Animals: Fears and Plurals

One day Stiver and I were discussing the pros and cons of various operating systems.  He mentioned offhandedly that one was a ram hog.  It used up a lot of your computers Random Access Memory, and kept it from being used elsewhere.  However, in a horrible flash, I got a vision of the Ram Hog.

The Ram Hog has the bulk of a boar with the athleticism of a ram.  It comes complete with boar tusks, ram horns, and a curly tail with a tuft at the end.  Its fur is just long enough to become disheveled, it's hooves shine like steel, and its eyes are furious embers.

The Ram Hog is the third most terrifying creature I'm pretty sure doesn't exist.

You may be wondering what the top two most terrifying, yet possibly imaginary creatures are.  I'll tell you.

#2: Cybernetic Polar Bears.  A group of Cybernetic Polar Bears is called a God Damned Tragedy.  It's a God Damned Tragedy of Cybernetic Polar Bears.  Let me explain.  The Polar Bear is the world's largest land carnivore, but it spends its days in the Arctic Circle, so no worries, right?  Wrong.  Everything's fine until some asshole moves to the Arctic Circle to do amoral cybernetic research without the prying eyes of any government regulation.  He needs test subjects, so he captures some of the local wildlife.  Fucking Polar Bears.  He enhances them far beyond their already deadly capacities.  Now they're smarter, deadlier, and hate humanity for turning them into monsters.  You think they'll settle for killing an entire research station?  They will not.  They'll come for the rest of us.

#1: Flying Scorpions.  Scorpions hate you.  Even the normal ones.  All they want is to kill you.  You could be 100ft away, and they will come at you as fast as their tiny legs will carry them, just to hear you scream from them injecting venom into your veins.  It's an aphrodisiac for them.  They get off on murdering you.  The only reprieve is being able to climb on a stool or something and kick them away as they get to you.  Not if they had wings.  You couldn't stop them.  They could get anywhere.  Entire swarms of them would sweep the world in a murderous rampage.  That's why a group of Flying Scorpions is called a Terror.  A Terror of Flying Scorpions.

One night Handsome Matt and Steampunk Boba Fett told me that there were Flying Scorpions.  I told them to shut their fucking lying faces, and not to be dirty liars, because that shit isn't funny.  No Sir.  Then they showed me this.

No.  Fucking.  Way.

My blood ran cold and I instantly yearned for death.  I no longer wanted to be in this world; Not in world with that.  But before I could plan my suicide, they let me know that they are not true scorpions, they're scorpionflies, and they're allegedly harmless.  They're insects, not arachnids, and that's not actually a stinger on its tail.  It's its genitalia.  Honestly, I couldn't figure out if I was more or less terrified.  Have fun sleeping for the rest of your life.

Oh, and happy New Year!


P.S. - I still don't know what a group of Ram Hogs is called.

Shh! ...She's Everywhere!

I totally got bloggessed yesterday.  It was awesome, but slightly unnerving because I was just talking about her in that very post. 

It's kinda when you're telling a dead baby joke and everyone around you gets kinda nervous because there's a dead baby standing right behind you.  Only I was saying good things, so I guess it's more like telling your friend about this funny thing you heard Dane Cook say on TV, and Dane Cook walks up next to you and say, "Hey man, thanks!  That means a lot."  Only that scenario is doubly unbelievable because most people I know don't think Dane Cook has ever said anything funny.

The point is that she can hear your thoughts.  It's the only reason I can think that she would have shown up.  Or maybe she's more like the Beetle Juice* of blogging, and I just said her name enough.  In case it's the mind reading one, I would like to apologize for all those inappropriate thoughts about Kim Possible from last night over the years.


*Which is apparently two words.  I always thought it was one.

Inappropriate Haiku #2

I've been looking for a new milestone so I can continue releasing my collection of inappropriate haiku.  It's been a little slow coming, but we've gotten another milestone: 1000 total page views!

I'm trying not to be sad. The lovely Jeni Hellum just announced that her blog, Multiculturalism for Steampunk, just enjoyed its 50,000th view, and it's only been up for about two months longer than mine.  To be fair, her blog deals with public interests in a popular sub-genre, and she is heavily involved in Llama related charities; While I mostly talk about ham, hookers, and my own over-inflated ego, so I find it only natural that she should pull in a wider fan base than myself.  So I am left to celebrate what victories I am left with, and here we are.  Your reward:

Inappropriate Haiku #2

She is very cute
She'll look real nice in my trunk
Next to the others

P.S. - I wrote these things seven years ago, and there's only a few more, so bear with me.  Once we get through three more milestones I'll start writing new ones.

Yesterday I Felt Like a Blogger

Yesterday was bad-ass. I spent the entire thing with my long-lost sister. She is amazing. We finally found each other in the autumn of last year, and this was our first Christmas together. Our father was also there. It was the first time the three of us were in the same room together since 1982... But I think all that's for a different post. The point is, it was one awesome brother, and one awesome sister tearing up southern Michigan.

And I just couldn't stop thinking about blogging.

It's totally not my fault. It started with this:

Okay, I get that a few of you might not get the awesome of what's going on here, so I'll explain. You see, I'm not balls deep in the blogging community just yet. In fact, there's only two blogs that I read that aren't written by people I know IRL. That would be Jenny Lawson's, The Bloggess and Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half. They are both beautiful, insane ladies who make me feel a little more beautiful and a little less insane.* Well, Allie's boyfriend's name is Duncan, and Jenny has a history of shouting out "Wolverines!" with little to no provocation. I was only sad that it was only a singular wolverine, and not plural. Anyway, I made my sister turn the car around and stand in the snow so she could take my picture with this blogging monument.

Later we were walking through Ann Arbor and came across this amazing little used bookstore called Kaleidoscope. They had a magical basement with all sorts of neat old books, comics, magazines, and collectables. There was even a box of old action figures, in which I found this:

I had done it. I had found another Wolverine. They were plural now. What had I found that day?

Wolverines!!!

Here's the clincher. We took to driving again and passed this:

And ALL I could think of was a senior's sea cruise for sex freaks. I could not stop giggling. Once again I made my sister turn around so I could photograph it, and share it with my dedicated and loyal followers. Turns out it was a car wash or something. Go figure.

So there it is. Not only did I apparently have blogging on the brain all day, but this is the first time I officially inconvenienced anyone to indulge my blogging habit. There's no going back now.

P.S. - And to top it off, I wrote this post on my phone on the flight home.


*I swear I'm not gay.

And So It's Christmas - Part 2

Earlier this month I had planned to write many insightful points of view centered around what Christmas is like for an Atheist.  Since then, the wonderful Pecanita has written just about everything I wanted to say, but better... so fuck her.  I won't waste my time.  The only difference is she's an angry Atheist, and I'm a happy Atheist.  So take whatever she says, apply the principle, remove the bile, and you pretty much get my point of view.

Also I don't want to go on about the joys of Christmas, and how it's all really about family and togetherness.  It's not that I don't believe it, I do from the bottom of my heart.  It's just that it's a bit played out.  I don't want this blog to sound like it was sponsored by Hallmark, so I'm going to jump past that and remind you of my Whores in a Dump-Truck post.

So, after secular, spiritual, and familial insights, what's left?  What is Christmas about?

1. Exhaustion.  This is ridiculous.  In order to get Christmas Eve off I had to work extra long hours the week before.  This is on top of this being the most intense time of year for my company.  My entire life for the past three weeks has been put on hold while we all wait for Christmas' lazy ass to finally get here.  Then there was Christmas Eve, where I had to awaken at 4:00am in order to make my flight.  I'm not alone, either.  A lot of us bust our asses every year to make Christmas seem as effortless and natural as possible.  To everyone else who wakes up Christmas Morning and endures family and children for the sake of family and children, when all you want to do is kill everything until it's quiet enough to go back to sleep: I salute you.  I'm proud of you.  Good job.

2. Food.  I know there are starving people in Africa, and down the street, and whatever.  I grew up on food stamps in a single wide trailer, so fuck off.  I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you.  I'm just trying to express that I know how lucky I am.  There is food everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  There was a Christmas Eve feast.  There was a huge breakfast. There are already preparations for dinner.  There were handfuls of candy in the stockings.  There are cookies, candy, pies, cakes, and muffins all over the place.  I've made my peace with the fact that I'm going to gain five pounds before I leave here.  At this very moment I'm having egg nog and fruit cake.  Merry Christmas.

3. Awkwardness.  I don't care who you, this shit is weird.  This is my first Christmas that is anything like the Christmases I hear about.  There's family, and food, and a big tree with children opening gifts beneath it, and it's weird as hell.  Maybe it would be different if I had grown up with this family instead of tracking them down around the age of thirty and kinda wedging in, but I doubt it. From everything I've heard from people with families, it's always weird.  Before this Christmas was always Chinese restaurants with my mother.  That felt weird, because I knew that no one else had Christmases like those.  So I'm betting that no matter what, Christmas is some weird-ass junk.  No matter what.

4. Doctor Who Christmas Special.

So go forth and love your family!  Love your food!  Whether  you've been together your entire lives, or just met... Whether there's turkey or egg rolls... get some sleep and smile a bit.  It's been a long year, and this is our reward.

Merry Christmas!  I love you all!

Buried in Ham: Not as Fun as it Sounds

Okay, this has been shameful.

Starting a blog and not posting for a week is like getting a puppy and not feeding it.  But it's still better than getting a puppy and feeding it to an alligator*, so shut up.


The truth is that I've been buried in the ham business.  This is the busiest time of the ham year and I've been feeling the effects.  Working eleven hours a day and being so busy that you just forget to take your lunch breaks makes it hard to focus on blogging.  It has been in my head though, and so I steal these few moments to reach out to my small but loving community.


Even though work has been tough, and I was sick for a week straight, I have had a few moments to live life.  In between ham related emergencies I have my friends.  Last Friday I had a beautiful night out with my steampunk friends.  We went to go see the beautiful and talented Erin Bushko at one of her gigs.  You see, in addition to being a hideous zombie, she is sometimes a snow angel.

Yeah, that's her.  In the sky.

At some point people mentioned funnel cake, and I casually mentioned that I had never had funnel cake.  When confronted with this information people are usually confused and somewhat frightened.  They don't understand how someone could live in a world without funnel cake, and then they go retreat to a safe place.  Instead, my stalwart got me some damn funnel cake.

And some for everyone else too, I guess.

Then we casually strolled through a toy shop.  Then shit got weird.

This is shit being weird.

I'm a pretty liberal guy.  In fact, I would go so far as being just short of radically liberal... but this tests my boundaries.  Inter-species penguin-tiger marriage concerns me.  This challenges every notion I had about how man/woman - avian/feline - arctic/tropic - prey/predator relationships were supposed to work.  It looks like I still have a lot of growing up to do.



*Not that I'm accusing anyone of having done so, but I'm sure that in the history of everything, it's happened.  And to that person: Shame on you.  You need to seek help.**

**I'm implying psychiatric help; Not someone to help him feed puppies to alligators.***


***Though if he did find someone to help him feed puppies to alligators, that would likely be amongst the truest of loves.

You Know What? Apocalypse.

For many, many years now I've been having frequent and vivid dreams of the apocalypse.  I've had just about all kinds now.

In one the Earth in knocked slightly off path an our orbit becomes long and elliptical.  The problem is that at the far point of our orbit was so far away, that we would all freeze to death before it came back.  I just went outside and watched the world turn to frost, then go to sleep forever.

In another the moon came crashing down on us.  Only it took forever.  Even traveling at astronomical speeds, it still took a couple of days for it to get here.  It's the waiting that kills you.*

I've been there when the world's surface was torn apart by earthquakes and volcanoes erupting everywhere.  That one was a bit of an action/adventure.  I did a running jump to catch a rope ladder that was hanging from a helicopter.  Fun stuff.

And many more.  The one I get the most though, and my favorite, is Zombie Apocalypse.  I'm the King of Zombie Apocalypse.

So I know a thing or two about the end of the world, and I'm calling it.  This is it.  The end of days.  Not only have truly bizarre thing continued to happen all around me for months, now the final sign:

It's snowing.  In Georgia.  In December.  Two days in a row.

I can just imagine the conversation with any of my Yankee friends:

Them:  So what?  It's winter.  That's what it's supposed to do.  Besides, it's been snowing here for the last three months straight.

Me:  You know what?  Fuck you.

Them:  That's rude.  I thought you said we were friends.  And it's quite unbecoming of a southern gentleman.

Me:  You're right, I'm sorry.  Fuck you, Sir/Ma'am.  I know you live where snow comes from, but I don't.  You know what we have here?  Three months straight of 120 degree Fahrenheit, 98% humidity, swampy bullshit.  Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm sweating, or if water is simply condensing on me because I'm cooler than my surrounding area. (Note: I am always cooler than my surrounding area.)**  We may get a flurry or two in February, but that's it.  Many years it doesn't snow at all.

Them:  That was rather lengthy.  Wouldn't that have been better served in an essay format, rather than dialog?

Me.  Fuck you...  I get ranty sometimes...  Sir/Ma'am.

P.S. - Sorry about all of the italics and cursing.  Just that kind of day.

*I've never even played Majora's Mask.
** That was a pun.

Shared Memories

One of my favorite memories in life happened while there was no one around. This has always made me sad, so this post is about doing what I can to rectify that.

It was the holiday season. I was in a large cabin in the middle of the woods. The room was empty except for some tables and chairs... and a gingerbread house. On a table near the middle there was a gingerbread house. With a yard. And gingerbread men in that yard. It was beautiful. It had been there since the night before. If anyone was going to eat it, they would have done so by then.

I could not resist.

It was a dream come true, and no one was there to witness it. So I asked my friend Carrie to make me a similar setup. She did. So now I share with you a reenactment of what happened on that glorious night.



Also, imagine my surprise when I examined the remains and found a can of chicken noodle soup.

I suppose it is important to eat healthy after devouring a pastry man and his pastry home.  So, thank you.

I Have a Problem

Allie Brosh is the person who made me want to start a blog.  I never intended to do anything in the vein of her work, but she made me want to explore my own voice.

Her blog touched me because we share a similar problem.  But where I go to great lengths to hide mine and never let anyone notice, she brings it out, tells everyone to take a great big look, and makes it hilarious.  I don't know if this is a natural, easy thing for her, but for me it would be terrifying.

I'm not perfect.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am deeply flawed... in many ways.  I know that anyone reading this must see this as a statement of blatant fact on par with announcing that the sky is blue, or that bitches be crazy.  I have always known that it is natural for people to be flawed, but for me I always considered it to be a temporary condition.  Given enough time I would identify all of my problems and fix them.  I've had a list for many years of the things that were wrong with me.  I've been working solidly to cross things off of that list.  Self improvement has become a way of life.  I've recently come to understand that it's also become an obsession.

Somewhere along the line I became convinced of my own worthlessness.  Since then I have been doing everything I can increase my own perceived value.  It's been pretty slow going overall, as this has all been subconscious, but its been happening.  I evaluate my own traits and judge them as either positive, negative, or irrelevant.  I've polarized my view of myself, and I'm only happy if I'm making what I consider to be significant progress.  Which brings me to my worst problem:

I'm a procrastinator.  Like bad.  There are things I will put off for no good reason, things that I need to do or I will suffer dire consequences.  I've never understood why I do that, but I think I have a clue now.  Whenever it happens I have already made a mistake, or at least what I consider to be one.  If I proceed, someone will see it, and I can scarcely bear calling attention to my flaws.

I don't know how people live with their flaws and do nothing to try to improve them.  If you're not happy with who you are, you should do everything you can to improve yourself.  That's what I've been saying to myself.  I've said it a lot.  Many times a day.  It never even occurred to me that I would never run out of problems; That one day I would just have to make a conscious decision that I was good enough, in spite of any remaining flaws.  Maybe it's not even about that, right?  Maybe I'm not a list of talents and flaws.  Maybe I'm a collection of traits.  Maybe I'm already good enough.

...

Or maybe I just need to learn more ukulele songs.  Clearly that will make me a better man!

 

Besuited Voyeurs

I had a real post all written out and ready.  Then this happened and I had to share.  I'll post the other thing tomorrow.

So I started some laundry last night.  I was pretty much out of clothes.  I know I shouldn't wait that long to do laundry.  I know I should to laundry when I have enough clothes to fill a load.  However, this never happens.  I'm a dude.

Times have been exhausting, I was all tuckered out.  Almost immediately after starting my first load, I fell asleep.  I awoke this morning with nothing but dry dirty clothes and clean wet ones.

"Clean Wet Ones" would be a great album title.

I managed to put together an acceptable work outfit with stuff I had tucked away in my closet, but all of my gym clothes were unacceptable for use in their current condition.  I like to work out in the fitness center of my office building on my lunch break.  So I pulled out the only thing I had left, my cold weather outfit.  Long sleeved gym shirt and long pants.  When the time came, I felt ridiculous wearing them inside, and I knew it was going to get hot, but I thought to myself, "Hey, it's not like anyone's going to be watching me work out."

Five minutes into my treadmilling, a man in a suit walked it and said "Oh, hey.  We're going to watch you work out."  Then six more men in suits walked into the fitness center.

I soon remembered that my building has much unused space, and in fact my Specialty Ham Company was planning to move out soon.  As the men in suits diverted their attention from me and began inspecting the room, I concluded that they were likely prospective renters.

Still, just a glimpse into the everyday life of Adam Jones.

Das Stiver

The day after I met Stiver I awoke next to him in the bed of a man named Patrick, with precious little memory of the night before.  Except the Rum, I remembered the rum.  The next few moments were crucial.

Adam Jones:  Hey Opie,* we didn't... do anything, did we?

Stiver:  I don't think so.  No, definitely not... You hungry?

Adam Jones:  Yeah.

Stiver:  You want to go to Olive Garden?

Adam Jones:  Hell yeah.

We've been close ever since.  In fact, we are so close that I once wrote and recorded a song for him when I was T-Pain.  It is not remotely appropriate for a work environment.  Please listen, if you would like.

 P.H.M.L.
(This is the song.)

Together we have had many fine adventures, drank Beer Shakes, and each separately caught someone burgling our apartment.

The reason I'm telling you this now is because, like me, he has decided to try to carve out his own little space on the internet.  He's been getting it ready, and he's now ready to share it with the public.**  So here it is:

I Am Stiver

I hope that you enjoy it.  If you don't, let him know.  He appreciates constructive criticism more than anyone I've ever known.***

P.S. If you are J.T. Stiver, I hope you don't mind me mentioning the waking up in bed with you story.  I thought it would be funny.  Please don't be mad.  At least I didn't talk about the Virginia Incident.****

*That's what we called him back then.
**Also, he works in the office next to mine, so I feel obligated to mention it.
***That's a lie.  He's fairly sensitive, but he tries really hard not to be.
****Yet.

And So It's Christmas - Part 1

This morning I woke up well rested from an overall relaxing Thanksgiving weekend and drove to work listening to Christmas carols on one of Atlanta's pop stations.  I let the beginnings of Christmas Cheer wash over me.  However, before I let go of Thanksgiving completely, there are a few things on which I would like to touch:

1.     I am fully aware that Haters must hate, but likewise, I must protest.  We get it.  Slaughtering an indigenous people and conquering their land is wrong.  Lesson learned (this is not a commentary on modern strife).  No one is supporting this.  Okay, I shouldn't say no one.  There's an evil twin to Rule #34, it states "If it exists, someone hates it.  No exceptions."  So, I'm willing to acknowledge that someone out there hates Native Americans so bad that they feel that small pox was too good for them, but ya know what?  They are the vast minority.  The rest of us get it.   That's not what it's about anymore.  It never really was, but people get fixated.  The holiday has transcended its origins, get over it.

2.     Family and friends are important every day of the year, but people are dumb.  We have short memories.  We need to remind ourselves about the best things in our lives, or we will take them for granted.  Unless you happen to be a saint, then good for you.

Your health.  Even if you're sick, you're alive.  As long as you're alive you can do something important for someone.

Your family.  I'm beginning to learn that no matter what your differences may be, your family will always give you valuable insight into your self, and that is priceless.

Your friends.  They say that friends are the family you pick yourself.  I believe that with all of me.  Every one of my friends are the parts of me that I need more of.  Without them, I am less.

Me.  You're welcome.

3.     Now that we've exhausted ourselves being thankful for all the greatest things in our lives, I want you to take the last few moments of Thanksgiving and appreciate the small things.  The TV shows that make you smile.  The books that take you somewhere else when you need to be.  The music that sounds like you feel.  Late night coffee.  Spontaneous shopping trips.  Tight hugs and long Autumn days.* ** Whatever it is that adds that color to your life; That lustrous glue that fills the gaps and makes your life a little more solid.

So basically what I'm saying here is:

Shut up and enjoy yourself.  There's no one stopping you.



*Also, the crazy-hot Latina that lives next door... with the short shorts and the tall boots... yeah, that one.

[Edit]
** And sports.  People like those things.

Gotta Show Your Math.

So I pretty much have the best sister ever.  She left me a comment on one of my earlier posts questioning how I would calculate how many dead whores I could fit in the back of a dump truck.  This is my answer:


Standard volume for a mid-sized dump truck is 6 cubic yards.
And because we're going to need this later, let's go ahead and convert this into  4.58732 cubic meters.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration released a document called the Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight (CTS&W) Study, in which they release that the average load for a dump truck is 34,760 lbs..

Let's assume that the fatties, the crack-whores, and the hotties all average out to be an average American woman's weight each.  Because on some level they're people right?  Well that would make them about 74.4 kg (164.0 lb).

Well, average human density is 1010 kg/cubic meter.

Which means that we can cram about 4,633.1932 kg, or 10,214.442 lbs. of human flesh into a mid-sized dump truck. That's well within its weight limit.  This makes sense, as it is designed to carry things a lot more dense than your average whore.

So we are restricted by volume, not weight.

Which leaves us room for no more than 62 whole dead hookers.  That's a little over 5 tons of prostitute.

Thank you.

Inappropriate Haiku #1

You did it!  Last night as I lay slumbering, you guys gave me my first milestone:  50 Followers! (On my Facebook fan page)

Sure, maybe in some grand scheme fifty followers aren't that much, but in my Grand Scheme you fifty followers are the foundation upon which I shall build my empire!  You hear that?  Fame and fortune, and it all starts with you.  To show my gratitude, I am sharing with you one of my greatest treasures.  Below is the first of my beloved Inappropriate Haiku.  Please enjoy.

Inappropriate Haiku #1

Gentle and loving

Your eyes reflect the starlight

Now get on my cock

P.S.  I know I've been posting a lot this last week.  It's that new blog smell, I have trouble staying away.  I'll calm down here soon and post something with a little more substance.

Dear That One Guy in South Korea,

Hey. I see you there.

I'm not sure what happened to cause our paths to cross, but I'm glad it did. Was it the ham post? I bet it was.  Everybody loves it. I hope that you enjoyed your time here. Come back whenever you get the chance, okay?

I miss you.

Social Conditioning

So I was up late on The Facebooks and the posts refreshed.  A friend of mine had just posted about how a stranger just called her fat.

I was all like: "Nah, you're beautiful."

And then she was all like: "Yeah, I know, which is why it was so weird that they said it."*

And I became shocked into enlightenment, like some zen koan.  I had completely missed the point.  She wasn't saying it because the comment had begun to jab into her confidence and she needed affirmation.  She was saying it because she thought it was strange for a stranger to say such a thing unprovoked.

I've spent so much time around people with low self-esteem that I've been conditioned to have a knee-jerk response to counter any negative comment.  Like some Pavlovian Complement Dog.  I say things just because I think it's the expected response, like:

"Marco."
     "Polo."

"You remind me of a babe."
     "What babe?"

"And the void would be calling."
     "Oh Riff Raff!"

"They think I'm fat."
     "Nah, you're beautiful."

It doesn't matter that it's true;  I don't like to speak without thinking.  It's a contributor to mob mentality.

Well no more!  From now on I maintain conscious awareness of every word.  No more auto-pilot.  No more call and response method of conversation.  I vow to say what I mean, and mean what I say.

This will last right up until I absentmindedly walk by a coworker and they say "S'up?" and I respond "Good."

*That's not quite how it went down, I was just paraphrasing and over-simplifying... parasimplifying?... yeah, I was parasimplifying for the sake of expediency.  Which has now been negated by the over-phrasing.

Yeah, About That

Sorry for the last post.

Not really, but yeah.

I just needed to establish, mostly to myself, that this was going to be a place where I could talk about anything. Not that I'm going to be trying to push some sort of envelope all of the time, I just need the freedom to talk about the things that are important to me, no matter how awkward they may be.

I am continually moved by people who speak out with such frank openness about deeply personal issues.  I need to believe that one day I'll be able to do that, too.

I refer to my genitalia as "The Command Center."

Why I Have a Problem With Sex

It's not that I have an ethical or moral problem with sex.  I like the idea of it, I just have difficulty with the physical completion of the act.

See, due to low self esteem, poor body image, and a complete lack of understanding of how to interact with people in a romantic capacity*, I remained a virgin until my late twenties.  Even then... it did not go well.

I should mention that from the ages of eighteen to twenty-one I worked at a porn store.  A jack-shack, to be specific.  It was my job to sell a minimum of three dollars worth of tokens to whoever stumbled in.  They would then go sit in a booth, feed it the tokens, select from a choice of thirty-two movies that were playing in an endless loop, and do what men locked in booths with porn do.

I knew that sex was nothing like it was in the porns, but I also knew that it was what people wanted it to be.  In their deepest, id-iest parts... They may love their spouses, and love making love to them, but sooner or later that urge for a tranny midget gang bang hits, and you're back in Lowest Common Denominator Land.

It's okay.  I don't judge.

The point is, eventually it got ingrained in me that sex is something that two or more porn stars do to each other.  Or the guys do to each other in the back of the 'shack.  Or, given enough money, perverts do to the nice ladies on the corner.  Or sluts did with whoever happened to be around at those parties to which I always regretted going.  Or assholes did with whoever would let them, and sometimes even that wouldn't stop them.

It wasn't something that respectable people did.

Orgasms were something you had where no one could see you, behind locked doors, in the dark, as quietly as possible.  It wasn't something you did in the presence of a lady, and certainly not inside her... The very notion seemed dreadfully inappropriate.

I'll often say that I am of three minds on everything.  Usually I consider it one of my greatest strengths.  Two tend to hold polar opposite opinions, and the third typically tries to find some sort of compromise.  I'll pick one to act with, but on some level I believe them all.

Mind One believes as I explained above, that sex is for pervs and I'm wrong for wanting it.
Mind Two understands that sex can be a perfectly healthy act between two people who care about and respect each other... but has never really heard of it happening (because the people that do it don't talk about it).
Mind Three thinks that sex is complicated and I should go drink something alcoholic.

It's difficult to get out of my own head and get into the moment.  It's difficult to take any of it seriously, and the only alternatives seem to be comedic sex, and ironic sex... which is also difficult for me, because the concept of irony completely eludes me... but that's an entirely different post.

* Which are all largely much better now, likely due to sex.

Ham Madness

I work for a specialty ham company.  I would mention the name, but apparently the first rule of Specialty Ham Company is don't talk about Specialty Ham Company.  Once, years ago, I mentioned it by name in my personal blog.  The next day I was called up to the V.P. of Human Resources' office.  I had mentioned the company favorably, because I love it.  However, later in that post I may have mentioned something about wondering how many dead prostitutes can fit in the back of a garbage truck.

Apparently the Christian based, family value oriented, specialty ham company does not like its employees associating its name with theoretical truckloads of deceased whores.

Go fig.

Thing is, people love ham.  They need it.  I concede that there are a handful of vegetarian Jews out there that have transcended this basic human requirement, but the rest of  us live day to day, trying to figure out how we're going to get that next ham.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, that need starts getting desperate.  The ham sellers build forts, trying to satisfy the hungry masses as best they can.  Sooner or later, they fail.  Their shipments come up late, a customer swears they ordered twice as many hams as they did, or one of their registers fails.  The latter is where I come in.

I do technical ham support.

When there's a ham riot, the consumers assault the hammeries.  The clerks work the best they can, but if a register goes down, there's nothing they can do.  They don't know what a USB cable is.  They don't know that the monitor isn't the computer.  Why should they?  They sell hams.  They're in a panic, because they're about to get stabbed by crazed ham enthusiasts, and they need their equipment fixed now.  "Do you know how busy it is?  Do you know the kind of people I have to deal with?"  Yes, I really do, and I sympathize.  I'm trying to help, but they won't let me.  They interrupt, try to correct me, put me on hold for twenty minutes, or just plain lie.  Everybody lies.  House taught me that, as well as life.  It wasn't until this job that I realized quite how much everybody lies.  They try not to.  They try to be decent people, but the stress is too much.  It's too late.

They've fallen to the Ham Madness.

Oh, and just so you know, the really inappropriate stuff is going to be starting soon.  Just giving you a heads up.

Face on a Shirt

So my good friend Erin is a very talented and very lovely actress.  So it is easy for me to understand that someone would want to cast her as a walking mass of rotting flesh.  People seem to be liking The Walking Dead, so we're all very happy for her.

She has her face on a shirt.

That's her in the middle.

And, of course, we're all very happy for her.  I'll be buying one soon.  But here's the rub...

I'm jealous as hell.

So I promise you this:  The moment I get a merch section up, I'm getting a T-Shirt with my face on it.  Then we can all have a t-shirt with my face on it.  Or Erin's.  Hell, we can all get our own face shirts and wear each others faces on our chests.

...Not in a weird Ed Gein kind of way, though.  I think that would be counter-productive.

The Most Portentous Clover Ever - Part 2

When I got home from finding the first four-leaf clover that I had in years, I sliced a bit of my thumb off.  Sadly, there is no good story to go along with this.  I was cutting onions.  I was improperly using a slicing device and paid the price with my flesh.  I was in such a panic that I just put the missing bit back on and put a Band-Aid on it, hoping that it would just decid to latch back on.  I was beginning to feel quite distraught and betrayed by my clover, until I remembered that my friend K.T. lost half her thumb in a metal shop accident (which is bad-ass).  So who knows, if it weren't for the clover, I could be missing a lot more thumb.

There's... a lot to cover, so I'm going to start summing up.

Caught in thunderstorm, super late to work, got stick caught in my car, thought I had a flat tire, but didn't.  It was the stick... it would make sense if I explained it... but no.

On Devil's Night an old friend I hadn't heard from in ages called me out of the blue to tell me she was going to be at the same party as me, and that I should keep an eye out for her.  I had planned to be alone in my living room, in my pajamas.  Instead I decided to go to this party, of which I had never heard.  It was at a seedy warehouse in the middle of nowhere and she was two and a half hours late.  It turns out the good party was at a different seedy warehouse further down the alley.  God I hate the scene.

On Halloween I went to see my bff Mareta at her Haunted House.  She had been doing make-up effects, but I hadn't gone to see.  It was good, then her husband and I went to go have coffee.  We talked for hours about a constant trend of the older generation of any age scorning the social change brought on by the younger generation, and other stuff... which was weird, cause we never really talk.

And my mother's husband didn't have lung cancer, as it turns out.  Just Sarcoidosis.  Which in itself isn't great, but it beats lung cancer.

I was dating a girl in Chicago, from Atlanta.  That wasn't working out well, so we ended things in Wisconsin.

A gorgeous woman caught my fly down, and The Most Interesting Man in the World covered for me. (Seriously, Google this dude.  It is ridiculous.)

One of the most bad-ass women on the planet didn't seem to mind when she found out that I have a huge crush on her.  Also, she kissed me.

My flight home got delayed, and when I went to sleep that night, the frame above my bed fell on my head.

I bought a new jacket.  Okay, I get that this one may not seem weird to anyone.  I get that.  But trust me, that is bizarre.  Like woah.

Stiver and I went to a diner to get coffee.  We got tired of the place, so we walked down the street to the Waffle House to get coffee.  On the way there was a donation bin with the most bad-ass poster ever.

I call it "Two Moon Panther."

(My wall isn't yellow, it's just weird light.)

Can you believe that someone was getting rid of that?  It is now on my dining room wall.

Thing is, after several straight weeks of strangeness, I thought "I have got to tell someone about this."  Then I corrected myself  "No, I have got to tell everyone about this."

So here it is.  MeetAdamJones.com.  Inspired by a clover, and built solely so I can tell you about the weird shit in my life.

...

And help satisfy my enormous ego.

The Most Portentous Clover Ever - Part 1

When I was a child, I was mad talented at finding four-leaf clovers.  I could look at a clover patch and find one within two minutes.  There was a period of a few months were I found dozens.  I thought I was the luckiest boy alive.  Eventually those around be became less and less enthused by my discoveries, and even my mother adopted her "Oh, that's nice Dear" response.  I suspected then, as I do now, that they were all jealous;  So in an effort to spare their feelings, I stopped looking.

A few weeks ago I considered myself in need of some luck.  Things were not awful, but I was in a terrible rut, also I had been slacking off on my fitness routine for a few weeks.  I was about to walk up Stone Mountain, a local mountain in the Atlanta area.  It is made of stone.  We are creative here.  I had been going up once a week for months, and the week was almost over.  I was not going to miss it.  I walked to the foot of the mountain and caught a patch of clover out of the corner of my eye.  This seemed like an opportune moment to get back in the habit of luck finding.  I poured over the patch, and sure enough, less than two minutes later I found this beauty:

That's when things got weird.  The following few weeks were packed with bizarre happenings and strange luck.  I will now proceed to scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg.

I've always considered finding a four-leaf clover to be good luck, but picking it to be bad, at least for the clover.  So I moved along.

On the way up the mountain I saw a woman that looked just like an Ex of mine.  She was identical from the back.  Same body type, hair, and clothes style.  I looked around and gestured like "Is anybody else seeing this?" knowing full well that there was no one else around, and that even if there were, they wouldn't likely be able to make a comparison.  When I looked back, she was gone.  For just a second I considered the state of my sanity, but then she popped up from behind a rock.  I sped up to pass her, so I could leave that awkward reminder of my past behind me, but it was too late.  I was thinking about her.

I hadn't thought about her in a while.  Things had ended poorly between us, and I dislike poking wounds.  If I had a stick, and there were a wounded dinosaur, I wouldn't poke it.  Especially a brontosaurus, because they don't exist.  I realized I missed her quite a lot.  Not romantically, but we had been friends for many years before anything romantic happened, and we hadn't spoken since.  I missed her friendship.  It didn't really seem appropriate to just send her an unsolicited email and hope for the best.  So I tried my best to make peace with the fact that this was likely one of those sad losses that a person must simply carry through life.

The next day my email got hacked and everyone I knew was sent a link for discount Viagra.  Everyone, including that Ex.  She's a smart lady, I was sure she'd realize I didn't mean to send it to her.  There's those few seconds though, the ones between where she sees she got an email from me, and when she sees that it was an automated boner-selling spam-bot.  I guess those few seconds were enough, because she replied, and we started cautiously trading emails.  So... lucky.