2010: year of immense productivity

well, it's almost over. 2oo9. it was a great year. a lot of people will remember it as a lousy year. they'll talk about some "recession" or something. but, for me, it was a great year. maybe the best of all my years. that's debatable. but it was great. that's not debatable.

i like to theme all my years. last year was "2oo9: the year it all really started to happen" and i think that was pretty fitting. i've got a lot of things going on now that i'm proud of and a lot of them started in 2oo9. i feel like i've really gotten on track this past year. i hope to keep that momentum. that's why i've titled this year "2o1o: year of immense productivity." i'm going to be twice as busy this year and thrice as productive. i'm going to do SO MUCH STUFF. people will say, "jeepers, where did you find the time to do all this stuff?" and i will answer them, "2o1o. i found the time in 2o1o. that's where it was. and i found it." they will be amazed.

bulletin board

in most of my bedrooms throughout my life, i've had a bulletin board. they've all been cluttered with funny pictures, ideas, articles, etc. this is the first apartment where i haven't had one. i finally got one and, i don't know, it's just not happening. it's like with my old bulletin boards, they always just seemed to have tons of crap on them. i don't really remember actually putting it up. so this one isn't coming so easy. it's been up for over two weeks and all i have up there is a fortune i found in a cookie that i ate at a vietnamese restaurant.

grow-a-frog

so, as a joke (sort of), my brother got me a grow-a-frog for christmas. you get the kit in the mail and then send away for a tadpole and watch it grow. he got one for my younger brother about 15 years ago. it came with 2 tadpoles. it was fun for my little brother because he was like 7 at the time. the 2 tadpoles grew into 2 big fat frogs. my mom hated them. they had marbles at the bottom of their tank and apparently, one ate a marble and had a marble-sized protrusion in his lower intestine for the rest of his life. as child-scientists, we hypothesized that it would either a)poop out the marble; or b)never poop again and grow too big to fit in the tank. the frog stunned the science world by doing nothing at all.

anyway, years later, my little brother got sick of the frogs and gave them to my aunt who is an elementary school science teacher. and i guess one of the frogs is still alive to this day. so this is a christmas gift that keeps on giving. for FIFTEEN years.

want to learn more about grow-a-frog?
they have see-thru skin! so you can see how frogs work ON THE INSIDE. also, these aren't frogs made by god. they are only made by frog scientists. that's how they are GUARANTEED to GROW!

xmas gifts/fear factor

when my friends kienan and mamilly were on their way to visit me, they got trapped in an airport in dallas for about 6 hours. to kill the time, they got me some christmas presents. one was a clock with a cowboy on a horse in the middle of it. and below the part that tells time, there are little boots. and on top, there's this thing around it that's supposed to look like a lasso.

they also got me a sucker with a scorpion in it. kienan got one for himself too so that we could both experience them. "don't they have poison in them?" i asked about the scorpions. kienan told me that was his first question too. the lady at the airport gift shop assured him that the poison had been taken out.
so we ate those stupid things. or we started to anyway, we got down to the part where we could feel the actual scorpion. by that point, the sucker had gone from tasting kind of gross to tasting really gross. and the scorpion was just really hard and scratchy. eventually, we just gave up on them. not because we're scaredy-cats, but because eating scorpions is gross.

that's the thing that always annoyed me about shows like "fear factor." remember that show? it was this dumb show where the point was supposed to be that you were overcoming fears or something and if you won, they'd be like "fear is NOT a factor for you, buddy!" but most of the time they would just make people eat live worms or ox penises. i hated it because that's not scary. i'm not afraid of eating ox penises. i just choose not to because i'm not a gay ox. just kidding. gays don't eat penises. but you know what i mean. eating stuff you don't want to eat isn't a fear. the show should've had challenges like "tell a girl you like her" or "ask your boss for a raise" or "tell your landlady that the light in your room doesn't work and hasn't for months." THAT would be a scary show.

lego motorcycles

you know what my friend nicole got me for christmas? she got me these little lego guys who ride lego motorcycles and they have lazer guns on their lego motorcycles. and one has an eyepatch and gold teeth and a golden dinosaur riding on his lego motorcycle. he's the one i want to be when i grow up.

pbr light

did you know that pabst blue ribbon light is a beer? well it is. and it's refreshing. even the colors on the can are refreshing. the colors on the can are: blue, white, light blue, silver. refreshing.
what also makes it refreshing is that i think there might be zero alcohol in it. me and my friend kienan had about four or five of them and just felt a little sluggish. my friend kienan is in town right now. he and his friend memily. we've been seeing the sites. there are many sites in los angeles. so we are busy. so i have to go now.

opples and bononos

so when i was in school, i did this big project. i wrote this script and shot it and it was supposed to be funny and amazing and make all of my wildest dreams come true. and my friends patrick rule and chris desanty helped me a bunch and my friend pete even flew from cincinnati to boston to help shoot it and patrick and i wrote songs for it and basically it turned out to be sort of funny but too long and weird and dumb.

anyway, here's one scene from the movie. i think it's funny. but what do i know?

oh, i also put dogfight and hams&cheeses on youtube. i think those are funny too.

x-mas presents

my friends grug and karen gave me gifts. a teddy bear and a christmas ornament. you can see the ornament in the picture. it's the one to the right of the bear. not the one that looks like a gift. it's the one to the right of that. it's sort of a ball. but not. sort of a top, i guess. i don't know what it is. anyway, it was nice of them. they're always doing generous things like that. they also cook really fancy meals and bring wine over when they visit. they're pretty grown up. i'm not. i never bring anything. half the time, i don't even show up. i'm a dick. but that's all gonna change. someday.

or maybe it won't. who knows? i can't predict the future.

regrets

if i could go back and do it all over again, i think it would've been awesome to be the cool camp counselor. i feel like i'd do a great job. but i'm just too old. that's the type of job you have to do when you're like 18 or 19. i wouldn't've been very good at it when i was that young. i didn't know what the hell i was doing back then. i was too young when i was that young. now i'm old enough. but in human years, i'm just too old. it's unfortunate when things don't match up like that.

silver bells? no. taco bell.

so, you know how on thanksgiving this year, i ate burger king? well, continuing in that tradition of battling holiday loneliness with fast food, i had taco bell for dinner this christmas eve. i chose to go with two cheesy gordita crunches, a medium mountain dew, and a medium glass of wine. the wine didn't come from taco bell. it came from my good friend and roommate adam shoonkoof. it was a surprise. not a christmas gift. he was pouring some for himself and his romantic guest. he and his romantic guest are in the other room right now. so i am hiding in my bedroom. blogging.

blogging is a funny thing to say. "what are you doing tonight?" "blogging." that's funny.

merry christmas

i know it's a couple of days early, but ted danson really wanted me to pass this along to you guys. he's such a christmas fanatic. last year, he MADE me open my present from him a whole WEEK before christmas. he just couldn't stand the wait anymore.

heaven

this is what everyone looks like in heaven. the hospital gowns aren't mandatory. but they're pretty comfortable.

got a hankerin' for a doughnut

last night, i had a hankering for a doughnut. this was a strange hankering. i do not often hanker for doughnuts. but man alive, last night's was a strong hankering. so i walked to my local donut house and purchased two doughnuts. they were delicious. if you haven't had a doughnut in awhile, do yourself a favor: have a doughnut.

shortest day of the year

today is the winter solstice, which means, today the sun barely does anything! it's like a half-day for him. he comes in late, he goes home early. it's getting out of hand. but tomorrow ... i have a feeling that tomorrow, that's all gonna turn around. tomorrow the sun's gonna get up a little earlier. not super early, but earlier than today. and the sun's gonna slowly get his strength back. the sun's gonna start jogging again, trying to eat better. it's a long road ahead, but i believe in him. my guess is that six months from now, we're gonna be seeing the sun beating the hell out of us with terrible heat and 16 hour days. i believe in the sun.

backflips

i can't do a backflip (right now) but, i mean, it's pretty cool that humans can do backflips. like, it's cool we're designed to be able to do that. do you know what i mean? not DESIGNED TO do backflips. i don't think our sole purpose in life is to do backflips but ... wait, what if our sole purpose in life is to do backflips?

I'VE WASTED SO MUCH TIME!

i'm back in time

so sometimes i accidentally go back in time. what happens is i find myself in an environment similar to one in which i have been before and, suddenly, memories come back to me so strongly that they feel as if they are happening again.

i've got this space heater in my room now because it's cold. anyway, back in january 2004, i had an even colder bedroom. so i had a space heater then as well. it was the first time i had had my own room in several years. i was excited. here's what i did with that freedom: i painted my walls bright yellow and, each night, i watched a VHS copy of Hook as i ate Little Debbie Fudge Rounds and drank Capri Suns until i fell asleep. this was an almost nightly ritual for me. i was determined to remain childlike. which was absurd considering how unhealthily immature i was to begin with. it was like one of those tattoos of a snake eating itself. only the tattoo was me. and the snake was Hook. and instead of eating itself, it was eating fudge rounds and drinking capri suns.

anyway, the point is: i have this space heater cranking out heat and a burnt-plastic-smell directed at my bed. the smell and feel of it really take me back. i find myself craving fudge rounds, capri suns, and Hook. i was an idiot back then. here's what i looked like in those days:

disguises are easy

don't want people to recognize you? it's easy! just add/subtract one item of clothing and/or facial hair. examples: add a pair of glasses, take off those sideburns, wear an ascot, etc.

want to go super deep undercover? change two things! it's the oldest trick in the book. clark kent, that white guy who pretended to be superman, all he did was take off his glasses and work clothes.

which brings me to my next point, another smart move for disguising yourself: wear superhero clothes under your work clothes.

just say no

literally the worst thing you can do in this situation is just stand there like an idiot.

it'd suck to be colorblind

i hope i never go colorblind. can that happen? or do people only get born with it?

feng shui, that's why.

yesterday, i rearranged my whole bedroom. now, instead of having the bed in the corner, like a sane person, my bed is right smack in the middle of the room. why? because a feng shui website told me to put it there.

look out world! my life is going to be awesome from here on out!

the results are in

and the sandwich ingredient most likely to be left out of the refrigerator after i finish making my sandwich is:

MUSTARD!

that guy never gets back into the fridge until after i eat, finish watching whatever tv show i'm watching, go to put my plate by the sink, and then say 'dammit i forgot to put the mustard back in the fridge.'

bike

the last time i owned a bike, i lived in indianapolis. i lived with two friends. we all owned bikes. then someone broke into our sunroom and stole our bikes. it was a real bummer. we had to call the police. they sent an officer to our house to check it out and file a report. he had a funny name but i can't remember what it was. maybe officer christmas. i can't remember.

anyway, i haven't owned a bike since.

inspirational posters

i was just looking online for inspirational posters. here are my favorites:
this is the most stereotypical/most awesome motivational poster. i feel like going for it every time i look at this picture. i don't even care what "it" is. "it" could be my dinner, "it" could be watching tv, "it" could even be skiing right off of a huge cliff. i don't care. i'm going for it.
this is by far the nerdiest. only the the nerdiest of the nerds would ever fall for this poster. the "go for it" poster is cool because it tricks the wild kids into thinking they should "go for" other things. this one just appeals to nerds. and only encourages them to continue to be nerds.
this one is just so weird. like "give it your best! why? ... because ... um ... usa?"

anyway, i wasn't satisfied with what i found, so i made my own inspirational poster. check it out.

footless joe jackson

doesn't it look like i don't have a right foot in this picture? i didn't photoshop that. i was just wearing black socks. OPTICAL ILLUSION!

also, if i ever write a book, i want this to be the photo in the back next to the "about the author" thing. and all i want it to say is Nic Michaels wrote a book. what did you ever do that was so great?

mom comes through again

just the other day, i was driving home from work, listening to the radio station that plays only christmas music for the month of december, trying to get into the x-mas spirit. i could tell i was forcing it. it bummed me out a little. typically, i'm super siked for christmas. but i'm not going home for christmas this year. so it's basically just going to be a day off from work. which happens once or twice a week anyway.

but after i got home from this bummer of a car ride, i found a package outside my apartment. it was from my mom. inside was a miniature christmas tree, or a "Charlie Brown tree", as it is referred to in my family. she even packed some ornaments, a string of lights, candy canes, and an extension cord.

christmas miracle!

rainbow and arrow

one of several strange things about living in southern california is: seldom rainfall. it's nice in some ways because if you're planning on walking somewhere, you never have to worry about your suede shoes getting wet. but it's also annoying in some ways because my car never gets clean.

but one thing that's cool about it is that rainbows seem extra special when they happen here. my friend margaret took this picture with her phone! can you believe it? a phone that takes pictures! where am i, CRAZYLAND??? hang on, i'm gonna write an email to my friend in prague using this SWEATER VEST!

i'm just messin' with ya. i don't have a sweater vest.

remember

that's a fact.

drawing upside down

i drew this upside down. drawing things upside down makes you draw in a way that doesn't look like your normal way of drawing. i just thought of this: if you ever need to disguise your handwriting for whatever reason ... write upside down.

upside down is a weird phrase. what do they call upside down in other languages? i just tried to find information on the phrase "upside down" and the internet was NO HELP.

inside out is a similarly weird phrase.

man i'm bored.

noseface

my friend axel is from germany. when he was a kid, he was visiting holland with his dad. his dad, as a joke, told him you could tell dutch people from germans because the dutch all have noses right in the middle of their faces. axel, being a kid (kids are stupid), believed him. he started noticing that dutch people really all had noses RIGHT in the middle of their faces while the non-dutch had noses ... i don't know ...elsewhere.

i wish that nose-location was really what made people of different races and nationalities look different. for instance, the dutch have noses right in the middle of their faces. the germans have noses on the side of their heads. people from the united states have noses in the middle of their necks.

my niece is awesome

my niece sent me this drawing. this thanksgiving drawing. it's a bunch of people standing around, smiling, with their arms outstretched (that's how we do thanksgiving in my family). somewhere in the group, a head was drawn and then crossed out, then kind of erased. now, some people might assume she started to draw another person, and then decided she was tired of drawing people. or maybe she thought, "nah, fourteen people is a good number." but no. Ally is smarter than that. she knew exactly what she was doing. the slightly erased head clearly represents my absence at this year's thanksgiving feast. she just drew everyone smiling and having fun without me to show that they don't need me to have a good time. even the sun is laughing it up. and then she had my brother mail it to me just so i'd feel like a dick.

i see the secret message, Ally, and i read it loud and clear. but just you wait for my response drawing. it's going to be this elaborate picture of us all standing around, smiling, arms outstretched, having a great time BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. because, man, that's when thanksgivings were REALLY fun.

just kidding. my niece is awesome.

schoolpants one year anniversary!

it's been a year since the first post. can you believe it? i can. because i checked. i looked back to see what the date was on the first post and it was december 3, 2008. then i asked my computer what today's date was and Computer told me december 3, 2009. so, yes. i can believe it. because my Computer tells me so.

to celebrate our first anniversary, i put on two neckties, cut a hole in my throat, and painted a self-portrait.

we've had some good times over the last year haven't we, friends? no? well, we've had some weird times. and let me tell you something: if you thought this past year full of weird blog posts, then buckle your safety belts! because it's the law! click it or ticket! - ronald mcdonalds.

that ted danson

today the tv was on and i was in the other room. i heard the voice of a familiar friend. i thought to myself, "is cheers on?" and went to check it out. it wasn't cheers. it was becker. that's when i remembered "becker's not a bad show!" then i thought about how i like ted danson on curb your enthusiasm and bored to death. and i realized, for the first time ever, i'm a ted danson fan. it was a weird thing to realize.

also, i realized, you know how some people who you know or even just see, you think they look like someone famous? like you might have a friend who sort of looks like tom selleck without the mustache. or you might see a guy on the train who looks a lot like harrison ford. well, i realized that i don't think i've seen ANYONE who looks like ted danson. no other human on the planet resembles this dude.

avocado seeds

avocado seeds look like tiny wooden dinosaur eggs, am i right?

ugh, mondays, am i right?

here's a scene from the hit movie "garfled: pig in the city."

INT. KITCHEN - MONDAY MORNING

Garfled: ugh. mondays are the worst.
Monday: i'm sick of you bitching about what day it is.
Garfled: ugh, where's my coffee? i want some fettuccine. i hate mondays.
Monday: you know, if you go through life hating mondays, you will hate at least 1/7 of your life.
Garfled: ugh. i'm going back to bed.

Garfled exits kitchen with a bowl of fettuccine.

Sean Arbuckled appears from his hiding spot in the cabinet.

Sean: i heard what happened, Monday.
Monday: just leave me alone, Sean.
Sean: it's not your fault you know. if he's not excited about his plans for today, that's his problem. it's not fair to blame it on a day of the week.
Monday: can it, Sean! i'm not in the mood!

Monday sneezes.

Sean: bless you.
Monday: that wasn't a sneeze! it was a cough!
Sean: sorry. it sounded like a sneeze.
Monday: (crying) it was a sneeze. i was just too embarrassed to tell you.

Sean and Monday hug.

Garfled walks by wearing sunglasses.

Garfled: i'm gonna catch some rays!

audience laughter, applause, fade to black.

mom

i know i've been talking about Thanksgiving a lot lately. but that's what's on my mind. Thanksgiving is a big deal in the United States and that's where i am right now.

anyway, my mom is awesome because she shipped me a bunch of Thanksgiving food that she made all by herself. and it is good. she is good at making stuff. and she is nice about sharing it with me. and for that, i am thankful.

hot dog salad

tonight, for dinner, i was making hot dogs. and i was thinking about how they cook better in the frying pan when you cut them up into small bits. i know this because that's how i cook them when i put them in mac n' cheese. but i didn't have mac n' cheese. and i didn't have hot dog buns. and i don't like using pieces of bread as hot dog buns. because come on. it's just not the same.

so i thought to myself: why not just mash it all up together? that's how it ends up in my stomach anyway. so i cut up the hot dogs into bits so they cooked better and i ripped up some bread and squirted a bunch of ketchup and mustard in there and mixed it all up. and, thus, the Hot Dog Salad was born.
it did NOT taste very good. i do NOT recommend it. but to be honest, i WILL probably make this stupid concoction again someday because i AM stupid.

SNAP (tiny card game)

as i mentioned in an earlier post, i won a tiny card game called SNAP at a thanksgiving party. i had never heard of SNAP, so i pulled out the card to see what kind of game it was. before reading the instructions, i figured i'd just look at the cards to see if the game was self-explanatory. the very first card i saw read "ride-a-cock horse."
i don't want to play this game.

another thing about thanksgiving

i forgot to tell you about another reason thanksgiving didn't feel like thanksgiving. i had to take my friend patrick to the airport that morning before i went to work. i was worried traffic was going to be an issue, so we left really early. on the way, we realized that normal people weren't working on thanksgiving. so there was almost NO traffic at all. and we got to the airport way too early. so we went to the burger king by the airport and had a disgusting breakfast. it was funny. it's funny to be eating at a burger king on thanksgiving morning. we had a ball. and talked about how we'd remenisce years later on that great thanksgiving morning feast we spent together in 2009 ... at burger king ... by the airport.

we didn't take a picture, but this is probably what we looked like.

this thanksgiving, i became a man

the title of this post is probably misleading. i'm sure most of you are thinking, "he got bar mitzvahed?" sorry to get your hopes up. no, i did NOT get bar mitzvahed. i'm waiting for marriage.

but i did have my first thanksgiving not at home. it was weird. and not weird. both at the same time! it was not weird because it just felt like another day. but it was weird because i knew my family was hanging out without me. and it was also weird because i realized this is what happens when you grow up. you sometimes miss holidays with your family. because you don't live in the same town as them. and you have a shitty job and you have to work on the holidays.

but the good news is: jon, from work, invited me to tag along to his thanksgiving potluck dinner in griffith park. it was cool. my friend, eric, gave me two guinnesses from his 6pack. a bunch of people i had never met gave me delicious food. we saw a deer and two coyotes. the cops shined lights at us. AND there were prizes! i won a pencil, a set of friendship bracelets, a duck made out of a basketball, and a tiny deck of cards that you can only play one game with.

i am thankful.

robo-dance team by p.rule

artist, musician, and friend to the animal kingdom, patrick rule, drew this picture. he left it at my apartment. i will now write an accompanying poem, by the same title:

Robo-Dance Team
poem by nic
illustration by patrick

Alone, they were fun-loving misfits
"let's get together," suggested Biscuits.
"That's not the way of the robot," insisted Todd.
Input agreed with a nod.
"Robots are loners," said Todd in his B-boy stance.
"That's true," said Input, "but we all do the same dance."

The other Todd thought that was a very good point
and he said, "let's light up this joint*!"
He and Input danced in a such a way
that inspired the others to dance with them and to this day,
they are a team.
a team of dancing robots.

*the dancefloor. not marijuanah.

happy thanksgivings

this is schoolpants's first thanksgiving. i am thankful for that. and i'm thankful for you. and i'm thankful for pants. because where would we be without pants? the garden of eden. and that place doesn't exist anymore. food for thought. speaking of food, who loves thanksgiving food? i do! hot dogs, cheeseburgers, garlic bread, mmm yum. i'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

just kidding. i was already hungry.

is this a smart purchase?

so i'm on ebay looking for some 1984 summer olympics memorabilia because: a) i like this logo

b) i like sam the olympic eagle
and c) i'm an idiot.

but i found this pin. it's sam the eagle, holding a shotgun, wearing shooting glasses, ear muffs, and a pouch on his belt that i can only assume holds whiskey and ammunition.
it's probably the coolest pin i've ever seen. but i've bought dumb stuff on ebay before and i've regretted buying some of it. i can't tell if this is a stupid purchase or not. i mean, how does one know these things? how does one KNOW?