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25 March 2004 — Middle-Aged Man (21)

Everyone remembers the early-nineties Mike Myers skits from Saturday Night Live. Most people think fondly of "Wayne's World" and of "Coffee Talk" and of "Sprockets". Me? I liked Toonces the Driving Cat and, especially, "Middle-Aged Man".

   

In the "Middle-Aged Man" skits, Myers played a worthless middle-aged superhero (of sorts) and Chris Farley (whom I never liked except maybe a little bit in Tommy Boy) played his sidekick Drinking Buddy.

Each epside — and there were only a few — found Middle-Aged Man in some situation typical of adulthood, a situation which he solved with his middle-aged acuity.

In one episode, for example:

Middle-Aged Man...suddenly appears in the bedroom of a couple where the man has just had an episode of impotence. Middle-Aged Man begins dispensing advice. The man, resentful, says "You know what I think, Middle-Aged Man? I think it's been so long since you had any, you can't even remember what it's like."

"Maybe," Middle-Aged Man says. "But I know how escrow works."

(plot summary via mememachinego)

I always liked "Middle-Aged Man", in part because my own middle age seemed so far away.

You know what?

As of today, I consider myself middle-aged. I am thirty-five. Childhood is a distant memory, and young adulthood has passed away.

I am middle-aged.

We all know that I won't act it, right?

I'm still working on things around here. Many pages are still missing, especially those not auto-generated by Movable Type. There's at least one flaw remaining with the archives. (Sometimes the "recent comments" section causes the sidebar to expand, causing things to look wonky. This doesn't happen in every browser, though.)

Update: E-mail is getting better. Some of the e-mail is going to the old site, and some coming to the new. I'm getting all of it though because I'm a geek and know much geek magic. My priorities for this weekend are to get the archive page repaired, to make the comment confirmation forms look pretty, and to get some of the subsections back up.

Please: if you see a problem, report it to me so that I can try to fix it.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — 36   How a thirty-six-year-old J.D. celebrates...

2003 — 34   Thanks, everyone, for your birthday e-mails, phone calls, and cards.

2002 — 33 and Counting   And now we are thirty-three.

Comments
On 25 March 2004 (11:31 AM), Denise said:

Happy Birthday! You're still older than me! ;)


On 25 March 2004 (01:04 PM), Jeffe said:

Si, los cumpleanos felices, mi hermano viejo! El sitio web parece bueno.

Oye, donde estan las fotografi­as de mi hijo? Actualizara usted el sitio de Noah con las fotografi­as nuevas?


On 25 March 2004 (01:23 PM), Tammy said:

Happy Birthaday to you!


On 25 March 2004 (01:55 PM), Mom (Sue) said:

I can't get my head around the fact that you're 35. It seems just yesterday that your dad and then I were your age. I don't see any signs of mid-life crisis in you, unless you're disguising it well. -G- In fact, I believe you are one of the most well-adjusted 35-year-olds I've known. Have a happy, happy day, my fine #1 son!


On 25 March 2004 (02:00 PM), Courtney said:

Happy, happy birthday. Cheers to you!


On 25 March 2004 (02:27 PM), J.D. Roth said:

Here's my reverse-birthday present to you.

I through together a quick collection of songs in iTunes this morning and ended up with a surprisingly good mix. (It's damn good, actually; I've listened to it 4-1/2 times now.) These are all songs that I've recently purchased from iTunes with Pepsi caps (and with a cooler-than-cool gift certificate from Mac).

I'd love other suggestions of cool new music that you've recently discoverered. Mainstream pop or obscure world music: it's all good. (Except that just now, as I began to write the track list, iTunes crashed again, brining the whole Mac down with it. This happens all the time. I don't care how good iTunes is, if it crashes constantly it's worthless.)

The mix:

  1. This Love by Maroon 5: a fun and funky beat I can't help dancing (well, swaying) to
  2. Cherry Blossom Girl by Air: nice, airy almost-ambient stuff that I'm prone to like
  3. Knowing Me, Knowing You by The Bad Plus: ABBA redone as modern jazz — surprisingly good
  4. Paint it Black by Vanessa Carlton: better than it ought to be
  5. Bombay by The Sea and Cake: light and jazzy but it doesn't make any sense
  6. Cold Hard Bitch by Jet: hard rock is making a come-back thanks to great songs like this — "Cold hard bitch! just a kiss on the lips and I was on my knees..."
  7. Smells Like Teen Spirit by The Bad Plus: Nirvana redone as modern jazz — surprisingly good
  8. Fool On the Hill/Nature Boy by Peter Cincotti: solid piano-tinkling breaks up the pace of this mix
  9. In the Cold, Cold Night by The White Stripes: this is almost bad, but somehow it's not
  10. 100 Years by Five For Fighting: it doesn't get anymore radio-friendly than this, but I like it
  11. Hey Mama by Black Eyed Peas: totally not what I normally listen to, but why not?
  12. I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness: is that Freddy Mercury singing lead vocals?
  13. Heart of Glass by The Bad Plus: say it with me — "Blondie redone as modern jazz — surprisingly good"
  14. I Do by Jude: oh so mellow folk guitar stuff with some awful lyrics — easy on the ears
  15. Hey Ya! by OutKast: how can you not love this song? "Shake it, shake it, sh-sh-shake it!"
  16. Cantaloop by US3: Kris and I love this song
  17. Every Breath You Take by The Bad Plus: The Police redone as modern jazz — surprisingly good
  18. Modern Love is Automatic by A Flock of Seagulls: an awesome 80s tune
  19. Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet: this song is so damn good — if this is the new sound of heavy metal, bring it on!

Oh look. Those nineteen songs will just fit on an eighty minute CD. Isn't that convenient? Happy birthday to you!


On 25 March 2004 (02:46 PM), Denise said:

Hey, J.D. - burn that mix on one of my CDs you got, eh? That'd be great!


On 25 March 2004 (03:19 PM), Mom (Sue) said:

J.D., you haven't said, but I'm assuming and hoping that you have taken the day off . . .?


On 25 March 2004 (04:18 PM), Tammy said:

Hate to bug ya jd but since there's no email I have to keep posting here. Comments are being lost on my site. Emails are coming in of people wondering why there comment from yesterday is no longer there. My one entry is full of comments from your entry on "Cousins". Somethings highly amiss I fear!


On 25 March 2004 (06:33 PM), Amy Jo said:

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!

Amy Jo, Paul, Hanna, and Ruby


On 25 March 2004 (07:25 PM), dowingba said:

There's no way to get around that expanding sidebar problem. It's not supposed to happen with CSS, of course, but Internet Explorer (the only browser on which this happens) is a worthless piece of crap. On every other browser, if there's a big long string of characters, they'll just continue outside of the box, without affecting your layout at all.

By the way, now that there's actually content here, I'm loving this design. Nice work!


On 25 March 2004 (07:30 PM), J.D. Roth said:

Thanks, dowingba. Credit where it's due, though: most of the skeleton was borrowed, without permission, from Dan at Hivelogic.

I think it's important to heap much praise upon his site and his work.

Go read Hivelogic...

Update: I've asked and received permission from Dan Benjamin to use his framework on this site. I'm much indebted to him for allowing me to do this...


On 25 March 2004 (07:38 PM), Drew said:

I'll give you a healing potion for a birthday present. Merry, merry!


On 25 March 2004 (07:45 PM), mac said:

happy birthday J.D. I'm glad you got the itunes certificate, I didn't know you were changing your site and having email problems until after I sent it to you. Now, do you want that computer too???


On 25 March 2004 (07:46 PM), mac said:

oh yeah, I love the new design


On 25 March 2004 (07:49 PM), Eryk said:

Almost had an orgasm when I loaded the site. Lookin' good! (Oh, and happy birthday ;) )


On 30 March 2004 (08:20 AM), Amanda said:

Happy happy belated birthday! 35 is not middle aged (says the 30 year old girl).


On 24 May 2004 (04:16 PM), Lilly said:

cool!! (im) take off the extra stuff


On 24 May 2004 (04:16 PM), Lilly said:

cool!! (im) take off the extra stuff


On 24 May 2004 (04:16 PM), Lilly said:

cool!! (im) take off the extra stuff


On 25 May 2004 (09:21 AM), mac said:

J.D. I'm using IE version 6.0.2 and when I try an look at the comments from the Flotch section, the text color is the same as the background--so I can't read them. I only figured this out one day when I tried to hi-lite the comments and wow! I found the missing text. Has anyone else noticed this?


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