blubdububbluber

I had two-thirds of a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning. It was the last of a bag of HyVee brand cornflakes and dehydrated berries. Plenty of milk left in the jug after filling to just below the brim of the flake pile. A positive cereal to milk ratio = satisfyingly crunchy. I thought about squeezing some grape jelly on a piece of bread and eating it to make up for that missing one-third, but I declined, telling myself if you get hungry you can eat later.
But for the time being I am stuck at my desk and my stomach is growling. It’s kind of sputtering. I can feel intestines flapping, slapping the tip of my sternum. Maybe I should have had a glass of orange juice.
I should be able to go five hours without eating, right? One of my friends from college just fasted for 20 days. He drank coffee, crystal light and water and handled the rest with mind control. To me that seems like a huge, probably not ever possible challenge.
I’m not someone who skips meals. I enjoy eating so much that a lot of the time I take extra bites of food even after I’m full. I want to be overwhelmed with taste. I’m even up for making a competition out of it, like a King Kong burger eating contest or a Last Man Standing China Buffet all-you-can-eat marathon.
Obviously there is no health risk there. I’m a seven-time Globo Gym Champion. But I was thinking about that recent economy episode of South Park. Randy Marsh was preaching about the need for everyone to be able to control his or her own consumption. Why is it that I perceive the idea of lowering my consumption – say somehow being capable of not buying nonstop beer, wine, cigarettes, Jimmy Johns, Red Bull, beer, frozen pizzas, chips, beer pong cups, beer – as an equally impossible of a challenge as fasting for 20 days?

lock it down

To me the phrase "force of nature" follows the point of my nose.
I'm an aircraft carrier covering all terrain. Volumes A to Z and 1 through 23.

With that in mind, a few goals:

goal (1) -- Maintain about the same weight while appearing to be less of a big chub.

solution mindset: i. think about considering the idea of not using the weekend as a chance to sit in place and drink for 60 hours.
ii. do stretches and exercises and move that ass around.

goal (2) -- write more for 'myself' with the intention of becoming smarter and happier.

solution mindset: i. do it. at will. like it is flowing out into jugs and cups that have to get bigger and bigger to hold it all.
ii. has to involve select reading and the letters.

In many ways, they'll miss the good old days. Someday, someday.

5-12-09

Lunch at a Louisiana cuisine restaurant called Jazz in downtown Omaha. I've never been here before. I ordered a large rootbeer and a crawfish sandwich. And extra napkins to write on. I'm on break from work and left everything but a pen behind in the office. Got on break half an hour late today because The Mall of the Bluffs was evacuated due to a gun scare. Council Bluffs troopers were posted on the mall's rooftop. The SWAT team was called in, as well as canine crews from the Omaha Police department. Nearby schools went into lockdown. Turns out it was caused by a guy carrying a big black umbrella over his shoulder. Somebody thought it was a rifle. I understand the panic. No one wants to relive the nightmares of the Von Mauer or have another school shooting. But by the time I ended my morning shift the kitchen in our building had closed so I had to go out for lunch. When I walked outside a homeless guy from across the street yelled something weird and pointed at me. Or at least I thought for a second he did. A group of homeless people hangs out in that area because people drop off free lunches for them. I had it in my mind that I was going to Jimmy John's, so I proceeded that way while avoiding the weirdos. Two blocks east and two blocks south later I arrived at JJ's, but saw Jazz sitting next to it on the corner of 15th and Farnam. I chose the path less traveled and walked into what looked like a Mardi Gras bar, but during lunch hours served as a down low food spot. I’m eating sweet potato salad and hush puppies. I’m taking my time, fully enjoying 80 percent of the bites that I take, holding off completely scarfing in order to write. I need to make a lot more time for this. I had for the most part kicked the habit of writing live in tune and on time. I shouldn't have. I should have swallowed a web cam and taken hundreds of pictures of my insides, through werds of course. Ah shit I just paid the bill. Reasonable price for a good lunch. I'll have to bring someone back here. I'm always surprised at how contagious laughter can be.

Water

water. blub. blubble. burble. bubble. boil. bubble. boil. burn. foam. flare. vaporize. fizz. fulminate. evaporate. bubble. steam. seethe. smolder. gurgle. bubble. boil. bubble. gush. sputter. burble. simmer. bubble. blub.

The world needs sun. The hood needs funds.

Two Red Bull spokegirls came into work yesterday offering up free classic RB, as well as the new RB cola. I, in my wise and sage-like ways, grabbed a classic, took a few gulps and proceeded to get extremely jazzed up. I know Red Bull gives you wings, but I was shocked at how much energy it gave me. When I need the occasional-to-semi-often caffeine boost I grab 20 ounces of Coke. Always a delicious treat. But drinking Red Bull at midday puts a super-charge into you, like Iron man’s pure-energy core or Scooby Doo’s Scooby Snacks.

I exchanged a couple lines of dialogue with the RB babies, then dove into my work headfirst. I did four interviews over the next two hours. I had been a little down on my new job the last day or two, but I realized I will get what I put into it. The Red Bull somehow motivated me to conduct high quality interviews with conversations that went somewhere.

Three of the interviews included discussion about something called “The Donut Effect.” My beat four days a week in the p.m. looks at people taking an interest in their community. In terms of a city or neighborhood, the Donut Effect describes what happens when the life origin – or core – begins to disintegrate. Most cities start off with a downtown and continue to grow outward. But once the outward growth reaches a certain capacity the core can’t sustain and begins to suffer. It’s the same theory that explains why life is hard in the inner city. Infrastructure collapses. The environment becomes toxic. And the life, the history and the culture that started it all dies.

My interviews yesterday were about Council Bluffs, and according to the people I talked to their downtown has already died. In an effort toward rebirth, people are organizing neighborhood associations and cultural events. Businessmen and artists are acting as partners. Families are being sought after. Walking plays a key role.

February 13th, I’m invited to downtown CB. There will be 40 artists displaying their work and wines from five vineyards. But I probably won’t go until I can get someone to go with. So come on! Restore the core. I can get us into a private party with special snacks.

If you say "real talk" I probly won't trust ya

Jason Chan is writing letters. Glorious. Because of this I have been reminded that, in our hearts, I think many are willing to write letters, but like anything it takes practice to see results.

Don’t feel like practicing letters? Hmm, I wonder what other human stuff is going on.

I really like Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Let's take a look at RPS strategy.

According to the World RPS Society, there are two ways to win at RPS:

(1) Limit your opponent to two of the three throwing options. If you can persuade someone into thinking one of the moves, say Rock, sucks then you can just keep throwing scissors and either tie or win every time.

(2) Use a combination of intangible intimidation tactics to allow you to predict the play of others, like the pseudo-intelligent methods involved in reading your opponent in poker. Be Aggressive. If you talk enough smack you can put your opponent “on tilt” and drive them into a reactive mode, where you take control of the match. Once your opponent’s feathers are ruffled you should be able to naturally steer the action.

These are broad explanations of the strategy behind the most competitive game known to man. Let’s take a closer look.

"The Double Run"
Make a note when someone makes the same throw in consecutive rounds. If they throw Rock twice in a row they are less likely to throw Rock a third time. If you notice this you can protect yourself by throwing what Rock beats **scissors**. Here you will either win or tie unless they throw Rock a third time, which would be weak Rock shit.

Also, supposedly, if you get lost in your own strategizing, throwing paper is a safe last resort. I have no idea if this is true, but statistically, scissors is thrown the least often, about 29.6% of the time. Seems reasonable, right? Noobs and many others often throw Rock.

And I will conclude this introduction by saying RPS is underplayed in homes in America and it’s because all ya'll is bustas.

Fictional Mail Bag

It’s my first day at my new job, and because things are so new I have a little spare time on my hands. I-wanna-blog! I have a bunch of quick, separate things that I want to include. The most effective way of bouncing around topics, yet still holding the reader’s attention? The "mail bag." If you know the format well, then you will be down like a night gown. The catch is, I don’t really get mail, let alone fan mail asking me my opinion about stuff. That is why this mail bag is fiction.

Reader No. 1: Ross Perot

"Hey Joel. We haven’t played chess in a while. How was your New Years Eve?”

In short, it wasn’t in my Top 5. When I think of some of the best NYEs, I think of when me and Jayme Fowler road tripped up to Lawrence, Kansas with Emily and Ryan Shaffer. I got to dance to non-rap music and went to a party at a house called “Yellow Door” and built up enough mojo to make out with two cute girls. Note: that was perhaps at the of height the 100-pushups-a-day days.

The other NYE that comes to mind was when a bunch of us rented out a reasonable hotel suite and Jeff Rob Jeff JChan and Naimul were ALL there. There were plenty of chicks there too. Everybody was having a blast. We played spin the bottle and took pictures. Plus, it snowed a lot that night and my dad didn’t want us to drive around, so he dropped off two large pizzas for us. I went a bit out of control with the New Year’s Eve business later on, but it was all in great fun.

This year I went up to Lincoln, which, yeah, was a pretty good time. I got introduced to Matt Smith’s crew and played a couple of my favorite drinking games like Circle of Death and Apples to Apples (Did you know the green card you get when you win a hand in A-to-A supposedly describes you? How does that work? This bothered me, because after I found that out I took a look at my cards. I got ‘Creative.’ Okay, sweet. I had a few other pretty-much sweet cards, don't remember them exactly, but then I saw that one of my cards was ‘DESPERATE.’ :( f*ck!! What a shitty card. After the games, one of Matt’s friends was nice enough to drive us downtown to a bar called Arthur's. I was able to order a pitcher of Hopilua, which I really dig. It's my favorite beer right now, but they are sold out of it at HyVee. Blerrgg!

That was all pretty fun, but for some reason the bar decided not to have an NYE count down. They announced something like “Hey, in one minute come grab some champagne on the other side of the bar.” But they never said “10! 9! 8!...3! 2! 1!!!” Also, and this is the worst part of the night, technically, my streak of New Years Eve kisses was broken. It’s okay though. I had a good run, and the only reason the streak ended was due to mostly bullshit circumstances.

Reader No. 2: John Legend

What’s happening, Joel? I’m just driving around in my $45 million military tank. Unfortunately, my ipod fell into one of the gears. I bought a new one and haven’t put anything on there yet. It's empty. I need to get some songs on there. Been listening to anything good lately?”

My friend Ross Wait from Debate Camp, back at Northwestern in 2002, recently made a note on Facebook with a list of CDs he liked in 2008. I don’t talk with him much at all, but I remembered he was really into Beck and he once recommended that I listen to Explosions in the Sky. That turned out to be pretty cool, so I decided to download one of his recs in his “Best of ’08” list.

The band Fuck Buttons’ album “Street Horrrsing” will scare the pants off you. A different one of their songs could make you laugh your pants off. Another has the potential to amp you up enough til you dance your pants off. Whatever the case, no pants.

It’s something I can see a lot of people not liking, even I didn’t like it within the first 30 seconds, but if you at least attempt to ride that feeling that accompanies an intensified sound, rather than be totally bummed out by the lack of lyrics, you may find something wild. The best of it is like waking up to a brand new day.

Reader No. 3 Sarj “Rum and Rum” Stolengold

”I’ve been on Christmas break for two weeks and I’m all out of things to watch. I’ve burned through every season of The Office, Friday Night Lights, Family Guy, Arrested Development, The OC and even Extras. Arrrrrrrrr. What more is out there for a drunk pirate to watch?”

Always a great question. I don’t think there’s a soul on Earth anymore who is above seeping into a comfy bed or cushiony couch and absorbing a full season of a popular TV program they just bought on DVD, watching episodes back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Now that I have HBO On Demand, I watch all the episodes of whichever season of Entourage and Curb they are featuring, then wait til they refresh the next month and burn through that season. Damn Season One of Entourage was good.

The most recent show that I’ve chewed up and spat out is 30 Rock. I never realized the quality of this show until about a week ago, even though Kyle Woodward had recommended it, back when he was still in town. Come back to Omaha, Kyle! It snowed here yesterday.

After I watched the five 30 Rock episodes available on Hulu, Season 3: Episode 2 through 6, I went back to the beginning and stormed through Season 1 and 2 over a four-day weekend. What I enjoy about the show is that it takes a certain amount of Aqua Teen out-of-nowhere, sugar-rush humor and combines it with the raunchy, offensiveness of Family Guy. It has three legitimately funny characters – Tracy Morgan plays a crackhead TV and Movie celebrity, Tracy Jordan, the goodie-goodie nerdo Red-headed guy is pretty damn funny, and hundred-pound-balls hilarious Alec Baldwin is kicking ass and running the show. I love the running gags, like for some reason instead of using the word ‘brain’ they say “mind grapes,” and the recurring doctor named “Dr. Spaceman” who pronounces his name “Spah-chem-en.” The only weakness was a pretty much stupid love story arc between Tina Fey and the guy who played Joe Biden from SNL. Other than that – really, really funny.

Reader No. 4 Joel Fulton

“Hey Joel. I got these movie gift certificates to that new theatre Rave for Christmas. Movies are awesome, but I will probably never use these things because nobody goes to movies any more, unless its something like Batman or Rocky Horror. What should I do?”

Well, me, you are gonna have to find someone to go to the movies with. Did you hear Cinema Center is closing this week? Their last movies ever run this Thursday. That sucks! I think that might prove how lazy our culture has become. What is the deal though, seriously? Why would that place have to close? It seems like the economy really is screwing over just about everything.

You could do what you always do and sell the vouchers to your dad.

I somehow got away with watching a movie that has yet to reach theatres in Omaha. It was pretty sweet. I should tell you about it. – Well, the next and last mailbag writer didn’t really ask a question, so that movie can be my next topic.

Reader No. 5 Raleigh

“ We've got you in this fuckin' movie to exterminate all the lunatics all at once with a filtering system of God. We're the psycho-semantic police, you can't even see us. How in the fuck can you do anything about it?

We're pure intelligence, you’re not. You’re biological product of a cosmological universe. You're molecular matter, I constructed you, fuck you. I made you up, you didn't make me up, you got it backwards. You know who you are? You’re fuckin' semantic blockage, that's what made you up. You're a fuckin' programmer named Christine Gontara.

Hahaha!!! – I always wanted to quote Raliegh, a character from Sublime’s album Robbin’ The Hood. But what you probably didn’t recognize there was that Raleigh loves to make references to professional wrestling. He’s always like: “Do you smell what I’m cooking?” “Wooooo!!” “He telegraphed it!” “1! 2!.... Oh my God I totally thought that was 3!”

Old School WWE folks like Raleigh are everywhere and they are going Hulk-a-Mania about the new movie The Wrester.

I’m a huge WWE buff, so I hold the film to high standards, and I have to say it never let me down. For Poker fans, it was pretty badass to see James Bond perform well in high-stakes poker, even though, yeah, the part where they talk about the villian-that-cries-blooddrops’ “tell,” - like, “Woah, look. He is showing his tell, James is gonna win this hand. Oh crap!! Oh damn!! The guy tricked James!” - that part, that was pretty cheesy. But still, it was pretty cool because I like poker. I also really really like pro-wresting, and that is sort of like poker right? Kind of low-brow, sleezy, awesome, extreme-dude entertainment. And thankfully - when you’ve got the dude who directed Requiem For a Dream making a movie called The Wrestler, you get a realistic and awesome view at the life of a professional wrestler. It was able to avoid all cheesiness.

The movie has a total world-f*ck! moment, just like you remember from Requiem when they cut that junkies’s infected arm off – or like in Pi when that math guy power-drills a big, wormy vein in his head.

Dir. What’s-his-name is excellent at building psycho-tension and then, just when you can’t take it anymore, stabbing you in the face with it.

Yes, his actor dude Mickey Rourke, who plays the old and faded wrestling champion Randy "The Ram" Robinson, really helps Dir. What’s-his-name out. Solid choice of bringing in the guy who played “The Cook” in Spun and "Marv," the first, best and most badass main-character in Sin City.

Ram even displays a satisfactory finishing-move in his wrestling-movie arsenal. He climbs to the top-rope, pounds his elbow pads, then Rams the opponent with a face-dive. And, oh yeah - Marisa Tomei plays a stripper and you get to see her almost completely naked a couple of times. I will probably buy this movie later on and try to have a real “movie experience” with friends.