James Ashman

There’s a funny show called Chuck that I’m sure more than enough people watch.

It’s not very realistic.
The humor is quirky.
The stories swing between melodramatic and silly.

And it’s fantastic as such. In all the years it’s been on it’s dabbled in being different than it started, yet hasn’t ever strayed too far.

Granted, the main character has gone from skittish geek to super nerd who can fight, but it was never a show titled: The man with the Supercomputer Brain. It’s called, simply: Chuck. The boy who’s a genius, but not always confident. The guy who can be confident, only to get shot down. The guy who’s plans are sometimes brilliant but ruined. And as always, things end up working out. Even if it does require a character appearing out of nowhere to knock out a bad guy. Hey, nothing earlier said it couldn’t happen, so it’ll happen.

For such a silly show, I’m impressed. A while ago I was worried maybe they were going to get too serious and dramatic. And they have strong, serious episodes like that. And then they alternate that with something out of left field.

And most importantly: it stays enjoyable to watch if you keep your expectations in line. It’ll throw twists and turns, but if you have the basic ideas of the show down, you’ll always enjoy it. So many shows, books, etc., forget this. Or think that they need to completely 180 the makeup of their entertainment to somehow revitalize it. Wrong. Add flair, add plot twists, add drama. But all as seasonings. Don’t change out your wheat bread for white, that’s entirely different. Instead, keep the wheat toast, just change from the “I can’t believe it’s not butter!” and honey to real butter and jam. Essence is the same, but this weeks plot is filled with “such and such” instead of “this and that.”

All in all, it’s a show that doesn’t actually take itself seriously, even though the episodes themselves can seem quite serious. That’s a wonderful thing. They don’t care if a certain technology could feasibly exist, they just want to do a story/plot and roll with it.

And I’m all for that. I love it when entertainment blatantly throws reality out the window, but never claims to have left earth. Where plot devices can be anything, as long as it gets the job done.

I think this runs contrary to a trend of “explain it so it seems real somehow” that’s plagued some games and movies I’ve seen. I don’t need to hear that the reason the spaceship can travel faster than light is because the alpha decay of a proton has a resonance effect on element number 132 that is stable when held at 0.0000000001 kelvin, and as a result can tear through the fabric of spacetime. I need to hear: FTL engines engaged, we’ll be there in two hours.

That’s why I find myself going: “Hah, no way” when watching Chuck. The HAH is much more important. I think someone over there knows that. And though it’s still a quirky show, I can sit back, not care, and be pleasantly surprised with a relatively happy ending and follow that up with the usual / possible cliffhanger. I know it’s coming. It’s still fun.

Well that was fun! I got up from laying on the couch for several hours and sleeping, and went up to the room I have. Just as I entered, my phone started ringing!

Great timing, cause it was the HR person at one of the places I applied for a job at. She was friendly and had also lived in California, and we had a pleasant conversation. I did unfortunately have to mention that currently it appears I’m only going to be both temporary and part-time, if used, so that might be a deal-killer, I think. I hope not, it’d be good to have something temporary.

Though, if they want someone really good for 6 months before having to settle for less (Yeah Right!) come look my way.

And with that, the casual notice when searching craigslist: Any job offer that asks for a credit check immediately (especially if its in a non-flight and non-financial field), is likely a scam. Especially when they link to a certain website at which to check your credit.

But it’d be nice to get some income going. Hopefully something pans out. I’ll have to keep checking daily now. Oh well.

I had a pretty good beer with dinner tonight, a Black and Tan by Yuengling Brewery. First I’ve had of it, and it was good. However, I noticed on the bottle it said it was America’s oldest brewery, from 1829, and I had to chuckle a bit at the thought of the oldest American beer possibly being Chinese, as that’s what the name would be.

Nope, it’s German, once I looked it up. No fascinating backstory about a Chinese worker from the railroads (I figured the year might be off anyways, but had to check) starting a brewery, though that’d be amazing. It’s simply what was the american version of the German words for “young man.” Looked at it again, and sure enough, it looks like how you’d say youngling.

And now another fun fact from Wikipedia on this brewery. It makes our current president, Barack Obama’s, favorite beer.

Always interesting to learn a piece of history. And to enjoy a good brew.

Getting used to another coast does take some effort.

Especially when you’re the kind of person that’s used to going to sleep just after midnight, Pacific time. Even with some incredible amounts of exhaustion (no forcefully staying awake and trying to use that to sleep at the “normal” time to try and reset), getting a sleep schedule is a pain. About 3 or 4 in the morning here is what would be the best time of night in CA. Well, it took about 3 days of sleeping whenever, and 3 days of forcefully waking up earlier, to start getting used to it. Still, it’s almost like the days of work used to be, giving me a rather dull fog for a while. Still, far better than driving, sleeping a couple hours, and driving again.

My total journey from Sacramento, CA, to New Jersey, took just under 70 hours, from Friday at 1 PM EST and arrived Monday at 8 AM EST. I slept Friday night for 6, Saturday night for 3, and napped a couple times Sunday during the day for about 2 hours a piece, and must have been on the road at least 10 hours straight throughout the night, mostly passing through Pennsylvania from 1 AM to 8 AM, around there, give or take.

It’s not something I’d care to repeat, that’s for sure. It takes a pretty big toll on you. But it was interesting to do. You learn a bit, and I could see it being somewhat fun to go across the country, just not in the form of going across the I-80 in record time. Or using I-80 for much of anything, since Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Iowa, and Pennsylvania all have a grand total of maybe 5 places to stop and go see if you don’t want to stray more than 10 miles from I-80, not much to see otherwise.

Well I took off yesterday, about 11 MST, and arrived at Salt Lake City around 9 MST, and decided that for the first day, at the very least, I’d try sleeping in a cheap hotel room. It was still tough to find something below 70$ to sleep at, ridiculous as it is, but it was decent for getting some access to the internet and sleeping in a bed. Though it appears I’m not one to adjust to random beds easily, so the sleep wasn’t the greatest, though still better than a couch pull-out bed.

Yesterday I got through the end of California and all of Nevada. Leaving CA looks pretty nice, green forests, high roads that are at a constant incline, etc.

Nevada, on the other hand, is just terrible. It was long, boring, and brown, incredibly brown. The entire place is a desert, especially the area around the I80 apparently. My goal for yesterday was to get through all of Nevada, so that’s down. It was to also get through Utah, and now that I look at a map, getting to SLC is actually pretty decent. There’s much less of Utah to get through, it’s a good thing I pushed through last night. Truthfully, going through Nevada and Utah at night would be pretty awful, the freeway is long and has no lights on it. Also it can seem at times there is no one around, though every so often you get to pass by some truckers.

Up next is Wyoming and Nebraska. To get from here to Omaha, NE, is 933 miles, or 14 hours of driving. Though I’ve got a bit of cheap food, it looks like staying at the Days Inn means a free breakfast. This place isn’t bad, though a bit outta the way. Though I wont get a start on driving till after 9:30 or so, I should still be able to make decent progress on getting to Omaha. Depending on the conditions I may drive later into the night than yesterday, now that I’m used to it.

Well today is my last day in California. Tomorrow morning I head on on a drive across America, to a new place to live. A new coast. Someone such as I, who has been out of CA a total of 6 weeks in my life, and over a month of those weeks under the age of 10, finally leaving the state I grew up in. And good riddance. Drastic changes are fine by me. I think I’ve had enough of CA and what it’s had to offer over the years.

And who knows what’ll come of this. Maybe good, maybe bad, but still no worse, still the possibility of better. And with effort, you can only make things better.

I do hope to start writing seriously again, to get a new schedule down, a new way of working through life. And hopefully, a significantly enhanced amount of joy.

Has my internet gone? Well, still here, but it’ll be gone tomorrow. It’s definitely been a while since I’ve gone any length of time without constant internet access on a main computer.

Now I’ll have a week without much more than a tethered connection, and even after that for a week or two, a connection that I wouldn’t use much, and then probably a week after that, a real connection again. So up to a month… possibly. I’m gonna fall behind on several things to watch, that’s for sure, though it doesn’t matter that much.

Time to read and write and see some things I’ve got put aside. As well as getting everything I have either trashed or packed. Might have a buyers for 1 of the 2 pieces of furniture I have left that I really need to get rid of that I can’t just throw away, so there’s another thing down. But this might make a few more things harder to do. Just gotta work with what I have.

Next post’s from a laptop, I guess.