johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
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the one that smells like onions
This place reeks of onion rings, but no one is claiming responsibility.
On a completely separate note, Dairy Queen thinks it's natural to put onion rings and a chicken quesadilla together and call it a basket, and then they hid things like black olives or something I've never eaten on purpose inside the quesadilla. I think the little red sauce thing for the onion rings might have been salsa? I can only imagine Gordon Ramsay's reaction if someone dished that up for him.
There's been such a dearth of new TV episodes lately that I watched a couple of old episodes of Spartacus: Blood & Sand on JTV the other night. Sword practice is one of my favorite things in the world, but this bugs me, and three fourths of the show is muscled guys in almost no clothes, or full frontal, or oiled up and full rearal (it could be a word), or having gay sex, or "regular" sex. The battle scenes are rougher than the first ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan. They hack heads and legs and arms completely off, in slow motion, then there's a freeze frame splash of blood that has me worried about the inside of my monitor. I expect to see it oozing out the bottom. In one fight scene the other day, a guy pulled out a kind of knife to cut off a guy's face, because his own face had been previously cut off and he wanted a replacement.
But I'm bored, and curious, and there are some interesting looking topless or naked women popping up occasionally. I'm through eleven episodes now. My favorite character is a well-spoken woman who's freaking gorgeous. I've seen her go nuts and smash a woman's face into the floor until she died, and next episode she seduced a fifteen year old boy on his birthday so she could get him to switch contestants in a gladiator exhibition and force a guy to kill his best friend. But she's blond, and has a nice smile, so I like her.
I guess we become desensitized to things. I watched six episodes of The Walking Dead, and saw Zombieland a few times, so if I see a zombie, I instinctively think someone should shoot it with a shotgun.
Christmas seems to be giving me a miss this year, so I'm kind of focusing on the new year, and what I should leave in 2010 to make 2011 a better place. I'm pretty sure pro cycling should make the list. There's just too much organized anger out there. Twitter is meant to be "social", but guys from bike forums spill out and find each other and try to harass riders and writers and people who disagree. There's just too much drama in the sport that exists off the bike.
If I watch football, or tennis, it's like a movie. I turn it on, am entertained, maybe inspired a bit, then it's over and I move on. I don't need to read everything about it, or argue, or whatever.
Remember Kevin from Harlaxton, the guy who sang and played guitar for the AllForNots show? He's my recent reminder of what it means to be passionate about something. He got his Theater degree ten years ago, but works bartending jobs so he can play gigs and have a flexible schedule.
He's got a new band, and new songs, and wanted to do an album. He needed $8000 for a bare bones effort with studio time, sound engineer, recording, etc.
He made an appeal on the Kickstarter website. It's a place where people can help fund Arts projects if the entire amount is pledged within 28 days. Artists offer rewards for different levels of donations. Two people gave Kevin $360 each, and in return he's going to give them each a private acoustic concert at their homes or whatever in New York. For other people, he has to come up with parody songs about them, or record cover songs for them. A bunch of people kicked in enough that they get to sing along on one of the songs - imagine trying to schedule that for forty or so different people. For others, he's recording musical messages for their answering machines, or they get digital copies of the album, or a CD.
The guys in the band have to take a week off from their jobs with no vacation pay so they can travel to the studio. They actually raised over ten thousand dollars, so they'll actually be able to buy sandwiches or something, plus they'll have more studio time for editing, or maybe they'll add instruments or something. But the guy is working so hard to come up with an album a decade after college, and in his free time he'll be doing all the other stuff, and it's all because he's passionate about something. His whole life revolves around it.
The diet hasn't kicked in. I've been baking from boxes of cake or brownie mix pretty much every day, and/or using buy one get one coupons like the one at DQ today. I'm always alone on Christmas Day, so maybe I'll get in a Tombstone pizza or something before the snow hits Friday. We've still only had an inch this season, but are due for a bit Christmas Eve.
Otherwise there's been nothing going on. JTV is annoying the heck out of me with something that defeats AdBlockerPlus, so when I go to see what's playing on twenty channels, I have to hear the same damned ads repeated first or the video won't stream. I end up watching something like South Park or Big Bang Theory for hours in a row.
I still have a dream of starting the new year with hot running water, so hopefully my work ethic will kick in soon and I'll start getting the place ready.
I've been writing "Happy Holidays" lately, trying to remember that there are a number of holidays celebrated this month, but now every time I do it, I flash back to the somewhat weak 30 Rock episode, with Jack's Christmas card that had
"Happy Holidays...
is what terrorists say. Merry Christmas!"
Merry Christmas!
9:33 p.m. - Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010
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