The Jack Noodle Journal

I guess that’s it for February huh? Well that was kind of a boring, disappointing month. It went by pretty fast though didn’t it? Ah who cares on with the next one!

Gosh that whole “money” thing is a drag isn’t it? I figured it out though. I need a patron. A sponsor or a sugar daddy would work also. I’m doing some good work here that is getting extinguished by the “money” thing. The Noodle way of life is expensive. So I’ll be keeping the email lines open this next month to accept applications for patrons who want to help with the secret experiments. Thank you in advance for your contributions.

I had a great Freedom Walk yesterday. Couldn’t have asked for better walking weather. I went and met some new friends, and got some scheme sparks going.

I visited my local comic book shop again. It’s called Excalibur. Great shop. Quite a selection. The employees of Excalibur are quite a crew. I think the employees of Movie Madness, my local video store are tied with the employees of Excalibur on the oddness front. Odd in a good way, not odd in a bad way.

I’m interested in one day putting money down for a few comics. I like how the new G.I. Joe is looking in Image’s hands. Beautiful looking comic art. Hey don’t laugh, G.I. Joe is awesome. It’s the one comic I followed religiously when I was a kid. Marvel had it then.

The other comic series I’m eyeing is “Alias” by Brian Michael Bendis. It looks pretty sexy and the story seems interesting. I really liked Bendis’s earlier comic “Jinx”.
Which brings us to a funny story. Remembering “Jinx” yesterday, before I went to the comic shop, I checked out Bendis’s website. That’s how I found out about “Alias”. Reading along I find that he had recently moved to Portland. I think wow that’s cool, I wonder if he would like to get a beer some day.
So while I’m at Excalibur, an interesting fellow walks in while I’m looking at G.I. Joe. I don’t exactly think what I was doing was eves dropping because the Excalibur employees were speaking in such excited tones. Turns out that was Bendis in the store checking his box and stocking the place with his product. Needless to say I didn’t buy “Alias” at that time. Maybe later when there’s not so much pressure.

It’s not that big of a deal. Portland is a big comic town. There are thousands of comics guys and gals here. You can’t swish your cape over your shoulder without hitting one of them.

Yeah! Wednesday again! Quite possibly the best day of the week. It’s sunny once again this morning and I am in a great mood. Yesterday was gorgeous also. K and I got out and did some yard work. It being Wednesday and all means I’ve got to head over to hipster land for my weekly “Keeping It Real” tour, or as I like to call it now, my “Freedom Walk”. Today should be a good day for walking. Maybe I’ll just keep on walking off into the sunset and never come back. Ha! That would show them.

Well I was terribly wrong about the whole DEQ thing. It was a piece of cake. I was in and out with no fuss. It seemed like they had new ways of doing things since I had been there last. I got my stickers right on the spot after passing. They use to come in the mail. I’m also use to in the past having clunker 10+ year old cars that would billow smoke all the way into the testing center. So maybe having a newer car that could actually pass is why it was so easy.

After the DEQ I went on a drive to the fine city of Milwaukie. I was checking out the old scene and walking down Memory Lane. I was going to go visit some of my old chums at The Horse, but I chickened out, screamed, got back in my car and raced off. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the old days lately. I must be getting old. It’s strange how 5 to 6 years can just shoot by in a flash.

K ended up having to get a root canal yesterday. That sucks. The whole dentist office experience was quite traumatizing for her. Hopefully we can get her all fixed up soon. She’s got to go back in a few days for more digging and scraping. They gave her some pain medication so that should take the edge off.

I think I will probably be taking the car to the DEQ today. They have DEQs across the country right, not jut in Oregon? You know the place where you get your exhaust sniffed. I can think of better things to do today besides that. What a hassle. Well maybe if I go at 10:00 or so everyone will be in work and I won’t have to wait in line. Oh wait that’s right, no one works in Oregon anymore. I keep forgetting that. Well hopefully my car passes the test.

I added more tunes to the transmission yesterday. There are quite a few of you kids tuning in. Thanks. I listened to it myself while drawing yesterday. There’s some good stuff on there. I wish the quality was a bit better but it’s a quality over quantity issue. In this case more is better. I’m just trying to do my part in the battle against the boy bands.

My PC is making some awfully sounds. It sounds like some sort of grinding in the fan area. It was driving me crazy yesterday. I’ll have to see about getting that fixed when there is some extra cash laying around. I’ll keep the old boy off today so I don’t have to listen to his pain. My PC’s name is Buster. Buster was the name of a man I went to college with. He was an older guy that went back to school to learn some new career skills. This computer here is named Pierre the 4th.

Hey Eugene, are we going to go out for our writing gang tonight or what?

There you go buddy! Wake up to a face full of sunshine. Yes, sunshine for the whole week please.

Mondays are truly dreadful days. What can we do though? We can’t get rid of them because that would turn Tuesday into Monday, and Tuesday is fine like it is. Grin and bear it I guess.

We didn’t do much this last weekend. We rented 3 mediocre dvds: “Panic” with William H. Macy and Neve Campbell, That one was okay, kind of dismal towards the end. We saw “Rock Star” with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston, it was just okay. The last one we saw was “O” with Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett. It was basically a modern day telling of the Shakespeare story, “Othello”. It seemed really good while we were watching it but about a half an hour after it was over it seemed just okay. That Josh Hartnett is a cutey. You know, he’s the kid from “Black Hawk Down”.

I also did quite a bit of writing and planning for the current project. Gosh Noodle, 144 pages is a good healthy target to shoot for but please one page at a time. I don’t know though, I really have to have a large chunk of it figured out before I begin. Don’t stop boy, keep on rolling…

K has a sore tooth that has been causing her grief for the past week. Poor thing. She’s going to get in to see somebody today to see if they can help her out. Somebody better do something because I can’t stand to see my baby in pain.

Good morning! It was relatively balmy yesterday, then it poured down buckets and buckets of rain, and now the sun is hiding again. Shoot! We were so close to it being Spring finally and now look. I need some coffee and FAST! Hold on a second I’ll go get some.

There that’s better… hold on let me tip upside down for a second so the coffee can go straight to my head.

Well the projects are going alright. I did some work on one of the majors yesterday. Hopefully it will be coming to a monitor near you before too long. I have a lot of pencil, ink and paper work that I am currently in the middle of. What I should probably do is, turn off these computers, get out of this laboratory, sit down and write and draw in a nice peaceful environment, like the hot springs.

I’m probably going to add some more tunes to the transmission today. I’ve got some new music that needs to get to your ears, and some other stuff I forgot to add earlier. I have to give Martin back the CDs he lent me. See if I remind myself here then I won’t forget.

I really must put a stop to this now, with you all here as my witnesses. I must STOP watching the Winter Olympics. Someone please help me. This has gone on long enough. You should have seen me. I was on the edge of my seat during the women’s ice skating competition last night. I was cheering on Sarah Hughes to win the gold just like all the other millions of dopes that watched last night. Boy her performance was amazing though and I was glad that one of the other snotty, stuck up, brats didn’t win. She was so happy and excited after her program it was nice to see.

I think it is interesting though to watch someone who has been training and training for something for so long finally get up and have it all summed up in 4 minutes. All of those Olympians have worked so hard to get there. It is definitely inspiring when you see someone so talented. It makes you want to really go for it in your own existence. Damn it yes! I’m going to do it! I am going to go for the gold in design and illustration. If you dedicate yourself to training and working hard then you really can be the best one day.

ARGH!

So if you also have been trapped watching the Olympics you may have seen that new car commercial? The one where the miniature SUV is being chased by huge rabbits and a gigantic mountain lion. It’s pretty well done. The car looks like a little toy racing over a mountainous terrain. That cougar really wants to catch that SUV. It’s scary! I think there is another one where the tiny SUV is driving around with a bunch of giant ants.
Here’s my question though: Why do they have the “Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt” warning on these commercials? How the heck are we the TV viewer, suppose to shrink ourselves down small enough to even fit into that tiny SUV? We can’t attempt it. Let me tell you, if there was a giant mountain lion chasing my vehicle I would be driving as fast as I could to get away from that crazy thing, closed course or not.

Hey! HA! HA! HA! HA! I’m back. You can all stop your worrying. Nothing bad happened, I wasn’t sent to jail, and the house didn’t blow up. I had a couple of good days of massive energy expenditure on the projects, spreading the good word and Noodle seed planting. Things are picking up my fine feathered friends! I’m at the point this morning where I just finished working on one battle plan, and am now trying to start up another one or go back to one of the old ones. A little bit of down time before I start or continue the next project.

I went and got a haircut yesterday and feel much better. They gave me the shave doo. #2 all the way around. HMMM. Now I am in prime fighting form. This haircut makes me feel like doing pushups!

I’ve been doing some good on the reading front. I’ve been reading “A Series of Unfortunate Events” by Lemony Snicket. I am on the second book in the series called “The Reptile Room”. Part of the fun in reading these books is that they are beautifully crafted hard bound books that feel nice in your hands. The illustrations are quite good also. They are quick reads… Hmm? What? Oh I KNOW they are kids books… No they are still well written and adults can enjoy them… What? NO!… Look at all the adults that enjoyed the Harry Potter books. Oh you don’t know.

I have also been following the “Weasel” comic series by Dave Cooper. Absolutely wonderful. That guy is so talented. I just finished issue 4 and am now waiting patiently till 5 comes out. It is definitely not for kids, gosh I’ve got both ends of the spectrum covered. “Weasel” has the feel of that wood paneling on the wall in the background of the 70’s porno super 8 film that you found as a kid in the old barn behind your house in Beavercreek.

Happy Presidents Day!
Do you all have school and work off? I do, yep. Everyday is Presidents Day for yours truly. K has today off also. I wonder what we will be doing to celebrate the magical Presidents? Oh that’s right, I’ll be washing dishes again. Gosh as soon as my ship comes in, I am going to buy a dish washing machine.

I didn’t get to work on any of the projects over the weekend. ARGH! Dang it Noodle, you’re going to have get on the ball and quick man. I have some stuff on Wednesday coming up that I would like to be in top form for. You’ve got a good start, just keep it going! Don’t stop now. The Sun is hiding again today so that will make it easier to be locked away in the laboratory.

We went and saw my brother’s family yesterday. That was nice. We got to hold the babies which was super nice. Those are some cute kids let me tell you. Us Noodles have some good genes. I think K and I are going to try to capture the eldest Noodle soon for baby sitting duties. I got to start working on that lad’s artistic side. I hope that my mother will make it to town before too long to hold the babies. Hopefully she can get up here before the move.

Fun times. This turned out to be a fun weekend. Not like I was expecting it to be lame or anything. Friday was such a wonderful day. I went on a good walk around town, hung out with friends, and drank beer in the sunshine. In the evening Eugene and K baked a cake, and more friends came by to chat and hang well into the morning hours. Saturday we slept in and recovered.

We went out last night and had birthday drinks for the lovely Ms. T who was celebrating her 26th year on this planet. Once again we were at the Bonfire. That place is pretty cool. We’ve been there a couple of times in the last few weeks.

After the birthday drinks we went and saw a birthday movie. We saw that Tom Cruise flick “Vanilla Sky”. Well hmm. It was a fair movie, not good but not that bad. The acting was pretty stinky. I think by the end of the movie when they explained everything I had lost interest and didn’t care what the explanation was. I am also against the looking back, plot device in TV and movies. Someone explaining to a physiologist through the whole movie about what is happening is kind of lame, it doesn’t give the audience enough credit to be able to figure it out on their own.

We have got some stuff to do this morning, but hopefully sometime today I can get back to working on my project. I was bouncing some ideas off of people to get more ideas and see what they thought. Sounds good. Those that were listening thought that I was on to something. Now I have to just kick it in gear and do the mountain of labor.

See, just like that it’s Friday again. Time for some more weekend fun.
The Sun is out once again this morning in all of it’s splendid glory. Oh how I love and have missed you old great one. It’s true friends, Spring is coming! Yesterday I spent 45 minutes sitting on the front porch basking in the radiant glow. Everything is going to be alright. The Winter had you believing that you were doomed to a tortured life in this evil World, but it isn’t true. You are going to be just fine. Life is good.

I think it will probably be tough for me today to stay inside this dank laboratory and work on the Noodle projects. Gosh it’s really going to be a struggle then when the Summer gets here. I declared last night that this Summer coming up will be the best Summer of my life so far. Boy that sure is putting a lot of pressure on the Summer isn’t it? I think it is up for the challenge.

So I’m going to head out into the sunshine today. I’ve scheduled a drink with an old chum from the Group, and then I think I will head down to Eugene’s shop and hangout with that fine lad for awhile.