Haro!

I've got a great idea: Delaware should legislate the use of the "Clameur de Haro." I originally thought that it should be enacted for the entirety of the US, but the more I consider it, the more it makes sense as a Delaware-only law, like how Delaware's the only state that allows you to incorporate by simply putting "Inc." after your name, or how it's legal here to dump sulfurous gasses into the atmosphere as long as nobody's allowed to smoke anymore.

If you aren't familiar with the process of Clameur de Haro, here's how it works. If someone is wronging you, you need to gather some witnesses (ideally by shouting "Hey! Witnesses! Come here!"), drop to your knees, put your hand in the air, and shout:

Haro! Haro! Haro! A l'aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort.

Which translates roughly to: "Haro! Haro! Haro! Come help me, my Prince, because somebody is all up in my BWEEZNASS."

Then you just have to recite the Lord's Prayer. In French. If you are unfamiliar with the French words, you can find them here. Once you have completed this task, the person that's wronging you is required to stop, even if he or she is totally in the right, on penalty of fines and/or imprisonment. Of course, if you raise the Clameur without a valid reason, you are penalized as well (fines, imprisonment, and/or a sound thrashing with the branch of a sycamore).

Then you have to file your complaint with the Greffe Office, whatever the hell that is, within 24 hours. And until the courts have ruled on the matter, whatever your wronger (that sounds like a bell-laden laundry appliance, doesn't it?) was doing cannot continue.

Wouldn't this be great? Just think of all the possible uses:

• Keeping Rita from writing you a parking ticket
• Stopping people from going through the express lane with more than 15 items
• Calling a bar bouncer a fat nonce and then making sure he can't punch you
• Preventing your wife from changing the channel while the Eagles game is on

We need to all write our state representatives immediatement and get them to work on this important piece of legislation.

Remember when I said a while ago (yesterday) that I needed to replace my online photography gallery? And I was tired of testing out different freeware/GPL ones because invariably they didn't do exactly what I wanted and did a ton of other things I didn't need? And remember the part where you DOUBTED ME? Okay, just Josh. Still.

Well, after hours (minutes) of careful work (mostly watching TV), I have duly encoded my own jam. Right now it's only got a few things in it, and worse, some of the menu options don't work. You can click "random," but instead of showing you a random photo, it, uh, won't do anything. Same for contact, because while I figure I could just simplify things and put my email address in there, I know better than to give you people my email address. When the internet has my email address, the internet emails me pictures of taints and ads for Cialis. So, um, hells no. Also there's no descriptions yet, just titles and EXIF information.

Anyway: Matt Hearn Photography. It's definitely the most pretentious thing I've ever created, and I have created some pretty pretentious stuff in my day.

I didn't watch the Grammys (Grammies? I personally despise making it plural via adding an apostrophe (as in, "Grammy's") because that makes Baby Jesus cry) last night, so I don't really have anything important to say. Apparently the Police got back together, which is pretty awesome, but I missed it because I was asleep, because I had a DEVASTATING WEEKEND OF FUN. More on that later. What's important is that the Police played, but Juliet Huddy reported on FOX this morning that it seemed kinda boring, and we listen to everything she says because she is hot.

Re: weekend of fun: I was hella busy all weekend. I covered oncall Friday night, and then Saturday morning rode with Craig down to DC to meet Some Boyz for a Bachelor Fiesta! We started out at the ESPN Zone, or rather most of us did; Kyle and I trotted over to the Verizon nee MCI center to see about hockey tickets. They had none cheaper than $90, so we laughed heartily and said, dang. So much for hockey.

BUT! Kyle, being heck of inventive, called his wife, and got her out of the shower to get online and search for tickets for us. She found some via a place called StubHub, which turned out to have a location very near the arena, so she put the tickets on Kyle's credit card and all was gravy. After Kyle got off the phone with her, he turned to me and said:

"I'm pretty sure she bought those tickets while naked."

"I'm going to be thinking about that all game. Thanks!"

"Me too, man."

I'm glad we were able to get seats, since our backup plan was to get tickets to the International Spy Museum, which was also nearby. Instead, we went back to the ESPN Zone and watched sports for roughly 4 hours while I drank martinis. THEN: To the arena!

I've been to many hockey arenas in my time (okay, 4) and I've never yet come across one that sells anything but overpriced beer, but let me tell you, The Verizon nee MCI Center has a bar. That sells gin. So I bought two. I've never been so happy at a sporting event since, and this is a hilarious story that I like to tell, I was at a Virginia Tech @ Rutgers football game with Kyle and Hiz Crew O' Mizfitz, and I bought 4 large hot dogs. I got to my seat, ate two hot dogs, and then they played the national anthem so I stood up and removed my hat, then sat back down on the bleacher and watched the first few minutes of the game. After a little while, I said, "Man, those hot dogs were good. I wish I had more." Only then did I remember that I had NOT eaten them all, and in fact had two more sitting immediately to my right. It was like Baby Jesus had shown a bright light of love down on me, in the middle of all that chaos.

Buying gin at a hockey game is very similar. Cost me $8 per drink, but that wasn't much worse than the beers (I later paid $14 for two Michelob Ultras, which are notable for two things:

1. They are somewhat low carb (although not much lower than Miller Lite, to be honest), and
2. They have a taste that is surprisingly reminiscent of what the water from your well would taste like if your septic system started leaking into it.)

The game wasn't memorable; there were a couple of fights, which is always fun, but it was hard to see what was happening since we were in the absolute last row of the place. Seriously. I've never been so far away from a sporting event and still had to pay $40 to see it. The Capitals lost.

Then we went back to Barrett's (the emphasis is on the first syllable, which is much more manly than if he'd been named after a hair clip) for poker, at which I won everybody's money. This was doubly frustrating for Kyle because

• I am not known for my poker-playing prowess, because I have all the patience of a fat kid in a chocolate factory, and
• I was WILDLY inebriated.

Then Craig drove me home, which was kind of him since I fell asleep once he was safely on the interstate.

The next day I got up, on about 4 hours of sleep, and had to go to church, then play in a piano recital for schoolchildren (it wasn't a COMPLETE embarrassment), and then sing a short concert to benefit a Quaker school.

Then I came home and played with my son for a while because he was driving Sarah insane; he can now crawl rather expertly, and his desire to put the entire world in his mouth is unabated. This results in us having to grab him every 10 minutes and pull things out of his mouth, things like paper, foam torn from the upholstery of an old chair, cat fur, cat tails, wires (oh, how he loves electrical wires), cat food, carpet fibers, and Sarah's toes. Sarah had been doing this, with small breaks for sleep, for 36 hours, and so I took over for a while so that she'd stop making her head spin around like she does. (She's been fighting a flu/cold combination for about a week now and the pressure is starting to tell.)

And then I slept for about 11 straight hours, which might have been the highlight of the weekend if I hadn't had to go to work in the morning.

My buddy Rick and his girl own a coffee shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Out front of it, they have a big sign where they can put letters with specials and other information. Usually they just put a funny quote in there; recently they had one that read "COME IN FOR A FRESH CUP OF WHOOPA$$". Anyway, Rick comes to me yesterday and says "Give me something funny to put on our board." This is the result:

I cannot tell a lie: this makes me happy in my pants.

Oh, I can tell a lie: the vacation update will be tomorrow, not today. Ha ha! That picture is funnier anyway.