It’s apparently that time again – that time when I realize it’s been a month or more since I last posted to the blog. I realize I use this website for more then just a blog (though not necessarily much more), but since this is the face of it, I really should take the time to write up a brief post every now and then.

So let’s see. I guess the biggest thing, related to this site anyway, is that I’ve begun working on “Interdementia”. While the menu still says “Interdementianal” I think I’m going to change the name to “Interdementia”. I’d say it has a better flow, though “Interdemential” I think might better convey what the story is about. Ultimately, though, I think people will get enough of the idea from “Interdementia”. Currently work has only begun on one of the main story threads, and I plan to weave several of them together. What I haven’t yet decided is if I’ll ultimately present each thread seperately, or interweave them together. For now, though, I’ll concentrate on this thread, and provide it on a semi-regular basis, hopefully. It likely will not have been proofread, so expect typos and other things. I’ll eventually clean it up, and probably flesh it out more. I think some of the earlier bits are a big dialog heavy, and could use some additional descriptions, but we’ll see.

And now it’s bedtime…so I’ll post more tomorrow…in theory.

I dunno if this is a normal thing in more urban areas, but since I’ve moved into my condo I’ve noticed that ice cream trucks steadily drive through the area during warm weather, harping their wares with musical accompaniment. I suppose there’s a logic too it – there are a lot of condos and apartments packed into the area; probably a large number with small children. A concentrated mass of potential customers.

Initially they always seemed to play one song, “Turkey In The Straw”, though I admit I always think of the lyrics to “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” since…I don’t know the lyrics to “Turkey In The Straw.” Anyway, the song was always annoying, but at least it was “normal” in that ice cream trucks are known to play that song.

More recently, however, there seems to have been an influx of drivers seeking variety in their music and have begun to play other tunes – tunes that show their unfamiliarity with American music.

Sure, at first it just seemed like they’d expanded the variety of American folk music they were playing, “The Entertainer”, “On Top of Old Smokey”, etc.

But then things started to get interesting.

One day I heard the truck playing “Greensleeves,” this initially struck me as odd more because I was originally introduced to the melody as part of “What Child Is This?” a distinctly religious Christmas song. Now, realizing all of this I pushed aside the absurdity of playing Christmas music to sell ice cream, and instead thought it a bit odd to be playing an old English folk song in the Maryland suburbs. This isn’t as odd as playing it in say Bahrain, but it is still strange. Upon researching the matter, though, I found that this song is pretty common for Ice Cream Trucks… in the UK. Maybe the owner got the truck cheap on import and just used the stock music?

But wait, things get stranger! Yes, indeed they do. As I’ve already mentioned, I initially thought of Christmas music when I heard “Greensleeves” but then corrected myself, however, “Silent Night” is most definitely Christmas music. So is “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”. “O Christmas Tree”, “Joy to the World”, “Jingle Bells”, “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer”, and had I taken the time to write them all down, the list would go on. The Ice Cream Trucks are now most certainly playing Christmas music. Religious and secular songs alike.

Oh sure, they still intersperse it with the American Folk tunes, and “Greensleeves”, but now they play Christmas music more then anything.

I can only think the motivation for it is that they think people will think of snow, and somehow associate snow with ice cream, and want to have ice cream. I don’t really see that works too well, but maybe. Another more likely possibility is that with the strong ethnically diverse community around DC, and the relatively low tier job that is driving an ice cream truck, these drivers might be unaware of what the songs they’re playing are about. Of course even this possibility has flaws, since someone clearly gave them that music to play. The real question is….why?

In a random internet search I saw that I’m not the only person who’s been noticing this:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=uGAKSvkj-Hk

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RyLAi07QUlk

Too bad I haven’t a clue where those were filmed.

So I realized today that while I’ve been spending a great deal of time transitioning to the new webhost, and then trying to tweak wordpress and some other areas of the site, as well as started posting more of my writing, I hadn’t actually updated the blog with a regular post….

So here we go, our first post in a few months…I plan to start writing a few more, especially as I begin to incorporate more of my writing, but we’ll see what happens. I should have some custom header images too.

For those of you who are interested, the site name is obviously derived from Memoirs of a Transient Monkey, of which you can read parts of from the writing drop down menu. Setting up that menu was a pain, but I think it turned out well.

I’ve also put up copies of my plays “Couples Counseling” and “Just Like Heaven” from “A Demonic Satire”, also under the writing drop down, and to top it all off I’ve posted a video (streaming and downloadable) of the performance of “Couples Counseling” from the Grove City One Acts of Spring 2004. I’ll provide more details on that page shortly, you can get to it from the same menu, just keep following it down to the last menu tier. I confess the video isn’t very good, but it’s better then nothing. Hopefully my brother will eventually finish working on his short film version, and I can post that.

The other night, as I was going to sleep, it occurred to me that the “origin story” that will eventually open “A Demonic Satire” (it’s mostly written, but needs a bit of work) would go well with the title “In the Beginning”, so look for “In the Beginning” in some way shape or form to be posted soon.

I’m also going to begin drafting maybe an outline for a book about spiritual planes of existence and some random ideas I’ve recently had. It’s tentatively going to be titled “Interdementianal”, but I might mess with the spelling, or even the whole title. So stay tuned.

Ok, it’s been a while since I last posted…I admit, I’ve lapsed a bit…there were quite a few times when I had things interesting enough to write about, but for some reason I never did get around to it…that is, UNTIL NOW! And by UNTIL NOW, I mean…the second time I worked on this post…since I didn’t finish it the first time…and then got distracted…whoops.

Would you believe I wrote that paragraph like 3.5 months ago? I suppose if you actually check this page, yes, you would believe that. Anyway, I’ve decided to just go ahead and finish the Pentagon story and get this posted. Then maybe random short posts occassionally.

So, lately at work they’ve actually been giving me more stuff to do, stuff that’s real work, and should lead to quite a bit more money, which would be a nice change. I’ve been doing database and webpage stuff for the Joint Staff, setting up stuff over at the National Guard Bureau’s Readiness Center. It’s a pretty cool place, soldiers walking around with automatic rifles on their backs, etc..

While this next trip wasn’t related to any work I had to do, one of my co-workers on the Joint Staff decided we should meet some of the people we support in the Pentagon. So I got to go on a trip to the Pentagon, which was pretty sweet. Lots of security, of course, they even take your photo and print it out on a badge, which you get to keep when you go. Seemed somewhat expensive, but maybe it’s harder to duplicate, though you still need a legit barcode to get past the gates. Once we got in I was surprised to find that the Pentagon actually has it’s own little shopping mall. Not one of those super shopping malls, just like 20-30 stores (Dunkin’ Donuts, CVS, Bank of America, eye care, dentist, doctors, some stores that rotate in for 2 weeks, etc). It makes sense when you think about it, I mean these people aren’t likely to be able to get out anywhere during their lunch hour, not with all the security, and the parking lot being a decent ways away, and then all the traffic…so it must be pretty nice. They even had at least one, and maybe more, food court – with lots of fast food type restaurants. But we were too good for the food court, so after we met the people we were there to meet we got to wander around on a bit of a tour. We saw several sections being worked on, upgraded, and whatnot. We also saw the E-ring, at least, I think it’s the E-ring. The nice fancy one on the outside that has the Secretary of Defense’s office and snazzy wooden paneling, and WINDOWS! As there are 5 sets of halls in the pentagon, only the outside offices get windows, I don’t believe there are any offices along the inside wall of the courtyard, but I could be mistaken, there are several hallways with windows though, so an office there would be kinda nice. The thing about these windows though, is that they had this nasty nasty yellow-green tint, and all the light that came in looked like that. I think that would hurt my eyes, plus it really ruins the whole view. I think it must have something to do with security, but what do I know?

 Anyway, we then went to chill in the courtyard for a bit. It’s a nice little courtyard, for a military facility, with a bunch of wooden chairs to sit in. We chose to sit in these, for a bit. The chairs were odd in that the seat part was incredibly steep back, but it was comfortable, anyway, then we wandered off to eat.

I forget a lot of what happened, as this is the  most recent attempt to write this post. Anyway, we got back to the office, and I find a voicemail on my machine. So I listen to it and the caller identifies themself as some guy at the Pentagon…and says he has my phone. Turns out it had fallen out while we were sitting in those super steep chairs in the courtyard, and this soldier or contractor luckily saw it and found it had a number listed as “home” in it, so he called that. Now the “home” number was actually for my parents home, as I still consider it “home”, but when my mom answered he just said something like “I have your phone” – without any sort of explanation. So my mom was confused and a little concerned, and for some reason he didn’t outright explain himself at first. Anyway, he finally mentioned he found the phone at the Pentagon and called “home” and my mom put 2 and 2 together and realized it must’ve been mine so she gave him my work number. Luckily the co-worker who showed us around was heading back over and offered to swing by and pick it up for me, so he did.

All in all and eventful day.

And now….let’s post this ancient thing.