When I started this blog, I made a promise to myself that I would not focus on how "good," "interesting" or even "remotely intelligible" my writing was...that it was about the exercise and thrill of writing, and not what is produced. As a result, I've made it my practice to publish nearly everything that I take the time to sit down and write...knowing that once I start being selective, I'll never publish anything, and then I'll just stop writing.

Notice, I said nearly everything.

Sometimes, I get halfway through a post and realize it's going nowhere. I thought I had something to say; thought I had something to offer the world. Thankfully, at some point, I realized I did, in fact, not.

With that, I'd like to offer you two half-posts for which I have no explanation, and presented with a tone something like apology, and mostly like a confusion: I'm scratching my head as much as you are on these.


#!: My would-have-been gas-price rant. Honestly, I think I actually meant to get to saying something about gas prices on this one. Something about how I hate paying more, but that hopefully it would force Americans to save energy. Unfortunately, I got about 700 words into a nonsensical reminiscent metaphor, and completely derailed. Please join me in a rousing chorus of, "where the hell were you going with that one?":

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It seems like these days every blog in the country is whining about the price of gas.

Please let me join in the chorus...


This is ridiculous. And it's very, very good for people like me.

Do you remember when you were a kid and you had a Nintendo...and you'd be right in the middle of the 4th-level Big Boss in Rush N' Attack...and your mom would call for dinner. You'd write down your save code ('cause a "hard drive" was nigh unheard of back in the day) and run off to a plate of meat and peas, scarf it down with eager ferocity, and run back to your game...only to find out that turning the power "on" only yields a blinking grey-and-half-title-slide? [Long sentence]. You'd pull the cartridge out, you'd blow in it, you'd stick it back in. Grey-blink-halfscreen-blink. You'd turn it off, push the game up and down a couple dozen times as fast as possible, and try again. Grey-blink-halfscreen-blink. You'd even take out your old dusty Duck Hunt cartridge to jam in on top of the current game, hoping somehow that wedging them together will dislodge the game just enough to confuse the Nintendo fairies into accidentally letting it work...

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#2: 46 Thoughts. I woke up one morning a couple of months ago with thoughts firing through my head so quickly and with such scattered subject matters, I thought it may be cathartic to try to record as many as I could between the time I woke up and the time I had breakfast. Fortunately for you, my last thought of the morning was, "this is a terrible idea." I stopped 46 thoughts in, realizing that virtually nobody would make it past 4 and still care:

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Here are 46 thoughts I had before breakfast this morning:

1. Instead of training me to wake up and start my day, my snooze button has taught me how to sleep comfortably in nine-minute increments.
2. My cats have learned nothing since we got them. Nothing.
3. I don't need a new car.
4. I'd rather have great speakers than a great TV. I'd prefer both, though.
5. "Magik, The Gathering" would have had a chance of being really fun if the uber-dark scary kids hadn't taken it over.
6. It would be really fun to have a wicker-furniture fight with someone.
7. I don't think I could hold the same position/job for more than five years without becoming very bad at it.
8. If you're smelling a fart, does that mean you're actually inhaling little particles of someone else's poo? Scent has to have some vehicle/mass right?
9. We've got about eight more years before Americans start to notice other Americans dying from global climate change.
10. We wash the sheets each week. We change the mattress cover each month-ish. We even dryclean the comforter a couple times a year. But what about the mattress? Isn't it just kind of a giant sponge for grossness?
11. Count Chocula + Milk = purple?
12. I have to pee. But it's warm in bed. I wish I could pee in bed.
13. I wonder if my dreams are being planned all day, or if my brain just makes them up as it goes.
14. I want to be able to drink shower water as it leaves the showerhead...and in theory I should be able to, just like tap water...but I can't bring myself to do it.
15. There's something about pony-tails. I can't explain it. There's just something endearing about them.
16. I constantly feel like I'm late for something.
17. Whitney Houston had nothing but potential.
18. I wish I liked martinis. They seem very cool. And when I order straight whiskey, people assume I'm an alcoholic. If I order a martini, people assume I've read Vogue.
19. I used to like to draw. I wonder if I can still draw? Probably not.
20. Even when I have nothing to worry about, I fill in stuff. If I can't come up with stuff, it drives me nuts that I can't remember what it is I should be worrying about, which opens up the possibility that I'm actually being snuck up on by EVERYTHING now.
21. Twins are creepy. I know, I know. But still.
22. I love using the F-word at just the right time. It makes me feel rebellious.
23. I haven't touched my bass in a long time.
24. Could I bench-press my car if I had to?
25. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were way better when they were on heroin.
26. I'm late for work.
27. I would trust the Church a lot more if they admitted being as confused as I am.
28. My entire life, milk has just "shown up" for me. I've never had to buy it...it's just there when I open the door.
29. I'll never be an adult until something really tragic happens to me.
30. Harry Potter was good, but c'mon. This is getting silly.
31. I wonder what my chin looks like.
32. Chivalry: wonderful old-timey respect for the elegance of women, or subtle form of misogyny?
33. Robert Frost is better than "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." It's like loving Mr. Big for "Be With You."
34. I'm kind of over fireworks.
35. Is it better to smoke one cigarette a day, or seven on Friday night?
36. Do germs kill each other too?
37. We need a new kitchen floor. But I don't want to do that until we fix the bathroom. But I don't want to do that until we get a shed.
38. Mo' money, mo' problems.
39. I always grab a toothpick when I'm leaving Steak N' Shake, cause it makes me feel nonchalant.
40. I hate the smell of makeup.
41. I loved high school, but I almost never miss it.
42. Really on-the-ball people always have charged phones.
43. Polo shirts don't work for heavy guys.
44. Stacy's voice feels like home.
45. Now I'm really late for work.
46. I used to love the airport. Now it feels mostly like work.

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That's all! Stay tuned for more half-baked crap from the past!

Peace,
Justin