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Land of the tomorrow!

Jonathan — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:52:21 +0000

I’m going to make this blog post a photo essay. You get three clues, each in the form of a picture. At the end of the third clue, I want you to give it your best guess (leave a comment, natch). Sometime between next week and never, I will post the correct answer.

Question: Where am I, and what sort of magical tour am I on? The first person to get both parts of that question correct will win one free at-home dinner prepared by yours truly. AND I MAKE A MEAN BOX OF MACNCHEESE.

Have fun guessing, snitches! Oh, and Luis, the only person who still reads my blog, don’t spoil it for everyone.

Birthday

Jonathan — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:23:12 +0000

August 15, 2010.

The first time in 27 years I didn’t get a birthday card from my grandparents. Getting old sucks.

The safe end

Jonathan — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:02:20 +0000

Dear internet,

YOU’RE WELCOME

On the doctor’s office

Jonathan — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:36:14 +0000

So thanks to the Internet power of my iPad, I’m blogging from my 3:15 doctor’s appointment.

I’m going to paint you a picture. Sixth floor of the Dillon building of St. Vincent’s. Heat index of 108. Pale yellow walls, worn carpet and the most desperate hallway in America. The waiting room is overflowing and children, who I’m sure are in the waiting room, but whose cries echo down the sad hallway like a shitty brass band, are running wild. And the air conditioning is out. Out as in prop-the-door-open-and-hope-the-patients-don’t-revolt sort of out.

My doctor has leased a small office on this floor. I can’t blame him for the choice of music since it’s probably piped in from hell’s elevators, but Edwin MCain is on. I clearly don’t go to church enough.

I’m through! Now done standing in the sweaty hallway and in an examination room so interchangeable that if the door opened and I was back at my family doctor in Travelers Rest I wouldn’t be surprised.

Except for the two model esophaguses (esophagi?) resting on the sink counter, this room isn’t so bad. Nevermind. Just noticed the “Internal and External Hemorrhoids” poster behind my head. Graphic. Gross.

Dear hospital

Jonathan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:57:56 +0000

Hello St. Vincents. I want to formally thank you for the prompt reply to my billing inquiry. Why, just 344 days ago I had surgery on my birthday. That one surgery alone immediately maxed my yearly deductible and that one charge made for a fantastic pre-wedding present.

Two weeks later, you informed me that I had overpaid by some $84 dollars and the check would soon be delivered, akin to offering a band-aid to a man who survived a 400-foot fall down a cliff made of salt and broken glass.

Now, only 344 days later, I received said check.

You’re a special type of person, St. Vincents.

/grief

Egg toss champion!

Jonathan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 02:07:43 +0000

Deathcab for Forrest

Jonathan — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:12:18 +0000

I’m talking about that guy up there. Forrest. My friend, your friend, all-around nice guy. Or so I thought.

As you probably didn’t read in my earlier post, I don’t dig the soccer thing, the World Cup thing and most definitely don’t dig the vulvazella thing. Well, this weekend Forrest came down to hang out with Diana and I. Beer flowed and good food fell from heaven. And along the way, Forrest got me to watch the America/Ghana soccer game. Since I’ve always considered myself the best thing that’s ever happened to Forrest (with the notable exception of Liz), I decided to give it a go; really get into a soccer game.

I asked questions, learned player names and actually felt happy when some guy, Donovan or something, scored on a penalty kick. After about 110 minutes of soccer action, I’ll admit to being hooked like a meth head after his first hit on the communal pipe.

Then we lost. And I blame Forrest, I think that’s fair.

A star is born then instantly collapses

Jonathan — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:19:37 +0000

This year, the 48 hour film festival was different. Different in a number of ways, mostly good, and in one way very bad. Let’s start with the good ways.

The Times-Union team featured an all TU staff this year, no professional script writers, actors or trophy-chasing producers. We were a bunch of hearty, motivated, sleep-depraved souls with more talent in a twist of our pubic hair than in the entire self-aggrandizing bodies of years past. That is to say, we rocked.

Upon learning our genre (sci-fi) at 6:30 p.m. Friday, we immediately began brain storming the story line. Short story shorter, we went with Luis’ idea: A woman **plot removed until the screening, you nosy bastards** description. The four script writers, Luis, Timothy, Topher and myself were locked in room dripping with caffeine and inspiration and by 11 a.m. we had the storyboard complete and began on the actual script writing. Lots of deep-dicking jokes later, it was 5 a.m. and by God, we had a script. A script! Normally I’d try to explain the significance of this in a few sentences, but unless you’ve chased after the greased up pig that is the 48 hour film festival, it won’t matter.

Oh, I should mention – this is where the movie began to go awry. We had two main objectives this year: Be an all-TU team and include as many of those people on screen as possible. The lede actress was an obvious choice; the talented and tow-headed Julie. While reviewing our actor list, Luis Tim, Topher and I realized that we had little choice but to cast one person in the lede actor role – your sweet Nuinca. Since I’ve used every stupid literary trick in this blog post except for analogies, let’s us this one. Casting me as the leading man was like having the Joker let you decide which family member of yours should die first – your wife or your son. No good choices and our situation was worse because it’ll never follow with an awesome sequel featured the Penguin (please, Chris Nolan, if you’re reading this.)

Anyway, the scripters and I broke up around 5, ran home to get our costumes and met back at the paper around 6:30 a.m. I can only speak for Luis and I, but at this point we had both been up right at 24 hours. The movie hadn’t started shooting yet.

While I, the lead and least talented actor, was memorizing my lines that morning, shooting began around 8:30. By 9 I was in my suit and pacing in the paper warehouse that was my character’s office. Due to a potent combination of nerves and heat stroke, I can’t guarantee what happened between then and 2 p.m. Saturday morning, but I’m sure other people would be willing to fill you in. I remember sweat, bottles of sticky wine and talking about my borrowed Megatron cufflinks.

After a short break we were back in action, filming the majority of the scenes. I had thankfully found an easy way to escape to air-conditioning between takes. No heat stroke FTW!

Dear World Cup,

Jonathan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:11:29 +0000

This is an open letter to the million, billions or trillions of World Cup fans out there:

Please leave me alone. If I was in Germany, Spain, or God forbid, France, I would be willing to pretend to give a shit. But I’m not. I’m in America, land of the free and home of the rotund. I shouldn’t be bombarded with people’s faux enthusiasm, overpriced Real Madrid jerseys and CONSTANT vevuzela references.

I don’t care about your single-score games, boring dive tackles or the “did you know the average soccer player runs 12 miles per game?!” facts. If soccer players were bigger they would play rugby or football. If there were faster they would be track athletes. If they had better coordination they would be baseball players. If they were any smarter they would have graduated elementary school.

There. That made me feel better.

Go USA!

Guatemala 2010!

Jonathan — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:48:34 +0000