floydjoy

Ho Ho Ho. Merry Christmas, everyone! Today, I aim to spread the merry. First up is a cool little thing I found on the Interwebs called "The Jingler." What this little cyber-elf does is take any MP3 you care to upload and transforms it into a Christmas song! Don't believe me? Prepare to have your ears blown wide open by the power of The Jingler unleashed on the Deep Purple classic "Smoke On The Water." Check The Jingler out for yourself! It's a little slow, but you can literally waste tons of time there. It's located on the World Wide Web at the confusing and much too complex addy of www.thejingler.com. Woo! Next up? Let's channel Die Hard. It's already established blog canon that I consider the first Die Hard the perfect action movie. I know what you're saying; "But floydjoy, I can't remember which Die Hard is which. Does the first one have Samuel L. Jackson in it?" To which I answer, "No, you idiot. It's Hans Gruber, t...

Male sports "journalists," listen up. If you actually took pen in hand - figuratively, of course, who the hell writes longhand anymore - to write ANYTHING concerning Jessica Simpson, Tony Romo and Terrell Owens this week, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to turn in your Man Card. I'm deadly serious. This is a problem. We've reached a critical turning point in the realm of sports, in particular the NFL. Gone are the days when sports stories were approached as an art. Nowadays, it's all about shock value and ratcheting up the drama, and this week has been a state-of-the-art snapshot of how far sports journalism has fallen. I'll admit, I chuckled when Joe Buck asked Troy Aikman, "Can you imagine what it feels like to be the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys?" while the camera showed Jessica Simpson in a stadium suite. I didn't chuckle so much when newscasts and papers jumped on Romo's poor performance and pointed at Simpson as "...

One of the biggest ironies of being lazy is that I also get bored easily. I'm not talking every so often, once in a blue moon or even infrequently; I'm talking pure multiple times a day. It's okay, though, don't worry about me - it usually passes, and then I'm back to being my lazy self. It's the circle of life. Anyhoo, the top ten Things I'm Thinking About Right Now Because I'm Bored. And no, they aren't numbered for any other reason than I need to stop when I get to ten. Okay, here goes. 1. Kenny Rogers used to look like The Gambler. Now he looks like the Wizard of Oz. What the hell?!? I tell you one thing - the icons from my youth are falling one by one, and they're falling HARD. 2. Incomplete list of random guys I sort of hero-worship: William Shatner, Neil Peart, both Disney and post-Disney Kurt Russell, Steve McQueen, the Six Million Dollar Man, Cary Grant in North by Northwest, Roger Staubach and Bruce Willis. If you don't know who the...

Yes, it's finally official: the NFL jersey that I wear directly affects EVERYTHING. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. Here's the scene. This morning. Post shower. Pre shirt. Vague thoughts whoosh through, around and past my brain. What should I wear today? What is today? Do I work today? Hey, the Cowboys play a special, super-duper Thursday night game this week. Is this Thursday? By God, I think it is. I must wear my Emmitt Smith jersey today. But lo! They are playing the Packers. I also have a Brett Favre jersey, because I like Brett Favre, NOT because of any kind of affection for the Packers. The Packers suck, but Favre's cool. Don't ask me why; I don't ask you about your irrationalities. My pro jersey lineup, if anyone's interested (and if you are, I fear your social ineptitude): Emmitt Smith Brett Favre Dirk Nowitzki (this one doesn't seem to work in either a good or evil direction) Roger Staubach (my favorite; if I ever lose this twenty pounds, I...

Outside, the sun is going down and the wind is cool and crisp; perfect for an evening jog. I load up my trusty iPod shuffle, kiss my wife on the top of her head and hit the neighborhood streets. This run will be short, I’ve already decided. I have too much to do. Most importantly, I need to crank on the next part of my book. At least three pages worth. And since I compose, on the average, about one page an hour, I need to get a move on if I’m going to hit that goal before shuteye. After all, the book isn’t going to write itself. I push play. The iPod’s first song starts in the middle, because it’s the same one I ended my run with the night before and shut off mid-jam: Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart.” I’m not the world’s biggest Motley Crue fan, but that song clearly kicks ass, and gives me a great tempo to start with. Eventually, the Crue gives way to Deep Purple’s “Hush.” Cool enough. It’s kind of fast, has a good “na-na-na” rock and roll sensibility. It works. My legs get a little...

There's a chance that I'm twisting in the wind here, but I honestly think the world would have much, MUCH clearer communication if we all stopped maturing around the age of five. Think about it. Let's say someone said something you disagree with. What would you say? Probably some kind of PC crap that you don't even believe yourself. Oh, you might give them a little slack out of some misbegotten notion of compromise, even though they're clearly wrong, but all in all, most of us would be polite. But if you were five years old, you'd probably say, "I hate you. I don't want to talk to you anymore." See? It's beautiful. But oh, no. We have to have our ears bent ad infinitum by some yahoo with a caffeine buzz, a coworker splitting hairs, or some equally hollow blowhard. Or how about checkout clerks? Bank tellers? Retail guerillas who sneak up on you with the ubiquitous "Can I help you sir?" That's right. Repeat after me. "I hate yo...

A post. To republish. Okay, to say something meaningful instead of wasting this opportunity, 'cause who knows when I'll ever get back to it: Die Hard is the perfect action movie. Go ahead. Try to knock holes in that. You can't. So. Mission accomplished. I am a blogging master.

I can't seem to drag up the energy from the depths of my apparently barren artistic soul enough to make a decent entry, so whoever reads this - and your numbers will be alarmingly small, I suspect - will just have to make do. In other news, I drove down a common thoroughfare in hometown Tyler this weekend and something hit my windshield. I say something because I don't really know what the hell it really was, but suffice to say, it had the strength of at least a small branch, and the smashing power of at least a golf ball. The wind was gusting at an insane pace, so I really didn't get a look at it amid all the horizontally flying pine cones and tree gumballs. But I'm okay, so at least there's that. It still sucks though.