hello you person.

So as a cartoon I look nothing like I do in real life and slightly vampiritic.

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage – Billy Corgan

My hamster’s name is Pipsqueak. My hamster is free. It has a cage but I leave its cage on the ground with the cage door open. It can come and go as it pleases. It runs freely about the house all night and in the morning I see its sleeping back in its cozy little bed with its store of food nearby. It knows where home is and it loves its home. I’ve seen it run up its ramp to the cage, only to start running on the wheel. It has the whole house to explore… but sometimes not going anywhere is a good thing.

Most people live in cages, some have cages forced upon them and some step into the cage lock the door and chuck the key out of reach. I’ve lived in a medium sized town in Illinois for 22 of my 23 years (I lived in another medium sized town in Illinois for one year in college). Point is… I feel like I still have a choice, I could stay in my safe little cage in my own private cozy little world with my little wheel and a nice store of food, water, and comforts. But I have the option to run around the house. It’s a pretty big house and I’d much like to see all the different rooms.

All metaphors aside I’ve been thinking about where I’d like to head in life. I’ve always just assumed I’d graduate college (which I did), get a nice steady job and move up the ranks, afford a nice car, a nice house, get a nice wife, and have wonderful intelligent kids. (Actually, scratch the car, I think I’ll still be driving ugly cars that run well if I’m a millionaire.) But why lock myself up so soon? I’ll have plenty of time to putter around confined to a single town when I’m old and my knees are shot. Here’s what I’d rather do.

I’d like to have a job where I would be able to work from anywhere. Just me, my RV and my wifee (and a laptop with satellite internet). Out on the road, hopping from town to town. Maybe staying a month… or however long it takes to get a taste of living there… and deciding it would suck to be stuck there. I’d just do my web work whenever I got a chance and my wife could do the same… or something like art or photography. Maybe even play some music, do some stand-up when I got a chance. Oh, and the RV will run mostly on solar energy. Gas isn’t going to get any cheaper. (Whether by actual scarcity, commodities investors, or the government forcing us to be a certain color.) All this is tentatively planned for 5 years from now, assuming I’ll have enough saved up to afford an RV. Or I’ll just ride my bike around Europe.

From all this musing, I take this. The babies and mortgage can wait. Why run on the wheel? The house won’t always be mine to explore.

On a final note: Billy Corgan, you will always be my #1 Billy. RIP Billy Mays and may Billy Zane honor your position as my new 2^nd favorite Billy.

Yesterday, was a lazy Sunday (other than my bike ride through the forest). So I lounged around strumming my 6-string (6-string = “guitar” for those of you not familiar with the lingo the kids use with these days). I was singing an original composition in which I want to sing loudly at  pitches slightly out of my range.

Ok, let’s try something right now. Make sure you are alone (or if you are not alone make sure you are only around people whose opinions you don’t care about). Now quietly sing “laaa” near the top of your range. Now belt out the same “LAAAA” as loud as you can. What does it sound like? It sounds like crap. And your voice probably cracked like pre-pubescent boy.

However on this occasion I made my “LAAA” sound like I was friggin [insert name of famous opera singer here]. I had recalled advice from a singing lesson CD my dad had bought. It had suggested that rather than singing “on your vocal chords” you sing “on the mask of your face”. It sounds stupid, but you sort of just project the sound into your sinuses or something and it resonates… or something.

My singing now sounds 20% less strained and nasally! (but 5% more effeminate)

Hey girl! Wanna go for a ride?

Ahh the beer scooter. The best $400 you’ll ever spend. I’d love to travel cross-country on this 13 mph-capable beast, spreading happiness and brewskys wherever I went. However, I’d have to equip it with a heavy duty battery so I could last more than 15 miles per charge.

AHHH AHH OoH! Mail for you!

Words cannot describe how much I love this Mail Chimp’s logo. I mean… a monkey… delivering mail… that is brilliant… that is hysterical. It doesn’t matter what kind of company you are… you NEED a monkey as your mascot or present in your logo. You CANNOT command the respect of the marketplace without one. I mean liquor brands, day spas, dentists, power tools, politicians… they all need a monkey present somewhere in their marketing efforts.

hmmm....

If only everyone was as immature as me. Then and only then will they see the error in their ways.

First- Time Magazine Next- SI Swimsuit Issue

I just launched a site where you can edit/skew quotations from famous people to humorous effect. It’s called Quote dotdotdot and I think it would behoove you to check it out.

Why can’t I run? My knees and back are fine. I’m a spry 23-year-old and am physically capable of running in every way. So why can’t I run? (don’t worry, this isn’t a rhetorical question… I’ll answer myself right… now) Society. Society tells me I can’t run. There’s no law against running and there aren’t signs everywhere (no skateboarding) telling me not to. It’s simply a social moor that tells me that I can’t, that it would be silly and foolish TO run. But for a society that preaches “time is money” it would be foolish not to run.

Have to walk all the way down the hall to the bathroom? Run there… be back working at your desk in no-time. Productivity in this country would skyrocket! The financial implications alone should convince companies to experiment in implementing a mandatory running policy (not to mention fitter employees). “Oh, but Luke there will be high speed collisions and people will get hurt.” Yeah… that’s what those nay-sayers said about a little invention called The Automobile. So just widen the hallways at work and paint a little yellow line in the middle. In America we can run on the right side of the hallway. So we have to be careful when we visit other countries where they will run on the left side of the hallway. If we need to enter a doorway we will simply point at the door we want to enter and repeatedly say “I’m going in that door… I’m going in that door…” Now that isn’t so hard. If you own a business, get a leg up on the competition and implement this tactic NOW!

I almost forgot, I AM allowed to run at certain times and places. I am allowed to run on my stride-trainer at my house… and whilst tethered to a treadmill or elliptical at the gym. However, I am allowed to run for nothing but the sake of running itself. My motivation for this could be physical fitness… but I am not allowed to do anything productive beyond this with my running. I cannot run for the sole intent of going to the store and getting a loaf of bread… then running home with the aforementioned bread. No, that would look quite silly. You always here people say “Oh I gotta go run here”. But they aren’t really running are they… no they’re DRIVING. I had a friend who lived across the street from a grocery store. His mom drove there. God forbid anyone has to cross a street on anything but four wheels.

Children run everywhere. Why? It’s the quickest way to get between two places. And plus, it’s kind of fun. Why don’t we learn from their example? Sadly society has robbed us of our innocence and told us we are not allowed to have fun or act childish. Yesterday I really wanted to run through Home Depot to get to the appliance department quicker… but I would feel weird… so I walked.

There was a kid we called “Turbo” when I was in school. He ran wherever he went. He was a laughing stock… but why? He got where he needed to be on-time, and he didn’t sacrifice a single moment of his life for a society that tells us “we have to walk everywhere”. Turbo… you are my hero. Run on my friend. Run like the wind.

Today I am just unable to handle all the noise pollution that is flooding my ears. My circuits are overloaded and over My  There are always multiple conversations going on, both on the phone and in person, chairs rolling, keyboards typing (you seriously don’t need to pound on them), the stapling and shuffling of papers, a loud annoying early 90’s printer, the clacking and jingling of the receptionists Chinese stress balls (which are used to transfer stress from the user to other people around), phones ringing and if the person the call is for isn’t available we get a lovely page that’s heard from every single persons phone. Plus there’s the walkie-talkie system where people always state their names (Jeeeeeremy this is Randy! Hey Randy it’s Jeremy where you at?), even though their voice is perfectly recognizable. The worst is the taping of boxes for shipping… it’s on level with nails on a chalk board. And when theres taping to be done… there’s like 12 min of taping to be done. Errrrrpp! Errrrpp!

Ok I stepped outside for a minute into the nice cool air… that’s a little better.

However they can’t even spell the name of one of Missouri’s major commercial hubs right. Having 3 pawn shops has to get you some kind of respect right?

At least there are none of those pesky city names in the ocean.

At least there’s not to many city names to get wrong for Google Ocean. There’s umm Atlantis.

Feel sorry for yourself. And pamper yourself as a doting mother would.

Ok, but seriously I’m not sure if this is some common practice in India or some crap like that… but I found a great method to clear my head. It was born of my love of steam. I’m fond of steam… saunas, dryers, dishwashers, showers, steam engines… unless it’s scalding hot, I’m down with it. Anyway, it’s very very dry in the winter and it feels like I’m breathing knives with my sore throat. And being as I don’t have humidifier I decided to boil some water on my GE stove. After a while I put in on low and stick my face over the large pot. mmmm… steam. nice. But what would make it even better? Some Vick’s.

I scurry off to the bathroom to fetch some of the greasy balm. So I scoop out some Vick’s Vapor Rup with the opposite end of a fork and stir it into the warm water. After a few moments, sweet relief rushed to my embattled sinuses! Then I thought… I like the smell of tea too. So I grab a large Lipton tea bag (which was supposedly only to make iced tea) and let it soak in there. The sweet aroma of tea in my lungs felt so good that I thought I might see how other items smelled steamed.

I put in a peppermint, some various herbs, a few Dole blueberries (I wondered why I was going to put them in there as I was doing it… but proceeded to do so anyway), and some “Oriental Essence” green tea lotion with Dead Sea Salt.

The Brach’s peppermint and herbs worked well… but the lotion kind of made me feel like I was inhaling Lot’s wife (which in all probablity I was). Did you ever hear that every time you take a breath you inhale at least 2 nitrogen atoms atoms that ever other human being that has ever lived has breathed. Yeah… I don’t buy that. I think scientists like to make claims that no one can possibly prove wrong. Oh, well THIS particle wasn’t breathed by Genghis Khan’s right-hand henchman OR Dave Thomas the former Wendy’s owner!!! ehhh… retarded.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the product and brand placements I’ve sprikled throughout my dialoge. As an advertising major it made me notice how everything in the world is just one big commercial. They don’t even make toys that aren’t somehow tied to a kids TV show anymore. And some movies border on ridiculous with their absurd worlds where Budweiser is the only beer and people only drive brand new GM vehicles.

ANYWAY…  whe you’re sick… Feel sorry for yourself. And pamper yourself as a doting mother would. Because we all know choosy moms choose Jif.