I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Bowling for Soup lately. I practically had their goddamned catchy “1985″ in my head all day today at work. Though it was fun singing it out loud and then telling Brandon “I have no idea who the band is, nor the name of the song,” when clearly I was telling mistruths.

Not sure why I enjoy them so much. Their first single was called “Girl All the Bad Guys Want,” and came out a few years back. It was another song that could easily get stuck in your head like so Some of you might know them from their annoying theme song to the Gilligan’s Island reality show. Their music is just very catchy, and their lyrics shows a fair amount of wit and self-deprecation. It’s readily evident they don’t take themselves seriously. If they did they’d be as boring as an hour of C-SPAN, since otherwise they sound just like any other wannabe pop-punk band. One of the more interesting things about them is their lead guitarist, who is one of the most frightening looking persons I’ve ever laid eyes upon.

Too bad their name sucks a fat one. I mean, really — Bowling for Soup? Ugh. At least it’s better than “Clay Aiken.” What kind of a stupid name is that?

Well, I’m going to try to listen to some other songs and get “1985″ out of my brain, because the alternative is impaling myself on one of my several swords.

JAB

Yeah, I’m still here. Been taking a break from the blog somewhat, keeping busy and trying to get past this block on Thirty Well Spent. It’s like a wall went up between me and the story I’m trying to tell. Very fucking annoying. But I think I’ve overcome it, for the most part. I wrote a new Prologue earlier today, something completely new that I’m very satisfied with. This in turn lead to a renewed take on Chapter One, which I made some significant headway on.

Thought I’d share with you the new Prologue. Bear in mind that this is only a rough draft, so don’t feel obliged to point out every little niggling error you find. Though I’m sure some of you will.

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Went to Argosy Casino in Indiana with Nate on Friday. I’ve never been gambling before, and Indiana is a lot closer for that than Canada or Vegas. The intent was to stay two nights and come home Sunday morning, but we ended up leaving Saturday afternoon. There wasn’t as much to do there as we’d thought, and we did everything we wanted to Friday.

Being in a casino is a surreal experience. It’s very bright, noisy, and smoky. If you don’t like being in crowds, don’t go, as there are tons of sweaty, smelly people crammed against each other. There are no windows, no clocks either; and since it’s open 24 hour, you can’t really tell a difference between 2 pm and 2 am, except that at two in morning the casino is much more crowded. A lot of the people there are barely more than zombies: glass of alcohol in one hand, the other on the lever; a cigarette dangles from the lips, and dead eyes stare at the spinning reels of chance.

Our hotel was across the street from the casino and parking was free, so we visited the casino several times that day for small amounts of time. I stuck to the 25 cent slots; they’re cheap, but have a better chance of paying off than the dime or nickel slots. The second time we attended I won sixty bucks. I also won twenty bucks another time, so I only ended up losing about thirty dollars total at the casino. I wanted to visit the blackjack tables, but I don’t have near enough experience to comfortably do that.

No bars to speak of were found, so we hit up the only other interesting place in town: Concepts, the friendly neighborhood strip club. I blew fifty bucks there, but it was fun, and one of the better-run strip clubs I’ve been to. No one was really pushy, and it didn’t cost a hundred bucks to get into. The girls didn’t get fully naked, but the fact that they were mostly all attractive made up for it. It was a good way to spend an hour or so.

Visiting Argosy has really made me want to go to Las Vegas. I think it’d be fun to fly out and stay a couple days without having to worry about driving anywhere. Then I could spend all my time focusing on the two Gs: girls and gambling. Maybe one day I’ll make it out there, when more of my friends have the money and time to make the trip.

JAB

So apparently my old DeadJournal, the Captain’s Log, still exists. I would’ve thought they’d delete these things after a certain period of disuse, but I guess that’s not the case. My last post there was on . . . January 9, 2003. And that was only so I could inform you, my gentle reader, that the blog was moving from DeadJournal to a new provider. The few posts before it were similar in content, as it was a a very turbulent time in the prehistoric, Joshbalesdotnetolithic period. My last, real honest-to-Zombie-Jesus post there was on October 1st, 2002. Skimming through the Log, I noticed that my writing style was a lot clunkier and repetitive back then, though I made up for it with a lot more angry ranting. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I’ll post herewith that last post, entitled “‘curiouser and curiouser, eh, mortificator crenshaw?’”:

so some jackass hit a telephone pole in my neighborhood sometime Sunday night. consequently, i had no phone service until about 11 am today. this meant i couldn’t get on the internet. while this seemed irritating to me at first, it turned out to be a blessing. not only did i work on my website a lot (it’ll be up in about a week or so), i also finished writing my story and typed it up. so that was pretty cool.

nothing really new and exciting on this front. i’m getting kinda sick of emperor bush and all his war rhetoric, not too mention those scumfucks donald rumsfeld and dick cheney. all of them were business tycoons before going to their respective positions, and the economy is shit now. sounds a little fishy to me. granted, our sucky economy really should be blamed more on the clinton administration, because it’s just taken a while for the bad times to catch up with us. but all this talk of war is definitely not helping matters. has anyone else noticed that bush kinda resembles Emperor Palpatine in star wars? i know this is real geeky, but i’m being serious. palpatine was a duly elected president who secretly was evil, and when a time of crisis arrived, he “reluctantly” took on more power and became a dictator, and then the emperor of a galaxy. what is even creepier is that george lucas based the rise of his character on that of adolf hitler. so if you follow that reasoning, things get ultra-mega creepy.

just as i was getting off work, i mean i had just clocked out, and my cell phone rang with a number i didn’t know. turns out it was a chick i knew from a year ago at college. she was going through her cell phone, deleting numbers she never called. and she called me. i talked to her for about thirty minutes in the wal-mart parking lot. i’m supposed to call her next week so we can hang out. neat!

okay i’m gonna go work on the page some more. later.

Oh, what the little firebrand I used be. Aside from the barely-simmering-below-the-surface anger I displayed back then, there are a few other things of interest about this post, and, so it follows, me. (I use the term “interest” loosely here. Since most of you probably don’t give a fuck, I’ll post the rest of this behind the cut, and you can be on your merry way.)

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New layout time, 98% bug-free. Whadja think?

JAB

Okay, so the upgrade to Movable Type 3.31 went swimmingly, despite Six Apart’s somewhat lacking documentation. Their instructions on how to go about upgrading were some of the worst I’ve seen. I sort of guessed my way through the various steps, Things Happened, and then all of a sudden my screen said “UPGRADE TO MOVABLE TYPE 3.31 SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED!1 LOL!” Well . . . that wasn’t the exact phrasing used, but it’s what I half-expected from Six Apart.

3.31 looks kind of weird. It’s a lot more colorful, certain elements were renamed, and there are new features that seem scary and wonderful at the same time. I’m hoping that the much-hyped spam fighting tools are as good as people say. I intend to experiment with those in the near future. If the commenting policy changes (from the current moderated approach), I’ll let y’all know.

JAB

Just me in the house for the moment. Roland and Linda came over a bit ago to celebrate his and my mom’s birthdays (his was the 11th, hers today). Before we go get something to eat and do the assorted birthday stuff, everyone but me is going to the Englewood Fine Arts Festival. That’s really a much classier name than the festival deserves. “Possums ‘N Crafts Festival” would be more apropos, or possibly “Y’all Like That Art Crap? Festival.” It’s a decent-sized collection of vendors selling their crafty wares, assorted trucks selling festival food, live music, and other random shit. I guess I’m making it out to be lamer than it really is, since it’s apparently popular with a number of people. The Northmont band plays the festival every year, of which I was a member all four years I was in high school, and I guess I really got burnt out attending. Plus crafts and stuff aren’t really, y’know, my thing anyway.

So, like Macaulay Culkin I’m home alone now, putting the finishing touches on JBdN’s new design. It’s actually a similar design I was going to use for the much lamented Novelogue. Since that side project is going to be incorporated into the main site, i.e. JBdN, and I really like this new layout, applying the new design to the whole shebang seems like the natural thing to do. The redesign has been simmering for about two months now, with me doing the bulk of the work before I left on vacation. I’ve also been wanting to take another wack at Thirty Well Spent v0.6 recently. But dividing my time between two big projects means I just sit around wringing my hands on which to work on, and that just results in nothing getting accomplished. So last week I resolved to finish JBdN v6.0, then focus all my attention on TWS.

Before I sign off, I want to direct any of you people who are fascinated by grammar and its many intricacies to an interesting news story about a 2.13 million dollar comma. Being a bit of a grammar-nazi myself, I find this to be immensely indicative of just how important copy-editing can be. (Via Neil Gaiman.)

JAB

Not sure where Nate got this from (maybe he’ll be so good as to inform us in the comment thread), but I found it amusing. Since it’s kinda long, I’ll post it behind the cut.

Things are good on this end. I’ve been busy working and trying to finish a story, so it’s business as usual. I’ll post something substantial in the enar future. I promise. In the everlastin’ meanwhile, enjoy MAN LAWS!

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Just finished some finishing touches on the resume and resubmitted it to Monster and CareerBuilder. It’s reads a lot better now, much less amateurish than it used to be. I’m currently running it by a few people, and then I’ll probably post it here somewhere for HR people to peruse, should they happen upon my site. That’s if they can get past some of the profane and mean crap I write in the blog. Maybe they’ll miss that whole aspect of JBdN.

I decided over the last few weeks on a one-year Plan. Or a One Year Mission, if you prefer a more Star Trek-ian bent. The Plan basically details where I want to be in my life one year from now, and looks sort of like this:

October 2006 — Find new employment in some sort of professional capacity (read: a Grown-Up job).

January 2007 — After saving up even more money from the new Grown-Up job, move out into my own apartment, sans a roommate. I wanna live on my own for at least a year, just to see if I can do it. I already have a buttload of money saved, and supplemented with a decent income, I can afford to live in solitude.

July 2007 — Finish my first novel, Thirty Well Spent. If it doesn’t sell, fine. I just want to write something long, and most importantly, finish it.

There’s more to the Plan, and there also exists a five-year Plan, but I just wanted to supply a rundown of the most significant points. I honestly don’t think the Plan seems too unreasonable or overly-optimistic. Sure, moving out is mostly contingent on getting a new job, but having a new job by October doesn’t seem in the realm of delusional dreaming. It doesn’t have to be the Perfect Career — just something for me to sink my claws into and never, ever let go of. I mean, something to give me a start.

Regarding TWS: I’ve taken a break from it this past month, focusing on a new short story and regrouping on the novel’s first chapter. I’ve recently heard some positive words on what I’ve got so far, so that’s given my confidence a little boost. Finishing the first draft in one year is doable, once I get some momentum built.

I occasionally go through spells where I feel a little depressed about where I am right now, professionally and personally. I’m sure a lot of people feel this way, but that’s little consolation. The key, I think, is to stay positive and, most importantly, proactive in altering the course of one’s life. After all, like a wise man once said:

“There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”

JAB