Jon Thoughts

There was a gas leak in the basement of my apartment building so they shut everyone’s gas off. It’s been three or four days now, I’m not sure anymore. I tried to cook, but there’s no fire, and I tried to shave and shower but there’s no hot water. Cold showering is fine, except for some reason the water smells like beach water, but shaving with this new old razor is a real pain so I’ve given up. I think over the last year I might’ve gotten the ability to grow a beard because it’s filling in more than it used to.

I don’t think I get an unemployment check this week since my old job sent me my vacation pay last week.

Closed things up at the asian american writers workshop today. I’ve been there six months and have 1 almost-finished thing to show for it! I’ll show when finished.

Andrew Garfield is awesome. When they first announced he would be Spider-man I was really skeptical. Back in the 70s when they were casting for the Christopher Reeve Superman movies they wouldn’t let David Prowse be Superman because he was British and Superman had to be American, but now the next Superman and the next Spider-man are both British. So is my favorite show, Doctor Who (though if Moffat carries on the way he is that might change). Anyway, I saw this video :

and then I watched social network and thought Andrew Garfield was the man.

I saw this video on funnyordie and couldnt stop laughing.

Steve Carell’s Movie Poster Contract from Steve Carell

Then I went on facebook to share it but decided to mess with my family instead.

Speaking of Spider-Man, I love that Gwen Stacy is the love interest instead of Mary Jane. It’s comics accurate, but I’m sure at least one person I know will proudly exclaim, “who the @$%^ is Gwen Stacy? and Where the hell is Mary Jane.” and probably also complain about the mechanical web shooters. I already have that person pictured in my head.

I watched Easy A again to remind myself of Emma Stone’s acting chops. That movie is funny. I had no desire to watch it until my coworker highly recommended it and now I watch it whenever I’m bored. I think it’s on Netflix if no one’s seen it.

Unfortunately, Gilbert Poopy, Michael Chuang’s guinea pig passed away earlier this week which led to a physical fight between me and my former brother. It got out of control when my dad got involved, and now I think I’m finally ready to make the legal name change I’ve been wanting for the last few years.

Andrew and I laid him to rest on Monday night.  May he find the peace that he was missing in life.

On line for cap with 5 40somethings. Apparently only ones who care enough to see it 1st show opening day but too old to stay up night before

I’m officially done with modern razors.

I’ve traded in my four blade razor, which needs replacin’ way too often, for an older school (but not quite “old school”. sweeney todd straight razors.) safety razor. It’s only one blade, which is double-sided and reminds me of a box cutter, and it has no moisture strips and it doesn’t vibrate.  It still gives me the smoothest shave ever and it makes me feel like I’m not shaving at all.

Unfortunately, the hair grows back at a much faster rate (maybe because of how manly shaving this way makes me?) so I have to shave every day (sometimes twice), but I actually love it, since shaving is so much fun now. 

By far the best part of shaving now is applying the shaving cream. I’ve also done away with with the foam can and replaced it with this little tub of soap? I use this brush, which I soak in hot water, to pick up the tiniest bit of soap and then swirl it around my face, leaving a rich, frothy, foamy residue that makes my face smell like an old italian barber shop.

I actually have to do it two or three times, but it’s cool because the tiniest bit of soap gives me tons of that foamy stuff and I like the warm feeling it gives me.

I’m still not an expert with it, so my shaves aren’t always professional quality, but I shave so much now that I should be pretty good with it soon (at which time I’ll upgrade to one of them sweeney todd razors. because who doesn’t want a grooming device that also doubles as a lethal weapon?)

Also I use aftershave now, which is pretty fun.

On a semi-related note, I had this co-worker who HATED hipsters, but it seemed like everyone who liked anything he didn’t like was a hipster. He kept calling me one because I watch cartoons and don’t eat meat and like OK Go and shave with a safety razor.  I don’t think I am, and I’m not one according to this video:

Additionally, see if you can do this:

It took me several tries, but I finally won.

Where’s Kapone? @MayorACWharton: Stop the corruption at Memphis Animal Shelter http://t.co/VGP0r4f #nokill

I’ve been unemployed for like two weeks now and I have to say, I’m not hating it. I’m slowly depleting the last of my savings from work, and now I’m waiting for unemployment to kick in.

Though I’ve fought to stay productive (even moving a small desk into my air conditioned bedroom so I can’t make the excuse that my workspace is too hot), I spend less time writing and illustrating than I do googling and doodling and just generally consuming mass amounts of media. 

On the plus side, ideas seem to be pouring out of my head like lava from a volcano, and causing just as much destruction! It turns out a 9-5 job where you have to dumb everything down for many of your co-workers is not an environment conducive to creativity.  I hope to have something to share on here soon.

In other news, I’ve started fostering a dog named Baby J.  He doesn’t like posing for pictures, but I’ve got a couple of salvageable ones here so you can see what a cutie he is.  He’s very sweet.  The only thing he ever wants to do is have you pet him. He never tears things up or knocks things over.  He pees a lot and tries to eat my hamsters though. He usually waits until I walk him to pee.  He comes to me courtesy of Abandoned Angels, a nonprofit dog rescue in Flushing that works mostly with cocker spaniels.  He’s up for adoption if anyone wants the best friend they’ll ever have.

Also, I removed the screen protector from my phone and discovered how good the resolution has always been. WTF, screen protector??? On the down side, now I’m terrified that I’ll scratch this thing. I make a point of emptying whichever pocket it’s in before putting it inside and wipe it off every time I use it.

My getglue stickers came. I think the concept of getglue is really neat, except the stickers themselves seem to be low quality and they’re not perforated very well. The material is like a thick vinyl? so it stretches and warps when you try to rip it.  Also, they give you all these useless stickers that you don’t know what to do with in addition to the super cool ones that represent your pop culture favorites. I used the leftover stickers to test how deep my sister’s sleep is.

I follow like 350 or so blogs. They’re mostly art stuff, but there are some science blogs and some entertainment news, and maybe one or two actual news outlet feeds, and I rarely unsubscribe from any of them, but I’m actually making an exception today. I used to really like Comicvine’s coverage. They told me things I didn’t know and kept me up to date on comic movie news, which was great, but lately, as I scroll down my google news feed, I occasionally catch a headline that’ll make me stop, only to be disappointed and frustrated the actual article.  I’ve been finding that these articles almost always come from Comicvine. A lot of the “Off My Mind” articles feel really petty and uninformed.  It’s true that there are a lot of continuity mistakes in comics (and even more in Doctor Who these days), but to say things never happened when they absolutely did within the last ten years undermines their credibility.  Still, the vast majority of their content was really helpful to me, especially when an old character appeared out of nowhere in comics. They do this thing that recaps that character’s history? Anyway, what really did it for me was this:

See the tiny text at the top there that says “Spoiler”? That did nothing to warn me of the giant spoiler below it. I think the news first broke on DC Comics’ blog, but that was hidden behind a link. This just popped up in my news feed. Thirty minutes after I saw that on my feed, I read Green Lantern #67 and learned the news myself, but it felt like watching the Sixth Sense after finding out the twist ending.  Sorry if that image spoiled anything for anybody. I literally don’t know anyone who actually reads Green Lantern comics besides me and the BF staffers, who I’m sure don’t read this blog.

Now, to undermine my own credibility:

I’m hooked on Twilight.

What started as a visit to my brother’s bedroom to ask for his desk (which I set up in my room so I wouldn’t have the “my workspace is too hot” excuse) became a viewing party of the third movie and ended with me becoming totally drawn into this world of lame vampires and werewolves and needy girls.

didnt realize twitter was broadcasting all those sticker alerts. sorry about that— shouldnt be doing it anymore.

I unlocked the Captain America: The First Avenger: Peggy Carter sticker on @GetGlue! http://bit.ly/oQAki9

I’m a Superfan of The Lonely Island on @GetGlue http://bit.ly/mgTeeD

I unlocked the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix sticker on @GetGlue! http://bit.ly/mkkZkQ

I am playing Halo: Reach w/16 others http://bit.ly/kud1BZ @GetGlue #Halo