matthearn.com

I’m getting a little concerned with my ability to find quality merchandise at low, low, LOW prices. Time was, I could find a great deal on things like computers, underwear, cigar store indians, minor league hockey teams, etc., but apparently my skills have waned.

It’s not that I’m missing the deals; I’m still buying stuff at significant discounts. However, the quality of the material I’m getting seems to be particularly crappy recently.

Example 1: Lawnmower. When we bought the house, I knew I’d have to snag a lawnmower, and so I went to the used mower sale up at Toro (corner of Foulk and Shipley; everybody in New Castle County is now nodding). They had a deal on a nice big used 2-cycle push-mower for $100, and the guy would throw in some 2-cycle oil. I said “sold!” and threw that jaunt in the truck.

It seemed to run fine for a while, except that after about 3 mowings I realized the thing leaked gas. The tank holds something like a half-gallon of gas, which should suffice to mow my 5000 square foot lawn at least twice, but I’d fill it up, mow, sit it in the garage with a half a tank left, and next week when I went out it would be almost empty. Oh well. I just fill it half full and file weekly environmental impact statements, no big deal.

Except last week, I went out and tried to start it, and the pull cord was sticking. No problem, the second pull got it started. But yesterday: no dice. The pull cord was sticking, and I’d get it loose enough and give a yank, and it wouldn’t catch. Then the pull cord would stick again. After a while, I think I flooded it, which I wasn’t aware you could do, but when I pulled the air filter (which is basically a sponge) off, it was soaked in gas. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll run this afternoon, else I have to try and find the receipt and take it back to Toro. I have a one year warranty on it, but I’m not sure how I’ll mow my lawn for the next month if they have to fix it. Eventually my neighbors will vote me out of the bridge club.

Also, I now have a blister on my left hand from jerking the starter cord roughly 37,384 times.

Example 2: Dryer. Got it in December for $300, or 40% off the $499 retail price, by going to the Sears Outlet Warehouse on 273. They sell scratch-and-dent stuff, things that customers have returned, that kind of thing. Anyway, it ran fine up until the end of May, and now it does not produce heat. I figured it might be because the exhaust tube was crimped, and sure it enough, that thing was pinched off like it had gotten a cheap vasectomy.

After ripping a new hole in the wall behind the dryer to line everything back up, and fixing the crimped part, I plugged everything back in. Still no heat. I’m rather at a loss, and of course I can’t find my receipt, so I have no idea how to make Maytag come fix it. Right now we’re air fluffing our clothes dry, which reduces shrinkage (and we’re all about reducing shrinkage at Hearndom II), but takes approximately 4 days per load.

I was going to pull the thing out into the family room and take a look at it yesterday, but unfortunately I forgot and spent the evening playing poker (up $2 for the day, $5 lifetime) and watching “Rounders.”

Example 3: Camera. My Olympus is a reasonably nice camera, but unfortunately it suffers from several fatal flaws:

• No external flash, so any indoor picture is nothing but red eyes. It’s like all my friends are vampires. I mean, they are blood sucking vermin, but I think it’s more of a lifestyle choice more than a genetic mutation or anything.
• It stores pictures SLOWLY. So if I take a picture, and realize instantly that the guy with the mullet walked behind another person just as I take the shot, I have to wait one or two seconds before I can hit the button again. It’s even worse if I’m using the crappy on-board flash, which takes upwards of 15 seconds to recharge.
• A flaw in the optical sensor that sticks a couple of bright green pixels in the lower portion of most of my pictures.
• An owner who knows as much about photography as he does about the mating habits of plankton.

I must be losing my touch, assuming I ever had one. Early on-set Alzheimer’s, perhaps? Oh well, at least I’m still beautiful. I think. I can’t remember.

UPDATE: The mower was indeed flooded, and possibly a bit over-oiled. After taking the filter off and opening the throttle wide enough, I could hear it trying to catch when I pulled the cord. After 10 or 300 more attempts it finally stayed running, although it was belching white smoke. I put some straight gas in to try and counteract the overoiled situation, and it worked like a charm. Yes, as it turns out, I am hell of smart.

A lot of you have been wondering what’s up with this whole Brigadoon thing. Questions I’ve received include:

1. What’s with the tartan on the main page? Are you Scottish now?

   As it turns out, I have like 1/16th Scottish blood, courtesy of my mother’s mother’s mother, whose maiden name was Shaw. The tartan in the current logo is the modern Shaw tartan, probably invented by well-meaning lowlanders in the early 1800s. I’d get a breacan-feile (the massive Highland kilt) of it, but it turns out getting roughly 18 yards of it costs something like $800. As I can barely afford to keep myself in sufficient athlete’s foot medications, it’s unlikely I’m coughing up $800 for something I’d wear approximately once per decade. At least until any future daughters I have bring home boyfriends, in which case I get to put it on and wander around the backyard trimming the foliage with a claymore. Or a band saw. Whatever’s handy is fine.

2. Isn’t Brigadoon a band? I think they opened for White Rice when I saw them in Hartford last summer. Don’t they have a song called “My Monkey Wears OshKoshB’Gosh (When He Spits In The Pasta)?”

   Brigadoon is not a band that I know of, although that is a very evocative song title. I feel that we should attempt to put lyrics to it. I’ll start with part of a verse:

   I got a monkey at the store
   He was dressed up like a whore
   I bought him some new duds
   And then he and I were buds

   I’m feeling that, oh yeah.

3. Another stupid site redesign? Are you some kind of interior-decorator-wanna-be?

   My ability to redecorate is limited to what I can do with paint. Which, it turns out, isn’t much, without nice curtains and pretty throw pillows. The site redesign is a reminder for everybody to come see Brigadoon. (Read on.)

4. Please put up more pictures of Dave Chappelle’s Asian Wife.

   No.

Most of you are probably aware of this already, but I can’t remember what information I may have posted here, and I’m FAAAAAAR too lazy to actually look and see, so here’s the full Brigadoon update:

I auditioned in April for the part of Tommy Albright in the Brandywiners’ production of “Brigadoon,” a musical in which Tommy and his buddy Jeff go to Scotland and meet hot girls. (The plot’s more complex than that, but I’m trying to get people to come, and I figure between the prospect of musical theatre and hot girls, we’ll get all genders and sexual orientations.) I got the part, and we started rehearsals the last week in May.

Things are going SUPERBLY. I hadn’t acted since high school, so they’re having to rebuild me completely, which I’m sure is as frustrating for them as it is for me, but it’s working out. I’m still a little stiff, but I’ll get over that.

My costars are so money. Fiona (Tommy’s love interest) is a HILARIOUS girl named Jennifer Kennard, and we get along great. It makes things much easier for me that both of us were equally uncomfortable when we had to smooch for the first time yesterday. (The fact that she’s a stunning redhead doesn’t hurt either.)

Jeff (my hunting buddy) is a fellow named Dave Munch who, I’m told, plays a hell of a guitar. (I should get him to come jam with me and my coworkers…hm.) He’s a laugh riot, so playing Dick to his Tom (Footnote 1) is easy.

Charlie is played by a guy named, well, Charlie Hannagan. Which makes things easy on us. We just hope he shaves before the show; he’s got the beard of a playoff hockey player. Meg is played by Cindy Goldstein; to say she’s just “funny” is like saying Tom Jones “just” has a slight bulge in his groin. Harry Beaton is in the capable hands of Matt Weaver, a kid that I directed in a few high school shows at Brandywine; he dances like Baryshnikov, so we’re looking forward to hoping he doesn’t cut his foot on a sword.

Anyway, that’s pretty much the lowdown. The show goes up July 29th, 30th, 31st, and August 5th, 6th, and 7th; tickets can be purchased by calling 478-3355 or (800) 338-6965. Come one, come all! Plenty of good seats left, but we’re planning on selling out all six shows, so get your tix now. Now! GET TICKETS NOW, DAMMIT!

Man, has it been a while since I posted anything substantial! You know why that is? Because I don’t like you. Okay, that’s not true; some of you are okay, and you know who you are. The rest of you smell faintly of prunes.

This morning I had serious sticker shock at the gas station; I paid $45.94 to fill my tank. Admittedly, I drive a massive pickup truck and I bought almost 22 gallons, but damn. I remember once watching my grandfather pay less than that to fill up his RV. $45.94. That’s a video game at Walmart, people. Or if you don’t care for video games, it’s like 2 DVDs and a pair of really cute sandals. Or if you’re not white trash and therefore don’t shop at Walmart, it’s like half a shirt at J. Crew. (Of course, most of the ladies’ tops at J. Crew only have half the material of a real shirt anyway.)

More on Walmart later, the idiots.

Also at the gas station, I witnessed something truly terrifying. A scary middle-aged woman drove in in a little old Chevrolet of some kind, like a 94 Nova or something like that. The gas cap on this particular model was on the left side, meaning she had to park on the RIGHT side of the pump. (Sorry, I have to assume most of my readers aren’t too bright, else they’d be reading Gene Weingarten or The Daily Sun or something.) However, all the right-side-of-the-pumps spots were taken. What to do, what to DO?

Here are what I consider to be valid options:

1. Back into a spot on the left side.
2. Drive around the service station and pull in from the other side.

Middle-aged-scary-lady, of course, went with option 3: just sit and wait until one of us cleared out of the way. Many of you are probably thinking, “So what? She didn’t want to back in.” You’re all missing the point, which is this: there is a woman driving on the public roads who is a bad enough driver that she’s afraid to back into a parking spot next to a gasoline pump. And worse, she KNOWS she’s a bad driver and still goes out on 273 every morning to get to work. And people wonder why I usually just sleep until rush hour is over, and then work from home.

I guess she scares no one but me, then. Moving on:

Last night I was busy mowing the lawn, fixing cars, doing manly man type work around the house, mainly so I could avoid having to clean. Sarah went to Walmart to pick up a few things, so I asked her for the following:

• Some new cargo shorts
• A grill cover
• Some good hangers for my suits and sport coats
• Mulch

At Walmart, a massive store that you would think would have everything you could possibly desire, my wife was able to find:

• Some cheapass hangers that will not suffice, as they are little better than wire, and cause my jackets to look like they were costume components from some horror flick entitled “The Wrinkling.”

What the hell, Walmart? You are the Super-Store of Super-Storedom. I can understand not having mulch, perhaps, but a grill cover? You have an acre of stupid outdoor crap that nobody over the poverty line would buy, and not one cheap vinyl tarp to throw over my poor rusty grill? And no decent hangers? Well, I take that back. I think Hearnwife said they had some nice wooden hangers, but they wanted $4 a pop! I could just make my own, thanks, whittling them in my copious spare time.

Apparently all the shorts they had were nasty elastic-banded jaunpieces, and that’s just completely unacceptable. I’ve just spent six months losing 30 pounds so I don’t have to wear elastic fat-boy pants, and I’ll be damned if The New Svelte Hearn is going back to that stretchy hell.

Walmart, I’ve been coming to you for my fashion for years. Only recently have I begun to stray in favor of quality, more expensive stuff. But you know I keep coming back! Right now I’m wearing those cool black moccasins I bought that one time! I would never betray our love!

I guess I’m saying: please restock your grill cover collection. Ideally something in a nice blue to match my siding.

If I change all the colors on the page, and make a new kickass logo, does that count as an update? Yes….yes it does.

Come see Brigadoon, dammit!

Okay, okay, here’s something amusing: