Fanmail Schmanmail

I've gotten a lot of emails because of yesterday's story about how I met an ex-girlfriend. I apologize for the story's length, but everything I wrote was true. I have a feeling I may have flip-flopped people though. Maybe Joe wasn't there, and this other kid DJ was there instead. Not quite sure actually...

Anyways, I'd like to take this time to answer emails from some of my readers/fanboys/fangirls.

What made you start blogging?
Well a friend of mine showed me his (love you, Andy!) and I thought it was hilarious. It also reminded me of when I used to Xanga. So I wanted to start again.

Why don't you use real names?
Sometimes I write about events and the people in them, and they may get angry about the things I write. So I have to change them. Plus, I'm Jones Johnson. If I use a fake name for myself, I might as well use fake name for everyone else.

Have you always been as geeky as you claim?
I've been into technology and computers for a long time. My first computer was in 1993: it had an Intel 486 processor running at 25MHz, and had a 120 MB hard drive. I later upgraded it to 66MHz and I thought I was cool. These days, I just like to read about new technologies and gadgets that are either out on the market or on their way. When I'm with my friends, the geekiest anybody gets is when they talk about World of Warcraft. I'm not a fan of that.

What time is it right now?
It's 12:19 PM on Saturday, January 26, 2008.

I didn't ask for the date, dick.
Oops, my bad.

Why is your profile picture a cartoon version of Agent Smith from the Matrix trilogy?
I didn't know what picture to use, and I remembered this one because it's one of the background options for my iPhone. I've been Jones Johnson longer than I've had this blog, and I never really envisioned what a Jones Johnson would look like. But I've gotten used to the Agent Smith pic, so I guess I'll leave it. You guys should let me know how you feel about that.

Cloverfield sucked. What are you, an idiot?
Dude, you already left a comment. You hated it, I liked it. Get over it. No more Cloverfield talk.

Was that really Natali Del Conte that left a comment in the post called Ayo Technology / Facebook Whore?
Yes it really was. I initially thought that it wasn't, and that someone was pretending to be her. I emailed her, and to my surprise she responded and confirmed that it was her. That made my day. Actually, that made my week. No wait, I had Popeyes for dinner the other day. Now that made my week.

Please write about me. How come you haven't written about me yet? I wanna feel special!
Because I love your sister, Julienne. I'm kidding, she hates me. But seriously, I have nothing to write in regards to you. We talk online, but we don't hang out in person. I guess I could just write about the time you changed my Facebook status while I was asleep, and I got annoyed afterwards. But maybe you don't want me to do that. Or do you... Julienne? Okay, I guess I just wrote about you. Done.

Are you really as shy as you say you are, especially around girls?
In general, I'm a pretty shy person around people I don't know. It's the extreme opposite when I'm with my friends. But that's just how I am. I'm probably one of the most awkward people in the history of awkward people. The last time I spoke to a girl I didn't know, it was because she was asked me something about my iPhone. She asked: "Hey, nice phone, cutie. Are you really checking email at a bar?" My response: "Yes I am! People email me at 1 or 2 in the morning sometimes. So I just wanted to check. Gosh! What the fuck lady?!" She'd already walked away by the time I said gosh.

Was the last thing you said true?
No, I lied. I don't talk to girls.

Dear Teem Teem, I don't get what you write sometimes.
Grabe naman, pare!
Neil, please. Just ... seriously, please.

Will you be writing about your ex-girlfriend in the future?
Highly unlikely. Yesterday's post was more about how I was a shy boy around girls, and that it hasn't changed 10 years later. But it wasn't really about her, it was about me.

Hey man, you don't know me. I Googled "How to increase the size of my johnson because it's giving me the love jones." It led me to your site and I've been reading ever since. Can I call you Jonesy?
What the hell? You were jonesin' for a bigger johnson, and you ended up here. Nice nice nice.

Wuh wuh wuh?
Okay, this was from Nino. He's an idiot.

Are you ever going to video blog?
If I do, it won't be on here. Or maybe it will. I dunno. I have to find the charger for my camcorder first. I plan on eventually posting videos that I make with my friends. There are a few on Facebook that have generated some smalltime buzz. But nothing really worthy.

This blog is worthless. Why do you even write shit? Half the time, it's not even funny. Dude, just stop.
Everyone, this was from my good friend Grant. We've been friends since 1993. He means well.

Hey who's Alicia? Is that Allison? It probably is righh?
Yes, Anna, that is correct. You're a thug, by the way. And you taste like placebo.

Hey, how do you feel about the lack of DTS-HD MA decoding on the PlayStation 3?
Ah here we go. This is more like it. I think it's annoying that Sony hasn't addressed this issue. They haven't even responded to all the clamoring us A/V heads have been doing for the past year or so. Is it too hard to tell us whether DTS-HD Master Audio is capable on the PS3? They've given us Dolby TrueHD decoding via LPCM and that was good. But we're talking about the PlayStation 3 here; it's the most advanced video game system on the planet. We've all read the forums about how somebody found out that the chipset inside is incapable of DTS-HD MA decoding. Well, if this is true Sony needs to tell us! I'm sitting here waiting for my DTS-HD MA while all the Panasonic 30K owners have it. I have a receiver capable of decoding both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, but since the PS3 is also unable to bitstream, then it's useless. Ultimately, DTS-HD MA decoding via LPCM is good enough for all of us. The dream would be for the PS3 to bitstream straight to my Onkyo 605. Until then, we have to continue to be patient. Hey, they gave us Profile 1.1 right? Maybe Sony has one more trick up its sleeve. But they've got to tell us and let us know.

Since you can't use your real name, can you at least tell us some of your nicknames?
Why, of course I can do that, TechGurL57. Here they are:
Jonesy
Gentle Giant - from my style of play in basketball, and my size
Dolby Digital - my rap name in highschool
Carlito - Sweet Mike is obsessed with Carlito's Way
Temrio - it's a combination of a few names
Bailamos - only one person calls me this and her name rhymes with barrel


I couldn't answer all the questions. But here's a piechart showing the general breakdown of the types of emails that you, my lovely readers, have sent me. Thanks!

Do You Have a Rubber Band?

I finally saw My Sassy Girl last night. It's a Korean romantic comedy, and it's actually quite good. Don't worry, this isn't another useless review. Well if it were, I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. But it isn't so disregard that rating. I have to watch it again anyway since I missed a few parts during the screening last night.

Anyhoo, in honor of My Sassy Girl, I will now attempt to do something that I thought I'd never do.

I will write about a relationship I once had.

I'm not entirely sure who reads this. The average for Mon-Thurs was 20.25 individual visitors per day, but I only know of maybe 5 or 6 regular readers from what they tell me. More importantly, I'm not sure if she reads this, but I thought it would be okay.

I haven't written about her at all on this blog. I'm at a loss for what to call her because, as you know, I don't use real names here. But maybe I'll stretch my own rules for once.

In fact, due to popular demand, I'll use real names for everyone in this entry. But only this one time.


Do You Have a Rubber Band?

The summer was quickly disappearing. The following week would be the start of my sophomore year in highschool. It was an exciting time for me; I had gotten a job at the mall working for Baskin Robbins, my brother had just turn one year old, and I made a few new friends at school. Not that I didn't have any friends or anything, but it's always a good thing to befriend new people. They were guys though. Girls were a different story.

I was also in the best shape of my life: not fat.

My bestest friend Almond was pretty excited about a birthday party for a girl named Liezl. I think we received invites via America Online (AOL). We had been anticipating the party for weeks. I invited a few of my friends, but I wasn't sure whether they would come or not.

I invited Erv DeCastro and Joe Cornago. Back in those days, they were my homeboys. Much to my surprise, they decided to come along with Almond and me to the party.

The day was Saturday, August 29. The year: 1998.

We were all 16 years old, except for Almond who would turn 16 a month later. 16 was an awesome age because it meant asking your mom or dad for a ride to wherever you wanted to go. Sometimes I even did this crazy thing called walking. It was wild.

The party was in Union, and luckily for us, my mom worked in Union. So it was settled: my mom would bring us to the party, and Erv's older brother would pick us up.

Sweet.

My mom dropped us off at 6:30 PM. After we greeted Liezl, we attempted to do this thing called mingling (to this day, I still have not learned how to properly do this). There was food, plenty of beverages, and most importantly, for the purpose of staring, there were some cute girls. I probably knew a few because of AOL, but I didn't talk to any of them. My goal was to just hang out and have fun with my friends.

However, the boys would split up a few times, and I'd have to figure out which one to tag along with. I was usually standing next to Almond while he was talking to someone.

"This is my friend," he said as he introduced me to a female. I felt a bit annoyed that he didn't say "best friend" (I always told people he was mine) but I let it slide.

"Oh hi," I replied as I brought my right hand up in a feeble attempt to match what I said with a corresponding gesture. It looked like I was in court and swearing under oath.

Was "Oh hi" the best I could come up with?! At that time, yes it was. Unfortunately, I was not very good at talking to people I did not know, especially girls. This was a weakness that would stay with me for a long long time. Actually, it's still a weakness for me, but let's not get into that right now.

It was warm inside Liezl's house. I wore jeans, a button down, and a zip-up fleece jacket. Not exactly sure why I had the jacket, but it didn't stay on long. I decided to hide it behind a couch. I also had sunglasses on, but I planted those on my shirt.

We proceeded to make our way to the basement. There were even more people down there, about 20-25. Liezl had a DJ providing music and entertainment. I don't remember any specific songs that were played, but I do remember a lot of reggae. Reggae was big in '98. Big.

I took command of my post: the wall. Observing people as they danced and interacted motivated me to try the same (I believe it's called socializing). However, this was just not the day that I would have the balls to do that. And I'm still waiting on them balls, by the way.

After a little while, I made a power move to a nearby pole. I used my right shoulder to lean on it, while I crossed my right foot over my left. I was trying to look as comfortable as possible, but inside I was dying. Dying from the nervousness and awkwardness that had been killing me all evening.

Suddenly, there she was.

She wore a red tanktop and black shorts. I think they were shorts. Maybe a skirt. Either way, it was black, the same color as her long silky hair. She appeared to have a fresh tan, as her caramel skin had a hint of redness to it. Standing at 5'5", she was an excellent height that would complement by 6'0" frame. The girl in red was also in great shape; great arms, wonderful shoulders, a flat stomach, and pretty decent-looking nose.

She was marvelous to look at. A sight for sore eyes. Lucky for me, my eyes were not sore that day. Nonetheless, she was amazing. She was dancing by herself, doing it effortlessly and without any concern for who was watchinig. It was as if a spotlight was shining on her and everything else disappeared into the background.

Suddenly, the spotlight disappeared. She looked up and caught my eyes penetrating through her skull like Superman's lasers.

I quickly gathered myself and went upstairs, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. I was relieved to find my friends hanging out in the kitchen. Almond was talking to a dude named Alan. I described her to the guys and Alan said he knew who she was.

I thought about going back downstairs to talk to her, but that wasn't something that I normally did (or do). So I brushed it off my shoulders, and continued with the party. But we wouldn't stay much longer, as Erv's brother arrived around 9:00 PM. He was about a year or two tolder and did not want to stay.

So we headed back home. I thought it was quite a successful evening. We got a chance to hang out with each other, my friends met a few people, and I got a chance to lean on a wall and a pole. A success by any standard!

A few minutes after we left, I realized that I had left my jacket there. I also noticed that my sunglasses were no longer on my shirt.

We had to go back.

Fortunately, I found my jacket right where I hid it. As for my sunglasses, I figured I may have dropped them in the basement.

As I walked down the staircase, I thought about where I could have dropped them. They were $100 sunglasses, and I was worried that someone may have stolen them or stepped on them.

Then I spotted the shades. They were next to the bottom step of the staircase, and they appeared to be shattered. I bent down to pick them up.

As I stood up observing the sunglasses, there she was. The girl in red was standing right in front of me as though she knew me.

"Do you have a rubber band?" she asked as she gathered her hair into a ponytail.

"No," I replied, "but um ... what's your name?"

"Neenya," she said. "But you can call me Neen."

THE END

I Am Legend

As some of you may know, I used to blog somewhere else. Today, I was looking at some of my old posts. After reading a few, I found it. The post. The one and only legendary post. I altered the entry slightly because I didn't use caps back then. Everything here is true. The people that were there can attest to that. Enjoy.

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May 19, 2004

So I just played my first pickup game in a long time. 5-on-5 full court basketball. The location was the Livingston courts, home to the infamous "black court" and "white/asian court". Game to 16, win by 2.

Early in the game, we find ourselves down 4-10. I had been struggling to find my stroke all night. But after a few easy layups, I finally started sinking my long-range bombs. Then, our star player Lennard injures both knees. After laying on the ground for a good 2 minutes and 18 seconds, he channels Willis Reed, gets up, and then drains two consecutive clutch shots from downtown.

All of a sudden, we find ourselves tied 16 apiece.

The opposing team's towering ballhog misses the go-ahead layup, and Dino somehow comes up with the rebound. He passes it to Lennard, who takes the ball up. He then gives the ball to Perry on the wing. Shortly after, he finds himself double-teamed.

From the corner of his eye, Perry sees me 10 feet from him. With no hesitation, he passes me the ball. Some Indian dude smothers me with tenacious Pippen-like defense. I take one dribble and then I lean to my left in order to put distance between us.

I take a quick glance at the basket.
I aim.
I shoot.

Nanoseconds after the ball is released from my right hand, the lights at the Livingston courts shut off.

With only moonlight shining upon the court, the 10 of us watch as the ball gracefully falls into the basket, touching nothing but the bottom of the net.

Game over. Final score: 18-16.

Call me Lights Out. I am mad legendary.

----------------------------------------------

Crazy right? I can't believe I made that shot. Everytime I think about it, I still can't believe it. The most exciting shots in basketball are when there's a game on the line and a player makes the winning shot at the buzzer. He knows how much time he has left and must release the shot before the buzzer sounds.

In my case, there was no shotclock, no gameclock, and no buzzer. I took the shot, and shortly after it left my hands, the lights shut off, and then the ball went in.

Seriously though, what are the chances?

My pen has a fork. I'm cool now.

"Hey do you have a fork?"

"No, but my pen does!"

Excellent work. This is exactly what I need in my life. NOT.




Actually, maybe this is good for all you pen chewers out there. You know who you are. You's a bunch of nasty mofo's. Now you can have your pen and eat it too. Or at least eat with it.

And there's nothing like borrowing a pen from a pen chewer and being handed a half-chewed STD-infested pen cap. We love those. We really do.

Ew

Sleepy Weepy

You've probably seen this already, but I thought it was too hilarious not to post.

Bill Clinton falling asleep at a service on Martin Luther King Day.

Ayo Technology / Facebook Whore

Some of you may not know this, but sometimes I request quasi-famous people on Facebook. A few months ago I discovered clarkandmichael.com, a website created by Clark Duke and Michael Cera (from Juno and Arrested Development). They had created webisodes and whatnot and I thought it was funny.


I searched for Michael Cera on Facebook, but I couldn't find the real one. Then I found Clark Duke and I added him. I went through his friends list and I saw Jonah Hill (Cera's chubby costar in Superbad). He still has not accepted my friend request.


Anyways, besides those guys I also requested Natali Del Conte, former host of TeXtra, a weekly video blog dedicated to technology news. I added her because, well, she's attractive and because she loves gadgets and technology!


I logged onto my Facebook last night, and I saw that there were new photos of Natali Del Conte from her going away party. She is now in New York and is working for CNET. One of the pictures caught me by surprise! She had taken a photograph with another tech/gadget girl, Veronica Belmont (as some of you may know, I have just recently started paying attention to her). I added her as soon as I saw she had a Facebook account.


You guys may not think that they're attractive, but in a geeky way, I think they are. Am I strange for feeling like that? Am I seriously that geeky now? Oh well.

Anyways, I showed you guys a photo of Veronica before. Natali has some photos online, but I want to change it up a bit and show a video. So here you go. Here are her outtakes and bloopers from her (now old) show TeXtra. You seriously have to play it! She's so adorable, in that techie kind of way.



Ayo, Timberlake, I am certainly NOT tired of using technology. Thank you very much!

Ayoooooo (sing it in your head now)

Update: Yay! Veronica Belmont has accepted my friend request. Meanwhile, Jonah Hill is too cool for me. I mean, I guess technically he is too cool, being in movies and all. But c'mon Jonah! I love your work! :sigh: At least I'm now Facebook friends with Natali AND Veronica. Yes, I agree, I live a sad sad life.

The Biggest Loser II

I apologize for not updating you guys with the original Biggest Loser competition. After a little controversy concerning how many times one weighs in on the final weigh-in, KillaCal and I were co-champions. Jimmy and Kelvin both gained weight during the 6-week competition. When KillaCal weighed in, he was a half-pound over what he needed to win. After he took off his hoodie and urinated, he got the extra 0.5 lbs. It was too close to call (percentage-wise), so we decided to split. We each won $30.

But technically, I won.

Anticlimactic, I know.

This past weekend, we weighed in once more. This time, it was for $50 from each loser; thus, a $300 grand prize. The competitors: Jones, Jimmy, Kelvin, KillCal. Evan “The Bear Man” Abuello has not yet weighed in.

Earlier today, Hank stopped by. I allowed him to weigh in. He is the lightest among the competitors. Before he stepped on the scale, he told me that he had been drinking water and eating all day. Then he took one more chug of his drink and proceeded to weigh himself.

209.0 lbs.

Two months ago he was 190ish. Nice job, Hank. You probably have the best shot at winning this.

Then Hank decided it was time for a #2. After what seemed to be 10-15 minutes in the bathroom, he emerged. Along with his look of relief came a smell that I can only describe as “fucking nasty as fuck.” He went to the scale once more.

204.5 lbs.

He had lost a staggering 4.5 lbs after pooping. Amazing. I had lost 5 lbs overnight, but this was extremely amazing. Obviously, the scale is not 100% accurate, but a 4.5 pound drop is still nothing to scoff at.

However, Hank was not done. Minutes after taking the 4.5-lb shit, Hank finally had to pee.

202.0 lbs.

He lost 7 lbs in less than an hour.

Granted, he was using some extreme measures to gain as much weight as possible. Thus, I’m probably going to have to modify some of the weigh-in rules if there’s a Biggest Loser III.

It’s safe to say that after losing 3.35% of his weight, Hank is currently TBLII’s leader.

An hour later, he called me to let me know that he took a 3-minute piss.

Quotables

Highlights from my weekend.

FRIDAY - When I got home from work, Troy came over with some Portuguese food from a spot that he used to frequent near my apartment. He always talked about it but I had never tasted it.

Troy: C'mon let's eat. This shit is good.
Me: I'm sorry, but we have to go to West Coast Video first.
Troy: Why?
Me: We gotta rent a movie. Blu-ray, specifically.
Troy: Um okay? I don't get it.
Me: Troy, I like to watch movies when I eat dinner on a Friday at home. Especially when it's as delicious as what you've brought here tonight.
Troy: Let's do it. It's across the street anyway.
[30 - 40 minutes later]
Me: So much for that. I can never find anything. Let's watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on Blu-ray. I haven't even opened it yet.
Troy: Food's cold.

Later on, Sweet Mike and Dino came by. Dino was going to watch Cloverfield for the second time while Sweet Mike had yet to see it.

Sweet Mike: Did you really puke or were you lying about that?
Me: Would I really want to lie about puking? Does it make me look like a badass? C'mon!

SATURDAY - Alicia, a former BFF of mine (now we've upgraded to BFFAEAE) decided to hang out with us North Jerseyans. She forced me to go with her and Andrea (a BFF runner-up) to a place in Hackensack that does hair, nails, etc. Let's call this place The Vagina Waxing Place.

Waxer: Three Brazilians?
Alicia: No, just two.
Waxer: I'm sorry, I saw three and-
Me: It's okay. Do you do knuckles too?
[crickets]
Me: Okay, tough crowd. Yeah, I'll sit this one out.

Afterwards, we headed over to Garden State Plaza and met up with Jimmy. Alicia decided that she was going to be purchasing her first Apple! Andrea made an appointment to have her MacBook looked at. Our friend Don was working as well.

Andrea: My Yahoo search doesn't work right.
Me: Why the fuck are you using Yahoo? There's a Google bar right there.
Don: He's right. You do have a Google bar.
Andrea: I know, but slickdeal.net doesn't work either.
Me: How often must you look for these deals, woman? Jeez!
Andrea: See that? It goes to porn sites for no reason.
Me: Okay, I've never seen anyone fuck up their Mac as much as you have. I didn't know this was possible.
Jimmy: Yes, this is a first.
Me: Thank you, Jimmy the Shrimp. Andrea, you're wasting Don's time. Don, how's Lucille?
Don: She broke up with me a month ago.
Me: I just saw your Christmas pictures on Facebook.
Don: Damn it, you got me!

After she bought her MacBook, Alicia discussed the placebo pills in women's...yaknow, THE pill.

Me: Do you ever eat the placebo pills?
Alicia: I usually don't.
Me: So what do placebo pills taste like?
Alicia: Like placebo.
Me: Oh, okay. So placebo has a taste now.

Sweet Mike called me while I was at the mall.

Sweet Mike: Yo, I don't get Cloverfield.
Me: What do you mean?
Sweet Mike: I don't get it.
Me: It wasn't filmed in a traditional way. It was a group's account of the attack. We walk into the movie with questions, and we walk out of it with even more questions. It wasn't your typical Hollywood movie where everything is explained, there are heroes to save the day, and there's closure. This movie was not your typical Hollywood movie.
Sweet Mike: Yeah, I don't get it.
Me: I have to pee, Mike. I'll call you later.

SUNDAY- AFC & NFC Championship games.

Jimmy: Did you see G's away message? His brother might be gay.
Me: No way. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but no way!
Jimmy: Seriously.
Me: My Facebook profile says I'm gay. I changed it to "Interested in men" back in September I think.
Alicia: Why would you do that?
Me: I have no idea. Thought it was funny at the time.
Alicia: You're so gay.
Me: Only on Facebook!

I later discussed the events that transpired at Evan "The Bear Man" Abuello's apartment the night before. Dino, Lennard, and KillaCal were there; I was not.

Me: So how many girls were at Abuello's?
Dino: There were like seven.
Me: And you were doing what?
Dino: Motorboating them. Like in Wedding Crashers.
Me: I stayed home and watched Knocked Up with Alicia and you guys did what?
Dino: We were motorboating bitches. And dancing, and jumping as quietly as possible, and taking pictures. We had a video of four girls and one cake.
Me: Okay, so did anything else happen? Did you hook up with a girl, or maybe a guy?
Dino: Nah, mainly motorboating.
Me: Damn.
Dino: Oh, and I was motoroboating this one girl while her boyfriend was in the next room.
Me: You're all about girls with boyfriends*.
Dino: That's how I do.

*here's an example