hope you and yours had a fabulous thanksgiving. It was more like Happy Fog Day around these parts.
I spent mine the usual way. bookending 2 meals at the rents with football and the family friendly pixar fare (as much as i hated wall-e, I think i hated “UP” more). Parm got to munch on his holiday meal of boiled chicken mixed with dog food. mmmmmm.
Last night after we waddled back home, with nothing new on tv, I decided to watch a movie I had saved on the dvr. the day the earth stood still. if you’ve seen the movie, then you’ll get this: I’ve never ever wanted a kid to die more than the one in that movie. yeah, i said it.
today of course is friday de negro. To those of you who wonder what the term means, Black Friday marks the beginning period of the year where jason refuses to step foot in any mall and/or shopping plaza until the 2nd week in january.
and i just got word that for my birfday that my brother got me the “network extender” for my verizon. it’s a mini cell tower that hooks up to my internet. no more every-other-word conversations here. i hope.
I guess I learned I needed to shave when one of the girls in the studio gave me a hug last night and then said “I didn’t know you had a mustache.” Said mustache took of course a week+ to grow, but she was at least too young to say something like “why do you have some dirt on your face?”
Everyone is sick. Brandee contracted some nasty cold last week and had to call out. The kids are all sick. The parents are sick. My trainer is sick. It all starts with a really bad sore throat (also a symptom of the pig flu, which more than a few have had at the studio… some twice).
I’m just counting down the days now until I get it. Every night I feel a little tickle in my throat and go awwwwww shit. Thinking back though, I did have a similar nasty thing mid October… so maybe I started all this. The J1N1 virus perhaps.
the dog however is still chugging along at 100%. I wonder if a sore throat would curtail his barking. probably not.
I was supposed to start some hardcore new workout this week. strictly cardio based, since I (still) cannot lift anything with my right arm. I bought some new N.O.Xplode stuff to try out… which I should get within the week.
Hal says that it’s like drinking 5 cups of coffee. and i don’t drink caffeine. greaaaaaaaaaat.
Overlooked at last night’s AMAs was Adam Lambert taking the plunge onstage while performing whatever awful song that was. I took an incredibly poor quality vid (no clue why the first few seconds suck so bad… time to upgrade the flipvid this xmas):
so while I’m on yet another topic of tv on this blog, FraudStripe (I like this as the new nickname for BroadStripe, aka BS, aka BullShit) completely f’ed me over last week. I lost all HD channels on one tv, and figured it was just my box… until my other dvr box went out at the same time.
I was out of HD channels for 10 days, with regular channels all fuzzy. I called last Monday, and of course a tech couldn’t come out until tomorrow. they’re sure on top of that whole customer service thing. I spent the entire week downloading shit on my new AppleTV (hd shows are expensive… $2.99). cocksuckers.
So of course Saturday, immediately AFTER the Ohio State-Michigan game, everything goes out. No tv, no cable modem. I was actually hoping they were working on it, and they were. When it came back on a minute or two later, surprise! HD channels were back. I looked out the front window and there was a Fraudstripe truck slowly driving down the street with the driver looking in.
I gave him a thumbs up. and he didn’t look to happy. ok ok, i probably more likely gave him the finger.
I’m still making them come out tomorrow.
* Lastly, I learned that no matter how much you love a tv show (Flash Forward), watching it back to back to back (for 5 total episodes), is NEVER a good idea. Right Leoni Kenobi? I don’t even remember the plot :\
oopsies, hectic week as it turns out, so sorry for the late post.
So we get him back to his hotel probably about 230ish. I’m freaking out cuz by the time I get to bed at 3, I have to get up at 8, and make sure both he and my partner are up. I set like every alarm possible in my house (debated putting the microvave on a 5 hour timer too).
I dragged myself out of bed, texted brandee at 8:30 to make sure she was up (got an “Oh God” reply in return haha)… but nothing from tWitch. ok, we can officially panic. She has the good idea to try calling his hotel room direct.
I got thru at 9am… 30 minutes to spare. Gone was the sweet guy that we had hung out with last night. Instead was a gruff voice just saying “uh huh, k, k” and then click when I said I’d be there at 9:30 to pick him up.
All the worrying was for naught, because as I pulled up at 9:30, there he was, sitting on the bench complete with glasses and hat, waiting for me. whew.
I had packed with me a pillow, blanket, and costco bottle of ibuprofen just in case he wanted to sack out for a bit in the office before classes. I had taken us each a bottle of water.
So he of course chugs the first bottle, and me being all nice, said “uhhh, here ya go… I brought you two bottles just in case.” Aren’t I the greatest.
Once we get to the studio, I ushered him thru the back door. After a steady breakfast of advils, water, and oatmeal, I sent him off to the public library for a “meeting” and we were good to go.
Once classes started, you couldn’t tell that the man had just gone to bed 7 hours ago after going to town on Jack & Cranberries.
Sorry no fantastic stories from that day (that I can share at least), but everything went well.
If you’re curious as to what he gets for lunch (from subway), he got a 6 inch on wheat veggie sub, with everything but lettuce (what the hell?). His side was apple wedges. and he drank a tea. i think. nothing like cleansing the body.
After completely whoring him out to sign everything I could find in the studio (posters, hats, tshirts, and even a mug), I took him back to the airport. On the ride back we talked about superman comics (of course)… and the fact he has a jack russell terrier named Krypto.
He gave us his cell and told us to keep in touch… even texted us from the plane thanking us for our hospitality. Truly one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. we’ll certainly be having him back
a semi-group shot after dindin. only the bookends were sober at this point.
brandee and I picked him up 5ish on friday. And after telling him we were going to have a limo take us all out, he agreed to go. Sweet hookup at Changs,,, no wait, huge table ready, and they just kept bringing plates and plates of food for us to munch off of.
I ordered the man a bottle of fiji, since I didn’t know if he was gonna drink or not (or if he even did)… and he nursed it for the first hour or two. Pretty much everyone else aside from adam and myself proceeded to drink like prohibition was going into effect the next day (ohhh, forgot about nicole. she is preggos, so she took the night off from the booze too).
towards the end of dinner, I asked him if he wanted a drink to loosen up or what have you… and he said “yeah, sure.” so what do you want? “let’s just start with a…. jack & coke.”
uh oh.
double uh-oh when the server brought it to him in a pint glass. oh lordy, it was ON.
from there the jack & cokes were flying, and everyone else was cramming in orders whenever I said “ok guys, get your drink orders in so I can close out the check.” that happened 3 times. the 3rd time brandee had the brilliant idea of getting lemondrop shots.
being that we were VIPs, the bartender took it upon his or herself to go above and beyond, and the shots came out in martini glasses, filled to the rim. I think I put my head in my hands when I saw this. I knew they were in trouble.
most people bitched about the size of the drinks. not tWitch. He basically said bottoms up, and drank the whole thing in one, errr, shot. Only one other person matched him. Everytime I looked over, he was “helping” someone else with their drink. Ladies & Gentlemen, the stage was set for a drunkfest… with me being dad.
I’m not going to name teachers, as they know who they are. At this point, as we’re getting ready to leave the restaurant, one sauntered over and proclaimed that she was going to “take her clothes off.” Our guest looked up and said… “ok.”
I managed to get everyone gathered as a group, and we headed for the exit for the short walk to Mist. our celebrity, who had been given a fiji bottle in some stone cooling koozie like thing, decided that he wanted not just the bottle, but the koozie itself. in one move, he swooped it up from the table, hid it under his jacket, and out we went.
once outside, we parted ways with cindy and nicole (not before tWitch gifted the water cooler thingamajobber to cindy), and trudged to Mist.
Once at Mist, we were whisked away to our VIP table near the corner, with the required bottle service. I picked out a vodka, patron, and bottle of jack for the group… along with all the usual mixers, OJ, coke, cranberry juice.
The server made the first round of drinks for everyone, and pointed out the coke for me as she made his (who knows what number) jack & coke… I was now relegated to now bartenderdad role.
I should add that the dance floor was entirely vacant when we came in. Brandee and tWitch solved that. before long, the floor was filled, and my drunken party was controlling the floor and the vibe of the club (Will decided to dance the ENTIRE Single Lady’s video… like, the whole thing, really).
since it was called mist, it was no surprise that a giant stream of fog would come shooting out near our table like a jet stream. our celebrity got a kick out of this, and would either “fight” it by dancing into it, or go into a crucifix type pose and flap his arms like a bird. amusing.
I kept up pretty well on refreshing everyone’s drinks. Took me a bit to remember that it’s a 4 second pour that equals a shot, so, uhhh, sorry about the first couple rounds guys lol. I noticed that the jack and cokes were red. i thought it was the lighting. after 2 hours of red J&Cs, someone asked me for a vodka cranberry. I go to pour the “untouched” cranberry, and as I do it fizzes and pops. shit. that was the coke. so allllll night I was feeing him Jack & Cranberries. (I of course fixed the problem once I figured it out, but didn’t say anything until Saturday morning when I told him… he was like, “I KNEW it was sweet. but I just didn’t care.”)
at one point terrelle suggs came into the club and was seated at the table next to us. funny thing was, all the girls in his entourage left him and came over to hang with tWitch. bad side was, they thought they were being cute and handed him this huge pint class with ice and what he thought was water. I was like “nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. don’t drink thaaaaaaaaaat.” too late. he said thanks cuz he thought they were being nice and rehydrating him. he took a huge chug before I could intervene. Oh the face he made. he puckered up so bad. It was a gigantic glass of vodka (!!!). I switched it out quickly with a water, refreshed his jack & (now) coke, spun him around, and sent him back to the dance floor. Suggs didn’t stay long since all his rats were on our guy.
My teachers. ohhh my, my teachers. Again, not naming names. One of them was walking around with the whole bottle of patron and drinking it like a beer. another was professing their love for any and everyone (”I LOVE YOU JASON H!!!! I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!!). a third was drinking red bulls like their job and being oggled by the entire club as they danced randomly from place to place.
All in all, quite a fun time. We had deputy dog as our limo driver. Julian was his name. A well intentioned 60 something year old that drove half the speed limit, and had to endure about 800 F bombs on the ride back from the intoxicated crew.
I am absolutely positive I left out plenty (either on purpose, or due to old age).
You can check out the few pics I took in my gallery. There were several other cameras that evening. and I’ve seen those pics as well. you, however, will not be seeing them
we have a number of people on standby just waiting to see if he wants to hang tonight. brandee hooked us up with dinner at changs downtown, and then a vip table at Mist. I have a limo on call ready to go.
i, of course, always glass-half-empty, think he’s just going to want to crash tonight given he’s been shooting Stomp The Yard 2 all week. but we’ll see. one thing’s for sure, if he wants to hang with Lamz, I’ll have my camera there.
and speaking of photos, I put a special Friday the 13th pic on the twitpic page (top right).
* pretty big news for the jasoncam site. You probably haven’t noticed, nor should you, but I got my dot com back! you can now go directly to jasoncam.com, instead of jasoncam.tv (both will still work). I know, minor detail to all of you, but a big win for me.
my one consistant reader might’ve noticed my site go offline mid last year and not come back until this year. well, that was due to my shitastic hosting company at the time (phenominet) completely f’ing up and forgetting to renew my domain name, even after I paid for it.
So some idiotic company in all its wisdom decided “hey, jasoncam.com is available??? let’s hijack it and cybersquat all over it!”
Once I realized the problem, and the fact my site redirected to one of those generic search lookin’ pages that no one in their right mind would ever use, I noticed it had the typical “want this domain? contact us” links.
well sure enough the bozos got back to me and, get this, they wanted $5,000.00 for jasoncam.com. this truly deserves an LOL. go ahead, it’s appropriate.
Five grand for some middle aged dude’s webblog domain. I replied back, and none too nicely, that they could kindly go fuck themselves, but I was willing to give them a hundred bucks for it. Overvalued at $100 in my opinion, but what happens if someone ever finds one of my old jersey beer koozies again and tries to look up my site?
They of course in turn told me to go shit in a hat, and I didn’t even bother to counteroffer.
Instead, I noticed they had only registered it for one year. Thinking I would be smart and scoop it up from them when it expired in September this year, I waited.
Well for some crazy reason, they renewed the domain when I went and checked the internet WHOIS. I gave up hope, and was actually pretty happy with the .tv domain.
So about a month ago I get an email from the squatters again. This time it says “hey, ummm, you were interested in this site once right?” I said, yeah, but no mas dickfaces. To which they replied “well, we’re going to put the domain up for auction and the highest bidder will get it!!”
i chuckled, and signed up for the auction.
Long story somewhat shorter? The auction ended. with only one bid. at the starting price of $40. i won.
take that bitches.
* if you bothered to dvr SYTYCD last night, go to the part where it has the new orleans guy and he talks about how he is an artist. freeze frame it on one of the drawings… it’s a picture of a clown. and it says “SMOKE MY WEED. CLOWNS KEEP HITTIN” (last word hard to make out… but the weed part is definetly there, in big bold letters).
I’ve been too lazy to order food from peapod.
That might be a new low.
Until today, I didn’t even have a loaf of bread. In fact, the only beverages left in my fridge were a couple bottles of fiji water, and a 6 pack of diet ginger ale.
anyways, on to today. Adam drops me a text and stops by to install a new bathroom light and downstairs light. In the middle of all this I hear a lawnmower start up reasonably close to my house. I’m of course thinking it’s my regular guy who’s been out of work for a bit… but I look out, and it’s my neighbor Ken!
I go out and tell him to stop (he heard me bitch how I couldn’t mow the yard after I tried doing my backyard saturday and my arm couldn’t take it), but of course he waves me off and keeps going.
Literally 1 minute later, my mom pulls up with the wiener, and 4 bags of food and 2 cases of caffeine free diet coke. jackpot!
she of course doesn’t shop as healthy as I do of late (we’re talking a delivery of uber nutritious stuff including pizza rolls, mini muffins, and haven’t-had-them-in-10-years-but-they-sound-so-good 3 pack of crackerjacks), but damn it will do.
there’s still 4 hours left in the day. any more charities left to help an old man out?
* Phone update: I still haven’t broken my droid yet. downside, it was kinda put out there today that the iphone will of course come to the verizon network in the 3rd quarter of next year. bastards.
I had preordered it from Best Buy a week ago, and picked it up yesterday. Turns out they didn’t sell them all out, so I looked liked a gotta-have-it-first geek, but whatevs.
and fyi, screw going to the verizon wireless stores… best buy was much quicker and very painless. I was up and running in like 10 minutes.
now onto the phone. Worst. Box. Ever. you’d think this thing would come in some steel box with red robot eyes and shit all over it. Instead, I got a crappy little 6″x3″ black box. not robots, nothin’.
Now, I knew that I wasn’t due for an upgrade discount yet (since I’ve changed blackberries twice this year), but i miscalculated what “full retail” meant.
try $599.99. oops.
Add in the car charger, screen protector, and hard shell, and you end up with a $697 bill. slight miscalculation from what I thought I was gonna lay out.
and when did screen protectors get so damned complicated? Didn’t you used to just peel the thing off, line it up, and stick it on? oh hell no for this one. It came in a package bigger than the phone. Included was a cloth, the invisibleSHIELD itself, a package containing a sponge SOAKED in solution, and a squeegee. what the hell? FU Mother Earth.
And here were the 9 (!!) step directions in order to put on this clear piece of plastic:
1) wash hands
2) wipe of device (with included cloth)
3) not really a step, but a pic of my phone with the little “shiny” symbols on it showing that it was now squeeky clean.
4) sponge fingers to wet them.
5) remove invisibleSHIELD from backing.
6) Sponge back side of SHIELD to wet.
7) Align SHIELD to device.
8) Wet front of invisibleSHIELD with sponge.
9) Squeegee out bubbles with the installation card.
Let dry for 12 to 24 hrs (i let it dry for more like 12 to 24 seconds).
of course during this process, the sponge solution was going everywhere… all in the phone, the ear speaker thingys. somehow i didn’t violate the warranty.
after all this, I can safely say that it is a blackberry killer. and rivals the iphone. As near as I can tell, you can surf the internet 100x faster ( lots of refreshing jasoncam). keyboard is cramped, but a huge step above touch screen typing like on the iphone (i sucked majorly at typing on my itouch).
apps are the selling point for iphone, and the droid “only” comes with 10,000. That is 9,997 more than I will ever need. I’ve downloaded solitaire, and the weather channel. i’m so hip.
* with work finally slowing a bit, tomorrow I’m taking a half day, and Leoni and I are having a Flash Forward marathon. I will give up football just this once lol (thank you droid sports scores app). doesn’t hurt that it’s a bangin’ show.
* tWitch is one week away! I had to move his flights all around yesterday. He was supposed to fly in from LA, but instead, he’s coming in from the set of a movie in Atlanta. Turns out he has the lead in Stomp The Yard 2, as some dude named Taz. Unfortunately he has to leave Saturday night instead of Sunday morning, so the girls are just gonna have to take him out Friday night. I’m sure they’ll manage. Lots of pics of me shamelessly posing with the soon-to-be movie star (who is also the lead in Step Up 3D, also due out next year) coming.
* i got my baby back tonight. but let me tell you, it sure wasn’t fun. I got up buttassed early and then had to jump her (not sexually) in the freezing cold, by myself, in my garage, before trecking up to towson.
i am thankful that they pretty much were on board with giving me a loaner for the day from the getgo. the sucky part was, wouldn’t you know it, the one damned day I actually have to drive during rush hour, it was accident-central in maryland.
6 cars and a tractor trailer decided to do a tango on 95 south, which backed up the entire outer loop of the beltway (my way home from the dealership) for something ridiculous like 15 exits. suckage.
and of course on my way to pick my car up tonight, i forgot how shitastic it was to be driving north towards 83. my job has its perks sometimes. So tonight I’m taking off work and kickin’ back for some dvr (and how f’n awesome was SYTYCD last night?!?).
* friday is droid day. I am getting (yet another) new phone. I couldn’t resist, especially after the F U iPhone commercials they keep playing. About time I had something apple-esque to work with on verizon. I’ve had it with the crackberries. never ever try to use the internets on one of them.
Maybe I’ll get all spunky and write a tech review of it. Granted, the only features I review will be the ones i use… so expect an indepth discussion of, uhhh, calling someone.
