The Jack Noodle Journal

Over the weekend we were discussing the adventures of my in contact with every 10 to 12 months pal, Craig. My beach chums were speaking of hearing about some movie deal involving Craig’s book “Blankets”.
It seemed to me that I had some cloudy recollection of that.

So last night remembering that I was going to check into the Blankets movie rumors, I found this article. Looks like Craig has been nominated for a Grammy! How cool is that? He’s up for the grammy in the recording package category. He did the awesome cover for the Menomena CD “Friend and Foe”. It IS really cool looking. Oh yeah and the music contained in the package is some of my favorite from 2007.

I had actually thought the Grammys had already passed. Guess not.
Come February 10th we’ll be rooting for you Craig! Nice work!

They probably don’t let the winners for recording package come up and give a speech do they?

I should check out the other nominees’ work and see what Craig is competing against.

Hey there kiddos.

How’s it going? Another Monday is upon us, yes?

I don’t know about you, but I’m about done with this cold weather. I don’t mind that it’s winter. I’m just tired of this freezing, dry, crack your knuckles cold. It makes me curse myself for not insulating my house for yet another winter. When will I learn?

This snow teasing has really got to stop as well. Come on, dump it on us already! Stop being a wimp!
Lots of snow would be nice. Let’s make it a real winter already.

We were at the coast over the weekend. Yep, the ocean is still there.
We stayed at the rental over in Waldport again.
4 men, 4 women (1 with child), 2 kids, 1 teen, 4 dogs.
Full house.

We were thinking that next time we make it back to the Waldport house we’ll have baby in tow.

It was lovely once again. We made it down to the beach on Saturday for a cold and wet walk on the sand, and then on Sunday for a clear, partially sunny walk. The rest of the time we stayed indoors and had the wood stove cranked up all the way. It was like a sweat lodge in there Saturday night, the stove was so hot.

There was quite a bit of Wii competing to be had. I think I enjoyed Wii golf the most out of what we were playing. I was doing pretty well until I screwed up on hole 6 and got so angry I threw my golf clubs into the woods.

I took a lot of photos. I’m thinking that it might be fun to try and start being more serious with my photo taking. The front slider, lens opener thingy is broken on my Canon PowerShot S50. It still takes pictures but to shut it down I have to wait for the battery saver feature to automatically pull the lens back in and shut the camera down. Kind of annoying. That means I need a new digital camera though doesn’t it? I’m definitely going to need a nice camera once baby gets here right? You can’t take baby pictures with a camera that requires the battery saver to close it down can you?

The Noodle family is a Canon family so my new digital still camera will be a Canon product. I had a good discussion with a coworker and we figured out which one I should get. I don’t remember which one it was though. Hopefully I wrote it down somewhere at work. Was it the Canon PowerShot S3 IS? Maybe it was the Canon PowerShot G9? Neither of those sound right.

Flickr has a pretty cool feature called the Camera Finder that allows you to see photos on Flickr arranged by which camera took the shot. Very helpful to give you an idea of what kind of image can be pulled from the camera you interested in buying. I have been checking my favorite photo picks to see if they were taken with the same camera.

Okay. Well I feel like there’s a lot on my plate right now. I’m kind of drawing a blank as to what I should do first.

First off I think I’ll warm up my coffee. There’s icicles forming.

Dear Sirs or Madams,

First off let me say thank-you so much for allowing me to enter my application for consideration to be part of your TOP SECRET PROJECT. I think that it is so great that you are coming down from the mountain and allowing us all a peek behind the curtain.

I was quite excited to find out about the project and hurried to get my stuff together for you. Being part of a secret society of hipsters really appeals to me. I often dream of chances like this to become even cooler than I already am.

I consider myself to be quite the crafty fellow and know that I will be a great addition to your team. I am ready to take the helm on the most creative projects.

I am a people person who is just full of ideas. A special breed of people person who actually really likes people.

I greatly appreciate you sending your assistant to meet me at the Pirate’s Cove in Portland last week. He cleared up a number of questions That I had about the project. The offer of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll was quite tempting of course, but I am getting on in years and hope you will allow me the lesser offer of hot coco and a good book by the fire instead.

It is agreed that telling the other applicants that terms like “shoe in” and “guaranteed spot” were spoken to me concerning the SECRET PROJECT is probably not a good idea.

In closing let me say that I think your people and my people have a very bright and profitable future together. I look forward to getting started as soon as possible. If there is any other information you are seeking please let me know right away and I will get it out to you.

Thanks again.

P.S. + I have enclosed with this letter a photograph of myself without a shirt on per your instruction. (Note: Plenty of room for those tattoos that we talked about!) My friend’s girlfriend, Robin has an image of robots biting their thumbs at each other on her back that you MUST see!

Lots of work for this guy. Looks like there will even be some overtime this weekend.
Hooray for that?

If I weren’t so lazy this month I would go see the Liars play at the Wonder Ballroom on the 28th. I would also attend a Mountain Goats concert on the 25th of February at the Doug Fir.

If I wasn’t so lazy that is.

We’ll see. There’s still time.

Oh man.
I’m sleepy. Hold on one second. Let me go and get some coffee.

I don’t know why I’m so sleepy this morning. I got an okay amount of sleep last night didn’t I? In bed by 11:15 or so, up at 5:45. How many hours is that? 6 and a half? That’s not bad.

I listened to the story about sleep on NPR in my car this morning. I think that’s why I’m paranoid about sleep depravation now.

Yeah, so big haps in the Apple universe this week I hear. I’m going to have to watch the Macworld 2008 keynote to get caught up. I have been making an annual event of it haven’t I?

I don’t know. I don’t feel very excited this year about any of that stuff. I was really pumped for the iPhone last year. We’ll see. I’ll watch the keynote and see if there is anything that floats my boat.

You know what would really knock my socks off? Jobs announcing a major price reduction across the board on all apple products. Now that would be innovative!

Like I said, I haven’t read up on any of this stuff, but what’s up with the MacBook Air? Is it just me, or do we really care how thin the laptop is? I guess that’s nice. Does it still have the same overall footprint as a regular MacBook? Sure it’s thin, but it still won’t fit on a Starbuck’s coffee table with your friend’s stuff and two mochas.

I’ll be standing in line once they come up with a device that’s smaller than a laptop, but bigger than a cellphone. Maybe the size of a paperback novel. No wait. Cut a magazine in half… No, here it is: A new device that is the same dimensions as a Reader’s Digest. See, come on guys, invent that already.

Okay. I’m outta here. I’m logging out of Cyberland for the rest of the day, until this evening. It’s been like a twitch I’m trying to cure myself of. I am constantly checking things. Did I get any email? Are there any new posts? What’s happening in the news? What’s the weather forecast?

Enough Noodle! The World won’t implode if you stay off of the internets for a day.

Quite the lovely weekend.

We went on a dog walk yesterday and stopped and sat in the Sun’s rays for a long while. It felt very good. I actually got a bit warm and had to take my stocking cap off. I believe I heard them say that it’s going to be sunny again today as well. Maybe I’ll venture out into the great outdoors. No, probably not.

I have got to try to dismantle the computer lab today. We’ll see. I might just nap all day.

So Saturday, on the way to the dog park, we stopped in and got our mochas at Starbucks (quad vente for me, decaf for K). While waiting in line I was looking at their music selection and saw that they are now selling Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”. I was trying to read what the sign said, something like, “The album everyone’s been talking about”, but I was flustered, my mocha was ready and K was pushing me out the door so I couldn’t read all of it.

I don’t know how I feel about In Rainbows being available for purchase at Starbucks. Wasn’t that project our ray of light, our vision of how music would be distributed in the future, another way for us to tell the Man to get his money grubbing hands off of our art? I am by no means begrudging anyone of selling out. I think selling out is the point. I encourage everyone to do it. Still though, I thought In Rainbows was going to be different.

I asked some of my chums at a couple of drinking festivities over the weekend if they were as outraged or uncomfortable as I was by seeing In Rainbows in Starbucks and they didn’t see the problem. To them Starbucks is now a viable music purchasing venue. Well, okay I guess. I don’t know though. Something’s fishy.

Last week there were a few things I read, saw and or heard that I found to be inspiring, idea inducing, exciting, interesting, thoughtful, and transcendent. Due to this stimuli My interest was once again rekindled concerning certain topics.

One of the things that I thought was way cool was the Lost billboard here in town and the legs that Mr. Snethen’s post and photograph of it got. I’m still surprised by and have to keep reminding myself that this internet thing has a giant reach. The billboard is defaced now and oh! what do you know? That’s on purpose! I love stuff like that. Great campaign kids. Maybe I’ll check the links out today and get caught up.

There’s still time to watch an episode or two before the new season starts, Chris.

Another of the too many to mention things that I dug last week was this interview with Trent Reznor on Wired. It’s a tad dated (October) but I hadn’t heard it yet. I listened to the hour long or so portion of the transcripts and didn’t finish reading the rest. I’m beginning to realize that not everyone is as giant of a Nine Inch Nails fan as I am but I think he touches on a number of topics that are pretty interesting for the general public. Along with a behind the scenes look at the Year Zero fun, it was good to get his perspective on the record industry. He also talks about Lost and Radiohead which brings us back to the top of this page.

I thought it was interesting to compare and contrast Reznor’s thoughts in the interview before the release of Saul William’s album to his thoughts after the release.

Everybody is a fan of free!

OK, here’s to another good week!

Last night coming home from the office I had the song, “It Was a Good Day” by Ice Cube stuck in my head.
Yes, you know the tune.

Funny how that’s some young whipper snapper’s idea of classic rock now.

Yesterday was a good day (hence the song being stuck in my head).
It’s been a pretty good week as well.

I had my annual review yesterday at the office. It went really well. I expressed my concern to the powers that be about job security and they waylaid my fears for now. Conversation even got to paternity leave (which had been a planned January conversation) and that was kind of exciting as well.

Last night I got a good nights sleep.

I think my freak outs have subsided for now. Everything is going to be fine.
My beginning of the week funk may have been based on overreactions.

Oh yeah, soon the weekend!

Oh yes January.

I am pretty excited because a couple of my favorite podcasts will be starting their new seasons shortly. It seems like forever since new episodes have popped up into my iTunes.

The first one I’m excited about hearing is “Design Matters“. I don’t think it has had any new episodes for 6 months now. Geeze! Finally.
I love Design Matters and Mz. Millman. Listening to it is an integral part of my work week. At least I think it was. It’s so hard to remember what life was like 6 months ago.

Hopefully the sound quality of Design Matters is better this year. It doesn’t bother me that much because I am so into the content. I’ve tried to share the show with a couple people though and they were like, “Eeeewe I don’t think so!” to the tin-can-ed-ness of the broadcast.

The other show I am looking forward to listening to again is WNYC’s show “Radiolab“. SO GOOD. I just recently got into this podcast so I’ve had back episodes to listen to over the last few months.
They have been pushing through older shows as weekly podcasts until the new ones arrive.

Yesterday I listened to an awesome Radiolab show originally broadcast in 2004. The show was a study of Richard (his first name is Richard? Really?) Wagner’s “The Ring Cycle“. It was totally entertaining. I hadn’t heard anything about the four part opera before. Oh yeah, those who have seen “Apocalypse Now” know about “Flight of the Valkyries” but I had never been schooled on any of the other bits surrounding it. I really enjoy hearing people talk about works of art and what makes them works of art.

I should get all 20 hours of the Ring Cycle and put it on my iPod. That would be some good stuff to work to.

Radiolab is threatening to give me some culture. I’m also interested in getting Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” after hearing a story about it on Radiolab. I guess it really caused a commotion when it was released in 1913.

Oh my.

I kind of freaked out over the weekend.
We have got a baby coming people!
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!

Only 91 more days left.

I had no idea that 9 months moved along this fast.
Didn’t it seem in the past that women were pregnant longer? Everyone I remember being pregnant seemed to stay that way for a much longer time. Maybe not. Maybe I didn’t have an interest in paying attention to how short 9 months was until now.

There is just so much to do and not enough time left to do it.

It’s January! Remember while eating our Thanksgiving dinner in November all that stuff we said we were going to do in January?

Oh yeah, and taxes. What about our taxes? When are our W2s coming? We still owe from last year. How’s that going to figure?

My general lack of confidence in my current employment standings also weighs on my brain. Nothing’s going down concerning me of course, I just don’t have faith in the security of my chosen profession at times. I wish I had a sturdier job that allowed me the ability to not worry about keeping clothes on baby’s back and food in baby’s belly once baby gets here. I guess that’s what everybody worries about no matter how sturdy their income?

We spent some time cleaning up over the weekend. Even that was overwhelming me. The Noodle Compound is no place for a baby!
I have got to get a truck or figure out some way to take all this garbage to the dump.

Too much stuff! I feel like getting rid of everything.

We went to the laundromat yesterday and did 7 loads of laundry. We didn’t want to spend days doing it using our lame, almost dead washer and dryer so the laundromat was the place to go.

Yeah, the laundromat by our house isn’t the most pleasant place to spend a Sunday.
It was an adventure though, right?

I’m not painting a very flattering picture. We don’t live in squalor.
I need to calm down. Everything will be marvelous.

I think K’s much more relaxed than I am. She has been in good spirits throughout.

It has been amazing feeling baby’s kicks and punches in the belly.

Deep breaths.

Yesterday I pumped out 52 image manipulations here at the office and today I am going for 64.

I’m not going to make it.

I’m not focused.
I’m sleepy and ready for the weekend.

Yeah.

So I’m talking to my work chum this morning and she’s telling me a First Thursday story about another chum we know that she’s talking to.
She says she’s talking away and suddenly this friend of ours gets all clammy, tweaky, sweaty and fidgety.

My work chum sees that second chum has spotted So and So (name withheld wishing not to add to person’s already massive Google hits) walking into the room and is totally geeking out.
My work chum is like, “I didn’t even know who So and So was and couldn’t figure out why chum had such a giddy fanboy reaction”

Then I’m like,
“Ooooh! Actually So and So is a big deal. He’s pretty cool. I saw him at Such and Such and he’s a totally nice guy”.

Pangs of jealousy and reminiscent vapors of the popular kids in high school instantly flood my senses and then it’s:
“No, you know what? Screw that guy. He’s not all that. We’re just as cool as he is. We just don’t do anything”.

Oh yes. Such is Portland celebrity isn’t it?
I mean come on.
We all live in the same town. We go to the same places. We read the same Willy Week.
Why do I think you’re so much cooler than me?

It’s also funny how one’s Portland celebrity can make one geek out while somebody else can see the same celebrity and not have a clue about who they are or why you think they’re great.

Sure it’s all eye of the beholder.
One’s celebrities are formed according to one’s interests.

I could probably ride on the MAX with a Portland LumberJax athlete and not even blink an eye or leave whatever daydream I was in the middle of, while a true fan would probably freak out and have to have the transit police take them away.

I was thinking that there’s probably a Forestry Service superstar out there that I know nothing about that causes people to swoon.

Maybe that’s why people have kids. To create your own fan. To be someone’s celebrity.
Yeah, maybe until the kids turn 12.