Haircut

Oh yea, I forgot to mention I got a haircut.

You may look up above at my headliner banner and think "That doesn't really look anything like Josh, what with his head so lavishly bedecked with waves of pure brownish-black bliss. Why would he use such an old pic?" Well, friends, the truth is that I got a much needed haircut this past Saturday. The mop is gone. I look very much like my old self.

I had originally asked the knife-wielding, hair wench to refer to the Crock & Murph logo to get a rough idea as to what I want. I wanted to still be mop-esque, but just a bit more refined. A short trim on the top with a generous trim to the side. I'm not saying she did a terrible job, but I look nothing like I do in that picture. I'll go home and pose with a pouty-face in the mirror of my bathroom and put it up here later, or whenever. My contract actually binds me to put in on MySpace first, then my blog, then Facebook and proceeds in that order until my face is adorning local boroughs' volunteer firefighter websites from geocities to angelfire and back again.

Yes, I just took it back to 1999.

My new (old) haircut makes me feel less alive, but much more streamlined. And I guess if I were to grab a Halloween costume, it would be easier to manage without all the hair getting in the way of facepaint or a mask.

Speaking of The Mask, that movie was damn funny. I encourage all of you weekend-lame-asses to go rent it for Saturday evening.

Some kinda nonsense

I stole this little surveyish type thing from Rollo's blog, the author of which subsequently stole it from blogs unknown. Here's my take on it.

Accent – I can do an AWESOME Brittish nanny voice. Otherwise, I've refined the "Pittsburgh-ese" out of my system years ago. Yinz. What the hell...

I Don’t Drink – Anything with a Mr. Yuk sticker on it. (Download it, HILARIOUS!)

Chore I Hate – Kitty litter boxes. Do not make the same mistake I did by volunteering for litter duty.

Pets – I have the 12 apostles of pets. They follow me around like I'm Jesus Christ, himself. Just for fun, I'll detail them in apostle form in future blog posts, but for now here we go:

• Dogwood (medium dog)
  
• Rat Man (small dog)
  
• Tater (medium slut/cat)
• Smitz (small cat)
• Simone (small cat)
• Mitch (small cat)
• 5 yet-to-be-named (and very much in need of a good home) kittens
• LaResa (girlfriend who takes jokes VERY WELL)

Essential Electronic – my mobile contact solution (cell)

Perfume/Cologne – Curve

Gold or silver – Silver, its much classier and goes with just about anything.

Insomnia – had a bout with it towards the end of high school, and again my junior year of college - each time it was completely resolved by repeatedly playing my VHS of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" starring Donnie Osmond

Job Title – Consol Energy Associate Help Desk Administrator - its just as important as it sounds

Most Admired Trait – Since about 2004 , my perseverance has been the most widely discussed trait. I lost a lot of weight. I have to assume its admired, but nobody has ever been like "Crock, you know the most admirable trait you posses is your perseverance." No, we tend to be less cultured around here.

Kids – I consider myself a kid at heart. I get along well with the kids in my own family, as well as LaResa's.

Religion – Catholic, though I don't follow it very well anymore.

Siblings – Brother Jaker and Sister Courtney. We're all monks, so these are their formal titles.

Time I wake up – 6:30am when I work daylight, 5:30pm when I'm stuck on the graveyard.

Unusual talent/skill – I can eat more chinese food than any beast that has ever lived.

Worst habit – I kicked the whole "biting nails" thing, so I guess I'll need to cut back on my totally kickass swearing habit. Come to think of it, I do drop the F-Bomb a lot. I'll start on this as soon as I fuckin' get around to it.

My favorite meal – chinese food, totally bad for you, totally good to me. i love to hate this stuff.

Finally, a template!

Welcome to the new blog.

I tossed around ideas about what I'm going to call my blog, how I wanted it laid out, and the possible catchy descriptors to insert into the lower right corner of that image up top. I had only a few ideas for a title, the best of which were already used by other bloggers. I decided on something that directly related to me.

How I came about the name "Crocktoberfest" was fun. I took three days and tried to collect my thoughts about how I felt about myself. In short, I gave myself a self-audit. I came up with three distinct things:

• I like being funny.
• I like my birthday.
• I like to party.

Immediately, my birthday drew correlation to autumn --- hence the layout. I thought about the word "partying" for a very brief moment before I decided that the word "fest" was adequate for a party in the autumn (obviously borrowing from Oktoberfest). The rest, is history. Crocktoberfest was born.

On a related note, back in high school around this time of year I'd have a weird ass party where I'd require EVERYONE (guys inclusive) to wear a kilt or skirt of some kind. Awkward successes, these parties were. Glad I stopped having them. No need to be galabanting around in a skirt. Ever.

Bid a fond farewell to my series of Sex Panther blogs. Enjoy the warmth and welcome of Crocktoberfest.

I know now!

I think I know why I post so infrequently anymore: I desperately want to move away from this drab blog style.

Maybe its just me, but does anybody other than myself feel that this layout here feel like a generic, winter day? This template (called Tic-Tac Blue) was one of about fourteen layouts available whenever I created this blog. Options were limited then, and options are limited now.

To be downright honest, there aren't many templates out there that are "Crock" templates. The other ones offered by Blogger seem tailored to a younger set of eyes, with vivid clashes of color and an almost abusive use of pastels. I'm not a black-on-green-on-hot pink kinda guy. I'm looking for the middle ground. Something between punk/goth teenage girl and business casual. Specifically, a spiced up, post-modern type blog would do nicely.

My inspiration for finally addressing my need for a layout change comes mainly from Rollo, who recently redesigned his blog. You should check it out. Not to take away from his blog, but what really did it for me was when he introduced me to The Burgh Blog. Mind you, I've never read a single thing about this blog, but when Rollo pushed me there I immediately noticed the novelty of this blog. Its got a very simple layout, almost to a fault, but it ties it all together with color-scheme that jives very well with the headline banner. My favorite part of this whole experience is the female paper doll that appears before every post. In a word, this blog is classy. Well... the layout at least... I need to get around to actually reading it.

So my search is on. Wish me luck. I hope to hell I don't have to move to Wordpress.