Wonkey's Interesting Day

Inspired by this comic, I've come up with a list of command line operations that would come in handy in real life.

% wget pizza
% cat myHouse | grep carKeys
% rm acne
% killall co-workers
% mv ~/myOldApartment/myStuff ~/myNewApartment/
% whois hot_girl_at_the_bar
% cp ~/sidesOfHead/hair ~/topOfHead/
% man life


Just an update for people who have me on their friends lists:

Since my last update, I have

• Acted in a play


• Gotten engaged


• Gotten married


• Moved


• Spent a week in Costa Rica


• Purchased a used motor scooter (a 1985 Honda Elite 150cc)


• Performed three duets in a Cole Porter musical revue

There. It's much easier to keep up with me when I present everything in digest form, isn't it?

According to the Wikipedia article on Peanuts:

"Peanuts had its origin in Li'l Folks, a weekly panel comic that appeared in Schulz's hometown paper... When his work was picked up by United Feature Syndicate, they decided to go for the new comic strip he had been working on... Maybe the name would have been the same, though, had it been less close to the names of two other comics of the time: Al Capp's Li'l Abner and a now-forgotten strip entitled Little Folks. To avoid confusion the syndicate settled on the name 'Peanuts', a title Schulz himself was not particularly fond of. In a 1987 interview, Schulz said 'It's totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing, and has no dignity—and I think my humor has dignity'. The strip soon got an obvious main character, which Schulz would rather have named the strip after: 'Good Ol' Charlie Brown', a character informed by some of the painful experiences of Schulz's formative years. In fact, the periodic collections of the strips in paperback book form typically had either 'Charlie Brown' or 'Snoopy' in the title, not 'Peanuts'."

So there you have it. Someone at the syndicate drew a random "cute" title out of a hat, and history was made. Just imagine if the same principle were applied to other, more recent comics.

Old Name: Dilbert
New and Improved Name: Confetti!

Old Name: Foxtrot
New and Improved Name: Mint Chocolate Chip

Old Name: Doonesbury
New and Improved Name: Hedgehog Central

I think I may be on to something here...

Today, struck by a sudden epiphany, I wondered aloud as I drove home for lunch:
"Why the **** was that comic strip called Peanuts, anyway?!"

I may look up the answer and post it, if such an answer exists.

Since I didn't update on Tuesday or Wednesday:

Yesterday and the day before I became hopelessly addicted to Sudoku, particularly on the Web Sudoku site.

Today I spent 5 (count 'em. 5!) hours cutting and "weeding" vinyl logos for a customer. Afterwards, it turned out that the vinyl won't stick to the paper used in the finished product. My time would have been just as well spent had I skipped work this morning and come in at 2:00.

(spoken like the kid in Better Off Dead) I want my five hours!

Today I ate something with an Indian name that turned out to be hot rice pudding. I want more. But not right now because I'm still full. Also there was mango custard.

Today I spent all morning doing nothing but my job. I was dismayed to learn that my job is boring even when there is plenty of work to do.

Today was a bad day to religiously watch my stock prices. They just kept going down. This is why you're not supposed to watch your stock ticker minute-by-minute unless you're an aggressive day trader. If you do, you end up saying "Son of a--!" every time you hit the refresh button. That's a whole lot of times, yo.

Today I remembered that I'm supposed to be updating this silly thing,

Also, today my sister is getting on a plane to England, where she'll be student teaching for a couple of months. My girlfriend and I gave her a sending-off/early Christmas present: the cost of passage across the English Channel. Shhh! Don't tell her! She won't know until she opens the envelope on the plane.

Today I read the following quote from Ann Coulter regarding the Supreme Court of the United States and its history over the last couple of decades:
"We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is — even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one."

You can read the rest of her article at the Jewish World Review website or any number of sites syndicating Coulter's columns.

Today I had the following conversation:

Co-Worker: Why is the file for "Panini Deli" placed in the drawer with the H's?
Me: The "H" at the beginning of "Panini" is one of those rare letters that are both silent and invisible. You don't often find those in English, but they exist.

Today I read 17 comics online and completed an online survey about five television shows that I didn't watch last night.

Today I spent a good chunk of my afternoon drawing monkeys while waiting for a plotter to cut numbers out of vinyl sheets.

Today, I flipped off a document - a real paper one that I was holding in my hand. It was a Requisition for Controlled Substances.

After a long, long, long hiatus from journal-writing, I've returned with a new journal concept. Rather than document the entirety of my mundane life, I'll attempt to update daily about one interesting thing I did during the day. It could be something dramatic or something simple, but I'll try my best to make it something unusual or new.

Every year on April 1st, the web becomes covered with hundreds of "interesting" news stories. In this annual flood of implausible articles, a few always float to the top. This year, Opera's SoundWave Technology announcement takes first prize in my ranking, followed closely by the new Google Gulp! high-tech energy drinks (be sure to read all of the "Learn More" pages).

I think the most entertaining way to use this journal is to document some of the more interesting conversations that I have in my life. I have a few people that I talk to on a regular basis, including friends, family, and especially my girlfriend, with whom I've developed a really frenetic level of banter. Names will be removed or changed to protect the guilty, and I'll try to refrain from unnecessary commentary and let the dialogue speak for itself. They will be transcribed from memory, and therefore are not guaranteed to be accurate and are inadmissable in a court of law.

The first conversation comes from a phone call from my girlfriend. After a long evening of academic work, she called me up in a really drowsy state to tell me how much she loved me. It was very sweet, but as the conversation moved into its second or third minute, it became clear that she was really half asleep. That's when the best conversations happen. Here's a rough approximation of what was said.

ME: Hello?

HER: Hello, gorgeous!

ME: Hey, you! What's up?

HER: Well, I was just getting ready to go to bed when I realized that I love you more today than I did yesterday -- which is amazing because I loved you a LOT yesterday. And I loved you more yesterday than I did before that, and I think this could be dangerous because sooner or later I'm going to explode.

ME: You're approaching critical mass!


HER: Yep. It's pretty amazing though, and I just wanted to call and tell you. I should have given you a "sap alert" before that.

ME: That was pretty sappy, but I have no room to talk. And it's not like I'm complaining.

HER: Good, because if you were complaining, I'd probably flip out and kill you. And that would be really bad because I'd realize that I loved you even more right then than I did five minutes ago --

ME: -- even though I was dead.

HER: Right, and I'd get so depressed that I'd have to kill myself. Like Juliet. Or Romeo. Whichever one that was.

ME: I think it was both.

HER: Yeah, that's right.

ME: So basically, it's a really good thing that I wasn't complaining because I'd hate to be responsible for a tragic murder/suicide.

HER: For love!

ME: Actually, it wouldn't be for love at all. It would be because you flipped out and killed me over something I said.

HER: Oh right. Not for love. That would suck. Let's not do that, okay?

ME: Hmm...okay, I guess that would be all right.

When I opened up Google News today, I saw that the headline "Cochran: Conciliator, Facilitator", regarding the death of lawyer Johnnie Cochran of OJ Simpson trial fame, was listed under the "Entertainment" section. What a sad statement. Although I have often maligned Cochran's role in the farce that was the OJ trial, but the man had a career that spanned decades and focused primarily on civil rights. That he was the lead defense attorney in a high-profile celebrity case should not relegate his obituary to the level of fluff that makes up entertainment journalism.

Rest in peace, Mr. Cochran. Though I can't see how, I hope that you really believed that OJ was innocent.

I'm dusting off this journal after about 9 months of neglect. For the curious among you, no, I did not get pregnant - the nine month interval was purely coincidental. Many things can happen in nine months. Then again, nine months can pass without very much changing at all. I am much too lazy to read back through my posts and figure out where I left my readers, but none of them are still checking this journal anyway, so I might as well start from scratch. Here's where I am now:

• Graduated from college a little less than two years ago


• Working in a print shop as a graphic designer and general gopher


• In the middle of my sixth week as a man with a girlfriend (with no end in sight)


• Generally failing to prepare my portfolio for film school (but still intending to do so)

In other news, my baby sister turns 22 years old today. Every common sentiment regarding the swift passage of time has been utterly cliched-out by now, and I'm too distracted to concoct an uncommon one right now. I guess I'll go with the tried-and-true "where does the time go?" For those of you playing at home, I would have also accepted "they grow up so fast!" or "I can still remember when she was only this tall!"