Today at work was interesting. Not because of the work, mind you; that was, as usual, boring. But what made today neat was I got to talk to a stripper for a while. This hot, tall redhead came up to me and said she had three disposable cameras to develop. She added that she was a stripper, and that some of the pictures on one camera would probably have some nudity, since she and some of her work-friends were fooling around with the camera. I told her it’d be no problem. At all. We spoke for a bit, and I mentioned that I had a friend who once was a stripper, so then we talked strip clubs for a few minutes. After a while, she said she had some groceries to get, but added that I could print out any extra photos I wanted and that she would buy them for me. I developed her pictures, but sadly there were no naked photos — she said she’d brought in the wrong camera. Brandie (that was her real name; her stripper name was “Sinn”) took my name down, and said any future pictures she brings in, she’ll ask for me to do them. She also gave me her work schedule, and said I should come by some time. “Absolutely,” I replied. She left, and my day returned to its exceedingly boring state. Man, strippers are sweet.

I’m getting ready to go pick up Jason and head over to Nick’s in a short while. I’m also supposed to pick up Andrew, but that fucker won’t answer his phone. So Andrew, if you’re reading this before 8:30 pm on Wednesday —

Answer your phone!

JAB

Today hammered home how I need to get out of the house for a bit on my days off. Fridays and Sundays, my regular days off, are never much of a problem. On a typical Friday I go to Habitat in the morning, and then hang out with Jason in the afternoon. On Sundays, I generally do some sort of yard work in the morning and go out to dinner in the afternoon. I’m generally only home on these days in the evening. But the random third day off always seems to kill me because I feel like shit on that day. Today I was all stuffy and had a headache, until around five or so when I ate dinner with my pop and then went running/working out. Now I’m feeling fine. I think I’m allergic to Ohio generally, and my house specifically. Whenever I’m out of town for any period of time, my sinuses clear up and I seldom have a headache. But not in Ohio — this state sucks.

I did get one major thing accomplished today: I registered on Monster.com and uploaded my resume for the most part. I started doing this while feeling my worst and stopped midway to go lay down, so I might finish either tonight or tomorrow. I also ordered two sweet books online from Abebooks: Moreau’s Other Island and In the Drift. The Moreau book is sort of a sequel to The Island of Doctor Moreau and is being shipped from the UK. In the Drift is an older novel by one of my most favoritest writers, Michael Swanwick. Strangely, the Moreau book is scheduled to ship here faster that the Swanwick book, even though the latter is shipping from Arizona.

This should be a good week — photolab night is being held at Nick’s this Wednesday, where we will be playing Halo 2. Should be fun since none of us are too terribly and unfairly orgasmically good at that game (*cough* *cough* Bill). Brandon claims to be, but he also claimed to be good at pool, and…well, he didn’t exactly live up to boasts.

And then Friday, Serenity at last — at last — comes out. Jason and I are seeing it Friday, and I might possibly be seeing it with Sarah sometime shortly thereafter, and probably again with my dad later that week. I don’t care — “Firefly” rocked and I am sure this will too. If everyone who reads this blog would go see Serenity, thus insuring it does well, I will give each of you a hug. Or if that’s not your cup of tea, I promise I won’t give you a hug if you see it.

JAB

I’m only watching one new TV show this year, and that is “Bones” on Fox. I’m almost loath to start watching new shows, especially on Fox, since they always seem to get cancelled after five episodes. However, I’m not especially worried about Fox giving the ax to this show since it isn’t in sci-fi or supernaturally themed (*cough* “Firefly,” “Birds of Prey,” “Wonderfalls” *cough*).

“Bones” is basically about this weird, asskicking, forensic anthropologist woman who basically can take a skeleton or some flesh melted on a car seat, and tell who that person was, how they died, what they ate for breakfast the morning of their death, and quite possibly what they ate when they were four. She hangs out with some FBI agent and they solve crimes, along with the help of her wacky staff. That’s basically the whole plot.

I don’t generally watch procedurals, which is what this is, and in particular I despise “CSI.” I find their methods of investigation fairly ludicrous, as I sort of indicated in the above paragraph. For instance, in the second episode of “Bones” she can tell all sorts of basic and not-so-basic things about the murdered guy. Okay, that’s to be expected. But then the line of reasoning spans from finding out the dead dude had dioxin poisoning, to finding the murderer because the type of drywall the killer used contained chemicals that were in the poison, and that drywall was only used by this one particular architect in the 1920s, who designed this neighborhood of houses. Then BAM, they locate the murderer. Seriously — give me a fucking break.

Still, despite the ludicrous jumps in reasoning and logic, I find myself enjoying the show. This is due to the characters. The two leads share a very good chemistry, some of which, of course, is sexual. David Boreanaz, the FBI agent named Seely, is the sole reason I started watching “Bones” in the first place. He was formerly the title character in “Angel,” a show I dearly miss. The forensic anthropologist, whose nickname is Bones, is a little…I dunno, unbelievable in her depiction. She’s no-nonsense, a genius, has almost no empathy for the victims’ families (“You can have your daughter’s remains back soon, once we locate all of the pieces”), and has an all-around hard-on for dead people. The supporting cast, aside from being a little cliched (paranoid and dry-witted guy, snarky intern, meddlesome-yet-sweet best friend Bones), for the most part work well. Plus, while Bones and Seely are out moving the story along, the lab team can do all the science and stuff.

The only thing I truly hate about the show is the nickname for scientists, which is “squints.” It’s an annoying name that I don’t find funny or interesting in the least. I wish it would just be dropped from the show’s lexicon.

Overall, I’d give “Bones” a shot, especially if you’re into shows like “CSI.” I’ll continue to watch it, so long as the show continues to find its right tone and remain interesting.

JAB

I just got back from a little running, and had an odd bit of conversation with one of the neighbors. To break up the running, I interrupt it with little spells of walking so that I don’t die. Anyway, as I was segueing into the walking, this older guy who was cleaning out his minivan in his driveway paused momentarily to facetiously call out: “You look like you’re having fun.”

To which I replied, “Oh yes, it’s always a blast.”

He got a sort of sad look on his face. “I probably should run, or walk for that matter.” Before I could respond, he added: “Of course, I’d run for five minutes and then probably have my fourth heart attack and die.”

“Uh, yeah. That’d be…bad, I guess.” I hesitated, not knowing whether to keep on moving or continue this awkward chat.

The old guy brightened then. “Ah well. See you around.”

I said bye and went on my slightly less-merry way. Man, people are weird.

So far, on day three of four, I’m enjoying my mini-vacation from work. On Thursday I went to Cici’s Pizza with my dad and then saw Sky High. It was a funny movie, poking fun at superheroes yet being rather original and inventive it its own way. Yesterday, I did the Habitat thing, then went and saw The Transporter 2 (better than the first because it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it boasts some of the sweetest fight scenes I’ve seen in some time) with Jason and…ate at Cici’s Pizza again. What can I say? I luvada pizza. Today I have the house to myself. Everyone is in Richmond going to some crappy flea market/garage sale/shit sale, which I politely declined attending. Tonight I’m going to the mall with Sarah, and showing her a few alternate routes to Wright State.

Enough blathering; I’m hungry. It’s time to get some lunch from Arby’s and then do some writing.

JAB

I posted a short story on Sam Walton’s myspace the other day — generously maintained by Brandon — and I thought I’d repost it here for your enjoyment.

Like seemingly every new horror movie coming out this year, the following is only loosely based on a “true story” and in no way should indicate that I maintain a friendship with Sam Walton.

(more…)

Who Links Here

JAB

Thought I’d post my thoughts on the New Orleans catastrophic disaster (yes, that’s redundant, though sadly fitting). I’m even more distressed by this than I might be because Sarah and I were there nearly this time last year. It was hands-down my favorite vacation ever and, more importantly, I fell in love with that city. I seriously held thoughts of moving down there one day. Now…I’m sort of reconsidering, for obvious reasons.

What I do find horrible is this: Basically, Michael Brown, the head of FEMA — y’know, the organization that is supposed to handle all sorts of federal emergencies — waited five hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast before politely asking his boss — the Homeland Security director — to consider helping his organization to meet their responsibilities. Five hours! Who knows how many lives might’ve been saved had FEMA gotten its people into place five hours sooner. And then what does Brown do? He gets on the television and basically blames the local and state authorities for the horrible response — and New Orleans itself for not being prepared. It’s metaphorically like what Tom Tomorrow said: “New Orleans was wearing a short skirt and deserved what it got.” You can read the article here.

Speaking of which, just who held responsibility for disaster management or New Orleans and all of the victims of Katrina? Why our most favorite President of course!

“The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

“The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe.”

You can read the whole little statement on the White House’s web site. And note that this statement was made two full days before the Hurricane actually touched down. And what makes this whole debacle even more disgraceful? The federal government has had four years to prepare for another large-scale catastrophe. From a disaster-recovery scenario, there’s no difference between what some assholes are already calling the Great New Orleans Flood of 2005 and if terrorists had set off a dirty bomb in New Orleans.

So if, gods forbid, we get hit by another terrorist attack, we can count on our federal government to take their sweet time responding. Unless said attack occurred in a city populated solely by rich white men, in which case you’d have the full might of the White House there in the blink of an eye. Disgraceful.

JAB

‘Kay. Some of you might have noticed in the past couple of days that my site ain’t been around. You’d click on joshbales.net and some weird page telling you I fucked up my server, or some such nonsense, would pop up. Well I haven’t fucked up my server — that’d be Affordable Host’s doing. So if you come here and my awesome logo doesn’t appear, check back in day or so, and all should be well. I have a sort of mini-vacation away from work coming up soon, and my big project for that long weekend is to switch over to AxisHost. You all, of course, will hear from me soon as I do.

Also, Nate’s Yummy Reviews have been on the fritz lately, again through none of my doin’. If you click on http://yummyreviews.joshbales.net, it won’t work. Period. Somehow that URL got deleted and I can’t even log into my account to find out what’s wrong. However, I did fix his site so it will appear properly if you go to http://www.joshbales.net/yummyreviews/. So until further notice, all who wish to read his witty and profane reviews (notice how he manages to fit “feces” or its synonym at least once into every review) should go to that address. I’d chance the URL on the link in the rightmost sidebar, but I can’t access my FTP account either.

Last but not least, my email address josh-at-joshbales-dot-net isn’t working either (“Golly, thanks Affordable Host!”). If you need to get ahold of me, write me at joshbales-at-earthlink-dot-net.

Just a few more weeks and then hopefully this web-host clusterfuck will be over with.

JAB