The Aughts

A new year in one hour; we're about to move from single digit 2000's to double digits. The twenty-teens are upon us. This is my second full decade of life, a pretty large span of time full of major events. And since reminiscing  seems to be floating rather heavily through the air right now, I said to myself "Why not me too?". One last hurrah for the 2000's...

During the span of 2000 - 2009, I:

• finished all of grade school, high school, two years of university, and half year of college
• wanted to be a computer animator, then a writer/actor/film-maker, then just a writer, then anything that wasn't in English, then a graphic designer
• was quiet, shy, and introverted with a small circle of friends, then became more loud, outgoing, and confident with a much wider circle of friends 
• found love, lost it, found it again (except better)
• tasted alcohol and fully experienced all of it's effects, both positive and negative
• stopped all yearly camping trips to pick up a whole set of new ones several years later
• went from listening to just boy band pop (Backstreet Boys) to listening to almost anything AND boy band pop (Backstreet Boys)
• had no videogame systems to having five
• have lived in three different houses with different sets of roommates asides from the house that my family lives in
• travelled to the other side of the world
• and so many other things

In this coming year I will be turning 21 - it's weird to think about just how many years have gone by. This past decade has been a ridiculous roller coaster ride of ups and downs; high points and lows. Sometimes I wonder if my 10 year-old self would recognize me now. If he did, I think 10 year-old Jonathan would be pretty impressed with the turn out.

Good on me, me.

Inspirational

"Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'"

I'm feeling musical again...

Next Stop Is...

Man, TTC bus drivers must not get very good benefits or something: from my observations they certainly seem always at the ready to leave their posts (ie: the bus) at the end of their shifts. Twice now I've been sitting on a bus which has pulled into a stop (ie: nothing more than a space to the side of the busy street just big enough for a bus), at which point the bus driver has just gotten up and walked away. The strangest part? The bus was left running. It took a good five minutes before the replacement bus driver finally showed up (probably late for his unfulfilling job), during which time I'll admit I was very tempted to try and drive myself the rest of the way to school.

Public Transit Employee Satisfaction Rating Fail.

It feels wrong to put this here - the impersonality of the internet means it can never hope for even the slightest chance of properly conveying things like this. But I want to put it down here anyways. Just because I feel like I need to.

For those of you who may not know, a man from my home church, Mr. Norman Knibbe, died suddenly and unexpectedly at work yesterday. He was the father of Hester, Marcella, Eric, Suzanne, Elena, and Rhiannon Knibbe, all of whom attended or are still attending HMDCS and TDCH, so I knew many of them quite well. He was also my Uncle Marvin's brother and my cousin Alex, Brent, and Dylan's uncle. When I found out what happened Tuesday night, I was left completely astounded. I had no idea what to say or think. I still don't.

Even though this tragedy is still a few degrees away from me, this is the first time I've really been hit by the mortality of human life. Mr. Knibbe was only 57, just a few years older then my Dad, and he didn't smoke like my Dad does to the best of my knowledge. By all accounts he was a healthy man with nothing to worry about. The fact that God decided to call him home so suddenly and without apparent cause is something that I'm really struggling to understand right now. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone - I'm just coming to realize that.

I knew Mr. Knibbe for many years, and although I never really talked to him that much I always thought he was one of the friendliest and nicest people I had ever met. My prayers are with Mrs. Knibbe and their kids right now, as what they are dealing with is something I can't even begin to imagine, as well as with my Uncle Marvin and my cousins and the rest of the Knibbe family. And I know that this is all a part of God's master plan, even though most of us probably can't see where it fits in right now.

28 Days Later...

One thing that I definitely miss about Guelph: I never had my sense of smell violated by the other passengers of the public transit system.

I was sitting on the TTC bus on my way home from class when this small, round guy sits down right next to me. At first his odour wasn't incredibly offensive, just unexpected. But as the trip dragged on it got worse and worse.

I don't really know the words to best describe it, as it seemed to continually change into new terrible scents. At first it reminded me strongly of a McDonalds play place with the many plastic tubes and poor ventilation of thousands of sweaty overweight kids. Then I thought I could smell a trace of gasoline or burning rubber as well. The worst part? The guy who owned the terrible fragrance was a fidgetty bus-rider. So everytime the smell would air out in the bus he would move around and release fresh scents from whatever terrible places they came from his body.

In the end, I would say that was one of the worst things I have ever had to endure. And I've cleaned up unventilated animal pens full of all manner of crap. It goes without saying that I put a few subways cars between me and the chunky guy in the purple sweater and sweatpants...

And if I ever see him trying to sit next to me, I'll get off at the next stop and wait for another bus.

Mystery: Unsolved?

This randomly came back to me yesterday. In my boring computer class of all places.

I was on Facebook, and the home page told me that Justin Horlings had been tagged in a photo album. I went to Justin's profile and suddenly it all came back to me...

.

When I was very young - pre-Kindergarten - I can remember having a friend. The concrete details about what he looked like are sketchy at best, but for some reason I recall him having freckles on his cheeks and hair colour somewhere between red, orange, and brown - sort of a deep maroon for explanation purposes. Although I wasn't very big at all as a kid, I think he was a little smaller then me. I have memories of being in Sunday School with him in the old Springdale church. The small turquoise-coloured room branching off of the large nursery/play room, the little wooden benches without backs at the little wooden table with dark brown pipe legs, it's all so clear in my mind.

I can also remember my friend coming over to my house to play in my backyard. We were standing on the old back porch my house used to have, the back yard was surrounded by the old green metal cage fence that's now holding in the pigs and the ducks. My friend went over to my swingset to climb on the monkey bars...

.

That's all I can remember of this friend of mine. I have no recollection of what happened to him beyond those two memories - but for whatever reason I know they were real. I'm not crazy. (*awkward laugh followed by long silence*)

...

What does this have to do with Justin Horlings? Well, when I started going to Kindergarten and Grade One at HMDCS, the Horlings were in my bus route. For whatever reason, from the moment I first saw him waving his eldest son goodbye from on top of his forklift tractor loaded with onion crates, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Horlings (Justin Horlings' father. duh.) was my old friend. Somehow he had just grown up incredibly fast. I can somewhat remember being introduced to him once by my parents at church, and he was very friendly to me; I understood it as a sign that he remembered our friendship.

I never thought of any other explanation throughout my early years of grade school, and eventually just forgot about the whole thing. Until now.

Vastastic

Just something that I enjoy about some of my classes, above and beyond everything, since I really have nothing to complain about them yet. My one professor*

*side thought: do you call college teachers professors? I don't think it really qualifies in this case, since they're more guys from the industry who now teach rather than people who studied the subject in order to pass it on.

EDIT: My one instructor, a man of Ukranian heritage named Vass (really Wasyl, but he lets us call him Vass) says some of the darndest things. I don't know if it's his accent or the small struggles with the English language that many non-native Canadians have, or whether it's just some of that crazy art instructor in him. But I hang on his every word. Today for example.

"We don't shrink things. You only shrink hemroids. We 'reduce'."

I had a whole bunch more from Monday's class that I've written down in book. They may pop up from time to time.

.

And in continuation of last post, I now have three assignments to do. So I've made the healthy transition from boredom to procrasination. Not fully satisfied with the results yet...

A Fix

Those 45 minute commutes really give me a lot to think about...

I'm in the process right now of dropping another course this semester. Or rather, being exempted for it. Humanities: basically an amalgamation of high school philosophy, a brief and basic overview of the studies of science and art, and a little dash of sociology. The way I see it, I spent two years studying stuff that didn't really get me much closer to a future, but they do allow me to drop this dull course so at least they count for something. Right? I know, "education for education's sake is never a waste", but that course was also three hours long every Wednesday night, and only about two small sections of the scheduled topics to be learned really interested me. Of course, it could be a good opportunity to make new friends... holy crap how I wish I had some good friends in these classes! It would make it so much more fun if I had someone to enjoy the minimum three-hour long classes with...

I've known for a long time now that I have an addictive personality. It just never really occurred to me how far this problem had spread.

If I do get exempted from the class, my schedule becomes even more open then it already had. And while I'm sure eventually I'll actually have art assignments to do, right now the profs are just breaking us in. So I have a LOT of free time...

I watched about half a season of How I Met Your Mother last night. I'm trying to fight the desire right now to just keep watching - I already threw back another two episodes after getting home. I enjoy it, yes, but I feel like such a waste. I'm paying all this money to live in Toronto and go to school in Toronto, and I'm doing things that I could do at home for free. I want to go to the gym again. I want to work on all the projects I've got - play guitar and write songs, draw pictures and design t-shirts, work on my movie script or my novel idea. But all I ever do is laze about. ADDICTION!

I kind of want to get a job. However, I'm wary of this idea. During the summer, I worked non-stop; partly for the money, but more because every time I didn't work for a day and I wasn't doing something with Rachel or my friends I started feeling useless. I started feeling like I was just throwing away my time. On the one hand, going out and hanging out with friends all the time with my spacious school schedule DOES cost money - moreso than I really have to be able to do it a lot. So a part time job would be great - earn the money I need to have fun without wasting my school savings. On the other hand, I can probably survive without having to work during the school year. I just feel like I need to do it. ADDICTION!

I'm addicted to attention, I know that for sure. I guess I always kind of did know, and I know that I've had this revelation before. It bothers me, needing this attention so much. But then once I do get it I forget all about being bothered by it. ADDICTION!

I've had a whole bunch of other ideas for posts pop into my mind. But I never write them right when I think of them, and before too long they are no longer applicable or timely so I don't right them at all... It's because I worry that if I post too consistently or regularly not everyone will get a chance to read my older post. Or have a chance to comment on it. ADDICTION!

Well, you know what, screw that. I may not know what I'm going to do about all my other problems, but I can certainly go cold turkey on this stupid one!

More posts to come. Whenever they come.

Credentials

Yes, this is old. Though I think only Dan would really know that...

Finally, someone found a way to somewhat explain my opinions of "indie" films and general distaste thereof.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail203.html

My own case-in-point? The more recent filmography of one Michael Cera...

Juno

Superbad

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist

Paper Heart

Year One*

Youth in Revolt

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

*the one recent film of Michael's that can be categorized more as "mainstream". Ie: saving grace? or maybe just a random point in the pattern...

Stupid Tongue

It really bothers me how every time there's something at or about my work that I want to finally get out and complain about, some new event or get-together or something else comes up that I want to do/have. So I hold my tongue in order not to ruin my chances of getting this thing.

The day I finally do get to complain I'll probably be so filled with pent-up rage somebody will be shot. Don't ask me where I'll find the gun though...

Hardy Har Har

So, now that my "summer" is almost 4/5 over, what have I been doing with my time? You know, since nobody sees or hears much word from me?

In a word. Working. Followed by another word. Nothing.

Most days after I finish work between 6:15 and 6:45 are then followed with a ten to fifteen minute shower and a forty-five minute dinner with the fam. Not that I'm complaining, the family time is nice and it's nice to feel like a part of the family again. But then it's usually almost 8:00 and i have between two and three hours to do something else before I start thinking about sleeping. You have no idea how long i've wanted to play Majora's Mask. I'm still waiting for that opportune moment...

One thing that I have taken up, unfortunately for my lack of free time, is webcomics. You can blame Least I Could Do's crossover event - ima sucker for crossover events. Suffice to say that I now religiously read...

Least I Could Do
Girls With Slingshots
Questionable Content
XKCD
Penny Arcade
Player Vs Player

While still regularly checking

White Ninja Comics
HomestarRunner
VGCats (mostly for the Super Effective which is never updated. Ass)

I'm also looking forward to this one's return.

Butternut Squash

Entirely Nico's fault.

So now all of you can be trapped in the horrible vortex that I am. Can't wait for school and more free time. Although I'll probably just find more ways to waste it. Ugh.

In an unrelated, but mostly related, note, I have decided that it would be terrible to live in a webcomic. Or any serialized comic for that matter, although I stopped reading them the day we stopped getting newspapers. To be constantly trapped in a world where even the most deep and dark moments of your existence are forcibly made into jokes. If those characters were real, they would have killed themselves ages ago. Hence their immortality in comic form.

Just getting constantly pumped for the funny.


note from rachel: jon writes blogs like english essays. and is embarrassingly nerdy. also, apparently any time spent with me is equal to NOTHING.

Tick Tock

i really have nothing to add here, but i guess i've gotten kind of attached to this blog. or rather, addicted. and am suddenly unable to see a whole month go by without a post to mark th fact that i was on here that month. so here it is...

i have a watch tan. it's not very clear, mostly because my crazy arm tan is like most normal people's normal skin tone. but it's there.

that is all for now.

Soap 3

Random thought

If I were a mad scientist, or just someone looking to cause a lot of chaos and destruction (but let's not use the T word here...), I would totally create some new germ weapon or disease and makes it's carrier bars of soap.

Think about it. Not only would I manage to infect millions super fast, but I'd cause even more destruction once the public realized it was the soap that was the danger and everybody stopped cleaning themselves. Think of the germs! Think of the disease! It'd be like the black plague all over again...

Sometimes I scare myself with what I come up with in my head...









Oh, and an update on the epic.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/9/large.html

So Shuffle

So just about everyone else is posting about their jobs (makes sense, that is what we're all doing right now...), so I figured I'd join in a little bit.

My job, on good days, keeps me busy enough to not start watching my watch hands move while not bringing me to the point of a full body shut-down. However, a lot of it is still far from mentally stimulating, so I often find my mind wandering to whatever it used to wander to in my old ADD posts.

That being said, I can only remember on thought I've had recently at work right now.

If there is ever a zombie apocalypse, or we all need to get out and fight guerrilla-style against some sort of common enemy other than zombies, i call being the guy that gets to wield the shotgun. Most awesome-est weapon ever.

My job also allows for a fair bit of iPod listening, making shuffle songs one of my new favourite options. However, I think there's a little too much coincidence in Apple's shuffle option as opposed to another devices random. To prove my point, i have nearly 2764 songs right now...

1) Within one hour of one day 3 of the songs played were by The Hush Sound, of which I only have 19 songs...
2) That same day also played two songs by k-os one after the other (I only have 26 songs): Neutroniks and Papercutz. They were both from "Joyful Rebellion" as well...
3) Another day the shuffle option played Apollo I: The Writing Writer and Apollo II: The Telling Truth, both songs by Coheed and Cambria, within twenty minutes of eachother. Although I think that those two songs being played at all in the same day is pretty strange...
4) I have three versions of Kidnap The Sandy Claws on my computer: the movie version, Danny Elfman's original demo version, and a cover version by She Wants Revenge. One day two of those three songs were played...
5) There have been a bunch of other Hush Sound-style coincidences where a bunch of songs played in one day are by one artist who I don't have a lot of (Coldplay: 17 songs, 3 played; The Hush Sound: 19 songs, 4 played; Incubus: 15 songs, 2 played; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 13 songs, 3 played, and two were of my six ocarina songs...)

And yeah, that's my job and how bored I am with it. Enjoy the links (I added links!)

Are You Not Entertained?

here's something weird that I remembered about myself yesterday. because, you know, there's never enough weird things about me as is. always got to be more...

back when gladiator came out, i couldn't quite wrap my mind around it. for some reason, i thought that all movies were only ever about the present time. or, at the utmost most, movies could only be based in a time that could still be faked thanks to buildings or settings that were still around - like the patriot, which also came out that year. but there was no way in my mind that a movie could be based in a time as long ago as the height of the roman empire - i thought that if anything gladiator had to be some sort of weird movie about a man who thought he was a gladiator and was trying to recreate roman times in the present.

i didn't actually see gladiator until a long time later, and then when i finally did it just blew my mind. s'probably why it's one of my favourite movies now...

Depressing?

So, whenever I talk to anyone about what kind of music they listen to, there's one thing that's always the same.

"I hate country"

And it sort of clicked with me yesterday that I dont really understand why. If you look at all the other genres out there, why is country the one that's so unanimously hated? It's mostly just guitar and simple melodies - just like a whole of other genres (pop, pop rock, punk rock, pop punk, etc...)

You think less people would hate it and hate things like, oh I dont know, death metal.

Roight

man, now everybody's blogging, and here i am with absolutely nothing to say!

already moved home, though all my stuff is still in boxes. going to paint my new cubicle room before i attempt to cram all my junk into it. on that note - got to get rid of some of my junk!

one exam monday - spanish. im terrified right now that i'm not going to study at all for it, just like my midterm. and i did not do good at all on my midterm.

no es bueno!

My Skull Bit

I think I've uncovered another piece to the puzzle that is the way I tick from underneath the dusty old couch that is my life.

My memory seems to be fixated on remembering every detail of every interaction i make in my life with other people, but it is especially clear whenever something bad happens to me. So while most people would forget a casual joke made in bad humour during a breif passing, or the fact that I was actually the one who gave them the joke that made them so freakin' popular... (am I angry? no...), I remember it for a very VERY long time.

Ugh, my mind is a trainwreck. A trainwreck purposely caused to destroy me.

Just keep thinking happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

Good thing: this doesn't happen when I'm with you. That's why all I can remember are the good moments. <3

I Only Went For Costumes...

i just got "The Dark Knight Returns" from Value Village for five dollars.
(it usually costs probably somewhere around twenty dollars. minimum.)

this brings my total number of graphic novels to three, and they are all published by... DC???
(i have a couple condensed X-Men comic books, but those don't count as graphic novels.)

does this make me an addicted nerd? or an obsessed geek? or just a thrifty fan of comic books?


(i also got three Spiderman comic books for about five dollars. the first story line to introduce Carnage. i intend to sell them when i'm old for at least twice what i got them for...)

20 Something

At first I didn't think much of turning twenty. Im not sure if that's still true or not.

Thoughts/things that have crossed my mind today.

1. My body is aching. Of course, it was aching a little bit before today, but now it's really really hurting. Of course of course, that could also just be because im hitting up the gym again after a week and a half of a much more lax, work-related work out. Or because i haven't had any fruit in about as long. But then the thought creeps into my head that maybe my body really is starting to feel the wear of age...

2. I'm really tired too. Once again, it's probably just related to my terrible sleep schedule during reading week translating into a continued terrible sleep schedule back here. Or maybe i'm getting older...

3. It just occurred to me that for some strange reason I'm glad I shaved off my beard. I feel younger, so it fits more with me only turning 20. If I had kept the lumberjack look for today, i dont know, it would have just felt weird. And now I feel stupid for caring so much about turning 20...

4. I haven't posted on my birthday in two years now.

I'll continue to add thoughts/things as they come to me today. Right now though, I'm going to go eat an apple...

Well ... Hell

I dont know what to think anymore about my current situation. At first I thought having only one class and a play to work at this semester would be great. Of course, I was also expecting to get a job to fill the open void of space, and that just panned out spectacularly. So then I thought I could spend my free hours working on creative things...

I just can't understand where all my time goes. So far as I can tell, I really DONT spend that much time being lazy or unproductive or distracted. But take today for instance. I have nothing scheduled today except for a vocal rehearsal later tonight, yet I still managed to get out of bed by about 9. I was at the gym by about 10, got home by about noon. Then all I did was take a shower, make some lunch, update all my internet stuff (given, there was a little youtubing involved...) and then do my spanish homework for tomorrow. Now I have about two hours before I have to be back at school for rehearsal. And I want to do something creative, but at the same time I know I also have to make myself some sort of dinner, otherwise I won't eat until muuuch later tonight...

I thought things were bad for my creative self when I had a full courseload to do, but turns out it's just as bad now that I'm free. I have become far too attached to being lazy and unproductive, I've forgotten the person I used to be. I'm going home for reading week three days early this year. To work. A part of me knows this is good: i'll make money and get more active and blah blah blah. A bigger part of me doesnt want to go home at all, it just wants to stay here in guelph and veg, catch up on lost sleep, maybe hang out with the friends i never make time for, actually have a bit of a vacation. But then again, as everyone else would tell me, my whole friggin' semester is one big vacation...

Then how come I'm not having any fun?

PS: I was asked to write another "deep" post, but it is just as clear to me now as it was before that my mind only connects "deep" with "depressing". So I dunno if i'll do this again. The spanish titled posts were good...

Thoughts?

El Desayuno

So, I'm eating my cereal, reading the Alpha-Bits box out of sheer lack of other things to do while I'm eating my cereal. When I come upon a little line of text near the bottom of the box, pretty small type and with all attention being drawn away from it by Alpha, that crazy computer.

"Skim Milk Recommended"

That's just what I need - my breakfast telling me what to do...

Ducharse

Random question that popped into my head today. There's probably a very obvious answer to it, and it will probably come to me sooner or later. But for the here and now, this one's a puzzler. To me...

Why do sinks have two knobs, one for hot water and one for cold, and most showers only have one knob that controls both?

La Ropa

I bought my first pair of sweat pants today. As of right now, I don't know if I'll start wearing them around the house. I didn't do that with pyjama pants, and I've had those for a whole lot longer. They might just stick to being my dance pants. I just really like wearing jeans; I feel incomplete/lazy if I don't have real clothes on...

If I work at Buffalo David Bitton I have to own/wear a pair of Buffalo David Bitton jeans for every shift. So they could end up being the entirety of my jean purchasing for the next year or so. Unless I come into a large sum of money...

I definitely need to buy new shoes, if only to save me my socks. Right now I need to wear a fresh pair of socks everytime I go outside because my shoes absorb so much slush and water. Very uncomfortable. Probably not too healthy either...