9. August 2008 by John Arnold.

I was sitting around the other day wondering about the number of brain cells killed by alcohol. This thought occurred to me as I was changing in the locker room after working out and observed an obviously inebriated gentleman walk by with his underwear on backwards. There’s a lot to be said for country clubs wherein tuxedoed waitstaff, white towels draped over their forearms, take your drink order while you’re doing bench presses. Such is the good life.

It occurred to me as well, that if we can make drugs that will allow a man to grow breasts, why can’t we make intelligent alcohol? Target the ‘bad’ brain cells, so to speak? Depression? No problem. Drink three of these, stay away from the neighbor’s dog, and check back next week. Recuperating from disabilitating disorders can be exhausting and frustrating and the inherent stress can lead to further ailments. Shouldn’t sick people be happy too? Anxiety? How about Mike’s Hardly Worried Lemonade? Change the old mantra of “Oh poor me… I had my leg amputated!” to “Look at me! I’m a pogo-stick!!!”

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8. August 2008 by John Arnold.

After years of wondering whatever happened to Dr. Threadwell after he suffered a drug-induced mental breakdown, I ran into my college calculus professor the other day.  I quickly observed that he got new shoes.  Unfortunately, he still has not seen anybody about the Testicular Projection Syndrome (TPS) he suffers. 

Grasping the elusive nuances of Calculus and Analytic Geometry requires a healthy dose of misdirection and abstract thinking. If peered at too closely, integral and differential equations, hyperbolic and transcendental functions, trigonometric substitutions and polar coordinates, will confound any attempt to be captured by mental accuity. Thus, distraction and a self-distancing approach to allow for a higher-level appreciation of the fundamental truths and axioms of the medium and their interrelationships are required. Dr. Threadwell understood this well and was a master in conveying knowledge in a highly distracting manner. Many are the times and raucous was the laughter when he stretched to the top of the whiteboard to scribe a parametric equation describing projectile motion, only to turn around to the class and discover he had popped a nut out of the side of that skanky outfit in the process. Projectile motion took on a new meaning.

I took two semesters of Calculus with Dr. Threadwell. The last time I saw him, he was walking through the Business Building, in a haze. Eyes wandering twenty feet above everybody else’s heads, bumping into students every step of the way, no doubt contemplating l’Hopital’s Rule. My best friend in college, who was with me at the time, and with whom I’d just returned from a liquid lunch at Hills and Dales in preparation for our final in Sociological Research Methods, asked me in a very collegiate fashion, “Who the @#!* is that freak??” I just laughed and replied, “That’s my calculus professor, dude.”

Shortly thereafter, right before I was to begin my third semester of Calculus, Dr. Threadwell dropped from sight of the university - no explanations.  I had a hunch that maybe he had gone, permanently, onto that higher plane, and was happier in a place where he could deal with numbers and not people.  For those of us who had made it through those first two semesters and were looking forward to that third and final semester, we were much disappointed to find he had been replaced with an Engineering professor who had no talent or knack for calculus and who was also a very boring dresser.  (More on that later)

We all blamed his disappearance on the Dean of Instruction.

We lost a damn good professor that day…

Dr.  “Spitterman” Benny Cornett, shown here in his favorite Student Disciplinary Appeals Hearing outfit, thank you from all of us for depriving us of a quality third semester of Calculus and Analytical Geometry.

P.S.  Shaving doesn’t help…

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7. August 2008 by John Arnold.

Divorce sucks.  I’ve never been accused of having a knack for overstating the obvious, but feel free.  Sling away.  1:58 AM - Alarm going off in about 4 hours for work, and not even tired.  That pretty much sums it up.  Actually, I’m damn tired, but thoughts of tomorrow just don’t hold very much excitement for me right now and it’s as if I’m trying to put them off - the tomorrows, that is.  They show up anyway.  I miss my kids.  I’m getting ready to be missing them a lot more because they’re moving away on Saturday.

I’m glad I have my work.  There, at least, I can focus.  Here, however, I find myself turning from one thing to another, leaving most unfinished.  I guess I’m going to the office tomorrow in jeans and a pullover…

“Sometimes, there’s just not enough rocks.”  That, I’ve always thought, was one of the more profound lines from Forrest Gump. Speaking of rocks, the Olympics start tomorrow. If you can find a connection between the Olympics and rocks, let me know. I can’t, but it seems like they should go together, like a leg-humping chihuahua and a crispy beef taco. Go figure.

I’ve always been a big fan of Pink Floyd. David Gilmour is a fabulous guitarist. The music is mournful, soulful and brilliant. The lyrics - dark, controversial at times, but always inquisitive of the other side of things. So I listen to a lot of Floyd. Sometimes though, especially at times like these, Floyd can be like a gateway drug, like ‘They’ say marijuana is, or like gerbils. Gerbils are dangerous - before you know it you could be hooked on guinea pigs and they’re a lot bigger with all of the attendant increases in tooth and claw size. Explain that one to your doctor, if you can make it to the doctor before it chews and claws its way through your stomach. I’m really not sure what the purpose of gerbils are in the big picture, but I’m sure THAT’S NOT IT. So yeah, Floyd can be a bit depressing at times. But ‘fun’ music just makes me want to puke. Since when was music supposed to be about fun?

So nothing funny here today. Thoughts of people. New friends. Lack of certainty. Lack of sleep. Lack of desire for sleep. A strong desire for a new guitar. Patches on gaping holes that don’t work. A lot of gray and too little color. It’s not finished, so here I am - unfinished.

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31. July 2008 by John Arnold.

Taking self-portraits the lazy way with a digital SLR - what the hell am I thinking?  It must be the product of 4 hours of sleep last night, 5 the night before, and virtually none the night before that. My Nikon D60 rocks. With it’s 10.2 megapixel resolution, you can very clearly see just how crappy I look! I’m like a basset hound in a 4x gravity simulator. The bags under my eyes are brought out in the very best sharp relief and shooting in NEF-RAW format brilliantly emphasizes how bloodshot my eyes really are! Thank you Nikon USA! Your line of products offers the very best capabilities in self incrimination! This is like looking at W. C. Fields’ nose up close and in High Definition!

The lazy way - No Tripod.  No Timer.  I’m doing this like my daughter taught me.  Hold the camera up and away from you at arm’s length, purse you lips together to look as sexy as you possibly can, drape all your hair down one side of your face so only one eye is visible, preferrably the one with the makeup, and press the shutter release.  Nothing is so simple with a digital SLR that employs advanced state-of-the-art TTL metering and Nikon’s patented 3D Color Matrix Metering II system! I’m not complaining though, because the results are stunning! Nose hairs gone awry stand out with pride! First off, there’s no ‘one handing’ this baby. Number one, the TTL means you have to either cover the viewfinder with your finger or use a hood to get the camera to take a picture. One hand down. The other hand then is accorded the responsiblity of depressing that cool little silver shutter release. Number two, you don’t want to drop the D60 because you’re being foolish. On the positive side, being in front of the camera for a change allows me to see that sweet little Auto Focus in action! It rotates smoothly and silently to ensure the perfect capture of my imperfections, and the Vibration Reduction compensates for the delerium tremens that must surely be occuring from a steady diet of M&Ms and Glen Livet! This camera is awesome. So, having employed the required operational saftey methods, the results are here. I think my daughter would be proud.

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27. July 2008 by John Arnold.

The Big Lebowski…  What a movie.  I converted another friend to the genius of the Coen Brothers last night.  While the movie has its share of the surreal, you can’t beat it for memorable quotes, many of which happen to be my favorites are probably unsuitable for repetition here. It does remain a fact though that countless are the times since I first saw The Big Lebowski that I’ve wanted to walk into my boss’ office and say “New shit has come to light, man.”

Now, I’m not a movie critic, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So, if you haven’t seen this movie (which came out in 1998), grab it next time you walk by the Bargain Bin in your local video store or Walmart. If on the other hand, you’re easily offended by a liberal smattering of profanity, you may not make a connection. However, as employed by the Coens, the profanity is not so much gratuitous as it is a defnining characterstic of the central characters - the Dude and Walter. Poor Donnie… Just shut the fuck up Donnie.  ”I am the Walrus?  I am the Walrus.”

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21. July 2008 by John Arnold.

What an interesting day.  Secluded and isolated in my own little world, I’m clueless about the ongoings of the madness about me.  I can think of many who will sniff in condescension at my lack of awareness of current events, but I stopped caring about current events quite some time ago.  The thing about ‘current events’ is that they’re not current - they’re only the unwelcome repetition of the same bullshit we’ve been seeing for seventy years.  Okay.  Maybe not seventy.  Fifty?  Yeah.  Let’s agree on that.

It doesn’t really matter.  Names have changed along with geographical locations but the game is the same.  If you’re not familiar with the game, open your fucking eyes.  It’s called the military-industrial complex and if you haven’t learned about it in high school, maybe you should put down your cell phone and stop texting your friend two rows over with your massive intellect, voiced in such phrases as ZOMG!!! and ROFL.  LMAO is acceptable in light of the nonsense being spewed by our underpaid, bottom-of-the-barrel-pick public educators. 

Now I know a lot of you educators will take exception to this remark, but hey, if I have to prove one more time that my 4th grade kid’s answer was right on his math exam and you just failed to see it because either 1) you don’t understand the subject material, or 2) you don’t give a shit and are more concerned with the emasculation of the preteen male society, or 3) you’ve been ‘converted’ into believing that your job is no longer to teach, but to coach our kids into passing some standardized achievement test because of performance-based funding, I think I’ll send my child to Zimbabwe with a protractor and an elephant rifle because the drivel he’s learning in public schools is just that.  Drivel.  I work at a college where over 85% of our incoming freshmen students have to take remedial courses in Math, Reading and Writing.  Wow… No child left behind, huh?  It sounded good at the start, but I think the spirit of the idea was lost.  I don’t think ‘no child left behind’ was supposed to mean let’s reduce our entire future generation to the lowest common denominator.

 If you’re out of high school and clueless, maybe all happy and smug with your 1980s wage scale while trying to pay 2008 inflation prices, take a look around.  Obama isn’t the answer.  Neither is John McCain.  Has there ever been more transparency between party lines as what we see today?  I don’t know what either of their platform is.  Do they actually have one?  Do either of them address any issues that concern the average American?  As much as I hate the thought, I’ll have to actually research that.  It’s hard to be excited about that prospect though.  John McCain is about as exciting as a piece of overcooked linguini lying cold and smashed on a kitchen floor.  Obama on the other hand seems to be stirring up quite a bit of excitement as witnessed by all of the absurd spam email chains coming through my inbox.  People who can’t think for themselves should not become electrical-communicative once every four years when they take their fingers out of their noses. ZOMG!!!  It’s a muslim!!!  What the hell is that all about?  Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.  Who cares? So let’s dredge up every despicable act executed by extremist Muslims in the last 80 years and lay them at his feet.  Let’s not stop there, let’s attach religious connotations to it as well and send alarmist emails to all of our hillbillly friends urging them ever more to forward these on to everybody we know!  That’ll show them!  Don’t fuck with us By God (Or Mohammed, Buddha, Menthu-Ra, Peter Griffin, etc - no offense intended by omission).  The ignorance and provincialism of the human mind is staggering.

If you want to get away with something, redirection is a key component to the strategy.  The average American citizen is currently so overwhelmed by the rising costs of energy that the focus of their attention is on how to make it from one payday to the next.  Who, twenty years ago, would have ever guessed that electric bills would be surpassing mortgage payments?  That gasoline costs would riducule car payments?  Ask yourself a very simple question:  Whom does it benefit?  Trace it down, follow the trail.  Where does the money go and what makes it possible for it to go there?  As a friend of mine once said, “It’s not rocket science!  Which is a good thing, because we’re not rocket scientists.”

The really sad thing is that while the rest of the world is producing world-class rocket scientists, we have MySpace!  Fuckin’ A!

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20. July 2008 by John Arnold.

It’s hard being philosophical.  I know many of you simply won’t get this but M&Ms with Almonds and Plain M&Ms just don’t mix. Ponder that and be daunted.

On the other hand, if having to dig to the bottom of the candy bowl to get to the Plain M&Ms because their smaller mass allows them to be gravity-filtered beneath the chocolate-crusted nutty behemoths is my biggest challenge, I have nothing to complain about - unless my main diet has become M&Ms and Miller Lite, which upon reflection… Never mind that.  It’s all behind the curtain.

 It’s been an interesting week.  This being my first blog, I am naturally wondering what you all want to hear about but I find that I don’t really care.  I’m sure this will be a learning experience, and that as I become more proficient at this blogging, I’ll identify better topics.  In the meantime, a good friend of mine who has a very successfull blog suggested I write about big news hot topics - that this will drive the visitors to my  site.  So here goes:  Brittany Spears.  David Allen Coe.  George Bush.  Iran-Contra.  Queensryche.  Dale Earnhardt.  Barak Obama.  Chocolate Bunnies and edible panties.  We’ll see how that does.

 Welcome to my world - it’s kind of twisted.

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