What the hell...?

4:21:08 AM PST
Feeling Embarrassed

So many of you are going to kill me.

For various reasons.

Point 1.)  I moved my j, for the time being, to AOL-uk.  Trust me, I don't even know how, but I got it done.  My journal, for the time being, is ad free.

Most of you will be glad to hear this, so I don't suspect that you will kill me for this solution to a temporary problem.

My address, by the way: http://journals.aol.co.uk/jeffcomedy/WhattheHell/

Here's the problem.

I smoked a cigarette.  In fact, I drunk drove to the nearest Mobile station to get those cigarettes.  I really, really, really, really, really HATE the fact that I gave in.  In such conditions that I have so many rules about.

And I broke them all to get a pack.

For the moment, I hate myself.

You can read about my feelings about it, and what happened, here: http://journals.aol.co.uk/jeffcomedy/WhattheHell/entries/1237

Anyway, you know where to find me.

  -Jeff (<> <>)

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2:07:11 PM PST
Feeling Angry
Hearing It's All Gone Pete Tong DVD

I had taken a little mini-break from j-land, mostly because when I write, I smoke to think, so I was taking a breather for a little while.  Until the cravings sub-sided a little bit.

They have a lot (Day 14! Two weeks baby!), so I was very excited to get back on and start journaling again.

Only to have this uproar of ads pop-up. (I really need to stop it with these puns).

I wrote a comment in scalzi's entries dealing exclusively with the controversy.  Here's what I wrote:

Dear AOL J-land Overlords:  (not you John, your bosses)

If you can't tell by now, we hate the ads.  So, by extension of the fact that you are the ones that put them there, we hate you.

The reasons are numerous:  We pay for AOL. Our journals are ours.  No notice.  No say on the ads that show up.  No reimbursment for those ads being placed in our journals.  The list goes on and on.

You might think, "But they are only little tiny ads."  Very true, but to us, the J-landers, we have only one little tiny journal in a very big blogsphere.  Most of us, if not all of us, have worked very hard with what we have to make our journals reflect the unique people that we are.  Then to have a corporate logo or, even worse, a credit check ad, suddenly appear makes our space and by extension us look just as cheap and whorish as the rest of the world wide web.

You might also think, "But it's OUR company, OUR space, OUR server, OUR money being spent to make j-land happen."  True, but as mentioned before we are already paying for AOL.  And not everyone who signs up for AOL uses journals.  I don't know all the ins and outs of what you spend for j-land, but I would find it hard to believe that you are LOSING money having it be ad free.

Meanwhile, keep this up and you will be losing valuable customers left and right.

If you still aren't getting on why we feel violated, let me try one more analogy:

It's the equivalent of going to a hair-cutters, getting my hair all nice and trim and spiffy.  I pay her and while I'm walking out the door, she nails a coupon for Starbucks to the back of my head.

Take them down,
 -Jeff (<> <>)

Until this issue is addressed, I'm afraid that the only thing I can do to make my voice heard is to join with the others and refuse to use my journal until AOL recognizes the fact thatit is MY journal, not theirs.  Just like yours is yours.

The irony, of course, is that I'm using my voice now to silence my voice so that I can effectively voice my opinions.

I won't be moving my j anywhere else, not for the time being, because I really do like J-land and the whole communtiy.  But I do need to do something.

And being part of a sit-in seems like the only logical thing to me.

Who's with me?

:::sitting down, very unhappily, wishing AOL wasn't so greedy:::

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1:44:30 AM PST
Feeling Happy
Hearing Beastie Boys "Hello Nasty" CD

It's amazing to me how you can tell who is/was s a smoker from those who never were by their reaction to, "I'm on day three of not smoking."

Smokers:  "Oh, wow, you're almost there man.  Keep going."

Non-Smokers:  "It's only day three?  And you're like this?  Dude!"

What non-smokers don't seem to understand is that smoking, while the most addictive of all drugs, isn't like herion or cocaine or any of the other hard drugs where the withdrawl gradually builds overtime until it feels like you are in the bottom reaches of the pit of despairl.  It hits hard and immediately and does not let up for three days.  There is a constant soundtrack in the back of your mind of, "I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna..."

And I mean constant.  As in during your sleep.

That's probably why I wanted to yell at everyone to shut up.  Because what I really wanted to do was to tell my head to shut it's piehole, and that just wasn't going to do the trick.

Which is why, amongst smokers, day three is known as "hump day."

You have just gone through two days of absolute misery and you just don't ever know when it is going to stop.  The cravings might have eased up a little bit, but it's still there and your body is screaming, "Please!  You've been so good!  Just one!  Not even a whole one!  Just a couple of puffs!"

Most people who try to quit smoking fail on Day Three.

Only thing is, I didn't.

Nope, I haven't had a single one.  In four days actually.

The difference is amazing.

I look back on the past three days, and I'm just saying to myself, "My God.  What the hell was that?"  It's like the past three days are a complete haze.  I'm not even sure if they happened.

I'm serious.  Someone who decides to quit smoking should be able to check themselves into a detox center like the Betty Ford Clinic.  It's that bad.

What's worse is that the bits I do remember I groan about.

For as much as you try to keep you mouth shut and your head down, you WILL snap at someone and it WILL be for no reason.  And later, you feel shame.

I'm not just talking about the two incidents I wrote about in my last entry.  There's an even worse one that happened yesterday, at work, right in the middle of my third day.

I was about to go on break so I ordered my food.  A Chipolte Blue Cheese Bacon Burger (not the healthiest food in the world, but whatever.  I'm not smoking.)  It came out and it was less than perfect.

The top bun had fallen off, the bacon was just scattered on the plate, and the burger itself had split and fallen apart down the middle.

Normally I would have shrugged my shoulders, put the burger back together and somehow dealt with it slightly falling apart.

But no, because of my withdrawls, I threw a hissy-fit.  An actual ,oh my goodness hissy-fit where the words, "Would we serve this to a guest?" came out of my mouth.  I made them throw it away while I had them re-fire a WHOLE NEW BURGER!

Mind you, this is for food that I get a half-off discount.

Should the burger have come out like that?  No.

Should I have made the store eat the costs on a throw-away burger that would have tasted just as good as the second one?  Again, no.

Needless to say when I walked into the store today, feeling a whole lot better, I went up to the manager and told her how sorry I was for the whole thing, that I was very embarrased, and that I hoped we could forget the whole "burger incident."

She was very understanding and told me to let it go.  She then added, "But, if you do that again, I'm smacking you upside the head."

"I'm surprised you didn't do it the first time."

"I almost did, but I was busy."

Point taken.

So, yeah, I feel a whole lot better.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not fooling myself.  I still get cravings every now and then, and I'm still going to keep with the patch program, but the worst is over.  The soundtrack is gone and I only get a flicker every now and then.  It's a lot easier to deal with, trust me.

I want to thank everyone for their support, e-mails, kind words and comments.  I wasn't able to respond like I wanted to, I was in my haze, but they really did help.  I especially want to thank Pam of his1desire for her daily entries.  Seeing you, Pam, go through your hell reminded me of why I was forcing myself to go through mine. 

Because, after all things are said and done, cancer doesn't have a hump day.

Though I really wish it did.

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12:40:50 AM PST
Feeling Anxious
Hearing Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith DVD (what? I really liked it)

Well, it's official.

Actually two official things today.  One is, of course, the fact that I went through a second day of not smoking a single cigarette.

The other official thing is that I bit off the first head for no good reason.  For the people that were around me and worked with me the last time I tried to quit it was like one of those dreaded moments you see in a disaster flick.  Everyone stops what they are doing, looks up and stares in horror as a blue-eye, blonde girl whispers, "Oh, no.  It's starting."

Luckily it was a co-worker and not someone I was waiting on, or that would have been truly disasterious.  But the poor thing just never saw it coming.

She had been warned, though.

You see yesterday, right when I first came through the kitchen, I wrote something on the "Heads-Up Board" for all of my fellow employee's to read.  It was already a notice printed by the management about how everyone needs to park farther away from Chili's because blah, blah, blah....

I scrawled on the bottom:

Also,
    Jeff is on the patch (a.k.a he quit smoking).  Today is his first day.
    If he kills you, you now know why.
                                       Thanks.

So, you see, everyone had been properly warned.  I don't want to be snarky, but I know it's going to happen.

So when I was working today, just like yesterday, I was trying very hard to be nice and pleasant and calm.  In other words, I wasn't saying a damn thing.  Someone actually pointed it out today. 

"Jeff, I think this is the quitest I have ever heard you."

"That's because if I do say anything, it will be really, really mean."

"Seriously?"

"You would not believe the cursing going on in my car on the way to work today."

"You were driving someone else?"

"No, just me.  Yelling at all the other drivers to get off of my freeway."

I was trying to avoid having that happen at work, but there is really nothing you can do.  You just get irritated by EVERYTHING.

I was working in the lounge tonight, which is stressful enough as it is, and quitting smoking just makes it all the more fun.

So when I came around the corner with three things I had to take care of and an order in my head that needed to be placed in the computer, seeing some people standing around doing nothing, blocking my way, just finally made me snap.

I came rushing around, muttering but lound enough for people to hear, "Coming through, coming through.  Please don't block the computers."  I get to the computer and the girl standing in front of it is just not moving fast enough for me, "That means you, Kim."

She turns to me and say, "Jeff, I know you are going through a really...."

I saw exactly where this was going and put a stop to it, "You know, don't even start with  me...[pause]...I'm am so sorry."  I closed my eyes and held my head because it was throbbing.

She just said, "You know what, you said sorry immdieately, and that's what's important.  Apology accepted, Jefe." 

That's not a typo, it's my nickname at work, (it's the Spanish word for "boss") so I knew she was cool with everything.

Actually, she was the first of two people I snapped at today.  But I feel the second person sort of deserved it.

I didn't get a break today and after my shift I was really, really hungry.  I wanted to get some sushi because I love the stuff, and it's healthier than a lot of other restaraunt food, but they close early and the only other thing open nearby was Coco's.  Screw it, I need food.

I go in and my waitress is this little old Asian lady (Oooh, the irony.)

I had just sat down but I knew I wanted to at least drink Diet Coke.

"Can I start you off with..."

"I'd like a..."

"...a beer?"

What a weird way to start someone off.  Coco's is know for a lot of things.  Pies, Cakes, slightly better than diner food, cheap.  Beer is just not one of them.

"Uh, no, but I would..."

"How 'bout a Pepsi?"

"Ah man. It's Pepsi products?"

While I'm sitting there contemplating if I want to get a Pepsi, which tastes like Diet Coke but has all the bad stuff of a regular soda, she starts rattling off her entire beverage list,

"Rootbeer, Lemonde, Ice Tea, Rasberry Ice Tea, Sierra Mist, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Coffee, Tea..."

"I'll just have water, thanks," I said through gritted teeth.

Keep in mind that the entire time that I'm listening to her while trying to think, I'm also hearing in the back of my head, "Cigarette!  You want a Cigarette!  Ask her to ask one of the cooks for one.  Marlboro, Camels, anything.  Hell, you'll take a PalMal right now!"

I ignored it and just concentrated on whether I wanted to eat healthy or throw caution in the wind.  I'm very stressed out by about now, so, of course, I throw caution in the wind.  I'm all set to order and willing to let bygones be bygones.

Except she does that weird interuppting/listing thing again.

"I'll have the Steak and Lobster."  (I know, I know.  Going to a Coco's for surf-n-turf is like going to the Olive Garden for Chinese food.  But remember, I have no caution anymore. The wind blew it away.)

"How would like your steak..."

"I'll have it..."

"....medium-well?"

"No, medium-rare."

"Okay, would you like baked potato...."

"Um, I think s..."

"....mashed potato with gravy, rice pilaf?"

Breathe, Jeff, breathe, "Baked potato would be fine."

"Would you like..."  By this time I've given up.  I already know what I want on my baked potato, which is whatever fixings she's going to list.  I let her do it anyway, "...butter, sour cream, green onion?"

"Yes."

"All three.  That comes with....Chicken White Rice Soup, Cream of Brocolli, or a salad."

"Salad."

"What kind of dressing?"

[pause]

I was momentarily stunned by the fact that she didn't start listing anything.  Apparently that was going to be the one thing she was going to let me guess at.

"Oh, blue cheese.  I would also like to start with the Crab Cakes."

"Okay," she says as she starts to walk off.

"And I'll have a Pepsi."

By now, I hate her.

The food starts coming and I just eat as I read my magazine I had brought in to distract me as well.

She asks me about the crab cakes.  I don't like them but I know if I say anything, I'll probably wind-up flinging them at her.  I say that they are all right.

She asks me about dinner after it has come out.  The steak is a little tough and the lobster a little on the dinky side, but I knew I wasn't going to get a $30 meal for fifteen bucks, so I say it's good.

I keep my answers short and sweet so I have to deal with her as little as possible.

She again later walks by my table.  I completely ignore her and continue reading my magazine.  My eyes are not looking around.  There is no trash on any of my little plates.  My knife and fork are in my hands.  There is food on my plate.  My plate is in front of me.  I'm chewing.  Every little tiny detail says that I am in the middle of my meal.

She says, "Would you like some dessert...Apple Pie, Choco...."

"I'm still eating!" I snap as I whip my head around and glare at her.

She mumbles a sorry and runs off.  Literally.  Well, okay, not quite a run.  But close enough.

She doesn't venture back until I have stacked all of the plates and put them on the side of the table.

"Anything else, sir?"

"Check, please.  Thank you."

She gives it to me and I go up front to pay.  It's the manager handling the cash register.

"How was everything tonight?"

"It was...all right."

"Oh.  Just 'all right'?"

"Yeah.  I'm on my day two of quitting smoking, so I'm a poor judge of anything at the moment.  Everything is just annoying to me."

(Especially your bitch of a waitress.)

You tell me.  Did I have a right to be peeved, or was it just the nic-fits?  Because, honestly, I have no clue.

I'll be so glad when the first week is over, and these cravings go away.

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3:01:25 PM PST
Feeling Anxious
Hearing Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith DVD

I quit smoking today, and this is pretty much what's been going through my mind the entire time:

I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke. I wanna smoke. I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke. I wanna smoke. I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke. I wanna smoke. I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke.  I wanna smoke. 

 

But I'm not gonna. 

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4:21:49 PM PST
Feeling Happy
Hearing Out of Season DVD (3 days to my QuitDate)

Just a quick word.

I've been juggling my schedule at work all over the place so that I could go out over the Halloween weekend with my friends.  With all the other responsibilities I have, it's completely thrown my free time out of whack.

I'm Death, by the way.  It's a lot more elaborate of a costume than it sounds, but I'll tell you more about it when I have a picture.

As I usually do in this kind of situation, I have a quick Chili's story for you.

The other night, I was standing by the computer putting an order.  Mind you, this was near closing, so we were on a bare minimum staff.  One guy comes up to me and, while I'm putting in the order, asks, "Umm, where can I order food?"

I look at him for a second and said, "From, uh, your waiter."

He says, "I meant for To Go."

Oops.

"Oh, right, sorry.  We don't have a To Go person right now.  The bartender will help you."

Another server that was standing nearby says to the man, "I'm sorry Jeff is such a jerk.  You can hit him if you want."

Luckily, the man politely declined.

 

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3:49:42 AM PDT
Feeling Quiet
Hearing Gus Van Sant's Last Days DVD

There are always questions and questionaires and quizes and whatnots going around J-land, asking those what-if's.

Both Patrick and Scalzi have been the main contributors, but we all do it to ourselves.  Always looking for that one question that can gain insight into what we all think.  Or, maybe, ask enough abstract questions, we'll get a clearer picture.  What makes us tick?

What three things would you take with you, if you had to evacuate your house?

Look at the ingredients of your favorite snack food, which seven do you NOT recognize?

Then, of course, there's the grand-daddy of them all:

If you found a magic lamp and a genie granted you three wishes, what would you wish for?

We would all like to think that we have different answers to that one, but we don't.

I think the general answers, what they all boil down to, can be listed in five:

1. Power
2. Fame
3. Money
4. Health
5. Peace

Of those five, for me personally, there is only one that I would actually wish.  And then, it's not even for me.

Let me explain.

We all have the same wishes because we are all in the same boat.  And our boat sucks.  Plus, it's sinking.

We want the easy out.  We dream of winning the Lottery, of getting our wishes granted.  That all the problems that we are facing right now, today, would disappear in a snap.

I can understand that.  I sometimes dream of it too.  What would it actually be like to have all the power I want?  What would it be like to never worry about money again?  What if everyone recognized the amazing personality that I have?

Man, that would be cool.

But then I think of the after effects.

'Cause, here's the problem.  All those things are worth getting, but only if their earned.  If their only gotten in the snap of a finger, then, to me, they aren't worth having at all.

Power would be cool, to tell others what to do and they have to do it, but if I don't have their respect, then they are only robots.  No fun.  No righteousness.

Fame would be cool, but if I'm only famous for being famous, then I'm merely Paris Hilton.  And I REALLY don't want to make that video-tape.

Money would be cool, but if I didn't go through the struggles to really earn it, then I would waste it.  I wouldn't appreciate it for what it was.  Then I would only be like every Lottery winner that ever existed, blowing it all.  Or, worse, I would end up like MC Hammer.  Or Bobby Brown.  (Take your pick, they both fit.)

Heck, most people would think that Peace would be cool.  Especially in the Middle-East.  But, if we are going with the whole magic lamp, snap of your fingerst type peace, then it is worthless.  Just like the Power wish, if it doesn't come understanding, respect and free-will, then it's worthless.  It's only people being robots, with no control over their actions.

The immediate ramifications would be felt, but the long-term would be hollow.

So that leaves only one thing, health.  And, like I said before, it's not even for me.

The easy-out would be to say that I wish that I didn't have to go through the hell week I will be going through on Nov. 2nd, when I quit smoking.  But, even then, I kind of want to go through with it.  It will be one of the hardest things I will do, but when I come out the other side, when I realize that I've done everything in my power to get over my stupid addiction, the victory will be all the more sweet.

No, the only snap of the fingers, I wish it would all go away thing I would wish for is the health problems my parents are going through.  They are suffering right now, through no fault of their own, and I don't want them to go through that.  There is no good reason why my Dad's neck muscles don't work.  There is no good reason why my Mom is going through all the things she is going through.

If there is no good reason why their problems are here, then their problems shouldn't be here at all.

Take it away magic lamp.  Make my parents better.  Let them live longer, better, healthier lives.  The doctors can barely do anything, so it's all up to you.

What's that, you say?  I have two more wishes?

Don't want 'em.  Because the only things I can think of I would rather earn on my own.  Fame, Money, Power, all of it.  That should come from me, not you, magic lamp.

Even Peace.  While that is not up to me, it is up to us.  An even more powerful reason to not have it come out of thin air.

So that leaves two wishes?  Great.  Take those two wishes and add it on to the three wishes of the next person that finds you.

That means five wishes.

If you, dearreaders, found the magic lamp after I was done with it, what you would you wish for?

Besides AOL alerts being in a larger font.  That wish is just silly.

lamp suggested by jevanslink

Editors note:  Besides my entry on my drug addiction, this is one of the hardest entries I have had to write.  I had to slightly cheat it, turning "Lamp" into "Magic Lamp" but it's the only thing that made sense to me.  I hope you appreciate it.

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9:33:10 PM PDT
Feeling Mischievous
Hearing Into The West Disc 1 DVD (10 days to my QuitDate)

My picture over there, in the "About Me" section, shows me with blonde hair.  That's only the half of it. Literally.  At one point, my entire head was blonde.

I wish I had a picture of it, but I don't.

And now it's grown out, so I'm back to my normal color.

One of the hostess at my job asked me, "What happened to your hair?"

"Amazing things happen in Biology.  You see, hair grows...."

She blushed and said, "No, what I mean is, why didn't you re-do it?"

Ah, that's a much better question.

Just so you have a complete idea of the contrast, here's the (half-way) before:

and here's the after (or the now.  Just take your pick, they both fit):

The eternal question is....Which one is hotter?

Kidding.

Sorta.

In reality, the question that I was always getting when I first dyed my hair was, "Why?"

Because I felt I wasn't getting enough attention and I can't afford a BMW. 

Or any other Mass Desctructive Weapon thingy.

That's not entirely true.  I don't really need to do anything to get attention.  I have enough personality and weird stuff coming out of my mouth that I could have the most normal haircut and wear the most boring clothes and people would still say, "Wow.  What a weird/interesting/dorky guy."  (Just take your pick, they all fit.)

But, and ask anyone who dyes their hair at all, sometimes you just need a new look, a new something, to make yourself stand-out from the rest of the crowd.  The more external, the better.

Like I said before, it's a lot cheaper to get your hair colored at the local SuperCuts than it is to buy a luxury car.

Here's the thing about dyeing your hair that most people who do that sort of thing don't speak about.  It's not exactly a secret, but it is something that is never said:

Those of us who dye our hair a new color, don't do it for the new people we might meet.  We do it for the reactions from the people we already know.  Oh, sure, we might say that it's "for a new look," but in reality we do it for the "Ooohs" and "Aaahs" and the looks and the questions.

For a little bit, generally about one or two days, we are the talk of the water-cooler.  Or, in my case since I work at a restaurant, the talk of the soda machine for about two or three days. That's because not everyone works the same schedule, so it might take a couple of shifts for some people to see my new hair. 

And we don't have a water cooler.

After that initially dies down (ha-ha.  I made a pun.  I didn't say it was funny, just pointing out the pun.) we start pretending we have always looked that great with the new people that we meet.

Because you can always spot the little tiny differences in how people treat you.  In the blink of an eye, people will make a snap judgement about you and everything they see about you and react accordingly.  Now, I'm going to totally avoid the "New hair=new confidence=new attitude=new reactions from people" though that probablly has a lot to do with it.  But I think, even without that, you do get different reactions from the old you.

If it's a bad dye job, or a totally wrong color, people are more inclined to shy away from you.

If it's a better hair color for you skin type, people will warm up to you better. And that does happen.  Mother Nature isn't always on the ball with color coordination.  For instance:  baboons.  Blue nose, brown fur, red butt?  Those colors just DO NOT go with each other.

If it's a color that doesn't exactly fit with your skin type, but for some weird reason works, then you get the most interesting reactions of all.  The one that says, "I don't know exactly what to do with your look, how to catergorize it, but you seem interesting."

Which, needless to say, is the reaction I'm going for.

I want to throw people off, but not so off that they shun me.

Why have people go through all the hard labour of figuring out that I'm a little bit out there, when I can so easily do it for them with a quick change of a physical attribute (i.e. dye my hair)?

Which is why I don't like it when people ask really boring questions about it.  If I'm going to go through all this trouble of self-catergorizing myself for your conveinence, at least come up with something creative about it.

"Why don't you do your eyebrows?"  Because I'm not going to put BLEACH anywhere near my EYEBALLS.

"Is that your natural hair color?"  Look, Mother Nature may be off every now and then, but not that often.  It's not my natural hair color and it should be obvious.  Look at my eyebrows. 

"So, do blondes have more fun?"  Don't know.  I'm not a real blonde and most people can tell.  But usually, I have a lot of fun whatever my hair color is.  Despite what I do to my body to change it (working out, dye jobs, whatever) I'm still the weird/interesting/dorky guy I always was.  And still am.

Which, I think, answers the question of why I didn't re-do it.  No matter what I do to the outside, I'm still the same me inside.  Granted, it's fun to have a different hair color, and to throw people off, but that is, most fittingly, just the icing on the cake.  I have a lot more things that make me stand-out from the rest of the crowd.

My height, for instance. (Look! Another pun.  That's also not funny.)

Plus, with the money I save from dying my hair, I might be able to afford that BMW.  Wait...WBM?  Or is it WMB?  DMB?  Anyway, those nukes are expensive.

Blonde:  It's not a hair color, it's a state of mind.

being blonde suggested by candespinn

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1:13:06 AM PDT
Feeling Ecstatic
Hearing NIN "The Downward Spiral" CD (11 days to my QuitDate)

I was getting all ready to do an entry in the continuing "Make Me Write" series because, well, I said I would.

I promise, I will.

But First I had to give a HUGE shoutout to dazeychic because she sent me her completed project for my sidebar.  She needed five people to give her a project so she could load up her 'hey, I know what I'm doing' portfolio.

(If you are getting this entry via alert, get over here and check it out)

Depending on what kind of connection you have, it might take a little time to load, but I have dial-up and it didn't take very long at all.  I'm saying this 'cause look at the bottom!

Slide-show!

Isn't it the shiznit!?!?

(By the way..."The Bio" and "The Begining" are buttons.)

I'm one extremely happy dude right now.

Which is weird, considering that I wasn't nominated for a VIVI.  As I said, and I do have this attitude, I know exactly why it didn't happen and I'm okay with it. 

(Note to self:  If you want people to vote for you, don't fall off the face of the earth.)

Thanks, a really big thanks, must go to all the people who did nominate me.  You had a lot of journals to choose from, some of them really quite superb, so for you to use your vote for me means a lot.

Oh, and because it's the right thing to say (and I actually do mean it), "Congrats to all the nominees.  Good Job."

Actually, I'm just really excited to read all the new journals.  Not to mention that there is already a flame war going on between xzasporated1 and njlittlebear in the comments section of the announcement.  This should be interesting.

So this entry doesn't end on a downer, quick little story for you.

At Chili's, we call our chicken nuggets "Chicken Crispers."  This is because they are actually chicken strips dipped in a tamparu batter, not regular breading, before the are fried.  Different name for a different product.

Well today, I got a new one.  A little boy of about six said to me, "I want the Chicken Strippers."

I laughed about it the entire shift.

For some damn reason, I kept thinking of hens, strutting their stuff, dancing around, sloooooowly peeling off their feathers like a boa.

If I could physically bottle my actual imagination, I would make soooo much money.

Okay, one more quickie. 

Yeah, that's what I said.  And yes, I can do it!

I was talking to a  woman at one of my tables.  I asked her a perfectly honest question that, one second later, I realized sounded very, very bad.

"So...can I box your taco?"

She didn't catch it, but my table behind me overheard and almost fell out of their chairs laughing.  I have never had a harder time keeping a straight face.

I wonder if they use that as a pick-up line in bars in Mexico.

JEFFCOMEDY IN 2006!

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12:16:32 AM PDT
Feeling Silly
Hearing Arrested Development Season 2 Dis 1 DVD (13 days to my QuitDate)

First off, I want to thank everyone for their support on me quitting smoking.  I've tried before, so I know it's going to be hell.  I need all the "Go! Jeff! Go!" I can get.

I'll be perfectly honest.  I was surprised how many people responded.  Some of you, I'm glad to say, I have no clue who you are.  More journals for me to find.  What I'm saying, though, is I knew that a lot of people would be supportive of my descision.  I've gotten enough dirty looks on the street to know that complete strangers would be pleased to know that I'm quitting.

But so many people showed up, I'm starting to wonder if "The O'Reilly Factor" picked up where the Washington Post left off.

"This week:  Is AOL J-land a cult?  One man's life altering descision based off someone's he's never met experiences seems to suggest, 'YES'."

One little thing I should make clear is that I haven't acutally quit yet.  When you sign up with QuitNet, one of the things they as you is how long you think it will take you to prepare yourself to quit.  I said three weeks.

Which makes my quitdate November 2nd 12:00 a.m.

I should start a countdown or something on this thing.

Actually, I'm glad that I'm taking that long.  It gives me time to read all the information and come up with a plan to succeed and all the pitfalls I need to avoid.  For instance, when I quit I also have to watch my soda intake.  Apparently, nicotine helps you break down caffeine really quickly.  So if you quit, but drink coffe or soda like you normally do, you can overload your system.

Which, since I'm going to be in pure agony starting on Nov. 2nd, overdosing on Diet Coke and going into a coma doesn't sound so bad.

Unfortunately, I did Scalzi's little survey thing a while back and I know that I have to drink 310 cans of the stuff to actually overdose.

I only drink 152.  Not even half, dang it!

Some of you might be thinking, "Hold up.  You mean that last entry, the one about 'protein drinks' wasn't you ranting and raving and going loony because you wanted a cigarette?"

Nope.  That was just a plain old crap entry.

Look, 'Coming Clean', 'Yours, Mine & Ours' and 'I QUIT!' were all really, really good.  Even 'My eyes!  MY EYES!' was pretty interesting and funny.

Basically, in my last four at-bats, I hit three homeruns and a double. I was bound to strike out at some point.

Even Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, at the height of their game, would have a swing and a miss.

Before you start thinking I'm getting all egotistical on you, I feel that if I can honestly say, "Yeah, that one was no good", I have every right to say, "That one was genius!"  Now that is fair and balanced. 

Dang it, where's Fox News when you really need them?

Where does this entry fit into the whole scale of what I write?  It's the middle ground.  The entry that bridges what I wrote in the past and what I'm going to write in the future.  Nothing spectacular, but necessary for me to carry on.

Call it my sacrificial bunt.

Okay, even I'm starting to tell myself, "Will you stop it with the sports analogies!?!  You hardly ever watch baseball!  And learn to spell!  Zeesh!"

If you want the real honest truth about how I wrote my last entry, and why it's crap, it's because I hadn't written anything in a couple of days and I really needed to get back on track with the whole 'write one entry per day' thing. So I was desparate.  Confounding the problem was that I had knocked back a couple and I hadn't had anything to drink for several days, so it hit me pretty hard.

I was hammered, and that's what came spewing back out.  Funny enough, it tasted like protein drink.

I think we have all learned a valuable lesson from this.

Friends don't let friends drink and journal.

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