January 2006

Odd Time.

Being somewhat obsessive-compulsive about most everything in the world, I am having a bit of a dilemna at lunch today. It’s no big thing really, but it has me completely thrown off my game.

I started my lunch hour at 1:53 p.m.

This means I have to be back at my desk by 2:53 p.m.

This has me utterly befuddled. I must leave our home precisely 15 minutes before the end of my lunch hour so that I can be at my desk at the proper time utilizing a comfortable pace to get there. I can’t leave 16 minutes before because then I get there a minute too early, I can’t leave 14 minutes before because then I have to rush due to the fact that I absolutely hate being late.

“So? Leave at 1:38 p.m.”, you say to yourself.

You see, that doesn’t fit right with me because I like to do things on an “even” time. If it’s not divisible by five, it’s not happening. I don’t know why I’m like this when it comes to time, but I am.

I set my alarm for x:30. I lie in bed until x:35. (The ‘x’ is variable due to my rotating shift at work). I take a shower at x:00. I leave for work at the following x:40. It’s all on the mark when looking at a clock. I once dated a guy that told me he sets his alarm for 6:33. I didn’t see him again after I found that out.

I used to shriek at my sister when we were kids that she had “five minutes” to get out to my car if she didn’t want to ride the bus to school. I declared this threat at precisely 7:30 a.m. every school morning and I had all the clocks in the house synchronized. (By the way, this threat was worth something as she apparently felt much ‘cooler’ in a ’74 Vega.) Thinking back, it’s a wonder I made it through school following a bell schedule constructed so that 5th period went from 11:37 to 12:18. In fact, all eight periods were off-time like that and I won’t bore you with the entire schedule though I could recite it from memory if prompted to.

I’d like to say that all this is probably due to the fact that I have a very organized, regimented mind and that I need structure.

Nah, I’m just odd. (And proud of it!)

26 January 2006 by J.P. Quirky. 0

Hmmm.

Earl and I went to see the national tour of “Oklahoma!” at the local theatre tonight. We had been “Broadway Theatre League” members years ago but after a couple of years we dropped out and hadn’t been to a production in quite a while. I bought these tickets as a Christmas present for Earl, thinking we could make a date night of it, which we did and enjoyed very much.

It’s unfortunate that we didn’t really enjoy the performance.

Both Earl and I are very familiar with the show. My high school performed “Oklahoma!” when I was in 8th grade and though I was just an audience member for that production, I remember the energy radiating from the stage inspired me to become involved in local theatre and the following high school productions. Earl is very familiar with the movie version of “Oklahoma!”. I sang tracks from the score in a dinner theatre/ensemble type setting in college. A number of years ago we attended another high school production of the classic musical.

We both agreed that the high school productions we had seen in the past were better than the national tour version of the show tonight.

Tonight’s production just lacked energy. Period. The set was sparse. A stalk of corn, a windmill, an old woman and a butter churn was all that was on stage when the show opened. The backdrops were wrinkled. The lighting was not good, creating shadows where shadows should not be. The pacing was mind numbingly slow. The majority of the cast seemed like they were simply going through the motions. And the actor playing Curly sang through his nose. The show started at 8:00 p.m. on the dot. Intermission didn’t come along until 9:45 p.m. One and three quarter hours for the first act! There were some bright spots in the production; the actress playing Laurie had a beautiful voice and Gertie Cummings’ obnoxious laugh was played to the hilt. And luckily, there was a very handsome dancer on stage with a nice full beard who was wearing a pair of chaps and a cowboy hat (and some other clothes too). That held my attention during the crowd scenes.

Intermission finally rolled around and Earl and I did something we never had done before. We left before the second act. Sadly, we weren’t alone by a long shot, evidenced by the relatively large number of people that headed to their cars when we did. We went out and got a bite to eat.

We still had a nice time together. We were just disappointed in the show. Perhaps the second act surpassed the first in energy and pacing, but I somehow doubt it. Tonight was the second night of the two day run here; I had heard rumors that the review in the paper this morning was not good. Now I know why.

25 January 2006 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 1

Straight Up.

I am going to come absolutely clean right here in front of the world. I never thought I would ever say this to my partner Earl, let alone everyone that reads my blog or stumbles across this on a Google tangent, but the time has come and I must announce it.

I am totally infatuated with Paula Abdul with this season of American Idol.

There, I’ve said it.

She has entered the realm of diva-dom. And that’s a good thing.

Last year, Paula seemed a little bit off kilter. Well, let’s face facts, she seemed downright drugged and it was like she was in her own little euphoric haze and she didn’t share any with anyone else. Then the whole Corey what’s his name scandal started to bubble and she came out of the fog and into reality and it all eventually settled down. This season, it seems like Paula has pulled herself together and I think she is doing a great job on this seemingly mean run of American Idol auditions.

One thing about this season that is making me a little crazy is all this hoopla about Randy and Simon’s “anti-gay” comments, for example, that one guy that was named something like Brandy that looked and acted and sounded like a girl, which is perfectly fine, but Randy couldn’t tell what gender he was. I don’t know about you, but if I went out of my way to go to the hair salon and ask for my hair to be cut into a Dorothy Hammill haircut and had my eyebrows tweezed slimmer than the ladies’ from Abba’s, I wouldn’t be offended if someone made that mistake either. And now that I think about it, I’d probably still have a beard through all this, which wouldn’t help differentiate me from women in some parts of the country, so you can see the reason for some of the confusion. I mean come on, if you’re going to go out of your way to be as androgynous as possible, then don’t be upset if people guess ‘wrong’. I’m just saying.

But back to Paula. I found it very charming when the policeman last night wanted to dance with her and she responded with an “I’m not allowed” (I snickered). She was gratious and fully rooted into this dimension and reality. Eventually Randy and Simon dragged her up to the guy so she would dance but she was such a good sport about the whole thing.

She has gone out of her way to find something positive from some absolutely hideous auditions and I think that’s wonderful. She even tried to coach the boy with no teeth but he wasn’t having any.

Paula baby, you’re back on my playlist and cocked (no pun intended), locked and ready to rock in my CD player. I’m feeling the Vibology.

25 January 2006 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Lunch.

As I sit here and eat a relatively healthy lunch whilst I blog, for some reason I’m thinking about the kids that are in school today. Perhaps it’s because a school bus tried to run me off the road on my way home. Whatever the reason, I got to thinking that most likely the kids in school today are not eating a healthy lunch. They are eating junk food in their school cafeteria. This is sad.

Back when I was in school, a monthly lunch menu was handed out at the beginning of the month. (As an aside, in my school district it was my mother who typed the menu and she would filch a few advance copies for my sister and I. We were like gods with this knowledge.) Listed were all the meals that were to be served for lunch that month. There were few choices. A typical day would be like “Tomato or Chicken Noodle Soup, half of a PB&J or turkey salad sandwich, milk, choice of cookie.” During the Carter administration, peanuts accompanied at least two meals per week. Said lunch was made by a dedicated staff of cafeteria workers who actually cared about the food they were serving up. They were basically cooking the same stuff they cooked at home, just for a really big family. If you didn’t like what was on the menu that day, you brought your own lunch.

Nowadays, soda and snack vending machines populate school cafeterias and kids are bypassing the traditional lunch line and heading for a bag of Doritos and a bottle of pop. Still hungry? Have a candy bar. And if you do go through the cafeteria line, there’s a really good chance that you’re eating an over-processed, pre-cooked, preservative laden ‘meal’ that was nuked especially for you. There’s a wild assortment of food including tacos, burritos, pizza, pre-made submarine sandwiches, chicken nuggets, french fries; the list goes on and on. Small wonder we have hyper, unfocused, belligerent children in our society today.

What is sad is that funding to our schools has been cut back so much that they have to resort to corporate sponsored food in order to keep the school going! “The band doesn’t need the money for the all-star trip, they can boost their income with the loot from the Sugar-Pop machine.” Boo! “We can’t afford to send the football team to the dome for the playoffs, maybe they can get some money from the Cavity Candy machine.” How horrid is that?

What happened to the days of a “home cooked meal” at school? Is it really too expensive? Too time consuming? No one cares but me? I find that last one hard to believe.

All I know is that when I eat junk food, I get an excellent energy rush for about an hour and then I feel tired and lethargic for the rest of the day. I don’t feel like learning. I don’t feel like being productive. I don’t even feel like moving. How can we expect a child to sit up and learn the history of the world after eating a generic Big Mac?

I don’t know why I’m thinking about this today. We don’t have kids. My mother doesn’t type the menu anymore. I’m not bucking for a spot on the Board of Education. Maybe I just wish that the kids in school today could have the same quality lunch that I had at Pulaski Academy and Central School.

24 January 2006 by J.P. Why. 1

Simulate.

The geek in me is shining through this week as I jump back into “Sim City 4”. For those not familiar with the game, you basically build your own city, your own little country actually, with residents called Sims and money called Simoleons. Being the “road geek” that I am, I have the “Traffic Jam” add-on pack which allows you to build more complex highway networks in your city.

I can never get the budget to balance correctly (small surprise there), so I unashamedly use cheat codes to give myself free money. Sort of like the current administration at the White House. I figure if Bush Lite can do it than so can I.

Anyways, in the past when I’ve played Sim City until all hours of the night I’ve had odd dreams afterwards in that I would dream that I was actually living in the city that I had built. I’d hear the music in the background. I’d wander aimlessly around the streets that I had built to nowhere or to the airport that was bigger than the city itself.

Even though I thoroughly enjoy the game, I do have a problem with my “Sims”. For example, I put two male Sims in the same house and I can’t get them to hook up with each other. There never seems to be an interest, despite the flowers and candy. It’s not as bad in Sim City 4 as it is in the game “The Sims” where attention is paid mostly to the residents (Sim City focuses on the city itself); I never remember to give my Sims in that game a toilet and then they bounce around and eventually poop on the living room table. Then I feel bad.

Nevertheless, as winter has finally arrived and I deal with trouble calls this week, I’ll probably pass some time playing “Sim City 4”. It’s a good way to exercise my inner geek.

23 January 2006 by J.P. Geek 2

Uh Oh.

I just awoke about a half hour ago with one thought screaming through my head.

“I don’t want to go to work.”

It’s Monday. It’s snowing. I’m in a very calm, relaxed, kicked-back mood from doing very little this past weekend. This morning I have to jump into it with both feet and endure a week of on-call.

I’ll go to work this morning. I’ll even smile when I get there. But I can’t wait for it to be over.

23 January 2006 by J.P. Why. 0

Nothing.

Earl and I have played it very low key today. We’ve basically done nothing, save for eating, getting laundry done and picking up the house. I’ve messed around with my computer, Earl has watched football and is now off to his weekly poker game. I haven’t even showered. I don’t think I smell bad.

Despite our laziness, we’re both in a great mood and ready for the work week. Sometimes you just need some down time.

22 January 2006 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Nightlife.

Earl and I decided to continue our relaxing trend this weekend and go out for a couple of drinks tonight. There’s only one gay bar in town, the one I used to DJ at a very long time ago, so that’s the place we went. Not much has changed. First Earl is still bartending, we recognize some of the guys from the days I worked there and the number of people in attendance has dwindled.

There were a bunch of the younger crowd there and I tried my best not to feel obsolete.

We did dance a little bit to Kelly Osbourne’s “One Word”. I still think it’s a great song and it seemed like the others on the dance floor seemed shocked that two bears were out there dancing to a somewhat current dance track.

Earl and I did strike up a conversation with a guy that was standing by himself in the corner. We made a quick friend in Ryan who lives way out in the country and rarely goes out. Turns out he grew up just down the street from where I grew up, he just did it 10 years later. Like everyone that grew up there, he’s pretty fine to look at. 🙂

After we said our good nights at the bar we stopped at the diner right around the corner from our house which is now, thank goodness, open 24 hours on the weekend. French toast with blueberry syrup is oh so bad for the healthy eating but oh so good at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night.

22 January 2006 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Vibe.

The Niagara Mohawk Building.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

To kick off the weekend in style, Earl and I journeyed to downtown Syracuse for some real, good ol’ honky-tonk food at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. A local landmark, the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is famous for their great food, blues music and eclectic crowd. It’s always a good time and Earl and I try to take out of town family and friends there whenever we the opportunity presents itself. Hint, hint to Tim and Steve.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is located on the edge of the downtown area, so after supper Earl and I decided to embrace the low 50s and clear weather Mother Nature has given us again this January and go for a walk. We walked over to Clinton Square and watched the skaters do their thing a la Rockefeller Center and then walked around a few blocks of the general area.

The City of Syracuse is making an effort to bring more residential space to downtown by converting old warehouses and office buildings into lofts and other living space and this is something appeals very much to both Earl and myself. Somewhat a native of Syracuse (half my family lives there), the Salt City is the the place that I feel most comfortable in and I could live there the rest of my life without thinking about it twice. Living in a bigger city also appeals to Earl so we took great interest in a building we walked by that was being converted to apartments and townhouses and jotted down the phone number.

Even though I grew up in the country and have lived in varying places including suburban Boston and rural Upstate New York, I’ve always wanted to try living in a downtown area where I would do a lot of walking and have our own little speck of existence in a busy city area.

Another magnificent building we walked by was the Niagara Mohawk building, a wonderful art deco structure built in the first half of the 20th century. I find art deco structures so cool; it’s as if the designers and builders went out of their way to make their work as unique as possible, a welcomed relief to the cookie cutter buildings being built today.

The vibe of the city was a great way to kick off the weekend and wash away the hectic pace of the work week. It’s all good.

20 January 2006 by J.P. Flickr 0

Wow Worthy: Kelly Osbourne

Kelly Osbourne/One Word
For new readers to “Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity”, a “Wow worthy” song is a dance track that would be an excellent fit to the radio station I used to be Director of Operations for: Wow-FM, The Beat of Central New York (WOWZ-FM/WOWB-FM). Wow-FM bit the dust in 2001 when it was consumed by a huge media conglomerate and turned into a generic “Kiss” station. My program director’s ear occasionally finds a song that would fit the station really well if it still existed today.

I’ve found my first favorite dance track for 2006, and that dance track is “One Word (Chris Cox Radio Mix)” by Kelly Osbourne. I was led to this track by blogger god Joe. My. God. in a reference to a group of guys called The Mischievious Boys.

Who would ever believe that I would be diggin’ a Kelly Osbourne track? It’s a typical J.P. tempo’d song, has a great, slightly haunting vibe and a memorable hook. As a bonus, the flip side is a damn true-to -the-original remake of “The Sound of the Crowd” by The Human League!

Both tracks have already been loaded on my club mixing gear after one listen. Go buy it if you don’t have it already (it’s been around a while), it’s available on iTunes.

19 January 2006 by J.P. DJ 1

January 2006

Odd Time.

Hmmm.

Straight Up.

Lunch.

Simulate.

Uh Oh.

Nothing.

Nightlife.

Vibe.

Wow Worthy: Kelly Osbourne

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