Jon Konrath's journal

Calm before the storm

Mon, 04 May 2009 13:24:44 GMT

I woke up at 6 on a day off, because movers will be here at 9:30 and get the show on the road. Everything is in boxes, and all I (think) I have to do is take a shower, move the cats into their carrier so they're out of the way, and throw out any bits of garbage I can find.

Yesterday was a rough day of Ikea hell. I installed a wardrobe and a hanging cabinet, and assembled but did not hang another cabinet and a medicine chest. I bought a really nice cordless power drill/driver, and the assembly went a lot faster than usual, but I still got a lot less done than I wanted. There are roughly three carloads of stuff already in the new place, and everything is looking great there.

I think I forgot to mention that we got our keys on Saturday. We have not closed yet, but the property management is "renting" to us for zero dollars until Tues or Wed, when we sign the papers. So we had to sign a lease for the week.

The building is pretty empty at this point, although we have met a couple of people. Everyone we run into is either a butch lesbian or punk rock hipster (or both.) Haven't seen a kid yet. I don't think this is a school district you buy into.

My Yaris is back. It is completely restored to like-new shape. The only issue is that the windshield has a slight wave or distort in it. The Yaris has a funky windshield anyway, and I wonder if it's from driving the other car for a month that I now recognize it, or if it's cheap glass. I'm going to call the shop after we move and ask about it. They guaranteed all of the work, so maybe they can do a quick swap. It's so nice to have the car back, though. It was a relief to get 42 MPG on the trip back from the body shop.

Time to pack it up. I won't have internet again until we get hooked up on Saturday, but I will probably be ticking away on my phone until then.

MacHeist3 - Get $900+ of Mac software for $39 and help charity

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:09:44 GMT

If you're a Mac user, go check out http://macheist.com - they have this thing going where several popular software titles are bundled together, and you get the whole package for $39. PLUS you can choose one of ten charities, and they get 25% of the sale price.

They started with a certain number of titles in the package, and as they reach certain levels of sales, they unlock more apps.

Both WorldOfGoo and WireTap Pro are things I would have bought outside of the bundle, and both cost more than the bundle, so it's a hell of a deal.

Prog Slob

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:23:23 GMT

I have started a new music blog, because of the extreme shortage of web sites devoted to sub-par reviews of decade-old albums.

Anyway, go to http://progslob.com. I am just getting started, and there will be another writer or two to pick up the slack, but you get the idea. I am focusing on prog rock and prog metal, although I'm sure I will be bitching on other tangents, too.

I have a whole week in the winter wonderland of Milwaukee, and I hope to get caught up on reviews and other writing. I even got to sleep ten hours last night. In a row!

I still can't believe this

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:43:20 GMT

This is how much weight I lost in 2008:

From camphone

I can barely carry 50 pounds of lard ten feet in a Safeway - not sure how I did it for decades when it was attached to my body.

Also, this wasn't Safeway, it was Pack and Save (Pick and Save? something like that) which is a Safeway-owned store, but roughly the size of the hanger in an aircraft carrier. We went through all 87 aisles, each one five times as large as a Key Foods in New York, and then at the end, there was another entire grocery store of booze and jumbo-sized packaging.

Hipster Book Club Interview

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:15:37 GMT

I was recently interviewed in Hipster Book Club. (Or maybe that's hipsterbookclub. Or hIpStErB00kClUb.) Anyway, check it out:

http://www.hipsterbookclub.com/features/interviews/jonkonrath1008/index.html

They've also got great book reviews, if you're tired of trying to get your Amazon recommendations to work properly. I bought my nephew a Spongebob video, and it now thinks I'm a pedophile or something and keeps recommending Ginsberg poetry and French-Canadian authors. Gotta look into editing that somehow.

Lifetime

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:05:49 GMT

Because I have lost up to my goal weight in WeightWatchers, and I have kept at that (and actually lost another five pounds), as of Sunday, I am an official lifetime member. That means I don't pay anymore; I weigh in once a month, and if I do that and keep within a couple of pounds of my goal, I am still current. I also got more hardware for my keychain, which I won't carry, since my keychain has too much crap on it already.

I also had to buy new jeans today, and a size 32 waist is still slightly loose. The last time I wore a 32 was maybe in 1993. The last time I was smaller than a 32 was high school. Before this started, I was at a 38 or sometimes 40.

I have not had a chance to process this, because I am in the middle of moving. I'm currently in SF, interviewing and sleeping on our new Ikea mattress, which is the only furniture in the apartment. I drive back to LA Tuesday night, the movers take our stuff on Friday, and we convoy down with both cars on Saturday, which will be my third time on the 6+ hour drive in the last week. Podcasts have come in handy lately.

Moving to San Francisco

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:04:26 GMT

Looks like we are moving again, this time from LA to San Francisco. And it's happening fast - I will get keys to the new place next week, and we should be out of here by the end of the month.

I have nothing terrible to say about LA. It has been nice living by the ocean, and I don't think there has been a dreary day since we moved here. But Sarah has been commuting north for her job, and I cannot find a single tech writing job here that pays more than minimum wage. But I can't go on the usual screed about how horrible LA is because everyone is fake or whatever. Everyone is fake everywhere.

I know very little about San Francisco. There's a big bridge, an old jail on an island, and cable cars. Rice-a-Roni. That twisty road. City Lights. A lot of Chinese food. People that are very proud they are very happy and have a parade every year. Silicon valley. Lots of Priuses. Maybe I should go read Yelp.com.

I have a great deal of paper to shred. How did I end up with fifty tons of paper in six months?

goal

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:44:30 GMT

Yesterday, I weighed in at 178.8. My goal weight is 180. So I get more hardware for my keychain (I don't keep all of this crap on my keys, though) and I get to start maintenance, which I never really knew about until a week or two ago.

Maintenance in WW is weird. Your points actually get raised per week, and you have to relearn how to eat a second time. You don't eat as little as you do when you were losing, but you can't go back to 1/3 pound Angus burgers either. So it's a tightrope, a new set of rules, and I have to figure this out. As long as I don't go above 182 for six more weeks, I become a lifetime member, which means I can stop paying them. I think it also means a large subset of the meeting can hate me, because I reached goal in 18 weeks, and some people don't for years.

When I got my driver's license in Denver in spring of 2007, I weighed 225 pounds. When I started the program, I weighed 214.8. My official weight loss is 36 pounds. Unofficially, it's about fifty since I left New York. Absolutely none of my clothes fit anymore - my pants went from tight at a 38" waist to loose at a 33" waist. I couldn't wear a fitted shirt with a regular-sized collar, and now I can buy them off the rack and they're fine. I can actually run on a treadmill without ankle or knee problems for the first time since gym class in 1986. And I've had a lot fewer problems with energy and stomach disorder and all of that.

I think the biggest realization that I lost weight was that I went to buy kitty litter the other day, and I got the big plastic bucket. As I was hauling it to the cash register and struggling to carry it, I suddenly realized that I was carrying almost twice that amount of weight on my frame all the time a year ago. No wonder I'm always screwing up my knees and feet and ankles and back.

I still don't feel thin mentally, and I don't know when that will happen. There are brief bursts of it, but I still see thin people and me as different classes of society or something, and usually we have the same BMI, so it's some mental thing. And I am still out of shape, and even though my weight is close, my muscle tone needs improvement. My cholesterol is still borderline, and so's my BP. So there's still work to be done. But it's good to get to this point.

P.S. These aren't very good photos, but it gives you an idea:

9/12/07

8/16/08

Earthquake

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:57:32 GMT

We just had an earthquake a second ago. It was a 5.6:

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/ci14383980.html

I am in a relatively new building, so it mostly rolled and rocked a bit, no damage. (Except to the cats' psychological wellness.)

This was my first LA earthquake, and it was different. Seattle earthquakes I witnessed were much shorter and more abrupt. This was not as powerful, but went for longer. That might be this building's construction though.

I don't know why I feel a need to post this, since I am sure almost all of you do not give a shit, but it seems like after 9/11, I always feel a need to say "it's okay" after something like this happens, so my Midwestern family that only knows of earthquakes from disaster movies will know it was not a big deal.

Chinese Earthquake Relief

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:59:37 GMT

If you paypal me some money, I will go spend it at Wal-Mart to help stimulate the Chinese economy.

Sorry, Mr. Lama

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:21:33 GMT

My prediction: Tibet is now officially out. Burma is officially the new cause du jour. Every giant corporate music festival this summer that loses money except the promoters still make money will now need to advertise that they are helping burma. College freshman trustifarians - you now need to preach to us about the noble ways of Min Ko Naing (although you can't find Burma on the map.) And we need a has-been actor to get behind the cause. (What's Kanye doing right now?)

Everyone else - rush to your local screenprinting place and get some Free Burma shirts going to dump on ebay. This is going to be even more profitable than that West Memphis Three thing!

I hate poetry

Thu, 01 May 2008 01:39:34 GMT

Except this one poem, which I could read every day for the next fifty years.
First one to guess the author gets a dollar.

The Genius of the Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

I'm moving

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:00:19 GMT

To LA. On the 25th. I don't feel like writing the details twice, so go here: http://rumored.com/journal/html/20080203.html

Me, all sliced up

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:19:56 GMT

I got a new MRI today, and I got the radiologist to burn me a CD. Here's my left knee, as if you were looking at it sideways, being sliced up.

Always reminds me of that exhibit in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where a dude is sliced up in layers and pressed between sheets of glass.

The radiologist had two big screens. One was a million tiled pictures of my knee. The other one was running Solitaire. I shit you not.

Where am I?

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:22:59 GMT

So, I got married Friday. And now I am in a strage land where they drive on the wrong side of the road, and it isn't snowing. Also a can of coke is $5.

I will be back Saturday, then world series tickets to game 4 Sunday. Then this all ends, and I go back to work.

Finally

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:46:14 GMT

Swept the Giants (in SF)
Won a series against the Red Sox (in Boston)
Swept the Mets
Swept the Yankees
Swept the Brewers
Swept the Dodgers (in a 4-game series)
Swept the Padres
Swept the Dodgers again
Beat the Padres in a Wildcard runoff
Swept the Phillies in the NLDS (I was there for the last game)
Swept the Diamondbacks in the NLCS (I was there for the last game)
First NL team ever to sweep both series to win an NL title
Won 20 of the last 21 games
Sixth-smallest payroll in the MLB; Their payroll is almost four times smaller than the leader. All of the teams mentione above except Arizona spent more on their payrolls.
And now, the World Series

It has been an interesting summer!

Sweep! Sweep! Sweep!

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 06:06:24 GMT

Rockies sweep the Phillies in the NLDS

This is the most fucked up baseball game I've ever been to. It was a completely still night, and then right before the first inning, these freak wind bursts started up. The temperature plummeted, and everyone (including myself) was running to the gift stores to buy overpriced shirts to keep warm. Then, out of nowhere, the lights went out. And the game was a pitching battle, partially because of two good pitchers, and partially because a gale-force wind was blowing directly at home plate. If you sat still and just dropped the ball from your hand on home plate, it would be an 86 MPH fastball.

But most of all, the sellout crowd was going batshit insane for the entire game. At every pitch, 50,000 people were cheering and yelling and screaming. Once it got down to the final inning, they seriously had like 100 extra security people ring the field. When the last pitch was thrown, they drove an entire motorcade of police motorcycles and SWAT team trucks onto the field to prevent everyone from going total apeshit and climbing onto the field.

Next up, NLCS against the Diamondbacks. I have tickets for the second home game, which is the 15th. Sorry, Lou; sorry, Cubs fans - maybe next year.

Air in the Paragraph Line #12 review

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:35:20 GMT

I keep forgetting to post this, as I have been distracted by other things, but here is a review of the newest issue of Air in the Paragraph Line #12:

Review from Blogger News Network

“Air In The Paragraph Line” Volume 12 is the latest edition of Jon Konrath’s unique literary journal. This issue’s theme was “Weird, Paranoid, Insane” and includes 23 stories that fit this theme well. In his introduction, Konrath calls this edition “an invitation to write about insanity to the MySpace crowd,” which is the best way to describe this publication.

Most of the stories are written in the style of creative nonfiction, as if the writer truly believes the extravagant tales they are unlashing on the page. Each story is highlighted by a cover page illustration with related black-and-white ink drawings sketched by Matthew Pazzol of cartoon silhouettes of characters that resemble human beings to kick off each bizarre story that begins on the next page.

The journal’s theme allows elements of dark humor, gore, and unpredictable plot twists to flow through its bloodstream unchecked. The hardships of the work place and the family are the stories’ major themes and two of the most likely places to find the bizarre material that this publication demands.

In the opening piece, ”Uncle Bud, Chaos Superstar” by Rebel Star Hobson, the narrator reminisces about his reckless Uncle Bud who seems immune to the heavy drug abuse and terminal illnesses which plague his body and who, by sticking to his stubborn lifestyle, is able to endure those problems which knock all others who obtain them into their graves. This story sets the bar for the rest of the stories to come in this collection. Other heavy family pieces include “Shopping With the Vietcong,” author Todd Taylor’s depiction of a young boy shopping with his Vietnam scarred father and Erin O’Brien’s “Skeleton Mom” about a girl dealing with her mom’s eating disorder and her own self image.

The characters are typically hardened, cynical, and rebel against authority and society. One of these characters is even Konrath’s portrayal of former president Richard Nixon in his contributing piece, as well as a nicotine addicted head chairman of a scavenger squad named Boogerlove created by Yuppie Rockwell. The comedic elements are most present in the first few pieces. However, it is the middle of the book that shines. The quality meat of the journal starts off with Tony Byrer’s “A Brief Tale of Great Integrity” about a Hardees employee who takes the freedom of working the nightshift too far followed by “Lome Togo-Me Mongo” by Dege Legg, who through the use of letter narration nearly scams an e-mail spammer who tries to take advantage of the naïve Internet users of the world. There is also John Sheppard’s “Public Radio” which shows the differing relationships that the protagonist has in his night class as opposed to his work place.

The collection ends with Konrath’s “They,” the tale with the greatest amount of paranoia in the book, which is appropriate given the chaos of the story’s world in which Samuel L. Jackson is president and the protagonist collects a heavy fortune in stock from Haldiburson, the company in which he is employed. A short note on each of the contributors and their contact information follows, officially ending the madness that the previous 230 pages of brought on.

Two minor corrections: First, Matt Pazzol did all of the artwork - I can't draw a snowman with three different-sized coins. Also, I think the MySpace quote was sort of out of context, because I hate MySpace and I think it's done as much for writing as napalm has done for Vietnam.

And I am still desperately looking for reviewers, so if you have a blog or write for someone or something or whatever, please drop a line.

New car

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:06:34 GMT

I bought a new car last week. An honest-to-god, 13 miles on the odometer and three of them were the test drive car. It is a 2008 Toyota Yarvis liftback. Make fun of the size, but it gets better mileage than a lot of motorcycles out there, and it cost about half as much as a Prius. And it has like 48 different storage compartments. And an iPod jack. I'm still thinking of getting some Hybrid tags ordered from the Toyota dealer just to fuck with people, though.

Air in the Paragraph Line #12 is here!

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:26:38 GMT

Issue #12 of my zine, Air in the Paragraph Line, is here. This issue is themed "Weird, Paranoid, Insane", and contains 23 stories by 15 writers, ranging from tales of deranged relatives to secret coalitions to battle-maddened 'Nam vets who can't shop in Kroger without seeing VC behind every freezer cabinet, to a still-alive Richard Nixon snorting coke and listening to Dokken. Something for everyone.

This issue contains stories by Grant Bailie, Keith Buckley, Tony Byrer, Joshua Citrak, Kurt Eisenlohr, Rebel Star Hobson, Stephen Huffman, Jon Konrath, R. Lee, Erin O'Brien, John Sheppard, Joseph Suglia, Todd Taylor, and Richard K. Weems. It also includes very kick-ass artwork by Matthew Pazzol.

It's isbn 978-0-6151-6314-7, 236 pages, color glossy cover, and it's $14.95 MSRP.

Order now at http://www.lulu.com/content/1151437 or wait a few weeks or years until it shows up on Amazon and other finer online bookstores.

Don't forget to check out http://ParagraphLine.com, too.

AITPL Trailer #2

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:35:14 GMT

Matt Pazzol, who did all of the artwork for the next issue, did his own trailer for Air in the Paragraph Line #12.

The zine will be available shortly at http://ParagraphLine.com, so check it out. And download the last issue for free, too.

AITPL #12 trailer

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:44:30 GMT

I've created a trailer for the upcoming Air in the Paragraph Line #12. This issue's theme is "weird, paranoid, insane" and contains fact and fiction by Grant Bailie, Keith Buckley, Tony Byrer, Joshua Citrak, Kurt Eisenlohr, Rebel Star Hobson, Stephen Huffman, Jon Konrath, R. Lee, Erin O'Brien, John Sheppard, Joseph Suglia, Todd
Taylor, and Richard K. Weems.

#12 will be available soon - see ParagraphLine.com for details.

(Disclaimer: this is my first attempt at doing this, and it probably sucks.)

More Modern Saints

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:50:56 GMT

Luca Dipierro and his press, Black Arrow, is putting out this monster book called Santi Lives of Modern Saints. I am very excited about this, not only because I have a killer story in it (and probably the only story I've written since like the fourth grade without using the word 'fuck'), but because the book in general looks awesome. It's going to be 600 pages, illustrated, all of the stories are also translated to italian, and it comes with a CD. It also includes stories from a ton of friends and co-conspirators, like John Sheppard, Erin O'Brien, Grant Bailie, Tim Gager, and a bunch more. It's also being distributed by SPD, so it will be the first bit of my writing that will make it into bookstores. ETA is December 10th.

Luca has been making these weird trailers for the book. Here's the latest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfWLchvEWVc

President Dick Cheney

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:08:03 GMT

Pres. Bush is going to get a colonoscopy tomorrow. (See http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/20/280265.aspx) Because of this, he is transferring power to VP Dick Cheney tomorrow, under the 25th amendment.

I don't give a shit (no pun intended), but I know some of you out there have some pretty significant conspiracy theories about how Cheney is the root of all evil and is going to uproot the world government and blah blah blah blah.

So, if that's you, sorry I ruined your weekend. Go wrap your house in tin foil, crawl under your bed, shit your pants, and wait for the reaper.

In summary, PRESIDENT CHENEY! PRESIDENT CHENEY! HE WILL HAVE FULL POWER TO PARDON ANYONE THE FUCK HE PLEASES! PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES RICHARD CHENEY! THE LAUNCH CODES TO 5,735 NUCLEAR WARHEADS ARE IN A SUITCASE ON HIS DESK NEXT TO A HAM SANDWICH! HAIL TO THE CHIEF DICK CHENEY! RUN! FLEE! DRIVE NORTH TO CANADA AS FAST AS YOU FUCKING CAN!

(Note: Some of you, mostly those who don't know me well, will immediately assume I am a Pro-Bush, Pro-Republican, Gay-bashing, Jesus-fearing, abortion-hating red stater who shops at Wal-Mart, drives an SUV, and keeps his wife barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And THAT is what is wrong with this country.)

New addition to the family

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:33:11 GMT

I finally got a replacement and then some for my aging PPC Mac Mini. It's a 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook. A gig of RAM, 120-Gig drive, double-layer Superdrive, and I ordered new memory to up it to 3 gigs of memory. (Yes, Apple says you are supposed to pair SIMMs and limit it to 2 gigs, but you can put 3 in and it works just fine with almost no performance hit.)

There are lots of little extras - an iSight camera that I will never use; a FrontRow remote that I will never use; a magnetic power cord that I probably will use. There's no lid hatch, which is weird. They keyboard is even more weird.

The upgrade/transfer thingee worked very well, except for two things. First, my iPhoto and iTunes libraries were on an external drive, and it didn't copy those. And for whatever reason, Eclipse got totally fucked up and I had to reinstall. Otherwise, no problems yet. I'm using my 160-Gig external drive, and I'm plugged into my old 21" monitor to get two screens going. It's very sweet.

Anyone want to buy a Mac Mini?