A Survey

Thanks to Kev for posting this survey and giving me something to blog about.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
“Now the flood was on the earth 40 days.”
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch?
A bowl of cut up angel food cake. It’s for a dessert for my sis-in-law’s wedding
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Wii bowling. Does a video game count?
4. Without looking, guess what time it is.
10:00am
5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
11:22am! I’ve gotta get moving.
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
My nephew eating a cinnamon roll
7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
This morning. Running.
8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Lyndsay
9. What are you wearing?
Jogging shorts and t-shirt that says Monk on the back.
10. Did you dream last night?
Nuttin’
11. When did you last laugh?
A minute ago when I typed “weeding” instead of “wedding” on number 2.
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Pictures and culinary artwork (I’m in a kitchen).
13. Seen anything weird lately?
No.

14. For some reason Kev skipped 14. So take a moment to get something to drink. Okay. Ready?

15. What is the last film you saw?
Casablanca. On my laptop.
16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
I’d pay off my bills. Then I’d buy Lyndsay her own Macbook.
17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know.
Lyndsay started calling me Monk when we were dating.
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or 
politics, what would you do?
Insert Miss South Carolina-type answer here.
19. Do you like to dance?
Take it or leave it. Does headbanging count?
20. George W Bush:
has W for a middle initial.
21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Sally Avey
22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Joshua Lewis
23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Only to get away from the U.S. Federal government’s over-reaching and violation of the Constitution. That was a mouthful.
24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gate?
“How’s my favorite created being?”
25. Four or Five people who must also do this quiz in THEIR journal?
Is that a question? Whoever wants to. I just desperately needed to blog something.

A Bit of Jeeves & Wooster

Last year I discovered P.G. Wodehouse’s wonderful stories of Jeeves, the valet, and the humorous dim-witted gentleman  he serves named Bertie Wooster.  Not long thereafter Lyndsay and I found that some years ago there was a British television series called “Jeeves and Wooster.”  The part of Jeeves was played by Stephen Frye and the role of Wooster was played wonderfully by one of my favorite actors, Hugh Laurie (”House, MD”).

Here is one of my favorite scenes from the show. It depicts one of the many times Bertie gets Jeeves to help him fill out a song he is trying to sing.  If you enjoy it, you can get “Jeeves and Wooster” DVD’s from Netflix.  You should really check out the show.

Worst Fight Scene of All Time

Hate to say it, but this one is definitely a lame-o. Sorry, Kirk.

Best Fight Scene Ever

From the film “Undefeatable”. Never heard of it. But you gotta see this clip through to the end. “Yeah, SEE ya!”

Whopper Cologne Does Not Equal Good Food

“The scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

I am not sure how to take this. Burger King has their own cologne. It is called Flame. The slogan for this new scent is “Fire meets Desire”. Sounds interesting. But by some accounts I have heard it smells like…well, it smells bad. It supposedly gives off a flame-broiled scent (translation: it smells like a hamburger).

There is something funny going on at BK. Over the past few years their marketing campaign has been interesting if not genius however I still do not know anyone who enjoys eating there. By the same token, nearly everyone I know loves the amazing marketing efforts of Geico, but I only know of one person who might actually be saving a ton of money on his car insurance…and he works there. Burger King has truly given Geico’s advertising (gecko, cavemen) a run for its money in the creativity department. Remember when Burger King first introduced the King? Basically it was a guy (I suppose it could have been a female) dressed in kingly garb with an oversized head complete with medieval beard and mustache and sporting a crown. The gag for a while was a “wake up with the King” bit to promote BK’s breakfast menu. Unsuspecting citizens would awaken to start their day only to find the very creepy-looking King in their bed or bathroom or elsewhere in their home. Strange, but humorous.

But a cologne? They even have a website for Flame and other than the fact that it smells like a burger there is not anything particularly humorous about it. Again I do not know how to take this. I can not figure out if Burger King is serious or not. Are they going for the same creepy but funny factor that they tapped with the King or do they really hope guys will spray Flame on themselves, enjoy it, and be so pleased with the success with the ladies that it brings them that they become loyal Burger King customers?

It is really kind of surrealist of them is it not? I mean, the juxtaposition of charbroiled burgers with personal body scent and romance is startling. I feel about this advertising campaign the way I do about any art that I have ever viewed in a public gallery: I feel like I should get it and I would feel more intelligent if I did, but I simply do not. An “art person” can look at a painting of a blue barn in the desert and declare “this touches my soul on so many levels.” I can look at the same painting (and I am not an uncultured guy in my opinion) and declare “ha! Yeah right. Like, who’s going to build a barn in the desert?!” Is anyone else getting something more out of the Flame advertising campaign because I am just not connecting the dots. Like, who’s going to spray hamburger smell all over themselves?!

Josh H.

Everyone Should See Spinal Tap At Least Once

Honest Scrap—In Yo’ Face!

I have gotten plenty of memes in my time as a blogger but never an honest-to-goodness award. Angi over at We Sleep for Dreaming has nominated me with the prestigious (yet most likely unheard of)…

Honest Scrap Award

When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it (hence my over-the-top cocky title for this post), including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to said person so everyone knows he or she is real. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have 7 friends. Show the 7 random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Weblog.” Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. List at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!

Ten honest things…okay, here goes:

1. I don’t know if I seem this way to others or not, but I’m actually a little vain. I care about how my clothes and hair look—and yes, sometimes messy IS the look I’m going for.

2. I have been a nail-biter for as long as I can remember. But I have quit for extended periods at least a hundred times. I am now in one of those no-biting periods. Is it for keeps? We’ll see. And for the record, nail biters don’t bite because it feels or tastes good. Nor do we bite simply because we’re nervous. Usually it has to do with trying to smooth out a jagged nail and we can’t quite get it. It’s an OCD thing. It has nothing to do with sadism.

3. One of my aspirations is before I buy the farm I want to write at least one book and have it published.

4. I am vain when it comes to objects I own too. I am an aesthetics kind of guy. I like for my electronic gadgets to not only perform their basic function but to look awesome while doing so. This does NOT make me metro!

5. I sometimes daydream about what I’d say in press conferences if I were the President.

6. I prefer nonfiction over fiction.

7. My first “favorite band” was Guns n’ Roses. I started playing guitar because I wanted to be like Slash. The hair never quite worked out though. I do own a Gibson Les Paul though.

8. When I was 16 my dad, who lived in North Carolina then, bought my first car for me. It was in his name so it had a NC license plate and for some reason that embarrassed me despite the fact that no one ever said anything about it.

9. Every morning when I get out of bed the first thing I do is hook my iPod up to my Macbook and let it download and sync my latest podcasts. Wow! That totally made me sound like an Apple fanboy.

10. Sometimes at work in my cubicle I lip sync to what I’m listening to on my iPod.  I’ve nearly been caught a few times.

Now that you have all that dirt on me it’s your turn; I’m talking to you…

Steve at Undeception

Heather at Heather’s Hodgepodge

Jason at Jason & Kimberly

Matt at Shared Ignorance

Leah at 152 Insights Into My Soul (just helping you get to 152)

Heath at Inside the Shack

and of course…

Zeez at Rear Window Ethics (who really, really needs some blog ideas)

Thanks, Angi, that was fun.
Josh H.

The Night Before Christmas – Educated Version

Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
yuletide celebration. And throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity
was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that
species of domestic rodent known as mus musclus. Hosiery was meticulously
suspended from the forward edge of the wood-burning caloric apparatus, pursuant
to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an eminent visitation from an eccentric
philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St.
Nicholas.

The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
accommodations or repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations
of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums.
My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about
to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous
exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance
that I felt compelled to arise with alactrity from my place of repose for the
purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof.

Fastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this
fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as
it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to
rival that of the solar merdidan itself; thus permitting my incredulous optical
sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by
eight diminutive specimens of the genus ragifer. Piloted by a minuscule aged
chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that
he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power traveling
at what may have been more vertigiuous velocity than patriotionalar predators,
he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted lasia, and
addressed each of the octet by his or her respected cognonen; Now Dasher, now
Dancer, et al. Guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode,
through which structured could readily distinguish the concatenations of each
of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.

As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a
180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved, with utmost celerity in
animal pelts soiled by the ebon residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels
which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor
I attributed largely to the planthora of assorted playthings which he bore
exorsally in commodious cloth receptacle.

His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary
dermal indentations gave every evidence of exgaging amiability. The
capillaries of his molar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with
blood which suffused the suboutaneous layers, the former approximating the
coloration of albion’s floral embelem, the latter that of the prunus avium, or
sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and superalabials resembled nothing so much as
a common loop knot, and their amdent hirscule facial adornment appeared like
small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.

Clenched firmly between his incisors was smoking piece whose gray fumes,
forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative
seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he
waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner
of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was as short,
neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical
perception of whom rendered me visible frolicsome despite every effort to
refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and
rotating his head slightly to one side he indicated that trepidation on my part
was groundless.

Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned
hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted
from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon
completion of his task, he executed an abrupt about face, placed a singular
manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his
cranium forward in a gesture of leave taking, and forthwith effected his egress
by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in
a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through
his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds among the seed-bearing
portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible
immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility:

ECSTATIC YULETIDE TO THE PLANETARY CONSTITUENCY, AND TO THAT SELFSAME
ASSEMBLAGE, MY SINCEREST WISHES FOR A LUGUBRIOUSLY BENEFICIAL AND GRATIFYINGLY
PLEASURABLE PERIOD BETWEEN SUNSET AND DAWN.

Faux Macbook

I have such wonderful friends. One of those great friends is Ray Williams. Ray has recently joined the ranks of Mac users of which I have been a member since 2005. Saturday, June 2 Ray purchased an Apple Macbook. But he was not about to let his dear friend, Josh, go without joining in the fun.

So out of the goodness of his heart, Ray gifted me with a Faux Macbook. It has all the looks, charm, and chic of the other Macbooks, but with ZERO functionality! No more worries about the battery going dead because it doesn’t have one!. No more fretting about a screen with stuck pixels, because there are none!. I can rest assured that I will never use up the space on my hard drive, because…well, you get the idea. It even came equipped with a built in binder for storing all my important hard copies.

But Seriously, Folks

There is a funny story to tell here. Ray brought his (real) Macbook over the other day to get me to help him with a few things since he’s still learning how to use his Mac. Well after we were finished I showed him that I still had the fauxbook that he had given me and he jokingly opened it and set it up on my desk. We had a good laugh about it and then I saw him to the door as it was time for him to go. Upon his departure, Lyndsay and I went to her parents’ house to eat dinner. I left earlier and came home to finish mowing the lawn. I walked in the front door, grabbed my iPod, and headed to the back door. In order to go out of our back door you have to go through our library which is where the computer desk is located. I glanced at the desk, gasped out loud, and listened to the thought that screamed through my head in shock, “Oh no! Ray left his Macbook here!!” Now there is something about these kinds of moments where all of these thoughts happen seemingly at once. When you are recounting them they take several moments to say, but in the actual moment it all seems simultaneous. As soon as the voice in my head completed stating the fear that Ray had forgotten to take his Macbook home, another voice seemed to come up on its heels and say “You’re a moron.” You have no doubt guessed by now: I mistook the faux Macbook for the real thing.

Moral of the Story: Ray makes things look real.

Josh H.

The Wonder Years: The Horne Chronicles

I have long been a fan of the early nineties television show “The Wonder Years”. You remember it, right? The show in which a grown up Kevin Arnold narrates the happenings of his young life. Young Kevin is played by Fred Savage. Now putting aside the creep factor of the idea of this strange guy who sits around talking about his years in junior high and early high school, while possibly being unemployed (and who is he talking to anyway?), the show is quite entertaining. There have been times that I could very much identify with the feelings and frustrations of Kevin Arnold .

At any rate, as I sat watching a rerun of the show tonight, I began to wonder (no pun intended) what a similar show about my life might be like. There would be a few key considerations. I, of course, would want to do my own narration. But great consideration must go into who would play the young me. This proves to be a difficult task since there is no current young actors that I would dare pretend to be me.

My first choice would be Michael J. Fox. Now of course he is quite old now so we would have to invent time travel (which he can probably help us with since he was the star of “Back To the Future”) and go back and get the young Michael as he appeared in Family Ties. First of all, like me, Fox is short. Second of all, Back To the Future is my favorite movie of all time and I just think it would be so rad to have the guy who played Marty McFly portray me as a junior high schooler.

My second choice would be David Moscow who played young Josh Baskin in the movie “Big”. Though he looks like a dolt now that he is grown, I think his performance as a young man would nicely capture my personality when I was that age. Plus “Big” is also a favorite of mine. Again, we would have to call on the time traveling know-how of Michael J. Fox.

“The Wonder Years” opening theme song was Joe Cocker’s rendition of “With a Little Help from My Friends” (originally by the Beatles). This is an appropriate choice considering the time period in which the show was set. But since my show would have to be set in the late eighties/early nineties, I would have to choose an appropriate song. My choice would have to be “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears For Fears, unequivocally my favorite song from the 80’s. I used to have that album on vinyl and would listen to that song over and over. I just loved it.

There would of course be many other factors to consider: who would play my childhood best friend, Rodney? Who would play my mom and brother? Would it be filmed on location in my hometown of Eastman or somewhere else? All such considerations would take more paragraphs than I care to write or you care to read. But I think that I have laid some good groundwork for such a program. So if any major television execs are reading this and are interested, have your machine call my machine!

Josh H.