The Occasional Blog of Jonah Weiland

Found the source of the kitchen funkification. Now, for those who don’t know, I’m a bachelor who lives on his own and doesn’t have a maid. So, on occasion, science experiments are conducted in my kitchen refrigerator as part of my research into bettering the plight of all man kind. Yesterday I opened my fridge to do some investigating. Towards the back of the top shelf was an open can of sliced pineapple that must have been sitting there for, shit, I really don’t want to guess, but possibly longer than a year. The remaining pineapple slices and juice it was shipped in didn’t just turn bad, but had transformed into something resembling 10W-40. It was black and thick and smelled nastylicious. It was so nasty that it had actually eaten through the bottom of the metal can and had started to spill out into my refrigerator. It was like the blood of the monsters in the “Alien” films eating through everything. The de-funkifying of the kitchen has begun.

BTW, I’m so getting a maid. This kind of crap has to stop.

This has been a busy week. I’ve been finishing up work on two client projects while maintaining two other client sites. That’s been on top of my regular work load which seemed greater this week for some reason. Once those two client projects go live I’ll post a link.

Also this week I sprained my right knee again in TKD. This sucks because testing is in a little over two weeks and I need all the time I can get in class. I won’t be able to go to class again until Monday or Tuesday likely, so this weekend I’ll be going over all my homework at home and doing some light workouts. Anyone got a stationary bike they want to sell? I could use one.

Something stinks in my kitchen and I don’t know what. I’ve thrown out the trash, done the dishes and it’s still funkified. May need to bomb it with Pine Sol.

Really, I got nothing to say. I just felt like giving the keyboard some exercise.

BIG thanks to Jacob for sending me this story from the New York Post. Here’s an excerpt:

LAST February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig.

His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald’s and document the impact on his health.

Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on 25 pounds.

But his supersized shape was the least of his problems.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock’s entire body deteriorated.

“It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days,” Spurlock told The Post.

His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.

Spurlock charted his journey from fit to flab in a tongue-in-cheek documentary, which he has taken to the Sundance Film Festival with the hopes of getting a distribution deal.

I eat a lot of fast food. Way too much, in fact. While I can’t say my libido is in any danger, but I can agree that when I find myself eating more fast food than usual I do get headaches and find myself in a general malaise. I didn’t attribute it to eating fast food as I regularly have so many things happening in life I just chalked it up to a busy schedule, but you know what, it probably is the fast food. McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Panda Express (the panda treats you right), etc … ya know, I gotta kick the habit. Fast food is my heroin and frankly, I’d be ten times better without it.

Here’s the problem, to cook is an awful fucked thing. You gotta put the shit in the thing and cook it, which takes 20 minutes minimum, then you eat it and gotta clean the shit what you cooked up. Oh, and then there’s cooking for one which blows giant elephant cock. You always end up with leftovers and I’m not a leftovers kinda guy.

If I ate healthier, things would be different and I know it. After reading the above story I gotta seriously think about cutting down drastically the shit fast food I eat and find alternatives. This ain’t no good.

Well, it seems my love fest with Dean is coming to an end. That’s not entirely true. I still like the guy and honestly believe he’d do wonders for this country, but the media has latched onto the walking zombie that is John Kerry and as we all know, American’s don’t think for themselves that often and follow mostly what the media tells them, and right now they’re saying vote for the zombie.

Dean’s second place finish in New Hampshire I expected, but I didn’t expect Kerry to again take such a commanding lead.

Then, with Dean firing Joe Trippi today, well, the new guy has one week to fix things and well, things ain’t looking so good. I can hope for a miracle, I really will, but I’m not going to get my hopes up only to have them dashed.

Getting back to Kerry for a moment, Republicans who support George Bush should be exceptionally happy with his wins. First, Senator’s don’t get elected often to higher office. Bush = Governor. Reagan = Governor. Clinton = Governor. He doesn’t have executive experience and that could hurt him. Second, the man is the Democratic version of Bob Dole in my mind. When Dole ran for President, he had nothing. No charisma, no passion, nothing. The sad thing for Bob Dole (btw I should point out I wasn’t a supported of his, nor did I loathe him like I’ve loathed other people what are currently President) is that he figured out who he was after he lost. He got less stiff (or more if you consider the Viagara thing) following his run for the presidency and the public embraced him. Who will ever forget the Pepsi ad he did? My point is that this is the same problem Kerry faces.

Kerry is so out of touch that even things he should know, things that were a product of his generation, he has not a clue about. Here’s an example take from this article:

Kerry answered several questions from the audience and received frequent applause. He stumbled a bit, however, when one audience member asked Kerry if he knew the cultural importance of his baseball cap, which featured a white “X� on a black background.

“The cultural importance of the Latin Ten?� asked a puzzled Kerry before realizing the hat referred to slain civil rights activist Malcolm X. He eventually recovered and said Malcolm X represented an angry reaction to discrimination and poverty, issues that “have been staring us in the face for a long, long time.�

What a dick weed.

Okay, enough politics for now. Provided Dean is still in the race when the California primary rolls around, he’s got my vote, but it’s becoming clear to me that all we’ve got to look forward to is a Kerry vs. Bush campaign and, well, that’s not all that interesting in my book.

How long have I been babbling on this here blog about “The Office?” I took a look through my archives and see my first mention of “The Office” was made back in February of last year. I’ve been raving about the show ever since. And last night it won two Golden Globes leaving most of the audience and America going, “Huh?” That’s all right, you’ll catch on soon enough. The second series of the show is being shown on BBC America Thursday nights and you really should check it out.

I’m curious as to when BBC America plans on releasing the Christmas Special. Are they going to make US fans wait until December? That would be evil, although I guess appropriate. Regardless, it’s worth the wait and has one excellent ending.

EDIT: Here’s another good article from the BBC.

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Salvation Army recently received a 1.5 billion dollar donation from the estate of McDonald’s heiress Joan B. Kroc. That’s right, 1.5 billion dollars. No typo. The group is now flush with cash and with that in mind I have an idea.

I want a 20 year moratorium on those dickwads standing outside my grocery store ringing a fucking annoying bell with their trusty red buckets by their side every holiday season. There’s absolutely no chance I’m gonna give you my worthless pennies now that I know you’ve got a 1.5 billion dollar gangster roll in your pocket. So, no more bucket. I want it out of my sight. Fuck the bucket.

After a couple of weeks of thinking about it and figuring out certain logistics, I feel I can finally talk about something I’m considering doing later this year. But first, a little back story.

I’ve lived my entire life in Los Angeles. I grew up in the suburb of Northridge my first 27 years or so, then I moved about 25 minutes south east from there to my present home in North Hollywood. While I’ve traveled all over this country and the world (my current country list includes Mexico, Tahiti, American Samoa, Western Samoa, Fiji, Switzerland, Italy and England), I’ve never lived outside of Los Angeles. And as an adult, I’ve never been outside of Los Angeles for longer than a week (most of those trips I listed above were made before I was 18). So while I feel I have a “worldly” perspective, I sometimes feel like maybe I’ve missed out on something by not living somewhere else. So, I started thinking it over and came up with a plan.

Later this year I’m considering going to London to live for up to two months. It’s longer than your typical vacation and shorter than living there. When I visited London last May I was there only for a week and it definitely wasn’t enough time to really immerse myself into the country. I really loved that city and would love to spend even more time there. By going for two months I accomplish a couple of goals. First, that amount of time requires me to actually live there. I’ll have to do laundry, cook my own food, clean my living space, etc. Basically, I’ll need to figure out how to live in London. Staying in a hotel for two months is way too cost prohibitive, so I’ll be doing the sublet thing, which will feel more like home. Second, it also affords me the opportunity to (relatively) cheaply spend some time exploring Europe. I’d love to visit Scottland and go on over to Paris and Amsterdam. Traveling from London to those destinations is a hell of a lot cheaper than flying from Los Angeles.

Now, in order to make this possible I need to be able to continue working and support my business and its clients. I’d say about 75% of what I do can be done from anywhere in the world, as long as I have a decent Internet connection. Another 20% of my work involves answering and returning phone calls, going to the post office and the bank. The final 5% is my irregular client meeting. The most important thing as far as clients goes is having a way for them to contact me that won’t require them to make a long distance call. I may have found a way to do that. Packet 8 offers a means by which you purchase a piece of hardware from them, sign-up for their service and connect said hardware up to your broadband and voila, I can have my own Los Angeles area code phone number anywhere in the world, provided I have broadband. Pretty nifty. I could have a 213 telephone number in my London apartment. I’ve ordered the product and need to find someone in London with broadband who’d be willing to let me send it to them for a quick bit of testing. As long as it works, that solves one major problem. I can also get a Blackberry device which would give me access to the world from pretty much anywhere, as well as a multi-nation cell phone with both US and London #’s (it’s getting much cheaper to do this).

The other things are all pretty manageable. My Mom offered to help me out by going to the PO Box twice a week to pick up checks and mail as well as make any check deposits that need to be made. That’s very nice of her and solves that problem.

The only other issues I’m working through now I may not have any control over.

First, I need to find out if my Apartment Manager will allow me to sublet my apartment while I’m over in England. If I can find someone to sublet my apartment those two months I can cover the extra costs of living easily. And why wouldn’t someone want to sublet this place? It’s a big ass apartment with WiFi, DirecTV (with all the movie channels) and TiVo! It’s freaking Disneyland in here! That would be terribly helpful in keeping costs down.

Second, the US Dollar is sucking hard against the British Pound. According to this Web site the current exchange rate is $1.8295 for every one pound. YIKES! When I visited in May it was $1.62. When you consider subletting a flat with broadband in London could cost 250 pounds a week, well, that translates to $457 in U.S. scratch. $2000 a month in rent makes this trip not so affordable. If the US dollar doesn’t regain some strength in the coming months, it may make this trip a no go.

When would I do this? I have to attend both Comic-Con International and Wizard World Chicago this year, so it has to be after convention season is effectively over. WWC runs August 13th – 15th, so I’m thinking I can leave anytime late August and I’d return home by the end of October.

That’s where I’m at. Nothing definite, but it’s something I’m seriously considering right now. If anyone has suggestions on where to find sublets (I’ve already perused Craig’s List and it appears there are regular sublets available for my needs) or any other ideas, please feel free to leave a comment.