The Jack Noodle Journal

Hey, happy leap day to you! What is the deal with leap year anyway? How come I haven’t paid attention to it before? Hold on one second while I get updated on the history of leap year. Leap years are a bit more complicated than I had thought. Leap years are needed to help keep the calendar aligned with the Earth’s rotation around the Sun. Leap years happen on years that are divisible by 4 they say. So 2004 has 366 days this year. Dang! That means by choosing this year to write a journal on every single day, I have given myself an extra day of work! 2000 was our last leap year. I don’t remember even thinking about it back then.

I have some sad news for you. I think that Carlos is dead. Yes, Carlos the possum that scared me on the back porch a few weeks ago. There’s a mangled bloody corpse out on the street. K said it was a Possum. I glanced at it from a distance and think it may be the same possum, but I’m not sure. Carlos was a little smaller and had more brown fur than white. If it’s not Carlos then it is surely one of his relatives. Carlos, where ever you are I hope you can find comfort in these troubling times.

Last night we watched the movies, “Johnny English” and “Thirteen”. Johnny English was an English secret agent comedy starring Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean). It was funny at times. It was fair, not too much to comment on. Thirteen was really quite good. It’s a movie about a troubled thirteen year old girl and her journey down the road of drugs and rebellion. The girl really transforms into quite a stinker. Holly Hunter is awesome as the mother who loves her daughter but wants to strangler her at the same time. It made me feel quite a sense of awe for anyone that can successfully raise a teenage daughter in the World we live in. You must be far more patient than I could ever be.

So far it has been a pretty mellow Sunday. We took the dog for a walk over to Hawthorne and got ourselves some mochas. K has headed off to a baby shower and I have been doing a little bit of homework. I’ve got some reading to do that was causing me to fall asleep before I came in here to work on my journal duties. I may go read some more and perhaps take a little nap with the puppy. There are still some chores and dishes I could work on.

Ah yes, the Academy Awards are on tonight. I probably won’t watch too many of them due to lack of caring.

Good evening to you, fine feathered friends. How are you doing? Me? Oh, I’m doing just fine thanks. Not much going on around here today. I slept in pretty late. That was nice. K went to work today and I poked around on the computer, filled out my federal student aid information a washed some of the dishes. It was kind of cool just chilling today. I don’t have any real pressing homework hanging over my head this weekend. I have a few things due on Monday but they are pretty simple. I should probably get a head start on my final projects that will be due in 3 weeks. The sooner I get them finished, the better I will feel.

Last night’s dancing was very fun. We really shook our groove thing. I think we will probably go back again. It was 80s night so all the music was from that era. It was a good selection of mostly new wave tunes. I danced my little heart out. My two favorite numbers were Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and “Temptation” by New Order. You know the “Oh you’ve got blue eyes” song. Gosh that’s a good song. I have it playing right now. I had to locate it so I could figure out what the name was. Going to 80s night is what old people do isn’t it? Yes, I think we felt like old people a time or two last night. At least we were with a whole bunch of other old people. It’s kind of cool going to the Crystal Ballroom to go dancing. We are keeping with a Portland tradition. Kids have been going to the Crystal Ballroom for dancing for many generations.

K just got back from the video store with some movies so we’ll be watching those tonight. Yep, pretty exciting night here at the Noodle house.

Wow. February is almost over kids! Month number 2 finished and ready for the history books. I didn’t talk about 2004 events very much this month did I? How are you people of the future going to get a good picture of life in 2004 if I don’t keep remembering to paint one for you? Well, February 2004 was a pretty average month. Some good things happened and some bad things happened. I think one I talked about quite a bit was being tired. Reading about someone who is always complaining about being tired isn’t very entertaining is it? I’ll try to get some rest and spice it up more next month. In March I’ll get back to focusing on the historical details of our wonderful life here in 2004.

Hello darlings. It is officially the weekend! Are you ready for the fun? If you would bare with me for a brief moment here, I would like to publicly scold Officer Steve and the lovely Michelle for not joining us this evening on the dance floor. There is no excuse good enough when it comes to the boogie. That’s okay I guess because I know in my heart of hearts that the rhythm is gonna get you.

The rain came down pretty strong today. I heard it coming down pretty hard on the roof at work so I went and stared at it out the window from inside the dry warmth of the office building. Amazingly my commute both ways was during a break in the weather so I didn’t get that wet today.

Work was just okay today. I had a hard time getting into it. I was having trouble focusing today. I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow and try to get some of my energies back. I was very distracted today. Oh yes, on iTunes it has several different rankings for your songs and different orders you can play them by. One of the lists is the top 25 most played in your collection. My number 1 hit was, “The Nurse Who Loved Me” by the Perfect Circle. It’s a good tune kids, I’m telling you. Hold on one second, I am going to put it in right now. Nope I put the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in instead.

Well, I got to get going. Some of the gang is coming here before we head off to the dance party. Oh what will I wear? That cool girl K, made her blouse for tonight. Constructed and sewed it herself. Maybe she’ll make me some britches.

Good evening my friends. How does this wonderful evening find you? It finds me very well, yes sir. I am home now from school, had a little bit of dinner, am having a Negra Modelo imported from the fine country of Mexico, and am now sitting down to write you a little message from my heart. I’m pretty sleepy right now as usual and plan on going to bed as soon as humanly possible.

I don’t think that I have ever fallen asleep in public yet. Today I almost broke that. I was sitting in the comfortable chairs in the library pretending to study for my History of Material Culture class. I think for a few brief moments I drifted off to sleep. Perhaps for only a few brief seconds. Some one dropping a book woke me up. It was just so nice and quiet and other kids were getting droopy eyed. Perfect time for napping if I could only let my public sleep guard down.

I had a strange thought while drifting to half sleep. Well actually, I had quite a few strange thoughts today, but I’ll just tell you this one for now. Being a 31 year old man, it could have been possible in a strange and twisted World where things were quite horribly different, for me to have a 19 year old child. That seems a little bit of a stretch but the older I get, having a 19 year old child is going to be more believable. I technically could be as old as some of the kids at school’s parents. That really is a stretch actually. Let me go back to sleep and ponder that one some more.

So everyone is talking about Mel Gibson’s “Passion of Christ” movie. Have you seen it yet? Have you seen it yet? No I haven’t and I don’t want to. K and I were talking about sneaking in to see it so we wouldn’t be voting for it with our dollars, but I don’t want to do that even now. I read something today that compared it to Texas Chain saw Massacre. Oh please. Does the savior of the universe need a gore fest made in his honor? Are people looking for a good excuse to go see a gory movie? Why not make a nice movie about Jesus? Yeah, I guess we’re suppose to relive his pain, right? Is Mel giving any of the millions of dollars made off of the crucifixion of Jesus to any homeless shelters or orphanages? Ah! I should stop. More power to you all. What do I care. Hey wait a second, isn’t Mel an Australian? Isn’t it illegal for foreigners to make movies about our American god?

Ah yes. Back to a long day of work tomorrow and then the glorious weekend! I hope the Sun comes out one of these days. I have to do some skateboard filming. K is gathering the troops for 80s dancing night tomorrow night. That girl is nuts with her dancing. I’ll be there cutting a rug. I hope I don’t fall asleep on the dance floor.

Oh my goodness! You would not believe the stack of dishes that are piled up in the sink for me to wash! I keep saying that I’ll do them tomorrow, I’ll do them tomorrow. Tomorrow is here kids, it’s go time. Okay I’ll do half of them tonight. Gosh, I think every single dish is in that sink. Hold on one moment won’t you? I must go chase the dog around the house for a brief moment as part of father, son play time. K’s at work now so I need to be careful. One time during father, son play time I was chasing the dog and ran smack dab into the corner of an open door. Right down the middle of my forehead. I almost knocked myself out. Another time during chase time, I kneed Phillip right smack in the middle of his forehead. I felt awful about that one. Okay hold on.

I didn’t go to my short day of work today and man was it grand. I got so much good work done, I finished my Intro to Editing piece and am quite happy with it. I may just watch it one more time again before washing the dishes. No, not the skateboarding video project, another one with footage that teacher provided. My school work would benefit so much from not working. No stop it. I can’t think like that. I need to continue working. I will be work the whole time I am in school, there will be no thoughts other than that. One second, puppy is eating paper.

I’m telling you, I really enjoy that editing! It is quite exciting for me. It feels like you are doing some sort of magic trick by the end when you see the finished cut on tape. We are using the program Final Cut Pro for our video editing this term. Last term it was Adobe Premiere and next term it’s Avid. At first I was annoyed by all the program switching. I had just got comfortable with one and had to learn a whole new one. I’m not as annoyed now. I feel pretty comfortable with Final Cut Pro after today. All these programs just take practice really. 40 hours a week of repetition and you are well on your way.

Tomorrow is my long school day and then that’s it for week number 7. It’s gone by pretty fast hasn’t it? Well yeah, I guess I still have a Wednesday evening full of dishes and puppy dog chasing left before I’m through.

Oh! Sleepy time. How’s it going everybody? Well, I worked a long day today so that I could take tomorrow’s half day off to work on my homework. As my friend My Brother Knows Karate once said, “work is for suckers”. Tonight I have to write up a little journal paper for tomorrow’s Fundamentals of Authoring class. I really need to get going on my final project for that class. Have I already said that? I had a class of milk, a “Fat Tire” beer and I just finished off a glass of Coca Cola. Now you are up to date on my most recent drinking adventures. I will probably have a large glass of water before bed.

I think I am going to go for it and get a new camera one of these days here. I have been looking into digital cameras for some time now. I think I am settling on the Canon Powershot S50. It is a nice camera. I looked at the specs today when I was suppose to be working. I know I’ll have to wait for some extra dough to manifest itself, but don’t worry this camera purchase won’t be a frivolous expense. I will totally use it all the time and my projects will be greatly enhanced by the cameras presence in my life. I will be able to use it extensively for school and work related projects. We’ll see. One of these days my friends.

President Bush went on and on about same sex marriages today. He is afraid that homosexuals are going to destroy the holy union between a man and a woman. My God, is this crap for real? I can’t believe this guy. It would be kind of funny if his actions weren’t so absolutely terrifying. What the Hell is he doing? Shouldn’t two people expressing their love for each other in marriage be something that is none of our business? He is looking to create a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. I thought the constitution was a very important document that weren’t suppose to go messing around with every time the mood struck us. I think that the biggest threat to marriage right now is divorce. Maybe the President should outlaw that. People that are single aren’t doing much for marriage either, lets get rid of them. I really believe that we live in a country where people should be free do what ever they would like no matter what their sexual preference is. I hope he doesn’t get elected again.

Okay, okay. Yes tomorrow. Class and then homework. It should be a good day. I should go to sleep now and get rested up.

Oh for crying out loud! I am so ashamed of myself. I just got done watching “The Littlest Groom”. Did you see this insane TV show? I couldn’t turn it off, I was under a spell. The Littlest Groom was a so called reality show about a guy named Darren who was a little person who got to date 12 women and pick one to be his love. All but 3 of the women were little people also. Oh man. I can’t believe the state of television. I should go into the bathroom now and wash my eyes out with soap.

Today was a really good day at school. I had a lot of fun editing the video footage for my Intro to Editing class. Being an editor would be a pretty fun job I think. Maybe some day when I grow up I could be an editor. We’ll see.

I registered for next term today. I think I’ve got some interesting classes coming up. I’ve got, Multimedia and Animation, Sound Design, Non-linear Editing, Information Design and Web Scripting 1. Boy, they’re getting complicated eh? No general studies classes next term. After I am done with the term I am on now, I will only have 6 more terms left. Woo hoo!

Tomorrow is Tuesday work fun day. Loads and loads of work fun! I think it’s raining outside right now. I hope it clears up by the morning. I don’t really feel like I am in a rain walking mood. I seem to have misplaced my hooded rain coat also. I’ll have to look for that puppy.

It’s getting late. K and I still have to watch that “Touch of Evil” movie. I was going to wash the dishes tonight but it is getting awfully late.

Yes sir! Good evening once again. So good to see you Mr. Anderson. We’ve been waiting for you. Did you all see the Simpsons? It was pretty good. It was definitely the weaker episode of the last 3. I think the best part of tonight’s episode was when Homer was fighting Bart in the bathroom. K started laughing her head off when Bart shoved the toilet brush in Homer’s mouth and was brushing his teeth with it.

Last night we saw the movie “Lost in La Mancha”. It was really interesting I thought. It’s the documentary movie about director Terry Gilliam and his attempt to make a movie about Don Quixote. The production of his movie is a complete disaster and Lost in La Mancha documents the NOT making of a movie. All kinds of bad things happened. I was just looking at something on the internet and would have to agree that what little footage that Gilliam did capture of the movie, and where it seemed like he was heading would have really made a good movie. We also rented “Touch of Evil” but were too tired to watch it so we’ll have to see it tomorrow or so.

K suggested that I plug in the broken, cat pee TV today just to see if maybe it would work. It did! We were so excited to have large TV viewing again instead of the little viewing we have been doing. We grunted and groaned and moved the big TV back into the front room and put the little guy back in the bedroom. I plug all of the stuff back into the TV and it stayed on again for 4 minutes before blanking out again. Damn it! I should see about taking that TV somewhere to get repaired. Yes, I am going to try and be responsible by getting it repaired instead of getting a new one and throwing the old one in a landfill. I wonder if it is even possible to get a TV fixed anymore? I’ll have to look in the phone book. I should probably get my computer’s monitor fixed before taking anything else in. Gosh, Has the monitor been out for a year now?

The school week begins once again tomorrow. Week number 7 right? I don’t think my weekend was long enough. I don’t feel like I got much done this weekend. I have to go in early tomorrow for early registration. The lines start up early so that the kids can be the first to get in on the schedules they are after. Classes fill up fast you know.

I will be spending quite a bit of time editing a video project for Intro to Editing tomorrow. I hope it goes fast. I need to get an early leg up on some other projects.

Happy weekend to you! How is everything? Well I am chilling now. Hanging out. K invited several of her school friends over to have a study date. I was banished to the other room to take care of the puppy and keep him away from the studying. I thought that was pretty lame at first but I eventually fell asleep with the young Phillip and had quite a nice nap. I didn’t get any work done. I spent the day walking the dog and helped clean up the house for K’s friends.

Here’s one for you. The black car had some troubles so we took in and dropped a nice 300 bucks on it. Gosh, I hate cars. I don’t know why we even have our cars anymore. We don’t need them. I rarely even drive the cars much anymore. The bus works just fine for this guy. Oh well, cars are made to spend money on.

I was pretty annoyed today. I probably wasn’t too pleasant to be around. I think this might be my first reported annoying day of the year. I’m sure I was annoyed earlier but I don’t think I reported it here in the journal. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it I’m sure. One of the things I am noticing now that I am taking that Psychology of Creativity class, is that I am much more aware of my psychological state. Now when I am annoyed I have the terminology to explain it. That kind of makes me even more annoyed.

We ran into a friend of ours on the street today that we hadn’t seen in awhile. This friend seemed to have been having a rough couple of months. Some pretty major stuff had been going down. That got me thinking about how I was writing last month about wondering how some people are having the best times of their lives now, while others are having the most horrible experiences of their lives. We are now finding out that seems to have been a true statement. Actually the people having the best times of their lives haven’t reported in yet. There have been a couple of real downers already this year.

I am doing good and K is doing good and Phillip is doing good and Pierre is doing good and Carlos is doing good. That’s really all you can hope for. See, perhaps this is the best times of our lives now. You don’t really state that though do you because you are always hoping for better even when things are great. If it is the worst time of your life you state it immediately because you want it to be true and you wish it to really be the worst so nothing even more horrible can happen.

What? Who’s Carlos? Oh yes, Carlos is our new family member. Carlos is our possum that has been hanging around in our yard at night and who scared me last night when I found him rummaging through our recycling bins on the back porch. Actually Pierre found him and was mewing his head off at the window towards Carlos. I peeked out at him and tried to shoo him away by banging on the window. Carlos is quite handsome for a possum. He has very nice, soft looking, brown fur.

Hello again my friends. How are you this fine evening? I’m doing pretty good. I’m thinking about hitting the hay soon. Wait a second, I can’t go to bed at this early hour! Gosh, I’m getting old. Okay, I won’t go to bed yet. I’ll stay up a while longer.

Today was a good day. I felt cheerful this morning. I went to work and my cheerfulness was only slightly dampened by being stuck in an office building while it was sunny outside. Maybe it will be sunny tomorrow. I have to go in to school and look at some video footage, but hopefully I will be out in the Sun a little bit. I should make a point of going outside for a while tomorrow during the day if it’s nice out.

Well, what has been going lately? Not too much went down today. I’m listening to the Walkmen again right now for the 3rd time today. I really like this CD. Maybe I should get their newer CD. No, I’ve been getting a lot of music lately. I should chill a bit and listen to the recent stuff I have over and over again. I started assembling my sound track to 2004 today on my itunes at work. I think I have 5 songs on the sound track now. I’m going to go slow and carefully select the tunes. It’s only February and I’m sure there are important songs for the mix out there that I haven’t heard yet. A sound track for the year is important business you know. It takes great care. I’ll have to put my list up here in a bit and have you help me with it.

I looked into De Stijl a little bit more today. I’m going to do some more reading on it. I did some web searching today but work wasn’t the best location for a serious study. Maybe I should dig deeper tonight. I found a few books on the subject on Powell’s web site and Amazon. There didn’t seem to be as many books as I thought there would have been. Maybe I should look up specific artists. I’m finding the style interesting now I think because it could really be put to good use on the web I tell you! You know the Noodle site already has a few De Stijll characteristics. The color palette for example. We’ll see huh? You know me and my art movement distractions.