Return of the Spider

Well, you probably remember this post which introduced us to a nice back and forth between a bill collector and a man with a plan. Well it seems the seven-legged spider in question has reared it's ugly head again, this time utilized in a math test by a fan of the spider.

Nice to see that this creative drawing has become a muse for some.

More to come.

A Week in the Life - Brahms, Ravel, and Marquez.

Yes, another symphony week, this time local. I'll be here in the LC playing with the Las Cruces Symphony. The program contiains a great latin flavored piece by Arturo Marquez.

Danzon No. 2:



Followed by some nice romantic Ravel. The French composer excelled at impressionism and his music abounds with rich layers and effects that pull the heart strings. His suit from the ballet Daphnis et Chloé exemplifies his skills. Ravel's own health deteriorated to near breakdown from the amount of work the put in scoring the ballet which utilized a full ballet company, two choruses, and a large orchestra.

Suite from Daphnis et Chloé:



Lastly, the one and only Brahms Violin Concerto. Regarded by may as one of the more beautiful and difficult of the violin concertos, this will be performed by Augustin Hadelich. The concerto was written by Brahms for his friend and violin legend, Joseph Joachim. Augustin Hadelich won the Gold Medal at the Indianapolis Violin Competition in 2006. The competition is, for modern times at least, the bees knees of the violin world. Occurring only every four years, the competition is world reknowned. And since he won.....

His prizes include $30,000 in cash, a 24-carat gold medal, a four-year loan of
the 1683 "ex-Gingold" Stradivarius violin and Tourte bow, a Naxos label compact
disc recording contract, a gold Fleur-de-Lys bow made by Berg Bows and more than
40 concert engagements, including a domestic and international tour.

So he'll be playing on said violin for this weekend's concert. Here's a snippet of his performance in the competition.

Yeah he's pretty good.

So that's my week. I'll squeeze in some more later on.

Best of the Web

Ahh.... so true.

Funny Picture of the Day - I always wondered what was inside these things...

And I always thought it was rolling balls and lasers. Truth be told a great deal of training and specialized breeding goes into each and every one of them.

Cash Cow?....Cash puppy?..... Ok then, Change Gerbil!!!1!!

Bling bling, Motherfather's!!

Awwww yeeeeeah, boooyeeeee. After some careful calculation, it seems that JRTW may turn a profit when it hits its one year anniversary in August of the 09'.

Given gross profit estimations based on fourth quarter advertising revenue results minus production costs, marketing costs, overhead, and labor. Jimmy Rules the World stockholders should see a net yearly profit of....



.33 ¢


Hmm.

Crap.

Does that even buy a stamp still?

Oh well, if you love it, you do it for free right!

Just like your mom!

That's right, that just happened. What are you going to do about it. Nothing is right.

If you want compassion, that was last week. Stay tuned.
Jimmy

Thanksgiving thanks .......... giving.

As is customary this time of year, we give thanks for the things we're grateful for. And for the things that didn't kill us over the last 12 months.

So here goes nothing.

First and foremost, and to nobody's surprise, I am thankful for my beautiful little girl Caitlyn. How she managed to make it into this world is pure amazement every time I think about it. I tend to have a pretty firm grasp on the how's and why's of human existence (a much deeper, long winded conversation I assure you), but there's something about a living thing producing another living thing from scratch that just boggles the mind. There are many ways to describe it: visually, scientifically, spiritually ... but there are no words to truly capture the unexplainable idea that is life.

Secondly, my loving wife Crystal. What can I say, I'm not always the easiest person to be around. Sure, I'm funny from time to time, but when you're around it 24 hours a day, wit and sarcasm can become more of an annoyance. Add to that a schedule of working and performing that has me away from home 16 hours a day on busy weeks. When I am home, my attention is often split between three things:

1. Doing those things that we love to do together: Eating, watching The Office and several other shows you should not be missing, discussion (the nice way to say arguing), raising a child, and our married life which is always more good than bad.


2. Doing those things that I love to do: Playing video games, wasting my virtual life away playing World of Warcraft, carefully honing my blogging abilities on JRTW, and general Internet entertainment (regular and adult).


3. Sleeping.

So needless to say, I could always stand to pay more attention to my wife. As with many husbands and marriages, I tend to take her for granted when in reality, her contribution to my well being merits her being my number one priority. But rest assured when it's all said and done, that underneath it all lies a love for her that, when realized, brings tears to my eyes so easily that I have to purposely avoid thinking about it.

Ok, with those two out of the way, I can abandon heartfelt seriousness for something more palatable for the rest of you.

Thanks to NBC, for filling my TiVo™ every Thursday night with some really great TV shows. My Name is Earl is totally back on track this season after falling a bit off course last year. The Office is continually outstanding, and Kath and Kim is easily the best new comedy anywhere dude. Add to that some 30 Rock goodness, and you're so happy you won't even care about fast forwarding through the commercials.

Thanks to Elwood over at Untitled: Story of my Life for his blog, which is really a treat and should never be missed. It was CJ_ATC (fatherhood in progress) who first pointed me over to the blog and I haven't looked back since. Truth be told, it was my inspiration for starting JRTW, and I'm glad to be a part of his list of distractions. Thanks for making me believe that I could do it too.

Thanks to all of the following cheese flavored snacks: Cheez-it™, Pringles™, Bugles™, Chee-tos™, Chex Mix™, and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish™

Thanks to ALT 0153 for making my trademark references legitimate.

Thanks to my friends for reading my blog, you know who you are. I enjoy that it gives me a chance to talk to you. The years pass quickly and we don't get too many opportunities to visit in person, and as a result it becomes important to find new ways let you all know that your place in our hearts always remains. You're all always in our thoughts here in the LC.

Thanks and no thanks to Facebook and Myspace for both reconnecting and disconnecting my friendships at the same time. Reconnecting me with old friends, some of which I haven't heard from in over a decade, and disconnecting me with friends I would otherwise take the time to visit. Just funny how that all works, and I'm sure it will all make a good book someday.

Thanks of course to other obvious things, like my family, my health, enough to eat, and a roof over our heads. Those are a given for just about anybody who has them.

Everything else ......

Thanks to FOX's continued support of primetime animation, Seth Green and all the things he does. Gracias to Black Friday, Newegg.com, Cornell West, the ongoing war between evolution, intelligent design, and creationism (here's the spoiler, none of them truly know how life began on this planet). Also to John Stewart, Steven Colbert, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, and other pundits who don't really tell the news but somehow make more sense than those that do. Thanks to Solace, steak, root beer, cheap gas, funny commercials, Shiner Bock, sequels as good as I want them to be, Google, $5 footlongs, a good scratch, free shipping, toilet reading, bonus vending machine drops, cold when I'm hot, hot when I'm cold, a good gin and tonic, memories of friends lost, Rock Band, The Soup, back rubs, and finding money I had forgotten about.

And I thank whatever higher power makes you feel safe and gives you that special feeling you can't find anywhere else. I don't know that we'll ever truly know what that is, and I'm never 100% sure I believe it's there, but I want to.

Enjoy the weekend and be safe.

Much Love,
Jimmy

A Week in the Life - Thanksgiving and Opera

Well, loyal viewers, again apologies for less frequent postings. I'll try to keep up more using whatever free time I can squeeze in.

This week I'll be playing La Traviata with the Juarez Symphony Orchestra. The third most popular opera in North America, it tells the story of a famous courtesan who falls for the son of a nobleman, after first resisting. At his father's behest she shuns her love so as not to disgrace his family name. In the end of course, love prevails, but it is quickly met with sadness as the courtesan's tuberculosis spells her end. Nothing like love and disease to spice up the holiday weekend, all that and Mexico too!

In addition, I will be playing garbage disposal for a one night only engagement at several houses on Thursday. I've already let the seams out on my pants, and crocheted the elastic from my undergarments into the load bearing portions of my shirts. My wallet is stuffed with carefully folded gallon size freezer bags, and I've blown the dust off of my extra-wide-super-durable cranberry sauce straw. Nothing says Thanksgiving like the puppy-love-makeout sounds you can only get sucking cranberry sauce through a straw.

Caitlyn is doing fine, albeit a bit restless when she doesn't get what she wants (clearly one of her mother's best traits). She is growing every day, but we're fortunate enough to not notice because we're around her all the time. I'd give my Dad skills about an 8.25 out of 10. I'm picking up my fair share of housework, and making sure the wife is fed and watered. But I have dropped the ball a few times in the consideration department. The other day I succeeded in cooking dinner and serving the plates, but while Crystal ate with one hand (baby in the other) I munched away with both hands, only to excuse myself after I had finished, effectively failing to offer to hold the baby so Crystal could enjoy her food.

My bad, lesson learned.

Otherwise it's business as usual this week. Working, performing, eating, and some tireless computer time in between.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I will have the pleasure of seeing some of you over the weekend, and I must say I am definitely looking forward to it. By all means drop me a line and I'll speed over your way, baby and all. If I don't get to see you, be safe and cherish the time you have with the one's you love.

Feed me,

Jimmy

VOD - Do I really need to say anything?

Yeah, I'm not really sure how to preface this. It's Sarah Palin, this much I know. She's pretty much looping her dialogue as usual... like so.

"Well, now that I'm back to Alaska, I'm ready to continue servin' the people and running the government. So I'm just going run it as best I can, and serve to the best of my ability. Basically, I'm back in Alaska."

*wink ad nauseum*



Now that's not verbatim or anything, but it's basically the pattern she follows. That being said it's not what she says it's how, where, and JESUS CHRIST WHY she says it.

Keep in mind this is after she pardoned the eligible turkeys this year.




You really just have to love to hate to love to hate her.

And the "Are you fucking serious? Doing an interview in front of a live turkey slaughter 'for fun'" look on the guy behind her isn't too shabby either.

More to come, I promise
Jimmy

P.S. WotLK+Baby+Holidays(Church*Capital=MusicianDemand)= Underrepresentation of Blog

FPOD - Efficient. Simple. Pants-pissingly funny.

Here at Jimmy Rules the World, we value the whole joke (and by we I mean me and the half cup of garlic heart-clogger butter that came with my Papa John's™.

We score whole jokes based on an ultra-complex equation. Taking quantitative scores measured across the globe by a crack team of hilaritologists, we enter these numbers into a series of servers linked with underplayed Playstation 3 systems. Once we apply Euclid's algorithm, the resulting schedule presents us with a near-flawless cross-section of the real world laugh factor for said joke. Comprehensive, thorough, and trusted the world over.

What we look for:

• The substance - how well the dialogue is written.
  
• The delivery - the who of the joke. Were you monotone? Physically animated?
  
• The punchline - not necessarily but most often the funniest part.
  
• Ratio of the snowballing upcurve to the difficulty of execution.
• Acessibility and translatability. Will this joke work internationally? Does the punchline involve me subscribing to your western monotheism?
  
• Lack of agenda based underbelly - is this joke funny because you're trying to prove a point and/or win me to your cause?
• Viral spread - how fast your joke makes it from person to person. If you tell it now, will someone be telling it to you next week/month/year.

Now I'd like to assume that this was all true, because goddammit it sounds really good. But I haven't the time nor the audacity to assume that I'm in any place to judge funny. Like religion, war, history, and American Idol, its all a matter of perspective.

That being said, this is hilarious. Enjoy my friends.

Enemies.... burn in hell you douchenozzles.

As always,
Jimmy


Goodnight!

WTF - Drying your hands away from home.

You know the drill, you're out and about, enjoying a nice steak or depositing a check or two ... when out of the blue your body alerts you that it is now time to head to the WC. A small inconvenience to say the least (abnormally small in some cases). Fast forward a few minutes - adding extra time to ensure you find the stall without the glory hole (unless that's your thing) - and it's time to wash your hands. A bit of unusually cold water, seventeen futile pumps on an empty soap dispenser, and it's off to dry your cold dripping digits and continue your day.

Or so you thought.

You now discover some Inquisition-like manner of torture meant to dry your hands. After twenty or thirty years of life, you are stricken with childlike awe as you gaze upon what must be the T1000 of drying mechanisms. Some strange device sent back from the future to dry your hands - for if left wet, they may go on to lead the human resistance.

Let's start at the beginning.

Here's the primordial ooze of paper towel dispensers. The one your mom and dad used. This is the dispenser that they put in the kitchen of whatever fancy dining establishment you frequent. It's the janitor of paper towel dispensers. You crank, you tear, you dry, you leave. It's the Steve Gutenberg of paper towel dispensers. You loved it in the 80's, and now you wonder where it went, but only because I reminded you to.

Still in use today, ol' cranky here is sure to be as effective as pumping water or jerking off a goat - in that it is repetitive but not without an end result. [see dry hands, fresh water, goat semen]


Now this one is a bit odd, and I've only used one of these once or twice. This is something more along the lines of what you might find in an executive bathroom, or an old country club. Here we have a real towel, actual linen, which loops around this aluminum 8-track cassette of a hand dryer. As it makes its rounds, the towel drys and is ready for another use. Of course, if you should haphazardly cornhole yourself through the Charmin (as we are prone to do when rushed ... or itchy), this fancy linen will ensure that several hours later, some geezer will dry his hands with shit and embarrass himself for the rest of his miserable existence.

Nothing quite like drying your hands on something that makes you want to wash them over again. OCD much?


Another tried and true mechanism here. This aluminum beauty contains cute little folded towels. All locked up and nowhere to go. You can't really knock the technology here. Stacked, shiny, simplistic. The downside here being that empty feeling you get reaching for a towel only to discover an empty hole with a razor sharp edge. The sort of dangerous hole one might find at Andy Dick's gerbil farm. Either way, you will leave with bloody fingers. In addition, if you're like me, it takes about 47 of these paper towels to dry my hands, and they're packed in so tight I rip tiny LSD sized snippets leaving my hand tarred and feathered with 80% post consumer confetti.
At the very least, at least you'll be entertained by the plethora of gang-related engravings. A solemn testament to our violent past.

Sad really. Just ... sad.








Enter this douchenozzle of a dispenser.
Cylindrical, center pulled nonsense. Like the inverted baby wipes of ol', this roll of towels is pulled downward from the center. Utilizing every diametrically opposed force in the wrist, MIT dropouts have developed the first truly legitimate way to induce carpal tunnel. You grab ... pull ... pull harder ... twist ... rock back and forth ... pull a bit more ... and then with one leg against a lime green tile wall you attempt to get them to release. No dice.

45 minutes later, after speed bagging like Rocky on meth, your hands are dry.




Again, we see idiocy in form and function. This 'automatic' dispenser requires you to pull the paper towel down to a point of release, at which point a mechanism cuts the paper towel in cute zig-zaggy lines and leaves 6 inches or so for the next guy (are we still talking about the glory hole?). Two problems here:
1. You must pull down with force so even and accurate that it can only be replicated by trained Shaolin monks. The rest of us will again rip confetti out of this mess until breathing a collective "fuck it" and using our jeans.
2. Whoever designed this knew all along that it didn't work, so much so that there's a little retard-knob on the side, so when you fail - and skip the jeans option - you can turn the knuckle-spraining crank on the side to release more paper. And of course since you have more paper, you are free to repeat the whole process over ad nauseum. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now to the most familiar, I'm sure. Ol' lever pull here is probably the most seen, and the most reliable, at least for the 30 or so days it's under warranty. After that, all bets are off. You'll find broken pull levers, plastic covers that won't stay closed, and the inevitable turbo spring meant to collapse the fingers in the "it's broken" direction with its metric ton of opposing force. Fortunately, since your hands are still soaking wet, the lever usually slips off after half an inch, thus preventing permanent damage. All in all the true beauty here is the transparent cover, meant to inform the staff that supplies are low. Instead, they only serve to mock your pissed-on hands and laugh as you stare toward the floor tile in disappointment, realizing all too late that you have been denied basic inalienable hand-drying rights.




Now we come to my personal favorite. This dolt-proof dispenser relies on one simple motion ... push, push, push. And it comes complete with a giant gray lever lets you know "Hey you wanker! Push here!"

And you do. Quite painless really. But the true magic of this design is that when the dispenser is empty, it improves the overall experience. You see, when the above dispensers are empty, you wallow in self pity, cursing your own existence ... moving your 'going postal' moment a fortnight closer.

With this dispenser, it doubles as an aggression-sponge. You push, and nothing comes out. So you beat the ever-living-shit out of it. You push that little gray lever right through the goddamn wall! And if your hands aren't dry by the time you finish fist-raping this machine ...

you're not trying hard enough.




And speaking of rape. Here we have the worst of the worst. This maniacal device was developed during break time by the Manhattan Project. The theory here being that the little infrared detector will sense your motion and dispense paper towels like pixie dust. But instead, I stand there waving my hands like an idiot trying to trigger the thing. Motion activated my ass!

Unless of course they mean that the drying of my soaking hands is motion activated, because if that's the case, mission accomplished. I just shook 3 ounces of water clear off my fingertips, you assholes!

Nothing says I'm gay like standing in a crowded men's room with 'jazz hands' waving. Meanwhile, that little red K.I.T.T. light mocks my pain. If this robotic piece of shit had a voice, it would be an eternal loop of Satan's laughter.

So, let me get his straight, we can develop forty two million ways to NOT dry my fuckin' hands. But we can't get the electric car right.

Nice. Just great. Real good America.

You know, the 'glory hole' option is starting to look better and better.

Yours Truly,
Jimmy

P.S. Just had to mention 'glory hole' three times in one post. Now somebody owes me lunch.