The Jack Noodle Journal

Well hello there everybody! How are you all doing on this cold Fall morning? Gosh this time change is throwing me off a bit. I’m getting started later on the journal. I think when I start working again, I may switch my journal time to the evening instead of the morning like I have been doing. That will probably add a different perspective to the whole mess eh?

How did your weekend go? Ours was pretty cool. We went down to the beach again and stayed in a yurt with Mr. Baptist, Ms. Bee, Annie, Martin, Lianne and Phillip. Boy there’s quite a list of hoodlums. It was pretty fun. We went crabbing in Mr. Baptist’s boat. Crabbing was pretty fun. I hadn’t done that before. You throw your nets over the side of the boat, wait for the crabs to hop in, and then scoop them up. We caught quite a few large crabs. Martin and I helped Mr. Baptist take them to get cooked and then we cleaned them. I felt like quite the manly fisherman.

Eugene and New Friend Joel watched Pierre while we were away. He seemed to be okay when we got back, although he had another seizure this morning. Man KITTY! Stop it already! A sucky thing happened to Eugene and New Friend Joel while we were gone. The house that they are moving into next week and where they are keeping their stuff was broken into and robbed on Saturday! Makes me absolutely SICK! For crying out loud people! These 2 guys aren’t rich and don’t have expensive stuff! Why do you have to mess with them? A couple of their guitars were stolen, a whole bunch of their CDs, and a couple of cameras. Man I hate that. How horrible. You guys should have came to the beach with us. Not that would have helped, but at least you would have been relaxed from a nice mini vacation before finding out all your stuff was gone.

Boy, this entry is taking me a long time to write. I keep getting distracted. K called in sick today. That clean fresh ocean air gave her a cold I guess. Hey I start my new job tomorrow. None too soon either. I need to start making some green so that we can get out of the red. I think I’m going to kick back and chill today on my final day off.

Boy oh boy! It’s pretty chilly in here this morning. Time to get that furnace fixed. How’s everybody doing today out there in cyberland? I’m doing okay except for that whole cold thing that I just spoke of. I’ve got a nice fresh warm cup of coffee now, so that should help. It’s a bit overcast out there today. Maybe our Spring like weather is over.

You’re probably all wondering how my first day at work went huh? Well, I don’t know yet. What? Yeah, my start day got pushed to Tuesday. I haven’t started working yet. I’m ready to go though folks! I’ve got my lunch packed and my clothes laid out and ready for my special first day.

I really need to start working. These last few days have made me crazy. I’ve been really annoyed and agitated. Little things are getting magnified and bugging the heck out of me. One of the things that I thought might help me calm down at least for a bit, was getting “Grand Theft Auto 3″. Yes, I finally got it. Man oh man that’s a fun video game. I played it all day yesterday. I spent hours and hours stealing cars and beating the crap out of people with a baseball bat. I think I’m going to continue playing it again today after I do some picking up, vacuuming and a few chores.

I don’t know. The weather might not be so nice at the beach this weekend. Perhaps we shouldn’t go. I guess a rainy day at the beach is still a day at the beach. What are you all doing this weekend? Any big plans? Hey Halloween is coming up quick. Yeah, bah hum bug. When you look like a monster all year, what’s one more night? We do have a party to go to this year. That should be fun. I don’t feel like dressing up, but I suppose I have to. Remember last year how scared everyone was that terrorists were going to go out trick or treating and kidnap their children? Gosh, what weird times we live in.

Well I guess this is my last day of freedom for awhile. It was fun while it lasted, kids. Actually it was only fun for about the first 6 months. Yep, tomorrow I start the new job. At least I think I do. Maybe I should call somebody and find out for sure. Man the Sun is shining bright this morning! Today I will go on the last Freedom Walk. I will wish all of my brothers and sisters well and hope that they continue to keep it real. This is a great day for the Freedom Walk. Maybe when I get back I’ll take the dog out for his own Freedom Walk to the park.

Gosh, I slept in a bit this morning. Oh well. There is a yummy pot of coffee brewing right now. You know I should really try to clean things up around here today. Yeah that’s what I’ll do. I really should have been keeping this laboratory clean the whole time, but you know how it goes. I’ve got some dishes to catch up with also. Oh yeah, there are some bills I should probably put in the mail. If I have time after all of that stuff, I’m going to try to do some reading and maybe try to play that Hitman 2 game some more.

I had a good time hanging out with my brother and two nephews last night. We just chilled and played around. Those two kids are pretty smart little dudes. We took a ride in the car and the eldest Noodle showed me his preschool. We had some good laughs.

There is some talk of going over to the coast this weekend. Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee are going to be over there. That might be kind of fun. I am really nervous about leaving Pierre alone for very long. We could have someone look after him, but that would be horrible for the babysitter if he had one of his episodes. We’ll have to see.

I’ve got a big day planned for myself. I better get to it. If I don’t watch out I may spend the whole day typing.

Wow, two entries in a row. Well wonders never cease here at the Noodle compound. It looks like we’re in for another cloudy morning. I think yesterday it was cloudy during the morning and then cleared up in the late afternoon. It hasn’t been too bad weather wise these last few weeks actually it has been really nice. Enough with the weather already, Noodle!

I haven’t been feeling very creative as of late. Hopefully I will be able to snap out of it soon. I think you could probably make a graph of my creative levels over the last 12 months. I think it would show how the length of time being unemployed has slowly pulled my creativity down. I was far more into it last January for sure. I don’t think I’m on the lowest part of the graph today because I am in a great mood and I do at least have hope that my creative levels are beginning to rise again. I’ve still got some good work left in me.

I rented the video game, “Hitman 2, Silent Assassin” yesterday. I have totally been in a weird video game playing mood these last few days. I’m not sure why. Oh my goodness though, this Hitman game is a little nuts. The whole point of the game is to go around and assassinate people. It’s pretty crazy. I don’t know if I like it or not. The controls on the game are a little hard to figure out. The guy doesn’t move very well. I’ll give it a few more tries before I make my final judgement. I’m not into the whole violence thing. Why does everything have to be so violent? Why can’t things be more sexy? God forbid somebody make a sexy playstation game!

Gosh this entry is taking me forever to write. I’m a little distracted today. I need to focus.

I am well into my Star Wars X-Wing novel. It’s actually quite good. It’s stimulating my reading muscles. I really enjoy reading. I should keep it up. While reading though I can’t stop thinking that I should be writing a novel. Man, while reading I should only think of reading, not writing. Eh, who knows. I think I’ll continue with my Star Wars reading as soon as I get done here.

I think I’m going to go by and visit my brother and the kids tonight. That should be fun. K’s got a mountain of school work to do and my brother’s wife is out at another event, so it’s just the boys.

Good, cloudy, Monday morning to you kids! How’s it going this morning? It’s going pretty good here. Gosh I woke up pretty early this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ve got a nice warm cup of coffee now, so that will help me fall back to sleep. What? I don’t know.

The weekend went pretty well. The apple festival and pumpkin patch were better than I thought they would be. The pumpkin patch was totally crowded. We had a pretty mellow weekend once again. We didn’t do too much yesterday. K returned some clothes and exchanged them for others. I window shopped at the video game store. I can’t believe I haven’t bought “Grand Theft Auto 3″ yet. What discipline! I’ve wanted it for almost a year now. Maybe I’ll get it when the first paycheck comes. No Noodle, conserve your funds my man.

Oh my goodness! Did we see a stinker of a movie last night! The movie “Murder By Numbers”, starring the lovely Sandra Bullock, was horrible. It was laughable during some scenes. Very predictable. There was even a few messed up edits that I noticed. Her shirt was on one way in one angle and then when it cut to the next angle she was wearing it different. The only good thing about it were the 2 high school kids that planned out the murder. They were pretty good. Although by the end of the movie they were pretty annoying also. That’s too bad though the movie had a good idea and skeleton to it. Ha Ha! I was just beginning to worry that I had been giving only good movie reviews here in the journal and skipping the stinkers. This will help balance it out.

Well I’ve got a few things to do today. Some chores will probably need some attention today. I’ve got a few dishes left to wash that I didn’t quite finish yesterday. I need to call and schedule an appointment for Phillip to get the stitches taken out of his nose. I need to see about getting the golf’s battery looked at sometime this week. The first thing I should get to now is filling out the mountain of paperwork I have for the new gig. Mountain I tell you!

Once again we are out of coffee. ARGH! What am I to do? Oh and I could have so used coffee this fine morning. The sun is shining out there. I think I saw some fog also this morning. Maybe it was more of a mist. Fall is here and Winter is fast approaching. K wants to go to the pumpkin patch and the apple festival today. Gosh 2 in a row? Please. I did say I would go back to the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. Those are definitely 2 Fall events though. I need to get some coffee. Maybe I’ll drive up to the store right after I hang up here.

So we went on our little, celebratory, mini shopping spree yesterday. We went and got some new clothes and a few other things. I got some new pants. I was really in need of pants. The right knee of every pair I owned had a hole in them. I don’t know why it was just the right knee. My right knee must be larger than the left.

Man, I better just pause here and get some coffee. I can’t see straight. There, I’m back. I got the coffee brewing now so I should be okay.

I got the new Underworld CD! “One hundred days off”. It’s excellent. It’s a bit different than the other albums. There are few jazzy tunes mixed with their signature head bobbing, dance assaults. It’s a great CD for me to celebrate the new gig and remember my 100+ days off. I sampled some other CDs I may have to get in the future.

I also got a couple of books to read. Am I a geek or what? I bought a Star Wars novel to start reading. “X-Wing Rogue Squadron”. It’s the first book in a series. I wanted something quick and easy to read to help me get into the swing of reading and hopefully get me in shape for some more serious reading like Star Wars “Dark Empire”. I don’t know, we’ll see. I just want to finish some books I start.

I think the lady and I need to make a few to do lists to get some sort of battle plan going against the headaches that have been piling up over the last few months. Things like the golf’s battery needing to be fixed, getting a new printer, fixing the heat, blah, blah. Boring stuff. The new job will help put a dent in the things that we have been putting off for so long.

We watched “Insomnia” the other night. Actually we had to start it twice because I instantly fell asleep the first time we started it. I was tired. It sure was good though when I finally saw it. I think that is one of the best non-Sopranos rentals that we have had in a while. Most of the time the stuff that we have been renting has been just okay, but this one was actually really good. It stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. It was a murder mystery, cop, thriller. Al Pacino’s character has insomnia in it, and his performance of being tired and not able to sleep is right on.

Well, I got to get this puppy posted. So pumpkins and apples for today I guess. Other than that we really don’t have much planned for the day. I don’t think there’s much scheduled for the rest of the weekend.

Boy, this week flew by! Why do I always say that? I should just know that ALL weeks fly by and stop commenting on it. This one did go by pretty fast though. You know now that I think about it, I was sitting around bored a lot of the time this week thinking that time had stopped. I don’t know why I get to a Friday and think the week went by fast. The week was actually a slow moving slug. It was the best week in a long time though, like I predicted.

It looks like the Sun is hiding from us this morning. I’m glad I finally got off of my butt and mowed the lawn yesterday when the Sun was shining. The lawn looks so much better now. It was so funny. For some reason I thought that a tree up front needed some pruning, so I went to town on it. When I got a ways into it, my jaw dropped because I had really cut a lot of branches off. Then I had to keep going on the other side to even it out. I now have a palm tree sitting in the front yard! No it looks pretty good. Branches and limbs grow back right?

Well kids I heard back from Geoffrey’s company. Looks like I didn’t get the job up there. That kind of stinks. That would have been a kick ass job. Oh well. The possibility of me doing freelance is still open so that’s cool.

Fear not! Dry those eyes. The same day I found out about that job I got offered another one! **WOO HOO!** Could it be? Is your humble narrator actually joining the work force again after so long? YES! I got a spot on a tech team working at Adidas. Yep, the shoe company. Very cool. My super buddy, Joel #1 works there and thought of me when asked if he knew anyone that wanted a job. I’ve got a lot of paper work to fill out right now so I better get to that. I think I’m starting on Monday.

I’m glad we found out before the weekend. Now K and I can breathe a sigh of relief and relax a little bit. We’ve got to go out today and buy a few of the things that we said we would get on the day I became employed again. We can’t go too crazy. I don’t have a paycheck yet. There are a few necessities I do need though, like some pants and the new Underworld CD.

Good, happy morning to you all! How’s it going? Going good here. I’m a little hungry though. The weather outside is delightful! It has been sunny all week. A week for the history books is what I said on Monday, and I may just be right. I’ve been having a good couple of days. I think the next few days will continue on in the same fashion, right into the weekend.

Eugene and New Friend Joel stayed over again on Monday night. That was pretty fun. They made us some dinner and we watched “The Godfather”. We decided that we needed to keep our Sopranos, Mafia entertainment fix going so we got the king of all gangster films. K and Eugene hadn’t seen it before. Benny came by later to help us watch the movie.

Tuesday I went up and helped my friend work on the newspaper. That was pretty entertaining also. Have I spoke of the newspaper here before? I think I have? Well I’ve been doing freelance graphics up in Vancouver for a small community newspaper since August. I’m sure I mentioned it. I worked up a couple of ads and we formatted some photographs for the paper.

Today I must get out in the Sun! I can’t stay and type here any longer! K has demanded that we go out on the Freedom Walk today and go to the coffee shop. I agree with her. Maybe the young Phillip can join us. I haven’t been out on the Freedom Walk for many, many weeks. It will feel good to get out there and keep it real with the peeps again. I need to get out of this laboratory and spread some Noodle love around the neighborhood again. Something tells me this could be the last Freedom Walk. What? No… wait, it’s a good thing. My fingers are so crossed that they are turning purple. I’ve some news that I dare not speak of yet, so be patient my friends. Don’t worry though people. If I do ever go back to work, know that the Freedom Walk will always continue on in my heart.

Well here we are again. Another Monday. The start of a new week. It seems like I was just writing a Monday entry. Gosh, that went fast. This is going to REALLY be a good week. Not like last week, where it started out good and then quickly jumped in the toilet. This week is going to be solid all the way through. A week for the history books. K has this week off from school. She’s got Fall break. That right there automatically begins the fun adventures that we’ll find this week.

How did your weekend go? Ours was alright. We tied one on pretty good Saturday night. Tied it pretty tight I guess, because we laid around the house on Sunday and didn’t do anything. The Fantastic Idea Project did an excellent job at their show on Saturday. Good job kids. That Mississippi Pizza Pub was a pretty cool place. The pizza was quite yummy. After the show, Eugene and New Friend Joel stayed over at our at our house and we watched an episode of the Sopranos. Eugene and New Friend Joel are couch surfing until the end of the month when their new apartment will be ready to move into.

Speaking of the Sopranos… That’s it. No more Season 3. We finished it all up yesterday. Quite sad. We wanted more when we were done. Now we’ll just have to suck it up and wait for Season 4 to come out on DVD. Surely it won’t be that long of a wait will it? I went to the web site last night and read up on some of the current episodes. Come on Noodle, let it go man. You’ll find something new to entertain and help you escape.

Gosh I’m chilly. There seems to be a few things that I keep mentioning I need to do here in the journal, and I really should get going on them. This is silly. Calling the furnace people, mowing the lawn, cleaning the laboratory and making some more Double Darren tunes are just a few of the things I keep procrastinating. I need to get off my butt and start doing some of those things. I have been teetering on the edge of a horrible funk these last few weeks. I’ll be glad when that crap is over with.

I did end up getting a haircut. Now my head is cold. The temperature has gone down quite a bit I think. There was no cloud cover last night so I’m sure that has something to do with it. Hold on, I need to go get a stocking cap for my head. I feel like a new man with the nice short, shaved do. I’m ready to take on the World again.

I keep thinking today is Sunday for some reason. It feels like a Sunday. That’s cool though because I keep gaining a day every time I remember that it’s Saturday again. We don’t have anything really planned for the day. Today would probably be a good day to do some cleaning up around here. This laboratory is in serious need of some help.

We finished watching “Brotherhood of the Wolf”. It was really cool. Quite a pretty picture. It’s a French movie set back in the 18th century. These 2 men are sent to a village to save them from a beast that keeps devouring the village people. It pretty much was a mystical fantasy, lots of fighting, cool weapons and an awesome looking beast. We started watching the dubbed English version, but then switched it over to the French with English subtitles. The movie was much better that way.

Last night we went over and had dinner with Martha and Officer Steve. So very good to see you both. Martha made an excellent enchilada that I wish I had some of now for breakfast. I’m hungry. Officer Steve and I played Xbox until we fell asleep in the front room. “Halo” is the really cool Xbox game that I was thinking you should get, Steve. Shout out to the lovely Emma. She had missed her nap that day and was pretty tired.

When we got home, K and I watched a couple more Sopranos episodes. We are almost done with Season 3! What are we going to do? I think we will probably go through some withdrawals when we are done. I keep hinting around to a couple of people that it would be so kind of them to keep a tape going and record Season 4 for the poor Noodles.

I need to get started up again on some of my projects. I should go back over my notes and refresh my memory with some of the ideas I already have going. I could do a lot of work here on the web page. I need to update almost all of the sections here. I really need to improve the flash work in the garden. It needs some pruning. I’ve got a lot of plans for the 62nd & Radish section also. One of these days I’m going to add some different songs to the transmission section.

Oh hey! It’s Saturday, not Sunday. Cool now I have more time for projects.