9.16.07

Category: dribblings

we’ve started working at the house in rainbow city.

“what house in rainbow city?”

oh. i guess i haven’t mentioned it here before. jimmy and i are buying a house in rainbow city (the city of rainbows!), but there’s a couple of things that need to be done to it first. things like, take out a wall here, fix the floor there, drywall over that door cos it doesn’t make sense now that there’s no wall there, etc.

<tangent> i just got a beer out of the ‘fridge, and don’t you hate it when you get a beer out of the ‘fridge and there’s not as many in there as you think there should be? and you’re all, “wait. only three left? but i just bought that on tuesday. i haven’t been drinking lately. i wonder where…” and it’s worse because maybe you’re the only one in the house who drinks? so like, you can’t even justify it all, “obviously mr. fleegan has had a few, and good for him, he deserves a brewski now and then as well as i.” so you know it was you who drank 9 beers mysteriously throughout the week, but you have no recollection of this very thing happening. and it kind of bugs you even though you remember important things like that you went to work everyday and you’ve done laundry and there’s not a dirty dish in the house… and yet there is guilt because you can’t remember even drinking at all this week and where did those beers go? and maybe you found an empty by the computer monitor and there was that empty you found on the beer shelf in the shower this morning.

and when you found it maybe you were all, “heh. who was drinking in the shower anyway?” and you can’t blame it on the cat because you got rid of the cat weeks ago-

“what? you got rid of the cat?”

oh. have i not mentioned that Toonces Whorecat is no longer with us? yes. well. Toonces and i had a bit of a falling out a couple of weeks ago. i don’t want to talk about it. let’s say we had 12 good years together and leave it at that.

so sure, you keep finding the empties but you don’t know how they got there and you really don’t remember handling them when they were… fullies… for lack of a better word. (yes, that’s right, i couldn’t come up with anything better than fullies.) and the only thing that makes perfect sense to you is that there’s some kind of beer bandit sneaking in your house, drinking your beer, surfing your ‘net, and taking your showers. it’s so obvious, in fact, that you figure even the Scooby gang could figure this one out…with don knotts.
</tangent>

so anyway, i’ve probably been drinking a little more than usual lately what with the house situation and my inability to deal with minute pieces of stress. i’ll admit it. i’m no good at stressful things, and one of the stressful things i’m not good at is spending money we don’t have, as in: remodeling a house. if i come out of this alive and still married to mr. fleegan you can take that as a sign that not only is there a God, but that mr. fleegan is one of His saints.

proper recognition goes to liznchris who both worked like a hoss on saturday helping us remove the horrible flooring underlayment in the kitchen and dining room which turned out to be that awful particle board junk only there was 40 years worth of linoleum melted/disintegrated into it which made it TRULY a bitch to take up. and i promise that next time, guys, there will be beer. barring that i don’t drink it all first.

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9.12.07

Category: dribblings

pj and kelly and their cool friend kimmie came over and played GH II and while kelly was playing i was trying to mess her up so i said, “oh no kelly! crazy margaret is outside messing with your car!”

“shut up!” she yelled as she missed a couple of notes.

“i think she’s trying to open the trunk.” i say.

“no, she’s trying to lick the snozberries off of it.” pj said.

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9.03.07

Category: dribblings

right. cover your swimming pools and put away your white shoes, it’s Labor Day, kids!

since it’s indeed labor day and i’ve got the day off (although i did think about starting a new paint job, but thought better of it as it’ll still be there tomorrow, yay labor!) i thought i’d post the rest of the pics of the badass nursery job. so first right, i’ll talk about the trash can.

the lady of the house had this trash can, and she asks me she asks, “hey jaimie awesomepainter, i’ve got this white trash can that i was going to throw away, but maybe you could do something with it so it’ll match the nursery?”

so i said something like, “yeah. sure babe. i’ll take a look at it.” all cool-like right? cos like, i might paint a trash can and i might not, you know?

what i actually said was probably something like, “i’m on it!”

i started with this.

so i grabbed me trusty green painter’s tape wishing for once that i had bought the really thin half inch type instead of the inch/inch and a half that i usually buy cos it’s more universal in it’s uses and i’m rambling and i know you can’t possibly care what size paint tape i have, sorry.

so using a ruler, protactor, compass, and all my knowledge of geo-trigonometric circle formulas i measure the middle of each scallop at the top and trace it down to the bottom thus finding my endpoint and taping it making a very precise cone shape. well, ice cream cone shape.


okay i totally eyeballed it. i don’t own a protractor much less remember how to use one, and as for trigonometry? i remember a lot of “what’s your sine?” jokes, and nothing else. but i think the important thing here is that i realize that if i knew math i could have taped the thing perfectly. lucky for me i’ve got an art degree and worked a couple of years at a sign shop, which is like having a License to Eyeball a Midpoint.
which i think is a 001. or maybe a 00.1

Jones, Jaimie Jones.

[wow, so far there’s been math jokes and a Bond joke. you may want to stop reading now before this becomes so stupid that your brain leaks out your ears.]

so then i slapped two coats of the light pink paint on the trash can. when i tried to take the tape off it ripped the beautiful straight edge so i had to take the whole thing home and finish it there so i could use an x-acto knife to score the edges of the tape so’s it would come off cleanly.


oh nice pic, james. was i drunk when i took that?

and here it is after the tape is cut and removed.


and if that’s not an attractive picture of my trash can and wreck of a kitchen table, i don’t know what is.

i then taped the can again. using me trusty green painter’s tape size… using my protractor, compass, eyeballs… nevermind.
i taped it, then painted it with the darker pink.
it looked like this:

then i cut the tape off that to reveal an awesome design of amazing fun!

and while it may look like mr. fleegan and i are total stoners what with the Trisciuts, Reese’s, Little Debbies, Junior Mints, and Munchos… i assure you we’re not. we’re just 10 years old when we go to the store. oh! but isn’t that the sweetest trash can you’ve ever seen?

i sprayed a clearcoat on it cos that paint would chip off if you so much as looked at it hard. and then i took it back to the badass nursery where it looks something like this:


i can’t lie. it looks exactly like that.

how could you not love that? GASP. BUT LOOK AT THE SCALLOPED EDGE ON THE WALL! WTFOMGFBI!

oh yeah. remember when the nursery looked like this?


with the straight edge?

well now, it looks like this:

let’s see a close-up, shall we?

closer!


too close! back up, fool!

so anyway, how cute and awesome is that?

i’d tell you how i did that trick, but then you’d know how i did it. and i wouldn’t be quite so awesome anymore. so i’ll let you think that i did it with my mysterious magic art skillz. which, now that i think about it, is exactly how i did that. crap, now you know! now i have to kill the whole internet.

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8.31.07

Category: dribblings

incidentally, i’ve shut my fingers in a drawer twice since wednesday. once was at work, and i was proud that i did not yell out a swear word in the middle of the ‘brary. and the second time i shut my thumb in the crisper drawer of the fridge. that one bled a little, and now it’s sore and i keep bumping it on everything, yeah, one of those. so my advice to you is:
A. quit buying your kids toys from china and
B. don’t make fun of book titles if you’re not prepared to deal with minor aches and pains.

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August 2007 50 Books

Category: 50 Books

 

38. Hobo by Eddy Joe Cotton
This was a nonfiction book about a kid who starts tramping in the western United States. It’s slightly interesting and written in a really romanticized poetic stream of consciousness way. I enjoyed reading it, but I don’t think it’s true. I think parts of it are true, and I think most of it is made-up bullshit. That is what I think.

It did get me interested in hobos though. The history, the train hopping, the hobo jargon, and the survival of it all is really crazy interesting. I’d like to find a more believable book by a hobo or about hobos and hoboing and/or hobo-humping slobo-babes. So I hope to find something a little more real on the subject. Stay tuned for more books on hobos.

37. The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt by John Ray
This nonfiction book was about the Rosetta Stone as well as the gentlemen who found it, studied it, and solved it. It doesn’t talk so much about Ancient Egypt as it does the Enlightenment and the Romantic periods because that’s when the stone was found and those are the people who studied it. The author focuses on the two main contributors to solving Egyptian hieroglyphs, Thomas Young, an englishman, and Jean-François Champollion who was french.

The author makes the case that Young laid the foundation of solving Egyptian hieroglyphs while Champollion took them even further. It’s a big deal to some because of the whole british/french thing. The history of the stone is fascinating. It is a decree made by Pharoah, Ptolemy V Epiphanes thanking the priests and temples for helping him out during a period of revolt, and it’s written in hieroglyphs (which was considered the writing of the gods), Egyptian Demotic (a kind of script used in document writing), and also in classical Greek.

It was Napoleon’s men who found the stone first in the Egyptian city of…Rosetta. The french were unearthing all kinds of ancient treasures while Napoleon invaded Egypt. Then along came Britain who took Egypt from France and also stole treasures, many of which sit in the British Museum today.

What makes this book so great is the author, an englishman, writes so well. It’s not a dull book at all. He has that dry british wit and he uses it quite a bit. The only part that was “meh” was the last little bit about who really owns the Rosetta Stone? Where should it reside? He goes on about should we give back all the treasures to the places they were found? But that if we do that we’ll have to do that with everything, not just Egyptian stuff…and then what of the people who legally bought things? Do the items belong to the purchaser, or should the purchaser be made to give the items/artwork back to the countries where they were made?

Then at the very end the author translates the stone for us. The decree itself is kinda boring because it’s the pharaoh going on and on and everytime he mentions himself it’s not “I” or “me” it’s “King Ptomlemy god manifest whose beneficience is perfect” and reading that over and over gets old. But it’s not what the stone says that’s actually important, it’s the fact that it says it in three different languages/scripts/whatever which leads to people being able to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs.

36. Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
This is one of her earlier novels. It’s not as good as Natural Born Charmer mostly because it’s WAY too long and there’s too many characters and too much drama (my god, the drama). The story was sweet though…only, not very realistic.

It’s about a spoiled rich girl from England loses everything and moves to the USA and hooks up with a redneck pro-golfer and then gets pregnant and she runs off cos she and the golfer hate each other and she manages to make something of her life and becomes a famous television personality. Ten years later she and the golfer hook up again and with the kid and all and they all live happily ever after. Only there’s a million things that happen. And also sex. Lots of sex.

So while I recommend Ain’t She Sweet and Natural Born Charmer I’m telling you that unless you’re just interested in Ms. Phillips’s earlier work, don’t bother reading this one.

Also it’s nearly 500 pages. I’ve got to start reading smaller books if I plan on reaching 50 books this year.

 

35. The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski

This novel was hilarious and in very much the same vein as Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s stuff. In this book a chick named June gives Marisa a ride home from a Weight Watcher’s meeting and there’s a car accident and Marisa dies (i’m not spoiling anything, this is all on the jacket cover). June finds a list in her crashed backseat and it’s a 20 Things to do Before I Turn 25 list. It was Marisa’s list. But she’s dead. So June decides to finish the list for her. Hilarity ensues.

The characters are very well done and everyone is sarcastic and funny. I really liked this book. I liked it more than Harry Potter…mainly cos it wasn’t so long and sad.

34. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

I was glad that I got to read this book before I heard any kind of spoiler. First things first, this book was too long. Parts of it were kinda draggy and redundant. The same things kept happening over and over. They had to hide, they had to sneak around, people died, more hiding, more sneaking around, more dying. Lord have mercy.

33. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

I liked this one better than the Odor of the Penis because while Harry is still a whiny, angry teenage boy…a lot happens in this book and I think maybe Harry grows up a bit at the end and will become more serious and less, well, really fucking stupid.

I was shocked at who the half-blood prince turned out to be.

I did, of course, cry like a baby towards the end. Had to blow my nose several times.

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8.29.07

Category: dribblings

something awful. these fake atari box cover art things are hilarious. except for that one…that one was too much.

i finished the nursery today and as soon as i get a pic i’ll post it, cos man, i scalloped the straight edge and it looks so badass sweet. i also finished the trash can. the what?

the trash can. there was a white trash can. now it’s not white any more. what color is it now? it’s badass, that’s what color. if pink can be badass. IT CAN WHEN I PAINT IT.

BOOK TITLES THAT SUCK:
Marsh Madness
Fiddle Dee Death
Way Down Dead in Dixie
these books are all written by caroline cousins. i don’t know if the books are any good or not. what i do know is the titles make me want to slam my hand in a drawer.

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8.27.07

Category: dribblings

i’ve been working on a nursery for some friends. and i’ll let you guess if it’s for a boy or a girl:

he doesn’t stand a chance, does he?

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8.18.07

Category: dribblings

sometimes Cookie and i talk about these funny Choose Your Own Adventure titles that somethingawful.com did:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/choose-your-own.php?page=1

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8.16.07

Category: dribblings

mr. fleegan had to have a tooth pulled out of his head yesterday. if it had been me i’d be all mopey and eating pain pills and whining about having to eat yogurt, and poor old me and my tooth of woe!

but not mr. fleegan. he came home and slept the rest of the valium and gas off and then woke up and was all, “hey thanks for getting the prescription filled while i was out.”

“you’re welcome! is it hurting? should you take this pain medicine now? the paper says to take it an hour after the surgery.”

“nah. i don’t need it.”

“but…but, i got it. for you. with money. we bought this.”

“it doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“gah, you…with your mouth healing. remember how when you had your wisdom teeth cut out you ate lasagna that night? and how, when i had mine cut out i sat in a recliner for a week drugged out of my mind and eating spoonfuls of yogurt for meals?”

“heh. what a baby.”

“what are we going to do with this medicine?”

“we could sell it to your dad.”

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8.14.07

Category: dribblings

here’s some punny book titles:

Kilt Dead – there was a picture of a tartan and bagpipes
Scots on the Rocks
RV There Yet?
A Killer Stitch

and here’s a crazy DEATH title:

The Flaming Luau of Death

that’s a real book, yo.

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