Ukridge's Xanga

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:31:44 GMT

I would explain to you why I haven't written a post in a while, except that I doubt anyone really cares and that it hasn't really been that long since I last wrote. But what the heck, I'll give some explanation anyways, because it makes me happy, and the main goal of these posts are to make me happy (and to enlighten the ignorant masses to the harsh realities of life; but it seems that I generally fail to do that.) The reason I have not posted a post in the last few weeks is because the posts I wrote failed to make me happy. Believe it or not, these posts were actually serious posts, being bold, intellectual....... and heretical; which is another reason you people have not laid eyes on them. Also, my serious posts turn out to be rants generally (the last one was against Praise & Worship music) and likely have little philosophical value. As an example, a line from a section of America's religious war on cigarettes: "We preach relentlessly the evils of tobacco to our children, yet let them spend their days watching crappy entertainment, playing video games, and refuse to teach them morality. So we thus end up with teens who have little sense of right and wrong, and possess brains the size of peanuts, but, praise be and hallelujah, who don't smoke. Congratulations people, mission accomplished!" Okay, so that was actually kinda profound, if I may say so myself, but you get the picture.

My aim at this point is to make this post decidedly silly. I hopefully will succeed in this and not involuntarily drift into a discussion of "A Discourse on the Method" by Descartes, which I have just finished reading and of which I found the final two sections to be boring and pointless. The first four sections, however, I do recommend.

I thought I would begin by telling you about some of my duties at Turpin Meadow Ranch. But, as you can see, I have not started the post by telling you about my duties. For those I you who did not see that I failed to begin the post with a description of my duties, please reread the first two paragraphs: There is not such a description to be found. If you do think you've found such a description, chances are that you're one of those peanut-brained humanoids that I mentioned in the cigarette portion of paragraph #1. Of course, why I'm even bothering writing this little message to you now is beyond me, because you probably aren't even understanding what I'm saying now anyways. Fools.

Anyways, here at this dear Wyoming guest ranch, I am a dishwasher. I do not mind being a dishwasher because this means that I am not a house cleaner. The few days I have done housecleaning were a miserable affair. Fortunately, I am not scheduled for that job this week. I don't know if this was due to my incompetence or my excessive whining, but whichever one it was, it was effective. I shall make a mental note to up the wattage of both should they venture to place me in that position again. Anyways, back to dishwashing. My job as a dishwasher is to throw away vast amounts of food that the people in the dining area failed to eat. And I clean the dishes too. Of course, it can get maddening seeing so much food go to waste, especially when plates come back looking like they haven't even been touched. This situation once led me to march out into the dining area in righteous anger, pin an offender to the wall and tell him, with colorful language, that I would take the next pork chop he sent back to the kitchen untouched and make sure it entered into his stomach through way of his navel. And the whole situation felt real good too, until I realized that I had the wrong person, and the real culprit was his attractive daughter sitting across from him. As an apology, I asked the daughter out on a date, to which the father replied that if I even looked in his daughter's direction again, it would be I feeling something enter my stomach through my navel, and it wouldn't be a pork chop. Needless to say, I went back to the kitchen, washed dishes, and felt vanquished.

Speaking of things being needless to say, if it's needless to say, then why say it?

My breath was feeling really stinky, so I went and brushed my teeth. But now I have lost my train of thought. So I think I'll tell you another story.

While cleaning one of the rooms one day, I started to talk to the furniture, and it had such interesting things to say. Soon however, I had to leave, and the new friendships I had with the chairs and beds became strained. I thought of those dear articles of furniture, and couldn't stand the separation any longer. I got up and snuck over to the cabin that my dear furniture friends were in. The trouble was that some guest had just moved in to that cabin right after I had cleaned it. But that wasn't going to stop me. I slowly opened the door (fortunately for me, locking doors is not in style in Wyoming), and I entered the room. The couple who inhabited the room snored gently, seeming, as it were, to feel safe and secure. I first made my way to the chair in the corner and gave it a pat, letting it know I was there and that I'd never forsake it. I then made my way over to the dresser and let it know that I had no hard feelings over the heated debate we had concerning postmodernism. It's a strange phenomenon, but all the dressers I've met have held postmodern views. I've been arguing with the one in my room for almost a month now. "Truth is relative," it says. "You say there's clothes in my drawers, but to me, there isn't even such a thing as clothing." "But then what do you call this?" I ask pulling a shirt out of it's drawers. "I don't see any shirt," it says. "And how do I know that it's real?.... assuming if I did see a shirt, that is." The most annoying thing is, my dresser has taken to arguing with me most when I'm in my birthday suite. I suppose it's because it's hard for the blighter to deny seeing clothes while I'm wearing them. Anyways, back to the room. After talking slightly with the dresser, I crawled over to the adjacent where the couple's offspring dwelt. I greeted the chairs and the dresser, which was also a victim of postmodern thought, before heading over to say hello to the bed. I said hello and gave the bed a good friendly pat..... or, I meant to, but unfortunately the foot of the occupant got in the way. The occupant sat up in bed and left out an ear-shattering squeal. With a quick glance I learned, with great dismay, that the occupant was none other that the girl I had just asked out earlier in the evening, and whose father was the man I had threatened to harm with a pork chop. At this point I decided to make a hasty retreat, because I had an eery feeling that Wyoming was just the type of place where people don't look down upon a man for brutally ending the life of a guy who sneaks into his cabin and begins stroking his daughter's feet. I do feel bad that I didn't get a chance to say high to the lamp stand though.

A Short History of Vanilla Pudding

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:24:28 GMT

Dearest friends,

I have nothing whatever to say to you. That, however, has never stopped me from writing things before, so at this point I have decided not to let it stop me from writing now. With any luck, this will turn into a deep, philosophical essay on human nature, theology, politics, or something of that nature. With even more luck, it won’t be serious at all, but merely an amusing waste of your time. At worst, you’ll find this boring, perverse, insulting, and will hate me forever and always. But that is the risk I must take.

First off, let me discuss snow, as at my part of the world snow is certainly what we are getting. Snow seems to be a delicate and beautiful symbol that the world could get along just fine without baseball. The whiteness of the snow can be compared with the whiteness of a baseball. This would seem to put both of them on a equal footing of purity, except that a baseball inherently has another color on it: red. Red symbolizes the violence and hatred that comes with sports. People are killed and maimed and such. Pain abounds. Snow, however, is normally white, although at time yellow spots may be found, symbolizing....... gold. A heart of gold. Yes, definitely a heart of gold. Or it could be viewed as a symbol of relief.

Now some may say that baseball really isn’t that violent. Fine. Be like that. you may disagree with me all you like, but even if I am wrong that doesn’t make you any less of a nincompoop.

I like the word ‘nincompoop.’ I learned it from Calvin & Hobbes. It has such a musical ring to it. A indescribable beauty, such that only seems to be found in good dreams. ‘Nincompoop’ says the mouth, and the mind is transported to other realms, other worlds, and you meet people you have never met before, like the one-eyed barber who reads steamy romances and is constantly cutting his toenails while listening education tapes that teach profanities in French and Japanese.

For those of you who hated the last paragraph, it’s your fault for reading it.

It’s fun looking through my old stories. I used to write such interesting titles, such as "Billy-Bob and the Badguy Bikers" and "Buddy Head." It such a shame I lost that. I’m not near as random now as I was then. *ahem.*

To mention something that is actually normal, my finals start next week. How exciting. And how terribly boring that sentence, indeed, that whole thought was! Here I am, talking about my finals, while no doubt you already have some inkling that finals are next week, or were this week, or are two weeks from now, or something! I mean, you could have guessed! I could have posted a question asking, "when do my finals end?" and you likely could have guess sometimes soon.

Now, I would like to mention an interesting conversation I had yesterday with a friend. Well, actually, that friend was me, so yes, I was having a conversation with myself. And now, I think I should confess that I don’t actually recall having a conversation with myself yesterday. I was simply attempting to bridge this post onto another topic. (For those of you who have not read any of my other posts, you know that the whole point of these posts is length and not content.) In the process of trying to bridge this post I ended up lying to you. Now, some of you may say that it was terribly wrong of me to lie to all of my friends like that just to try and make this post longer. It’s almost as if the length of this post is actually more important to me than my friends. Well, I always was anti-social.

Eat peanut butter sandwiches, unless you’re allergic to peanut butter. Cheerio. Sincerely,

Jared

Monday, October 15, 2007

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 04:51:53 GMT

The time has come for another post. Not because of necessity, but because of a strong and uncontrollable urge to waste time when there are things that need to be done and books that need to be studied. I chose this method of wasting time because 1) this seemed more productive than playing stupid little games on the internet and 2) because I have already spent quite some time on stupid little games on the internet and 3) this computer is slightly to slow right now to play stupid little games on the internet. I could be reading, I could be doing homework, or I could be out on the street doing drugs and getting into trouble. And we certainly wouldn’t want me doing drugs. So, in that sense, be happy that I am just sitting by the computer without drugs; not even caffeine. Of course, there is catnip on the premises. But I heard that doesn’t really work anyways.

I hearing the whirring of the ceiling fan. It just keeps on whirring. Either it’s whirring or it’s not; it has no variety, it just whirs when it’s hot or stuffy, and it doesn’t when it’s not. It’s like, it has no life, no friends, no anything. It just whirs on and on. And it gathers dust when its still. And it befriends that dust. And then some cruel people ruin the poor fan’s happiness by snatching away that dust, and leaving the fan alone and friendless, wishing it could just whir so fast that it would break from the ceiling onto the head of the person that takes away its beloved dust. But it can’t. It is doomed to be a slave forever, doomed to stay in one spot forever. It will never see the Alps, it will never see the Grand Canyon, it can never better itself by learning a different language, by learning how to paint or even how just read. The ceiling fan is left to a life of shallow trapped slavery.

On a happier note, I was eating Reeses peanut butter ice cream.

I also have around 8 2\3 more days to be a teen.

I considered briefly putting some samples of my latest lyrics in this post, but I have decided against it. My lyrics don’t usually play well in the absence of music. Therefor, I shall just leave this post without any lyrics. Also, when I believe that when I start pasting lyric pieces into my post, it’s almost an admission that I feel my touch for the long senseless post is slipping away. Like I’m stretching it to much.

So, how many other people are up at 1:27 this fine October morning? October is perhaps the greatest month of the year. It seems like the time that geniuses are born. No, I can’t think of any other ones besides me, but is seems logical.

Speaking of logic, let’s make an unlogical jump and talk about grocery stores. I seem to have a strange fascination for them. Now, one would think that this proves that I love my job. Well, I don’t, though I do like the people I work with. But that’s all besides the point, because I think I found the cause for the comfort and joy I find in grocery stores. Of course, an example would be good, because I came into this figuring that you knew that grocery stores were a haven for me. And I shouldn’t have said ‘You,’ because they tell me that in academic writing you should say ‘You,’ and I think we can all agree that this is a very academic piece of literature. A manifesto of sorts. Of course, it isn’t a manifesto is the slightest sense. At least not how I can see it. But where was I? Ah yes, grocery stores. Ahem. I was at that six-week film course I went to, and it had been a stressful day, and I was walking and all, and lo and behold I stumble upon a grocery store. I don’t know what it was doing there being that it was so little that I could stumble upon it. But I digress with an unfunny pun. Anyways, I came upon this grocery store in a stressed out state, and I went inside the grocery store to find solace. And lo and behold, solace was there with a warm blanket and a cup of hot cocoa. I walked inside and walked around and walked about and walked randomly and stuff. I checked out prices. I explored aisles. And I didn’t buy a thing. But there I was in a grocery store, clicking my tongue at the prices and feeling altogether better with myself. The grocery store had done it. But how? Why? Can it be explained? Yes, friends, it can. Instead of it having to do anything with the grocery store I work at now (besides the whole checking prices thing) I think it has to do with my enjoying going shopping with my family when I was oh so little. Yes. What a sweet little story, is it not? A young man finding solace at a place that reminded him of his care-free childhood. Or was it something more sinister? Perhaps! Secretly, I was fantasizing about putting slugs in with the produce and worms in with the candy, and releasing a hyper dog in the glass section! Oh friends, what an evil time was going on in my head! Havoc reigned! I could almost hear the glass splinter, and the ladies screaming! I could almost feel the milk beneath my feet as it flowed freely through the aisles! I could see the slugs grow big and begin eating all the people who treat cashiers badly! Yes my friends, if the images in my head had come to pass, I would not be telling you about it, for I would have been swept away in the milk and vinegar torrent or consumed by oversized slugs! But you would have heard about it on the news.

Well, anyways, enough of that.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:40:46 GMT

Just passing through and thought I'd post this small post. Of course, I promised another really long post. But at this point I'm not in long post mode. Of course, it's Facebook's fault. When I have time to waste, I waste it on there instead of writing long silly posts. How tragic.

Cheerio

Friday, August 24, 2007

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:48:37 GMT

I was sitting here just a moment ago in a red and white striped muscle shirt that was to small even for my muscle-less body. My mother had got it as a joke at some clothing sale. It was a fine joke, and I might of actually worn it if I only had muscles to rip the thing with. But as it was I simply looked a little..... well..... queer.

On another note, my first classes were yesterday. These classes were English and math, or, math and English. In the first, the math class, there was the teacher who spent twenty minutes ranting on how people expect to be rewarded for being mediocre. Well, it wasn’t in a ranting voice really. I enjoyed it. The rant had some good points. Next was an English teacher who informed us that if we plagiarized, not only would we fail the class but we would also go to Hell. Another splendid moment. But here’s the thing: I didn’t begin writing this post to tell you about the first classes. Mostly because I am completely sure almost everyone of you has much better stories to tell. After all, mine weren’t exactly stories in the strictest sense; they were antidotes.

No my friends, the point of this post is longevity. I was thinking back to the days when I could write a long post about nothing at all. So long that no one could be expected to read through the whole thing. The purpose of that is all to clear; I felt special writing like such. It was like a tremendous free-write. To make people go "oh my goodness that is long and I plan to not read through the whole thing." Of course, it didn’t work on one dear reader who did read the whole thing. He informed me it took him a whole half hour. What he found in there to entertain him a whole half hour is beyond me, and I can only apologize to the poor chap for robbing him of that much of his fleeting little life. As it is, it was his own doing and he must hold himself responsible for such. For I can only hope, that in a court of law, he would find it futile to sue me for thousands of dollars. But in these modern times, you never know.

I am trying to think what all I put in those types of posts back then, and I remember little except for a story about the reincarnation of Hari Krishna and another historical fiction about a book sale I attended. The book sale itself was historical, but the fictional part was that Bill Clinton was there.

And how does Ol’ Bill feel about his wife running for office? Right as rain, I suppose. But, dear reader, I must not go off on any sort of a political trail, because that would ruin some of the randomness of the post. Granted, in this kind of post a short political discussion may be more random than just and old randomness, but still, I would rather not talk politics. "Why?" asks you. "Because," says I, " I am very unknowledgeable about politics, and yet I haven’t any particular group that I adhere to so much that I can just quote their rote and say I believe it."

At any rate, I am afraid I must continue on a political strain by asking this very important question: What would YOU do if Bill Clinton would randomly show up at a local library book sale? For all my liberal friends, the answer should NOT be to kiss his feet. For all my conservative friends, the answer should NOT be to chuck hard-cover copies of P. G. Wodehouse’s ‘No Nudes is Good Nudes’ at him. To do so would be ridiculous, and would accomplish little good. I would be willing to bet you would get arrested for such an action.

But, as I said before, enough politics. Trivia: Did you know that Colin Farrell was in some Irish show called ‘Ballykissangel’? Did you even care?

Brief note of some things\people I consider over-rated: Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Saving Private Ryan, The Beach Boys, Shakespear (more on this one later), Abe Lincoln, George Washington (both of these will be mentioned in the Shakespear discussion), Sherlock Holmes (not necessarily the character, just the books\stories), Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so on and so forth. I was going to include Stanley Kubrick, but than I realized that would be very unfair seeing I have only seen on of his movies and like the one (Dr. Strangelove.) But the complete awfulness of his famed ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ has always made me cringe. It was when I watched the first half-hour of ‘The Shining’ that I admitted my potential error. ‘The Shining’ managed to make me turn it off soon after it began and vow never to watch it alone. Perhaps, if I had watched the whole movie, I would count it off as a piece of dung. But as it is, it helped me realize that I was far to premature to put Kubrick on the ‘over-rated’ list. By the way, I have finally found two Hitchcock movies that were actually good. These were ‘Rear Window’ (B+) and ‘Psycho’ (also a B+). The rest of his I watched were terribly disappointing.

Now briefly on Shakespear. Has it ever occurred to anyone how we worship this man like a god? No insult is allowed him. Anything he did competently is held as genius. No one is allowed to mention flaw in him. Any complaints against him are met with something like "oh, but that wasn’t the point of the play, so it doesn’t matter," or, "Well, normally I would say that was bad for a writer to do, but he did it so well because he’s so perfect and wonderful and amazing. He’s the god of literature. Flawless." So, to cut it short, I wasn’t downing Shakespear at all when I said he was overrated. It’s just he now so overly praised he can’t help but be overrated.

I must go mow the lawn and wash the dishes. I had planned to make this a obscenely long post, but it seems that I have run out of time. I do not wish to mow the lawn or wash the dishes. But the nice thing about washing the dishes is that I get to listen to ‘I, Robot’ on CD. And that book is turning out to be pretty good.

So anyways, cheerio. I will try to write a much longer post next time. And more random. With no politics whatsoever.

Bye now.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:53:02 GMT

I’m back. Here I am with a cat on my lap. A wonderfully cute cat with a flea collar.

I could start at the beginning, but that would be to obvious. So here it goes in random order.

One of the highlights of the six week film course was a late night search for a McDonalds that would probably be closed even if we found it. But the girl was desperate, so we tried to find one, but even the cab driver didn’t know where one was. The very next day, while taking a nice long walk, I stumbled upon not only a McDonalds, but a Wendy’s also. It would have only equaled to about a two minute drive, though it was about a twenty minute walk.

Movies I saw while at film school:

Ice Age 2: B-
Brand Upon the Brain!: B+
A Mighty Heart: C
Broken English: C
The Namesake: B+
Once: A-
Goodfellas: B
Ocean’s 13: C-
The Lives of Others: B+
No Reservations: B
High Fidelity: A-

As for my movies, I think they turned out pretty well, though they ended up being violent. But people seemed to like them.

One of the guys on my last crew (who was from Thailand) took treated us to a nice Thai restaurant. He picked out all the dishes. It was amazing.

And Denzel Washington was filming a movie at Harvard while I was there, but unfortunately, the film academy wasn’t able to set up any meeting with him. So the only think the Denzel film shoot managed to be was an annoyance, though it still was pretty cool having all that mess around.

There is more, but as usual, when I sit down to write, my mind goes blank. I met many cool people, of course.

The sun comes out tonight. Cheerio.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:00:34 GMT

A brief note for all you fine people out there. I am leaving tomorrow. Meaning that you shall not hear from me for the space of seven weeks. Naturally, most of you scratch your heads and say "so? We never hear from you in a space of seven weeks. You never write. Who cares?" Well, I figure it's like this: knowing the way luck goes in this mad crazy world, these would be the seven weeks some old long-lost friend or something finds my site and comments to say hi. But reply, I do not. Seven weeks pass, and the dear old friend waits, and waits, and waits. Finally, in a fit of anger they give up waiting, and hate me for the rest of their days. When I return and comment back, it is far to late, for they have already posted me on their "People I Despise" list.

Okay, yeah, so that may be a melodramatic and unlikely scenario, but still, I decided, "why not? Might as well tell 'em all. At least it give you something real to write about instead of rambling on and on and on and on about nothing." So there it is folks. Enjoy your seven weeks *sniff* without me.

Cheerio

P. S. And seeing I didn't mention it in the prose above, it's a film course that I'm going to be at. Just so you didn't think I was going to be brainwashed by a liberal terrorist group...... of course, it is film school, so you never know.....

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:56:35 GMT

'Reticent' was the word Johnson was thinking of as he walk out of his house at 3 AM. He wasn't sure if he had spelled it right, or if it was even a real word.
     "That's the thing with poets," he thought. "You can never tell when they're just making things up."
     He had been reading a collection of short poems by some chap who's name he couldn't remember. All he knew is that the book was bloody rot, and he felt that all poets and poetry as a whole was even more bloodier rot still. But alas, he felt that to be educated, respected, and altogether desirable to the female kind, he must read and memorize some poetry. It was a task he was finding more and more difficult.
     "Wild thing, you make my heart sing." He wished fervently that the lyrics of popular songs counted, for than he would be what one would considered a walking library. But unfortunately for him, many people can quote the lyrics to popular music, and therefore that knowledge didn't set him apart from the rest of the heathen, uncultured world.
     At this point Johnson climbed into his car and roared down the dark and empty street, the word 'reticent' bouncing drearily in his mind.
     "If only I had a bigger vocabulary," he thought with a groan, "then I wouldn't have to be driving out at this hellish hour to buy a stinking dictionary."

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Wed, 30 May 2007 17:19:39 GMT

I know I've probably said this many times already, but Bill Mallonee is a genius.

"I spend a whole lot of time
With my reconnaissance photographs
Irrefutable evidence never pleads in my behalf
Though they're not well developed
My mind's eye frames them true
All these little failures of my year in review."
~ My Year in Review

On this fan cd is also two songs that are technically Christmas songs but dig much deeper than the normal postcard Christmas picture. 'On to Bethlehem' is an amazing piece. Clocking in at six minutes, this slow guitar\vocals piece manages to be exilerating the whole way through. 'Berlin in '53' is about his parents, though you wouldn't guess it from the lyrics. "I'm sure there's a Judas in each one of us.... I've always indentified with him more than Peter and his denial." ~ Liner notes. It's introspection like this that makes Mallonee's lyrics so great. They're written without superficiality.

"Who knows what proper judgement befalls these sin-sick hearts
Weary and seeking comfort, or a candle in the dark
You were bleeding with a burden that you would not give away."

"You may surmise that I ran here
But I really only crept
Lead me to the place where hope runs wild
And dogs your every step"

"You know how fickle my heart is
Prone to wander, oh Lord
We talk, but it's at arms length
I've always got one eye on the door."

Well, I guess I'm done with my revelry for today. BTW, I also watched my first Ingmar Bergman film.

The Seventh Seal- B+

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Tue, 22 May 2007 00:22:17 GMT

There are some rabbits coming 'round the bend
You know that they wish to put you to an end
I never thought they'd take you untill them
But I never though that I could be your friend

What can you do when they make you walk the plank?
You end up getting lost in the spiritual gas tank
There is a reason you should ignore those rules of thumb
When you're stuck here in this mystic aquarium

There was a prophet running on his course
Trying to escape a nasty divorce
I thought that I would help him just for fun
I guess that I was feeling kind of dumb

There was some eggnog flowing in the stream
Stealing away every bloody dream
Nobody noticed the lack of lovely gleam
Nobody notice that nothing is what it seems

Look at the rabbits, they've still got you captive
Making sure you cannot truly live
You keep screaming "Save me! It's not fair!"
I've got to admit, I don't really care