The Jack Noodle Journal

Yes people it has happened. Your mighty friend has fallen. I’m sick! It is so unusual for me because I am rarely sick. I’ve got a sore throat that hurts when I swallow. I can barely drink my morning coffee. Besides the throat I am very achy and my head is cloudy. More cloudy than usual that is. I was in pain last night trying to finish up a sound design project at school. I couldn’t stop dreaming of the warm couch at home.

I would love to stay home from work today but I can’t. Maybe I should… No I can’t. Oh, it would be so relaxing though and I could finish watching “Willard” and I could study for my Friday midterm. No I must go in. I can’t afford to miss a day. I’ll go in later though and take it easy getting there.

Other than feeling sick there’s not much else going on. Do you remember how I was in the pit of despair last term at week 4 and I was wondering if this will happen every term at week 4? Well I’m about all done with week 4 this term and I am fine. My theory of week 4 being horrible every term doesn’t hold water. I should still be very mindful of it when it comes around and give it the respect it deserves.

Are you happy? The official season of my fall television viewing opens with the Simpsons on Sunday! Stupid baseball is finally over! I have been waiting so long for a new Simpsons. Last night we kicked things off with watching “24″. So far so good. Looks like they are really going for the melodrama this year. Over the top. I’m not sure if I will be in town for the Simpsons this weekend. Uh oh. I’ll have to record it.

Well my secret project is moving on nicely. I’m getting a little nervous though because I saw stickers posted all around the school building on the streets advertising it. It’s okay though because the average person wouldn’t know what they were looking at if they saw a sticker for it. Hopefully my head start will get me in good before these other punk kids breathing down my neck figure it out. It is all very cloak and dagger which is definitely part of the fun. Hopefully the founders of the project keep it a secret and don’t start advertising it more or dumb it down because people aren’t getting the clues.

Hello! How is it going? Oh man, I am totally out of time again. I am going to have to plan this better.

Well, life is good for now. Tuesday day number 2 of fall term week 4. Next week is a parade of midterms. Woo hoo. Midterms already? Man, this term just flew by.

With all of those fires down in California right now, I wonder if our flight to LA this weekend will be canceled? We’ll see. Is it possible that the smoginess I noticed yesterday walking to the bus was from California? Yes, I suppose that is possible.

Were any of you just beyond tired yesterday during the day? I think it’s this lame time change. I could barely keep my eyes open during classes. I felt like I had a cold also. I tried to go to bed earlier last night so maybe that will help.

Adios!

Good happy morning to you! I was in here an hour earlier starting this journal and realized that we were suppose to change our clocks back for daylight savings, so I went back and slept for my extra hour. We have another sunny morning again out there. It is quite crisp and clean.

We had an enjoyable day yesterday. K and I headed over to the school, and picked up some video equipment. We then went to Powell’s City of Books where I got a few school books and K got some cookbooks. Then we went to the restaurant downtown called “Mothers” for lunch. It was very delicious. We then went home, got Phillip and went to Stu and G’s house to watch them dig post holes for their fence that they are building. Seeing that we weren’t being much help to their work effort, we headed back home after a while. In the evening we went over and had dinner at the Willises. Michelle, Officer Steve, Emma and Erin hosted a lovely evening. A wonderful time was had by all.

At the Willises we watched the movie, “Anger Management”. You know the one with Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler. At best it was just fair. I have seen both of them in better movies for sure. “Happy Gilmore” is my favorite Adam Sandler movie. Wait no it’s “Punch Drunk Love” for sure. Anger Management was an okay movie. I didn’t hate it. You know, that has got me thinking. Have I ever written about a movie that I thought absolutely stunk here? I’m sure there was at least one. I’ll have to remember a movie that I thought was horrible and write about it here. I feel I am pretty lucky to have a discernible enough eye to avoid most of the real stinkers.

Today for the final day of the weekend fun, we will go to the grocery store that we didn’t get to yesterday, come home clean the house a little and then do some school homework reading. I should probably continue with the project a little and take some photographs also. Tonight we are having my dad and step mom, and my brother and his crew over for dinner. It should be fun. I don’t remember the last time we had all of them over at the same time.

Hold on a moment while I go soak up the blood from my leg. The cat was sitting on my lap and fell off and caught himself with his claws cutting my leg open good. Stupid cat. One second. Okay. Oh yeah, and one more thing, K drank all of the coffee! Easy Noodle. Calm it down boy.

It is sunny outside right now. It looks great out. I think it’s cold, so it’s more like a real fall day instead of those fake summer fall days we had last week. I’m going to open the curtains more and let in some sunshine. ARGH! It’s so bright! I should try to mow the lawn one more time this weekend. Maybe I will mow it tomorrow.

So how’s your weekend going so far? Ours is going alright. I think we are going to go over and watch G and Stu build a fence later and then we are going to the grocery store. Pretty exciting huh? Amazingly I don’t have any homework besides reading that I have to do this weekend. This term really hasn’t been that hard people. I have to still work at it though because I want straight A s this term. That’s funny. How does one spell A s? Straight Az?

Woe, I dozed off for a second there. I was daydreaming. Last night we rented and watched ” A Mighty Wind” and “Willard”. They were both pretty good movies. Alright, I confess. I fell asleep at the beginning of Willard so I actually didn’t see it. K said it was good though. I’ll have to watch it again. You’d think I’d have been wide awake with all the rats in that movie and the whole Noodle revolution being based around the Red Rats. Come on, I was tired. I’ve had a long week.

While we’re on the topic of the Red Rat Revolt, let me just say that the new project that I am working on is going smashingly! I am pretty excited. I have got some really groovy images of natural elements now that I am going to use in the piece. Sticks, leaves, pine cones. Wait I shouldn’t speak about it too much here yet. You’ll see though, it will be great. Maybe I’ll be able to work on it some more today.

Good morning kids! Gosh, I am out of time already!. Should I start writing my journals in the evening? I don’t know. I can’t get up too much earlier or it will be the evening. Maybe I’ll just have to start leaving for work later and stay later in the evening. Who knows? I sure am tired.

So what’s up with this weather? It had been in the 70s and 80s this week up until yesterday, so I dressed for that weather yesterday morning. By the evening I was soaked by the downpour of rain as I walked to the bus stop leaving work. Today I am going to dress for the cold and wet weather that I am guessing will be here today?

Well thanks, I got to run though. I have to check and see if Tom Waits does this Edgar Allen Poe poem on one of his CDs. I thought Nick Cave did it but I couldn’t find it yesterday and now believe it was Tom Waits. I want to let my Death and Desire teacher hear it if I find it. Okay, see ya.

Hey hey, it’s early. I went to bed last night at 10 PM and now look. It’s 5:30 AM and I am wide awake. So yeah, how’s it going? I have a short paper I should be typing right now so I am not too sure how much longer I will be able to spend on this entry. I do need to go microwave some coffee first if you don’t mind. Ah yes.

Here we are on day 2 of week 3 of the fall term. I’m glad it’s going fast. So far this term hasn’t been very hard, just annoying. A couple of the classes (I won’t say which, but they are both intro classes), insist that we be in groups and come to school on our off hours to work on projects. What the heck is the in class lab time for? I’m not complaining about homework, that’s fine and reasonable. I’m talking about having to work with 4 teammates, finding time when no one is in classes or jobs to trek back to school to work on a project. I’m thinking it would be better to work on ones own. You would really have more time to work on a better project. I’m not going to be using this stuff in a portfolio. I know, teamwork, no man is an island, in the real world you’ll have to work with others all the time, blah, blah.

Have I mentioned yet that K and I are flying down to LA in a week or so to celebrate her cousin’s wedding? I haven’t? Well, K and I are flying down to LA in a week or so to celebrate her cousin’s wedding. It should be fun. If any of you reading this are from La La land let me know and we can hook up when we are down there. Gosh. It has been like 3 years since I have been anywhere. I need to get out and see the World man!

Well, the thoughts of the school work I need to do is starting to choke off my enthusiasm for writing in the journal now. I am very excited about the slow start I am now entering in on this new project of mine. I should try to figure out a way to make it a school project, then I could kill two birds with one stone. I’ll have to write more about it tomorrow.

Good morning. Oh, do you know what? I am not even going to get into it without having coffee first. Hold on while I make a pot. Okay, I’ve got it started. Hopefully I will have a cup before too long. Man oh man the sun is out this morning. It rained pretty good last night. Morning? No wait is it the afternoon already? Sweet. I slept in a bit. Well not really because we went to bed at 3:30 AM. I don’t think this sunshine will last today. More rain is in our future. Oh the dog wants to go out. Hold on once again. Okay, I’m back. The dog is watered and I am drinking a quite tasty cup of coffee. It is a great morning. Where was I?

Oh yes. The Grandaddy concert was quite excellent last night. They’re definitely good musicians. They had a pretty interesting video accompaniment with their show. They had a lot of cool environmental and nature shots. It was good for me to get ideas for some of my own work. They had this awesome song that they did that I hadn’t heard before, and it had a great story / video thing about a beetle pushing a little ball of mud up a hill. By the end of the song the crowd was cheering the beetle on. They really had an impressive multimedia mix.

The one thing they did that was kind of a bummer was they kept talking about how the show was the very last one of their tour and how tired they were. That made it kind of lame because from then on you’re like, oh they’re tired and they just seem to be going through the motions. Wouldn’t you think that If you were a rock star that you would just suck it up, not tell the audience you were exhausted and just play the show like it was your first? They didn’t play that long either, now that I think about it. They also didn’t play my favorite song, “OK With My Decay” from the new album either. I had pretty high expectations for them and aside from those few minor glitches, they were great.

Today is a homework and house cleaning day so I better get to it. I really wish I was caught of with everything right now so that I could do some note writing for my new contest piece. I am now on hold on the telephone with a bill collector as I type this. Is my annoyance and rising rage seeping through into my writing?

Good morning super friends. How is everybody? Gosh, I am tired. I need to catch up on my sleep big time folks. I should have slept in today, but we are going to go over to Mr. Baptist’s house this morning to help with his garage sale. Maybe I could doze off over there. I kind of feel rushed. I feel like I have a lot of things to do today. I haven’t been keeping up with maintaining a to do list yet this term so I actually don’t know for sure if I do have anything that I need to do. No just kidding, I do know and I do.

After today’s chores we are heading out to see the Grandaddy concert tonight! Woo hoo! It should be very cool. That’s another good reason to get some shut eye. I need to be awake for the show.

See, that’s something I have been wondering this week. I am just starting with the initial plans for the new project and I’m getting excited about some of the ideas that are coming to me. I’m curious to know how many more ideas would come to me and how much more effective could I be if I had the proper amount of food and rest. I had thought up to before this week that staying lean and mean was working to my advantage and helping my creativity. Maybe I’m getting older and that is no longer the case. Being hungry and always sleepy can’t be helping my work. Maybe I just suck and it’s a good excuse. I think that things would be much more fruitful if I had 3 square meals a day and slept a good 8 to 10 hours a night. Then I’d really take care of business.

Oh my goodness. I can’t even believe it. Look at the freaking time would you? How did this happen? Well, I guess I accidently set the clock radio time an hour earlier last night. No, wait. I moved the clock forward later last night so now it is earlier. I am so confused. Oh well that actually works out better for the journal. I was going to come on here and tell you guys that I ran out of time when I noticed the clock on my computer didn’t match the time I thought it was. Now I have all the time in the World for a journal entry. No wonder it’s so dark outside now.

How has everything been going for you kids? Things have been going pretty fair around these parts. You know the story, busy, busy, busy. I finished up the healthy portion of my school week and now it is time to get back into job mode. I like how school and work are 2 distinct head spaces. At school I can think to myself, “Ah yes, I am at school now. I don’t have to think about Hurley or Ann Taylor.” Then when I am at work I can say to myself, “Ah yes, I am at work now, I don’t have to think.” It works out pretty well as long as I can figure out where I am before talking to myself. I’m kind of tired this morning though. I should stay home from work and catch up on my sleep. I have an hour to make up for you know.

Musically speaking K and I have some new cds this week. I finally got my own copy of the beautiful Grandaddy album that I keep gushing about, “Sum Day”. I know, I know, I should have had my own copy sooner. We also got the Coldplay CD, “A Rush of Blood to the Head”. I know that is a bit older, like last years album, but K and I weren’t up on our Coldplay. I love that CD. I don’t know why I haven’t checked out Coldplay sooner. You hear them everywhere. I think I thought that they were lame before I knew about them or maybe somebody in my circle told me they weren’t cool so I never checked them out. I still don’t know if they are cool or not, but I do like that CD. The final CD we got is the new Belle and Sebastian, “Dear Catastrophe Waitress”. It’s pretty good. I haven’t heard it enough to give it a proper review. I am going to totally get into it with headphones this week at work. Yes, so those are 3 good selections that make for our current music fun. Oh yeah, the Grandaddy concert is this weekend. Cool.

I have another sort of contest project that has come up that I am kind of excited about. No, not the Steven and Phillip piece. Something else. It’s pretty cool I guess, but I can’t really talk about it yet. It’s not really that top secret, I just don’t know how far I’m going to jump into it yet. Perhaps it would just be classified information. Something I can’t name here for fear of being Googled. It’s kind of a contest thing but not really. Some cool things could manifest themselves, but I’m not sure if it’s a good enough return on my time, energy and emotional investment. What the heck am I talking about? It’s not important. Just know that I have my mind working on a secret project now that may involve the Red Rat Revolt or Songs From Little Elk Creek.

Gosh, this accidently waking up an hour earlier thing worked out pretty well. Maybe I should do that every day. No, you’re right. It probably wouldn’t have worked out this way if I planned it.

Things are going pretty good so far this week. See it’s one of those things where I feel like exciting stuff is happening that I need to tell you guys about, but there really isn’t anything specific. You know that feeling when you’re talking to a friend and you feel like there was something you meant to tell them but you can’t remember what it was. That happens to me a lot. I feel pretty happy and hopeful this morning maybe that is what is causing my excitement.

Good morning! How is everything going? It’s going pretty good here so far today. I thought I would get up earlier than I normally do on a Sunday morning and work on some stuff. I may go back to bed after writing this journal though. It has been raining here the last few days. Fall has finally arrived my friends. It has been quite a bit cooler also. We had the heat turned on last night. Do you know what my morning is missing? Coffee. Hold on one moment won’t you? There, that will help I’m sure.

This weekend hasn’t been as wild and crazy as I thought it was going to be. I guess the more mellow laid back weekend comes from not doing any of the things that we had planned on doing. That’s okay with me. I was so tired all day yesterday. Now I feel like I have caught back up with my sleep. I don’t want to laze around today if I can help it. I’ve got stuff to take care of people!

Ah yes, week number 2 of the fall term is next week. I don’t really feel like I am back in school again yet after that break. I’m a little worried that I am not taking my classes as seriously as I should be yet. Last term at this time I was totally geared up and ready to go. I had all of my papers organized, my pencils sharped and everything ready by the start of the second week last term. This term, I have my papers jumbled up in a notebook, jammed in my backpack which I haven’t looked at since Friday. I’ll get it going though, I hope. I just have to get in there and get excited! It IS going to be a great term. I can see that already. Just work a bit on getting your interest and excitement up Noodle and you’ll be fine.

I already have my favorite class figured out. My Death and Desire class. I knew it instantly. We’re studying 19th century literature and seeing how the theme of death and desire is used in several works. So far it is very interesting. It’s going to be hard because it requires quite a bit of a level of thinking that I am not accustomed to. One of the books we are reading in that class is Bram Stoker’s, Dracula. I’m not sure what the descending order of favorite classes are yet, but I do know my least favorite is going to be Intro to computer graphics. I really should have tested out of that class. It is going to be way too easy and challenging.

Yesterday I went out and got an external firewire hard drive. 120 gigabytes for under 200 bucks. I can’t believe how cheap that is. It seems to me that the last time that I looked at external hard drive prices it was in 1996 and I remember them being large in size and costing around 2,000 bucks. Is that right? Things are so affordable now. Maybe I should get another computer huh? Oh wait That’s right, I’m a poor college student who is only working part time now. Anyway, now I have a cheap, small, with large memory external hard drive. It was suggested by my intro to video and my intro to audio teachers that I get one to hold all of the large video and audio files that I am going to be acquiring during my time at school. I have my whole computer backed up now also so I can finally take this bad boy in to get the monitor fixed. I wasn’t comfortable unplugging my current configuration without having my files backed up first. If you notice that I mysteriously have been missing more than the normal amount of journal entries then it could be because the computer is in the shop.