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Archive for January, 2005

January 31st, 2005 No comments

My ankle REEEEEAAAAALLLLY hurts. A lot, a lot a lot. Right now it’s resting on a bag of frozen broccoli, which helps a bit, but I seem to have sprained it rather drastically.

Saturday night we went out to a variety of places, and ended up at my boy Noah’s house, where I slipped on some ice and landed very awkwardly on my left foot. I swear I heard a crunching or popping noise, but I vaguely remember someone telling me I had landed on a plastic cup. The pain was so unbelievable I almost blacked out, and most of the rest of the evening is a dim blur.

Anyway, my buddy Kris dragged me into my house and into bed (thanks, Ungadogggg!), so I went to sleep and woke up Sunday morning in horrible, agonizing pain. So of course I took a shower, downed 4 acetaminophen, and went to church. Kris had parked behind my wife’s car, so I had to take the truck. Let’s add this up:

  • I had seriously injured, possibly even broken my left ankle.
  • I had to drive my truck, which has a manual transmission.
  • Cars with manual transmissions have clutch pedals, which are operated via the left foot.

By the time I made it home, I wasn’t even using the clutch unless I had to stop.

Anyway, it’s now Monday, about 4pm, and it’s feeling a little better, depending on how recently I’ve taken drugs, and whether or not ice is currently being applied. (It is.) I skipped work today to rest it up, but I plan to get in to the office tomorrow, and of course go to school in the afternoon for rehearsal. Semi-luckily, HW is out of town, so I can use her car until Wednesday. I’ll let you know if any part of my left foot falls off my body.

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January 28th, 2005 1 comment

Late update today! Here’s the lowdown: the Comcast tech, through the power of his touch, fixed my cable modem. I’m now using my awesome-tastic and highly reliable Linksys modem, so things should be up and running for grood now. The Comcast tech just checked the signal strength, which was fine, and then plugged in the Linksys modem, which immediately came right on and started working. Magic, I tell you.

Okay, not really. Here’s what I think happened (some of this you saw already on Wednesday, but I wanna make sure everybody’s up to speed; pay attention, this is important). I’ve been running on my RCA cable-modem, the one that responds badly to vibrations ’cause something’s loose in it somewhere, for about 3 years. Last year, when HW bought me the wireless setup, it came with a Linksys modem. So I was all, let’s switch since the RCA is ghetto.

So I called up Comcast, gave them the MAC address (the number that identifies network objects), and they tried to set it up. No dice. The nice Indian on the phone informed me I probably needed a signal booster, ’cause my signal strength was weak.

So I went out and bought a signal booster, but then the RCA box started working pretty reliably. It would go out periodically, but a few whaps on the top of it, and it’d start working fine. Until this week, when the RCA started giving up the ghost. So I put the booster on the line, plugged in the Linksys modem, and called up Comcast.

They still had the Linksys MAC address on file, but it turned out they had one digit wrong; where I had said “A2,” they had heard “82,” ’cause they were Indian and I don’t speak English very well. So they corrected that, but STILL couldn’t get the modem to work. So they scheduled the tech to come out today, some time between 10 and 2. I took the booster off the line, plugged the RCA box back in, and made do for a few days.

So today, the guy comes out, and everything works. He informs that regular cable boosters don’t work very well with the cable modems, because they screw up the signal going in both directions, which the modem requires. So what had really happened was that a year ago when I had tried, the Linksys box didn’t work ’cause they had screwed up the MAC address. On Wednesday, it wouldn’t work because my booster box (that I thought was HELPING), was screwing everything up. Today, with the corrected MAC address, and no booster, it fired right up.

Argh.

So now I have to figure out why my router won’t let me in. It works (in that I can get to the internet from all my various computers), but it won’t let me access it to make changes and update my IP (if it has indeed changed). I better drink some Sambuca first.

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January 27th, 2005 No comments

Attention all able-bodied people within driving distance of New Castle County! We’re getting the band back together. Wait…not band…softball team. Yeah, that’s it.

Milo and I are determined that this is the year we sign for organized co-ed softball. And we need people, particularly chicks. So if you have any interest in playing very low-key softball, on a team of people who can barely tie their own shoes, let alone hit an object flying at them at 25 mph, shoot me an email at spam (the IZAT) matthearn (the DIZOT) com.

We’re planning to have a team of about 20 people, and we’ll play doubleheaders every Friday night from late April until early July, so everybody will have a chance to play every week. Having that many people also means that when people have to be absent, it ain’t no thang. Also, it cuts down on the share of the $400 team fee that everybody has to pay.

Important information can be found at the New Castle County Sports Department website. Initial investment should be around $20 a person, if we can get 20 people, and then we have to buy shirts, which I may make myself with iron-on patches, which makes things pretty cheap, plus we have to pay umpires, which amounts to $15 a game or something (from the whole team, not $15 per person), so I think we can come up with that.

Also important: we’re pretty sure our team name is going to be the “Prancibald Duckshirts.” If that makes no sense to you, turn your speakers on and go here.

Most important: If you’re sitting there going, “I dunno if I can do this . . .” permit me to pick apart your worries in FAQ format:

I’m not very good at softball. I don’t want to be embarrassed.
Yeah, we suck. I fully expect to go 2-16, and laugh uproariously while doing so. It’s gonna be awesome.

I can’t make any games in May because I have rehearsal/foot surgery/I’m coming out of the closet/my mom will be washing my hair/methadone rehab!
That’s why we want to have a large squad. If I get the part I want, I’ll have performances on Friday evenings for 3 weeks in May, so I’ll miss those games without a doubt. It’s all grood.

I don’t have a glove or a bat or anything!
I’m sure between 20 people we can come up with enough bats and gloves to outfit us. Just show up.

The voices in my head tell me softball is the devil.
Take a frickin’ Xanex and get to the field, bozo.

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January 26th, 2005 1 comment

First of all, my apologies to those of you who may have been attempting to download any of the Y-Chromes alumni songs, or view certain things that are hosted on my server at home. My RCA cable modem appears to have finally given up the ghost. It had always been very flaky; there’s something loose in it, such that if you move it, it completely spazzes out. It’ll be very reliable for a couple months, and then something will make it freak, and I’ll spend 2 days going down there and hitting it, unplugging it, hitting reset, or any combination of the three, trying to get it back into shape, and eventually it sort of comes back to life. Well, not this morning.

The truly annoying part is that I already have its replacement. When Sarah got me the wireless setup for the house a year ago, it came with a Linksys cable modem. I immediately slapped it in there and called up Comcast to alert them to the new box, but they couldn’t connect to it. The very nice Indian gentleman on the phone commented that sometimes Linksys cable modems are very finicky about signal strength; if my cable is split more than once before it hits the modem, it’s likely not to be powerful enough. He advised if I want to use it, get a signal booster. In the meantime, we switched back to my old RCA modem.

At some point over the weekend, it went out again, so I slapped it back into shape, but then it went out again late last night, so I slapped it back into shape again, and then this morning I woke up and it’s out AGAIN, and no amount of slapping was going to fix it. I took the opportunity this morning to finally install the cable signal booster I bought (with great trepidation; I didn’t want the added voltage to cause my DVR cable box upstairs to explode and lose me all my episodes of Doctor Who), and all of my TVs still seem to work, although the cable modem still wouldn’t reset. Tonight the Comcast Indians and I will switch to the other cable modem, and hopefully we’ll have a totally awesome signal. And then y’all can go back to downloading copies of Prayin’ for Daylight.

Okay. That’s enough excuses. It’ll be fixed tonight, that’s all you need to know. Possibly sooner, if I continue feeling like I’m going to blow chunks all over my cubicle. (I shouldn’t have put on sunless tanner this morning; it has a rather distinctive stench, and it’s making me nauseous.)

Next, I want to talk about two major media sensations, one of which is probably well known to you, and the other is probably not. The former: “Napoleon Dynamite.” The latter: “Strange Love.”

Sarah and I watched “Napoleon Dynamite” last night, and there are only two things I can say about it:

  1. WHAT. THE. #$*&. WAS. THAT.
  2. Man, I’m glad I drank most of a bottle of Sambuca before I put this DVD in.

The movie was jaw-droppingly weird, and had all the production value of a snuff film. Needless to say, we loved it. Vote for Pedro, indeed. Most of the people I talk to are like, “Man, I totally knew guys like that in high school!” or “Oh man, that guy is just like me!” I should tell you, that’s not true for me. I don’t know what kind of weird kind of radioactive mutant dorks everybody else had in high school, but the two biggest nerds at Brandywine High School while I was there were me and my best friend Josh Lewis. We were in the Math League, the Computer Club, Bridge Club, D&D Club, all that stuff, not to mention of course Band and Chorus. And we were still way cooler and had much more luck with Da Lad33z than Napoleon.

Sadly, neither of us were Mexican. Josh was Jewish, though. Technically I suppose he still is, unless he’s converted to Baha’i; anything’s possible.

The plot, basically, is that Napoleon digs this girl, and then he meets Pedro, who transferred up from Juarez, and then Pedro asks out the head cheerleader and gets shot down, and then Pedro asks Napoleon’s love interest to the dance, so then Napoleon asks out the daughter of one of his skeevy uncle’s customers, and they all go to the dance, and Napoleon likes his girl’s sleeves, and then Pedro runs for class president, and a bunch of stuff happens, and then it’s all good when the Uncle leaves town and Napoleon gets to play tetherball with the girl he likes, who turns out to be kinda hot if you get her out of her stretch stirrup pants.

The other totally awesome tidbit of entertainment that’s sucked us in like a college girl after a 4 pack of Bartles & James is Strange Love, which is a spin-off of the Surreal Life. If you missed Surreal Life (I sure didn’t, although I never watched a single show), it involved getting a bunch of has-been C-list celebs into a house together for two weeks. It had Charo, Brigitte Nielsen, Flava Flav, and a bunch of other dorks. Well wouldn’t you know it, Brigitte Nielsen and Flava Flav fell in love. She: tall, buxom, blonde, Danish. He: Short, black, American, over-the-top. After Surreal Life broke up, Brigitte went back to Milan to live with her fiancee Mattia, and Flav went back to New York to mix up a really poor album.

In Strange Love, Flav decides that he misses Brigitte, so he flies to Milan to find her. He gets her address from a guy who believes he knows where she lives, which of course is wrong, so Flav starts walking the streets of Milan, asking random strangers if they know where Brigitte Nielsen lives. Of course, he does this while wearing a massive clock around his neck, and a large Viking helmet on his head. Absolutely priceless. Mix this with his propensity for periodically yelling “FLAVA FLAV!” at the top of his lungs, and you have comedy that knows no equal. It’s on VH1 just about every day at some point, find it and Tivo that jaunpiece, it seriously is the best thing on TV.

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January 25th, 2005 No comments

Are people asleep today? In the 25 minutes it took me to get to the office this morning, I noticed 6 instances of people clearly not paying the least bit of attention to their driving, or to the other cars around them, or to the fact that dammit people I need to get somewhere, stop driving like there is an active blizzard, as opposed to slightly moist roads.

First, I made the right out of my development, and then eased into the left lane behind some kind of Oldsmobile that insisted that the proper distance between cars stopped at a redlight was 347 feet. This drives me nuts for many reasons, but in this case primarily because I needed to get into the left turn lane to make my U-turn, and this idiot wasn’t giving me enough room until I honked the horn for about 20 minutes.

Needless to say, I missed the left turn arrow. Luckily, there was no oncoming traffic so I was able to make my “u-ey” without waiting; if I’d missed the arrow and had to wait 5 minutes for a complete cycle of the light, that Oldsmobile would have gotten its license plate number taken down and reported to, oh, the IRS or something.

Next, while sitting at the red light at the intersection at Route 1, the person next to me realized they apparently didn’t want to be going west on 273; they needed to get on 1 North. So, rather than just turning right onto the exit ramp, (which has doubtful legality, but is definitely less likely to get you ticketed than reversing on a major road), he backed up 100 feet so he could take the proper exit. This wouldn’t normally be a huge problem for me, if he hadn’t timed it just so that he hit the exit at the same time as oncoming traffic began turning left onto the ramp. Technically, he did yield, once the traffic that had the right of way almost hit him.

Then, I had an idiot that apparently was reading the paper, or putting on his eyeshadow, or some such crap, and refused to accelerate away from the stop light. So I honked at him. Well, let me tell YOU, wasn’t I just the biggest #$*hole ever. This guy was gesturing, and waving, and of course still not accelerating, so I floored it around him in the turn lane, and THEN, boy howdy, did he get his revenge! He tailgated me all the way to the next light, at which point I changed lanes in such a way that he got stuck behind a mini-van driven by what appeared to be Connie Chung’s secret black cousin, if Connie Chung’s secret black cousin had a face raisin for a nose. (Which she just might. Anything’s possible in this great land we got us right heah.)

So, in case that fine, turtle-neck-wearing gentleman happens to be reading this: I apologize for interrupting your daily dose of “Cathy” just so I could get to work. It won’t happen again. (Next time I’ll just ram your ass.)

Of course, didn’t it happen again not 3 miles later, when some idiot in a jeep had one of his or her narcolepsy fits in front of the Avon plant. This person was a lot more apologetic about having fallen asleep, but then of course refused to drive any faster than 45 mph all the way into Newark, which happened to be the same speed as the elderly black woman in an 87 Cutlass who was immediately to my left, and whom I had diligently been trying to get past for 2 miles.

The Jeeptard also, of course, followed the standard procedure of blowing through the 35mph limit on 273 at close to 50mph, and then driving on Cleveland Avenue, which has the same 35mph limit, at 25. By the time I made it into work, the tears were streaming down my face, and I was seriously considering placing an order with “Massive Vehicle-Mounted Machine Guns R Us.com.” Then I remembered my job involves doing little more than keeping an eye on a bunch of computers, playing Freecell, and listening to mp3s of the Thompson Twins while my butt spreads out into the shape of my ergonomic chair. And I smiled.


Face Raisin: a large, unsightly black mole, with all kinds of bumps and wrinkles in it. May also feature prominent, coarse hairs.

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January 24th, 2005 3 comments

There’s really only one way to put it: The Onion-style.

HOLY #*$&ING #*$&
THE EAGLES ARE GOING TO THE #*&$ING SUPER BOWL

I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to win this game. Somehow we have to beat the two-time Super Bowl MVP, the best head coach in the NFL, one of the top 8 running backs in the NFL, and a defense that gives up points like a fat kid gives up his bag of Doritos. But we’re gonna do it.

I’m told that the Patriots are favored by 6 points. Lame. We’re gonna crush them, and then I’m going to laugh, and possibly pour beer on myself and others.

I have to figure out where I’m going to watch the game. In a bar in Philly would be ideal, although difficult; inexplicably, Christ Church scheduled an evensong for that afternoon at which I’ll probably be expected to sing. I’m all, “What the hell, man? Jesus is gonna be watching the game! And probably wagering heavily on the over!” But nobody listens to me, because I’m just a little bee in a big hive. Also, I’m one of the sexless drones, according to Sarah.

So anyway, I’ll be stuck at church until 6pm, and I think the game “starts” at 6:30, which means 15 minutes of interviewing random players, followed by 7 minutes of commercials, followed by 5 minutes of watching the National Anthem be sung by a cancerous child backed up by 17 amputee midgets, followed by 11 minutes of commercials (featuring a new Aflac commercial where the duck gets decapitated and eaten by Raquel Welch, who not surprisingly was available), followed by kickoff at around 8pm, give or take 14 Coke commercials featuring polar bears with serious caffeine addictions. So hopefully I’ll have time to strip out of my robes and into my McNabb jersey, followed by driving at a highly non-recommendable rate of speed to a place with a large TV and a massive supply of cheap, low-carb beer.

Hm. Mikey has a widescreen. Note to self: purchase widescreen. Or at least go to Mikey’s for the Super Bowl. In which, I may have forgotten to mention, the #$*#ING EAGLES ARE PLAYING.

(Amusing side note before I run: I’m considering purchasing a new car for my wife, ’cause her transmission squeals like an altar boy in an S&M club. So I’m poking around the Mazda website. Mazda appears to be going for the “hip,” mid-20s demographic of which I still barely count myself a part. Their current ad slogan is “Zoom, zoom,” and all their cars seem to be designed with “performance” in mind: nimble suspensions, powerful engines, sleek lines. I find it amusing, therefore, that their website is slower than VW Bus with a parking boot on one wheel. That is all.)

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January 21st, 2005 1 comment

It’s my birthday and I’ll dance if I want to
Dance if I want to
Dance if I want to
You would dance too if it happen’d to-oo yoooou

Oh yeah. Who’s 27 today? THIS GUY.


Anyway, here are some thoughts on birthdays in general, mine specifically, and why I am the most righteous dude since Simeon:

  • 27. That’s an awesome number. 3 cubed. 3^3. 3**3, for the truly geeky. I haven’t been a perfect cube age in 19 years! I won’t be again for another 37! Hey, 19; 37; prime numbers. What’s the difference between 5^3 and 4^3; 125 – 64 = 61. Prime number! I might be on to something here. 6^3 = 216; 216-125 = 91, or 13 times 7. Crap. Nevermind. (Well, at least 13 and 7 are each prime numbers! That’s still kinda cool, right? No? Nevermind.) (And yes, sadly, I just did all that in my head.)
  • They’re expecting a big blizzard this weekend! Just like the weekend I was born, way back in 1978! Hopefully this isn’t some kind of portent of doom. (Is portent the right word? Somebody tell me, ’cause I’m WAAAAY too lazy to look it up.)
  • Have I officially reached my late 20s? Or do I have to get to about 27.5 for that? Should I start having an emotional breakdown in July, or can my “biological clock” start ticking (LIKE THIS: STOMP STOMP STOMP) now? I just need this cleared up before I drive my wife crazy. (Correction: craziER.)
  • Here’s a list of awesome shiznit that has occurred on my birthday:
    • 1189 – Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade.
    • 1793 – After being found guilty for treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France is guillotined.
    • 1853 – Russell L. Hawes patents the envelope-folding machine.
    • 1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.
    • 1908 – New York City passes a law, the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public only to be vetoed by the mayor.
    • 1924 – Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership.
    • 1950 – Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury.
    • 1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States.
    • 1994 – Lorena Bobbitt is found not-guilty by reason of temporary insanity for severing the penis of her husband John Bobbitt.
    • 2003 – The terms of Kevin Mitnick’s parole allow him to use a computer again.

    Awesome.

    Info swiped from Wikipedia

  • I think today’s Achewood says all that needs to be said.
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January 19th, 2005 No comments

A great number of people have asked me, “Hey MattyMatt, what do you want for your birthday?” (Okay, only two people have asked me. It’s cool…I know you all don’t really like me. You just love my doggy style.) In the spirit of Christmas, which of course happened almost one month ago now, here are my wishes for the commencement of my 28th year:

  • I want to pay off all my outstanding credit card debt. I’m tired of owing money to organizations that charge interest only slightly better than you can get from a bookie.
  • I want to finally finish up with puberty. Ya know? It’s been like 13 years? I think it’s time for my acne to clear up and perhaps for the missing patches of facial hair to go ahead and fill themselves in. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
  • I want a set of totally rockin’ abdominal muscles. Something with which to teaze the ladeez.
  • I want to bring peace to the world via the expedient of slaughtering all those who disobey me. Wait, I mean, um, via prayer. Yeah. That’s it.
  • I want another soda . . . be right back.
  • Okay, got it. Mmmm…that’s good Diet Pepsi!
  • I want to get in better shape. I’m tired of being overweight and lazy. Who’s with me? Okay, not Sarah. But I’m all about it. After this soda.
  • I want a copy of Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.

And that’s about it. (Sorry this didn’t make it up yesterday; Blogger was on the fritz, and I got TOTALLY sucked in to Wikipedia reading about English Royalty.)

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January 18th, 2005 No comments

I was never a huge fan of The Honorable Ruth Ann Minner, Governor of Delaware. I didn’t agree with the ban on smoking; I thought it would have been cooler to just force places that wanted to have smoking to get licenses for it, and be stingy with the licenses. I also thought it odd that she’d focus so hard on smoking, and yet continue to allow the refineries on the Delaware River to dump out pollution like 19th century London. But you know, I hung out with her a little bit on Saturday, and she turned out to be pretty cool.

Okay, technically we didn’t “hang out.” It was, sadly, more like the Cathedral Choir sang at some kind of “Thank You For Electing Me Again” party she threw for her loyal supporters. It all went down at the big conference center down on the Wilmington Riverfront, the “Bank One Center” or the “Bank One Monstrosity” or something. We arrived around 2:30, as the staff was setting up the place, so as a result the security stations weren’t ready, meaning that the entire Cathedral Choir could have been strapped and they’d never know it.

Once everybody was there, we grabbed our music and ran through our set, which included two pieces by John Rutter, three gospel tunes, and “Buffalo Soldier” by Bob Marley. (Just kidding. Nobody performs Rutter anymore if they can help it.) One of the pieces was “Every Time I Feel The Spirit,” which features a jammin’ baritone solo by yours truly.

Anyway, the party began at 4pm, but we weren’t going on until 4:30, which gave us time to relax in a room in the back, and gave our audience time to get nicely tuned up themselves at the cash bar ($7.50 for a mixed drink? Is this New York? What the hirsute heck is that?). We went on, jammed out with our collective clams out (those of us that had them handy; I try to keep a few fresh bivalves in my pocket for just such an occasion), and then had to stand there for 10 or 15 minutes while the Governor thanked half of Christendom. I was hoping that the Academy Awards orchestra would start playing somewhere near by so that she would WRAP. IT. UP.

After she was done, we filed off the risers and had the opportunity to shake hands with our head of state and her lackey, the Lieutenant Governor. The Governor took my hand and said, with great awe, “What a voice!”

I replied, “Yo, that’s how I roll, baby girl. Tell your friends.” Or rather, that’s how I would have replied if my damnable conscience hadn’t gotten the better of me; what I actually said was, “Thank you!” and then moved along to where I could gather my coat and get to a bar to watch the football games.

The lesson here is that flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. Because flattery is awesome. I’m so easy.


Strapped: Carrying a “strap,” or pistol. Sometimes also used in reference to other weapons:

She chased me out of class she was strapped with a ruler
Went to the bathroom – rolled myself a wooler
With bottle in hand at the microphone stand
A. yo homeboy – what you drinkin’ man

©1986 MC A, Mike D., and His Majesty the King Adrock.

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January 17th, 2005 No comments

Why are you wasting time here, when you could be investigating this? Go! Go! Turn up your sound! I almost peed a little!

Except that it wasn’t “almost” . . . and it turned out to be a lot. Of pee. Now I smell like cheerios.

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