The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for January 2007

Magazine Renewals

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I subscribe to about six different magazines. Newsweek, PC World, Consumer Reports, Better Homes and Gardens and a couple of others. I am good about reading them. It is rare that I don’t spend some quiet time flipping through and not unusual for me to read them from cover to cover.

Frankly I spend too much time here at the PC so it gives me another excuse to get away and disconnect from the net. There is something quite nice about sitting in an overstuffed chair to do nothing but read.

There are a couple of problems with that. The first is trying to find the quiet moments in which do said reading. The second is that every time I open a magazine I spend the next ten minutes cleaning up the 27 subscription cards that pop out. That leads me to my next comment.

Is it just me or does every magazine begin soliciting a renewal from you two weeks after your subscription begins. Newsweek does this all the time. I sign up for a year and then three weeks into the new year they begin bombarding me with special offers for renewing my subscription.

It makes me wonder how much money they spend on filling the magazine with content I want to read versus how much they spend to try and grab more eyeballs. There is something not quite right with this formula.

Creative Writing

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I enjoy writing. If I could figure out a way to support a family by being a full time writer I probably would, especially if it meant being a full time blogger. I love doing this.

I also very much enjoy writing stories about all sorts of stuff. It may come as a surprise to some of you, but some of the things that appear here are fiction. Now that I have switched over to the Beta version I am labeling them as Fragments of Fiction.

If you are interested in reading any of it here is a link to a story that I have been working on for quite some time as well as a couple of pieces that I enjoy.

He Put a Gun To My Head
Stumbling Through Life
Me & The UItimate Fighter- Road Rage
Sometimes the hardest part of life is just living
Two Kinds of Pain
The Story of Two Souls
Fragments of Fiction- Version 178

Midnight Hour Musings

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I am a night owl. During my college years I would routinely be up almost all night and then sleep until about 11 am or so. Sometimes it was because I was out with the boys, but more often than not it was because I enjoy this time of day.

It is quiet. Here in the dark I gain perspective on the events of the day. Sometimes my perspective is colored by the time. Sometimes the things that bother me feel worse, but that is not a frequent occurrence.

Even now years removed from college my inclination is to be up until 2 or 3. It is not so easily done. There are so many responsibilities. It is not just the kids or work, but the combination of the two. This leads me to my next complaint.

My fragile male ego is having trouble dealing with aging. I truly don’t get too riled up at my hair loss. It is thinning, but I am no where close to bald. What bothers me is the gym. In particular running at the gym on the basketball court. I seem to be losing a step.

Some of it can be attributed to carrying extra weight, but not all of it. I am noticeably slower. Guys who shouldn’t be able to blow by me are pulling away from me and those that used to be slower seem to be keeping up. I am working on a solution for this, but I am not real sure that I can take a 38 year old body that has been used and abused and turn it into a 25 year old. Not when it comes to speed. I can do it in a number of areas, but speed is doubtful.

Life at home has its moments. There is nothing like the terrible twos. Today we got to play all sorts of fun games. There was let’s pee on dad’s side of the bed and then there was let’s poop in the tub.

On a side note I have an issue with the various words we use for our bathroom business. Maybe I’ll stop and blog about it. Nah, I’ll just include it here.

sca·tol·o·gy (sk-tl-j)

n.

1. The study and analysis of feces for physiological and diagnostic purposes. Also called coprology.
2. An obsession with excrement or excretory functions.
3. The psychiatric study of such an obsession.

The words we use for this particular function are missing something. The expressions just don’t ring true. Here is a short list of things you hear people say. If this is TMI kindly skip to the next post. It goes something like this:

I am going to take a ______________________.

Words that could be inserted in the blank include: Dump, bowel movement, shit, poop, crap, dukie, and or dootie.

Sorry, none of them work for me. Doesn’t mean that I don’t use some or all of them, but there is something not quite right there.

Moving on to the next post now.

Stories That Caught My Eye

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Caffeinated Pastries- Add To the health score of your cravings.

DURHAM. N.C. Jan 27, 2007 (AP)— That cup of coffee just not getting it done anymore? How about a Buzz Donut or a Buzzed Bagel? That’s what Doctor Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has come up with. Bohannon says he’s developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee.

Doc Prescribes Penis Therapy

She was a 19-year-old trainee nurse when, suffering from depression, she was referred to a psychiatrist called William Kerr.In the privacy of the consulting room, she says, the doctor exposed himself to her, saying that ‘this is what you need’.

The Best Public Restrooms in America

CINCINNATI, OH, April 20, 2006 – The finest restroom in America is at a Wendell’s restaurant in Westerville, Ohio – says the Internet public who cast online ballots in the 5th annual “America’s Best Restroom” contest presented by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corporation (Nasdaq: CTAS),

Calling Her A Baby Making Machine Is Not Wise

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Yanagisawa calls women ‘birth-giving machines’

MATSUE, Shimane Pref. (Kyodo) Health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa referred to women as “birth-giving machines” in a speech Saturday on welfare and health care.

Addressing prefectural assembly members of the Liberal Democratic Party in Matsue, the 71-year-old Yanagisawa touched on the nation’s declining birthrate and said, “The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head, although it may not be so appropriate to call them machines.”

Something tells me that these types of comments are unlikely to be well received.