The Jack Noodle Journal

I didn’t find what I was looking for at the neighborhood library. I did get a new library card though. Perhaps I will have to travel down to the main downtown library. It was all rather confusing and sad there at the neighborhood branch. It seemed to me that everyone that was there was there for the internet access and not for the books. Those poor lonely books.

I started arranging the pages of text for the Bubble Factory script that will finally be up in the library section of this fine website. Some of that stuff is a little silly. I did write it back 1996 so I guess there is a little room for some cheese right? I don’t know, we’ll see. I think I will add some pictures to it to spice it up a bit. It did have an interactive element to it, maybe I should finish it up all of the way like I had originally planned?

I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t be squandering my new found extra time. I mean I’m keeping it together pretty well. I’ve been busy with projects here and there, but I think that maybe I need to really put the pedal to the metal and go full on nuts. Yes there is so much more for me to do! Come on Noodle hit it buddy! ARGH!

Congratulations go out to the lovely Jason and Kim. Kim gave birth to a darling baby boy, Carter last Saturday. Good work kids! One of these days the lady and I will journey out to your neck of the woods and share in your joy.

Have I mentioned how I feel like this month has gone on forever? I think I have. Enough already! Lets turn the lights back on and get to the Spring. This Winter crap sucks.

Yesterday I was reminded again how much I love Radiohead’s CD: “Amnesiac”. Man! It is so good from beginning to end. You know I had forgotten about it when everyone was making their lists for best of 2001, but I think this would be my number 1 for 2001. If you at home don’t have it, then shame on you! Run out and buy it today. You are only hurting yourself by remaining in the dark. I think I’m going to listen to it again right now.

I have also been listening to My Bloody Valentine’s CD “Isn’t Anything”. I know I’m a little late to the game with them but it’s cool.
I’ve taken a shine to some locals called The Standard. Their CD is pretty cool, good singer. The name of that CD is… oh “The Standard”.

I watched Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” again on DVD. Hey don’t laugh! I love that movie. It’s a little depressing though. For me it’s one of those movies that everybody has that they watch 100+ times when you are in a certain mood. You know like “Top Gun” or “Sixteen Candles” or “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” or “Annie”.
I love watching Pink go crazy in the Wall. Great stuff. I feel for him. Good tunes also.
“Crazy, over the rainbow I am crazy. Truly gone fishing”.
Alright enough with the quotations, Noodle.

Well it’s Wednesday, and I think I’m off on my weekly walk to see how things are going. My “Keeping it Real” tour.
I’m going to renew my Library card today. I need some books to reference for some of the drawings I have started.

We got some snow on the ground over the weekend. We were all walking in a winter wonderland. That’s it now. Our one snow storm of the season is over. All the snow is melted. The news stations around here are so pitiful. They were out filming Oregon yokels talking about how good that there snow is, and showing people trying to snow sled in bark dust.

K’s friend from school had a going away party that was kind of interesting. We journeyed out of Southeast and partied in Northwest. People seem to be a bit different out in those parts. Boy there were some cuties at that party. It was fun sipping a drink and observing all the pretty boys and girls. We didn’t stay long and scurried back to Southeast.

Yesterday morning we partied down in Vancouver at Chucky Cheese’s. Our buddy Amy was turning 2 years old. That Chucky Cheese’s is something else. Kids were flying around everywhere rats and dogs were singing, laser lights were shooting, and music was on a repetitive loop. They had these giant hamster tubes twisted around on the ceiling that kids could play in. It was pretty cool except it kind of was bad on my knees crawling around up there.

Let me tell you I did some serious yard working yesterday. Actually it was mostly just cleaning up some large piles of ivy and pruning the holly tree out front. I am kind of sore this morning.
It sure was nice to actually get out of this laboratory and jump into the cold and muddy outdoors. Yard work, rearranging the basement, checking to make sure the gutters were draining properly, building a mud wall and cleaning things up was very satisfying work for me.
Great. When did I turn into such a boring old man?

I was reading the paper last night and I see that JJ72 had played here last Thursday. JJ72 is a band who’s music I was just being introduced to recently. They are pretty cool.
I am a little annoyed that I missed that show. I guess it’s my fault for not stay up to date with the hip happenings. I wonder if anybody I know went to that show? I’ll have to find out how it was. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it.

Today I have to bust out some fax and invoice layouts for the always dapper, Poppy Noodle, aka V. Baptist. It should go pretty quick. I think I’m going to set his paperwork up as a Adobe Acrobat file that he can type out and print from his computer. Yes that is the plan.

The week has zoomed by once again! Now for the weekend. This weekend may prove to be a busier one than the last few. We actually have been invited to a few things. It’s been long enough I guess, for everyone to forget how much of a jerk I am in person.

Coffee is in the house now! We went grocery shopping finally and got stocked up. Coffee and cookies, an awesome breakfast!

A great idea was just emailed to me and I’m a little embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of it before. I should go down and film the burnt out wreckage of the Monte Carlo. Dang! Of course. I have always been quite annoyed with myself when I don’t film something I say I should film (which happens quite frequently). I should at least do it for our friends in Japan who use to live by there.

Yes I do believe I will be logged off of the online World today after this posting. I’ve got stuff to do out in the “real” World today.
I think after another cup of coffee I may go out, brave the cold, and rake leaves and pruned tree branches with my new found neighbor friend.
After that I’ve got to hit the books for study and research time. There are a few projects heading this way that I am going to try to be ready for. I’ve also got to start drawing some cowboys.

Have you all read or looked at the magazine “ArtByte”? Man I love that puppy. I would love to have some Noodle art in there some day. I went to the used magazine store on Hawthorne the other day and picked up some back issues for cheap. What’s the name of that place? I want to say Periodical Paradise but I think that is the one that moved over off of Powell. Whatever the name, they have a pretty well organized large selection of mags for cheap.

Ah yes.. I slept in there a bit this morning. I’m here now though, back at it. Ha ha I’m pretty much here all the time huh? Boy I wonder how long I can keep this up.
There is no coffee in the house this morning! Oh NO! What am I going to do? Well I think I’m going to head off to hipster land before too long here and get a cup of Joe to help bring me up to fighting speed. I’ll probably hit the bank on the way over and check out the scene at the bookstore and CD shop.
I think what I should probably do first though is shower and shave.

Oh the many schemes. God Oregon really has a sucky job market. I wonder how much longer this will keep up? I’ve been having to woo clients from other states and countries. I’ve got some schemes brewing though, don’t you worry.

I’m hoping my chum and I can get Write Club started up this evening. Woops! I just broke rule number one of Write Club “You will not tell anyone about Write Club.” “If it is your first night at Write Club you will write.” I am in need of some serious writing. I’ve got to get to some of those comic scripting schemes and novel plots.
Oh. I just did a search on the internet for Write Club and it looks like several people are using it already. Ha ha!
We can change our name to “Two Jerks With Notebooks”

Well It looks like January is starting to wind down folks. Good, maybe that means Winter is soon to go also huh? Oh well I guess we still have 10 days left of January. Dang. What a long month.

I have got to get a new bed. I am exhausted after sleeping on that thing. It hurts just laying on it. My body is sore after spending the night tossing and turning on that horrible mattress. Springs digging into my back all night long. I’m still tired this morning, I feel like I haven’t slept a wink! I got to do something soon because I need my beauty sleep.

We went and saw the movie “A Beautiful Mind” and then after that snuck into the movie “Black Hawk Down”. Boy a double feature makes for a long movie day. Tickets are so expensive now days that 2 for 1 is a good way to go.

“A Beautiful Mind” was a pretty good movie. Russell Crowe did a good job acting in it. It was an interesting story for sure. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a math genius. I can see why that movie is starting to pick up awards and getting Oscar buzz. It seemed to be one of those movies that is designed to go to award shows. I don’t know, I don’t think getting awards makes it that good of a movie. Russell Crowe did good yes, but why should he get an award for just doing his job? Isn’t he suppose to be doing a good job acting?

“Black Hawk Down” was pretty good also. I think I liked both movies about the same. Man! Black Hawk was LOUD! K had to go get toilet paper to stick in her ears. Some of those machine gun sound effects were crazy. It didn’t have much of a story and not too much talking either. It was mostly 2 hours of straight fighting, gun battles and lots of blood and guts. Some stuff was really sick in that puppy. Some of the camera work and effects were excellent, amazing. I bet that movie was fun for the director to make: 100% action with no time wasted on anything else. I could have used a bit more character development I think.
What a scary situation for those soldiers though man. The film was very good at making the viewer frightened for those boys.
Perfect movie to see for free.

Oh Man we saw a heck of a fire on our way back home from Washington yesterday! A warehouse by here and an old restaurant called the Monte Carlo burnt down last night. Boy the smoke was everywhere! A roaring fire. The Monte Carlo had been empty for quite a while. It was a kind of interesting looking older building. Well I guess they can tear down the rubble now, sell the land and build a Wallmart there. Well shoot, the fire that burnt down that vacant building could almost be seen as a convenient “accident” hmmm…

Gosh sometimes I feel like I am just sitting and waiting for the water to start boiling with this web stuff. How does it go? Watched toast doesn’t pop up? Yesterday I spent most of the day reading about cascading style sheets, then I finished off the day worrying about search engines and wondering how you can show up on Google one day but not the next. Wewf… Let it go Jack… Relax buddy. I think maybe I need to take a vacation from my vacation. I probably should read some books like I said I was going to start doing for my New Year’s resolution. I do have to get to studying and teaching myself Macromedia Director 8, maybe I could focus on that for a while… Ah who cares.

I did find another couple of free portfolio sites yesterday that I posted up to again. I used the same images and write up as I used on the last one you saw. The more heads that turn this way the better, brothers and sisters.

I’m going to be sitting down with pen and paper very soon and do up some drawings and writings. That always gets me back to center. You guys are all probably wonder where that CAN comic strip went that I was talking about so fondly for a while. Don’t worry, we’ll bring him to life soon enough.

I am hungry! I think I need some coffee also. K and I were suppose to go to Zells Cafe this morning for breakfast but now it’s starting to look more like lunch. That’s it. I’m waking her up and we are out of here!

So you know when you write your name or messages or faces in the fogged up windows in your friends car, then notice it again a few months later when the sun is shining on it?
Well I’m sitting in the front room the other day staring at birds outside the window. The sun breaks through the clouds and shines brightly through the front windows. The angle at which I’m viewing the left window in the sun, reveals the mark of the beast! Someone had written 666 on the window with their finger!

See? I told you a few entries ago that Evil was waiting to get me, and this is just another sign. If you connect the dots you see that it is definitely the Window Salesmen! 666 was on the WINDOW. I got a frustrating call from the Window Salesmen the other day. It ended with HIM hanging up on ME! Bastard! I thought I was the one that was suppose to hang up? Needless to say we’re not buying windows from them for sure now. I’d totally give you the name of the company but I don’t have the pamphlet within reach.

We went and saw an excellent rock show last night at Lola’s Room in the Crystal Ballroom. The kids were all very talented and had some great tunes. The Vespertines, Kind of Like Spitting and The Decemberists were the bands that played. The Decemberists were super. Folksy music with pop and rock and a little country thrown in. They did nice covers of “I’m sticking With You” by The Velvet Underground and “Please Let Me Get What I Want” by the Smiths. It was nice being able to hear what all of the bands were saying for once at a show.

It’s funny, bands that I have been investigating are coming to town. The dismemberment plan, The Microphones, and Cannibal Ox are scheduled to be here soon. I can investigate them in person.

So have you ever seen your credit cards under a black light? I had no idea. American Express was my favorite. Good way to check for fakes.

I’m currently entertaining a new genre: RODEO CLOWNS. Keep your eyes peeled and give it some thought.

I saw snowflakes this morning! I swear I did. They didn’t last very long though. Boy I am cold this morning. I think I am going to go turn up the heat and put a stocking cap on. I was going to walk to the bank this afternoon but I think it may be too cold for my liking.

Thanks goes out to G and Big Joey W once again. Your acquisitions have proven fruitful to the Noodle Foundation. Some minor manipulation was involved but nothing I couldn’t handle.

Gee did you cats hear those F-15 fighter jets last night? Wow was that loud. I thought the sky was falling. I guess they were scrambled to stop some plane that wasn’t returning radio transmissions. Everything turned out okay in the end I guess.

Hey check this out. I’m spreading the Noodle love throughout the world. This is a pretty cool site that lets you post your artwork for free. WYSI ArtSight
I am in the illustration section. Or I think you could find my name in the J section.
If anybody knows of any other sites like this one let me know so I can post up there also. Perhaps I will do some investigating this morning to see if I can find some more like it.