KJToo

A couple of years ago, someone at work decided it would be a good idea to form a Fun Committee. This group, comprised of representatives from various departments in our building, organizes events such as sleigh rides, baseball games, picnics, bowling, a regular blood drive and monthly contests to win a parking spot in the underground garage.

With the exception of the blood drive, I do not participate in Fun Committee events.

Why? Well, maybe I’m just cantankerous. Maybe I hate fun. Or maybe I’m very selective about my leisure time and with whom I spend it. I have my reasons.

Last night, the Fun Committee sponsored an evening at a local bowling alley. I’m told there was karaoke in addition to the bowling. Karaoke inevitably leads to people making spectacles of themselves, especially when (as is usually the case) there is alcohol involved. I’ve heard that the inevitable spectacle occurred, but two of my male co-workers singing “Islands in the Stream” isn’t really what this story is about.

The bowler with the lowest score was given a certificate (as, I’m sure, was the bowler with the highest score). Specifically, the bowler with the lowest score was given the Kris Johnson Award. That’s right, I am so notorious that even when I am not present, my influence is felt.

The recipient of the Kris Johnson Award came to me this morning to have her certificate signed and for the obligatory handshake pictures. She was appropriately awe-struck and deferential, and I was only too happy to sign the certificate. I was somewhat disappointed that the designer of said certificate hadn’t had the foresight to include the appropriate signature line.

I’ve been carrying my iPod back and forth to work in the inside pocket of my jacket, which is not an ideal solution. During last week’s warm spell, I left the jacket at home and carried the iPod in a pants pocket. Even worse. In the few months since I got it, I’m afraid that the screen and case are showing some noticeable scuffs. I’m told that Brasso will do an excellent job of removing those, but to prevent further scuffing (and because I am an incredible clutz) I broke down and bought an iPod holster.

Initially, I wanted to go with a leather holster, but most of the ones I looked at didn’t do the trick. They used flimsy plastic to “protect” the screen and the iPod just didn’t seem to fit very well. The hole in the plastic designed to provide access to the clickwheel didn’t line up properly, despite the fact that the holsters were allegedly designed for 4G iPods.

I was about to settle for some kind of sporty gizmo (complete with wrist/arm strap) when I came across the Contour Showcase.

This thing is fantastic. It has a rubberized shell, a formidable clear plastic front and a beveled clickwheel opening that lines up perfectly. The removable belt clip is reversible, so the iPod can be worn on either side. Unlike many other holsters I looked at, it mounts the iPod horizontally rather than vertically, which makes it much less intrusive when clipped to my belt. Of course, it has the standard access openings at top and bottom for headphone jack and synchronization port. The whole thing feels incredibly solid, yet it’s very easy to get the iPod in and out of the holster. Well worth the thirty bucks, in my opinion.

I don’t know if there will be further character exercises, but during a conversation at work today I imagined combining Stockholm Syndrome with what I’ll call addictive personality disorder.

From Wikipedia: “… Stockholm syndrome is a psychological state in which the victims of a kidnapping, or persons detained against their free will — prisoners — develop a relationship with their captor(s). This solidarity can sometimes become a real complicity, with prisoners actually helping the captors to achieve their goals or to escape police.”

There is some debate as to whether Addictive Personality Disorder is real, but for the purposes of this exercise, I define it as follows: A psychological state in which a person is inclined to addiction, whether to substances, people (personality types) or situations.

Combining the two, we have a person who has been involved in some manner of hostage situation during which he or she developed a relationship with and/or sympathized with his or her captors. After the situation is resolved (whether peacefully or otherwise), the person returns to his or her routine. Now, however, when our character waits in line at the bank to make a withdrawal, they hope that men wearing ski masks and brandishing automatic weapons will storm the bank. They yearn to hear a voice behind them demand that everyone lie face down on the floor. Our character never uses the drive-up window or an ATM. They insist on entering the bank at every possible opportunity in the hopes of being held hostage at gunpoint.

At work, our character scrutinizes his or her co-workers, trying to determine which of them is most likely to snap and show up at work with a high-powered rifle. Perhaps they even attempt to push the most promising of these unsuspecting individuals over the perceived “edge.”

Now that I’ve built certain aspects of the character’s personality, the exercise part (at least for me) is to write a scene or a short story featuring the character, filling in the rest of their personality and creating a situation in which their (hopefully) unique flaw is developed or revealed. I’ll post the result in the near future.

I picked up The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain on Tuesday, then Laura and I took a trip to Pat Catan’s to pick up some art supplies. After we got home, we both did the first three exercises in the book.

1. Self-Portrait. Not too bad. I squished my head a bit on the horizontal, and I had a real problem with the lips, but it came out much better than I expected.
2. Portrait from Memory. Simply dreadful. I started and stopped no less than half a dozen times. I tried my maternal grandfather, my maternal grandmother, my father, my friend Rob and a couple of other people and erased my futile efforts in each case. I could see each of these people in my minds eye, but when I tried to focus on their features I failed miserably. According to the author, this is not at all unexpected.
3. Non-drawing Hand. Weird. The end result came out very lumpy, but it was definitely recognizable as my hand.

I have to read the rest of the chapter so I can get to the next exercise. The author goes into great detail about the assymmetrical nature of the human brain and the studies that have been done surrounding the separation of the hemispheres. It’s all very interesting stuff. Laura and I are (I think) going to try to do the exercises together whenever possible. Perhaps I’ll scan some of the drawings and post them for all to see when I’ve finished.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling completely rundown and crappy, so I allowed myself the luxury of calling in sick. I didn’t leave the house all day (which, unfortunately, included skipping the April Cleveland-area NaNoWriMo group meeting). Here’s what I did do:

• Played Pool of Radiance. Old school. The original Pool of Radiance was released by SSI in 1988 and I had it for my Apple IIGS. I played for hours upon hours, mapping each area I visited on graph paper and then reproducing those maps in the art program, printing them (in glorious dot matrix color) and mounting them on poster board. Most of the time I was playing I was also listening to Rush’s A Farewell to Kings over and over and over again. I recently found a copy of the DOS version of Pool of Radiance and (with the help of DOSBox) began my quest to finish the game once and for all. Did I mention that I never finished the Apple version? Come on, this is me. Of course I never finished it. So I fired up Chronicles on iTunes and played a game that transported me in time and place. My party consists of Brak, bold human fighter; Boddy, daring and clever halfling fighter/thief; Isabeau, pious human cleric; Jaegen, devious dwarven thief; Sara, wise half-even cleric/magic-user; and Drea, mysterious elven magic-user. Together, they have kicked acres, nay, hectares of 16-color ass.
• Watched a bit of an anti-smoking show on HBO Family. Why? I don’t even know. I was just flipping through the channels and it caught my eye. The show, aimed at teens and pre-teens, featured some rather shocking statistics and interviews with some shockingly ignorant and naive teen smokers.
• Watched Warlock: The Armageddon. Why? Well, the TiVo recorded it and I was feeling far too lousy to find something better to do. Plus, I like cheese. Julian Sands is the title character, and he spends a lot of time killing fashion designers, prostitutes, old men, cabbies and fuzzy bunnies with gore-rific effects, only to be defeated by… headlights.
• Watched some of the extras on the second Spider-Man 2 DVD. Interesting stuff. I like extras. There’s a mini-documentary that follows Doctor Octopus from his origin in the comics about forty years ago to his most recent incarnation in the movie. I only wish they’d showed a little more about the design and implementation of the tentacles. Perhaps that’s elsewhere on the disc.