First and foremost, the key to washing dishes is to LOOK. I know this seems obvious, but I swear to God some people don’t know this, they just give a quick scrub and put that shit in the rack, bits of food still intact. You need that sponge to run over every single surface area of every single dish, which includes the bottom of plates, please. You should also spend extra time on the rim of all glasses and mugs because that’s where dirty lips go. Once you have rinsed it off, for the love of Jesus, fucking LOOK. Do it carefully. Is there still pieces of matter stuck there? Then rub those off before you deem an item reusable.
Another little related tip is that prevention is better than the cure. If you are too lazy to wash dishes immediately after your meal (and I suggest you do, because I do) at very least give that shit a rinse. The longer a plate is left dirty, the longer the dirt hardens and fuses itself to the surface, giving you a much harder cleaning time. Make this a religion: always rinse your plate as soon as you can. It will save you a load of effort in the long run.
Ok, so with the how-to’s out the way (which you should already know), I want to introduce to you the system I like to utilise. The reason being: it turns everything into a bit of a game and you will come out the other side with the sense of achievement that you have done more than your part in maintaining godliness.
So let’s hypothesis, and say you steamed some veggies, cooked a steak in the oven, and ate it with a load of gravy whilst enjoying a glass of water. You also have a cup of tea afterwards, because you are worth it. This means the damage would look something like:
A fork
A knife
A plate
2 mugs (for the gravy and tea)
2 spoons (for stirring the gravy and the tea)
A glass (for the water)
A pot
A sieve (for them veggies steams)
A cooking tray
This might not be 100% accurate depending on your methods, but the game remains the same. Get your dishwashing liquid and full the sink with water (or however you prefer to do it), and get ready to ROCK.
The magical process goes like this:
Wash one fork
Wash one knife
Wash one spoon
Wash one plate
Wash one bowl (but we didn’t use a bowl? hang on)
Wash one mug
Wash one glass
Wash one large item (tray, pot, sieve etc)
Wash one weird item (this could be anything from a can opener, a large knife, a wooden spoon, a lunch box, anything which doesn’t really fall into the above categories).
Done? Great, round 1 complete! If you followed this correctly, you should (in this example) have two large items left as well as one mug and a spoon. But instead of just washing those and getting it done with, you must repeat the magical process once again: one fork, one knife, one spoon… etc. If there are, say, no bowls in sight, then skip that one, but otherwise follow that list exactly.
Once you have reached the end of round 2, you should only have one large item left. You will be tempted to wash this item and then go back to your computer, but do not surrender to this. Start the magical process once again: one fork, one knife, one spoon… etc.
You must keep doing these rounds until the very last dirty item from your original list of dirty items is clean. This means that if, say, you had personally dirtied four mugs for your dinner, you must do four rounds, even if this means you clean way more than your share. For example (based on the above list, if followed correctly), you would’ve completed three rounds, having washed:
3 forks
3 knives
3 spoons
3 plates
3 bowls
3 mugs
3 glasses
3 large items
3 weird items
But why? Why would you do all of this? This question will apply even more furiously to those who (like me) live in a vile house share. You may think it’s a ridiculous idea to wash someone else's dishes, but hold up, there are a few reasons why you are doing this:
(1) Everyone wants to have a positive influence on life itself, unless you are an asshole. One of the easiest ways to achieve this, is to leave any given room better than when you found it. It also means that any dish you may have forgotten to clean throughout the day, will be effortlessly sorted during this quick one-time process.
(2) There is some relief in knowing that if you were left home alone for a few days, with minimal effort all the washing would get done even if every dish in the house was dirty, proving you are a functioning human being that your parents could be proud of.
(3) If your housemates aren’t like mine (mine have never even noticed I do this, BTFW), they might even be grateful. But don’t get your hopes up, lol.
I know what some of you more OCD people may be thinking. While you are there and have built up momentum in the system, why stop? Why not just wash all the dishes if you’ve already applied yourself to the cleaning process? Personally, I wouldn’t suggest you do this, otherwise people will never learn. In fact, in a small passive-aggressive way, I suggest you do the opposite. If there is a certain dirty item which is unique to one individual (perhaps a part of a blender, or a plate with a half eaten sandwich on top), make sure you place it on a more obvious platform of display, reminding the whole house that there is a dirty person in your midsts. If it still remains after a few days, take a photo of it and post it to their facebook wall, idk.
MARK MY WORDS, YOUR LIFE HAS JUST BEGUN, NOW HERE IS THE UNRELATED NEWS.
JUICE NOTHING
Since the last news update, there have been three new bloggythings, interestingly enough, none of which were about music. Don’t worry, it was intentional, the next one will be.
In case you missed them, this is what they were:
Worst To Best: Studio Ghibli
Now this was a biggie, much bigger than anticipated. I had been aching to write it since September last year, but opted to wait until The Wind Rises English release came out, which I reckon was a good idea. I also think my execution was pretty decent by my standard, to the point that I even dared to post it to the Studio Ghbili subreddit and was blown away when it received around 100 upvotes and a lot of debating beneath, turning into something I am really proud of, going on to gain more than 4800 hits, my second most read blog this year behind only that heartbreak one. I hope I did Ghibli justice, because they are my favourite thing of all time.
Furthermore (and what you don’t know), is that this first of a kind blog is just that: the first. I have big plans for this format.
My Brief Brushes With Greatness Part III
Released in conjunction with this very news article, I must add that I am past the point in my writings to care about such ridiculous topics, and yet by the time I had finished this third part of the series, I felt surprisingly stoked about it. It's a bit of fun with decent enough content, and I am fully aware that with so much powerful name dropping going on, these Greatness blogs do tend to stand strong as Google Gold. But as the conclusion states, let's hope this is the last one.
THE GOAT’S NEST
Clean Birth
In between all of that, there was 2014’s Goat’s Nest short story, and unlike most of my short stories, it’s actually relatively short! What’s even more weird about this particular offering, is that I can’t really remember where the idea came from, but in hindsight I kinda see it as a fictionalised slice of that Everything, All Of The Time puke I wrote last year.
Anyways, as is tradition, I attempted the first rough draft on a plane trip to South Africa in February, but it was so terrible that I threw it away and wrote it again, the second draft still pretty shit, but workable. Eventually it turned into quite a different, cool bit of writing in my opinion, working as not only some sort of a prequel to The Johnson Line but also as the start of a muuuuch bigger story which I've already sort of read in my mind. It should be good, but even if it’s not, look at the pictures! None of them were coloured in, all the textures you see (while watery and distorted) were taken from real life photographs! Fun!
With these behind us, it means there are only five more articles to be released this year, and I already know what they are, oooh.
Two trains of thought follow on from this one. The first, is that I have been making a few changes to this very blog you are reading right now, perhaps you've noticed? Basically, the font size is much larger and legible, plus there is some great behind the scenes SEO going on, which is probably why I received over 20,000 hits last month, a new J0 record. And it's only climbing higher, so perhaps one day I might actually get paid for simply being me.
The second train of thought stays on The Goat's Nest topic, whereas I wanted to quickly inform you that heavy research has begun for the next (long) short story. I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again, it is the sequel of sorts to my favourite Goat's Nest offering, The Triangular Theory of Love. Much like the aforementioned, it's going to be fuckoff disturbing, probably even more so than the original, to the point that I'm not very comfortable with how deep I'm going. Let's look at an early 2015 release, shall we?
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS
It sucks, but my debut novel is still not ready. Far from it. The reason is not the writing (cos it's done) or the formatting (cos it's nearly done), but the fucking illustrations, man. I've completed five and they are super coolio imo, but I think I still have something like 15 to go, which should give you an indication as to why holding your breath will be your demise. Sorry. The thing is, for health reasons I have removed all deadlines from my life, so if this project drags into next year, so be it. I honestly can't work any harder. Just look around you.
FOX TAIL (SUPER SECRET CODE NAME)
For my own records, I want to state that this business is moving forward quite rapidly, and that's all you're getting. Juice Seven, fucker.
COMING DOWN HAPPY
As promised, I have been putting my recently acquired instruments (see last news item for money shot) to very good use, and the evidence popped out not so long ago with the release of My Favourite Asian In The Whole World. You can read about it in far too much detail over at this CDH news item, but in summary: it worked not only as a birthday present for my lovely friend Reiko, but also as a pipe cleaner; the test run for the next batch of musical cookies I have been mustering for quite some time now. I learned a lot and I think it set me up in a very sexy position.
And that position is coming sooner than you think. There is a new EP around the corner, I swear without reservation that in September, it will be born. Because it’s almost done. It’s going to be called Fear of Telephones. And I like it.
THE FUNPOWDER PLOT
It seems the theme of 2014 has been BIG IMPOSSIBLE PROJECTS. An EP made from real instruments? Juice Nothing complete redesign still crawling along? Fox Tail? A novel? Etc? And the Plot is no different. The biggest thing we’ve ever done is in the works, and yet much like everything else, there is no end in sight. Once again, let's just sit in our favourite chairs and get comfy, because patience will be rewarded with a fucking smack in the face.
On a side note though: a Coming Down Happy video plan is actually being mapped out, perhaps this time it’s for real!
And finally, something YouTubey is coming, maybe even sooner than any of the above, and it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever been involved with (if I am even involved at all).
Lol, you guys must hate how many projects I talk about without even talking about them.
Go wash your dishes.
Jared
