Monday, June 16, 2008

A man a brand a canal Panama

My friend Brian (who likes the internet) and I were talking about the thing that he likes* the other day.

Blogs, Facebooks, Twitters, Aggregators, readers and all that. He was saying that once we are online we become brands, with consumers and followers and the like. Though I liked to think of myself as a Grape Nehi in a Coca-Cola world, I didn't like the idea of being a commodity. That is until I thought that meant that I get to design a logo for myself. If you would like you can design one for me too, and find some way to get it to me*. I am looking for something fresh and fun that appeals to my target demographic (peopleages 20-35 that like awesome things, taking naps and appendix jokes ).

Also, I have had some pretty good ideas lately that I should probably blog about. STAY TUNED!!!

*the internet

Thursday, June 12, 2008

SINZ

Last week was gay-pride week in Salt Lake City. I think this made a lot of Mormons uncomfortable.


because, you know, Pride is a sin.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Buzy Bee

So, all jokes about appendix's (appendices?) aside. I have been bursting with work lately. We are working once again on a product for Two Little Hands Productions. I shan't say what. Which keeps me super busy.

My company also did this:


GM ROCKS!!!!!!!!

Nothing says Indie music like car manufacturers. I hope that GM appreciates all of the appendix joke traffic that I send their way. But seriously, they are sponsoring a number of pretty cool concerts including the "palooza" that started the "palooza" craze. Loungeapalooza etcetera.

Which reminds me, we are having a gathering for Lee (Leelandpalooza) at my house after the Bees game on Saturday. You can come or don't. but don't expect it to be a repository of the best appendix jokes you have ever heard.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

The Inner Net

the internet is nice and all, but lately I have been enjoying this old thing called a phone and it turns out, it comes in pretty handy.

The internet is such a great place to escape to, but sometimes I just need to be where I am escaping from, and it turns out that there is a lot worth facing in the real world.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Lonliness is next to Sadliness

I wrote this ramble somewhere else, and thought about how I neglected this poor blog, only stopping by to give it a T-shirt. So is my post wherein I talk about the lonely one.

The lonely one.

I have always felt bad for the lonely one. Elgin was in my fifth grade class, and Ben S. wrote a story called "the Smellgin" that everyone thought was funny (because he smelled) and I just felt awful for Elgin (but the fact taht he smelled made it hard for me to be friends with him). There was Steven C. 9who made me feel uncomfortable when he talked about kissing his mom "hello" when he got home from school, Alan with heart problems and long white fingernails, and the guy with a tumor on his leg in third grade (whose name I don't have the charity to remember).

All through life I felt sad for the lonely one and I wished I could do something, but I never had enough confidence in myself to feel like I was good for much. So I'd talk to them, move my desk to their island, but I still wanted the cool friends, the interesting and attractive people that avoided ridicule. One time we were playing soccer at recess and I tripped Justin I. (chubby plus freckles) and he fell in a puddle of mud. Everyone laughed and I got all sorts of back slaps, but I felt awful. Yet I drank up the backslaps like some sort of luxury chocolate shake.

So life went on, and there was always that kid. The one with the smelly jacket, or the deaf girl that you could throw stuff in her hair and she didn't know, there was also that guy that read "the Sword of Shanara" and used the bathroom to go number two with the door open. and I couldn't do a darn thing to be on their side, because then they'd throw stuff in MY hair or pull down my pants when I was talking to the pretty girl. This is the dilemma of a Junior High Student. I still regret to this day ditching one of my best friends because I was convinced that he would be an impediment and all the things that made him decent and good were the things that would not stand up at BJH. You cannot make friends with Gomez or you too will get heaved into the bushes at lunch. If you talk to J.Wakefield, your pants are in danger of getting ceremoniously dumped.

In High School I got some confidence and found that people would be around me if I did funny things. So I did funny things and sometimes on television or for assemblies, but I didn't think of myself as cool or popular or any of that. I still sweated when asking a girl out (and avoided them until the day of the date, lest they should change their mind). But there were still the lonely ones skulking down the halls and you knew them and everyone knew their name, but know I think I started to settle into a groove and realized that I loved art and wasn't awful at soccer and being good at school wasn't something to hide. I ran for a class office and then for a Student Body Office (for in the mind of my Junior-year-self there was no arrival greater, nor pronouncement of completion more final). I wrote the scripts myself and made the posters in the wee hours of my house. I walked around the lunch room shaking hands and making ridiculous promises because any promise was ridiculous. Miracle of miracles, I get elected to a Student Body Office, and feel like I have arrived.

So my job is to make announcements, but I also think that from now on, things are going to be different. I will sit with Elgin and Justin and James and Steven and everyone else will realize that we are all okay, and it would be just like a seminary videos. And the kid with ketchup on his shirt will be the prom queen and I will dance with the heavy-set gal at Jr. Prom.

So on the first day of School, I notice this kid with extra-thick glasses that involve some tape (I think they were the type that are supposed to turn dark in sunlight, but instead are always just kind of dark). I watch him as he eats by himself slowly and deliberately. His eyes are on the table and he finishes efficiently then exits quickly. This pattern would continue every day for a week.

I point this out to my friend and lay out my plan. He is in on it with me. We go and sit with this guy with the biggest dopiest grins on our faces. We introduce ourselves and the guy looks up, hurt and says, "oh, I see what you are doing." and gets up and walks away. So all of the sudden I am Ben eFFing Scribner writing a story about Smellgin and there is nothing I can do to make this guy think different.

Fast forward a few years. I am in college (freshman year) and I jump into an advanced Physics class. It is the first class I have taken in an auditorium with stadium seating. The students buzz about the professor, "He was on the Manhattan project, some sort of genius." " Did you hear that he never married?" And I take a test or two, and on the second test in class on Friday I miss one of the important problems that is like half of the grade. So disgusted and intimidated by the process I throw the paper away. One week passes, then this professor announces that one of the problems was scored incorrectly and if you bring the test in they will regrade it.

What does a guy do?

Nothing, I sit on it for a week. But I know it will hurt my grade, so I go up to him and explain my situation. I am not asking for anything at this point, I just tell him what happens. He tells me to come back to his office to discuss it. When we get to his office he tells me he is going to retest me right there. He asks me to sit down and he makes up a problem and I am supposed to solve it in front of him. I totally freeze up and stare at the paper for like five minutes. Then he says, "here, you will probably need these formulas" and he writes out a bunch of formulas for me. I do the problem, he slowly takes out a red pen and corrects the problem and I get 8 out of 10 points (a full letter grade difference). He explains what I did wrong and encourages me on the next test. I pulled an A minus in the class (I think, actually I don't know, but I want you to think his encouragment worked, and that I am smart, but not remarkaeble [which I spelled wrong and am leaving as such for my punishment for saying that I am smart]).

Jump forward again, back from my mission, owning campus and living a pretty good life. It's like nine at night. I am studying in the Wilkensen center and I catch a tall tweeded figure out of the corner of my eye. It's this professor and he has a tray with some sandwich on it and he sits down and eats it slowly and deliberately. He looks at the ceiling tiles in the way that makes you think he is pondering physics but I assume he is avoiding eye contact. I remember how he was never married, and now after class he must eat this gummy bread and slow gape on it. I sit and watch him eat and my leg muscles start twitching because I have been on the verge of moving over and sitting with him for a half an hour. All I wanted to say was "I was in your class years ago, and thanks for your help." but I cant' get that other kid out of my mind, and as much as we hate loneliness we also hate pity.

So I don't know what is sadder, lonely guy or cowardice.

There are still lonely ones in my life and this one guy (Brett, who has a clammy handshake and who starts twitching when I talk to him) and sometimes I try to sit with him, but it never feels right, but maybe it's better than nothing. So maybe I am not as much a coward anymore, but you can't ever sit with everyone, and also sometimes you are the lonely guy and you just want someone interesting and confident to come sit by you, but not because you are the lonely one.

So maybe I will just have to treat this blog like the lonely one and start being nice to it. Sometimes the world is just a lonely place and all you can do is sit next to it, and hope it doesn't get the wrong idea.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Don't think of this as a new blog

Just a blog that changed it's t-shirt.

I am also trying out Adsense, because I am to see if my dozen or so hits a day can turn into gum money.

I also threw down a few more links. I bet I forgot a bunch. It's not you, it's me.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A well coined phrase

So there is this guy who linked to my blog pointing out my opportunism with the google searches (re: appendix jokes). He coined the term "googlooping" to describe the phenomenon. I hearby want to encourage the use of said term and of said practice. Please regale me of your tales of how googlooping has increased the crash errant surfers to your virtual sandy beaches. Link them to that guys post and whoever google's googlooping will find him.

I myself have found my "appendix jokes" traffic to be waning. If you are interested in helping with this project. Mention "appendix jokes" in your blog and link it back to that page.

If you hate both of my projects then try out some of the other words and phrases that I am trying to coin and get accepted into the lexicon.

Tomorning (tomorrow morning) ex: "I'd like to stay and french-out but I gotta get up awful early tomorning"

Yesternight (last night) ex: "I am real tired 'cause I frenched it up yesternight."

Dormulent (incredibly sleepy, desiring a bed) ex: "That guy is always blaming his sleepiness on kissing out but he is really just a dormulant galoot."

Alright, that's enough blog homework for one night.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Karma is an unkind woman

So I have been basking in all of my googled glory. Drinking up the fame that comes from being the internet's leading authority on Appendix Jokes, and then karma hit me (but apparently karma has poor aim and hit my good buddy Mike at work).

So Mike is recovering from an appendectomy. Send good vibes his way. I am going to send a pie his way.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Some dance

If you are going to go to a film festival, make documentaries your priority. Here is why:

There are a lot of poorly made films at a festival. The majority of the good ones will find distribution and make it to a local art-house at least. Films that have a LOT of buzz will probably even get a wide release. Anymore the festival scene is really about independent filmmakers and artistic and innovative films as much as it is about promoting a certain type of film that "feels" independent (and has a major star trying to earn some acting chops). National Treasure could have been a Sundance film if Nicholas Cage had a 14 year old daughter that was into taxidermy and said whatever was on her mind.

So go see the documentaries. Some are sweet and some are alarmist, many simply have a cause and the Q&A isn't about the craft it's about the cause "But what can we do?!?" I usually like the documentaries about people but sometimes I like the informative ones. I saw two documentaries like this. One better than the other, but both interesting and fair-handed and informative enough to make me care about their causes. FLOW was about water and it talked about a number of issues surrounding the privatization of water (bad) and the importance of conservation (good) and activism (good?). Personally I think activism is a tool for when the normal processes don't work (ie: voting, legislation etc..) some people like the romance of the sit in and the picket sign (but I digress). I left this film firm in my resolve not to buy bottled water (for a number of reasons, we can talk about it if you'd like). It was a nice film by people that cared passionately about what they were doing.

The other doc I saw was I.O.U.S.A. It was a midnight show and it was on economics and debt. To me this was a bigger warning that former vice-president Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Power Point Presentation" (which I only thought was vice-good). I left the theater wanting to vote for a candidate that would raise taxes and balance the budget and diminish entitlements. Did you know in the last 7 years our national debt has almost doubled? and more importantly, the holders of the debt are now, more than ever, foreign entities, specifically China?

Why does this matter? is this only theoretical money? Well kind of, but the thing is, once people realize that money is only theoretical that's when it all goes bad, and if the owners of our debt do that to us our green pieces of paper aren't worth anything anymore, and the zeroes and ones in your atm mean less. But more to the point, these foreign debt holders can influence and dictate policy to US. The world bank already does it to 3rd world countries. So the thing we should care about is that the guys that pulled off the party at Tianemen square also hold our debt, and if at any point we decide to become idealistic the thing that our loan collectors can repossess is our ideal of what America is.

Yeesh, sometimes I just wish we could pay off our National Debt with our National Treasure. Anybody know a Templar Knight?

Thursday, January 17, 2008

A SURGE(ry) in APPENDIX TRAFFIC

Doctor (examining a patient's appendix): Wow, I bet that hurts like the Dickens!
Patient (who is a minor celebrity): No, it's actually just north of the Dickens

(cue laugh track)


This was said to my father (a doctor) by a patient (more like IMpatient) who makes his living off making jokes. Which is a bigger crime: to violate HIPA or to steal a joke?


I want to become the Robins William of appendix jokes.


Thanks to the fine folks at the Google, I am the NUMBER 1 result when you search appendix jokes.

I got three hits yesterday alone!!! I am getting at least one a day!! I dont' have enough exclamation marks!!!!!

I promise my next jokes won't have a theme, or at least they won't have THIS theme.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Salt City Ink.




How about a reality show about a Salt Lake City tattoo parlor that only does temporary tattoos. Sure it's not a great idea, but c'mon, there are already FOUR shows about tattoo parlors.

Anyway, I have a few opinions about tattoos, but mostly I don't care. Mostly because getting a tattoo is like having someone write down the date you wanted to get a tattoo on your body. Also, it is mostly because it is like choosing a t-shirt that you really like, and deciding to wear it for the rest of forever.

But on the other hand, they can be really cool. So what's a fella to do?

Well if I DID get a tattoo it would probably be one of the following (feel free to take any of these ideas and let me know how they turn out).

TATTOO IDEAS:

  • Calvin urinating on gothic letters that say: "TATTOO"
  • Herve Villachez ("Hey want to see my tattoo?").
  • A picture of my face, on my face, about 3/4 size (Sure it's vain, but people will always be under the illusion that I am backing away from them).
  • The words "Bad Idea" on my cheek, right below my eye.
  • Robot hand (on hand).
  • A tattoo right under my nostril, you think it is a booger but when you look close, nope, it's a beautiful butterfly (with skulls on it's wings).
  • A tattoo of big muscles all over my body (<---GREAT IDEA).
  • a tribal.
  • A tattoo of lots of money, but make it look like it's coming out of my pockets (they are a-million-dollar-bills)
  • A Bear Murdering a Puma (with some malice of forethought).
  • A tattoo of a box of TNT right where my appendix should be (gotta please my readership)
  • A tattoo of a good haircut on (and around) my head.
  • A tattoo that says "VOTE FOR MITCH ROMNEY!!!
If you have any more ideas, go ahead and give them to me. Especially if they are related to your FREE APPENDIX SURGERY JOKES!!!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Bursting with Appendix Jokes!!!

So this guy (Brian) is now working with a company that does Web Analytics. Really high-powered stuff that can tell what gum you are eating while you are surfing the site. I, on the other hand, am using good ole-fashioned Sitemeter. What I have learned from the free sitemeter is that most people that read my blog know me, or know people that know me. But about once a day, I get someone who did a google search for "appendix jokes". one of my first posts was an appendix of my most commonly used jokes I am getting searchers from around the world looking for appendix jokes.

So friends, family, people who know people who I know: This post is not for you. This is for the Guy in New Zealand whose mom is in the hospital and is looking for something clever to write about her recent surgery. Here is the thing, I don't want to just GIVE you jokes (then you won't come back). So instead, I am just going to give you a couple of Appendix Punchlines. Also, at the end of the post I am going to write a few words that are sure to increase my Appendix-Jokes traffic.


APPENDIX PUNCHLINES:



"No, I said vestigial organ, not vestigial Oregon!"

"And St. Peter said, 'It was the RUPTURE, not the RAPTURE!'"

"Well it all came out in the end"

"Now THAT is what I call splenic flexture!"  (I hope you guys are alright with a few splean jokes thrown in)

"Well you sure ain't going to find any bibliographies in THAT appendix"

"STAND BACK, IT'S GOING TO BLOW!!!"

"I'll show YOU a small fingerlike organ!"

"Duoden'em, I hardly knew him"



Thank you folks I'll be here all week.




hot sexy appendix jokes babes appendix jokes free iphone appendix jokes dirty appendix jokes funny appendix jokes geneology appendix jokes Mitt Romney appendix jokes free cake appendix jokes.

P.S. I am getting about 13 hits a day right now, let's see if we can get a spike in appendix jokes traffic!

Friday, January 04, 2008

Lazer Quest(ions)

Q: Is there any funner thing that can be did on a Thursday night than to play lazer tag for brothers birthday?

A: Nope

Q: But isn't it kind of dorky?

A: Yup

Q: Surely there is a funner thing to do, isn't there?

A: Not unless there is a game called lazer french-out.

Q: "French out" that sounds gross. Do you have any suggestions for making innocuous forms of affection sound gross?

A: Good question. Yes, if you want to make some form of affection sound gross, make it a gerund (or past participle) then add a direction: (french kiss =frenching up ex: I totally got frenched up last night, hugging = front hugging ex: I am really into front hugging these days).

Q: Does Michelle Hoon have a grosser version

A: Yup, but I will let her tell it.

Q: Are you some sort of perv.

A: No, it just sounds like it, most of my friends think I am a prude, I blush when I walk by a women's underwear store.

Q: nerd

A: that's not really a question now is it?

Q: Ah hah, the questioner has become the question-ed. HOW D'YOU LIKE ME NOW!?!?

A: I like you just fine.

Q: Do you have any pictures that you have took that demonstrate your patriotism?

A:
Q: I question your patriotism.

A: Well then I guess we know who your uncle is not (Sam).

Q: Happy New year?

A: whatevs.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Well, I hope that is worth a thousand words, so maybe I won't have to post for a bit. I do have a couple thousand more words for ye, if'n yer interested.

Friday, November 16, 2007

This is NOT a musix blog

Okay, you guys know me (all 17 of you per day) and you know that this is not a music blog. I am not the guy that knows the latest music. I may be the last one to get on the feist train, so late in fact that I am getting on the feist bus that runs late into the night, but don't let this song get into your ear, or you won't get it out.


Thanks and curses to D.Hurley for feeding me this.
There are other versions out there, but they have too many darn elements (not Honda). Here is the other thing that I am going to muse upon: Watching this I am overtaken by the beauty of Feist, but in the way that makes me want to tell people that sometimes beauty has nothing to do with the arrangement of flesh upon your skull.

There are a lot of beautiful people in the world (at least a dozen). It's tragic, or at least lame when they don't get that about theyselves. I for instance have a number of good things going for me, but I am often awkward and have many things about me that are less-than-ideal, but sometimes I recline against my conviction that I am fairly awesome. It is not a comparative thing, but just a thing that I think is healthy to think about yourself, not that I am awesomer than other nor even the awesomest (expecially not in grammar nor spelling), but I think we should all have an abiding belief in ourownself and ourown awesomeness. If we believe this in a healthy way I think we separate ourselves from the products that we create. We can take criticism as something that can't destroy us.

I think the key in that is to be open to the awesomeness of others, and people, I am putting you on notice. If I spend much time with you, I have some evidence as to your awesomeness, so I don't want to hear you down on yourself.

Here is the last part of this musing.
Another awesome thing, is the hot cocoa that I make. Request it by name.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Happiness is...

Despite what the rock and the roll say. Happiness is not a warm gun. That is a different emotion entirely (shootiness?).

Recent research has concluded that there is no joy equal to that of a guileless child running toward you whilst screaming your name. Nothing quickens the heart rate nor brings a smile to a sullen face with such force.

I give you a case in point:
Not my best photography, but I think you get the idea. So here is a salute to some of my nieces and nephew that will be moving soon, and whom I will miss terribly, whose urchin cries have a greater pull than the song of Circe and all of the Sirens combined.

Kids:


I just hope they remember who their favorite uncle is.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

One of these days these shoes are going to walk all over you.

LinkI made these shoes for a friend t'other day. I did the negative space with white acrylic paint and used sharpie paint pen for the black lines. I think i will make more of things similar.

I can't say the idea was mine alone. Monstershouel (scroll down).

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Man's inhumanity to ham(burger).

I was in Detroit (rock city) only long enough to see White Castle and eat a slider (or five). This is a miserable excuse for a burger, and after five I feel like I am guilty of gastronomic genocide against the nation of me.



there will be a war-crimes tribunal.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Wave of Mutilation

So I got this guilt. Blog guilt. You folks probably know something about it. I feel like I owe the internet something, and for that I apologize.

This summer has been one thing after another thing and knocked back and forth by the whimsy of fate (Oh fate, why must you have so much whimsy!).

So this isn't actually my blog post, this is a stop gap measure. You won't see the pictures of me traveling across America (not yet), nor see me driving through the badlands, or hear about my weekend adventures.

You will, but just not yet. I am still here, and all that, but I just haven't the time, but stay tuned, because man, I have some pictures for you.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Baile bien mujer

So I think I have established that America is pretty great, neh?

D'you know what else is great? The Mexico. You don't know the first thing about taco unless you have ate one of their tacos off a big pile or roasting meat with pineapple begifting its juices to the meat. But I digress (coming soon: taco blog, tentatively named "Dos tacos muy tacos")

Work sent me to Mexico to film another lil' doc about Ballet Folklorico at a little* church**-run school in the city of Mexico.


Originally I wasn't incredibly stoked ('ceptin' about the mexico part), but these dancers, though only high-school aged were incredible. The best moments were on film, but I captured a few with my lil' point and shoot.





You know who else is a good dancer?

my friend/camerman/editor/co-director Isaac
But after it was over there were bows and prayers, and I thought about how I love the idea of an implicit connection of us expressing ourselves through art and our spirituality.


After this much culture, the cultural affairs director for the school took us to take in some more Mexico. At this point, I was body-slammed with awesomeness.
and then went to an open-air market the next day where I saw a lot of these signs which I quite liked.

Man, I dig this country quite a bit. I didn't take pictures of the tacos I ate (because I was on sacred ground), but also because if you even saw a picture of one of these al pastor tacos with oaxaca cheese and grilled pineapple you would bite your monitor.

then I came home and prepared for a trip across America, or at least South Dakota.

*HUGE
**The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka The Mormons, aka the NOT-R-LDS