully bad excuse, but it’s the one I’ve chosen to use today.

Does anyone have a red sharpie?

Look at that… I’m dangerously close to a month without a post. You know, some months I wake up and I just don’t feel like posting, but you know what? That’s not what it’s about. It’s about showing up and doing your job. That’s what Keanu Reeves taught me anyway. That man is a teacher first and an actor second, make no mistake about it. I don’t think anyone mails it in better than Keanu. That’s lesson number one.

I have a small gripe worth mentioning. My car got keyed. All the way around, which suggest to my keen eye that it was done on purpose, and not by accident. I could be wrong, but my infallible gut says I’m not. I’m fairly disappointed. I don’t have a luxury vehicle to say the least, and maybe I only wash it 4 or 5 times a year, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about it. Nor is that an invitation to key it.

As some of you may remember, I’m a bit of an “aggressive parker.” That means if a space is wide enough to fit my car in there, I’ll park there. Even if this means I cannot open my door. I’ll simply pop the hatch and climb out the back. I have no shame in doing this and the thought that it might be considered odd doesn’t even cross my mind. However, this style of parking that I have built my reputation on has not been required for quite some time now. The number of cars in my work parking lot plummeted drastically when they opened the new building across the street and half the people now park over there. So there has been no need to attack any and all open spots. I guess the point that I’m lazily driving towards is that I haven’t done anything lately that would irk someone to the point of removing a small stripe of paint all the way around my car with a small sharp object.

I didn’t see it happen, and I’m not even 100% sure where it happened. I suppose it could have happened while I was parked at my apartment complex, but I haven’t done anything here either that would elicit such a reaction. If anything, people have parked close to me, not vice versa, which only makes me proud, not angry. So I don’t think that I absent-mindedly keyed my own car out of anger, but I suppose anything is possible at this point.

I suppose my only course of action now is to launch a satellite outer space at twice the speed of light until I surpass the amount of time in light years that has passed since my car was keyed, set the satellite in orbit there, and use a camera mounted on it to record everything that happens to my car while I’m not in it. Then I’ll send the recorded feed back to me to see what happened… that’s going to take some time I assume… at least twice as long from when the car was actually keyed I think. I have some complex mathematical formulas that I made up worked out on a napkin to explain all this… Unless anyone else has a better idea, I’m looking at a launch date of around April 25, 2018… so I figure I should have my answer in about 48 years… That’s not too bad considering the projected budget for this project is 4.2 trillion dollars. I’ll have to do some fund raising, but there’s nothing free about looking into the past, am I right?

NO DEAL!!!!!

I’ve been away awhile, I know. But in that time, there are a few things I feel it necessary to rant about.

Item number one: Lost

This used to be my favorite show on television. Why is it not anymore you ask? Um, I don’t know, maybe because I only get to see one new episode every other month or so. I’m not sure who is in charge of ABC, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t graduate college, don’t know how to turn on a TV and are not a fan of anything at all. How am I expected to continue loving this show when I never get to see it? I saw them do the same thing to Alias. I don’t believe Alias ever failed as a show. I believe the problem was that it was never on with any consistency, so the idea of the show, when left to sit without new and intriguing episodes, causes the whole audience to spend way too much time thinking about it, and eventually, they analyzed it into ridiculousness. I see the same thing with Lost. Rather than gain new info every week, instead we get to ponder each episode for a month at a time. We break it down too much and it no longer becomes possible to suspend our disbelief. It’s only a matter of time for Lost before it falls apart and ABC thinks it’s the show. That’s why reality shows are winning right now. They’re on every other day! You can’t go any extended period of time without an episode, and you don’t need to. It’s the regularity and consistency that keeps the audience, not necessarily the content. I’m not even sure when the TV season is anymore because of all this nonsense.

Item number two: Deal, or No Deal?

This show disgusts me. It is so stupid, and I am so addicted. I never thought that randomly picking numbers could be so damn entrancing. (we’re ignoring the fact that millions upon millions of people play the lottery and bingo and roulette and keno every day.) I find myself doing the stupidest things during this show. A few of which involve yelling at the contestants for not picking the right number. People love to say, “No Deal!!” on this show, and that’s why it’s popular. The largest prize you can win is one million dollars, and the majority of these people, if offered 2 million from the banker would easily scream out “No Deal!!” and try and high five everyone in the audience. Greed is why hardly anyone wins a lot of money on this show… well, greed and dumb luck. I have saved myself the agony of annoying commercial breaks from Howie at tense moments by never watching this show live. I just skip through them. I can’t stand Howie’s theatrics and his stalling tactics. I am ashamed of myself, but I cannot stop watching this show.

Item number three: My itchy beard

Ok, so this one seems to have an easy fix. I should just shave, but what I think you’re underestimating is exactly how lazy I really am. It’s been a full month now since I last emptied the hair off my face. Every day at work I am annoyed by it, and every day when I come home, I don’t do anything about it. Shave before work? That would mean I’d have to get up early, and considering I’ve been getting to bed around 3:30 am every night and then getting up at around 6:45 am… I don’t feel that I can really cut into my current napping schedule any more than I already do. Here’s where things get really tricky. I’ve been growing this hideous thing for so long now, I’m kind of attached to it. I don’t like it, and god knows I look like a prepubescent monkey with a hormone problem. And it’s patchy… good lord it’s patchy. I can only imagine what my coworkers think. They probably think I’m having some sort of medical reaction to the new PA system we had installed which is beyond loud. It has some benefits though… I can stroke it when I’m deep in thought. But it is getting to the point where it’s going to mingle with the food I’m trying to put in my mouth if I’m not careful, and I’m really not cool with that.

Item number four: The Treo 650

This is my current gadget fantasy. This phone does entirely too much and makes me sigh a little schoolgirl crush sigh every time I see it. It’s got blue tooth capabilities people. I’m not f’ing around. I’m not exactly sure when one of these fine little pieces of technology will be officially registered in my name, but I can tell you that until that day passes, I will often be seen sitting at my desk with a far off wanton gaze that cannot be broken simply by saying, “Jon, get back to work.” You’re going to have to kick my chair or something, because otherwise my attentions will be elsewhere. Do you understand what it means to be great? It means you own a Treo 650. (Owning a Treo 700 makes you elite among the great, but Sprint doesn’t offer the 700. I can only assume this is because there are ignorant, technologically unappreciative fat cats running the corporation. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.)

Item number five: I’m still not a millionaire

This is a constant source of grief. I don’t understand why I haven’t won the lottery yet, and even more than that, I can’t figure out why some anonymous benefactor hasn’t just given me a couple of million dollars. I mean, if anyone is worthy of an anonymous benefactor, it’s me. I’m willing to play some silly game to get the money too. I understand that not everything is free, so if I have to race a bunch of other contestants around the world or something, fine, so be it. Whatever the means, I’m mostly concerned with the ends, and the ends need to involve me with a seven plus figure deposited into my bank account. Any anonymous benefactors out there would do well read this post. Maybe they just need a little subtle guidance. I can do that.

Oh yeah… with about as much fanfare as when I fist started this blog, so did I celebrate the one year anniversary. That was back on March 13^th. It was totally awesome, you should have been there. We had a doughnut-eating contest… (I won) We played pin the donkey on the tail… (the other way is just so cliché) We even played musical chairs. Ninja Steve rocked out on the recliner while I whaled away on the bar stool. (I nominate that for the lamest joke I’ve ever written on this blog.)

I don’t know how to end this…

Can you handle the truth?

There is an issue of truth that needs to be addressed. Here at the Shuck N Jive, we are all about truth. To date, I have not been entirely honest about my lack of posting. That ends today. Today, the real reason I’m not around so much is revealed.

Some time ago, I met an amazing woman. She does the impossible, she makes me smile on a regular basis. She makes me feel good about myself, and that’s no easy task. The reason I’m not as active as I used to be on the blog is because, frankly, I’d rather spend all of my free time with her. Sorry, no offense, she’s just that captivating.

Some of you have eluded to such a possibility in the past, and until recently, I didn’t mention it because it seemed to personal to just put out there, but yes, I indeed have a girlfriend. I decided enough was enough. I’m happy, and I think people should know why. It’s truly a great thing to be accepted for who and what you are. Nothing more, nothing less.
I realize this is a bit of a departure from my regular posts… it’s pretty short too, but I felt like I needed to acknowledge the most important person in my life right now. I guess it’s kind of cheesy to post something like this on the blog, but what can I say? I’m kind of cheesy… in a lactose intolerant sort of way.

It’s that time again

Well, the mega millions is back up to a serviceable amount of 203 million dollars. Seed money for the potential purchase of a professional sports franchise… That’s what I would do with it anyway. I find that simply being a fan isn’t enough any more, I really need to get out on the court and be shoved by officials, just like Mark Cuban. His personality is a bit hard to deal with, but at the end of the day, he’s a pretty good owner. Just don’t tell him that all he’s been able to do is build a team that can only win in the regular season. Don’t let on that they are horrifically built to win a seven game series against anyone… I wonder if Mark Cuban would still consider paying off all of my debt right now after I made that comment? Maybe if I told him that I agreed about the NBA officiating and how terrible it is… I can write a whole post about it and everything. He gets fined if he says it, but I can say whatever I feel like because I’m not under the control of the NBA… then instead of getting fined $100,000 by them, he could just pay my debt off at a cost of half the fine… this sounds almost too easy… Mark Cuban… What a guy!!

Anyway, there’s finally enough money back in the old mega to make me raise an eyebrow. Well, both eyebrows really, I can’t control them individually very well. I’m a little better with my right than my left. I can almost get just the right to go up, but if I try to do anything with the left, the right follows, not unlike a loyal little puppy.

I was not eligible for the power ball that was won earlier this week. That reached a very nice 363 million. Of course, 8 people had to split it, and after taxes it came out to something ridiculously mundane like 15 million per. At that point, you’d seriously have to ask yourself, “Why did I even join that stupid office pool in the first place? Now I only get 15 mil? Lame…”

This is now the question presented to me: Should I join OUR office pool? There’s already 20 people in it, chipping in $2 a piece. Do I really want to split 203 million with 20 other people? That’s only like 2 million a person… If I wanted that, I could just go beg in the streets… I can’t imagine that your average pan handler makes anything less than 2.6 million dollars a year. Is that what I want? Less money than a pan handler? Hardly seems worth it when you take the time to break it down properly.

The eternal optimist that’s leading this office charge to win the mega millions took the time to inform everyone that last nights California Lottery winner bought their ticket in Canoga Park, which is a city approximately 15 minutes from where we are. He pointed out that this means we definitely have a very good chance to win the mega millions, what with all the good lightning striking in the area… I think I could actually make more money by charging people to come stand in line for the chance to punch that optimist in the face.
Of course, I do have a secret weapon. Something that makes the drawing both unfair and totally unnecessary. I have lucky numbers.

A violent beating of time. However, time remains in critical condition and has not yet officially been killed

Eventually it happens to everyone. You come across a situation that is so painful and all consuming, that it just eats you alive. There’s nothing you can do but wait it out. It’s one of the most horrific and miserable things I can think of. Before you know it, you’ll do anything to distract yourself and try and take your mind off of reality for just a little while. You know for sure that you’ve hit rock bottom when you watch “Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London” and “The Prince & Me” back-to-back.

When I sat down to watch Agent Cody Banks 2, a sad thought crossed my mind: “I wonder if this will be as good as the first?” Yes, I have seen both cinematic masterpieces that fall under the umbrella of one Cody Banks. The tale of a 16-year-old secret agent is a time-honored tradition in Hollywood. I personally can’t get enough of it as is evident by my viewings of Agent Cody Banks 1 & 2. Don’t even get me started on the Spy Kids trilogy, one of the top 3 trilogies of all time. If we didn’t have movies with small under aged children constantly saving the world, then I think one could argue very convincingly that we wouldn’t have entertainment at the movies at all.

I’m afraid I’ll give away too much of the movie if I continue to discuss it further, so rather than ruin it for everyone, I’ll just move on to the Prince & Me.

Did some research on Julia Stiles, one of the main actresses in this movie. Turns out she graduated from Columbia with a degree in English, not unlike myself… well, I didn’t go to Columbia, but I did go to a school in NY, and I did get an English degree (sort of… 2.7 GPA doesn’t exactly scream “Master in my field.”) So I do find it a bit ironic that she would be willing to participate in a movie with a grammatically incorrect title. Please don’t go back and check this post for several grammatical errors, of which I’m sure there are a plenty. And also try to ignore the fact that being an English Major has fairly little to do with spelling and grammar. My point is this; I want to say Julia Stiles made and Ironic choice, that’s all. Now that I’ve said it, I realize just how unimpressive it really is… oh well.

In yet another attempt to avoid reality, I also watched the NBA All-Star game. I learned one thing; those guys really throw down those dunks hard. You really don’t know it until they miss though. Vince Carter missed a couple of dunks that went of the back of the rim and flew back ¾ the length of the court… or 18/24ths of the way down the court, as I’m apt to say. I was never one to simplify my fractions…

Now I’m writing this in hopes of killing a few more hours before I make a sad attempt at sleep… Sleep is usually the hardest thing to come by when you’re stuck in a situation like I am, but what can you do? Cross-stitch your own life size version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling? That’s what I did last night… now I’m just out of ideas.