January 30, 2009. Reinvented.
With any luck, you never visited JL 1.0. I was a blogger before I'd ever heard of that word and way before it was cool. As such, my page got loads of hits from complete strangers. The random, "you seem cool, I really enjoyed reading your page" note from visitors was great. The slightly-more-disconcerting, "I'm going to kill you" note was less enjoyable. Thus, JL 1.0 was unplugged.
Fast forward a few years. I enjoy writing too damn much to keep my mouth shut, so here ya go.
Today's random fact: In high school I was once attacked by a classmate wielding a glass-encased aquarium heater. Over a bag of cheesy poofs. In Physics class.
I'm not sure why, but lately I haven't been able to get this incident out of my head... Has anyone tried to take your life using an aquarium heater? I googled it and couldn't find any cases of death by aquarium heater. That's not to say it hasn't happened, just that it wasn't reported. Much like my case.
See, I went to a pretty strict high school. And this took place in a small class of college level Physics. One of my classmates had a funny/annoying habit of eating cheesy poofs every day during class - from one one of those cheap non-Ziploc baggies. One day someone - in fact, not even yours truly - turned his bag of cheesy poofs upside down. When the classmate went to pick his bag o' poofs up, they went everywhere. It was a tragedy and the entire class erupted in laughter.
He deduced that since I was laughing the hardest, it must've been me. Between laughs, I tried to assure him that I had no hand in the incident and was simply an innocent bystander. (A line I had mastered by the time of my high school career.) At any rate, next thing I know I'm being chased around the classroom with a broken aquarium heater - essentially a broken shard of glass.
I didn't know if he was serious, but looking back I think he was. I was still laughing as a couple of my friends tackled him and relieved him of the weapon.
No harm no foul and the incident never left the Physics lab...until now. 'Ol Cheesy Poofs apologized and went on to become a big-time OB/GYN here in the metro. NH, if you're reading this - and perchance enjoying a decadent cheesy poof - I wish you nothing but the cleanest of fingers.
June 29, 2009. Facebooked.
I made it through the rise and fall of MySpace without an account there, but I finally bit the bullet and opened a Facebook account.
July 7, 2009. Billy Mays Here.
A couple short takes a week after Billy Mays' death.
Sure, Michael Jackson's funeral is today, but Billy Mays' death hit much closer to home. I always liked the guy - never had the chance to meet him, but I never missed an episode of Pitchmen. Maybe he just reminds me of myself back in high school, I'm not really sure. He seemed like a nice guy and I'm going to miss his boisterous voice when I'm enjoying late night DRTV spots.
Note to self: Your already very short list of people you'd like to meet is getting shorter by the day. Let's see...who's still on it? Jimmy.
j...@johnlaing.comCopyright 2009, John Laing