Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2008 by jonbish

Oh Thanksgiving time. I love the food but I hate choosing which house to be at. It twas easier when I was younger and I was forced to go have dinner at someone house. Now that I get to choose … it sucks. I basically feel like I’m saying, “Ya I like this parents cooking more than yours”. In reality both parents are amazing cooks. I try and bounce back and forth and even do both if I can.

So this Thanksgiving, my mom took me to see the Transiberian Orchestra last night. All I have to say is holy freakin’ crap batman. I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my lifetime thus far and this one takes the cake. I wasn’t really expecting such an awesome show but they pulled out all the stops; fire, smoke, snow, lasers, lights, girls and some heavy metal guitar.

That’s just a small clip of one of their more popular songs.

So ya I want to be a rock star again. Forget punk rock music … metal Christmas is where it’s at.

You'll Get What's Coming To You

Posted on November 25, 2008 by jonbish

Photo by Ezy Brenizzle

I pretty much live my life by the motto “What goes around comes around”.

Basically I don’t do anything to other people I wouldn’t want done to myself. If someone else does something to me I don’t like, I turn my other shoulder and see if they’re doing something I like the next day. Everyone gets as many chances as they want.

If you know me at all then you know this isn’t a spiritual thing or some righteous hippie movement. Well OK maybe you might think it was the hippie thing but its not. It just had to do with my view on life. I see people waste their lives away in unconstructive arguments and its just not worth my time.

I do however enjoy a good constructive argument. This is mostly why I love my job … because my boss loves to argue with me.

But my point is that I believe my quality of life is dramatically increased by this lifestyle. Granted I am not perfect, yet, and sometimes life does get the best of me. I am however extremely content with my life choices so far.

So bring it on. You’ll get what’s coming to you and I will move on to bigger better things … hopefully.

Gamer Fo' Life

Posted on November 21, 2008 by jonbish

Photo by Soprano For Now

Every weekend I have set aside about 4 hours in which I can play Counter-Strike. I can’t help it. I was one of those computer nerds who would bring their computer to a friends house so we could lan. Good old lan parties. Sometimes I’ll mix it up and play a little DOD or TFC but recently I’ve been a huge scoutsknives fan so I rage A LOT of CS.

So enough Greek for those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about.

Lets bring it back a little. What games were a big part of your childhood? It could be anything from Lincoln logs to Sega genesis (Sega was pretty clutch).

I would have to say that original Nintendo sculpted a large part of my early video gaming career. I remember a lot of Mario/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros 3, Golf and some crazy chess like game where the pieces were creatures that would battle and stuff. I also went on to own such classics as Zelda and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.

So video games aside, I used to like taking stuff apart and putting it back together. This led to my love for K’NEX – “The World’s Most Creative Construction Toy”. I probably played with them until I was like 16. I would try and make it cool by building actual functional items like folder holders and alarm clocks that always missed my head. Not gonna lie I, actually know where those two glorious orange boxes of connectible trinkets lies. Good thing their not in this house because I would have already stopped writing this and started building a rollercoaster.

OK enough about the dam k’nex. Favorite childhood game had to of been Truth or Dare. It was always a win win situation that would result in me learning something new about life or… er… the human anatomy. I know everyone has played it at one time or another. It was the “break the ice” game that entertained us through puberty. I think as a result of that game I’ve … (this is the first time I’ve gone back and read what I wrote and said um …. maybe I shouldn’t go into detail).

So there you have it. K’Nex, Nintendo and Truth or Dare are the games that dominated my childhood. So now it’s your turn …. TRUTH: What games were a big part of your childhood?

Best Celebrity Sighting Ever

Posted on November 19, 2008 by jonbish

Todays guest post is brought to you by Joanna from http://shirtordress.blogspot.com. This is all part of the 20 Something Bloggers “Blog Swap 3“. Don’t forget to go check out my post over on her site.

When I lived in LA, one weekend some friends of mine were talking about this bar in Hollywood they went to the weekend before. Apparently, the guy who played Adam Banks in the Mighty Ducks movies worked there. I promptly yelled “Vincent A. Larusso???!!!!!” What Pete, Dave, and K-Dawg didn’t know was that I was OBSESSED with this kid in 7th grade. Oh yes, I had all the movies. I was first in line when they became rentable. I had the Tiger Beat poster. And, I clearly remember my friend Jan and I screaming “oh my God!! He is sooo cute!” and rewinding ALL of his scenes in the Ducks movies like the boy crazy middle school girls we were.

Adam Banks

Adam Banks, love of my middle school life

So, of course after that weekend, I desparately wanted to hit said bar up and see him for myself. My mission? Get a picture with him in a tactfully and polite manner (Yeah… that didn’t happen… Oh, I got the picture, sure, but… well, what’s that “tact” word mean again?)

Here’s what happened: My best friend, Vicki, and I went on the prowl. Vicki, I came to find out, also had a uber-crush on Vincent (oh yes, we’re on a first name basis now). Upon entering the bar, we see him and Vicki turns to me and says “Oh my God, Its effing Adam Banks.” Ssssshhhh Vicki! We have to do this discretely!!

You’d think that we would have gone into this prepared. You’d think we’d come up with a slick line like “so, wanna pull a flying V?” or “how was it working with Emilio?” or maybe even “where’s Pacey?” But no. The best we could come up with when meeting one of the absolute biggest teen idols of our 7th grade year was “Listen. We know who you are and you’re the only reason we’re here.” Wow. We are slick. Of course, this is after we had ordered like 9 drinks from him.

The best part, though, was when I was closing my tab I told him how embarrassed I was about the whole thing. He turns to me and says “YOU’RE embarrassed? I’m the one who’s embarassed” Aw, Banksy! Don’t be embarrassed!

Adam Banks

Hockey gear courtesy of microsoft paint.

So, I wonder how often that happens to him….

Let Me Save Me

Posted on November 17, 2008 by jonbish

Someone put a “Let Jesus save you” pamphlet on my car … before a rain storm … which led to an interesting combo of leaves and Jesus ink smeared on my window.

I wonder how many of those pamphlets actually work. Are people seriously opening these things up and finding God right on the inside sleeve. Maybe I’m opening it wrong.

I just really don’t see the point. I don’t go putting pamphlets about my company on their cars … and my company could actually save them some money.

To make the situation worse, I think it was my neighbor downstairs, and I’m pretty sure she holds bible studies in her living room every Thursday. I used to rock a good bible study. Whip out some nasty proverbs that defined how my morals build better character. Now I write my own proverbs. Like….

People grow old and die unless they kill themselves.

That one’s a little dark. How about …

Be nice to your friends or they’ll talk behind your back

That’s more like it. So back to my main point I made when I first started this blog. You live your life and I’ll live mine. We can co-exist and talk about life … just not about how you’ve been “saved”.

Awesome

Posted on November 16, 2008 by jonbish

Sam N. got me thinking the other day when he posted on my page on 20SB:

grats jon! better bring some extra awesomeness in your posts =D

So I promised him I would download some awesome off the Internet and get it on my site A.S.A.P. and thus began my quest for awesome.

First I checked out my favorite website indexing service. You should check it out if you’re ever bored. I call it Google. Google told me there were lots of sites hosting some awesome, so I started to sort through my “results” (that’s the stuff Google gives me when I ask it stuff).

First there was some “Oh My That’s Awesome” blog that was only half awesome. It didn’t have the whole awesome package.

Then there was a pretty awesome definition of the word awesome on dictionary.com: Slang. very impressive: That new white convertible is totally awesome.

Google also served me up some “results” video style. I think google should warn people not to post unawesome videos under an awesome title. There was one video that had a good collection of awesome.

I was about to give up when all of a sudden a ran across awesometheband. They had some insightful posts that really began to open my eyes up on awesome.

That’s when it hit me. It’s not about the awesome … it’s about my readers.

Because the truth here is that I can’t bring the awesome to my posts without you. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it still make a sound? Same with blogs people. If a guy writes a blog and there is no one around to read it is it still awesome?

Flashback Sunday: God Camp

Posted on November 10, 2008 by jonbish

So I went to camp up at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire from when I was about 8 till I was 16. Regardless of the fact that it was a Christian camp … it was a lot of fun. I spent my entire summers of my last 2 years there I loved it so much. I mean who wouldn’t … we had “the blob” from the movie heavyweights (that big balloon you jump on to launch people in to the lake).

My older years at the camp were my favorite. Especially the CIT years. The camp had an awesome program of activities:

White water rafting
15 days of hiking
7 days in a canoe up on the Allagash in Maine
10 days up in Chibougamau in Canada
3 days solo in the woods with no tent
3 mile swim across a lake

It was all awesome and I have a lot of great memories… but one sticks out.

The CITs were broken up into 1st years and 2nd years. When I was a 2nd year we had just gone on one of the best hikes I had ever been on. I took a lot of pictures on this specific hike and was looking forward to bragging about some of the things I had seen.

Well there was this squirrel. He made it his mission to steal every piece of small electrical equipment he could get ahold of so he could dismantle is and use it for his nest. He especially enjoyed eating our batteries out on a rock in front of the cabin where we could see him as if to mock us. Needless to say both my camera and my cell phone fell victim to his quest. I was furious. We actually found the squirrels nest some time later with my camera torn to shreds and my phone scratched to all hell.

Then one day we caught the squirrel in a mouse trap. It’s tail was chopped off by the trap and it had gone into shock. We brought the squirrel about a mile down the road and set it free by the girls camp. We didn’t want to kill it but we didn’t want it messing with our stuff anymore.

About a week later the squirrel is back in our cabin trying to steal our stuff again. The little bugger was relentless … tailless and all. So we immediately went on the offensive. Next thing you know there are 12 guys running around with lacrosse sticks and canoe paddles trying to swat down and shoo out a technology loving squirrel. Unfortunately in the scuffle the squirrel hit its head and knocked itself out while trying to jump across the room.

Next thing i know, one of the other 2nd years comes walking into the cabin wearing nothing but the squirrel’s pelt and he says “Anybody want them some squirrel with hot sauce”. I was 17 and had been out in the woods for 7 weeks … so of course I ate me some squirrel.

So that was God camp in a nutshell. Well, that and a lot of capture the flag.

One Last Time … Again

Posted on November 6, 2008 by jonbish

So here is a little video I made some time during the summer. Ever seince we recorded this song 3 years ago I’ve been wanting to re-record it. The quality sucks but I like the vibe better. I also kinda forget the words like half way through. Oh well.

JD

… ramblings on the side