So Brian Said

It's 300AM. There's an informercial about another hair-restoration program.

Some guy is talking about how he can go running now. He doesn't have to wear a hat. The wind doesn't blow his hair around. He can go out and feel good about himself.

What the hell?

What kind of person can be so ridiculously obsessed with his hair? What kind of loser wouldn't be able to go out because the wind would blow his hair around? You self-absorbed loser! I can't imagine what it would have been like if my father had bought a toupee or something ridiculous. It would have been really horrible to have been raised to think that there was any real problem with losing hair. It's hair, for crap's sake.

"When I would go swimming, that was when the real problems began...." Loser.

Aren't there much more important things to be insecure about? Like the fact that you're an idiot? Yeah, if you're stupid, you should see about getting that fixed before you get your scalped operated on. Or at the same time. As long as the surgeons are in there, ask them to go a little deeper and tool around.

Idiots. Now I'm watching a get-rich-quick infomercial. Why do all of these have to have porn music? I don't get it.

Ugh. Now there's one with Mr. Cunningham from Happy Days. As you can see, I've been typing this for way too long. I need sleep. Unfortunately, I'm ensnared in debate on the merits of brain-malfunction treatments. People need to get over themselves.

"Everytime I think about SMC, I feel happy...." Imagine that in a thick Latino accent delivered by an old Mexican woman. This is outrageous. First it was a cop who obviously was some nationality, but I couldn't quite pick out what it was supposed to be.

It's even worse because the story surrounding the informercial is Mr. C and this Specialty Merchandise Corporation woman working on getting ready for an infomercial. "Well, if you pop in the tape with your voice-over, you'll see how...."

Now it's a Chinese woman. Now it's another Mexican. Now it's a cowboy. He's talking about tractors. Now it's a Japanese guy. He has a great life. "Now I get $50,000 checks." He went to Hong Kong. I think his name is Fin.

Jam Master Jay of Run DMC is dead.

It's 433AM. Oops.
--McJangles 4:36 AM
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"You have too much time on your hands...."

The overwhelming response to my second-to-last post is that I need something better to do with my life/time. People seem to think that I just sit around and think about words. They're right. They seem to think there's something strange about that. They're wrong. The words, maybe; the sitting-around-thinking-about, not so much. We all sit around and think about something: words, computers, Buffy, Lisa Serfass.

The difference here, is that my something happens to be something that I am a) good at, b) in love with and c) getting paid for. My one job is reading what police write. My other is noticing writers' mistakes. It's not inconceivable, therefore, that I would notice a mistake in the police's writing. I was paid to notice that police say "reference," and the realization that they invented a preposition was made in a half-second. If that's "too much time" to spend on something, I suppose I'm guilty.

Whether or not the post is symptomatic, I may have too much time on my hands or being doing too little to fill it. This brings me to a long post. Given that Laura is probably still under the effects of hormone imbalances, I may be slicing my own throat here, but I'll say it anyway. For quite some time now, I've been thinking on and off that it's ridiculous for me to be in school still. Soon after I come to that decision, though, I begin to think again that I have to stick with it. Maybe it's pride, maybe it's stubbornness, or maybe it's that I just feel like I need at least a piece of heavy-stock paper in return for the money I've put into college.

The problem is that although the firmness of my resolution to leave may wax and wane, every time it waxes, it waxes a little bit more. The pieces start fitting better when I use wax:
1) There's plenty left for me to learn, but school may not be the best way to do it. Take a look at the options for learning:
Spending eight hours a day with someone who's spent most of his life at a newspaper vs. spending three hours a week with someone who's spent a few years working toward a PhD in journalism. (Scholars make me ill. They spend a lifetime mastering some minute detail of a topic and are paid ridiculously for it. They write books on their favorite aspect of a field, but meanwhile can't agree on definitions of the building blocks of the subject.)
Learning by doing vs. learning by listening. (The former has always been the most effective for me.)
Getting paid to learn vs. paying to learn. (This one is particularly troubling. Now that I see it written out, I feel like an absolute sucker.)
2) The sooner I start working at a paper, the sooner I can take it over. I know what I want, and that's my own newspaper. Build it from the ground up or stage a coup; I don't care. I do know, though, that I won't be happy for long if I'm just writing stories or editing copy. I need to move up, or I'm going to be miserable. No matter what. I think this may be a part of why I hate school. What was the difference between being a first grader and an eighth grader? The work was harder, you lost a recess, and the kids in class were even meaner. As you move through school, it only gets worse. Even in college, the daily routines of a graduate student are much the same as a freshman's.
3) A guild paper will probably pay me to work and go to school. Again, how much of a sucker am I? Why am I paying thousands of dollars to the school to listen to someone tell me about communication theory when the Beacon Journal could be paying them thousands of dollars at the same time they were paying me thousands of dollars? Absolute sucker.
4) Even if I leave, I can still come back. If I decide down the line that leaving school was a horrible mistake, I can go back. It'll suck to be back in school again, but maybe a break will have been helpful. The University of Akron is always looking to increase enrollment, but newspapers have hiring freezes.
5) Brian: Yeah, I've spent about 85 percent of my life in school
Dr. Phil: And how's that working out for you?
Brian: Well, Dr. Phil, there was this one time in fifth grade when I had good grades, and then I did it again one time my senior year of high school.
Dr: Phil: (gives disapproving look)
Audience: (shakes its collective head)
6) I hate school. School and I have never gotten along. Why am I still in a relationship with school?
7) I'm skipping classes like a schoolgirl's rope. OR: I'm skipping class like stones. (I'm not sure which I like better. The first one is a better analogy, but the construction makes it feel contrived.)
8) If I were working, I would have a de facto schedule. I would have to go to bed at a certain time and be awake at a certain time. My life wouldn't be a shambles and I wouldn't feel like crap so often. I would have time when I needed to be at work, time when I needed to be asleep and actual free time. My free time currently goes like this: Brian is bored. Brian decides to do something entertaining. Brian remembers he has work he should be doing. Brian feels guilty and will therefore not do something entertaining. Brian neglects his work anyway. This is not a good way to spend one's free time. If I had normal, forced free time, I would be able to guiltlessly enjoy it. I could read all the books recommended on The Slot. Oh, how I want to start reading again. Then I could be a real smart person again. Not really. Real.
10) The Buchtelite is making me insane. Like I said, I can't be happy with a job for too long, and with this set of circumstances, "too long" isn't very long at all. The lack of professionalism, the general incompetence and the poor leadership at the paper make it next to impossible for me to enjoy working there, even though I'm being paid to do one of my favorite things.
11) I'm out of money.

That's what I've got for now; I'm sure I'll have more soon. I feel desperate.
I have such contempt for everything about school. It could and should be such a great thing, but it isn't. I feel like I should be able to just say, "Screw it. I'm out." but...
If I do, I'll have contempt for myself for quitting. I can't remember the last time I actually quit anything, especially anything so big. but...
I'll know that I can come back to it. but...
I'll probably end up using that as an excuse to put it off. but...
I can get about the business of doing something I actually enjoy. but...
Who knows what else?

As I conduct these internal forensics, I realize that about 75-80 percent of my argument against dropping out based on the fact that I'll be angry with myself for quitting something. I don't know if that means that I should stick with it because I won't respect myself or if it means that I should just get over it. "Tie it to a balloon...."

I hate ambivalence. It's getting to the point where I need to pick one and say that there will no longer be a decision against it. I'm midway through the semester. I can probably line up a job for January.
--McJangles 2:12 AM
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The Black Keys were great again. While I was waiting in line, I was apparently standing right across from my ABJ editor, whom I've never met in the seven months I've worked there. It probably would have been good to introduce myself, but we were equally oblivious to each other's presence. For the record, that dream I had where she was a hot 18-year-old turned out not to be accurate.

For Somoles:

Martin Smith wants me to change the name of the link to his page to remove the implication that he in fact belongs to Quinn. I think that's silly. Nonetheless, I've decided I will change his link to say "Martin Smith," "Martin S." or something after he posts four times, the last three posts being separated by no more than one week from the post immediately previous. That's a challenge, Mr. Writer-Man.
09/09/02

Now that I posted that for her, I checked her page and it appears she's already met the requirement. So I guess I'll wait until she formally accepts the challenge, and then see if she sticks to it. I'm trying to pretend that my blog-link section is elitest.

NOTICE: Quinn, you have 14 days to post before your link is also removed. After that, you'll also have to go through the above hoops to get back in. Sucka.

Now, it's time for bed.
--McJangles 12:03 PM
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The guestbook now reflects that there are creepy people reading my blog. Thank you.

On three separate occasions, I did a good job this weekend.

It turns out that Eminem might not be a no-talent hack. I'd hate to have to admit that.

I sort of met my editor for the first time ever today. Unfortunately, neither of us was aware who the other one was.
--McJangles 1:43 AM
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When I used to use AIM more rabidly, I would put up my "lobster shift" away message whenever I was writing blotters. I remember finding that phrase and thinking it was about the coolest piece of jargon I'd ever seen. Journalism has words and phrases like "goes to bed," "stringer" and "morgue." Ironworkers have "stickman" and "tappers-out." The military practically has its own language. Even the butchers at Giant Eagle had their own lingo. Every job has jargon, and "lobster shift" is pretty cool, but I realized today that police officers have an especially unique gem.

Patrolman Coleman from Brecksville PD called for Andrew, "reference we need to get him some uniforms." Reference. When they're talking about whatever, it's always "reference this" or "reference that." "We were called to the scene reference a burglary in progress." "Officers arrived at incident location reference a large fight." On the surface--to me, anyway--"reference" always sounded stupid. I had even read an essay by a copy editor who was discussing the problems with reporters who were picking up what he called "police speak," where they would say things like "reference" and "the scene." Then I realized that this was a one-of-a-kind piece of dialect.

Every profession has its code words, but they're usually restricted to nouns, verbs and--rarely--adjectives. Reference, though, is a jargonized preposition, meaning "about" or "concerning." These people made their own preposition! I'm not sure if I'm envious, outraged or still simply flabbergasted. I imagine that if I am outraged, it's mainly because I'm envious.

Envy aside, I do still have reason for outrage. While it is admirable that someone would go creating prepositions--a daunting task, mind you--it reminds of what my mother told me and what I've told countless others: Before you go trying crazy tricks with anything, you need to "master the basics."

Cops are generally a poorly educated lot. Often with only an OPOTA certification to punctuate their education beyond a high school diploma, these people can hardly spell, let alone remember how to diagram a sentence. I imagine that as you move up the ranks, the education level rises, but unlike the Buchtelite, police-department hierarchy tends to be bottom-heavy. So with all these people running around thinking that you can just make up words and phrases, the language is going to get a little mangled.

And here's where Officer Coleman comes in. "If Andrew could give us a call... reference we need to get him some uniforms for police academy." He botched it. He's a detriment to his FOP brethren. His people had a piece of lexical treasure, but because they're ignorant, they think that the word can mean anything. Again, "reference" means "concerning" or "about;" Coleman--and countless Akron cops--uses it in place of "because," which is a preposition. You can't drop a sentence after "reference." He could have said "reference our need to get him some uniforms" or simply "reference his uniforms," but instead he said he wants Andrew to call him about "we need to get him some uniforms."

Creating prepositions is cool and OK, but really, let's leave it to the pros. If anyone else knows of any other cool jargon that isn't nominal or verbal, throw it in the ShoutBox or drop me an e-mail.

In other news, it seems that I just can't win with this Savage Garden thing. Martin says that these guys are from Australia, not Canada. Next thing you know, Japan won't be the capital of China anymore.

Also: Holy Somoles. We'll stick her in the links box if she can meet the requirements previously set forth for Martin Smith.
--McJangles 3:55 AM
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Alright. This post should be neither as long or worthwhile as the last.

I've gotten a bit of heat for posting about Quinn's page after I had an awesome first recording session with the band, but no one seemed to notice that I posted 500 words about left-turn-only lanes without mentioning a word on the topic of my brand spankin' new neice. That said, I had an awesome first recording session with my band, The Hobo Kin, and I have a big new niece, Sarah Ka-ther-in. Not sure on the spelling, so we're going phoenetic, which actually appears to be pretty close.

Regarding the last post, did you all notice first of all, that the numerals were superscript, and secondly, that they were links to the footnotes? They are. I would hate to think all that time spent hunting down that HTML code was wasted. Also, I apologize for the grievous Soundgarden/Savage Garden oversight. I had been looking at the correct words, and in the two seconds it took to get from that window to this, my brain jumbled the band names. All has been corrected.

Next issue, Michael showed me an article that said the Vatican is going to ban queers from the seminary. It may or may not be legit, but I'm going to rail prematurely.
First: The report is from a "senior Vatican official" or some such nonsense, so I'm not going to believe anything it says more than I would believe something my poop says.
Second: If it turns out to be true, I'm officially walking away from the Catholic church. Period.
Third: I wonder if the Pope even personally knows a single out-of-the-closet homosexual. I mean, who does this guy spend his time with? He's been surrounded his entire life by people who, for professional reasons, would need to deny being gay. And it's not like he gets out much. "Welcome to Club LaVela, Pontiff!" I don't think so.
Fourth: What's up with the "objectively disordered" thing? As Michael pointed out, that isn't what the catechism says, and even if it were, it's pretty unsubstantiated. But then again, the Pope and the people who come up with this rubbish have based their entire idea of homosexual culture on seeing Elton John on TV, so I could see where they might feel that way.
Fifth: Is this like a bill going through Congress? Can I write my priest, pastor or bishop to say that this is bullshit? Will they care? Will it matter that I threaten to leave the church? It's not like they need my vote. Appointed for life. What garbage.
Sixth: Furthermore, at this point, wouldn't the church be better off changing the restriction from "no married folk" to "married folk, too" rather than to "no gay folk, either?"

That's all. The more I think about this, the more it seems that it must be fake. And if I'm spending all this time reacting to something that doesn't pan out, I'm going to be pissed. Goodnight.
--McJangles 2:38 AM
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Well, I have four new guestbook entries. I was hoping for posts from creepy people who shouldn't even know about my blog. Michael's faux girlfriend was the closest, but that's only moderately-to-semi-creepy.

Again, with Kadar's blog being incredibly cool. Props for the walkaway on the Malcolm X post.

Now, for the meat: I'm pissed off about the general lack of left-turn lanes and the improper use of the ones we do have.

1) If a road has enough traffic to warrant edge lines, it has enough traffic to warrant a left-turn lane. Dear God, how long must I and countless others (check out the empathy) wait for some octagenarian loon to grow the cojones to pull her car in front of the other car approaching from 1,000 feet away?

2) Also, when there is a turning lane, you don't have to slow down to turning speed just to get into it. You can slow down in the lane. You can even begin slowing down a little in the main road, but please do the bulk of it in the turning lane. Again, you're slowing everyone down (again with the empathy), but more importantly, you're pissing me off.

3) Canada sucks. The people talk like morons. Mounty hats are stupid; curling is stupider. Canadian customs wastes my time by searching my car as though they have any assets to protect. Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain and Savage Garden came from Canada, and 36 Crazyfists is close.¹ Casino Windsor cleans me out every time. I could go on. The few things that I like from Canada include, and are limited to:

Maryanne Bailey-Porter²
Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the Guess Who
Labatt Blue
Maple syrup
That waitress from Pepper's
Good turning lanes.

Canadian turning lanes double as passing lanes. They stick the dotted yellows on the outside of the solid, allowing you to use the center lane to pass the aforementioned, 15-mph-driving loon well before she even reaches Heinen's to buy a package of Oops-I-Crapped-My-Pants.³ Meanwhile, in the greatest country on the planet, I'm stuck behind her sorry sedan while she forgets to turn because she's wetting herself. Damn.⁴

So that's what's been pissing me off lately. Because I probably won't be able to convince ODOT, the USDOT and all the other DOTs to see the light, the best I can do is implore the rest of you to follow a few fairly simple guidelines:

1) Do as much slowing down as you safely can from within the confines of the turning lane.
2) If you have traffic behind you, and you need to do some left-turnin' without the benefit of a special lane, try to cozy up to the center of the road so people behind you can...
3) Drive around the car waiting to make the left turn. It's simple, really. You just pull off onto the berm and drive around.
4) Grow some cojones.
5) Paint a left-turn-only lane around your block.

I can't wait to do a blog on MBP. That will be good.

1: While looking for more examples of bad hockey-rockers, I came across this. The Rolling Stone is hilarious, despite its obvious lack of copy editors.
2: Except when she's in one of her oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-the-incredible.... Time out. This wasn't supposed to go on this long. I'll do a separate MBP entry later.
3: I will never tire of alluding to that sketch. Thank you, SNL. Quinn, did you see that episode?
4: This is where I wish I were Kadar. I could say something like "Danny Jupiter smash things!" Instead, I have to say something stupid like "damn." Double-damn.
--McJangles 3:35 AM
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I think I deserve a Pulitzer for that last post.

Because Quinn refuses to update either of them, I think I'm going to change her link to her Blogger page, which is way cooler because, well, because it's a Blogger page.

Also: As cool as my ShoutBox is, anyone who reads my page but has not yet signed the guestbook is now instructed to do so. Now.
--McJangles 11:26 PM
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I clipped both my fingernails and my toenails yesterday.
--McJangles 10:32 PM
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Yikes. Jay mentioned that rather than initiating my typical weekend ritual of self-loathing on account of accomplishing nothing over the weekend, perhaps I could blog instead. What a novel idea. Apparently, it's been awhile since I last updated.

So what's there to talk about?

Well, there was last weekend, when I also accomplished nothing, self-loathed for an hour, then decided I'd accomplish something next week. That's this week, by the way, when you may recall I failed to follow through on that.

Then there was Monday. Production night, wrote two stories. Stayed late. Pretty exciting stuff. Then there was Tuesday, when I did nothing. Then there was Wednesday. I wore a suit that day and talked to important people and worked on a follow-up story. I bought that suit and another one just about a year ago, expecting that someone--anyone--would die, giving me a chance to wear them. Unfortunately, no one will die, so I had to make up an excuse to wear it. Fantastic fantasy fulfillment. Good times. Then there was Thursday. Again, not accomplishing too much other than fixing Deirdre's archives. I'm going to just delete her archives so we don't have any more problems.

Then, Friday. That was a day where we did stuff. I really don't like David Giffels' column, but he was an interesting person to talk to, so I didn't hate meeting him. Then I took the editing test for Dow Jones. I felt awfully stupid at the end of that. Furthermore, I misspelled "traveling." Double L. How did I do that? Again, the self-loathing. I cried.

Then Martin, Dan and I went to Mariachi Locos, this Mexican restaurant in Cuyahoga Falls. It was pretty good; I'll probably end up going back sometime. Beth showed up and felt like an outcast or something. She cried.

Then the Hobo Kin--minus the Drifter--stood outside the restaurant and looked like badasses. Then they went to shoot pool. Martin had to be on a team. He cried. Martin got poked in the eye with a pool cue. He cried again.

Then--I'm aware of my repetitive "then"--we went to the Beachland, where we saw three pretty good acts: Jive Turkey, the Black Keys and the Green Hornes. I like the Black Keys and may see them in Detroit.

The next day, I did some blotters. Finished early. So proud. Today I watched about four hours of Monk, two hours of Alias and one hour of Boomtown. Three pretty great shows. I'm happy.

Now it's time for bed. This blog is dying. Foo.
--McJangles 2:15 AM
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DarkCounter looks like it doesn't intend to ever come back. I hunted down a new counter service, and because I know you all look to me for guidance with such things, I'll tell you where to get it. Jellycounter. That's right, Jellycounter.

The only thing to watch out for is the pop-ups. If you don't tell it not to, it'll make a pop-up every time you open your page. So go into the general settings and tell it to shut up.

I decided that I would feel dishonest if I set the counter to an estimate of where it was when it went down. So I only have 26 fans right now. That's not too bad, really. Pretty close to 3,000.

And why do I catch so much more heat than anyone else for infrequent updating? Quinn hasn't updated her blog since 1992 or something. She really sucks.
--McJangles 3:19 PM
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That was a pretty good post, I think. I can totally overcome this Beth thing.
--McJangles 12:36 AM
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Remember when I said that I wasn't hurting at all after my run? Scratch that.

I don't know why I even bother thinking. Apparently everything I come up with is already a copyrighted thought of Martin's. How boring and unimaginitive I am. I wish I could be half as insightful as him. At least I wiped the floor with him in pool tonight. We played nine games, four of which he won. None of those four, though, did he win by sinking the eight ball. He just let me scratch shooting for it and so forth. What a no-talent peabrain.

We walked into Action Billiards at about 7:00. There was no music playing, so we fired up the jukebox before we even went to our table. When Martin realized he had put the same song in twice, he suggested I go put mine in before somebody else got pissed and tried to put in their own songs. I stuck a dollar in, but the machine didn't think I did. It thought I put in a five. So instead of three songs, I got 18. Martin and I went to town on that sucker, putting in some solid pool-shootin' tunes. And the slow outtake of "Revolution" from the White Album. And "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." Those are two of the most not-pool-shootin'est songs ever recorded. And "Shine On" is a million minutes long.

People from just about every table went to the jukebox in hopes of getting their tunes played, but we simply had programmed too much. By the time we finished our nine-game series, my last song was just wrapping up. Everyone who had been there when we came in had now left. And the people who were there waiting for songs they had requested would still have to wait for the songs requested by the people who left before us. Thinking back, I imagine we screwed up the jukebox system for the remainder of the night. I love it.

Again, SAS is an evil dungeon of foul-smelling, fire-breathing, evil-auraed Satans. Actually, everyone there was nice to me with the exception of that foul-smelling, fire-breathing, evil-auraed accounts receevin' ho. Because they all suck so bad, I also will not be taking the Buchtelite as a one-credit course. Instead, I have to take Introduction to Windows." Oh yes. Maybe John would like to borrow my textbooks.
--McJangles 11:56 PM
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And I'm back. That wasn't so bad. Not an inch of me is hurting. Going slow is pretty smart. God, I'm fat.
--McJangles 11:10 PM
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I've decided that you shouldn't kill bugs when they're outside. I've decided also, though, that mosquitos are fair game, irredisregardlessfully of venue.

Now I'm going to run around the block. Anyone who wants to laugh at me can probably get out here well before I'm back. Even if you're reading this in the archives.
--McJangles 10:27 PM
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Back already. So my car was stolen last night. Those tools at UAPD thought they were just allowed to call a tow truck and haul that sucker out. I am not happy with them.

I ended up sleeping at Beth's house, where her rabbits attacked my sinuses. I slept in her brother's bed (he did not). But early-like in the morning, I awoke to someone pulling the blankets over my legs and so forth. I figured it was Beth, but there was a lot of heavy breathing, so I then figured it was her mother, who has been sick. I was far too tired to move or say anything, but then as the person walked out of the room, I saw that it was actually her father.

Is that creepy, or is it just me? I mean, my own father doesn't even tuck me in. And what's up with the heavy breathing?

Gyih.
--McJangles 12:37 PM
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Everybody shut up. If you have a problem with me not blogging, you'll have to take it up with Beth. I accept no responsibility for any of it.

Because my life is so interesting that you get upset when you can't read all about it every day, here's the news:

Paper = crazy.
My desk is organized.
I'm a regular at Mariachi Locos.
Quidam is incredible.
Blotters are continuing to contribute to my insanity.
I'm wearing too much deodorant at the moment.
L-train. Not el-train.

Again, shut up.
--McJangles 4:37 PM
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