JBot Mania

The other day, Sora compiled a swank CD for his little man. Intended to be one of those CDs that grows with you, speaking the same words differently as the years go by, he added a track from The Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed”.

“Let It Bleed” has always had a special place in my heart, not just for the music, but for the way I came to own it. My favorite song has always been, and most likely will always be, “Monkey Man”.

I’m just a monkey man, I’m glad you are a monkey woman too.

I’ll say right now that I am ashamed as to WHY I began my quest to find “Monkey Man” in the first place. It involved Johnny Depp and it began with a not-so-pivotal episode of “21 Jump Street”. The episode was, of course, about a magnet high school that was FILLED with drugs and artsy drug dealers. There were shots of kids playing basketball and missing the hoop. Obviously because they were high. In a fit of musical genius, the song they chose to get at the heart of this gut wrenching story was “Monkey Man”.

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey ; All my friends are junkies

Unfortunately, at the time, I had no idea what the name of the song was, just that it was The Stones and that I loved it. The internets were in their infancy and I had no hope of looking up anything, much less lyrics.

At this very same time, my parents were separated and I visited my father on a somewhat irregular basis. One of things that we would do was go to the mall. It was a place to walk around, a place that I could buy things. It was the definition of a win-win. I used this time to scour the music store (Do they even exist anymore?) but to no avail. I couldn’t find “that song about monkeys’.

I’d say a year or two later, it was my birthday. It happens at least once a year… for me, that is. I had asked everyone for CDs off of some probably complex, color coded list. We were celebrating at my brother’s apartment when my dad handed me a gift wrapped item, clearly a CD. He said to me, “Sometimes you get the CDs you want, and sometimes you get the CDs you need. This is a CD you need.” I unwrapped it to find my very own copy of “Let It Bleed”.

The first time I popped the CD into my CD player (do THOSE exist anymore?) I listened all the way through until I got to THE song… “Monkey Man”. Kismet I tell you. I was thrilled. Over and over I played the CD, so happy that I had found my monkey song. Nowadays I don’t play it as often, but when I do, I still get the chill of the first time. I try not to play it too often for fear that that feeling will wear out.

Sora later decided to take the song from “Let It Bleed” off of the CD he made, especially when I started quoting a few lyrics from the song he chose (not “Monkey Man”). I’m glad, though, that he reminded me of how much I love the album. Maybe in a few years when his little man is a little older, he’ll give him the whole thing instead.

This is “Big Boy” a.k.a. “Stumpy” a.k.a. “Buckey” a.k.a. “Knuckles”. I call him Big Boy right now because, of my two cats, he is, well, the biggest. Seems simple enough. Frankly, this naming scheme is pretty complex since I usually rely on calling my cats “kitty”. Having two, though, this wouldn’t work out too well so I went with “Big Boy” for the big guy and “Little Bit” for the kitten. Yeah, yeah, call the ASPCA.

Anyway, if you don’t believe that this is me in cat form, then check out the image below of me and my poor kitty that passed away.

It’s also worth noting that the arrangement in this picture is not an uncommon occurrence. Maybe I’m just narcoleptic.

Look at me, I’m LINKING. This is post #1 in my questionable quoting recovery program.

Here are some interesting ideas from DIYMaven on Curbly.com. Curbly.com is “a Web community for people who love where they live. Curbly is the best place to share pictures of your home, find design ideas, and get expert home-improvement advice.”

How to Turn a Tote Bag into File Tote

How To Make a Plastic Bag Keeper

How to Make a Folded-Paper CD Case

I’d buy this house. I’d buy this house with bells on. Bells on what? Bells on me. Bells on my cat. Bells on anything.

Admittedly this house is nothing overtly flashy or impressively sized, but I have, in my old age, become a fan of 1960’s architecture. I LOVE the deck. It goes from back to side to front with just enough overhang to keep you dry. It reminds me of A Frames at summer camp.

The slim windowed garage utterly exudes the word “swank”. It reminds me of the houses on the street where I grew up. I think I should move back there. But for the lack of suitable employment, I could buy a street for what I bought my current house for. And the street would be filled with houses like this.

Oh sigh… BIG sigh… I love it.

And it’s only $125,000 more than my current house. So… I’ll get a sugar daddy, big whoop. I can be bought. We all know it.

In my first post about my search, I decided to alter something that I had bought at Staples to construct my ultimate tickler file. The item was a good start, but it needed some modification.

I grabbed some cardboard, some decorative paper, spray adhesive and a glue gun. I was ready to get down to business. After about an hour, I managed to construct the model you see to your left. In general, the final product looked pretty close to what I had wanted. It was stylish, small, and freestanding. However, the sides ended up being a little larger than what the frame could hold. As you can see here, they also did not reach all of the way to the bottom.

In the end, my swell construction completely collapsed under the weight of the file folders. Not all together shocking, but disappointing nonetheless.

Despite poor construction, I still have faith in the design. And if the edges could support hanging folders, it would be the ultimate tickler. Hmm… Ultimate Tickler™ sounds like a GREAT superhero.

After I was done with this first attempt, I thought that it might be wise to see if I had just wasted an hour of my time and a good portion of my specialty paper on something that I could have simply bought. What I found was that I may have wasted my time, considering the resulting quality, but that I really didn’t have any other options either. Read the rest of this entry »

For once, the infinite repeat of commercials on Comcast finally broke and I saw two commercials for movies that are now on the top of my list. All I need now is a rainy day, or a really hot day… and matinée prices.

The first movie is “Death at a Funeral” starring an array of British actors, most of which I’ll probably never see again. There is one however that holds a special place in my heart ever since I saw him in “The Station Agent“.

“Death at a Funeral” apparently “Puts the fun in funeral” according to Staci Layne Wilson of Buzzine Magazine. Check out the trailer here. I’m a little concerned that this movie comes from the director of “Bowfinger” and that they actually admit it, but I’ll let alot ride on the little shoulders of Peter Dinklage.

Another movie I’m looking forward to is “The Ten“. Yeah, yeah, yeah—it’s a movie about the Ten Commandments and obviously a bit of a satire, but with this cast, I just can’t resist. Highlights include Adam Brody, Liev Schreiber, Rob Cordry, and Ken Marino.

From the Director:

The Ten Commandments have been a cornerstone of our society for nearly one hundred years. If you’ve ever taken a Sunday off, or if you’ve ever stopped yourself from murdering someone, then you yourself have been following the Ten Commandments without even knowing it.

Fascinated by the concept of these simple directives, Ken Marino and I began to spin the tales that make up our new feature film, THE TEN.

Before attacking such a weighty subject in a screenplay, we knew we needed to to do a great deal of research. Taking a tip from a friend, we found google.com, where we learned not only what The Ten Commandments are, but what order they’re in.

We were thrilled to learn that all Ten Commandments were available — they’d been optioned by Universal but had reverted back to the writer last year.

Armed with our newfound source material, the characters flowed out of our imaginations — so vividly that it was often the characters themselves who wrote the story!

Source

All in all, I’m quite excited.

So, I’m trying my best to implement GTD (Getting Things Done) and it’s going somewhat well. Things are out of my head certainly. Now my biggest hurdle—procrastination and a lack of discipline. These would be the harder hurdles to overcome.

As I found myself, yet again, being somewhat overtaken by my bills, I decided that I really needed the tickler file component. I had gotten as far as the lists, using a great site called Vitalist, but the tickler file was a little harder to get started. Why? How could a collection of 43 folders be that difficult to accomplish? Well, I’m in my first house and it’s pretty much in shambles so I have gotten pretty picky about the way things look because some things just look plain bad. I wanted something swanky and chic, and, oh, I don’t know, functional. Something I could neatly fit in my kitchen or living room and that did NOT involve black plastic. I was saddened by how few choices there were.

My major criteria were:

• Attractive
• Small
• Freestanding

After much searching, I found the following:

The pros:

• Sturdy
• Freestanding
• Attractive
• Small
• Portable

The cons:

• Does not have 43 slots
• Current slots are too small for letter sized folders

It’s not a total failure, though. It’s close… and hopefully there is a cigar.

What I am proposing might seem a little radical BUT, with a small pair of scissors, some cardboard and a glue gun, I think this could work.

First, I am going to strip out the superfluous innards of this stylish tote. Then, I am going to get some nice sturdy cardboard to add in my own sides that will be wide enough for letter sized folders. That should just about get what I want.

This design not only retrofits this particular carrier, but it also allows you to easily maneuver your daily and monthly file folders without having to readjust the whole pile every day. Imagine having 43 slots that you’d have to rotate a good chunk of every day. Not a pleasant thing to look forward to. In fact, it might make you quit this all together if you’re at all as easily stymied by life’s little challenges as I am.

I’m excited by this prospect. So easy and so attractive, kind of like m… Well, anyway. It’s worth a shot.

I’ll let you know how it turns out, with pictures and all.

So, I’m not the only one with a new addition.

This is Zoe and she has joined the San Francisco contingent of the family. Here are the details from the chat with my brother:

JBot: Holy crap. You got a dog?
Brent: Yeah
JBot: But you and [his wife] aren’t a male gay couple?
Brent: I know, but our new neighborhood requires kids or dogs… so dog for now
JBot: How old is Zoe? Where’d you find her?
Brent: She’s somewhere around 3. We got her from the Milo Foundation that rescues dogs that are going to be put to sleep and finds foster places for them…. we got her from her foster home.
JBot: Awesome. What kind of dog is she?
Brent: Australian Cattle Dog/Pit/Dunno
JBot: Hahaha

Certainly after last summer’s horrifically bad luck with our various pets, and those that have passed during this year, it’s time that we got some new blood in the pet pool. I’m certainly done with two felines, so it’ll be up to the rest of the family to fill in the other gaps.

One of the larger projects for my new house has been creating an actual master bedroom. Originally, my house was three bedrooms, all of which were TINY. For instance, you can see here that THIS was the ENTIRE master bedroom.

And when I say “master” I mean, “slightly bigger than my other choices”.

Behind the wall you see on the left here was an unfinished storage room.

Upon reflection, it probably would have been better to keep some of this storage room since I have, well, NO STORAGE in this house, but I had a grand plan that somehow usurped that need. The plan involved some built-in bookshelves—for the girl who can’t read.

We had already knocked down some walls, taped, and painted the bedroom before dad came over this weekend. And by “we”, I mean mostly dad, and then Bill and I painted. The room had been sitting in this condition for about 6 weeks.

So this weekend, we got down to business. Flooring was installed and a closet was added. There already existed a closet in the master but it was somewhat small, so to regain some of the storage that I so blatantly eliminated, we added another one in, with a 6 ft. opening. It’s way more ginormous than I had expected. The old closet will be flipped around so that it can be accessed from a different bedroom, thus creating a second ginormous closet.

Without further adieu:

And the NEW CLOSET (said with Bob Barker’s inflection)

Some taping, some molding and we’re almost done. I also like that I get my own little nook by the window. If you can give yourself some nook, go for it. Not everyone can.

All in all the room feels gigantic, and I suppose it is at 16′ x 12′. In the end, the storage room may have been more valuable upon resale, but the room in pretty stunning with the extra window and the nice floors, so maybe this will work out just as well or better. And come on, if you can’t fit your clothes in this new closet, you have a problem.

After transplantation to a much sunnier, probably too sunny, corner of my reclaimed flower beds, this rose bush not only sprouted this flower a couple of weeks ago, it is now showing signs of multiple new leaves and potential buds. I’m pretty amazed by its progress since I continually cut off whatever is dead, and frankly, that was most of it not too long ago.

I wouldn’t say it is tender loving care that is giving this plant the will to live, but more likely the desire that I stop nagging and belittling it for not doing so.

“What you can’t take a little sun?”