The LunchJournal

Blooque!

(From some guys named Noby and Rusty.)

The shorter version: My car got totalled last week.

The longer version: I was driving westbound down the left lane of Hwy 80, leaving a store I was working at, when all of a sudden this Jeep Cherokee pulls out into the center of the road just barely ahead of me (only maybe about one carlength) and stops. There's just no time or distance for me to stop or swerve and miss it, and so... WHAM.

The hood of my car buckles, the windshield spiderwebs, the rearview mirror goes flying off, and the seatbelt catches me as the airbag bursts forward, hitting me in the chest. My last-fraction-of-a-second attempt to swerve out of the SUV's way continues to send my car over toward the right, across the other lane, where fortunately there wasn't any other oncoming traffic, and off the road, down into a deep ditch that thankfully wasn't as steep an incline as it looked from the road.

Quickly-sketched, not-to-scale diagram:


The inside of the car was filled with dust from the damage and the airbags, choking me, so I quickly staggered out of the car, where one of the firefighters from the firehouse right there in front of where I came to a stop came running over to check on me. I ended up with a sprained right wrist and some bruises (and some slight burning that quickly went away on my wrists from the airbag chemicals). The people in the other vehicle were unhurt.

My car's front bumper was destroyed. I wasn't able to get a good look at the damage under the hood, due to the way it buckled up, but the radiator seemed to have been pushed back at least a foot from where it used to be, and I'm told there's probably not much hope for it to be worth fixing, if even possible. And I really liked that car. I didn't get a good look at the other car, being down in a ditch like I was, but they didn't need towing.

I freaked out my poor mom when I called her, due to all the noise around and a cop and a firefighter who came over to me and started to ask me questions right when she answered--with me not hearing her pick up at first--and when they realized I was on the phone, advising me to "tell her you're all right," which she heard as people asking me if I was all right. Later, as the commotion was all dying down, I just had to lean back and rest by lying down on the grass where I had been seated next to my car, overwhelmed by the shock and pain and frustration of it all and relieved to know I was at least okay. This was, of course, when my mom arrived at the scene, to find her son lying on the ground in a ditch next to his wrecked car. Happy early Mother's Day, Mom!

So after all the accident reporting and statement-taking and witness-interviewing, the other day the insurance investigator called me with the results of his inquiry. The other driver (who apparently claimed to have been driving in the lane for about 30 seconds at around 25mph--which is ridiculously impossible given that the wreck happened so incredibly close to where he turned onto the road) was declared 100% at fault. The information collected from the other driver at the scene and given to me by the police said that the driver was insured, but now it turns out that somehow he actually wasn't. So... crap.

Still determining exactly what to do next... Definitely going to make sure the guy gets his license suspended for the insurance thing. I'm borrowing my mom's car to get around in for the time being (fortunately my parents keep an extra car for emergencies, and for all the times my dad has to put his car in the shop--he drives a lot for work and puts a lot of wear and tear on it).

Also, when I finally got home the day of the wreck, I found that my car's brand new license plate had arrived in the mail.

Since I now have one of those nice printers that allow you to print artwork directly onto printable DVDs and CDs, I've been adding disc art to a lot of my homemade DVDs (all of rarities that are legally recorded from broadcasts for my own personal use and are otherwise unavailable by any commercial means--that I would, of course, gladly buy if they were made available for purchase...).

So here are the printable custom DVD covers I've made (the first few of which I've posted before, followed by a whole lotta new ones), now with disc art suitable for printable-surface DVD+/-R discs for your own use (on your legally-recorded-from-broadcast-and-impossible-to-get-legitimately-otherwise personal copies, ahem...), should you be so inclined:

Last updated July 9, 2008 - Lots and lots of RiffTrax DVD covers

The Star Wars Holiday Special:

Standard-size DVD case
Insert
Disc art

Turkish Star Wars (Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam):

Standard-size DVD case
Disc art

( Click here for the rest )

For you faithful readers who have been waiting tirelessly for an update to my blog, here is one.

I am currently resting up from the combination of a long couple of weeks at work and some really bad allergies to the pollen that's been saturating the air as of late.

Should you ever feel the need to take an occasional break from your constant refreshing of my journal during the next few weeks or months of waiting for another exciting Jason B. Bell blog entry, you should have a look at the Rifftrax blog, from those MST3K guys. Loads of funny stuff to be found there.

P.S. If there had ever been any doubt that Dr Pepper was my favorite carbonated beverage, this would certainly clear that up.

P.P.S. Doctor Who tomorrow!

P.P.P.S. Battlestar Galactica, in, like ten minutes!

Been a good long while since I posted anything, so here's a few tidbits about what's currently going on...

They Might Be Giants are playing at Hal & Mal's this Saturday. I guess no one told them that the music scene is so dead here that even the local non-cover bands don't play in Jackson anymore. I have my ticket.

My long creative drought has been seeing some precipitation recently. I have been drawing. No exciting announcements to make yet, but hopefully soon.

Chewie the parrot is doing well. He's starting to say something that sounds kind of like "pretty bird." And he whistles along to the Prisoner theme song. He also does this interesting thing where he takes chunks of food and dips them in his water dish before eating them. He especially likes doing this with bread, letting it soak up the water like a sponge, then sucking on it for a while before eating it. He uses his feet like hands in a cute way when eating his fruits and veggies. He also seems to be a lefty.

The exciting online version of the game of Guess Which Character from the TV Show LOST Carrie Is Drawing (with the Carrie in the title of the game being my dear friend Carrie Hoffman Spell of GLORY!blog fame) is over! Nobody won! Nobody entered! You all LOST! Thanks for not playing, everyone!

( AND NOW FOR THE ANSWERS--WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPARISONS! )

As you can see, Carrie has some good cartooning talent, especially considering that she had no reference to draw from at the time she was drawing these. Hooray for her!

There's only about a week left to enter the exciting Lost Guessing Game! The competition is surely heating up, as so far there's been a whopping ZERO entries... So, yeah, make a few guesses, you lazy bastards.

Some of my friends and I spent New Year's Eve playing the exciting game of Guess Which Character from the TV Show Lost Carrie Is Drawing, with the Carrie in the title of the game being my dear friend Carrie Hoffman Spell of GLORY!blog fame. Now, thanks to the magic of modern technology, you can play this exciting game at home!

The game will end and answers will be posted... oh, let's say the day before the 4th season premiere. I don't feel like looking up the date right now. (It's about a couple of weeks or so.) Between now and then, you can send me your lists of guesses via electronic mail to: lunchbot1 "at-symbol" gmail "dot" com. You may enter more than once if you figure someone else out after sending your first try, but don't go spamming up my inbox with a dozen entries, please. (You could also comment here, but you might inadvertently help someone else win, and you don't want to be a loser, do you?) The winner might even get some kind of really lame prize. I haven't decided what yet. Carrie, Rusty, Noby, and myself are disqualified from entering as we were all there for the thrill-packed real-time version. Offer void where prohibited.

Note that the first couple were drawn in the style of Carrie's Alien Bumbleglyph characters, so ignore any antennae you might see.

( PLAY THE GAME! )

Hope everyone had a good and safe holiday season. More on mine later, but for now just a quick update with some Lost-related linkage I promised some of you while hanging out over the holidays:

Here's a guide to the official Lost podcasts with download links at Lostpedia (a great resource of info about the show and its characters and universe--for those of you following the show on DVD only, now's the time to browse through there while there's nothing major to risk being spoiled about). The few podcasts that can't be downloaded from the page above can be found on a page listed in its "External Links" section. The podcasts are highly recommended for fans of the show. Head writers Cuse and Lindeloff answer all sorts of questions from viewers and are generally entertaining to listen to.

Also, don't forget about the "mobisodes" that have been posted to the Internets over the past couple of months.

Also also... a new "alternate reality game" is currently going on until the season premiere.

I've been around even less than usual these past few weeks, for the following reasons:

I've been playing Final Fantasy XII. It has quickly become my favorite FF game so far, what with the extensive sidequests and freedom and the more realistic and mature storylines. As some of you may know, the proper way to play an RPG videogame is to play in nonstop marathon sessions for up to maybe 30 hours at a time, so you can understand that it's kept me quite busy. Please hold an intervention for me if I ever dare to sign up for World of Warcraft.

In my occasional breaks from FFXII, I've been working a whole lot, what with Xmas coming up, so that's consumed a lot of time.

I've also been busy watching Veronica Mars season 3 with friends, which is great. Many of these episodes I've been seeing for the first time (that last season was unfortunately on at the same time as Lost), including the one with the guest characters and monkey that were so amazingly obviously cast to resemble the main characters from the (incredible) comic book series Y: The Last Man. Holy crap, that was awesome!

Also, I'm almost finished buying and making everyone's Life Day presents (yes, some of you should be afraid... very afraid), and some of you will even get them before the Solstice this year!

And all through this, I've been bonding with my parrot (whose name is Chewie, by the way). He can now say more than just "hello." He also says a bunch of other things that sound almost like words and phrases but not quite. I keep struggling to try to figure out what he's trying to tell me, then having to remind myself that he doesn't really know what he's saying either... Or does he? He's picked up this curious habit of "answering" questions by bobbing his head up and down like he's nodding "yes." But only specifically when asked yes-or-no questions. Odd.

At some point soon, I'll try to get around to reading all the blog stuff I've missed or skimmed over and replying where appropriate.

Have a happy holiday season!

Just an FYI for my Jewish friends and friends of friends here in town: Hallmark sent a whole mess of Hanukkah giftwrap and party supplies (wrapping paper, tissue paper, bags, gift card holders, paper plates, napkins, invitations, etc.) to the Kroger in Brandon for some reason (cards for Jewish holidays don't sell much there to begin with, so I dunno what they were thinking this year).

So if you're looking for anything of that sort, you can help me out by leaving less unsold stuff there for me to have to scan and destroy after the holiday (yeah, they make us throw it out rather than mark it down...).

Quick update for those of you who may have been concerned after reading last night's posting: Yes, I did finally watch Michael Bay's Transformers. I survived with my sanity more or less intact. More detailed commentary to come in the future, but for now I'll leave you with this much:

I was surprised. Michael Bay's previous movies have managed to offend me both aesthetically and as a human being in general, to make me cringe at horrible ham-fisted storytelling "techniques" and ridiculous characters spouting the lamest dialogue, and even to make me physically ill (from all the spinny fast-cut arbitrary editing). But this movie managed to do something no Michael Bay movie has ever done before.

It bored me.

(In addition to all those other things listed above as well.)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend.

I had a good one. Got to spend some time with all my family, eating way too much.

Spent the rest of the weekend with friends, watching Knocked Up and continuing our Veronica Mars-athon.

My parrot can say "hello." (Or at least something that sounds like he's trying to say "hello.) I still need to find a name for the little bundle of energy.

I might be biting the bullet and finally watching BayFormers tonight. Wish me well. Thank Primus for Rifftrax.

An early birthday (it's not until Dec. 23) present from my parents:


(more photos over on my Flickr account)

He or she (no way to really tell without a blood test or unless it ever lays an egg) is a quaker parrot, about half a foot tall (when not stretching the neck out really far when acting cute) and maybe about a foot long from beak to tail, and has been slowly getting used to its new home and family over the past few days.

I am still waiting for it to reveal its name to me (or for a good idea for a name otherwise).

While I am terrified by the thought that this upcoming season of Lost might end up only being eight episodes long (if they don't end up just delaying them until next season), as well as the other show I watch, Pushing Daisies possibly getting cut short, I just wanna say I'm totally behind the Hollywood writers' strike. I mean, the whole system is shifting away from broadcast towards video on demand and downloaded content, and the studios don't want to pay the writers ANYTHING for that. And the studios apparently coaxed the writers into giving up on asking for more residuals from DVD sales in the negotiations, only to completely refuse to budge on this one remaining issue. Jeez.

Lost's Damon Lindelof has written some good thoughts on the whole situation and how it's all part of the inevitable death of TV-as-we-know-it that a lot of us have been seeing growing ever larger on the horizon here.

And here's a great little satirical video on the whole ugly situation (starring TV's Frank from MST3K!)

In case you haven't heard the big exciting news yet, Joss Whedon is back in the TV world, creating a brand new TV series for FOX to cancel! And Tim Minear's also on staff! And it stars Eliza Dushku! And he created the show by accident!

Also, the trade paperback collecting issues 1-5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight is on the shelves of graphic novel sections of bookstores everywhere now! Get it! It's written by Joss! It's fun, funny, and good! The artwork is very good, and also manages to consistently capture the look of the characters without it looking like the artist simply traced photographs of the actors like so many other live-action-adaptation comics do! It's great!

O RLY?



YA RLY. :(

Hey, look! More desktop-sizey pictures for you, just in time for all the upcoming Halloweeniness!

First off, a spooky photo I took myself. It's the infamous Hallway of Doom from the late W.C.Don's bar! (This was before they knocked out the walls in that end part, so it was even longer and doomier looking back then!)

( Click here for more! )

I know you've always wanted to see Michael Jackson beating up Winnie the Pooh on Abbey Road, so here you go:



More behind the link...
( Winnie are you okay? You've been hit by a smooth criminal. )

Pushing Daisies premieres tonight (ABC 8/7central). It's from the guy who brought us Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, so you of course ought to be watching it.

Also--YAY!!! The Mysterious Cities of Gold is coming to DVD!!! Oh how I loved that show as a kid. I was actually thinking about getting my old tapes out and watching it just the other day.