The Website of Daniel Dorman

I realized something today, I am much like a cartoon. I wear the same blue zippered hoody nearly every day and a pair of khaki pants. The pants used to be corduroys, but all my pairs of those have gotten worn out. The difference though is that I have five fingers, not four.

I think stealing is wrong. Not so much because of the legal aspect of it, but more or a moral thing. I do not think it is right for one person to intentionally take something that belongs to another person without their knowing. I don’t mean things like you take your brother’s bike for a ride without asking, I mean things like breaking into a house and taking a TV. Or holding up a gas station or putting chap-stick in your pocket and leaving without paying. I’m talking about stealing, stealing. I try my best to not illegally download music and don’t pirate software. Generally, I guess I would just say I am against stealing, it is not right. But I think it’s awesome to try and rip off vending machines.

I don’t know why. I think maybe it has to do with believing that there has to be some secret code that the people who made the machine programmed in, so they could hack into any machine and get something for free. I have always wanted to somehow stumble upon that. Even though this guy “Pepsi” Chris has told me they’ve tried everything at the office and it’s not possible.

I know there are other ways to trick the machines. Taping together two one-dollar bills back-to-back, one face up one face down. Then putting them into the machine’s bill slot going in face up. The machine reads the first bill and then pulls in the second, sees it’s upside down and spits it back out. Since the two are taped together, you get them both back. Well I tried it, and it didn’t work. I was quite disappointed as I thought I finally found a way to “hack” a vending machine. Although, I also realized that repeated use of something like this would most definitely be noticed since 95% of my machine vending comes from the machines at work. I figure after a while they’d start to notice the amount of pops they replace in the machine don’t add up to the amount of money they took out.

Which I guess means that cheating a vending machine is stealing. I feel like it’s justified though. How many times have I put money in and the stupid expired granola bar got stuck and didn’t come out. Or I bought a candy bar and it was all melty because the machine is in the sun. Or I didn’t get the all my change back - which I suppose could be offset by the times I’ve gotten extra change back instead. Which then I guess I can’t use the getting stuck scenario because sometimes I’ve gotten double, but probably at the expense of the person before me who put their last bit of change into the machine to get a snack, who knows maybe they really needed that.

Whatever. Despite knowing that ripping off a vending machine is stealing, and I think stealing is wrong, I will probably continue my behaviors anyways, because I just think it’s awesome.

So today I was driving from Marion to North Liberty for work. I needed to arrive at a credit union at 5PM. As usual, I was cutting it pretty close time-wise, however I really should have been able to get there on time except I missed the North Liberty exit. I dunno, it was rush hour and there were a lot of big trucks in the way. So now, instead of being right on time, I was going to be a few minutes late. Unfortunately, the next exit off the highway was all the way down to the Iowa City/Coralville exit and Des Moines. I figured there would be another road going to North Liberty that passed across the highway, but I guess not. So now I was really going to be late.

Oh, I forgot to mention - that at some point around now, my fuel gauge decides to drop down to empty and scream at me. I knew my tank wasn’t full, but it’s true what they say, “timing is everything!” I really could have gone without that happening right then.

Lately I have already been feeling kind of worn out, stressed out and down. I have been pretty busy working doing 3-4 video shoots a week in addition to working 4-5 days at BVS and then a four hour shift at Guitar Center on the weekend. Adding all these hours up it’s probably not much more than a person with a normal full time job would work, but there’s just something about starting and ending your work day at so many different times during the week that is just hard on my body.

When I saw that exit sign for Des Moines, and the nicely curved road exiting the highway which looked like a cement rainbow arching out towards the early evening sunset - I felt like a giant magnet was pulling my car, trying to get it to veer off onto the beautiful horizon. It wasn’t that I wanted to go to Des Moines, it was that I just wanted to escape. Just seeing the road gave me such a sense of freedom. I can understand why people go missing. I would have loved to drive off down that road, just to go somewhere else other than where I was supposed to have been. To disappear for a while, and feel like my normal life doesn’t exist. Maybe this is what a vacation is for.

As tempting as this was, I did manage to get off on the Coralville exit by the Mall and then turn around and inch through traffic before finally getting to the credit union in North Liberty. I figure if I were to just disappear for a week and not let anyone know, I would basically end up burning my bridges from working for BVS (and loose work). And those are the only bridges that are worth going over right now. Luckily though, the rest of the crew was outside doing exterior shots first while the sun was still somewhat up, so we weren’t using audio and my being late appeared to have gone unnoticed.

So we get through shoot, are all done and packed up. The producer seemed to be pretty happy with everyone’s work and the stuff we got done. Good, job well done. Relax and go home. No wait, fill up with gas, then relax and go home.

Well I filled up with gas just across the street, got a Snapple and Grandma’s Chocolate Fudge cookies. Fantastic! The Snapple tasted a bit funny and the cookies weren’t the greatest batch. So I turn back onto the road home. Something must have been going on, because a sheriff and an ambulance were zooming by. I thought for a second, that maybe there was a problem at the credit union we were just at, seeing as how we were shooting a robbery scene outside. Plus, when we were loading up the van, the wind blew out a piece of paper. I managed to grab it before it blew away and when I looked at it, it said it was a bomb threat notice and that the bomb would go off at 3pm. So good thing that one didn’t get away! So it wouldn’t seem too far off if something happened, I dunno.

Anyways, I’m on the wrong road. Not real sure how or when I went the wrong way since I was supposed to basically go down one street until I got to the highway onramp. It was dark and I’m not used to North Liberty. I am used to somehow ending up someplace I’m not sure how I got there, though. It didn’t take too much to get myself back on track and heading home. At least tomorrow my work isn’t out of town. I should hope then, that I’ll be able to just leave when I’m done and get home.

Tomorrow, I’m going to buy another ficus tree for the studio.

It’s not very often that I go out, but a few days ago I did just that. I met some friends, at some dinner and went next door to a bar next door. I discovered that just as a football game on TV can turn a grown man into a little boy, I found out that karaoke will take an ordinary nine-to-fiver or construction worker or cable installer into a full blown rock star or pop diva. No more hauling drum sets and half-stacks up flights of stairs and setting up merch tables and writing down set lists.  That has all been replaced with sign-up sheets a TV screen and cheap microphones duct tapped to a stand (they have no idea they got it all wrong- you tape the mic and cable together, not the stand!) The whole band got fired with the growing popularity of karaoke, except they left the singer - the one who didn’t make the band.

I get freaked out. Every time. So many tipsy 30-40 year olds getting up in front of a room filled with nascar fans and people who thought they were popular in high school belting out their favorite lame 80’s songs, just scares me. Now some of them aren’t too bad, they can actually sing in key and get most of the words right. One guy got up and sang Sir Mix-a-lot’s “I Like Big Butts” and I can not lie, he got a crowd of ladies up there with him right away. If he weren’t white and skinny, some might have thought he was the real thing. Others are just bad, and sometimes hilarious. Or disturbing, especially when singing songs like Buckcherry’s recent hit, which lyrically is actually so stupid and unnecessarily filthy that I refuse to listen to it if I can turn it off. Whatever happened to singing things like “I wanna hold your hand” in songs? Do we really need to say “#*@$ #* *# #@@&”?

Anyways, the two things that bother me the most are two types of these people. The terribly obese man sitting right upfront excited to watch the show and those who take their performance way too seriously. The fat man scares me because I’m afraid that to many people, this is what live music has become. Not a band, but a drunk lady poorly singing some song she didn’t write while still sipping her cosmo. But I guess maybe it’s not THAT different from a live concert…

The other type of person is far more embarrassing than the bad singer. The guy who stands with a rock star pose, grabs the mic firmly with one and and closes his eyes and belts out Breaking Benjamin’s “Breath” without once looking at the screen. You can tell he feels like a rock star, though he’ll never be one because the thought of joining a band has probably never occurred. I guess I don’t really know why it bugs me so much other than on any night of the week you could probably go out and find karaoke but much less of a chance to find a real live band.

I guess what it comes down to is people having fun, which ironically is probably a big part of the reason why I don’t go out much.

Today I had a strange experience when I went to HyVee gas station to fill up my car. I pulled up to a pump and was parked next to a brand new, cherry red Mustang Cobra GT. Quite a fancy and fast car - especially for such an old guy. I would say the man was probably in his 70’s and he was slightly hunched over in his matching Cobra leather jacket while pumping gas in his car.

I went about my business and had just put the nozzle in my car when from behind me I heard, “Excuse me, young man!” I turned around and the old guy was looking at me, and started to talk but I couldn’t hear him over the traffic and wind noise. So I walked over to him and said, “Sorry, what was that?” He held up a ten dollar bill and asked me, “I have $5.22 put in my car, would you go in and pay it for me? I have a bad leg.” I agreed and went in to pay for him.

Now, it’s not everyday that an old guy asks me to take his money and go pay for his gas. Although, it is pretty common for an old guy to have a bad leg and a hard time walking. It was also a very cold windy day, so I don’t blame him for not wanting to slowly shift across the parking log. So this wasn’t that out of the ordinary, but $5.22 in gas? That’s only like three gallons. Oh well, whatever. I pay and am walking back out with his change, and think to myself that if he offers to let me keep (some of) it I won’t take it. An elderly person should be able to get a 25 year old to take a minute of time to easily do something that would be a hassle for an old guy without having to give anything back, other than their gratitude.

I get back to his car and he’s sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open. I look in and the guy is dead. Not really though, that would be pretty messed up and I’d probably be freaked out too much by old people to ever help them again. Anyways, I had him back the change and he says something to me along the lines of thanks, and then wants me to close the door for him. It felt kind of weird, at first I felt good helping the guy out, and then I felt like I was a valet. I guess I was expecting an old dude with such a nice car to offer me a buck or two for helping him out even though I didn’t think it was deserved and then being asked to close his door just kind of took me by surprise.

Okay, so I fill up with gas, go in and pay and come back out to my car. I get it and buckle up and look over and see the old guy is still sitting in his car - revved up and ready to go, but not going. He’s dead. No, not really just kidding again. He happened to be faced my direction though and gave me a small ‘thanks’ nod with a big drip of snot on his nose. I look back to my car, turn it on and reset my trip odometer and I’m thinking that if he’s got such a bad leg, should he really be driving? Then I hear some “chink” sounds. I look over at the old man again, and see he’s now rolling up his window, and I wonder… did he just toss the change out of the window? This might have made me a little upset, since if he didn’t want it he could have just offered to let me keep it for my help. It just confused me even more with this whole situation.

None of this really is a big deal or anything, maybe you just had to have been there, but I had such a strange range of emotions, from feeling good and helpful to being mildly somewhat used, maybe, and just… strange. So I drove off, and he’s still parked in his car and I look as I drive away and sure enough I spotted some change on the ground! And there were quarters in there, quarters!  Quarters are my favorite coin…

So I have this problem.  Many times when I go to eat some cereal, if the box is not relatively full when I tip it to pour out the cereal, the plastic bag starts to slide out of the box.  If I keep pouring, the bag will fall out of the box making a big mess.  If I try to hold part of the bag with my hand, then the other side of it starts to slip out.  It can be very frustrating when you just want to eat some cereal.  I feel like since cereal has been distributed in the same kind of boxes for so many years, this shouldn’t happen anymore.  It seems to me like they should just put a tiny bit of glue on the bottom of the box to hold in the bag.  That way it won’t slide out, and if you do want the bag out, a nice gentle tug should set it free.  

Hello, this will now be the new location of my blog, amongst other things, I should guess.  So… yup.