From a CNN article on insomnia:

The condition is classified as primary or secondary. The latter means that a patient may be having trouble sleeping because of a health condition or medication.

Primary insomnia is not related to any side effects. It is considered its own disorder that can be broken down into two groups: sleep-onset insomnia and sleep-maintenance insomnia.

Like its name, the sleep-onset version occurs in the beginning of the night when someone tries to fall asleep and can’t.

“Sleep-maintenance insomnia is much less common,” Schulman said. “It occurs when somebody can go to sleep, but wakes up once or several times throughout the night and has difficulty resuming sleep.”

This “sleep-maintenance insomnia” so totally fucking describes me it’s not even funny.

Pretty much for the last six months, I’ve been waking up between 4:30 and 5:30 am every day and not being able to go back to sleep. My alarm is set for 6:30 am during the workweek, and like clockwork (heh) every morning I wake up, glance at the clock, and force myself suppress a murderous rage because it’s anywhere from one to two hours before my alarm is supposed to go off. And 95% of the time I never go back to sleep — I just toss and turn till the alarm goes off at 6:30 and then somehow drag my beleaguered carcass out of bed to prepare myself for work. It’s awful.

But this past week, I’ve been trying to trick my insomnia. The article mentions later that you can fool your body by getting up if you can’t fall back asleep after 20 or 30 minutes. The theory being if your body becomes used to being in bed for hours at a time, unable to fall asleep, it becomes “subconsciously ingrained.” So, that in mind, the last few days I’ve been up at 4:30, 5:45 and, today, 5:00. If I’m consciously aware that I’ve been awake for more than 25 minutes, I get up and get dressed. Today I was ready to roll at 5:30 so I went to Tim Horton’s with my laptop and did some writing. It was kind of peaceful, actually. And I got some stuff accomplished.

So, yeah. Insomnia. It fucking sucks, but at least it’s no longer completely fucking me.

JAB

Earlier this month Warren Ellis wrote a lengthy post in which he — somewhat haphazardly — discussed the lack of original content found on the Web today. That a goodly number of the blogs out there exist basically to collate links from the rest of the Web and share them with the world. Ellis then declared that a change in the equation has become necessary for the Web to continue to mutate and thrive:

The world does not need another linkblog. What is required, frankly, is what we’re supposed to call “content” these days. When I were a lad, back in the age of steam, we called this “original material.” Put another way: we like it when Cory and Xeni are the copy/paste editors for the internet, but we like it better when Cory writes a book and Xeni makes an episode of BoingBoingTV.

Let me say now that I think a blog dedicated to collecting cool links is certainly fine to do and can be damn fascinating. Nothing wrong with it. Indeed, it’s what I’ve done here quite a bit over the years. But I think Ellis has a point. As much as I enjoy poring over a myriad number of blogs for interesting little tidbits, it’s usually more engaging when someone is offering up some sort of original creation — be it a story, a piece of music, or a short movie (Joss Whedon’s “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog” comes immediately to mind).

So I agree with Ellis. The Web would be a more interesting place to hang out if more people used it as the medium in which to inflict their original stuff on the rest of the teeming masses (those masses who, of course, can at least use a computer). That being so, I’ve decided to do my part as a Planeteer and resuscitate this here blog and start posting fiction.

I’m not exactly sure what this entails yet. Probably I’ll start with some older stories I wrote and still like, but for one reason or another wouldn’t be otherwise published. I’ve got a ton of ideas for short shorts which I might sort through and actually write. Excerpts from my longer project might find their way out here as well. Like I said, this is still an idea-in-progress. I’ll stew on it some more and in all likelihood start posting some older stuff to test the waters. However, it is time for this site to evolve.

And like its spawn, it’s high time for the Web to grow up, move onto the next phase of its life. Puberty happened back in the late nineties, when shitty personal sites were the norm and companies couldn’t wrap their corporate heads around having a “web site.” Adolescence has been going on for most of the last decade as far too many trends have popped up and then just as quickly vanished. Now it’s time for the Web to get a grown up job, move out of its parents’ house, and stop going to fetish clubs and find a nice girl or guy to settle down with.

Nah. Scratch that last one. The Web wouldn’t be the Web without its infinitely diverse array of bizarre fetish porn.

JAB

(Updated 8/4/2008: Yeah . . . so I’m not exactly hanging up the spurs as advertised. If you read the next post, you’ll find out my reasons why. What can I say — I’m a hypocrite.)

Yep, that title up there means exactly what you might think it means:

I, Joshua Bales, Esquire, am retiring from the blogging world. What started six and a half, happy-go-lucky years ago, back when the process was more known as “writing in your journal” rather than “blogging,” is now coming to a close.

The reasons are few and relatively simple:

1). Time. I have way less of it now than I did a few years ago. Back when it was just college and part-timin’ at Wal-Mart, I had no cares and all the time in the goddamn world to write about my boring-ass life. It was only when I started at my current employer and joined the poor bastards in the “eight-to-five” hell that my free time began to dwindle. Certainly in the last year and a half, my blogging has dropped off significantly. I’m sure any of you who’ve been keeping up with me over the years have noticed the decline in quantity (but not quality, which has stayed steady as a hand playing Operation). Which ties in with the second reason:

2). A Life. I sort of have one now. Indeed, my social life has more or less normalized in the past two years or so. I have a regular group of friends whom I hang out with quite often, which is sweet. The downside has been that this leaves much less time to blog about the shit I’m doing. (Yes, I am aware of the irony. It’s almost like a temporal recursive loop. Or something.) And when I have free time, I’m not really inspired to write about the shit I’m doing. Which doesn’t really lead into my third point, but what the hell, a shitty transition is better than none.

3.) Writing. I’m trying to do more of it. Yes, I realize that sort of belies the point I’ve been so ineloquently trying to make. However, I’m not talking about autobiographical writing — I’m talking about fiction writing. I’ve been wanting to be a novelist for about as long as I can remember, and I’ve made several not insignificant inroads over the past few years. But not enough to suit me. I’ve been realizing more and more lately that I am not getting any younger. When you’re in your early twenties, it’s fine and dandy to tell one’s self that, “Oh yeah, you’ll definitely be published by the time you’re thirty.” But I’m 26 now. Thirty rapidly approaches like the Huns. (Or the Deadites. Take your pick.) And I am fucking serious about being published by the time I am thirty. Whiling away my time writing in a blog might be fun, but it takes away valuable time I could be spending writing fiction. I’m apparently not talented enough to manage to keep up both like others, or at least at a level I’m happy with. It’s one or the other. And sadly, Books don’t write themselves. (Unless you’re John Fucking Scalzi, an evil warlock if ever I saw one, who goes to sleep at night while his enchanted computers come to life and perform his creative writerly duties for him. Think “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Fantasia, but with a bald guy and dancing devilboxes spitting out pages of prose.) Bottom line: I’d rather be making up stories than making up shit for my blog. And this sort of translates into my next and final point . . .

4.) Fun; or, A Lack Of. I’m sad to say, but writing at JBdN no longer invigorates and intrigues me as it once did. Sure, I still get moments of enjoyment out of it, but for a while I’ve been feeling obligated to write something in here. Certainly not by any of you, but because I felt I should write something. And then, it seemed as though I’d be forcing myself to churn out a post. And that right there is a good enough reason to quit: when something that started out as a fun hobby becomes work, a chore — it’s time to pack it in. If I’m boring myself by writing something, then my reader is certainly going to pick up on it.

So . . . that’s it. I’ve disabled comments on the previous entries, so as to eliminate spam, but left them open on this post. I won’t rule out a return to blogging sometime in the future; who knows, I may suddenly become inspired to start chronicling my exciting life again at some point. Also, JBdN will be up for the indefinite future. This bitch ain’t going nowhere. I may even occasionally post with a life update or if something important happens to me. If you’d care to be notified of such an event, feel free to leave a comment. I can take your email address from that and send out an email if ever I make a new post. This will save you from having to periodically check in here. And you can always drop me an email at josh-at-joshbales-dot-net.

It’s been a fun ride, everyone. I hope none of you die.

JAB

(Updated: I just want it to be noted that this whole post was written in the nude. Because I am a badass.)

Just got back from my first trip to the driving range of the season. My pop and I split a bucket of balls and totally whaled on them. I didn’t do too bad. My drives are, as usual, the strongest part of my games. If I could just hit better with the irons I wouldn’t be too shabby of a player. So that’s my goal this year: not suck goat ass with a 4-iron. Or a 5-iron. Or any of them, preferably.

It should be mentioned that there was a really hot chick there by herself practicing. After watching her for a few moments, my first instinct was to beat her over the head with a 5-iron (since, you know, I suck with the club anyway) and throw her in the back of my dad’s truck. Then I saw her face, saw she was a butterface, and the moment passed. But damn. From behind, bitch was hot.

JAB

Charlton Heston is dead:

Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84.

The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said.

[. . .]

With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. “I have a face that belongs in another century,” he often remarked.

Publicist Michael Levine, who represented Heston for about 20 years, said the actor’s passing represented the end of an iconic era for cinema.

“If Hollywood had a Mt. Rushmore, Heston’s face would be on it,” Levine said. “He was a heroic figure that I don’t think exists to the same degree in Hollywood today.”

Heston was one of my favorite actors. His historical films like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and BEN-HUR were sweet, but my favorites were his later, sci-fi stuff: PLANET OF THE APES, SOYLENT GREEN (which I wrote about here a couple of months ago), and THE OMEGA MAN.

Everyone remembers Heston as a crazy sort of gun nut who chaired the NRA for a number of years, but back in the Fifties he was an activist in the civil rights movement, publicly speaking out against segregation before it was fashionable in Hollywood and marching with Martin Luther Kin Jr in Washington D.C.

Charlton Heston was a badass, a man’s man. His death, though not unexpected, is still very sad news.

JAB

So, yeah. Sorry about the lack of update-yness. I know I made noises about updating this sumbitch on a regular (read: weekly) basis, but other shit got in the way. I got sorta sick, then there’s work, and there’s also been, happily, some Work getting done too. I also try to have some semblance of a life thrown into all of this as well. I promise, though, to endeavor to post at least twice a week. It’s good for me: stretches the writing muscles in a different direction. And, well . . . I like it.

Celebrated St. Patrick’s day last night with Sarah and some of her friends. We went to some bar called Harrigan’s, and there were so many people stuffed into one fairly small space it was CRAZYGONUTS! Seriously, it was packed. Sarah and Jessica had to wrestle the Finnish Men’s Midget Rollerskating team just to wrangle us a table. At least that’s what I heard. We drank, though I not as much as I might have, since I was driving. And I had to drink beer. Which isn’t a terrible thing, but beer does not push me to the drunkies the way liquor does. At least not within my tolerance for the substance. Now if it was All Shots All The Time, the story would have been different. In a slobbering drunk sort of way. Shots are my bread-and-butter, as it were. But not literally. ‘Cause that’s just gross.

Though it does give me the idea for a horrible new drink, the Bread and Butter:

2 oz. Crown Royal
1 oz. Sour Apple Pucker
1 oz. margarine
1/4 slice of wheat bread

Soak the bread in the liquid for a minute, then drink.

Man, that sounds so undelicious. I think I missed my calling; freelance drink designery would be much sweeter than what I’m doing now.

JAB

Well, this is a little bit disappointing:

Nicholas Gurewitch has just announced that he’s retiring his Perry Bible Fellowship comic strip.

Sort of.

“It’s really not as big a deal as it might seem,” Nicholas said today. “I’ll simply be producing comics at a pace I’m more comfortable with.” Monday newspapers publishing his strip received the surprising announcement from the cartoonist. “I’m making this decision for a variety of reasons,” Nicholas told them in an email, “but mainly because I want to do other things besides be a cartoonist.”

The PBF is one of my favorite comics, and not being able to enjoy it on its already semi-monthly schedule will be annoying. There’s nothing else really like it out there. I certainly wish the Dayton Daily News would print it and other more adult-oriented comics. Wouldn’t you love to open your Sunday funnies and see this:

Oh well. At least I have the crazy Internet on which to read this and other witty, unusual comics.

JAB

It’s amazing to me the number of hipster kids that are out there. I see them everywhere. The other day I was getting coffee and two of them sitting next to each other — inside, with scarves wrapped around their neck, sof course — reading the same book: Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk. (Aside: Why do people like that man’s books? I’ve read three of them, and they all were pretty bad. Admittedly, Choke was the best of all three, but it still wasn’t good.) Maybe they were reading it for a class, or, I dunno, a book club. Like “Thoughtful and Angst-y Monthly.” Heh.

Currently, there is a small cluster of them sitting nearby. All are wearing a mixture of tight jeans, band tees, dark-framed glasses, scarves, trendy shoes, long coats, and accessories that run the whole “eclectic” gamut. Two of the girls are hot, but that is irrelevant to my point, though awesome. Glasses on girls is the shit.

It seems to me that in the intervening years since I was in high school, the “goth kids” that were so prevalent have been replaced by the hipster movement — which for the sake of discussion, includes “emo” and “indy.” I know there are still goth kids out there; occasionally, I see them loafing at the Waffle House or being depressed and in my way while I attempt to make a purchase at the book store. But I see them around much less than I did when I was younger. Shit, used to be you couldn’t go to Perkins or Denny’s at 3:00 am without tripping over ten of the pasty, black-clad little bastards. Perhaps emo became the new goth somewhere along the way. That clique was only just burgenoing when I graduated eight years ago. Does that make the indy kids the new punk kids? I still see them around quite a bit, though, with their mohawks and their Chuck Taylors and their Boy Geniuses. Maybe I’m just too old and “out of touch with today’s youth.” Though if being in touch with today’s youth means I have to like the bilge that is Death Cab For Cutie and other such music, which I shall term “pussy rock,” then put me in the nursing home already.

Damn. Three more hipster kids just walked in. I think they belong with the group already congregating. Maybe they’re part of Project Mayhem (Project Gayhem? Anyone? Anyone?”). Certainly enough of them Except I doubt Tyler Durdan would have worn a scarf. Robert Paulson, maybe.

Of course, I’m making these judgments as I sit in a coffee shop, taking a break from the project I’m working on, writing in my blog, while I wear my New Balance and black-framed glasses. Listening to the Juno soundtrack, which is full of folksy and quirky music and is awesome, I realize that I fit into many of the same parameters for hipster kids that I just laid out. But I’m not hipster. I’m not trendy enough, and I don’t have the enthusiasm any more to maintain any sort of image. I find too much of it now to be ridiculous, not cool. And I’m not in school anymore. Once you get a real job (which sucks, but which is besides the point), it seems you leave behind a lot of the “image” baggage you once carried in school.

Is there a category such as Post-Hipster? If so, put me in it.

JAB

Does it make me a bad person because I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the idea behind Soylent Green?

For those who haven’t ever seen it and don’t wish to know the big “secret” of the film, I suggest not reading on. Continue at your own peril. Ye be warned.

Well, I guess I’m really not a nice guy, since I think turning people into processed food is a perfectly marvelous idea. Which is what happens in the dystopic future Soylent Green is set in. (If you’d like to read a nice summary of the film, I suggest Wikipedia.)

This should not, however, be confused with me proclaiming that we should give carte blanche to the Powers That Be to turn old people into food for the rest of us. Though that might be the perfect way to turn homeless people and people constantly on welfare into productive members of society.

Kidding.

First, let me provide a little bit of info about the film so that maybe you’ll understand what the hell I’m talking about. In a horrible future (2022, I believe), the environment is decaying, disease runs rampant, and the world is in the throes of massive overpopulation — so much so, that stairways of apartment buildings are packed full of homeless people — and the government has had to resort to creative, authoritarian methods to keeps things running. Not running smoothly, but just running. One company, the Soylent Corporation, produces these sort of nutrient wafers that feed over half the world’s population. Throughout the film, the main character, a detective (played by my man, Charlton Heston), tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the murder of a man on the Soylent board of directors. Stuff happens, more people die, Heston bangs a hot piece of “furniture” (def. “an attractive young woman who serves as both domestic help and sex object to the rich” — who says the future is all bad, eh? Again with the kidding.) at the dead man’s apartment, and then he winds up at a dead-body-disposal/food-manufacturing plant. Here he discovers, egads, that “Soylent Green is people!”

It’s at this point in the movie that I find myself, not shocked or horrified, but saying, “So what?” I think it’s a great idea that shows foresight, ingenuity, and an ability to make hard decision. As I see it, turning dead people into food for the starving, teeming masses is just another form of recycling. Really, where is the logic in trying to dispose of a bunch of corpses in a future where space is already at a premium? That’s about as logical as sticking your head up a butcher’s ass to get a look at t-bone steak, instead of taking the cow’s word for it.

To be fair, the film does try to twist the knife a little more near the end. Heston prophesies that soon, “they’ll be turning people into cattle.” This could be a valid concern, and I would have some issues with that. Recycling dead people and breeding humans for slaughter are two entirely different matters . . . though both have some merit.

Overall, the film is pretty damn effective. It’s an engaging sci-fi noir, and probably more importantly, it serves as a thoughtful warning of what might happen if the human race keeps on raping the Earth — or waterboarding Gaia, if you prefer — the way it has been since the Industrial Revolution.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make myself a snack. All this talk of food is making me hungry.

JAB

. . . at least that’s what I think I should be saying, except I’m not.

I’ve been stoked about Indy IV since it was first announced, back in ‘00. This excitement has grown exponentially since then, especially this year, since the movie is coming out in a little over three months. The teaser trailer was released today and I just watched it, as you now can below:

And now I’m a little unsettled, like someone’s whispering in my ear but I’m alone. Or like when every time I watch el Jefe Bush speak, my stomach mildly churns, and I wonder, How could so many people have voted for this man . . . twice?

Sure, it makes me all goose-pimplely, as it should. But it just feels . . . off. I don’t know if it’s just that it’s been so damn long since a new Indiana Jones film (nearly 20 years), or if it’s that the bits of film featured in the trailer look too polished. Too cartoony. Almost like a caricature of an Indy film.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. After all, it’s only maybe a minute’s worth of actual footage. The film is still at the rough cut stage; the entire tone of the film could change drastically between now and May 22nd. Regardless, I’ll still be in theaters at midnight on May 21st.

But, man. I still got chills — the good kind — when John Williams’s awesome score faded in . . .

JAB