Jake's Blog

Hide and Seek

2009-12-19T12:09:00.000-08:00

By: Imogen Heap

Where are we?
What the hell
Is going on?
The dust has only just
Began to form
Crop circles in the carpet.
Sinking
Feeling.

Spin me around again,
And rub my eyes
This can't be happening.
When busy steets,
A mess with people, would stop to hold
Their heads
Heavy.

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines.
All those years,
They were here first.

Oily marks appear
On walls,
Where pleasure moments
Hung before
The takeover,
The sweeping insensitivity
Of this
Still life.

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines (oh, you won't catch me around here)
Blood and tears.
There were here first.

What'd you say?
That you only meant well?
Well of course you did.
What'd you say?
That it's all for the best?
Of course it is.
What'd you say?
That it's just what we need?
You decided this.
What'd you say?
What did she say?

(Hide and seek)
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth,
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
(Hide and seek)
Speak, no. Feeling, no. I don't believe you.
You don't care a bit, you don't care a bit.

(Hide and seek)
Oh no, you don't care a bit.
Oh no, you don't care a bit.
(Hide and seek)
Oh no, you don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.

Sock Drawers.

2009-10-22T11:53:00.001-07:00

I think that it's high time that as a culture we stopped hiding things in our sock drawers. While cleaning my room today and doing an extensive dose of laundry I realized that whenever a person has something that they don't want a burglar to nab or the general public to see they think "I know the perfect place!" and go straight for the sock drawer. The person clearly thinks to themselves that the fact that it's an invasion of privacy to rummage through someone's dresser drawers is a deterrent for 90% of cases. Even in the remaining 10% of cases where the intruder is a burglar or a snoop and doesn't care about your privacy that it would be an awfully silly thing for such a person to go through the person's sock drawer; I mean... what of value could possibly be in a sock drawer? Except for the fact that everyone is ALSO aware that this is the stereotypical and prototypical hiding place for such things to the point that if I were a burglar or a snoop the sock drawer is probably the first place I would look for valuables or dirt on somebody. It's the same angel that tells people that the best place to hide their spare key is underneath the doormat. Come on everyone... get creative. Think of better hiding places, label your keys, and for the love of Pete, stop hiding things in your sock drawer!

...not that I have anything hidden in my sock drawer of course.

Shoes.

2009-09-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

Edward: This town is everything man could ask for. And if I were to end up here, I'd consider myself lucky. But the fact is, I'm not ready to end up anywhere.

Jenny: How are you gonna make it without your shoes?

Edward: I suspect it will hurt. A lot.

Beamen: You won't find a better place!

Edward: I don't expect to.

The 60's.

2009-09-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

I only have one class on Thursday (two if you count Jazz Band), so last thursday I decided to take a trip to the 1960's. No, it wasn't the kind of trips they took back in the 1960's.

My trip through the 60's started with running to Best Buy and picking up a copy of The Beatles Rock Band, which is hands down the best music-based video game I've ever played (it even beat out PaRappa The Rapper!). It's got a great lineup of all of your favorite Beatles songs, plus some more obscure ones that are just so much fun to play that you will soon be counting them among your favorite Beatles songs. Also included is the ability to add up to 3 microphones and sing harmony with other band members which is enjoyable for us vocally inclined folks. The story mode is really fun too, as it lets you play through the career of the Beatles (they even have clips from the tapes that were running as they recorded play on the loading screens, which are so fun to listen to that I sometimes forget to play the game). All of this is not to mention the fact that the game features some of the best graphics that I've seen on the Wii (not all the time, but during the intro video and at other key parts), as well as really cool background animations for all of the songs. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking it up.

I continued my trip through the 60's by attending Burning Coal Theatre's production of Hair. This is not ordinarily how I'd spend my Thursday night, even being the musical lover that I am, but tickets were only $5 as it was student preview night and this show happens to be my sister's professional acting debut... so how could I not go? I'd never seen Hair before, but had heard some good things about it, as well as a whole lot of "OMG NUDITY!" (before you ask, no... my sister isn't one of the ones who gets naked) so I wasn't sure what to expect. What the play delivered, though, was a whole lot of fun as well as some food for thought. This particular production was very cool as it was presented in a very intimate space and in a theatre-in-the-round-style atmosphere. At one point audience members are asked to get up and sit on the stage area as they cover the whole audience in a parachute (just like elementary school gym class!) to simulate an LSD trip (just like elementary school gym class!). I definitely recommend seeing it, and I'm not just saying that because you going to see it means my sister gets paid.

After seeing the show, I headed back home to play some more Beatles Rock Band and as I did so I realized that even though I wasn't around, I kinda miss the 1960's and wish I had gotten a chance to see them firsthand. Just as long as I wasn't eligible for the draft.

My thoughts as put forth by webcomics

2009-09-01T19:46:00.001-07:00

I love it when the things I read relate to my life. Here are a few thoughts I've been having lately as told by some of my favorite webcomics (warning: harsh language to follow):

Thank you, XKCD, for those profound moments. Even if I'm not quite angsty enough to pull of the second. Also on my mind is:
That's right... it's getting to be that time of year again. I've got tickets to the NCSU v. South Carolina game on Thursday night. I'm very excite.

This is why we're awesome.

2009-08-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

It's things like this that make me glad I'm a Lutheran.

Save me, Kudzu Jesus.

2009-08-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

First off, no... I'm not talking about the crappy comic strip. I'm talking about this:

...a 30 foot tall likeness of the big guy himself (in this instance VERY big... that's a shipping container in the picture for a scale of reference) that has taken up residence by the train tracks on Boylan street in Raleigh. Full story (and more pictures) here. It's funny how something as simple as Kudzu can make you think.

Today's the first day of classes for me as a Spanish major. I'm taking 3 separate Spanish literature courses, including one that is 15th-16th century. You know how it's kinda hard to read Shakespeare? Well now imagine that, but not in your native language. Kudzu Jesus, save me!

Mistress Modesty.

2009-08-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get in shape of late and have taken to swimming laps a couple times a week as this is my favorite form of exercise (The water rinses off the sweat and cools you down at the same time, what's not to love?). However, this has reunited me with my old nemesis... the Carmichael Gymnasium locker room or more accurately, the people within.

Now I understand that the word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek word meaning "a place to be naked" but seriously these guys could be a bit more modest and courteous to fellow gym-goers. We'll start the complaining with the Carmichael gym staff: would you please install dividers in the showers. And don't give me any of this "it'd break fire code" bullcrap (which is what they said when I asked them why they hadn't). If that's the case then how come you have dividers on all of the bathroom stalls? Next blame falls upon the guys who are in the locker rooms (now naturally not ALL of them do this, but those of you that do, this goes out to you): wear your towel around your waist when you're walking to and from the shower. You do it when you're at home, you do it when you're everywhere else! Why in the world do you find it so liberating to not do it when you're in the locker rooms? Not only that but it helps dry you off in places where it's rather embarrassing to have a huge wet spot. And last but certainly not least is something that requires no time or energy to do and 99.9% of locker room users fail to do: would it kill you to put your shirt on before you take the towel from around your waist? I mean, you're going to have to do it eventually right? Might as well do it in an order that A) Makes sense, and B) shields the rest of us from your wrinkly old physics professor ass.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Dude, it's the locker room... guys have an unspoken rule not to look at each other when we're in the locker room." To this I respond with a "Why don't we just change locker room protocol by three easy steps which will make us not have to expend so much effort deliberately not looking at the 600 people in here." Now you're thinking "Wow, Jake... you must be a complete and total prude and/or have a really tiny penis to be so angry about this." To this I respond that no, I am not a complete and total prude. To all of the young and beautiful people in the locker room, feel free to go about your business. It's the wrinkly old physics professor ass (as previously mentioned) that I have a problem with, and this accounts for approximately 73.3% of all Carmichael locker room occupants. As for why I'm angry about it, it's not because I'm a prude or because I have a tiny penis (for the record, it's so large that Stephen Hawking has theories about it). Truth is I'm not actually angry at all, just moderately annoyed... but the angrier you are (or seem), the funnier your rant is usually.

In other news I recently did a complete overhaul of my band's website, www.manmanor.com. I'm quite proud of it, so you should totally head over there and check it out.

Of grooving sharks and cities of owls.

2009-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Como estan amigos? Hoy tengo una sorpresa especial para ustedes. Desafortunadamente, es una sorpresa en espanol entonces los que no hablan espanol no pueden leer! Que triste!

Just kidding. However, I DO need the practice since I'm officially enrolled at State again for Spanish, so if you'd like to habla un poco de espanol conmigo please feel free to do so. Anyways, now onto what I was going to tell you about:

One word: Grooveshark. If you like music (and I've never met a single person who didn't) you absolutely have to check out this website. It's kinda similar to another website I love called Pandora (you may have noticed my cool Pandora sidebar app, which lets you listen to my stations), but this site pretty much renders it obsolete. With this site you enter in an artist or song, and instead of giving you a streaming radio station based on that song it instead gives you that song. Streaming. For free. You can also endlessly queue up songs and create playlists which you can send to people, without you or them having to sign up for the service (but if you sign up... once again, for free... you can access your playlists from a variety of other places, and I'm sure they've got an iPhone app in the works). This gives you the nice option of trying an album out before you buying it (or for the more industrious person, the option of using Audacity to capture the music for permanent free enjoyment). I'm not sure how/why this is legal, but they haven't been shut down yet so get in on it while the getting's good. In case you missed the previous link here it is again: Grooveshark.com

Now that I've got this great new toy, I can share with you one of my new favorite artists. My friend Paul, who is responsible for introducing me to some of my absolute favorite bands such asMika, Hellogoodbye, and *cough* Panicatthedisco *cough*(don't judge me, I liked them before the little emo kids did), recently told me that I needed to check out an artist by the name of Owl City. I had just gotten a hold of this Grooveshark thing so I figured I'd check out their most recent album, Ocean Eyes (an instant win with me as it references one of my favorite songs by Mae). As Paul described it to me, "imagine what The Postal Service would sound like if all of their songs were happy instead of depressing." The intricate electronica beats and flawless execution of The Postal service is present, but it's mixed with the aesthetically upbeat style and rockin piano work of Mae. Not to mention the fact that lead singer (and, in fact, only member) Adam Young will coax smiles from listeners with his sweet and frequently funny lyrics (for example, he says that he's been to the dentist so many times that he "knows the drill"). Here's a small sample... for more you can see the aforementioned website or go buy their album.

Time Intervening

2009-07-12T12:55:00.000-07:00

I'm making a contribution to the internet by adding to it the full text of my favorite short story. Enjoy.

"Time Intervening"

By Ray Bradbuy

Very late on this night, the old man came from his house with a flashlight in his hand and asked of the little boys the object of their frolic. The little boys gave no answer, but tumbled on in the leaves.

The old man went into his house and sat down and worried. It was three in the morning. He saw his own pale small hands trembling on his knees. He was all joints and angles, and his face, reflected above the mantel, was no more than a pale cloud of breath exhaled upon the mirror.

The children laughed softly outside, in the leaf piles.

He switched out his flashlight quietly and sat in the dark. Why he should be in any way bothered by playing children he could not know. But it was late for them to be out, at three in the morning, playing. He was very cold.

There was a sounds of a key in the door and the old man arose to go see who could possibly be coming into his house. The front door opened and a young man entered with a young woman. They were looking at each other softly and tenderly, holding hands, and the old man stared at them and cried, “What are you doing in my house?”

The young man and the young woman replied, “What are you doing in our house?” The young man said “Here now, get on out.” And took the old man by the elbow and shoved him out of the door and closed and locked it after searching him to see if he had stolen something.

“This is my house, you can’t lock me out.” The old man beat upon the door. He stood in the dark morning air. Looking up he saw the lights illuminate the warm inside windows an rooms upstairs and then, with a move of shadows, go out.

The old man walked down the street and came back and still the small boys rolled in the dark icy morning leaves, not looking at him. He stood before the house and as he watched the lights turned on and turned off more than a thousand times. He counted softly under his breath.

A young boy of about fourteen ran by to the house, a football in his hand. He opened the door without even trying to unlock it, and went in. The door closed.

Half an hour later, with the morning wind rising, the old man saw a car pull up and a plump woman got out with a little boy three years old. They waled across the dark lawn and went into the house after the woman had looked at the old mane and said, “Is that you, Mr. Terle?”

“Yes,” said the old man, automatically, for somehow he didn’t wish to frighten her. But it was a lie. He knew he was not Mr. Terle at all. Mr. Terle lived down the street.

The lights glowed on and off a thousand more times.

The children rustled softly in the dark leaves.

A seventeen-year-old bounded across the street, smelling faintly of the smudged lipstick on his cheek, almost knocked the old man down, cried, “Sorry!” and leaped up the steps. Fitting a key to the lock he went in.

The old man stood there with the town lying asleep on all sides of him; the unlit windows, the breathing rooms, the stars all through the trees, liberally caught and held on winter branches, so much snow suspended glittering on the cold air.

“That’s my house; who are all those people going in it!” cried the old man to the wrestling children.

The wind blew, shaking the empty trees.

In the year which was 1923 the house was dark, a car drove up before it, the mother stepped from the car with her son William who was three. William looked at the dark morning world and saw his house and as he felt his mother lead him towards the house he heard her say, “Is that you, Mr. Terle?” and in the shadows by the great wind-filled oak tree an old man stood and replied, “Yes.” The door closed.

In the year which was 1934 William came running in the summer night, feeling the football cradled in his hands, feeling the dark street pass under his running feet, along the sidewalk. He smelled, rather than saw, an old man, as he ran past. Neither of them spoke. And so on into the house.

In the year 1937 William ran with antelope boundings across the street, a smell of lipstick on his face, a smell of someone young and fresh upon his cheeks; all thoughts of love and deep night. He almost knocked the stranger down, cried, “Sorry!” and ran to fit a key to the front door.

In the year 1947 a car drew up before the house, William relaxed, his wife beside him. He wore a fine tweed suit, it was late, he was tired, they both smelled faintly of so many drinks offered and accepted. For a moment they both heard the wind in the trees. “Is that a light on in our house? asked the wife. William felt uneasy. “Yes,” he said. They got out of the car and let themselves into the house with a key. An old man came from the living-room and cried, “What are you doing in my house?”

“Your house?” said William. “Here now, old man, get on out.” And William, feeling faintly sick to his stomach, for there was something to the old man that made him feel all water and nothing, searched the old man and pushed him out of the door and closed and locked it. From outside the old man cried, “This is my house, you can’t lock me out!”

They went up and turned the lights out.

In the year 1928 William and the other small boys wrestled on the lawn, waiting for the time when they would leave to watch the circus come chuffing in to the dawn-pale railroad station on the blue metal tracks. In the leaves they lay and laughed and kicked an fought. An old man with a flashlight came across the lawn. “Why are you playing here on my lawn at this time of morning?” asked the old man. Who are you?” replied William looking up a moment from the tangle.

The old man stood over the tumbling children a long moment. Then he dropped his flashlight. “Oh my dear boy, I know now, now I know!” He bent to touch the boy. “I am you, and you are me, I love you, my dear boy, with all of my heart! Let me tell you what will happen to you in the years to come! If you knew! I am you, and you were once me! My name is William, so is yours! And all those people going into the house, they are William, they are you, they are me!” The old man shivered. “Oh all the dark years and the passing of time!”

“Go away,” said the boy. “You’re crazy.”

“But,” said the old man.

“You’re crazy. I’ll call my father!”

The old man turned and walked away.

There was a flickering of the house lights, on and off. The boys wrestled quietly and secretly in the rustling leaves. The old man stood on the dark lawn.

Upstairs, in his bed, William Latting did not sleep on his bed in the year 1947. He sat up, lit a cigarette, and looked out the window. His wife was awake. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“That old man,” said William Latting. “I think he’s still down there under the oak tree.”

“Oh, he couldn’t be,” she said.

“I can’t see very well, but I think he’s there. I can barely make him out, it’s so dark.”

“He’ll go away,” she said.

William Latting drew quietly on his cigarette. He nodded. “Who are those kids?”

From her bed his wife said, “What kids?”

“Playing on the lawn out there, what a hell of a time of night to be playing in the leaves.”

“Probably the Moran boys.”

“Doesn’t look like them.”

He stood by the window. “You hear something?”

“What?”

“A baby crying. Way off.”

“I don’t hear anything,” she said.

She lay listening. They both thought they heard running footsteps on the street, a key to the door. William Latting went to the hall and looked down the stairs but saw nothing.

In the year 1937, coming in the door, William saw a man in a dressing gown at the top of the stairs looking down, a cigarette in his hand. “That you, Dad?” No answer. The man sighed and went back into some room. William went to the kitchen to raid the ice-box.

The children wrestled in the soft dark leaves of morning.

William Latting said, “Listen.”

He and his wife listened.

“It’s the old man,” said William. “Crying.”

“Why should he be crying?”

“I don’t know. Why does anybody cry? Maybe he’s unhappy.”

“If he’s still down there in the morning,” said his wife, in the dark room, “call the police.”

William Latting went away from the window, put out his cigarette and lay in the bed, his eyes closed. “No,” he said quietly. “I won’t call the police. Not for him, I won’t.”

“Why not?”

His voice was certain. “I wouldn’t want to do that. I just wouldn’t.”

They both lay there and faintly there was a sound of crying and the wind blew and William Latting knew that all he had to do if he wanted to watch the boys wrestling in the dark cool leaves of morning would be to reach out with his hand and lift the shade and look, and there they would be, far below, wrestling and wrestling as dawn came pale in the eastern sky.

Famous!

2009-07-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, I'm famous! Check it out: http://www.lifeisgood.com/about/inspiring-letters.aspx

Aww how cute... it's me as a Junior in high school.

My second 15 minutes of Life is Good fame has arrived. My mom sent in a letter about the quilt that she made me for graduation along with the story of my history with Life Is Good, and they have prominently featured me on their website and sent me a copy of their book signed by the Jacobs brothers (they started the company... poke around the website until you find their story, it's very inspiring). And in case you're curious, my first 15 minutes of Life is Good fame was when I won their Halloween contest several years ago by carving a pumpkin to look like the mascot and they featured me on the website and sent me a gift card. The next year they designed a Halloween shirt featuring a pumpkin that looked pretty similar to mine (I'm wearing it in the picture on the current website), so I was a little touchy about that... but then again I am using their mascot without permission in my blog header so I guess we're even.

On a completely random other note, you should drop what you're doing and head over to Omegle.com, the best concept for a website I've heard in a while. It lets you have a completely anonymous chat with a random stranger so that you can do things like this:

(Warning: This is more addicting and fun than you might think. Also, I am not held responsible for what these people say to you... unless it's me... which it might be).

French for "Way too expensive"

2009-07-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine by the name of Marcus recently wrote a blog about Lacoste's recently commissioned line of shirts poking fun at the company's gator logo. The result of the designer's efforts is this:

I say there, monstrosity... do you know the times?

Now that has got to be one expensive shirt. Don't follow me? Well let me walk you through it. Your average run-of-the-mill polo shirt from Wal-mart would probably set you back about $10.00 (I am of course going by the pre-sale amount and adding the extra dollar they should have paid both to the sweatshop kids in Indonesia and the janitorial staff whom they lock in the store overnight). The cheapest polo shirt with a little alligator on it though, would La-cost you about $80.00 (once again pre-sale, minus the $8 they owe me for having to look at their mannequins at Macy's with the collars popped). So clearly each of those little alligators costs $70 to produce. That's the only explanation I can see.

Now a rough eyeballing estimate tells me that there are anywhere from about 700 to 1,500 alligators on that shirt. Like buddhists, let us choose the middle way and go with there being a total of 1,100 alligators on the shirt. That brings the total price of this polo to a whopping $77,010 ($77,000 for the alligators, $10 for the shirt). You could easily buy a Porsche for that kind of money. If there are 1,500 alligators that'd be $105,010, for which you could certainly buy yourself something nice (maybe a used Ferrari). Even if there are only 700 gators the shirt'd still run you $49,010 (which unless I'm mistaken would probably still get you a Mercedes).

Not to mention, of course, that for our middle-path $77,010 you could purchase 7,701 gator-less polos.

But why would you want to do that? It's not about quantity... it's about quality.

Espresso envy, you will be the death of me

2009-07-02T14:49:00.001-07:00

For some reason I have got it into my head that I need a new espresso machine. I purchased my current machine at Target for around $30 last summer when I was working at Cup a Joe because I got a decent discount on beans and had developed something of a caffeine habit. However the espresso from my little machine just didn't taste as good as the real stuff and I recently found out why: my machine uses steam to make espresso while real espresso machines use a pump to reach the appropriate pressure. Well of course I couldn't have that so I set out to find myself a real machine to quell my espresso machine envy. However, being a cheapskate I am unwilling to pay the established retail prices for these machines so I eventually ended up here:
Yup... the black market. Now as someone who is currently unemployed and is unable register for classes, apply for graduate school, or do anything productive at all until at least August... I am what you might call "someone who has way too much time on their hands." Combine that with my natural obsessive-compulsive tendencies and you have yourself one bored wacked-out obsessive bidding Jake just dying for a decent cup of coffee. So far I've bid on 3 machines and lost 3 times (most recently I lost by just $1, which sucks). I clearly care way too much about this. Make me stop.

In other news, my band's album is coming along quite nicely and we have just put one of the tracks up on the media page of our website. Check it out here.

Small Tidbits

2009-06-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I'm not nearly composed enough for one cohesive blog, so here are a bunch of little thoughts that are on my mind currently.

~I'm currently applying for jobs, and as it turns out there ARE people hiring in the world. This is good news, as I had figured that places wouldn't be. I'm starting with jobs that are relevant to my interests and would look good for graduate schools (such as working at a school for autistic kids, and doing psychological research at Duke), but as I get more desperate we'll see. If you hear of anything let me know.

~I went and saw UP the other day. You should really go see it. Pixar movies are like my children, so I can't pick a favorite. I can only say that UP is definitely up there.

~I'm a fan of commercials. I know that sounds strange as they are an annoyance to most people but I figure you can either like them or not and I'd rather like something if I have to put up with it. I like the ones that the makers treat as though they were short films. Some however, just plain baffle me. Some freak me the hell out. For example, check out this new ad for the Prius. Yup... those are people. All of 'em. I officially declare this the creepiest ad since those godawful "sublymonal advertising" Sprite ads. And, as I boycotted Sprite back then, I will now boycott the Prius. Take that, Toyota!

~ If you are not familiar with this , you should have a look. I spent about 30 minutes laughing about it.

That's all for now.

Be Jealous

2009-06-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

Be very jealous.

So yeah, I just got back from a week long sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands with my parents, my uncle, and Amber. It was a whole ton-'o-fun, here are some highlights:

-Went SCUBA diving and saw (among other things) a barracuda about 4 feet long, a sea cucumber about 2 feet long, a fish with a remora attached to it, a spotted eagle ray, and some cuttlefish.
-Ate at the restaurant of a chef that has recently been featured on the Food Network (it was essentially the guy's back yard and he had some grills going... it was really great).
-Got stung by a jellyfish (and if you know how much I hate jellyfish you'll understand)
-Saw a ton of stars including the Milky Way, which is rare for a city boy like me.
-Got a tan, without burning that badly.
-Had a really great time.

If you'd like to hear the whole story, I'll tell you. But now it's back to the job hunt, so I'll keep on working on that. Later folks!

I Aten't Dead

2009-05-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

I'm just biding my time. Actually, I'm done biding my time... because I'm done with finals! That's right, all I have left to do is collect my piece of paper and its off to the real world with me (for a little while anyway, I will definitely be retreating back into the safe warm cocoon that is academia... it's just a question of when). Now that I don't have anything to study for, I'll hopefully have more time to keep y'all posted about what's going on with me. Right now here's what's going on in my mind.

These are the new Burger King "burger shots." They're tiny little burgers (note the bun-to-pickle size ratio in the above picture) that you can pick up at BK for the low, low price of $6 a sixpack, along with fries and a drink, or so the television told me. And do you know what... they piss me off. First of all, they act like these are some big new thing, but in reality Burger King came out with the same thing in the late 80's under the term "Burger Buddies" See this ad for proof:

I loved these things when I was little, and I'm really mad at them for allowing someone to take a thing that I enjoyed as a child and give them a dirty name. Don't believe me? Check out what urbandictionary.com has to say about the term "Burger Shot" (WARNING: I'm not responsible for R-Rated materials on the other side of that link). Now, thinking that since 99% of UrbanDictionary is complete filth, I searched for other BK menu items such as "whopper," "chicken fries," and "tendercrisp" and none of those returned dirty results.

Secondly, look at the size of the ones from the 80's. Those things are like, twice the size of the 2009 burger! We were in a recession back then too, and BK managed to give us a little more meat for our money, which of course brings us to the stupidest thing about them. The advertised price is $6 for 6... but if you take a little peek at the dollar menu you can get a whopper junior for $1, bringing the grand total of 6 whopper juniors to $6. The bastages are trying to get away with selling us HALF the food for DOUBLE the price! I've always been a proponent of Burger King over the nefarious McDonalds, but if this keeps up I may just have to switch camps.

By the way, if you can correctly identify the source of this blog's title without googling it I will give you 6 hypothetical Burger Buddies.

Long Before There Was Roomba...

2009-04-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

Thank you Failblog. I love that site so much.

Here are a couple of fails I've recently seen with my own eyes. Amber got pictures:

I'm going to upload these to Failblog. More on that as it develops. Just remember that you saw 'em here first.

Iron Maiden and Drug Commercials

2009-03-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

Nope, not that Iron Maiden...

That's the ticket.

AMPLE WARNING: For those of you who are unaware, my imagination can sometimes be a horrible, horrible place. If humor of the utterly macabre variety is not your thing, please skip down to the next section.

I was talking with someone about the origin of the term "put the thumbscrews to someone," and suddenly found myself thinking about the most sinister looking of all medieval torture devices. I don't understand why the usage of these things caught on. Let me backtrack a little bit. For those of you who have never been tortured in the middle ages before, the Iron Maiden is a sarcophagus-looking device full of spiny bits which impale the victim as soon as the door (also covered in spikes) is closed. Now, while the Iron Maiden is quite impressive looking (and appropriately named), I don't imagine them to be very user friendly. First of all, the odds of getting any information out of someone after you shut the door would appear to be quite slim. Also the line "tell me what you know, or I'll shut this door" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "tell me what you know or I'll spoon out your eyeballs." Second of all, I imagine that they are an absolute workout to keep clean. Once you open that door back up, I'm sure it'd be like opening up a waffle iron before your waffle is completely done, only with a person instead of a waffle. Then you're all like "Oh no... the gloppy stuff got in between all the spikes! Why do I always forget to spray the Iron Maiden down with Pam before I put the prisoner in there!" And don't tell me that it doesn't matter whether or not the inside of the thing is clean or not. It would be incredibly unhygienic and disrespectful to the victim to stick them inside a dirty Iron Maiden (kinda like giving someone a lethal injection with a dirty needle). Besides, if you think that all that cleaning is way too much trouble to go to just to kill someone, you probably should have just spooned out the guy's eyeballs to begin with and been done with the whole matter. My final problem with the Iron Maiden is that poses a significant risk to the inhabitants of the house it occupies. Maybe you're sleeping in your dungeon and you wake up and have to take a trip to ye olde crapper. So you fumble around in the darkness and accidently step into the Iron Maiden instead of the bathroom, and even though you're all alone in the dungeon you decide to shut the bathroom door anyway because that's just how you were raised. Just as you close it, however, you think to yourself "what's with all these spiny bits?" and then WHAM. Trust me folks, there's nothing more embarrassing than having your dead body found with a newspaper, pants around the ankles, and all half-done-waffle-ified.

Hope that rant was cheerful enough for you.

Drug Commercials have always struck me as really funny, and not just because my dad works for a pharmaceutical company. I really enjoy the long side-effects rants that they're obligated to make in the middle of 'em. There have been numerous rants about this by gentlemen much funnier than I, but a few of the more recent commercials make blunders that I just can't help but point out. First of all, there's the line in most commercials that says "do not drive or operate heavy machinery until you know how ____ophyll* affects you." I always think to myself "well, I was going to go to the grocery store, but now I've gotta walk down to the pharmacy, score some ____ophyll, and make sure it doesn't make me fall asleep before I can think about driving." Then there's the recent commercial where they have an actor saying "Hi, I'm your doctor. Talk to me before taking ____copene* if you have these pre-existing conditions." First of all, I'm not going to take anything you say seriously if you begin by lying to me, person-who-is-clearly-not-my-doctor. My doctor isn't nearly as good-looking as you, and they don't read from their chart as though there was a cue card stuck to it. My favorite recent drug commercial blunder, though, was tonight when someone interrupted Heroes to tell me that "if you are allergic to __fed__ine*, please do not take __fed__ine." I'm not even going to dignify that statement by pointing out all the individual inaccuracies and redundancies that make it stupid. On the other hand, those drug commercials with Abe Lincoln, the Gopher, and the Bathysphere Guy are pretty funny in addition to being brilliant from a marketing perspective, so I'll cut the industry a bit of slack.

*By the way... the answers to today's Jake's Blog Fill-In-The-Blanks were "chlorophyll," "lycopene," and "Kevin Federline."

No Longer Best Friends.

2009-03-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

To those of you who have no interest in NC State athletics, please disregard this post.

To all of you who are still around... we have so much to look forward to next basketball season. For those of you who haven't heard already, Brandon Costner is leaving us next year for the NBA draft. Now for those of you who don't know, I have always bragged about being best friends with Brandon Costner. He's been in several of my classes, and last year I achieved the head nod and "sup" every time I saw him (even at games). This is, of course, not mentioning all of the times I went over to his house to hang out after school and the several occasions upon which Mama Costner made us cookies (note: may have all been in my imagination).

Brandon Costner and I hanging out. Yes, he wears his uniform all the time, and carries around a basketball "just in case."

Now I don't know what to think. He clearly didn't consult me on this decision. I obviously would have told him that he doesn't have a chance in the NBA draft, as he has pretty much been a disappointment ever since his freshman year. I have never lost faith in him though, telling him that he'd be a great player if he'd just keep his head clear even if he doesn't come out and immediately make his first few baskets. No matter what critics or other fans said, I'd always stick behind my buddy Brandon.

Well no more. As of this moment, Brandon Costner and I are no longer best friends.

Now I know what you're thinking Brandon... you're thinking "Here comes the "it's not you, it's me speech." Nope... this time it IS you. It's not that you turned your back on the Wolfpack in a season where you would have had a chance to provide some much needed leadership to the team; it's not that somehow you talked Trevor Ferguson into not returning as well, meaning that you and Emma can't ever have those ginger children she's always wanted. It's the fact that you didn't ask my permission before leaving, or allowing me the chance to save you from a stupid career move. Good luck in the draft.

Is it still cool to talk about...

2009-03-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

...Legends of the Hidden Temple?

I mean, I realize that by now 90's nostalgia is almost as played out as, well... 80's nostalgia, and that that goes double for old school Nickelodeon nostalgia. And yes, I also acknowledge that most of the time the instant there's a facebook group related to an in-joke or cult phenomenon is the instant that it stops being funny (I just searched facebook, and there are over 500 groups related to Legends of the Hidden Temple), but I just can't help myself. I really do miss this show. So do a lot of people, as it turns out.

For example, I submit to you www.templeshirts.com, where you can purchase a shirt from all of your favorite teams... I myself would probably opt for the Red Jaguars shirt (although the Blue Barracudas were cool too). They also have shirts with the Camp Anawana logo, as well as shirts from Guts. Hopefully someday they will show Wild and Crazy Kids some love.

Also submitted for your approval, this video from collegehumor which gets most of its laughs from putting everyone's favorite giant stone head in a Sue Johanson role. Yes, the cameos in this are real.

I seriously think that you could make a lot of money setting up a life size version of the temple and traveling from college campus to college campus, giving everyone a chance to live out the dreams they never got a chance to realize in their childhood. Or, barring that, you can at least play the computer game, or watch old episodes here.

The Future

2009-03-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen! The Future is Now! And while we don't quite have Jetpacks yet but we do have... Flying Cars! Yeah that's right. This bad boy doesn't look like much when it's all closed up (kinda like a PT Cruiser with a growth), but it opens up to be a mini plane. Plus it has all the features we've come to expect from automobiles these days, such as a sunroof. Just don't open it when you're flying.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the future today. Why, you might ask? Well because today I heard back from USF and Georgia State. I got the standard "We regret to inform you" letter from USF. Georgia State let me know that they were rescinding my application because my transcript and writing sample showed up a day late. I bet they didn't rescind me the $50 application fee or the $30 I shelled out to have it overnighted so that it'd only show up a day late rather than several days late. Oh well, there's always the waitlist at South Carolina. Barring that, it looks like I'm going to be getting a job somewhere doing something until next year when I can apply again. Hopefully I can find something psychology related, or else I'm going to feel really silly for having spent all that time and money going to college. I'm sure that all of this will look much better on the other side of a good night's sleep. That may not happen though, as I've got a spanish project due tomorrow. On the bright side I turned in all my paperwork today and I'm now officially a Spanish minor. How fun is that. In closing: Anyone need a research lackey?

Welcome My Blogspot!

2009-03-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

Ah! Well hello there! Welcome to my all-new, incredibly painstakingly created blog! Now I know what you're thinking... you're thinking "Jake! All your blogging attempts go horribly, horribly awry!" And while that has been true in the past, I have a pretty good feeling about my new home here at Blogspot. Why? Well lets take a look back shall we...

Xanga: My first blogging experience was with Xanga, back in high school, which was kinda only one step away from being an angsty live-journal user (which ain't how I roll, no offense to all the LJ users out there). Although I enjoyed blogging there, I really only did it for my own enjoyment, as no one ever read it. Which of course brings us to...

Myspace: When I first heard about this little utility I thought it sounded pretty cool. Here was a way I could get my friends to read my blog posts! It worked out really well for a while until Myspace became horribly overrun with glitter graphics, spammers, and all that other crap that makes me want to run and hide. After a while, I'd come up with an idea for a blog and then not post it because logging into Myspace was just too much bloody trouble. So with a heavy heart I gave up blogging (until now).

Now I've decided to come back to the game of blogging, and we'll just see how far that gets me. Oh also, it's St. Patrick's Day. Top o' th' marnin to ya!