On a Mission with Michael Clayton

• 1 bottle Blue Moon Summer Ale - home
• 1 margarita - Mission

Saw Michael Clayton at the Admiral Twin.
"Who's Michael Clayton?" you ask.
"Be sure to watch the Oscars this Sunday." say I.

Simon & Garfunkel

• 1 - 16 oz. can Miller High Life - home
• 1 bottle Blue Moon Summer Ale - home
• 1 bottle Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - home

When I was in Long Beach I read an article on The Graduate, which is a great movie and also celebrating it's 40th anniversary (which, by the way, is a great number). Simon and Garfunkel did the soundtrack and I began thinking about how much I listened to them, especially as a freshman and sophomore in college. In fact, I have a compilation of all their albums. I used to think Paul Simon was a genius of a song writer. I'm not so sure of that now, but back then I used to read and think about all his lyrics and think that they were awesome. I also listened to a lot of Paul Simon's early solo stuff too. I'm pretty sure my dad exposed me to all this because I remember listening to a lot of it when I was a kid. I'm definitely not allowing my kid to listen to Raffi - he/she is gonna be listening to whatever I'm listening to at the time, with maybe some exceptions. NIN - probably not.

• Simon and Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme and Bookends
  

Busted.

• 1 bottle Corona - LBH
  
• 1 bottle Blue Moon Belgian White - Cheryl & Shane's house - Raymond

I needed that bottle of Blue Moon Belgian after getting a speeding ticket. Busted doing 68 in a 55. I always thought it was a 60 mph zone, and more or less a recommended speed rather than the law. At least he didn't catch me doing 95 when I passed a couple cars earlier. That 4-Runner can roll! Oh well. I needed to redeem my Pemco Safe Driver Points eventually I suppose.

Fire Pit!

• 2 - 16 oz. Miller High Life's - LBH
• 2 cans Busch - Long Beach Tavern - LBT!
• 1 Bloody Mary - LBH
• 1 Tequila Sunrise - LBH
• 2 glasses Merlot - LBH
• 1 very large Vanilla Sex - LBH

I built a firepit behind the LBH and we put it to great use on Sunday night. I just noticed in the picture that I had two drinks going - one MHL can and one big red cup Vanilla Sex. Hey, it's hard work digging holes, hauling cinder blocks, and starting fires!

Happy Birthday SOJO!

• 1 pint Wit Beer - Fort George Brewery - Astoria, OR
• 2 - 16 oz. cans Miller High Life - LBH
• 1 large margarita - LBH
• 1 Bailey's & Bushmill's - LBH
• 1 Bailey's milk shake - LBH
• 1 Cranberry & Vodka - LBH

Dear SOJO,

I celebrated your 36th birthday in Long Beach, WA while you celebrated it in Huntington Beach, CA. You had a great birthday as far as I'm concerned! Remember that your nickname was "SOJO" for "Sister of Jon"? Remember when you were away at SLO (Cal State - San Luis Obispo), we would write letters to each other and you would always sign them "SOJO" and I would always begin with "Dear SOJO"? It went on for a long time, but then it died out when we stopped writing, although I think it continued when e-mail got more popular and we used to correspond that way. You called me "Fro Bro", because of my high, fluffy hair and you loved calling me that, especially when my hair got extra big and curly.

~ Happy Birthday! 36!...heh heh heh! Love, Fro Bro

The picture above was taken just before Christmas by my dad when he visited her for a few days. She looks really good here. She's lost weight and I think she's genuinely happy. Those are her clan of dogs. Shealey (big brown), Winkey (white and brown) and I think the other one is Brownie, which she just got. This is why she won't/can't/doesn't visit. Shealey was originally my mom's dog that she got while she was undergoing chemo, but after she died, Michelle adopted her. It's a little strange that Shealey is still around, and my mom isn't. Michelle also drives my mom's car too, a very old RAV-4. Anyway, Shealey and Michelle are doing well and I hope to visit them all in a month or so. Happy Birthday Michelle! 36...heh heh heh.

Long Beach

• 1 can Coors Light - The LB House
  
• 1 Vanilla Sex - The LB House
  
• 1 Rum, Vodka, Triple Sec, Club Soda concoction (wasn't very good) - The LB House

We arrived at the Long Beach house about 10 pm, ready to drink some drinks!

Valentine's Day/Night

• 1-2 pints PBR - Poggie Tavern
• 1-2 pints Bud Light - Poggie Tavern
• 1 glass white wine - J.I.'s house

Wednesday

• 1 Imperial pint Fuller's London Pride - Elephant and Castle

I had no stickers on me, so I was unable to leave one for my bartender. He probably didn't know he was missing out. I really like London Pride - I must have finished it in about 4 minutes. I only wish I was able to step out of the E & C and into Covent Garden. -sigh-

• PJ Harvey - White Chalk

Everyone Loves A Sticker.

• 1 shot Beam - home
• 1 bottle Peroni - Olive Garden
  

The OG. I love the enthusiastic 17-year-old waitresses! So carefree and concerned!
"Oh! You need more water!? Let me get that for you right away!" "Would you like some freshly shredded Romano cheese?! Tell me when!" "Is everything okay here!? Great! Let me know if you need anything!" She never once called me "sir"! I LOVE IT! She was so spectacularly enthusiastic and genuine that I decided to leave her a sticker on the credit card slip - just like the one pictured. In fact, Susan and I thought it was such a funny thing to do, that I'm going to start leaving a sticker for all my servers. And my bartenders. And maybe anyone else that is so concerned and lovely to another human being. Because you know, everyone loves a sticker.

Monday

• 1 24 oz. can of Miller High Life - home
• 1 Jim Beam rocks - home

Nothing special happened today, although I tried to make an appointment for a hair cut and they are closed on Monday. I had forgotten about them being closed on Monday. I'll get one tomorrow, I promise, because, I really, really need one. Also, I keep telling myself that I need to get some sleep...be in bed by 9:30, fall asleep by 10:00 or so. Except that I haven't been doing that. It's 11 now and I know I'm going to be dreading dragging out of bed tomorrow when that alarm goes off. I usually wake up before the alarm anyway and lie in bed for 45 minutes, resetting it every ten minutes, unless I want to listen to the song that's playing.

• Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris
• U2 - Boy

Birthday Susan!

• 0 drinks
  

Susan turned 35 today! Yay! I'm sure she's happy with me telling you that, but you already knew anyway. We went to a cat show. I wanted to post a picture of me when I was about 11 showing my cat at a cat show, but I couldn't find the picture, so no go. We also saw In Bruges, which was pretty good. Bruges is a city in Belgium that we visited about two summers ago.

U2 *You Two*?

• 1 shot Jameson - M & M's house
• 1 Vanilla Sex - M & M's house
• 1 Margarita - 10 Mercer
• 1 16 oz. can Rainier - King's Hardware

I love this picture of my brother, Ken, and my sister, Michelle. It wouldn't surprise me if they hate it. It was taken on December 19th, 1987, after the first of two U2 concerts we went to in Tempe, Arizona where they were filming their Rattle and Hum movie. They weren't drunk, they weren't stoned. They just looked like that.







We didn't yet know that it would be called Rattle and Hum, but when tickets go on sale for $5 each and promote that it will be in an upcoming concert movie, you yell Road Trip! and just do it. In this case, my brother, my sister and two friends, Caroline and Eric, and two of their friends made the ten hour drive from the OC to the college town of Tempe, Arizona to see U2 play Sun Devil Stadium twice in one weekend. We found a cheap hotel, dressed like rock stars, and enjoyed our freedom for the weekend.






This is a picture of me and Caroline. I was 20 years old! I look kind of girly here! Maybe it's the red lips, pink shirt, and funny waisted jeans. Anyway, we met at Sam Goody, the record and video store that now inhabits malls everywhere. Caroline was a super cool friend and she was a better dresser than I was. It was also off of one of her cigarettes that I took my first drag.
She now lives in Ohio and adopts cats and cares for them. She is married to Eric, pictured to the left. Eric was super cool too and had better hair than I did. He now runs a construction company and he drives a Hummer. They have three children. They first hooked up at a party my brother, sister, and I threw while my parents were gone for the week. I even think their first born was conceived at that party that night.














This is the lot of us, shotgunning Coors.

So why the U2 post?

My friends and I went to the U2 3D movie tonight at the Imax. It was stunning. Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen, Jr. I had forgotten how intimately I had known them. I first saw them in 1985 for the Unforgettable Fire tour and have since seen them four more times, the last time in 1992 for the Zoo TV tour. It's really cool to revisit a band that you have kind of lost touch with for awhile. So U23D seemed like a real concert! I wanted to cheer after every song, dance during the songs, and scream every now and then! The energy was incredible and the first couple of songs brought chills - just seeing them again so close, so clear and so live. Check it out if you can. Click here for U23D - the website.

Drinking For Two.

Oh God, and did I.

• 1 shot Knob Creek - home
  
• 2 Whisky Sours - People's Pub, Ballard
• 2 bottles Chang beer - Thaiku, Ballard
• 2 double (doubles?!) Jack and Cokes - Copper Gate, Ballard
• 1 (thank God only 1) shot silver tequila - Copper Gate, Ballard

Donna, I should hurt you for suggesting the tequila. You're an evil girl. But I'll still write that mid-tri you requested.

Donna is making very good progress this trimester. She is a friendly and outgoing student! Donna has strong math skills, especially figuring percentages, and does well on her weekly tests. She has also done a great job improving her timed tests recently. Super job Donna! Donna has a solid understanding of religion, but she should make a greater effort to attend Mass regularly. Donna has worked hard to improve her reading skills and it shows! She should remember to read at least 20 minutes a night to further improve her skills. Donna can be chatty in class which distracts from her learning. Also, it is not appropriate in class to suggest doing tequila shots. I am confident that Donna will continue to make great progress this trimester. Keep up the great work Donna!

YouTube is pretty cool! I somehow found myself on there this morning (it's Saturday) and I'm watching PJ Harvey videos right now...one's that I've never seen! I guess it never occurred to me to watch them on YouTube. Duh. I just felt like my brother, who has no idea about kinds of stuff like this. Here's a clip from an email he sent me a few weeks ago: "So Christopher sent Laurie and I a gift certificate to Amazon for our wedding. I logged on two days ago to buy what I thought would be a book or a cd and was amazed to see that they sell EVERYTHING! Wow. I bought a Clint Eastwood poster for my office. Laurie ought to enjoy that. Ha, ha." He's just now finding out that they sell EVERYTHING?! I emailed him back and said that he was probably the last person on Earth to know that Amazon sells everything, but that it was okay, because they've only been doing it for about six years now. He probably doesn't even know what YouTube is. Anyway, the comments people post are so funny sometimes. Here's one of my favorites: i want her dress. it's nice. and then someone replies: I'd rather have what's in it i love Polly. Why even post that? It's so dumb! It's so obvious! And it's so funny for being that.
Okay, well, I need to go get my day on, so I'll see's you all later.

Fun.

• 1 Wild Turkey rocks - home
  

Three Hours

• 1 bottle 2005 Nero d'Avola wine - home
• 29 Winter Mid-Trimester comments - home

I was handwriting my mid-trimester comments (which are really hard for me to do...I don't particularly like hand writing - mine is not neat and it hurts my hand) tonight in between sips of Nero d'Avola (sounds *fancy*, but it's only a $6 wine at Trader Joes (it's not too bad actually)) and found myself making up several things that I'd like to blog about, but now that I'm actually blogging, I'm at a loss...somewhat.

One of the first things I remembered was that when I was in high school my FAVORITE musical group was Journey. It really was. I had a poster of Steve Perry on my wall (black and white even - how gay was that? Jeff's, Brian?) and all the Journey albums. All. Even the first three albums before Steve Perry was their singer. Those first three albums were okay, but with the release of Infinity, (which was the first album SP sang on and the fourth Journey album) Journey went to a whole new level. I would play these records (yes, records) over and over and memorize the lyrics and vocal subtleties of Steve Perry. What I would also do with these records is journal. (Journaling with Journey...hahahaha!!) Anyway, I would write stories, poems, thoughts, love letters, feelings, erotica (porn) in a notebook that I had; and I would always be listening to Journey. At the end of my entries, I would write the date and the Journey album that I was listening to at that time. I would do this all in lower-case letters. So an example of an ending would be:

5-20-85 journey evolution

A few weeks ago I was rummaging in our basement looking for this old journal. I found several others that I had kept, but not this particular one, which was kind of upsetting. I would love to read what I wrote, over 20 year ago, about miscellaneous things. Most of the things I wrote about were girls. Various crushes, lusts, etc. Whilst rummaging however, I did find a few small entries about a trip to Panama City Beach (the party place of the south!) my Burger King buddy and I had made during Spring Break of my senior year. We were there about a week and until I read these entries, I had forgotten all of the events that had happened. I almost wish that I had found this pages before I went to my class reunion in August. Anyway, the entries consisted of me and my friends daily activities around the beach community. We laid on the sand, we drank beer, we went to parties. In the future I'll post some of the entries because they're pretty funny, and those of you who know me (and you probably do if you're reading this) might recognize them as totally Jon. It's kind of remarkable how much time goes by, but how little one changes sometimes. So, about Journey...

As I was typing the mid-tri's, I was listening to the Juno soundtrack which has a Cat Power song (Sea of Love) and when I listened to that song I suddenly had a craving for Cat Power. So after Juno, I listened to two Cat Power albums - The Covers Record and You Are Free. I'm now listening to PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her, which is a great album, as are all of Polly Jean Harvey's, but Uh Huh Her contains the forwardly-titled "Who The Fuck?" Anyway, what does this have to do with anything? Not much, except that I was thinking that I should end each post with the name of the album and artist that I was listening to while I posted it. Just like I used to.

So I've been complaining about mid-tri's lately. You might ask, "What is it, a mid-tri?" A mid-tri is short for "mid-trimester report" and they go out mid way between the two report cards to update the student and/or parent on the student's progress. They're not permanently recorded as is a report card, but they do take considerable time to complete. I thought it would be fun to do a mid-tri for one of you, dear reader. Thanks for volunteering Lisa! I will only post the comments:

Lisa is a creative and well-liked student. She is progressing nicely this trimester. She has made wonderful progress in reading; completing two whole chapter books! Her reading accuracy and fluency continue to be above average, as is her comprehension. Lisa should continue reading nightly in order to keep her skills strong. Lisa could improve her religion grade by studying her prayers regularly. Lisa is a sociable girl, but maintains self-control, especially when appropriate. I am confident that Lisa will continue to do well. Keep up the great work Lisa!

Yeah, so that's about what I have to do for each one. If you want me to make you a personalized mid-tri report, leave a comment and let me know and I'll whip one up for you. Well, I'm tired now so I'm going to go to sleep.

• Juno Soundtrack
• Cat Power - The Covers Record, You Are Free
• PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her

Reason #216.

• 1 Beam on the rocks - home
• 1 Beam neat - home
• 1 Bushmill's and Bailey's (St. Brendan's)

Everytime I'm in in England, I keep a mental list of reasons to live there. Like reason #112 was that food that was truly vegetarian was labeled "Suitable for Vegetarians". Reason #84 was the quality of the beer. I just read an article the other day on how the government was worried about the British people because of the amount of alcohol they consumed. A typical restaurant wine glass held three times the amount considered as one serving. I say "Bang On!" and I'm listing that as reason #216.
On another note, Lent starts tomorrow. It's six weeks (not just 4 days, Brian) and seems a hell of a lot longer than that. Donna thought that maybe the reason I have been drinking so much(?) was that I was planning on giving it up for Lent. Well, contrary to popular belief, that is false. I am not planning on giving it up for Lent. In the past when I've given it up (which has been exactly two times for all alcohol and one time for beer (in which I ended up drinking more wine and hard alcohol, instead of beer)) I've been miserable, Susan has been miserable; even the cats have been miserable. Also, I will not be giving up chocolate. I actually have pretty good control over the amount of chocolate I eat, so it really wouldn't be worth giving up. And now that I've discovered that it's a reliable cough suppressant, there is no way that that is happening.
So now I'm out of things to say, and I'll stop.

Mid-Try?

• 1 Jim Beam rocks - home
• 1 Basil Hayden rocks - home

I hate doing mid-tri reports. They come at the wrong time; especially when I have little grades to base them on. I thought I could knock out 20-30 tonight and it doesn't look like it's happening. They're due on Thursday morning which means I'll be up early Thursday morning finishing them. Wonderful. :(   I'm glad none of you have kids in my class.

On a more cheerful note, my throat is a bit scratchy. Whether or not that has anything to do with me practicing my singing on Thursday night for my night of screeching on Friday, I'm not sure. What I do know is a shot of bourbon (or two) seems to help it. And after reading Jeff's post on how dark chocolate helps suppress coughs, I'm all for natural remedies. So, hand over the dark chocolate and the bourbon and I'll see you in the morning.

$40

• 2 bottles Alaskan Amber - Donna & Kevin's

I won $40 in our school Super Bowl gambling grid. Kinda cool. I wonder what I'll do with the money? Post your ideas please.

Day of Detox III

And a day of recuperation.

TGIF

• 4 pints Bud Light - Admiral Pub
  
• 1 Jim Beam neat - Admiral Pub
  
• 2 bottles MGD - Yen Wor Village
  

That's all I remember drinking, but there was undoubtedly more. Was out from 3:30 pm to 2 am. First at the Admiral Pub for a school tgif and then over to the Yen Wor Village at 9 for karaoke.