The Jack Noodle Journal

Okay, first off, was it dark this morning or what? Fall’s here I guess. Days are getting shorter. Sun goes down by 7 and doesn’t come up until 7. I am having a heck of a time waking up to this darkness. It seems so much easier when it’s dark to just close the ole peepers and keep sleeping. Wasn’t I just talking about how I was ready for the autumn season not too many weeks ago? I’m not so sure now. I already miss waking up to sunny mornings.

There has been a pretty steady stream of work a little higher on the challenge meter this week at the office. A certain sports league has some team jerseys that are being created by a certain large shoe company that has been a trying project for us production kids. Uh huh, you know what I’m talking about Ms. Castichell.

Having to concentrate on working here at the job has put a damper on my journal entries and internet viewing this week. Truth be told, some of my most recent award winning posts have been done during pauses and breaks here at the job.

I had quite a few topics this week that I will try to catch you guys up on over the weekend. That’s the thing about this here journal, topics don’t stay topics very long for me so I have to make every effort to get them typed in before they fade away.

One topic that is still a topic is that we are going to the TV on the Radio concert this coming Monday. Yep, you should go. It’s at the Wonder Ballroom. It will be a good show I bet. When I saw them earlier this year open for Nine Inch Nails, I got a sense that they would be amazing in a smaller venue. I’m not as into their most recent album as I am into the previous, but I really dig the “Wolf Like Me” song from the new album. It has been stuck in my head the last couple of days. Check out the video of it right here.

Okay back to work.

I think this is the last of the September birthdays. Today is my lovely mother’s special day. A real swell lady really.

Quite a few of you cats were born this month. Hmm what up with that? What time of year was it 9 months before now? Lets see…
Oh yeah, January. So the folks of these September kids were just trying to keep warm in the freezing cold of winter and look what happened!

K and I are going to take mi Madre and Greg out to dinner tonight. I’m really hungry right now, but I am going to save my appetite. We are going to Buster’s barbecue. Hmmm thinking about barbecue is making my mouth water.

Hey there all. How bees ye?
It’s freaking Monday! Argh! It was so hard to get up this morning.

Well the weekend went pretty well. Holy crap was it nice out or what? I think the weather is nice outside right now also but I can’t see it from here.

On Saturday we went to the Lucky Lab and celebrated Dogtoberfest. We happened upon the event, we didn’t know it was going on until we walked the dogs there. There were lots of dogs hanging out. Dare I say a hundred at one point? We had planned on meeting the Marcys there for lunch and drinks since Molly Marcy had never been there before.

A couple more September birthdays to report. We had the handsome Seth’s birthday on Saturday and my nephew Caleb’s birthday on Sunday.

I’m not sure how Seth celebrated in Baltimore, but we celebrated Caleb’s birthday by having a birthday party at his house on Sunday. It was pretty fun. My brother recently got a trampoline for the kids to jump on. K and I freaked out when we saw it and almost knocked kids over running to go and jump on it. Jumping on a trampoline is more exercise than I would have imagined at first.
We have photos of the jumping. I’ll post them as soon as my Flickr account rolls over with more free space.

Sunday wound down nicely with a visit from Kathleen and Lanara, then a somewhat humorous new episode of the Simpsons, and finally a Netflix viewing of the movie “Animal House”. Animal House was just alright. I think that is the first time I had seen it in it’s entirety. The “Duel of the Fates”, allergic food, saber battle between Bart and Skinner was awesome. Of course it is always awesome visiting with Kathleen and Lanara. Rumor is they are getting a hot tub.

It was a pretty fun weekend.

I didn’t get to the library like I wanted. I am going to go after work tonight I think.

During my television series screenplay scheming (which really is only working during the morning hours, as previously noted), I found this posting from I guy who really has a great idea for a story in his head and needs to get it out. Sure I’m kind of like this guy, but hopefully I’m not being too dorky about it (not to be mean to the guy). I’m seriously going to go for it with this thing in a professional manner. I swear. You’ll see. I’m not messing around. Really.

In other “Holy” news, I found a book whose plot has a couple of ideas that seem to be similar to the ones I am working on for the show. What do you think? Should I check the book out from the library or should I keep my original idea untainted from outer stimuli until the treatment is done? I think that my idea for the show is fairly unique but I also am a strong believer that there is nothing new under the Sun. I think the only thing one can hope for is giving an idea enough of your own stink and spin to make it yours. How do you mix enough different unoriginal elements together to convince people that you’ve come up with something original?

See, Ah ha! The morning hours are wearing off and I am starting to feel like a dork again.

Weekend, start you engines! Happy Friday to you.

I’m a tad groggy this morning. The last two nights we watched the two part documentary about Andy Warhol on PBS. It was on from 10 to 12 each night. It was part of the American Masters series. It was a long documentary. I found it to be quite interesting. Perhaps it was fascinating to me because I have been into Warhol off and on since high school. The first night focused on Warhol’s early years and his rise to Pop Art master. He was a successful commercial artist starting out and had to really struggle to be seen as a fine artist. His commercial, ink blot line illustrations are really nice. There was a giant gap between commercial art and fine art back then. The fine artists didn’t take the commercial artists seriously. Boy, Warhol did his best to almost completely seal up that gap and totally changed the world of art and commerce for us today. He forced the World to question it’s definition of art and declared through his work that everything was art. The last half of the film on last night covered the Factory years and the last part of Andy’s life and work. I liked the first half of the documentary better than the second half.

I love watching shows on art and artists. They give me a burst of energy, hope and inspiration that last for about 24 to 48 hours.

I didn’t forget, but didn’t mention it here until now. The lovely Mr. Baptist had his birthday a couple of days ago. Happy birthday to you sir. The September birthday train keeps on rolling down those tracks! Yep, Mr. Baptist is still out in Arizona.

A couple of you have inquired about the progress I have made this week on my television series script. Right now I am still in the thinking and planning stages. I will be constructing a 5 to 8 page “treatment” of the project shortly. Without saying too much during this fragile stage, Holy is a character based drama about a group of software engineers, computer scientist types who move their tech firm to a small town on the Oregon coast and start a church. The adventures begin from there. There is a large bit of sci-fi to it but a present day sci-fi, not a crazy over the top spaceship, aliens, futuristic sci-fi. Subtle. There’s much more to it all of course.

Yeah, I should get working on that. I’m going to the library this weekend for a how-to book.

Hey, so they say Fall will be here this weekend!
I believe it. I couldn’t figure out how to dress for the morning commute. Was I going to get rained on? If I dressed too warm would I be hot in the afternoon?
It’s almost time to turn the heat on for the first time this season. I thought about it last night but didn’t turn it on. We’ll see if the furnace comes on. The last few years the furnace hasn’t come on after being off for the summer. True, we have a new furnace this year so that stupid pile of crap better come on! Heads will roll if it doesn’t! I need to get a new furnace filter first.

Thanks to Mr. Snethen for alerting me to the news that the lovely Matthew is celebrating a birthday. So many September birthdays! I could never remember the exact date of Mat’s birthday growing up. It was always around the start of school and he was younger than me. I could remember that much. Happy birthday Maty! I wonder if you guys are ever going to be done with that East Coast thing? Come on, move back home. The East Coast isn’t as cool as it was when we were in high school. We’re much more mellow out here in the West. More your speed really. The painting and architecture world out here is waiting for you to whip it into shape!

I realized this morning that the new television series that I am writing called “Holy”, only makes sense and seems sane during the morning hours. It must be something to do with me being closer to dream time subconsciousness in the early hours. Looking back at yesterday’s post last night, I couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. From now on while working on the project, I will only speak of it in the early morning. I will also start to go to sleep earlier in the evenings and get up earlier in the morning to work on it. You’ll see. It will all come together and make sense soon.

I have been reading and enjoying my friend Moby’s blog for several years now. His music is fine. I don’t have any of the albums he has done after “Play” though. Anyway, he announced the other day that he was quitting the internet until January. Going offline. I guess he was getting tired of that weird constant tick of constantly check email and news. I hear that buddy. I wonder if psychologists and therapists are going to start prescribing a diet of minimal to no internet until ones mental health improves. At first I was like, “Hey you can’t stop posting until January. I’ve been reading that!” Then I remembered that I pretty much bailed out on most of 2005.

It’s like the Michael Jackson song only with “weekend” replacing “childhood”.

“Have you seen my weekend?”

Yeah, that went fast.

We went to the coast this last weekend. Celebrating our wedding anniversary. At least the speedy weekend took place while we were at the beach.
We got rained on Saturday but it was actually sunny on Sunday. We saw some sun! We went to Waldport again. Just the two of us and the dogs this time.

We didn’t do much. Just lounged around mostly. We watched some TV and did some reading. I brought the computer and played around with that for about an hour. We had a couple of nice walks on the beach, breathing in the ocean air and staring at the sea. It was very nice.

We are definitely planning on heading back there to the beach house again soon. We’ll take more of the gang next time.

Unfortunately K picked up a cold and started to feel sick towards the end of our stay. I feel just a tad woozy this morning. I’ll probably be fine though. This cold doesn’t feel like it is going to stick.

It sure is dark out this morning. I got rained on heading to the bus and the max.

Yeah, on with the work week huh?

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary my love! Year number 6.
That confuses me a bit. We were married on September 15th 2000, so our first wedding anniversary was on 2001. That would be year number 1. I guess it’s not that confusing. I just find myself saying it’s our 6th wedding anniversary since we have been married 6 years. It’s our 5th anniversary of being married for 6 years.

Wait a second. It is our 6th wedding anniversary!
This is the 6th anniversary that we will have celebrated.

So far so great! I really have an awesome team member on my side. K and I have been having a fun time. We have been taking the battle out to the enemies. Kicking much ass. K is my best friend.

We have some plans going for celebrating our special day. We have got some fun in the works for the weekend. I didn’t get K any gifts yet. What is the gift for year 6? Paper? Rock? Maybe I should google it and find out. Hold on.

Looks like the internets are saying sugar, and iron are traditional anniversary gifts for year 6.
hmmm… candy.

Our friends, the boys of the rock and roll band “We’re From Japan!” have been on tour for the last few weeks. They are playing shows all across this great nation of ours. I had been hearing bits and pieces of how the tour has been going through K who was getting reports from Lianne. From what I gathered the boys have been having quite the adventure. Seems like van troubles run in our family. K and I won’t be traveling in or purchasing a van if we can help it.

At lunch with my pal G yesterday I say, “Gosh, I wish Martin would update his blog so we could hear how the tour is going!”

G says, “Uh he did. I read about the tour last night.”

I’m like, “What?”

I had been constantly checking the blog for updates but Martin must have slipped in a post when I wasn’t looking. I guess I could combat this problem and not have to keep checking for updates if I just connected to the RSS feed huh?

Read some tour highlights here. If you are reading this outside of Oregon now, check the We’re From Japan website to see if the tour is coming to a town near you!

Rock it for us kids, play some great shows but be safe and come home soon!

Yes it’s true. I killed Donavan Dooley.
My days of being a Second Life citizen are over.

I explored the game a bit and found it to be kind of boring. It looked cool and I was really enamored with the idea of Second Life, but in the end I couldn’t get past the feeling that I could be wasting my time on something more productive. I’m sure it’s really fun for some people and I can see how it could be quite an experience to get lost in. Not for me. Also, what’s up with all the weird sex stuff? The fantasy island areas seemed to be the only places with lots of people hanging out. It was hard to find just normal adventures with normal characters to talk to. As far as sex stuff goes, I found it to be kind of clunky. Huh? Eh whatever.

The final nail in Donavan Dooley’s coffin was when the Second Life folks sent an email saying that hackers had broken into their servers and may or may not have tooled around with people’s personal information. What? Come on. I’m barely into this game, and didn’t think I should have to give a free game as much information as I did to begin with. Now hooligans could be dancing around with my business? That’s the end of that. Rest in peace Donavan Dooley.

People, I am in love with my Wacom tablet! I picked one up last week and have been using it at work the last several days. I ended up getting the Intuos3 4X5 tablet. After about 3 solid days of use I noticed that my wrist started feeling better. Woo hoo! I was a tad worried that it would take me a while to get use to the pen but I seem to have it almost all figured out. I’m working on picking my speed up. I could see how a pen and tablet could speed up my work flow. Now a mouse feels strange. That’s crazy. This tablet was created with Photoshop in mind. All the buttons on the tablet work perfectly with the actions and tools I’m constantly using. I also seem to have more control over the brushes which is cool.

I got spooked thinking that I may have injured myself. Along with my new input device, I am being more ergonomically conscious about how I am sitting in my chair, making sure my feet are placed firmly on the ground, and my muscles are relaxed. I also need to be more diligent with taking a break now and then. Hopefully that will keep the pain at bay so I can have many more years of fun filled work.

Today’s the anniversary of 9-11. Yep. Oh you hadn’t heard? That’s surprising since it’s all over the media.

Is this a thing now? Are we supposed to feel bad every year now around this time? Are we supposed to feel bad now for questioning if we should feel bad or not? When will this turn into a national remembrance day where we can get work off?

I’m sorry. I guess I am just getting tired of it all.

I feel horrible about the events that happened on September 11th, 2001. I still get a little teary eyed whenever I see any footage or hear people talk about it on the radio. I just looked back over a few of the September 11th entries in archives. Looks like I was questioning the vulturous nature of the anniversaries way back in 2002. Boy, what has changed since then? I think the thing that makes me sad is the state of the planet since the attacks.

This year it all seems manufactured though doesn’t it? Is it just me?

The news and the media are just beating this horrible day over the head. That President of ours just keeps going and going doesn’t he? When is that guy going to shut the Hell up? We’re not buying what you’re selling dude! Will every President in the future now give a series of speeches leading up to the anniversary of September 11th? If this administration didn’t use 9-11 as a marketing tool every year since the tragedy would the nation be as focused on it five years later? Would it it have faded a bit allowing the wounds to heal?

I guess it’s important for us to continue to be fearful.

Why don’t we have big memorial services anymore for the Americans that lost there lives during the Columbine massacre? What about the Oklahoma City bombing? What day did that happen again? How many Americans died? I guess those national tragedies happened too long ago, aren’t fashionable anymore, don’t get ratings and can’t help either political party out. Oh yeah, and I don’t think these guys are Americans but what sort of tragedy is going on in this Darfur place that I don’t hear much about on NPR?

How many hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives in the last five years since the attacks?

I guess the best way to commemorate those who lost there lives on September 11th would be not to vote republican in November. Ha ha, see though, that’s the media speaking through me. Does it really matter if republicans or democrats are in control? I don’t think so.

I don’t know.