Polished Scrawl Productions: The Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 11/28/05

Des Moines, IA — The Iowa Tourism Board, in accordance with a bill passed by an overwhelming majority in both the State House and Senate last week, has launched their new tourism campaign, centering around the new official State Song of Iowa. The campaign is focused on a new web site, which went live today.

“We sincerely hope that this new site will maybe make a lot of people aware of Iowa, and what we have to offer,” said the chairman in a statement this morning on the steps of the capitol in Des Moines. “Amazingly, we have been able to encapsulate what we feel is the full Iowa experience into this one short jingle.”

The new web site is available by follwing this link.

This past weekend, I went with some friends to down near Houston to a Rennaissance Festival. I had been to one years and years ago when I was but wee, which I don’t really remember in great detail, so this was sort of a new experience. And a bizzare one at that…

First off, “Rennaissance” Festival has become a misnomer. I’m sure it started off as an attempt to try and recreate a true midaeval experience as best as possible. Over the years, though, it seems that the whole operation has been overrun by popular culture and now an authentically-dressed 16th Century nobleman will more-than-likely be standing next to Amblegam, High Wizard Priest of the Fifth Realm of Z’yngmar. I bring this up solely for its comedic value, lest you think of me as the type who sees popular culture as an evil scourge which ruins all good things… Quite the contrary. The vast majority of my brain is nothing more than a repository for completely useless bits of pop culture and trivia.

In short, much of my time at the Festival was spent desperately trying to refrain from using sarcastic bits of Ye Olde English like “Ho, there!” or “Good morrow to thee!” and the like… which was even more of a task since most of the people working there were already talking like that anyway. I think my can of the “Kings Ale” (Bud Light) came to something like “Four shillings, fifty pence” or some such. It took all my strength to not ask for it in a “mighty flaggon.” Although, if I had, I think I may have gotten an earfull from that saucy beer wench… Verrily!

We were there to meet one of Meredith’s friends, Nicole, who is a dancer at the Festival. We caught up with her and followed her around to various places, with her stopping us every so often to check something out and/or dance to whatever merry band of minstrels was nearby. One such band were travelling gypsies, and in the grand tradition of their culture and heritage, stretching back into the very mists of time, the cute gypsy girl in the headscarf made certain to announce to the crowd that “…there is an email sign-up sheet over on the gypsy cart.”

Huzzah!

P.S. I set my mood to “thankful” what with yesterday being Thanksgiving and all. Hope yours was a good one! Happy Happy, Gobble Gobble.

This headline and image was on CNN’s front page today…

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…the chicken is watching…

are you ready for…

THE FLU?!?!?!?!?

AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

Sittin’ here in the office dinkin’ around on MySpace ’cause there’s not really much of anything better for me to do at the moment. Actually, that’s not true, but the things I should be doing I am not in the right frame of mind for right now. And so I am here typing away on my Tablet PC, which I have dubbed “Penfold”
a.) Because you can write on the screen with a pen (a.k.a. “stylus”… if you want to get all technical about it)…
b.) Because you can fold the screen around and back down over the keyboard…
c.) Because Penfold was a character on Danger Mouse, and that show rocked…
d.) Because I am an absolutely immense specimen of a dork, and have named my laptop for god’s sake.

That was not a multiple choice test. There are no circles to fill in with your #2 Pencil (NO X’S! NO CHECKMARKS! WRONG! FAILURE!!!!! GO BACK TO KINDERGARTEN!! DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO!!!)

I am sitting in my office right now. At my desk. Looking out the window. I can see the glowing red neon pegasus from here. Sometimes it spins around, but it’s not right now. I suppose that means it’s broken, but maybe they just turned off his rotatey thing… I don’t really know why they would do that. He doesn’t spin very fast, so I don’t think they’re concerned about him (I’m assuming it’s a him) rotating into a whirling, red frenzy and flying off the roof and crashing down onto the street. Although maybe he should. That’ll teach ‘em to shut of his rotatey thing… the bastards!

Last night was the first night of the 12inchpimps Club One After Hours Infotainment Real Estate Seminar… no… sorry, Dancing-like-a-Monkey Cirque du Crazyhouse. It was pretty freakin’ fun. Lotsa people. Lotsa music. Lotsa lasers… “lasers”… and a guy wearing a saddle… Yes, that’s right. Random guy wearing a saddle, whom you could ride should you choose to. I chose to…refrain. I chose instead to do a little dance, talk(SHOUT) to people, and shake hands. Sometimes even do the kind of shaking hands that requires multiple steps, and which I am completely not cool enough to be allowed to do. But I fake it pretty well.

… listening to Frank Sinatra sing “One For My Baby” is quite nice, by the way… <—-(this is known as an “aside”)…

But, yes when properly motivated (read: “liquored up”) I can be known to dance. I’ve been told in the past that I’m actually “good” at it, but that might give the false impression that I actually know actual dance “moves.” While I did take a ballroom dance class with my friend Tasha once, only a small quotient of that knowledge remains in my brain, and therefore my dancing consists of what, to a sober outsider, might appear to be the beginnings of something they might should call in a priest about. I dunno… I just do what I do… tha’s how I roll… playa’… (see that’s why I shouldn’t be allowed to do those multi-step handshakes….)

Just so you know… I’m typing this in order to kill time until people come back to the office, ’cause supposedly we might be going to Nikita in a little while… but until then, I type. I just looked at the word “handshakes” above, and for a split second I read it as “milkshakes”… and now I want a milkshake… dammit…

….

(a few minutes later)

Okay, I keep finding other things to be distracted by, so I think I’m done with this now… Gonna’ leave in a few minutes anyway…

ZONK!

So, I have come to realize that I’ve set up my MySpace profile completely incorrectly. After browsing through a bunch of other people’s profiles and seeing how a lot of other people have theirs set up, I discovered I need to make the following changes to mine:

1. My pictures are completely wrong. I’m a guy, so I’m supposed to have pictures of myself standing in front of my bathroom mirror, lifting up my shirt and taking a picture of my abs with my camera phone. And as a follow-up, I must populate my friends list with models and strippers.

2. All the text in my profile is supposed to blend in nearly completely with the background image, so as to be unreadable. Alternatively, it can be made unreadable by being in a microscopic font size, or by having the text be highlighted in the same color as the text itself.

3. I have a shameful lack of graphics telling people what kind of kisser I am, and what my horoscope means.

4. My Interests are listed as text when they should be huge JPEGs and/or animated GIFs.

5. Somewhere, hidden far, far down amongst my many, many Interest graphics will be a video clip which will begin to play automatically.

Hopefully I can get all these things done soon, so I can really fit into the MySpace community!

Hooray!

In a previous blog, I briefly mentioned sneaking up behind a group of random girls and making a stupid face. Spurred on by my drunken state of mind, I stealthily moved in behind them right as Kevin snapped the photo…

Here, now, is the photo… complete with a much more psychopathic-looking Me than I had intended… but pretty damn funny none-the-less.

(Actually, now that I think of it… only two of these girls are random. Kat is on the left…)

Bored, and looking for blog topics, I resort to theivery: Friend Steve posted a similar blog on his MySpace, wherein he was told to type “Steve is” into Google and do a search to see what comes up. In accordance with stealing that idea, I typed “James is” into Google. Here are some of the results:

“James is a COUNTERFEIT!”
“James is also a mail application platform.”
“James is a poor man’s Shiva Sukanya Verma”
“James is WorldChanging”
“James is booked for gigs?”
“James is seeking a long-term deal.”
“James is now widely valued for his psychological insight…”
“James is free to make outrageous comments on Peter Mandelson.”
“James is mentioned briefly in connection with Jesus’ visit to Nazareth.”
“James is a quiet force for Indianapolis.”
“James is a complete and utter idiot!”
“James is a cutting-edge research facility…”
“James is Walter Burke…”
“James is wonderfully quirky in his interpretation of delta blues.”
“James is 6510 acres of alluring water and has 150 miles of shoreline.”
“James is a modern home completed in August of 1998…”
“James is Wrong about Regional Economies.”
“James is the patron saint of hatmakers…”
“James is Newark’s senior tennis champion …”
“James is becoming the go-to guy for Hollywood’s teen starlets…”
“James is a perilous choice of subject…”
“James is clearly one of the most exciting talents to come out of the UK in recent years.”
“James is home to warm water stream fisheries and magnificent mountain vistas.”
“JAMES IS UNICRON!”

Wow… who knew?

Currently in Dallas: Cloudy and 58 degrees. Much better, Texas, thank you.

So, as if to give me the starkest of reminders about where I live, on my way in to work on Monday I was diverted by a herd of longhorn cattle in the middle of St. Paul Street.

Let’s just be quiet for a minute and let that sink in…

Yes. Very good. Moving on then… I’ve discovered I have to get an Xbox 360. Crap. Normally, this would be good news, and, eventually, I’m sure it will be. At the moment, though, it’s going to require a fair bit of finagling, and maybe some off-shore gambling. Such is the nature of knowing people who make video games. And good video games to boot. Maybe I’ll have to get the game first, to make sure I’m supporting the cause, and then figure out how to get the actual machine later on.

God, what a silly proposition. Sadly, I may wind up doing just that, such is the extent that I will support my friends. Besides… Xbox 360 am shiney…

…shiiiiinnnny…

Last night was a great time, made even better by the fact that it was unexpectedly fun. I hadn’t planned on going out, but at the last minute I changed my mind and decided to go hang out at Fuse. Not only was it a wise decision (ala Sam Adams), but over the course of the night I came to an important realization…

The night started off with a bit of a confidence boost, before I even got in the door. I walked up to the front of the building, which was roped off as clubs usually are. I was prepared to go through the usual rig-a-ma-roll of trying to convince the doorguy that, yes, I actually work with the DJ, and it’s okay for me to go in… This is always somewhat of a tense situation, because, being the low-profile, background character in the play that is the 12inchpimps, the doorguys and owners of the venues we work with usually have no earthly idea who the hell I am. At the door to Fuse last night, though, was Alvin, who I know in a mutual aquaintance capacity.

Handshake. “Good to see you. You’re good, go on in.”

Wow… seriously? It was awesome to not have to name-drop in order to get in somewhere; to get in on my own laurels via people I know outside my job. Realization begins.

Upstairs I go. Meet Willie. Hang out. Learn a little about DJing. I know what a “break beat” is now, and what to do if Willie doesn’t get back from the bathroom before the record ends. Meet a couple of the people who run Fuse. Kat shows up!! Cool, I was gonna’ call her the next day (today), but she says she’s going to NASCAR, so it’s cool I got to see her last night. I don’t usually randomly see people I know at clubs, because all the people I know are usually there to begin with. But now, a second random friend in one night… Realization builds.

Then, at the end of the night, time to pack up. Time for Kevin to take a few last pictures. Kat comes back to say bye. Kevin takes pictures of random group of girls on their way out, and in a fit of nearly-unprecedented unguarded spontinaety on my part, I sneak up behind these strangers and make some kind of bizarre face in the background of the picture. Now… it may have been the two gin and tonics and two beers that were responsible… but only marginally. Because, here is the Realization…

I am becoming comfortable here. I know people here. I won’t be on my own here. I can function on my own here. I can function on my own in general. I’m not scared. I’ve felt this realization brewing for a while now, but now it’s fully-formed I think. It’s reality. It doesn’t change the importance of certain relationships that are already in place, but it does change the fact that I don’t have to use those relationships as a crutch. I don’t have to view them as “all I have.” I can be a self-sufficient person.

Finally… Sure took long enough. Hopefully it’ll stick…

Today is November 5. Currently, in Dallas, it is 85 Degrees and sunny. In NOVEMBER! This is unacceptable. My hard-wired, internal Iowan meteorological compass cannot handle this for much longer. I want my cloudy skies! I want my chilly winds! I want my sweater and coat weather! I want my freakin’ Fall and Winter! Dismal and cold, the way it damn well should be!

You know what… Who do I talk to around here to get this fixed? 85 degrees in November… my ASS! You should be ashamed of yourself, Texas. I mean… honestly!