Thursday, August 28, 2008

Caption

GIRL WITH GLASSES
Hey, look we are all wearing shorts lets take a picture together!
OTHER GIRL WITH GLASSES
I agree, wow what a coincidence.
GIRL WITHOUT GLASSES
If only I would have worn glasses...
NON-GIRL
Okay fine, but only if I get to sit between two girls.

After shelling out $300 dollars in tickets due wholly to the 36.1% (dark) tint on his front windshield and windows John was finally able to get his car registered yesterday. The excitement on his face in this photo says everything.

JOHN
Sit Vodka, sit! Good Dog.
VODKA
I'll do anything, anything you want. Just give me that marshmallow.

Ba by-sit: transitive verb -to pacify multiple children with the cartoon network, while feeding all of them as many Otter Pops as they can eat.

CAMERON
How about Johnny Depp?
JOHN
Johnny Depp was in "Whats eating Gilbert Grape" with Leonardo Dicapprio who was in "Titanic" with Kate Winslet who was in "Sense and Sensibility" with Hugh Grant who was in "Bridget Jones Diary" with Renee Zellweger who was in "Jerry MacGuire" with Tom Cruise who was in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon.
CAMERON
Five movies? Cutting it pretty close.
JOHN
Can you think of a better way?

Thursday, August 21, 2008

She

He arrived at her house three minutes late, took a whiff of his shirt to make sure his cologne wasn't too strong, and that he had remembered to apply it. He had.

She answered the front door, and was wearing a dress! He wasn't prepared for that and froze for a second. She looked beautiful, and he instantly became aware of how much better looking she was than he. He had planned to give her a hug at the door, but nervousness caught him off guard and instead he said something depreciating about himself and complementary about her as he started walking towards his car. He opened her car door and while walking around the front of the car gathered his wits and repeated in his mind the phrase, "You're the prize." a couple of times.

The drive was a little long but the conversation flowed easily. She was laughing quite a bit and he felt like he was in top form. He kept trying to look at her and catch a glimpse of her because he remembered how adorable her laugh made her look. Unfortunately, her seat was too far back, thanks to his stupid brother who always slid the seat back all the way in his car. Usually he would move the seat up before a date so when he did look to the side it made for a comfortable gaze, and possibly some prolonged eye contact. Blast! He wished he hadn't forgotten tonight.

She opened her own door when they arrived. She was a great conversationalist. This was something he had a hard time finding, a girl who was beautiful and full of personality. As they walked to the theatre he noticed how graceful she was. He really thought she was classy, he wanted to remember to use the word "classy" in a compliment later when the time was right. He knew he was not classy and thought there was a high probability she thought he was a goof and was just there for the free activity and meal.

They passed a group of guys on the sidewalk, and all of their eyes were fixed firmly on her. He saw one of them smile, and wondered if she had smiled back. He relayed the experience to her (minus the smile part) and she mentioned how she liked that sort of thing. She liked being "the prize." He found that extremely attractive, it's hard to find a confident woman in today's world. He sought out to determine if she was more than confident, cocky, or arrogant... he was looking for a reason to dislike her because he worried that she would dislike him.

The old wooden seats in the theatre really put them close together. He tried to concentrate on the play, but it was a musical, and half the time he didn't know what they were saying. It also became impossible for him to focus because her knee would bump into his every so often. Sometimes, it would linger almost as if she didn't notice, and other times she would quickly pull away as though she felt she had overstepped her bounds. Was this a green light?

For the entire second act all he could think about was what her reaction might be if he tried to hold her hand. He wondered if he was too old to be even bothering with the hand hold. He concluded that he certainly was too old to be this concerned about it. He looked over at her. The dim lighting caught her jaw line. The thought "crap she is way too hot for me!" popped into his head. She noticed his stare, and turned to meet it. It seemed like longer than a second, but it wasn't. He consciously decided he wasn't going to look away - not like a staring contest or anything, he just didn't want her to know how nervous he was of her. He smiled, she smiled back and then she turned her attention back to the show, a little smile cracked across her face as though maybe she was a little embarrassed. He freaked a little thinking he'd been staring to long, and that his little confidence-boosting look may have come off creepy. He got scared and decided not to reach for her hand after all.

What was it about her that made this date so different from the rest? She was beautiful, that wasn't it though, plenty of the others were as stunning. She was funny, but not as funny as some. She was interesting and smart. He didn't think she was dumb, which happens more often then not. He couldn't put his finger on it, but the more he thought about it the more excited he got.

After the show they walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. He noticed she'd been asking all the questions, really going out of her way to get to know him. He had to make a conserted effort to turn that around but noted the difference. Most women, especially attractive ones, are only interested in themselves. During dinner she told him that he made her laugh. He was used to that compliment, but it sure felt good after a night of feeling inferior.

The drive home was terrific, and he found himself driving the speed limit just to prolong the moment. As he pulled up to her house he got really nervous. He had scared himself out of making a lot of his usual moves. Like the hand hold, the hand on the small of the back while walking, and stuff like that. If he tried something now he wondered if it would be uncalled for. He thought to himself "Do I have to kiss her." He responded to himself, "No, but I really really want to." She hadn't really given him a ton of green lights either, but usually the guy has to lead and tonight he did a horrible job.

She was saying something as they walked to her door and he didn't hear a word she said. His mind was filled with what might happen in the following moments. He hugged her she asked "Do you want to come in?" A commonly regarded maxim is "if she invites you in, you are going to score." He obliged and entered her house.

She gave him a little tour of her place. They didn't sit down or anything they just talked for a while. All he could think about was kissing her. He paid very special attention to what his eyes were doing. He thought about just grabbing her and doing it. He was too scared! What was the problem? Normally he would have no issue with this scenario. Normally he'd be worrying more that they were getting horizontal too quickly!

The whole thing was a blur and as he left he thought, "I have failed, this whole date was a failure!" Then she opened the door to let him out and hugged him. The hug was long. After about 20 seconds (if you don't think thats long hug the person next to you for 20 seconds) he determined that if she pulled out slowly he was going for it. Then after a full 60 seconds of hugging she pulled away quickly and said "Thank you." He said, "No. Thank you." then turned. Before he even started walking, the door shut behind him.

He sat in his car in her driveway for a few minutes bewildered and disappointed. The crushing weight of failure rested firmly on his mind. He wondered if he could even go on a another date after that performance. He kept looking at her door while images of the numerous missed opportunity's flashed through his mind. Why couldn't he have been more confident? Why did he waste so much time analyzing things? Why the long hug then the sudden goodbye? Why did this have to happen on this date?

He didn't get any sleep that night. She has been on his mind ever since.


Johnny Metropolis.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Vampire Shmampire!

I think it was about a year ago that I first heard about the book "Twilight". I was driving to Manti with two girls in my car. One of them said something to the effect of "You drive really fast." I responded with "Well if you had cat-like speed and reflexes like I do you'd feel comfortable at higher speeds too." One of the girls exclaimed "Oh, you are kind of like Edward." This sparked my interest and a very brief explanation about this book about teenage love and vampires ensued. I don't often hear about books, as you will see in my upcoming blog series "The four books that changed Johns life". (Whats bad is, that's four out of nine books over my life time, which gives me a 44% "life changing rate" evidence that I should probably read more.) So I only took marginal interest in Twilight and it's characters.

Being single and spending the majority of my time conversing with women. I discovered that this book and subsequent series was a phenomenon. What made it cooler, chick who wrote it was a Mormon. I determined it would be in my best interests to find out enough about this book and it's stories to have intelligent conversations with those who read it. As I discovered things about it the first thing I didn't like is that I was finding myself jealous of the Edward character. In the beginning of my discovery of this book every, seriously EVERY girl I talked to loved Edward. Saying things like he "is the perfect guy." "If only I could find my Edward." "Oh I would do very bad things to Edward if he were real." This infatuation didn't lie only with the desperately single women I knew. It encompassed all women, non-desperate singles and my married sisters and cousins were even taken. I sat one day in my sisters Salon as they (many women) talked for an hour all about how wonderful Edward was. I prodded to find out as much about him as I could. From what I heard this guy, this figment of some BYU coed's imagination does not exist in the real world. If he does I would think he was a savage. As is undoubtedly becoming evident, I began hating the book (still knowing little about it) and the more I discovered the more I disliked it. I found out that the Author just decided to take every cool thing about Vampires and throw it out the window.

What a Vampire from the book twilight might say: Uh yes we suck blood but we don't suck human blood cause we are so good and kind... even though it doesn't taste so good and isn't as nourishing we chase down deer and stuff, I mean a Vampire has to have morals right? Oh and sunlight, that's no problem we just stay out of it because, well because we glow! Glowing is bad, for if we glow then humans would hunt us down and kill us even though every movie they have seen and book they have read doesn't say anything about us glowing... they will still know, and they wont understand our good nature and they will kill us for hunting their deer and loving their teenagers.

Even though I haven't read this book and very ignorantly, and very stubbornly will not read it. I think it sucks. The only joy I glean from it's existence is the look I get on girls faces when I say, "Oh yeah Twilight, I haven't read it but girls are always telling me I remind them of Edward." It's one of those jaw open, while wanting to shake their head but not being able to because of shock sort of looks of disbelief which is usually followed by some hurtful verbal rebuttal as to why I am not even close to that character which they determine to be the perfect man. Clearly they have no knowledge of my superhuman strength, cat-like speed and reflexes, fangs, and the way I order my women around...

My best friend did a very gay thing and read this book despite my warnings about it, and how hard it may be to maintain his sexuality during and after the read. He wrote this review which I think should be read by all. Another friend of mines sister wrote this which I think is important for all to read too. Here is another review about the newest book which shows me there is a glimmer of hope for the opposite sex. Seriously if I said "Baywatch" was a terrific work of art, you ladies would recognize the low brow self indulgent motive behind that.

John Maxim

Monday, August 4, 2008

Shame =

You must first see this post:
Due to the number of friends I think I have, my links list can get a little lengthy. So I have instituted a few different categories to break things up and keep those who want to browse my friends blogs lives a little easier. So I made the "Blog pals who don't post often enough to be linked further up on this page!" section. I was hoping that this would nudge some of my friends who don't post often to post a little more. Apparently it has worked a bit, with the above blog and my friend Adam's blog getting more frequent postings.
For future reference my rule for this section is if a blog has 2 or less posts in a month it would drop into that section. If they post 5 or more then I would move them back up. If the posting hangs in the 3-4 range then the blog stays where it is at.