Day 2432 - In Soviet Russia, Piñata Hits You!

Hey there Internet,

I wanted to let you know that I went to a party today. Like a real party. Not that all the other parties I've been to weren't real. (In fact, I went to a birthday party for my friend Sam Spudnik this weekend that was quite enjoyable--we sang happy birthday and everything).

It's just that all those other parties seemed to be lacking something. They somehow didn't have that quintessential element. In my head I thought, "this is a party," but in my heart I thought, "this doesn't seem to be leading towards any sort of thematic climax." And maybe not all parties need that. But some parties do.

Today I went to a party that had everything. Today I went to a party that had a piñata.

I think the best thing about a piñata is not even the actual piñata. The best thing about a piñata is watching a blindfolded person swing a bat while everyone else at the party tries to stand as far away from the piñata as possible. Everybody is plotting the trajectory that the piñata will take if the batter manages to hit it off of the string.

The best parties, in my opinion, have piñata trajectories that head straight towards the bowl of punch, or into something expensive, or at the crotch of an important person. There's your thematic climax everybody.

I ate about ten Pixy Stix, and my tongue turned blue. It was a nice party.

Love always,
-jim.

Day 2425 - Moved

So it's official. I've moved.

This is "the [jim]b[o]log" version 2.0. Welcome.


Here's post #1:


Hey there Internet,

I'm feeling pretty bored today, so I thought I would undergo a massive life change and move my blog over from ye olde Xanga to a completely new place filled with uncertainty and doubt. So that's been cool.

In other news, it's becoming more and more evident that I am getting close to the end of my college career and the beginning of the real world. I am a senior. Get your caps and gowns folks, because we're in the home stretch and all bets are off. Congrats Grad! Alumni Association Bumper Sticker! "Oh the Places You'll Go!" Framed diploma!

I am afraid that there is only one job out there for someone with a B.A. in Creative Writing (and Liz Sandifer takes that one job on Wednesday).

It's time to decide what I'm going to do.

Thus here is the GRE word of the day:

Ameliorate
(verb)
to make better, to improve

"Jim enrolled in a karate class, hoping to ameliorate his chances of getting that stunt-double job."

That's right folks. We're headed for grad school. It's written in the blog and that makes it a fact.

New life path officially starts . . . NOW!

love always,

-jim.

Day 2374 - How to Make More Money Than Your Parents

Great news everybody!

So, I'm at home in Littleton and my dad just told me about a book he heard about called How to Make More Money Than Your Parents. And apparently this book talks a lot about some new sort of technology called blogging . . . or maybe it's blegging? I hope I'm saying that right.

Anyway, I'll fill you all in about blugging, just in case you haven't heard yet. So here we go. . .

Apparently you just get on a computer and write stuff. Just any old thing that you feel like writing about. Any person can just write their thoughts and call it a blag. There are bligs about cooking, and about hockey, and about crafts. I even read one blyg that was just a guy ranting to this history textbook author that he really didn't like.

But anyway, the book says that just writing down all your thoughts in a blag can make you a lot of money.

Which brings me to my next point--You all owe me five bucks.

thanks,

-jim.

Day 2368 - Yet another realization

Si quelqu'un veut un mouton, c'est la preuve qu'il en existe un.

Hey again Internet,

Just wanted to let you know something. I have yet again realized that I am growing up. Now I know you've heard this before and are probably tired of hearing it, but I just need to say that it is now clear that I am becoming an adult. Completely and unarguably clear.

Tonight I went to the wedding of one of my oldest childhood friends. And I have to tell you Internet, it was funny to think that a person I grew up now has a different last name. And obviously I've had friends that have gotten married before, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But I've known this particular person for the past 21 years, and it was weird to say that I was going to the wedding of somebody that I grew up with. It's one thing to go to the wedding of somebody that you met in college or high school, but it's quite another thing to go to the wedding of the person who you built forts with in first grade.

And I needed you to know, Internet, that this wedding really made me realize what family is. I feel like this is another realization that I make very often, but I think that it is important to recognize that feeling when it comes to you. The feeling that there are people in the world you care about you, who care about what the world is like because you are in it, who care about not just your presence but also your absence. I want more than anything to be able to feel that all the time.

I want to constantly feel like I am not just in the world, but also a critical part of someone's world. And I think that would be nice.

Right.

I feel like I should end on a less philosophical note . . .

There was one brownie left in the fridge, and I ate it with no regard for other peoples' claims to it. It was delicious, and I have no regrets.

Best of luck to the happy couple!

Love always,

-jim.

Day 2366 - A Blog Written Like Dan Brown?

Hey there internet,

I found a website today, called www.iwl.me, that analyzes your writing and then compares it to famous authors. Needless to say, I was fairly intrigued, and I thought I would try it out.

Here are the results:

"I Write Like" tells me that most of my stories are written like David Foster Wallace. Some are Kurt Vonnegut. My essays are like H.P. Lovecraft. My last few blogs are written like Stephen King and Charles Dickens. After discovering this, I am feeling pretty confident in my writing ability.

But then it gets better. . .

Apparently my resume is written like Vladimir Nabokov.

That crappy story I wrote about Atilla and the ponies?--written like H.G. Wells.

The speech that "the Master" gives at the end of Manos: The Hands of Fate?--written like William Shakespeare.

And I'm sure that when you all read this excerpt from craigslist you immediately think of Chuck Palahniuk:

"Free dog kennel. Upper part of the plastic is cracked. First come, first gets. No holding."

I start to think that this website might not be all that reliable, so I do some fact checking. I find out that the site's programmer is a 27-year-old Russian guy named Dmitry Chestnykh. So on a base level we should probably assume that the works written in English may not be accurate.

In other words, my resume is definitely like Nabokov.

Just thought you should know,

-jim.

P.S. I'm seeing Inception tonight. Super stoked.

Day 2320 - How NOT to Write

Currently Away We Go see related

Hey there everybody!

As promised, here is a picture of sunburned feet:


Yep. Not too shabby.

So I was debating on what I should write about on the blog for this entry, and I realized that I haven't posted any story ideas on the blog in a while. However, I haven't really written much recently, so I thought that I would share a story that I found while I was cleaning my room today.

This is circa 2007, and I don't feel bad sharing it here because I am confident that it will never be published anywhere else. Ever.

So without further ado, here is "A Writing Exercise from E210"--also titled, "How NOT to Write."

---

Sweat ran down Atilla's muscular body as he darted back and forth, eyes about to pop out of his head. He had never seen anything like this. He had fought for four years in the octagon, he was the master of the cage match, and he held three all-time records on American Gladiators. Atilla was the sort of guy who ate small children for breakfast and washed them down with a gallon of kitten blood. He could take anything that the world could throw and him, and he would throw it right back. Then he would beat the shit out of the world for being so stupid as to throw things at him.

However, the fact remained that this wasn't a wrestling match or a fight to the death. This was something entirely different.

It all started when Atilla was awoken by the sound of laughter. This startled him, as he normally awoke to the sound of "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. He considered this to be his unofficial theme song and set his alarm clock to play it every day at three in the afternoon. This was when Atilla would normally stumble to his feet and wipe the strand of drool from his gargantuan lower lip.

So, needless to say, the sound of high pitched giggling was unexpected. Yet even more strange was what Atilla heard next.

"Wake up sleepy head," said a squeaky voice. The voice giggled. There was light, airy music beginning to play all around. The music was the clinky sort of rhythm that can be perfectly accompanied with a kazoo.

Atilla groaned.

"Ugly man," said the voice, "wake up!" Atilla felt something fuzzy prod him in the side. Giggles.

Atilla rolled over. He opened his eyes. The lids tried to cling together, a crusty residue trying to bind them. This sort of thing was normal for Atilla. There was normally a coating of sweat, grease, and booze that engulfed his body. Atilla's eyes slowly started to adjust to the light, which seemed much brighter than the gloom of his basement apartment. Then the picture began to focus.

"Good mowning ugly man," said the voice. It came from a little girl who was sitting at a tiny pink table covered with tiny tea dishes. She sipped from a tiny plastic cup and had long pigtails that were each tied with a bright pink bow. She was wearing a flower print dress and sitting on pastel green grass. She poured some more tea into her cup and looked at Atilla with a big smile.

Around her at the table were: a blue bear who slowly buttered his toast with a chuckle, a bunny who wrinkled her nose as she eyed Atilla over a plate of tea cakes, and a puppy who licked the inside of a tea cup as its tail wagged slowly.

It was like a nightmare. Atilla's muscles began to tense, the veins bulging under his shining, greasy skin. He bared his teeth like an attack dog as a long strand of bubbly spit fell to the ground. As Atilla turned, growling at each new terror he saw, he began to realize how very out of place he really was. He leaned forward like an ape, knuckles grazing the ground, and growled.

"Mr. Man is angwy."

Atilla kept crouched, glaring at each creature thoroughly before moving on to the next. He wanted to go to bed, but knew that it would be impossible in a place like this. He considered how long it would take to beat the crap out of each creature and rip each daisy out of the ground, throw each toadstool into a ditch, and drain the magical river that trickled behind the tea party. He was not going to b able to create a state of destruction in which he could sleep for a long while.

However, seeing no other alternative, he lifted his foot to move forward and attack. He brought the foot down, crushing a daisy with a tiny *quilp!* He lifted the tiny bear off of the toadstool that he was sitting on and was just about to tear his head from his body in a really violent way when he heard a pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter behind him. He dropped the bear, who giggled and began to run around in circles. Atilla turned.

"Just what I need," he said, "goddamn ponies."

There were about nine of them who pranced up over the hill. Their brightly colored manes blew in the wind, and tiny little sparklies hovered in the air in their wake.

Atilla charged the ponies, grunting as he ran, crushing daisies, dandelions, leprechauns and fairies beneath his feet. He made contact with the first pony: a strong right hook to the pony's jaw. There was a cracking sound and the pony fell to the ground.

There was silence for a moment.

Then the ground began to rumble and the fallen pony shot out a terrible bright light. The sounds of kittens purring, children giggling, and kazoos blaring filled Atilla's ears. Light shot all around him in a terrible rainbow and he yelled as loud as he could to drown out the noise.

When the light was gone, a rainbow covered the sky and where the fallen pony had lay there now stood four ponies. They were larger, cuter, and had more sparklies. Atilla punched another, the light returned, and four more ponies appeared where the first had stood.

Atilla began to run.

He barreled across the grass past the magical river, punching ponies left and right. For each one he punched, four would appear and the rainbow in the sky would expand. The rainbow began to burn itself into Atilla's mind, visible even when he closed his eyes.

Atilla bolted up over a ridge, ponies dashing past him, around him, over him. Before him was a giant field filled with fairies and gnomes. In the center of the fired, next to a tiny grove of daffodils, was a door. Above the door was a sign. It's pink lettering was surrounded by tiny sparkles, that shone in the sunlight.

BACK TO THE REAL WORLD, it read.

Atilla threw himself against the door. It didn't budge. He tried turning the knob. Nothing.

"Looking for this?" It was the little girl from the tea party. She held a long red ribbon in her hand. Dangling from the ribbon was a large gold key.

---

Oh dear.

What a shame that I never came up with an ending. It really could have brought together all that intense character development that I had going. Crying shame.

Sorry to have put you all through that.

love always,
-jim.

Day 2305 - Torture for my Unbearable Crime.

So the semester is finally over, and that means that I am going on vacation.

I will be in Maui for the next week facing unbearable torture. Like really unbearable folks. The sitting-on-the-beach-in-the-sun-with-a-cool-drink sort of torture. Hopefully I will make it back alive. Be glad that you are here with the safety of your jobs and responsibilities and rainy afternoons to hold you down. That must be so nice you lucky jerks.

On an unrelated note, I need to get something off of my chest. It's been bothering me.

So I went to sell back my textbooks the other day, and guess what happened.
(pause for guessing).
They bought back American Exodus for $9!

I'm partially excited because I got $9 for selling something that I should have paid them to take, but at the same time I'm very frustrated because that means my book is going to be used in another class next year. I have basically thrown another student to the wolves.

The person buying back books shouldn't have said, "American Exodus . . . nine dollars." They should have said, "Oh this. . ." and then opened a nearby blast furnace. But they didn't. They let the evil book survive like the Jumanji game.

And all I can think is: I have tied a poor student to the train tracks and now I am twirling my mustache and laughing maniacally waiting for them to get hit by the American Exodus Express. In exchange for $9.

It's a gruesome picture. I will have to ponder it while I am being tortured on the beach for the next week.

love always,
-jim.

P.S. Pictures of my soon to be sunburned feet coming soon!