addendum

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut: $3.50
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk: $6.50
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins: $7.00
Returning a Physics 103 textbook in exchange for literary joie de vivre: 17.00


Shit! I think I messed that up.

Sapp Amplitude

So I spent the last 4 days in Aspen for the Winter X-Games.

We were at the mountain 6 hours and saw half of 2 events, Snowboard downhill freestyle, which was kinda cool, and half of female snowboard halfpipe, which sucked. Best moto bike trick was canceled due to a fucking snow delay, which is a contingency that probably should have been accounted for. But the snow provided great skiing and slippery drinking, which was a plus for the Damian Marley show, which I'll give an 8, download "Welcome to Jamrock" album. New Reggae, up for some grammies.

It was a great 4 days in all, including 2 "sick days", free reggae, lots of Crown Royal stupid announcers who are mockably hip (FYI, "Amplitude" is the new hippest word), 4 hot tubs, and an intense craving for Bob Sapp footage.

Who is Bob Sapp ya say? For shame.

It's time you learned about a great man. A man with unsurpassed courage and grit. A man we should all aspire to be more like. Now, Bob Sapp could have stopped at being a massive black man, but that won't necessarily make you intensely popular in Japan, so he stepped up and became a massive black kickboxer, and began beating smaller men
unmercifully in the ring. Then he released an awesome song. A true God among men.

CHUCK

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

The Dinosaurs looked at Chuck Norris the wrong way once. ONCE.

The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.

Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid of the dark, but the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris' penis is so large that it actually warps the fabric of space-time. Indeed some physicists now theorise that the passage of time is mearly a byproduct of Norris' colossal erections. This is known as the "Chuck Norris' big cock theory of space-time".

As a teen Chuck Norris impregnated every nun in a convent tucked away in the hills of Tuscany. Nine months later the nuns gave birth to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only undefeated and untied team in professional football history.

A blind man once stepped on Chuck Norris' shoe. Chuck replied, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Chuck Norris!" The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren't the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.

To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

When an episode of Walker Texas Ranger was aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

Every time Chuck Norris smiles it saves the life of a dying man. Ironically, Chuck Norris only smiles after he kills someone.

According to Einstein's theory of relativity, Chuck Norris can actually roundhouse kick you yesterday.

Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his dad did.

Chuck Norris frequently donates blood to the Red Cross. Just never his own.

When Chuck Norris was born, the nurse on duty screamed "oh my God, it's Chuck Norris" then had sex with him as he came out of the womb. That was the 3rd person Chuck Norris had sex with.

When Jesus was born, Chuck Norris was actually one of the four-wisemen. He gave Jesus the gift of beard, and was erased from the books by the other wiseman, who were jealous because Jesus favored Chuck Norris' gift. All three of the other wisemen died roundhouse-kick related deaths.

One of Chuck Norriss' roundhouse kicks actually traveled so fast that it surpassed the speed of light, traveled back in time, and killed Amelia Aerhart as she flew over the Atlantic Ocean.

If you're bored

This game will entertain you for about 10 mins or so.
I got to 21.76 seconds

http://tinyurl.com/56t9u

??

What does it mean when the lid of your Mountain Dew can smells like farts?

Dee on Blog

I think an interesting question has been raised. Is it better that we entertain each other with whatever comes to mind, or wait until we have something significant to report on the blog? Could it be that blogs are the answer to TV/movies/video games, balancing their rapid visual/sexual/violent/shocking/funny yumminess with the mundane everyday? Or am I just drawn to slash marks, being a member of the Guns n' Roses generation? Let's see...

Here's a cat on a chair.


Here's people having wholesome fun at our house.


Here's Kyle with trick gum in his mouth. Pee-wee!!!!


Here's the red pepper jelly that we brought to our French friend's wine and cheese party.


Here's Kyle and Steve doing maneqiun impersonations for the Frenchman.


Here's Kyle sobering up for the drive home.

Blogging Sucks

:See title

Wht's Goin On

SO I decided tow write another post, and better-yet, I'd write some post that would demand others to write on my same topic. A snowball post, if you will. Which you will. The first to pop in my head is like an update, on a variety of topics, I've wrote a few categories, use mine, add your own, everyone's a winner.



SPIRITUALLY I whole-heartedly applied for a position in Costa Rica where you live in a Permaculture site, eating vegan food, and basically farming 4 hours a day, surrounded by a rainforest and what appeared to be 10 yoga sessions per day.

SEXUALLY I haven't kissed a girl in over 2 months. It's been a hard hiatus, and it's time it be over.

MUSICALLY, I'm on a funk and jazz kick, coming off a reggae one. New Artist embracings include Midnite (reggae) Matisyahu (reggae) Bob Dylan (briliiance) Slick Rick (pimpin) King Tubby (dub reggae) Greyboy Allstars (funk) and Charlie Hunter (funkysmoove).

LITERALLY I jsut enjoyed 100 years of Solitude, and adored Jitterbug perfume. Castenada is next.

CREATIVELY Writing is slow lately, probably caused by my using being unable to choose which project to focus on as an excuse to not focus on any. And because I'm reading too good of writing it's is crushing my confidence in the novel medium. I just did a free-write on "high priorites" for my cousin blog, which I might as well post here although in retrospect I think it's too preachy.

DRINKINGLY I'm probably drinking too much.

RAMBLINGLY Well, where to begin? And what angle to take? Philosophies or stories or some combination of the two that I doubt whether I have the literary prowess to verbally illustrate, and then I rewalize as I write this that writing in 1st person active voice is the precise synthesis of the two, as any current thought is really a story, albeit a boring one, involving me sitting here in pajama pants wrting on a keyboard, listening to Damian Marley because he's going to play a free show at the x-games, which was to be my biggest party but there's new carpet, and my mom's threat of chaperoning it to protect the carpet has left a permanent residue of party-downsiving sentiments. I'm skeptical of Damian Marley. The name Marley Moniker could make any reggae singer moderately famous, and this guy's not even moderately famous. So is this where I tell my story from last year where we decided to try 360's off the jump in my backyard, and now that I am, should I take the standard route where I talk about the devestation from the jump, the hot-tub, the shower, and the furnace not working, or where I say that I'm glad to be telling this story, and the only reason it's there is because I decided, despite knowing my yard was not nearly steep enough to provide ample jumping speed, fuck it, it's the x-games, it'll be interesting.

METAPHORICALLY My job is similar to this doomed jumping effort. Most think I'm doing it because it's for a good reason (protecting land/jumping off it), but really it's because it's pretty interesting in the way that's the direct opposite of comfort (being tired, cold, and waist-deep in suburban contempt/drunk, cold, waist-deep in snow) I tell myself I'm getting paid to practice compassion, I get paid well, and would consider myself happy with the work if it did not occur from 1-11 every day, thus defining my life.

MOCKINGLY Go Broncos

SINGULARLY Jake, when are you coming to Colorado?

SARAH-LY good cupcakes

HESITANTLY...uhhh...

DEPLORINGLY add your own, we're all curious, we all like reading bloggggggggggg

Can't Bear it

Its monday afternoon, almost one o'clock. I've just got out of bed after sleeping for 12 hours for no other reason than nothing seemed worth getting up. I have what they(and by they I mean me) call a Bears hangover. With the exception of one person and you know who you are, I don't expect any of you cuzzins to know how I feel or to empathize with me for that matter. I am depressed because my beloved Chicago Bears have lost in playoffs. They have lost and my immediate future does not seem so rosy any more.

My fruit loops tasted sour this morning, my kind bud smelled of ditch weed, and I had an overwhelming desire to watch Titanic in the dark and cry.

I wore my Payton jersey yesterday, I kissed my lucky arrowhead, made my wife kiss my lucky arrowhead, touched ever ticket stub I had from games they won, put my Bears beads on my dog(I got those at a game they won this season), I even made guests I had invited sit in different seats just in case they were being unlucky. Some of this nonsense worked briefly, but in the end the Bears did not prevail.

Now I came to this conclusion while I was pooping fire from the jalapeno poppers I made: I have TOO much invested in sports, from an emotional standpoint that is. I was ready to denounce da Bears, the Cubs, the Buffs for life in search of something more meaningful, more concrete.

And then I read High Priorities by Bubb Rubb and I gotta say it changed my whole outlook. After reading it I found that I need to learn to enjoy the stuggles, that I need to grow for myself. So I'm going to swallow this loss like the dirty, poo-stuffed cyanide pill that it was and say "HEY! I can get through this day with a lot of pot and Adam Sandler movies. And Yeah, the Bears lost, but NEXT year they will be unstoppable and maybe the Cubs won't suck as much as I think they will." Rubb says, "Always question what matters most to you in life, and live accordingly." And you know what? The Bears matter to me, they matter ALOT man and for one brief moment there on the pooper, I almost forgot. Almost.

I owe you one Rubb

High Priorites

(editor's note: this is a long rambling post. Ifelt like writing something, decided on priorities and it just unwinded. It's not particularly entertaining, but damnit, someone's gotta write some shit.)

I think anyone with enough free time and capacity for thought, which includes probably every member to this blog, occasionally question and reevaluate their priorities.

Many of you have probably heard similar rants from me, but for those of you who haven't, here's my personal background, which I think has actually seen the light of this blog.

0-18: Figuring It Out/Playing. These are always the basic priorities I tihnk, even beyond this time-frame, but here they're simplified and focused by seemingly unquenchable thirsts and endless lessons. We play with our recent discoveries. First motor skills. movement, talking; hours of fun. Then identity; "look mom, i have a fully formed, unique opinion. Then sex; "man, i gotta relearn how to talk to girls, because that sex stuff sounds like something I could get pretty into."

I think this is pretty universal. The struggle with the lessons, and enjoyment of the play varies greatly, but I think that's pretty much the universal priorities of youth.

So then we find a shortage of new lessons and toys. The ideal priority, I think, at this point is to decide what your future should look like. You should look within and decide how much money matters to you, and accordingly then which high-paying job is most tolerable, or if money is not the most important thing, what is, and which job lends itself to that priority.

So the most important thing? What indeed. If you don't face the decision, I think you default into choosing comfort. Even those who are born-strivers, (ex. Bill) are motivated somewhat by comfort, but their comfort require a massive exertion and effort.

I had chosen comfort up until one specific day at the end of my freshman year of University. I had a great year; weed, video games, cptn morgans. So it's the end of the year and we decide to have a reflection session. We'll get high and talk about the year in retrospective, reliving all the highlights. So we start it off, the roadtrip to hash-bash, the first trip to a bar with a fake ID ("this is the 5th fake maryland i've seen tonight. go on in") About 5 minutes in, we were out of memories. I had a vivid memory from my encounter with jail and LSD, and even by the end of this reflection session, I had decided it was my favorite memory, my most prized accomplishment, my highlight of the year. My highest priority changed from comfort to adventure.

Adventure reigned for 2 years. If you've never done it before, it's worth doing. The greatest art form is a life well lived. Take a risk, make it sweet. The train story. The bar-jump. Mescaline. Ketamine. Mushrooms. The stadium break-in. The Prague adventure. The car-tip. 2 riots. The driving range at midnight. Sleeping in a canoe in Venice. The great heist.

The phase of adventure culminanted and ended with the great heist. Most of you may not know this story, and probably for good reason, but suffice to say, adventure cannot stay as a day-to-day highest priority. You run out of things to do for the first time, you don't appreciate unmemorable joys like sex in a bed. You get desperate. The risks get too big.

So the strongest depression of my life followed this realization. I had abandoned comfort, been burned by adventure, and didnt know what was next. Fortunately at this time, I met the only person I could ever describe as enlightened. Among other lessons (which I'd be galad to share if there's interest) he taught that the Maslow perspective on the meaning of life is growth. Growth is the highest priority one can achieve, and I say achieve because it's not easy to get to, only 1% make it, the rest get hung up on one of the rings in the hierarchy: Physiolical Needs(air, water, food sleep. Safety(physical and mental). Social Needs(belongingness, love). Esteem Needs(respect, achievemnet, recognition).

So that, at least in theory, became the new Highest Priority. (In addition to figuring out what to do for a living, which I recently realized was the biggest decision we make in our lives. Without a devotion to a beloved calling, you won't achieve growth. I envisioned meeting the girl of my dreams, and molded myself to be that man of her dreams. Well-read, modest, working on a masterpiece, into spirituality, etc. These did come from me, in that my dream girl would respect them, but I now realize that growing for the primary benefit of someone else isn't really the answer.

The key to life, according to me, is to grow for yourself. There are things in life that provide for a higher happiness, but you won't find them in the social or recognition categories.

My favorite example of this is Compassion. If we go through life with pure love for every person we come across, we'll be constantly happy and constantly improving the world. If you believe in spirituality, see the God in them, if we're just a combination of nature and nurture, so are they, they're not their fault, if you believe life is just a big challenge, respect that they too are just trying to get by.

Inner Peace is another. Learning to enjoy smells and food more is another. Learning to enjoy the struggles. etc. etc.

As an advertiserand salesman, I've been trained to conclude with a call to action, so here it is. Always question what matters most to you in life, and live accordingly. We evolved to focus on challenges instead of appreciating victories, so at least choose your challenges.

Pictures

I posted some pictures online from NYE. Go here.

one more short lived new years resolution

my new years resolution of not waking up drunk on the floor next to a keg, with vomit on my chin, and very little recolection of the previous night was broken quickly. i was woken new years day by a pantless rob and a shirtless curtis telling me I puked on the keg, the floor, and into a plate. What happened last night? why am i on the floor next to the keg? what is this on my chin? obviously some kind of cuzzin party had just ended. but what kind and where are all the cuzzins? and rob's pants? when i began to wonder what the carpet puke looked like i was happy, scared, and most of all surprised to see the vomit stain on the floor was a small, condenced circle of black. the plate was dried and looked like the remenence of some sort of greasy onion sandwich. did i eat onions last night? did i eat anything last night? to my recolection, no. i quickly remembered being shot in the neck by a well-aimed shampagne cork, shot by matt, moments after being called into the room. i remembered dancing with three guys who looked like beck. and i remembered demanding people to drink water from an empty tequilla bottle that i had carried around for some time. vague memories of stair baggo, fooseball, some really quiet guy we aparently dubbed Chili, whiskey, tequilla, shampagne, drinking games, keg stands, dropping a 30 year old doing a keg stand, bong stands, and of course wrestling with the new guy came back quickly. fortunatly my attempt to remember the missing night that had unlimited potential was interrupted by the sudden realization that i was still too drunk to sit up. so, after a while, i stood up, went to the bathroom, puked for a while, then sat down with a towell next to the puke stain trying to clean it after rob told me i had to. unfortunatly cleaning the keg was not an option. sorry. I was hung over for a day and a half. if anyone has pictures, i need them. the night is a mystery, i still dont remember puking, and i apologize if me puking on the keg killed the party.

dee has good pics. she should post those. im being spanked by rob in one. fortunatly for everyone(especially me) he still had his pants on. she also has the math, and the aftermath, of the bong stand.

one last addition. my knuckle is cut up. does anyone know if i fought someone or something?