Dinner

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.

-- Posted From My engaged iPhone.

DIY Custom Ear Phones

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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?