yakface speaketh!

Another season of the Jack Bauer Power Hour (aka the TV show "24") is just about to be released upon those-of-us-who-are-not-worthy.

If you’ve never actually watched a full season of "24" I’m just gonna tell you that you’ve missed on out on some fine action/drama/cliffhangers. Now is your chance to fufill your new year’s resolution to watch more quality television (. . .whaddya mean that wasn’t a resolution?).

In honor of this momentous occasion, I thought I’d start a series of blogs featuring some everyday ideas that you can work into your own life in order to make yourself a little more Jack Bauerrific.

Please be aware that actually utilizing these life changing techniques will probably drive away your friends and signifigant others, may cause you to lose your job, and become physically injured or killed.

You may be wondering, "why would I want to do this then you crazy moron?" Well the answer is simple: by making yourself more like Jack Bauer you’ll be able to ignore all those stupid rules, restrictions and moral qualms that keep you from fufilling your true, wonderful potential! You’ll be able to accomplish all the things you’ve only ever dreamed of.

That’s right true-believers, just re-enact some of these Jack Bauer inspired moments into your life and soon all your dreams will be coming true:

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A Sample Conversation With Your Boss

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You knock on your boss Ted’s door.

You: Hey Ted, can I talk to you a second?

Ted: Sure, come on in. What can I do for you?

You: Look Ted, I’m going to need a raise RIGHT NOW.

Ted: Ummm, hold on a second. Performance reviews aren’t done until the end of the quar. . .

You: (interupting). . .DAMNIT TED. Listen to me. This isn’t the time or the place for this. I know you’ve never forgiven me for ratting out Randall and James in shipping. I’m aware they both had families they needed to feed, but both you and I know that they were dirty. If I hadn’t done what you know deep inside had to be done, then someone innocent would have taken the fall. Would you have rather it was someone like suzanne in HR?

Ted: Wha, What are you talking about?

You: Don’t play dumb with me Ted. Right now we have a mole working somewhere in this office. If I don’t get this raise. . .millions of people are going to die. Do you understand me Ted?

Ted: You’re scaring me. I’m going to call security.

You: DAMNIT TED. You’ve left me with no choice!

you proceed to jab Ted’s thigh with a giant syringe filled with animal tranquilizer. As Ted slips into unconsciousness, you take an early lunch.

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END SCENE

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A Sample Conversation Picking Your Child Up From School

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Your minivan pulls up to the school curb, and your little boy freddy hops in.

Freddy: Mommy, mommy. Yaaaaaaay.

You: Hi Sunshine. Did you have a great day?

Freddy: I sure did, we got to do finger-painting and play in the. . . (you unbuckle your seatbelt, and pull a blind-fold and handcuffs from under the seat) . . .mommy what are you doing?

You: Listen very carefully to me. I know this is going to be hard for you to understand. I’m going to need to leave you here.

Freddy: Leave me here? But why mommy?

You: Shhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhh. Its okay. Its okay. (you handcuff little Freddy) I am so proud of you. I am so proud of you.

Freddy: Whhhhhhhyyyyyyy? What did I do?

You: What do you think the bully Rodriguez is going to think if he finds you’ve just up and vanished?

Freddy: I dunno.

You: Well, I’ll tell you what. He’s going to know that you blew the whistle on him, and do you know what will happen then?

Freddy: No.

You: Millions of people are going to die. Do you understand me? Do you understand me?

Freddy silenty nods yes.

You: Good. I’m going to put this blindfold on, and we’re going to leave you where Rodriguez is sure to see you. When he does, we’ll finally be able to catch him picking on you. Then we’ll have some proof for the president to authorize missile strikes against Rodriguez parent’s house.

Freddy: But mommy, I’m scared. Rodriguez is going to beat me up and I can’t even see him coming.

You: I’m not going to lie to you. There’s some risk involved. But we’ll have six undercover agents watching you at all times. You see that roof? We’ve got snipers up on that roof. The whole area is covered with hidden cameras, you’re wearing a microphone, and we have satellite coverage of the area. . .nothing can possibly go wrong.

Freddy: Okay then.

You: Freddy. I love you.

Freddy: I love you too mommy.

You place the blindfold over Freddy’s eyes, drop him off at day care and go enjoy a cappucino.

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END SCENE

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Stay tuned for more exciting examples of you can be more like Jack Bauer in your daily life!

I have to work every Friday night. I’ve done this now for nearly two years.

Worse still, all the clients I work for either work late Friday nights trying to finish a project up, or dump a bunch of stuff to be digitzed for Monday. Either way I’m screwed with lots of work on Fridays which prevents me from getting out early.

Sure, as a trade-off I get Sunday nights off, but everyone else wants to go to bed early that night.

So yeah, you might be thinking that working Friday nights is an incredible drag; having to slave away at work while all your friends go out and do something incredibly fun. . .and you’d be right.

But I want to focus on the silver lining of this funny thing called life. In honor of ‘Friday the 13th’, without further ado I present (in no particular order) the top ten great things about working Friday nights:

1. Instead of spending money at movies, restaraunts, bars, etc. I’m making money. Since no one actually wants to go out Sunday, its not like I just end up spending this money on a different night.

2. I usually have ample time (if I want) to search the inernet for fun events occuring during the rest of the weekend. Now I just actually need to do this!

3. I have a built in excuse to get out of things I don’t want to do. Instead of having to tell people that I have to do laundry (or something like that), I just tell the truth: "I gotta work, sorry."

4. Similar to #3, I would undoubtably spend many a Friday sitting at home watching TV or doing something equally as boring. This way, I avoid these "loser moments" because no one thinks it’s uncool to watch a DVD on Sunday night.

5. No hangover Saturday morning. ‘Nuff said.

6. From a diet standpoint, it is much easier to eat healthy going out to eat one less night a week.

7. Similar to #6, most people don’t exercise (or go to the gym) on Friday because they work all day and then go out at night. I don’t have this problem; since I work at night I can easily go to the gym in the afternoon before I start (like I did today).

8. Sure, I have to take a day off (Friday) if I want to fly somewhere for the weekend, but getting to come back on Monday afternoon instead of Sunday night has been a lifesaver a couple of times.

9. Those rare occassions I actually do get out of work early enough on a Friday to do go out make it seem like a 3-day weekend. I get to do fun stuff on Friday and Saturday and still stay up late on Sunday night. Excellent.

10. It gives me an opportunity to update my blog. . .   

I’m ready for pennies to be extinct.

I really don’t understand why they are still a part of our society. With inflation having affected the cost of goods, nothing has been sold for under .05 cents in decades and I honestly don’t believe there is enough of a psychological difference between $29.99 and $29.95 to warrant a seperate piece of currency.

I can’t stand pennies, and judging from the amount of ‘em left on the counters of numerous convience stores, a whole lot of people agree with me.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most frugal person. This isn’t to say that I blow my money frivolously, but rather I tend to think that the time and energy involved in saving a few cents usually isn’t worth the actual $ amount saved.

For instance, the time it takes to search for coupons in the paper, cut them out, carry them around and remember to actually use them in the appropriate store simply doesn’t justify the paltry amount of pennies saved in this process.

I’m not trying to say that everyone should be like me, but I imagine that even the most frugal-minded shopper wouldn’t mind prices being rounded up (or down) to the nearest nickel.

It would be a victimless change as far as I can tell, unless there is some giant zinc industry that relies on pennies to employ thousands of workers. . .which, now that I think about it, is likely the real reason pennies still exist today.

And while we’re on the subject of .01 cent increments, I’d also like to send out a general call to the United States Postal Service: ENOUGH WITH THE .01 or .02 CENT STAMP INCREASES LIKE EVERY DAMN YEAR!

Just raise the price of a stamp up to .50 cents and be done with it for like ten years. Hell, if I can get another window open at the post office I’ll gladly pay .60 cents a letter.

Unfortunately probably the only way the government could be convinced to abandon the penny would be if some terrorist group figured out a way to attack America using pennies. A giant penny bomb dropped over the white house, or exploding shoes filled with pennies on a plane. . .

. . .I just want to go on record to the FBI agents now perusing this blog and say that any penny-related terrorist attacks that occur are entirely coincidental with the content of this blog entry.

Merry Christ-kwanz-chaka everybody! I hope everyone is enjoying their completely non-denominational time off from their work and/or school. I think it’s what god would want if he existed besides blessing our currency.

For Christmas, I’m leaving this dreary snow-filled state and heading. . .wait. That doesn’t work. Ok, I’m leaving our 80-degree in the winter, sunshine filled paradise to go visit another 80-degree sunshine filled paradise. Namely Florida; home of swamps, hurricanes and slightly different theme parks.

I’m meeting all my immediate family there, including my sister Suzie flying in from Italy. Should be fun. Apparently, most of my relatives who have lived in Florida their whole lives are packing up and moving out of state. In a way, this is the last chance to bask in all my childhood memories of visiting Florida during the summertimes of my youth.

One visit there I had the privelage of sitting through hurricane Andrew, and let me tell you all something:  For my money, I’ll take a good old earthquake any day of the week over any other natural disaster out there.

Having to sit there, watch the news, board up the windows and fret about what was going to happen (all while knowing that if the Hurricane decides to pick up a tree and throw it through the house, no amount of plywood on the windows is going to help) is the absolute pits.

Tornadoes you get those damn storm warnings and you have to go huddle in your basement. Floods and blizzards last a long, long time.

Earthquakes on the other hand are over before they start, there is (thankfully) no warning system; they just hit. You’re either taken out by something collapsing on you or you’re perfectly fine, sucking away on your juice box.

In fact, I think the saddest day in the world’s history (okay maybe that’s pushing it) will be the day humans are able to predict earthquakes reliably. I can already imagine the idiotic news coverage and the truckloads of petrified people jamming up the freeways desperately trying to get out of the city.

No thank you sir. I’ll sit back, turn on a video game and take my chances.

So what do I want for Christmas?  Hmmm. . .I’ll be asking Santa for a mysterious fire in the Earthquake detection labs. That and no Hurricane while I’m in the Orange Juice state.

Best wishes, and see you all next year.

I like our Governator. He makes me laugh, and that is about the best I can ever hope for from a politician.

You see, I am completely disenfranchised when it comes to our government. Although I feel like they do a moderately successful job at keeping the nation from spontaneously exploding into a giant dust cloud, beyond that I simply don’t see any changes/improvements regardless of whom is in office.

Democrats/Republicans, who cares? In my entire life, no changing of power from one party to the other or from one politician to the other has had a direct tangible impact on my life. At least that is how it feels to me.

But with Ah-nold, he cracks me up. Just the fact that the man running our state cannot properly pronounce it’s name is downright hilarious. In fact, I would like to forward a proposition that all future governor hopefulls for the state of Cah-lee-forn-yah must have starred in a television show or feature film to be eligible canidates.

What better way to promote our state as the entertainment capital of the world then to always have a star as our leader?

Imagine how our economy will finally turn around when Antonio Banderas takes over. . .perhaps the special interests would love Raymond (television’s Ray Ramano)?

Look for that exciting prop on the next ballot and be sure to vote yes.

But back to our noble leader. . .I never had any doubt he wouldn’t offer clemency to a death row inmate. In fact, Ah-nold is going down to the prison himself to perform the execution using only saw blades while hanging from his ankles.

It is unknown at this time whether the Governator will utter one of his famous finishing lines like "Steeck Ah-round" or "See you at the Partee Rictor".

It has been a few weeks since I’ve updated this here blog, and the reason is simple: when I don’t have to work late, I don’t get bored enough to actually come here and tickety-type away.

For the last couple blessed weeks, I’ve gotten out of work at around 8-9pm each night (and I start work each night at 5pm). Home in time to watch some TV, play a video game, paint a miniature, or mess around with final cut pro. This also means I get to sleep early enough to get up and go to the gym before work. Nice.

All in all, I absolutely love it when work slows down. But tonight someone decided to give Ron Howard a tribute, and now it has to be digitized. All of it, tonight. Lucky me.

But let’s not dwell on Opie.

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, mine went rather well. At the last second I decided to head home to San Jose for the holiday weekend and the trip was pretty much fantastic (except for getting a speeding ticket on 280 at the exact same place I got one when I was in High School).

I got to see nearly all of my San Jose friends (except for Todd, bummer). I think absolutely everyone is either engaged, married or has kids at this point. I feel like one of the kids on seasame street that doesn’t match.

But I digress, everyone seems to be happy and doing well, which is great. My dad recently completed (yet another) surgery and he seems to be recovering nicely.

I even got to eat some sort of turkey substitute made of fungus that tasted pretty darn good.

All in all, I am very greatful for great friends, family and health.

So I got really sick this last saturday night.

I was at a co-worker’s party full of people I didn’t know (and one other co-worker who I talked to the whole night).

I think one of the struggling actors poisoned me. Or it could have been the fact that I stayed up all night.

But I think I’ll blame the bird flu cause that’s the big new thing.

Anyway, I’ve been sick all week and it actually got so bad that I called in sick, which is an impressive rarity for me (although it was very nice to actually get a day off from work, I must say).

I think I’m over the hump, but just to be sure I’m going to start a genocidal campaign of avian slaughtering. Others may be afraid to come out and condemn the actions of these flying menaces, but not me. It is time for the birds to die.

Too long have they pooped on my car! And let’s not forget what happened in that movie "The Birds". What if that happened in real life? Maybe bird flu was what caused the birds in that movie to freak out? Anyone thought of that?

Luckily for you all, I have. So don’t worry, it will all be taken care of.

As requested, here are some of the specific things that people signed their souls away to me for besides the very general benefits also promised in the contract:

"In return for this sacrifice and for my denial of all that is good and redeeming, I will possess money substantial quantities, the fufillment of all my lusts, and the destruction and degradation of all that opposes my whims."

Note that specific names have been removed to protect the (as of yet) innocent. Those of you who went to the two parties I was at can play a personal guessing game of whose request fits whom (although I will neither confirm or deny anything).

• All that I may desire.
• Happiness.
• A non-minute man please.
• Life long happiness with [my husband].
• To see [someone else's] contract.
• Sell my scripts, make millions, Snickers.
• All the beer I can drink & a pony & a cowboy & a Snickers bar.
• Many of men.
• I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW!
• The perfect kiss.

So for Halloween this year, I went as the devil. I would just like to go on the record by saying that getting to be the devil for a night or two is quite a blast. I would highly recommend it to anyone, and I’ll probably recycle the idea in about 5 years or so.

For my part, all I did was dress in an all black suit with a red tie, glue on some horns, paint my nails black and put a little black make-up on around my eyes. The finishing touch was to make up and print some contracts for people to sell their souls to me. I left a little line for them to write what exactly they were selling their souls for.

It was the addition of these contracts that really made things fun. After a few drinks people who were relunctant to sign anything are suddenly willing to sell their souls to get another person to take another shot.

Besides, once you’re dressed up like the devil, you can’t help but act a little devilish. Laughing maniacally, coercing people to take another drink, encouraging naughty behaviour, getting to say:  "Oops. I guess I made me do it!", etc. It really is non-stop fun.

The strangest part of the whole experience was browsing satanic sites looking for some good verbage to put into the contract. I’ll take this opportunity to officially apologize to the people who signed my contract if they actually do end up in hell because of me.

If it makes you feel any better (which I doubt), I’m sure I’ll be down there with you for unintentionally collecting souls for the dark lord.

I also carved my pumpkin to look like Jack Skelengtion from "The Nightmare Before Christmas". I’ll post some pics of that on Friendster soon.

Boo! Halloween rules. Its too bad I had to work the actual night of Halloween, but that’s how things go.

I just noticed CNN on at work, with the bold headline "Frozen Airman".

I was wondering what would that title be if the guy was a navy pilot, perhaps: "Frozen Seaman"?

I’d like to think so. I’d imagine the reporter would start the story by saying: "Today we have new information on the frozen seaman found in a California glacier."

And of course in the the next room Mr. Ferley’s eyes bug out of his head.

Come and knock on our door. . .