No explanations

Morephone

Oh yeah. Dilbert knows how I feel.

Stones

Regardless of your personal feelings of Rachel Maddow (I find her to be extremely AWESOME and also sneaky hot), you need to stop everything else you are doing and watch the reconstruction of the short flight of US Airways 1549, with the Air Traffic Control radio sync'd to it. Forget special pants; I'm surprised that Cap'n Sully's enormous brass testicles don't upset the weight balance of the airplane. I almost had a panic attack just watching this.

Rachel is only involved because video is from her show, so if you dislike her for some reason, rest easy knowing her participation is minimal.

These Dreams

Horrible nightmares last night, for a variety of parties. Charles woke up crying around 9:30pm because of, we suspect, a bad dream, although he couldn't put into words what the problem was. After a few minutes of cuddling with Mommy he asked to get back into bed, and did so without difficulty. Weird.

For my part, I dreamt that Charles had become unruly and ill-behaved, and it was decided, by me, that the problem was that he was Too Smart. (For unknown reasons, all these was taking place in some kind of sepia-toned office, something straight from the 50s, all wood panelling and glass.) In order to desmart him, I mixed some kind of concoction for him to drink so that it would damage his brain. Why my dream-self thought this was a good idea is unknown to me, but in the dream Charles drank it, and I instantly had Chemist's Remorse and began sobbing uncontrollably. It was horrible. It haunts me, even now; just typing it out is making me depressed and angry with myself. ::shudder::

The other nightmare was one just before I awoke, involving venomous "spiders," as they were called in the dream, that weren't spiders at all, but hand-sized bugs in the shape of Imperial Star Destroyers. They were color-coded to match the severity of their venoms, which ranged from "causing severe gangrenous flesh wounds at the site of the sting" to "neurological toxin resulting in painful seizures followed quickly by death." Annoyingly, even after I woke up and said "Wow, what a horrible nightmare!" I rolled back over and went to sleep to dream of them some more.

It was not a restful night.

New ad campaign

This is a new ad campaign I'm putting together in A City Near You:

Yea? Nay?

Random thoughts

Just a few collected ideas that jumbled around in my head this week:

• So far, President Obama has appointed political rivals to his cabinet; apologized when he screwed something up; closed a torture center; and worked major bipartisan magic with regards to the "economic stimulus package." Is it just me, or has he accomplished more positive things in 16 days on the job than the last schmuck did in 8 years?
• Favorite Super Bowl commercial: Free Doritos!
• Speaking of the Super Bowl: why don't the Eagles ever have Larry Fitzgerald/Santonio "San Antonio" Holmes-type receivers? The best we can come up with is a past-his-prime whiny TO for a season? Andy Reid needs to explain to me why, exactly, the Eagles run a pass-first, pass-second, pass-always offense and yet the best receiver on the team is the running back. I hate football.
• Speaking of TO: the greatest thing about him is that he will someday die, just like the rest of us. That will make the world a far better place.
• Speaking of sports: pitchers and catchers report in 10 days. Excited? You bet. I just peed a little! Okay, a lot.
• Always back up your computers. Do it. Get an external hard drive and back your stuff up. More info on this tomorrow.
• If any of you are local to northern DE, keep an eye out at the Boothwyn Farmer's Market (aka the Bethel Mall) for when the little Cajun restaurant sells duck gumbo. It was fantastic. A little spice, mushrooms, a sauce so heavy it might have been used in early Manhattan Project experiments; I don't think I ate for days after polishing off a quart of that bad boy. I'm pretty sure the container had an entire duck in it. I couldn't even walk for a few hours, I just rolled myself around on an office chair and moaned occasionally.
• Had a lot of snow days lately. They are remarkably less fun if you have a job that requires you to show up anyway. I guess I'm saying, don't grow up too fast, man. ::sob::

More tomorrow. Probably. Woo!

I am too blown away to type a title

Slow, painful, angry death

Since I reach a significant Age next week, I had to go to the DMV and renew my license. My car is also going to require renewal in two months, so I figured, hell, they'll let me do it now, why not kill two birds with one stone! Particularly when those birds are massive, slavering creatures with Adamantium talons who hate me and everything that we as a nation hold dear.

So I snuck out of work for an early lunch hour, thinking I'd beat the crowds. this handy website shows the wait times for various functions, and it was saying I'd wait no more than 5 minutes for my license, and maybe 10 for my registration. Awesome!

I arrived shortly after 11, and got into a short line at the inspection lanes. As I later twittered, I, as always, picked the wrong lane, and watched as 3 or 4 cars who arrived after me got in first. But the joke was on them! I had, completely on accident, picked the one lane that could do all the regular checks (turn signals, lights, horn, etc.) plus the ODBII check (where they plug into your car's computer to see if you've downloaded porn to it)! All the other lanes could do the car checks, but then you had to get into another lane for the computer read-out. This seems like a foolish way to do it, but I grinned happily as I parked and went inside, where I discovered that the South Wilmington DMV, unlike the New Castle one that is technically closer to my house but horribly inconvenient for a lunch hour visit, doesn't actually have "line;" it has a take a number system, so you can sit and read horrific books while you wait! (I went with Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore, a book so painful that I got it at the dollar store. For a dollar.)

They were on number 202 when I sat down; I had number 222. So I read, and occasionally glanced up when the shift supervisor, the Mother Superior of the DMV, would get called over to yell at some poor soul who believed they could renew their car's registration without having the current one, or without an insurance card, or without retrieving their car from the impound lot whence it was towed for unpaid parking tickets. (An aside: some of these people were at least fifty years old. Folks, how do you not know how this works? How do you reach the age of fifty, probably renewing at least one vehicle every two years, and not know what documents you require for this process?)

Finally I was called up to a very polite gentleman who took my documents and money and gave me a new registration and sticker in three minutes flat. I fail to understand why this is such a difficult process for some people.

By that point it was roughly 12:30, and I had to go get another number to wait for my license renewal. I was number #177; they were at #140. I shed a few silent, hot tears and sat down next to some sort of kiosk. After 20 minutes or so, they had gotten only to #150, and a young woman came out and started fiddling with the computer at the little kiosk. In a flash of brilliant insight, I deduced the following:

1. Eventually, this lady was going to open this kiosk for business;
2. It was likely that they intended it to be an express lane, meaning it would most likely be available for people with simple class-D license renewals (no truck licenses, no new licensees, no state IDs, etc.);
3. It was also likely that the line would be first come, first served;
4. The instant they made any sign of opening up, I needed to spring to my feet and sprint to the head of the line, hardly a challenge since the kiosk was approximately three feet to my left.

Sure enough, at about 1:10pm, a supervisor came out and started to announce that they were opening the kiosk for simple license renewals, and before he had said two words I was standing next to the nice young woman running the show. I think I even semi-accidentally butted in front of another fellow, but he sensed that were he to confront me, I might roll up a Driver's Education Manual and beat him to death with it, so he held his tongue.

Because I know how to handle a drive-thru bureaucracy (just like a fast-food drive-thru; no special orders, basic meals only), I was through the line in three minutes, had my picture taken, and handed a literally piping hot new ID by 1:15. A little creative driving had me back at the office at 1:35! I think the word I'm searching for is "WOO!"

In short, the DMV is slow, news at Eleven.

Nasal stabbings

Can somebody explain to me this new thing where all the ladies are getting their noses pierced? It started at as something you'd see amongst the hard core body decorators, or among certain ethnic groups as a cultural or religious thing, but now I'm seeing just every day skanks showing up with rhinestones jabbed into their schnozzes. I don't get it. Is it just me? Bueller?

I guess that's really all I have to ask. I was going to talk about the Gaza Strip, but I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said, and also I'm so distracted by American Idol that I haven't the words.

How To Gain 15 Pounds Of Fat In Just Six Weeks!

Hi! I'm Matt Hearn, and I'm here to tell you that you, too, can learn the secrets of gaining weight. Just listen to these testimonials!

• "Using Matt Hearn's plan, I gained 8 pounds in just under a month! Then I met a dude that digs fat chicks! ALL RIGHT!" - Tara Lipzinsky
• "I had always been afraid of bacon, but Matt Hearn and his Plan of Deliciousness showed me the light!" - Tom Skates
• "My pancreas stopped producing insulin!" - Sally Struvas

In just 5 easy steps, I'll show you how you can maximize your chub, while minimizing your ability to walk up slight inclines without chest pains!

1. Are you eating right now? No? That's a HUGE mistake. My plan will show you how to find the nearest snack machine and select the greatest calorie item for the lowest price! (Hint: avoid crackers, and go straight for the Three Musketeers!)
2. Do you drink a lot of water, or coffee? I'll show you how non-diet soda can really put the pounds on. (Hint: you might think that sugar packets are only for cofee or tea, but there's no reason you can't sprinkle them onto your Dr. Pepper!)
3. Do you drink alcohol? No? Well, we'll have to work on that too. Your best bet is drinking lots of beer, but that can be hard to do at the office without your coworkers staging an "intervention." I'll show you how to fill empty water bottles with cheap vodka (don't forget to order our special funnel attachment!!!), and chew staggering amounts of Big Red to hide the booze breath!
4. After meals, do you often find that you're "full" and "can't eat another bite?" I'll show you special stomach stretching exercises that will REALLY expand your capacity! And you know what that means: MORE. CHIPS. FOR. YOU!!!
5. Are you vegan and/or vegetarian? Well CUT THAT SHIT OUT.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Matt Hearn, it can't be possible or healthy to gain that much weight that quickly." To which I respond, "Sure it is definitely possible or healthy to gain that much weight that quickly!"

I know this because I'm not just the Matt Hearn Fat Club President: I'm also a member. Through a strict diet of Single-malt Scotch, Christmas cookies, luscious meat products, and a complete lack of exercise, I went from a svelte 235 pounds before Thanksgiving, to a positively BULBOUS 250 after the New Year holiday! Obviously, your results may vary, but I promise you that if you don't gain at least 5% of your current body weight in one month on my plan, I will personally drive to your house and bake pastry for you until you sweat heavy cream from your pores.

Don't delay! Order now!

Happy New Year!

This is something that had to be shared with everyone on the internet, as fast as humanly possible, with no time for proper scanning and editing, because it is brilliant to the point of personal pain. I give you the new webcomic, written by me and ingeniously illustrated by my sister Liz: Bach v. Handel. That is the full image in its original format; to make it fit within the confines of my webpage, I reproduce it here panel by panel, with explanation:

	Here, Handel plays for Bach the "Amen" from his masterpiece, "Messiah."
	Bach is unimpressed, and takes over the keyboard to play "Dona Nobis Pacem," the final movement from his mass in B-minor.
	Handel cries a little, unable to admit that Bach is the superior counterpoint composer.
	Here, we see that Bach and Handel have shared a marijuana cigarette and are now making out.

Facebook foolishness

There's a thing that's been floating around Facebook like some kind of social disease wherein everyone goes down a list of movies and checks off the ones they've seen. I tend to ignore most Facebook crap (I'm currently 0 for 4,374 on "signing up for stupid applications that people have invited me to"), but this one was so wildly popular that I felt I needed to get in the top floor!

(Note: I am aware that the idiom is "ground floor." The humor relies on the fact that I'm getting in on this just as it becomes spectacularly unpopular; my participation therein is probably causal. Just wanted you, the reader, to understand my "humor.")

Supposedly, if you have seen more than 85 of these movies, you are some kind of "movie dork." Let's see where I place. My comments are hellatalicized.

(X) Rocky Horror Picture Show - Unfortunately. The best thing about this movie was Susan Sarandon, and I'm going on record to say I'd rather hump a sap hole in a maple tree.
(X) Grease - I hate this movie so much that my testes just completely retracted into my torso.
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
(X) Fight Club
(X) Starsky and Hutch
(X) Neverending Story - Why isn't this ever on TBS? This movie was so awesome back in the 80s. I'm sure it holds up fine! Right? Right? (Note: I may be the only person in my generation to own and have read the original book, which is SPECTACULAR.)
(X) Blazing Saddles
(X) Airplane

Total: 8

(X) The Princess Bride - Just watched this a few weeks ago. Fantastic. Still holds up.
(X) Anchorman - Also rad.
(X) Napoleon Dynamite - Man, this is like a turkey! (When you bowl three strikes in a row. Because the last three movies are so awesome. Get it? No? You know what? You suck.)
(X) Labyrinth - Hambone!
( ) Saw
( ) Saw II
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
( ) Anger Management
( ) 50 First Dates
( ) The Princess Diaries
( ) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement - They lost me on the last eight in a row. I wouldn't watch "White Oleander" if you tied my dingaling to a doorknob.

Total so far: 12

(X) Scream
( ) Scream 2
( ) Scream 3
(X) Scary Movie
(X) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
(X) American Pie
(X) American Pie 2
( ) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp

Total so far: 17 - The theme here seems to be: did you like the original? It was okay. Did you see the sequel? What am I, stupid? If you've seen "Scream" then you've seen Scream 2 and 3. Because the plot is identical. And since nobody gets naked, sadly, I'm out.

( ) Harry Potter 1
( ) Harry Potter 2
( ) Harry Potter 3
( ) Harry Potter 4
( ) Resident Evil 1
( ) Resident Evil 2
(X) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
( ) The Village
( ) Lilo & Stitch

Total so far: 18 - With a certain amount of pride, I can report that I have seen no Harry Potter movies, and read no Harry Potter books. I have seen my share of Harry Potter slashfic, but that's not a topic for a Family Blog.

( ) Finding Nemo
( ) Finding Neverland
( ) Signs
( ) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
( ) White Chicks
(X) Butterfly Effect
( ) 13 Going on 30
( ) I, Robot
( ) Robots

Total so far: 19 - I saw part of Butterfly Effect; probably like 2/3. I'm saying that counts, since I saw the end and then googled the parts I missed.

(X) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
(X) Along Came Polly
(X) Deep Impact
(X) KingPin - Wildly underrated. Randy Quaid takes a dump in a urinal! Priceless.
( ) Never Been Kissed
(X) Meet The Parents
( ) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
( ) KING KONG

Total so far: 24 - So far I seem to be at about 50% of the average. This is because I don't really watch movies. Not least because I hate movie theaters, but also because the number of times in a given year that I have 2 hours to waste can be counted on one hand.

( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
(X) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
(X) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving X-MAS
( ) Flubber

Total so far: 26 - Some of these I've not even HEARD of. And the only Flubber I saw was "Son of Flubber," the sequel to "The Absent-Minded Professor," both starring Fred MacMurray. I don't believe it counts.

(X) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle - BRILLIANT.
( ) Practical Magic
(X) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
(X) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards

Total so far: 29 - I've seen the last 15 minutes of Hellboy roughly 7 times. I guess that doesn't count, because I spend the entire time asking HW, "What the hell is going on?" and she responds "Stop fricking poking me, I'm trying to sleep."

(X) The Day After Tomorrow
(X) Child's Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
( ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(X) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask

Total so far: 32 - I may have seen Child's Play and Sixteen Candles and Nightmare on Elm Street all the way through; I just don't remember. I'm gonna mark Child's Play and give myself partial credit.

( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Slevin
(X) Ocean's Eleven
(X) Ocean's Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremecy
( ) Lone Star
( ) Bedazzled
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
(X) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George

Total so far: 35 - The Ocean's Etc. films always slay me. I think I watched Ice Age all the way through; if not, I definitely saw at least 30 minutes of one of the Bourne movies. Plus I read all the books. It evens out, people, c'mon.

(X) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(X) ET - The first movie I ever saw in the theater! Do I get double credit? No? Screw you, then.
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Boss's Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
(X) Rush Hour
(X) Rush Hour 2

Total so far: 39 - It's worth noting that I have FAR less than half of the average Joe to this point.

( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She's All That
( ) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
( ) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
(X) Wizard of Oz
(X) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
(X) The Terminator
(X) The Terminator 2
(X) The Terminator 3

Total so far: 44 - Let's just say I don't own any of these on DVD.

( ) X-Men
( ) X-2
( ) X-3
(X) Spider-Man
( ) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
(X) The Little Mermaid
( ) Freaky Friday
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
(X) Cruel Intentions - I watched this entire movie hoping either Sarah Michelle Gellar or Reese Witherspoon would get naked, and neither of them did. We did get treated to a boob shot of the hideous girl, though. Thanks. <SARCASM>Made it all worthwhile.</SARCASM>
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(X) Shrek
( ) Shrek 2

Total so far: 48

( ) Swimfan - I watched up until the hot chick gets busy with the guy in the pool, and then went to sleep. Does that count?
( ) Miracle on 34th street
(X) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Krippendorf's Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember - I watched a little of this with my wife, but then I started menstruating.
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
(x) The 40-year-old Virgin

Total so far: 50

( ) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
( ) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
( ) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King - Watched the Battle of Helm's Deep. Couldn't care less about anything not involving immediate elven bloodshed.
(X) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(X) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(X) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Total so far: 53 - Nothing but love for Indy. Haven't seen the fourth, though. Worried that it's lame. Is it lame? Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know.

(X) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
(X) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
( ) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History X
( ) Three

Total so Far: 55 - It's well-documented that "Waiting For Guffman" may be the best movie in the 20th century to not earn a single Oscar nomination.

( ) The Jacket
( ) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
( ) Monsters Inc.
(X) Titanic
(X) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(X) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard

Total so far: 58 - Much love for Grail and Shaun. Much hate for Titanic, although at least Leo dies and you get to see Kate's hooters. I change my mind: a small, but measurable, amount of love for Titanic.

( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
( ) Hulk
( ) Dawn Of the Dead
(X) Hook
( ) Chronicles Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
( ) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo - Ain't seen it, but am profoundly curious about it!
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld

Total so far: 59

( ) Kill Bill vol 1 - Would love to see this; saw the first 20 minutes or so the other night on TBS or something, but fell asleep. It was late. Anyway, can't watch it during any hours Charles is awake because I don't need him learning how to throw knives at people.
( ) Kill Bill vol 2
(X) Mortal Kombat - I just like that the guy that played Johnny Whatever went on to play a guy on Days of Our Lives for a while. Mighta been killed off, though.
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman - This sounds like a quality film in every way.
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness

Total so far: 60

(X) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(X) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(X) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(X) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(X) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(X) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 66 - Wow, I've seen most of the Star Wars movies. Scary thought.

(X) The Matrix
(X) The Matrix Reloaded
(X) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
(X) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
(X) Team America: World Police - I'm not proud of having seen this.
( ) Red Dragon
(X) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal

Total: 72

The average is north of a hundo. Wow, I haven't seen very many movies. I do not consider this much of a failing. Tomorrow: I don't like Jonas Brothers. Also: get the hell off my lawn!

Horrible, horrible things to say

A few tidbits:

• I wish I hadn't spent $200+ dollars on "Party Pigs" for my beer because, frankly, they suck. They're a nice a idea, because bottling beer is a huge hassle and I have a life to live, people, but unfortunately they don't live up to the hype. They just don't dispense beer very well. It starts out really, really foamy (like a real keg would), which I can live with, except that before the thing is even 1/2 empty it starts dispensing insanely slowly. Seriously, filling a pint glass takes so long you could time it with a calendar. The reason, as far as I can tell, is the expanding CO2 pouch inside starts blocking the spout, and there's not a lot you can do about it aside from just taking the thing apart, which you can't do without losing the beer (the pressure makes it go all over the place). For 40 bones a keg, I'd like to think I could get more than 2 beers out of it that weren't absolute foam, you know? Weak.
• Charles is very fond of a TV show called "Caillou", featuring a little whiny bald boy. It's a pretty lame show, but Charles loves it; it's full of crap wherein Caillou is afraid to go down the slide, but his mommy helps him, or Caillou is afraid of Santa Claus, but Santa turns out to be cool and likes Caillou's drawing (when a real mall Santa would be half in the bag and have no time for smarmy baldies). The parents are astoundingly patient; when they ask Caillou to do something and he whines "But I don't want to!" they commiserate and work out some kind of compromise, when any decent parent would just lightly backhand the brat and say "Just do it before I make you bleed."

  Why he's bald is never explained, so Sarah and I have developed this enormous backstory centered on our belief that he has leukemia and they just don't want to actually cover it. Anyway, as an example of the horrible, horrible things my wife and I can think up: Charles was watching the show, and Sarah and I were at the dining room table. I looked at the TV and noticed that Caillou's mom looked a little thick, so I said,

  "I think Caillou's mom is pregnant."

  To which Sarah replied, "Yeah...you know they need that marrow."

  We laughed for a good 5 minutes, and then discussed whether that was going to get us into hell, or if the decision had been made years ago.

The argument

This morning, Charles requested eggs and bacon for breakfast. I said sure, why not! and started frying up some bacon which turned out to possibly be a bit old. Charles, being Charles, insisted upon "helping" which meant I was turning bacon with one hand and using the other to try and keep him from sticking his hand into the hot fat. Great times.

I said to Sarah, "I bet some toast would keep him out of my hair, do we have any bread?"

"I don't think so...there was just a little in the bag, but I don't remember throwing it away..."

"If that was the only loaf, I threw it away the other day," I said. "I thought we had another lying around."

"No, that was it."

"Oh well."

I continued frying the bacon, while Sarah went to the gym to get her flex and floss on. Charles and I had eggs and bacon, played inside, played outside, played inside, had a couple meltdowns over puzzles and games and stuff because he's 2, and then Sarah came home, with a bunch of bags of stuff from little shopping stops. I asked her,

"Did you get bread?"

Her responses are paraphrased because it was like 25 minutes ago and I can't even remember my name for more than 8 minutes at a go, but she said, approximately,

"Why the hell would I get bread?"

"Because we were out of bread!"

"I didn't go to the store!" she shouted, dropping bags from coffee joints, dollar stores, head shops, crack houses, etc.

"You could have!"

"Why the hell would I go to the store?"

"Because we were out of bread!"

"I only went to the coffee place for a breakfast sandwich!"

"A sandwich would be nice! I'd make one too, but we don't have any #%&@ing bread!!!"

"Fine, after I finish my %&$#ing sandwich I'll go to the @$%#ing store and buy you some #%$&ing bread!"

At this point the ratio of expletives to useful information went over the limits of a family website; basically we just started giving each other the finger and getting out our laptops to look up divorce lawyers.

601

I didn't notice at the time, but that last post was my 600th entry on this so-called "web site." I'm not sure what to make of this information, really; this has never been a "blog" in the purest sense, since any decent blog puts up multiple posts a day, or at least a week. Aside from the occasional period when I get ambitious and start throwing up a post a day (I mean that literally), I've averaged probably one post a week. So me getting to 600 posts is like Pete Rose getting to 160 home runs. Sure, he got there, but it took him over 4000 games. I've been doing this for like seven years.

Oh, don't worry, this isn't a "wow, I've been doing this a long time, maybe it's time to call it quits" post. Eff that noise. I have no intention of quitting. In fact, I intend to try and ramp up my output.

I finally realized that if I want to become a writer (one of my many dreams) I need to actually write. And the surest place for me to do that is on my website, where I have 2 readers who won't hesitate to email me if I say something douchey. It's completely stupid to think "Wow, I wish I could make my living writing" when I have a captive of audience (of two people) checking my website for updates only to find, to their heart's dismay, nothing has been posted. If I want to write, I need to, you know, write.

So I'm writing. How do you like it so far?

I'm not making any promises about daily output. My job doesn't really permit me to do anything like that during the day, and my evenings are occupied with either a paying gig/rehearsal or chasing my tow-headed offspring around. But here is my promise to you: you will see more frequent stuff posted here. It might be a lengthy diatribe, it might be pictures of Sarah Palin making sweet love to an antelope, it might be a musical effort on my part. We will just have to see!

It might even just be a diary-type entry where I talk about stupid crap that happened to me during the day. So you can look forward to all sorts of useful information, on the offchance I become famous and you get on Jeopardy and one of the questions is "On this date, Matt Hearn stepped in poo, wiped it off on a park bench, and watched in horror as, before he could be stopped, his son sat in it." (This hasn't happened, but given Charles's propensity for getting profoundly stained while in my care, it's only a matter of time. And when it does, you'll be the first to know. ('Cause I certainly wouldn't be telling my wife.))

That's what I offer you. Poop stains and lies. Enjoy!

Baseless nostalgia

Over Thanksgiving, we watched "A Christmas Story," featuring Peter Billingsley, Scott Farkus, and Bumpus's Dogs. Great film, which even after watching it all the way through, my wife insists she's never seen the entirety of. I noted a few strange things (warning: lists within lists a-comin'):

• Miss Shields, Ralphie's schoolteacher, is kinda sneaky hot. Sure, she's overweight and dumpy and middle-aged, but she's got that stern schoolmarm thing going on. That doesn't turn anyone else on? Just me, huh? Okay, nevermind.
• I don't know what kind of insanely superpowered BB-gun Ralphie got, but I've had lead pellets bounce back at me directly from a wooden target placed roughly 15 feet away, and it was about as painful as getting flogged with a shoelace. Admittedly, lead is soft; BBs are steel (BB does not stand for "Brass Ball," in case you were wondering). Plus, idiot-boy put his target over a piece of metal, whereas my ammo was bouncing off impact-absorbing plywood. Still. I'm just sayin', maybe Ralphie could man up a bit and take a round to the face without flying backwards like he'd been hit by a bus. PART OF GROWING UP IS GETTING HIT IN THE FACE BY THE OCCASIONAL PIECE OF FAST-MOVING METAL.
• Did it never occur to the fire department that, instead of yanking or cutting Flick's tongue off the flagpole, they might simply have poured warm water over it? He showed up back in class looking like they'd freed him with a bandsaw.
• Why don't men wear hats anymore? I mean, I know the story about JFK giving his inauguration address, or some speech of similar gravitas, without a hat on, and after that hats sorta petered out. But c'mon, dress hats are FANTASTIC. I'd wear one with suits and nice clothes all the time if I could find one that fits my head for a reasonable price. This also got me thinking of a bunch of other things that you never see anymore (and in fact haven't really seen in my lifetime):
  • Men wearing suits all the time, including to sports events and while gardening. Now you can get a seat in a Michelin 3-star restaurant wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt featuring a picture of Calvin pissing on Che Guevara. THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING, people.
  • Drunken department store Santas. Time was, every Santy was soused to the gills and nobody thought anything of it; dealing with that many unruly children basically REQUIRED it. If St. Nick even has a beer at lunch these days he'd probably be stoned to death by a platoon of Soccer/Hockey/Polo moms while their nannies scurried the children over to the Build-A-Bear workshop so their little Christmas hearts don't get broken by watching Father Christmas die a messy death.
  • Nobody says "soused" anymore, either. And whatever happened to three-martini lunches? And surreptitious bottles of rye in big mahogany executive desks for a little on-the-job tippling? Nobody drinks rye, for that matter, with the possible exception of me and one other (and he knows who he is, the lush).
  • A few things we DON'T need to bring back from the forties/fifties: pointy brassieres (those'll REALLY put an eye out), polio, Joe McCarthy, and the various wars in Europe and Asia.
• Last thing: if my next-door neighbors had a pack of dogs that broke into my house and ruined my Christmas turkey, the dogs would be dead and the neighbor would be burying them in the backyard while I ate HIS turkey and drank all his rye.

What in the heck?

When did I get so old? I mean, I've completed 3 decades and embarked on my fourth this year, and as a result my body is splitting apart at the seams. I remain surprised, on a daily basis, to wake up and discover that I still have most of my limbs.

Charles has a little red firetruck that he rides around in, which he operates with his feet, Flintstones-style. Unfortunately it doesn't work over the broken, grassy ground of our backyard, so he insists upon being pushed around. 40-pound child plus 15-pound plastic firetruck plus Hearn hunched over trying to push it equals major back spasms, which eventually translated themselves into this weird pain in my leg; it felt rather like a nervy muscle cramp, so I attributed it to my low-carb, conspicuously low-potassium and low-calcium diet. It went away after a few days.

Last week I pushed him around again, and instead of the back pain step, pain started immediately in my leg. It was like the worst Restless Leg Syndrome of all times, and oddly enough, the pain was hard to localize. It was sort of in my butt, sort of in my leg, but there was nothing I could do to either exacerbate or alleviate it. Whatever it was, it kept me up all night. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep, filled with freakish dreams involving midgets, ponies, and them tap-dancing all over my leg.

The pain continued, in various guises, all week. Extra-strength Tylenol did nothing. Stretching did nothing. So finally over the weekend I asked a doctor friend of mine, and he said it's probably sciatica.

Sciatica? What the hell is next? Gout? Senility? Priapism?

Turns out that apparently, if you sit on your wallet for long enough, it'll pinch off a nerve in your bootyus largeus, which results in semi-permanent pinching. A few inflammatories, some walking, and switching my wallet to the other side will hopefully resolve the issue.

Otherwise I have to get ass-replacement surgery.

Hey you!

You! In the hat! Did you go vote? No? Why not? Go vote!

What do you mean, you don't like either candidate? How can that be possible? There are something like 15 possible candidates for US President, along with running mates! If you don't like one of the top 2, pick from the rest of the pupu platter!

You don't feel like it? Look, voting isn't a right. It's not even a privilege. It is your DUTY. I would, frankly, not be entirely against having the government come door to door to make sure everybody votes, like when they do the census.

If you don't vote, you are a dick. Don't be That Guy, dude. Seriously.

This will BLOW YOUR MIND, man

Pitchers don't hit home runs

Hey look, the Phillies are up 3-1 in the World Series. I must have blacked out for a few weeks. Is it good opportunity to drink liveblog the action? Yes. Yes it is.

• 8:53 pm - We're coming to you late, at the top of the 2nd, because I didn't think of starting a liveblog until just now. And despite the STRIKE on the word "drink" above, I am going to spend most of the evening tossing back Pink Gins to keep my nerves under control. Alcohol and night baseball: it's a winning combination!
• 8:55 pm - If you're just joining us, Cole Hamels got through 3 quick outs in the top of the first, and the Phils scored 2 on a bunch of hits and walks (I wasn't counting, sadly; what am I, ESPN?). And Cole just got two more quick outs. This is shaping up Nice.
• 9:00 pm - Because Joe Suck and Tim McMoron may be the worst commentary team in the history of professional sports (more on this later), I've got a radio set up tuned to 1210AM so I can listen to Scott, Larry, and Harry. I highly recommend, if you happen to be in the North DE/Southeast PA area, you do the same.
• 9:02 pm - My wife might be mad later. The DVR was supposed to record Heroes, but Dancing With Stars is also on, and my DVR can only see 2 things at once. Obviously I'm not changing the tuner showing the game. So I made an executive decision: she watches Dancing With Washed Up Stars every other day, it seems, but we haven't watched any Heroes episodes yet this season. Easy choice.
• 9:04 pm - Coincidentally, Larry Anderson is talking about going on Dancing With The Stars. I would pay cash money to see this.
• 9:06 pm - Jayson Werth needs a nickname to justify his ridiculous facial and head hair. Since he looks like he could be a pornstar, I'm going with "Furburger." Jayson "Furburger" Werth. Win, right?
• 9:07 pm - Bottom 2nd, 2 out, and the aforementioned Furburger singles.
• 9:10 pm - Dang. The rain is coming hard; I'm about 25 miles south of CBP, hopefully it'll take a few hours to get really nasty at the game. I'm not holding my breath. And of course, tomorrow I have a recording session and won't be home until close to 11.
• 9:12 pm - Nice, Harry's back on. He's a good luck charm, like a Leprechaun or midget.
• 9:16 pm - Cole is looking kinda en fuego. He's only struck out 2 guys in 7 outs so far, but he looks like he's just daring them to swing. And then they do, and ground weakly to short, or pop out, or just whiff at the change.
• 9:17 pm - And of course the instant I press "submit," he gives up a base hit. Luckily he then immediately induces the next guy to ground out to second, so I repeat: EN FUEGO.
• 9:18 pm - Political side note: somebody at the McCain campaign has big freaking brass testicles to be running ads saying Obama represents big government. Did they miss the last 8 years? The government is currently bigger than yo mama! And she so fat SHE ATE THE IRS.
• 9:20 pm - Onto my second Pink Gin. What's a Pink Gin? I'm glad you asked! Dash of bitters, then a bunch of gin. It ends up sort of a brownish red, and is mega spicy. Highly recommended.
• 9:22 pm - Milo asked an important question: can they call a WS game after 5 innings?
• 9:23 pm - Eek...Scott Kazmir seems to be getting a little en fuego as well. This is displeasing, since I fear the middle of the Rays lineup is due.
• 9:29 pm - EEEEEEK. Deep double off the wall by Pena, followed by an RBI single by Longoria that just scooted by Jimmy. 2-1 Phils.
• 9:31 pm - Whew. Double play to end the inning. Aight, good guys, let's put some guys on and get 'em home.
• 9:33 pm - It's heartening to hear AIGDirect.com commercials on the radio, since that's my beleaguered employer and all. It'd be nice to be, um, not laid off.
• 9:35 pm - If, and this is a BIG IF, my favorite team were to someday in the staggeringly near future win a World Series, I am concerned that I would then spend several hundred dollars on Paraphernalia. For example, I really want a World Series hat with earflaps. I would wear that all winter long. And one of those warmup jackets would be nice; preferably the one that Jamie Moyer is currently wearing.
• 9:37 pm - Dang. Ruiz gets a nice base hit, and then Hamels gets him out on fielder's choice, and along the way got hit on the pitching knuckles. (It also hit the bat, sadly, so it was a foul ball, not an HBP.) So to recap, 2 outs, pitcher's at 2nd, and his pitching hand hurts.
• 9:40 pm - The rain at CBP seems to be really coming down. Luckily, the decision to halt play is up to Commissioner Bud Selig, I think, and Lord knows he won't do anything until Fox tells him to, regardless of danger to players or fans. So play will continue.
• 9:43 pm - Why the hell didn't I play baseball in my youth? I would have been a spectacular pitcher. Left-handed, strong as an ox, reasonably tall, and dumber than Tim McCarver. I'd be Ryan Madson! Dang non-athletic musician parents all not forcing me to play sports and screaming at me for my inadequacies.
• 9:45 pm - Cole Hamels has been running on 3-2, 2 out counts for the past two batters. He's sprinted off the base like 8 times now, since Furburger keeps fouling off breaking balls. And now Fur gets the walk; let's see if Utley can do something. Some coach I don't recognize is out to dry up Kazmir's tears and bring him a change of panties.
• 9:50 pm - Dang. Bases loaded, Chase grounds the 3-2 pitch straight to the shifted 2nd baseman. On the plus side, the Phils are still a lock for "WS winner with worst RISP average."
• 9:53 pm - Oh good, Jimmy loses a popup in the rain and Baldelli gets to first base for free. STOP MAKING THIS INTERESTING, DAMMIT!
• 9:56 pm - And Chase "Messiah" Utley gets an awkward double play to clear the bases! 2 outs! And the rain is getting really, really messy. And a quick K ends the inning.
• 10:00 pm - Rain is gross, and getting grosser. And it's what, 45 degrees? Holy hell, it must be MISERABLE at the game. This, to my mind, is proof that there is a God: He's saying "You can have your championship, Philadelphia. Maybe. But you're going to suffer for it. Oh yes, but you will suffer."
• 10:07 pm - My bad; it's actually 40 degrees. Ouch. Howard and Burrell both walked, with no outs in the 5th, so they've yanked Kazmir. Here's how this should play out: the Phils have a huge inning and go up like 7-1, at which point the rain gets crazy and everybody agrees it might be a good idea to just call the game at this point. Which is when I freak out.
• 10:12 pm - The great thing about listening to the radio and muting the TV, is that during the long break to try and dry out the infield, they showed Buck and McDumbass chatting, and since I can't hear them, I can make up dialog:

  Joe Buck - So hopefully we'll be able to get this game in.
  Tim McCarver - Yes, because if you don't play 9 innings, it's not a complete baseball game.
  Buck - Ummm...yes.
  McC - Also, they should do all they can to keep the mound dry, because if it's not dry, it's rather wet.
  Buck - You might be retarded.
  McC - How come we don't hang out? You should come over for BBQ! I make my own sauce!
  Buck - Really? What's in it?
  McC - Joe Maddon's sex juice.
  [crickets]

• 10:17 pm - After the pitching change, now the radio is like 5 seconds ahead of the TV, which is REALLY ANNOYING.
• 10:19 pm - Really? Again? 2 guys on base with no outs, and nobody scores? This is unbelievable. Excepting last night, the Phils are batting .002 with runners in scoring position.
  (Important note: I made that statistic up. But it's not off by much, I'll wager.)
• 10:24 pm - Third Pink Gin. Chris Wheeler Scott Franzke reports that a WS-clinching game has never been shortened by rain.
• 10:27 pm - Quick shot of Shane Victorino in center field with his hand in his pants. I guess he wanted to keep it warm, and wasn't taking a mid-inning sex juice break.
• 10:30 pm - Hamels is making quick work of the top of the 6th; Ks Iwamura, and then Crawford grounds out to first. Keep it goin', Cole.
• 10:31 pm - Dang, Upton dinks a 2-2 pitch to Rollins, who can't get a handle on the wet ball. Upton at first for Pena, who is hitting altogether too well lately. And Upton has the look of a man who is going to try and steal 3rd from 1st on one pitch.
• 10:39 pm - This is regoddamndiculous. They didn't call it for rain, and now the Rays have tied it up. So now what the hell happens? It's now the middle of the 6th with a tie game! I predict they'll stop play with a tie game after 6, and pick it up tomorrow, either here or in Tampa. Either way, it's stupid. They had an official game after 5 innings and let the field turn into a swamp.
• 10:42 pm - Oh great, they've decided to delay the game. Which is a great idea, since the rain isn't going to stop until 3am. It'll be superb waking up tomorrow to find out if the Phils won. "Hey Daddy," Charles will say to me in 2019, "did you see the Phillies win their last World Series before the team moved to Halifax, NS?" "No, son, the commissioner was a dumbass and decided to finish the game at 3am. So I was asleep."
• 10:47 pm - Argh. They're sending us to "local programming" while they try and wait out the rain. I'm going to to do the same; I intend to stay up as long as I possibly can, but no promises.
• 11:42 pm - Okay, they've suspended the game until at least tomorrow at 8pm (by which time I expect it to be snowing). Which is great, since I have a recording session scheduled until 10. Did I say that already? I AM PISSED TO THE POINT OF PERSONAL CONFLAGRATION. So I'm going to suspend the blogging until then as well. Hopefully I'll be around tomorrow night when the Phrozen Phils win this one. If not, I'll post something rude and angry about having missed it. See you then!

Odd Look

Another cool forwarded gimmick! Try it out.

RULES:

1. Put your iTunes on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

My answers:

• IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY? Clubs
• WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Drinking Tips
• WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Breast Feeding
• HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Video Killed The Radio Star
• WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? The Boxer
• WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? You Are Goodbye
• WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Cecilia
• WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Last Christmas
• WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? When The Wheels Are Coming Off
• WHAT IS 2+2? Comfortable
• WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Sunrise
• WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Stay
• WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Piragua
• WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? She Talks To Angels
• WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? There Is No Rose
• WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? I'm Gonna Find Another You
• WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Famous In A Small Town
• WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Magic and Smoking
• WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Tears in Heaven
• WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Psalm 69
• WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Long Time Gone
• WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? Do You Suppose I'd Come Running
• HOW WILL YOU DIE? The Heart Of Life
• WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET? Environmental Terrorism or Global Warming?
• WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH? The Sussex Carol
• WHAT MAKES YOU CRY? Beautiful Soul
• WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED? The End Of The Innocence
• WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST? Don't Stand So Close To Me
• DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? When You're Home
• IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? Lulla, Lullay, Thou Little Tiny Child
• WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? I Would Die 4 U
• WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS? Odd Look

The Short Form

Let's bring the mood back up a tad, what say? My homey Sarah B sent me a nifty email quiz, and it's been a while since I've done one. The theme of this one is that you only get one word to answer each question. This makes it hard to bring the funny, but I invite my readers (both of you) to comment with your guesses as to my meanings.

1. Where is your cell phone? Hands
2. Your significant other? HW
3. Your hair? Lustrous
4. Your mother? Responsible
5. Your father? Quirky
6. Your favorite thing? Bacon
7. Your dream last night? Digits
8. Your favorite drink? Beer
9. Your dream/goal? Novel
10. The room you're in? Cubicle
11. Your fear? Bankruptcy
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Retired
13. Where were you last night? Rehearsal
14. What you're not? Slender
15. Muffins? Blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? Knife
17. Where you grew up? Wilmington
18. The last thing you did? Amazon
19. What are you wearing? Casual
20. Your TV? Small
21. Your pet? Cats
22. Your computer? MacBook
23. Your life? Eventful
24. Your mood? Apprehensive
25. Missing someone? JD
26. Your car? Elderly
27. Something you're not wearing? Thong
28. Favorite Store? Target
29. Your summer? Busy
30. Your favorite color? Blue
31. When is the last time you laughed? Meeting
32. Last time you cried? Tuesday
33. Who will/would re-post this? Brian
34. FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER: Work, Home, Church, In-Laws'
35. FOUR PEOPLE WHO E-MAIL ME: Brian, Liz, Dad, Sarah
36. FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS: Cow, Chicken, Pig, Fish
37. FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW: Home, Beach, Woods, Restaurant
38. FOUR PEOPLE I THINK WILL RESPOND: Brian, Doob, Liz, Michael
39. FOUR PEOPLE I HOPE RESPOND: McCain, Obama, Palin, Biden

For the last response, I suspended my use of proper titles to make it fit the rules. 'Cause when you break the rules, THE RULES BREAK YOU.

Generic

So HW came home from the grocery store this afternoon, with food, dry goods, and feminine items galore. The latter, oddly enough, appeared to have been purchased third-hand from an offshore supply of East German products.

"Dude, where did you buy those tampons," I asked. "Communism?"

"Whaddaya mean?" she replied.

"I'm willing to cheap out dollar-store-style on certain things; gift-wrap, Christmas decorations, et cetera. But things that get inserted into my orifices? You know, I shell out the cash for the premium-grade."

"I used to be that way, but..." she trailed off, and it was clear she had sacrificed her hoohah on the altar of cheapiedom.

Here is a short list of items that I will only buy namebrand. I'm sure you have a list of your own; compare and contrast.

• Razors
• Birth control products
• Beer
• Aluminum foil
• Toothpaste
• Adoption agencies
• Financial services
• Hookers
• Politicians (the last two can probably be combined)
• Brazilian wax technicians

What's on your list of products or services you won't cheap out on?

Whoomp there it...uh, it isn't, I guess. What?

Here's an update, bulleted with a blue sky:

• The LiveSTRONG Challenge donations continue apace! A big thanks to everyone who has donated. You'll all be getting much more personal thanks from me than just a mention on my blog, don't worry. (The promised hugs will most definitely be forthcoming.) I've been training, including doing some ridiculous hills (because the route's out in Montgomery County and promises to be fluctuous). I'm still working up my distance; the furthest I've ever gone is about 20 miles (the route is 45 miles), but I'm pretty confident I'll be able to finish. For one thing, I'm riding with my homegirl Sarah and her brother, and for another, the course opens at like 8am and doesn't close until somewhere around 4. Even my fat butt can finish a 45 mile bike ride in 8 freakin' hours. I'll be disappointed if it takes more then 3.5, although my pace will be dictated by whomever in our party is the slowest; I'm not leaving anybody behind. Of course, the odds are I will be the one getting left behind, which is fine with me. I ain't holdin' anybody up. If you'd like to donate and make my sacrifice worthwhile, use the link above and chip in some ducats, doggle.
• Oklahoma! wrapped up, I have something like 3,000 pictures from two photographers (Kate and myself) to go through and pick the cream of the crop. It may take some time, so if cast members are coming here wondering where the heck the pictures be at: patience is a virtue. I won't even have the full set of pictures until at least the cast party on Saturday 'cause Lord knows we need documentary evidence of that freakish dance party FOR. REALS.
• Charles sings the ABC song as follows: "A B C D F G H I J K L P Q R S two Vs double X Y Z Now know ABDs next sing me!" It's priceless.

That's what I've got. Challa.

RIP, Professor

As usual, I'm about a year behind hearing about things, so I'm sure all you have seen this: Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, a 75 minute (so block out the time, people) lecture by Professor Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon. At the time of the lecture, Dr. Pausch had been fighting pancreatic cancer for just over a year, and had been told about a month beforehand that tumors had turned up in his liver and other organs, giving him approximately 3-6 months. He beat that prediction by nearly a half-year, dying early this morning at 47.

I don't want you folks to get the idea that because I'm riding in a cancer-related charity race in just 30 days that this is going to turn into a "cancer blog;" rest assured today's subject matter is pretty much coincidence. This isn't even really a cancer post, except that it was inspired by a cancer victim. This is a hell of a lot more self-centered: the Biannual "WTF is Matt Hearn doing with his life?" Self-Examination.

Watching that video, you sense immediately that Dr. Pausch was simply a fantastic human being. He could have done anything; it is to geeks' benefit worldwide that he chose computer science. It occurs to me suddenly that if he'd entered medicine he might well have cured the cancer that took his life. His accomplishments, as well as his earth-shaking charisma, are due exclusively to one thing: he was absolutely fearless. There aren't a lot of people who are going to take an opportunity to lecture and start out by doing a bunch of pushups; there aren't a lot of people who would go into the lengthy details of their life in such a revealing way; there certainly aren't a lot of people who would interrupt a college lecture to make everyone sing happy birthday to their spouse.

Fearlessness like that makes it possible to be supremely creative. I myself am terrified of failure, not because I worry that people are going to think less of me (although that's certainly a factor), but because I'm worried that I'm going to waste hours/days/months/years of my life pursuing something only for it not to work out, for that time to be wasted. The end result is that I start a number of small projects, which I abandon as soon as I realize it's going to be, OMG WTF, hard.

I can knock out a short blog post, because that's maybe 30-60 minutes of effort and I know it'll be well received by both of my readers (Hi, Dad!) if I bring a little of the funny. But write a novel, something I've been wanting to do for years? I type maybe 5-10 pages, get frustrated because it's crappy, and quit. I've done this at least four times in the last 6 months.

Dr. Pausch, on the other hand, teamed with a Drama professor to develop an entire Master's degree program that no one at any other college had even thought of. Sort of a combination of graphic design, virtual reality, animation, and a lot of computing concepts I don't even remotely comprehend. It's been around for several years now, and it still nothing like it is appearing at other schools, so Carnegie Mellon is simply creating their own labs for it around the world; Australia, Singapore, and others.

He also led the team that developed Alice, which is an object-oriented programming language entirely designed to teach kids how to program. Except, and this is the kicker, it doesn't seem like programming; the kids feel like they are creating detailed computer animations. It's a revolutionary way to teach programming, centered on Dr. Pausch's belief that the best way to teach someone something is to make him think he's not learning at all.

I'm sure along the way he tried some things that didn't work. But he didn't care, because he learned from every failure, and was simply unafraid of not succeeding. This gave him the ability to work staggeringly hard.

Also, he knew what he wanted. At the beginning of the lecture, he lists his childhood dreams, and establishes exactly what he did to try and accomplish each one of them. The only one he missed out on, at the time of the lecture? Playing in the NFL. Within a few weeks, the Pittsburgh Steelers caught wind of this and invited him to team practice. The man set out a list of tasks at a young age, and completed each one.

I still, at thirty years of age, don't know what I want to do with my life. This is remarkably common among my friends, I find, and is unbelievably frustrating. The relentlessly negative portion of my conscious mind likes to remind me on occasion that I'm never going to amount to anything, because if I was I'd know what I want to do. Unsurprisingly, this is a bit of a damper on the creative process.

The only thing more terrifying than having a ton of talent and not knowing what to do with it? Having a ton of talent and being too scared to use it.

Great, I'm batting a thousand.

Randy, you were a great teacher, great husband, undoubtedly great father, and most of all great man by any measure. You are already missed. May we all (especially, you know, I) learn from your staggering example.

Crikey

Wow, it's been like 3 weeks and a day. That is pretty sad, for someone who prides himself on...well...I'm not sure what I pride myself on. Food consumption, I guess, and I'm also remarkably good at growing zits.

Anyway, you might be curious about what's been going on, but probably not. The new job really has me hoppin', and I'm loathe to do anything but, you know, actually work, because I'd like to keep my job. (At CSC getting fired would have been almost a pleasure, so I did a significant portion of my blogging from the office.) The Brandywiners show ("Oklahoma!") has me at one rehearsal or another almost every night, and we haven't even gone out to Longwood (the location of the outdoor theater) yet. Things are gonna get mad hectic. MAD. HEC. TIC. TAC. TOE.

That went to a weird place.

Anyway, some quicky notes:

• I love my new MacBook. (You may have read about it in an earlier post.) There's all kinds of radness associated with it, and I finally managed to get all my favorite programs installed. Woo! Woo. If you've got the means (they're roughly twice as expensive as a comparable PC), I highly recommend picking one up.
• I finally got around to starting to use Shutterfly, bringing me into approximately 2004. I'm catching up, I swear! Anyway, you can hit up matthearn.shutterfly.com to look at some recent pictures, and even download or order quality prints of 'em if you've of a mind to.
• While I'm in the picture-editing mode, hopefully I'll have new pictures of Charles to put up in the next day or two. I mean, I have the pictures; hopefully they'll be up. If you're curious, he's the size of a prize calf. It's like feeding a full-grown St. Bernard, except blonder and louder.

Yeah, that's what I got. Hopefully I'll see you in less than 3 weeks. No promises, though.

Playing catch-up

It's been some time, so we're gonna break it down West Virginia-style. Show me what you got!

• I may or may not have mentioned, I got a new job! Actually, I know I didn't mention it, because nothing was finalized until just a few weeks ago, I didn't want to jynx anything, and then things were insanely busy for the last few weeks at CSC and then of course the first week at AIG.

  I'm not gonna say anything rude about CSC, since that seems tacky and possibly actionable at law, but I will say this: wow, what a difference. AIG is just a completely different environment. In some ways that's great, and in some ways it's not so great, but the aggregate result is general awesomeness.

• I'm finally going over to the dark side. Or was I already on the dark side, and now I'm going over to the light side? Hard to say, but it is certainly the whitest piece of electronic equipment I've ever owned. I, of course, ordered it on a Friday afternoon before a holiday, so I'll be lucky if I have it by mid-June.
• Speaking of computational power, I got permission to buy MYSELF a new lappy by fixing my wife's, a 2-year-old Dell Inspiron B130 that had developed the following inexplicable behaviors:
  1. Getting hotter than a melon picker's taint in August. Seriously, if you turned it on and sat it on your bare legs, after a while you'd start to smell singed hair and be like, the hell? OW!
  2. Ridiculous slowdowns at completely random times. Work in Photoshop for 45 minutes? No problem! Attempt to open up Wordpad? Oh, that's gonna take me a few minutes. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!
  3. Heat-related shutoffs. Basically the box would just turn itself off, and then turned it on after it cooled, you'd get this nice message saying "I turned myself off 'cause it was too hot out!" Really great.
  I did a little googlin' and found two possible solutions to the problem:
  • Take the lappy apart and blow the dust out of it. I took it apart as far as I dared (didn't wanna break anything) and didn't see much in the way of dust, but I sprayed it with a can of air anyway. No effect.
  • Undervolt the CPU so that it absorbs less electricity, and thusly, less heat. Turns out this model CAN'T undervolted. Yay!
  So I was getting pretty pissed, and finally went to the Dell website to see if I could find instructions on complete disassembly of the system, and found a thing saying "if your B130 is overheating, here is how to take out the heat sink and clean the dust out of it." What? Why didn't Google turn this up? Google, you have led me astray!

  So I took the heat sink out, and sure enough, there was a clump of cat hair in there big enough to roll into felt and make a hat from. I got that out, blew some can o' air in there, and put everything back together. Now there's no heat problems at all. I've had this sitting on my junk for the time it's taken me to type this out (maybe 20 minutes) and nothing's afire! Woo!

  As an added bonus, the CPU processing power has gone from about 1GHz to 1.4GHz. I guess processors have ways of detecting when things are too hot and just slowing everything down. Ain't a problem no more, this puppy's whirling like a dervish.

  So in short, if your compy is too hot and it's burning your groin, pop the heat sink out and clean it.

The end.

A Love Letter To Chase Utley

Dear Chase:

I hope you don't mind me writing so often! I left some messages on what I think is your number (you wouldn't BELIEVE what I had to do to get it), but you haven't called. I know you're SUPER busy, but I just wanted to hear your voice, you know?

I was so proud to hear you hit your tenth home run yesterday! You're really having a SUPER AWESOME season. So much better than that Ryan Howard guy who made them give him all that money. Ten million dollars, and his OPS is .652? Ridiculous!

I shouldn't tell you this, but today at lunch I wrote "Mrs. Matthew Utley" all over the cover of my notebook. It just looks so PERFECT, you know? I mean, it just DOES!!! right?

Anyway, I just wanted to say HI! Write or call back soon! Or, you know, look me up on Facebook, I would TOTALLY friend you but I can't find you. Not sure if you're not on there, or what. How could someone not be on Facebook? It's like 2008 or something! Ha ha!

Love,

Me

Why, oh why, did I not go into dentistry?

I was getting my molars scraped and poked last week, drool puddling on my chin and dripping onto my collar, when it occurred to me that being a dentist might just be the best job in the history of mankind. Unless you have a particular aversion to putting your fingers in and your face next to somebody's filthy mouth, I can't imagine a better one. It wouldn't bother me in the least; having changed hundreds of Charles's diapers, halitosis holds no terrors for me.

(I should point out that my dentist, Dr. Bond, is a fantastic tooth man; I've been seeing him for something like 20 years with no complaints, and one of these days he's going to retire and I really don't know what I'm going to do at that point.)

It seems like dentists have all the benefits of doctors (high salaries, exalted social status, cool acronyms after their names) but without most of the stresses. Doctors have sick people showing up all day, blowing germs on them; who goes to the dentist when they're sick? Doctors have to deal with actual emergencies, like people getting shot or catching TB or something; dentists have to be on-call to replace chipped crowns. Worst of all, doctors occasionally have to tell people they're going to die, or tell family members that somebody's already dead. The worst thing a dentist is going to tell you is that your gingivitis has turned into periodontal disease and you're going to need seven root canals and a gum scraping.

(I don't really know what a gum scraping is, but my mom's had a couple of 'em to reduce gum inflammation, and it apparently hurts quite a lot.)

Meanwhile, dentists get to make the same ridiculous money and buy the same awesome boats and beach homes as specialists. The only thing I can imagine being more lucrative is orthodontia, but then you have to deal with annoying children all day. (Having a child, I've found, does not decrease one's disdain for poorly behaved kids. In fact it seems to heighten it.)

I wonder if HW would allow me to quit my job and go to dental school. We'd have to live in poverty for a while to pay off school loans. I'll ask her later.

In a related story: is it just me, or does dental work get more painful as you get older? Maybe it's just the newer technology, but when I was growing up, I'd go in for a cleaning and they'd scrape off the plaque and send me on my way. It was all very gentle, and I always got a cool new toothbrush out of it, with Transformers on it if I was lucky, and dental floss that I threw into the bathroom closet and never used. (To this day there is probably 50 sample-size containers of spearmint flavored floss in the back of my mother's bathroom closet.)

Last week I went in for a routine cleaning and checkup, and they:

• Got out some kind of sonic-screwdriver-water-pick that scraped away tartar and plaque with all the gentleness of a jackhammer;
• Stabbed some kind of miniature ruler in between each of my teeth and my gums to measure inflammation;
• polished my choppers with some kind of miniature angle grinder.

It hurt like the dickens, though of course being a stoic, John-Wayne-type manly man, I took it with nothing more than a grimace. Of course, I had cavities, so I had to go back later in the week to get drilled and spackled, and I swear to you on the souls of my cats that the dentist put a die grinder in my mouth.

Did my mouth just become untenable for the less intrusive techniques? Or did dentistry become more sadist?

Are you coming to see The Wizard of Oz at Brandywine High School? It's running tonight, 4/10, to Saturday 4/12, nightly at 7pm, with a matinee on Saturday at 2. If you AREN'T coming, you better live far away, 'cause I'll be making a list of everybody I know that doesn't show up and KICKING THEIR ASSES. But I'll make exceptions for people of great distance 'cause it's just not worth the drive.

(Note: I'm no more capable of kicking an ass than I am of impregnating a tree. But did I at least sound tough and manly? It'd be a first!)

The show is going pretty well, although having all the extra rehearsal time we have this year (the shows are roughly 3 weeks later in the year than the last spring production, which went up in mid-March) actually made us a little lackadaisical for a while. Learn that chorus? Bah, we've got three months! Oops, now it's April. Still, Sarah was able to teach all the choreography in record time, which was nice, and I got all the chorus stuff taught pretty early, for me.

In the end, the show came together, as shows always seem to do. We had our touch-up rehearsal yesterday, which went a long way towards polishing things, so I'm looking forward to tonight, not least because I spend the few hours before a performance trying not to throw up, but once it starts I'm too busy to think about how nervous I am. I know what you're thinking: Nervous? Matt Hearn? That's ridiculous! It's true I don't often get nervous before I have to SING anything, but then you have to remember that I'm a REALLY good singer, but a mediocre conductor at best. I consider a show a success if I take the tempos slow enough that none of the dancers hurt themselves.

Don't let the possibility of injury dissuade you from coming, though, 'cause remember: I'LL BE KICKING YOUR ASS. (No I won't.)

Okay, so here is what has been going on, and it is crazy.

We have a new customer at work, about whom I can basically say nothing, except that

1. it's actually a pretty cool client to work with, and
2. contractual obligations have required us to have things in place on an INSANE timetable.

So, in short, I've been working ridiculously hard, something that is anathema to my very soul. This has left little time for sleep, not least because the stress prevents me from sleeping very well, and when coupled with the spring high school show we're doing again this year (Wizard of Oz, April 10th,11th,12th, be there or be crushed by a flying house) and the supposedly-only-21-months-old-but-the-size-of-a-3-year-old toddler that's destroying my house, I end up doing things like writing 89-word run-on sentences with multiple nested parenthetical asides (like this one (and this one)).

Luckily, things at work have slowed JUST a teense (although I still have some stuff ramping up that I'm hoping to get ahead of before it gets too insane), just in time of course for the musical to get super busy. Extra-luckily, we learned from our mistake with last year's show (doing it in mid-March after only about 2 months of rehearsals, many of which got snowed out) and are doing it almost a full month later this year, plus not many rehearsals got snowed out, so we're in good shape. Of course, we have to deal with spring break in the middle of rehearsals, because Easter is about as early as it can possibly be, but that's a small price to pay for, say, not opening this weekend, which would have me cutting my legs like emo girl.

Plus, I found a little time to start working on a novel. Yes, I'm writing a novel! As you might expect, it's pretty bad! Like, almost painful. But I've decided that dammit, I'm gonna finish it, even if it's just a practice one. If it turns out to be not a complete embarrassment, I might share it with you. If after about 17 drafts it actually ends up being half-decent, I might send it around to some publishers, as soon as I figure out how to do that. This is not likely, however, as so far the only redeeming quality seems to be that some of my fishing reel trivia is correct.

See? I told you. BAD.

Later this week, you'll have one more righteous picture update from Charles, and I might actually take a break from going insane to tell you all about going to see "In The Heights" on Broadway last week. Hint: I HAVE DANCED ON THE BROADWAY STAGE!

This will come as a surprise to everyone, I'm sure: 89%DRUNKARD

To celebrate the end of a month of being insanely overworked, I bring you: the best thing produced by the internet to date. Turn your sound on.

So: Heroes. HW and I are about halfway through the DVDs of season one, usually knocking out 2 or 3 episodes a night while cleaning, or working on our lappies, or whatnot. So far, here are my thoughts:

• I am on the freaking edge of my seat. Seriously, it's all we can do to get to bed by 11pm, and invariably when there's any doubt, we watch another episode. We're starting to reach the point, though, where keeping track of all the various plotlines is taking its toll on our sanity; about 10 episodes in, they introduced yet another new character, and Sarah paused the DVD, looked at me, and said, "Oh hells no."
• The show is deceptively gruesome. Early on we watched a few episodes with Charles in the room (not that he pays attention; the only things he likes on TV are "The New Yankee Workshop" (he likes to say "Morm!" when Norm Abram appears) and "Days Of Our Lives"), but after a few episodes I realized that the despite the fact that there's very little actual violence in a given episode, there's a heck of a lot of shots of the results of violence. For example, in an early episode (mild SPOILER ALERT), Niki rips a couple of mafia goons to shreds, quite literally. You don't get to see it happen, but you do get a couple of glimpses of corpses with significant limbs in alternate locations. Later on, some people get their heads sawn open; you don't see it happen, you just see the results. Pretty gritty stuff. IT'S AWESOME.
• HW extols the acting of Ali Larter, who plays (another SPOILER ALERT) a chick with multiple personality disorder, but I don't think it's that hard. There's no real subtlety between the two characters; one is timid and nice, and the other is insane and likes to tear people limb from limb. It's interesting to see her switch back and forth in the span of a few seconds, but I think any actor outside of Keanu Reeves could probably do that. None of the acting is really that exceptional, although that's mostly because the characters just aren't that deep. They all have funny abilities and are conflicted about them. The best of the lot is probably Adrian Pasdar, playing politician Nathan Petrelli, because he's the only one with more than 2 layers. (I don't count Ali Larter here because she's basically playing two separate characters who happen to look identical.) Nathan has his politician mask, his win-at-all-costs shark persona, his mild confusion and conflict about his abilities, and underneath all that, there's a foreboding menace that's hard to describe because we've only gotten to see glimpses of it yet.

  Hayden Panettiere is a little disappointing, mostly because her half-hearted attempts at a Texas accent falls WAAAAY short. On the other hand, she's so hot that I have to put on loose pants to watch the show. So I can't be truly objective about her acting. And don't remind me that she was probably only 16 when season 1 was taped; I already have to counteract my shame and guilt with massive amounts of high quality English gin. Although I don't feel so bad, now that she's dating Milo Ventimiglia, who is 8 months older than I.

• The inside jokes and shoutouts to other films and TV shows, usually involving Hiro Nakamura, are SLAYING me. When he tries to travel backwards in time a few minutes, and accidentally goes backwards approximately 6 months, he says "Great Scott!", an obvious reference to "Back To The Future." Later, we noted that his father was played by George Takei (aka Mr. Sulu), who rolls up in a limo with the license plate "NCC1701." It's also worth noting that Hiro is the most amusing character in a prime-time drama since Thomas Magnum. And Hiro's cuter. All the nerdgirls I know crave his hott parts.

Right now our DVR is choked with episodes from Season 2; hopefully we can wrap up Season 1 in the next week or so and start to get caught up. If only to see what happens when Hayden Panettiere's character hits her slutty college years.

I don't know when the hell I got so old, but somewhere between the ages of 18 and almost-30 I lost the ability to play a game of football without being crippled for days. I played some beach tackle football with my old Ychrome buddies yesterday, and as a result I can barely walk today. Every muscle in my thighs is on fire, my lower back is basically sending a constant series of "F U" messages to my brain, and also I think I dislocated part of my nose because I got elbowed in the face while trying to tackle the QB.

I also learned some things about my athletic ability:

1. I am not an accurate thrower. What I am is a hard thrower. So the best option is to have someone park themselves near the line of scrimmage so I can throw the ball at their heads, like Peyton Manning. If they run to the endzone, I whip it far over them. So I am useless at that position. We tried it for 2 downs and I never threw the ball again.
2. I am not an effective receiver, because I am fat and slow. This means that, despite the fact that I can pretty much catch anything thrown within reach, I never get open enough for someone to throw to me, unless they have specifically drawn a play up for me.
3. I am a good runner, because I have no problem simply lowering my shoulder into whomever is attempting to tackle me. Since I was one of the 2 largest players, and the other one was on my team, the 80+ pound weight advantage was key.

In the end, we won, mostly because we had actual athletes on the team, but also because there were a few opportunities for me to run over people. Fantastic times. Except that now my groin hurts. And Charles has a fun game where I'm required to lie on the floor so that he can jump on my nutsack. So I've got that to look forward to later.

This is the cold that never ends. It just goes on and on, my friends. Some germs got in my body made me feel filled up with fuzz, I can't seem to get rid of them and it's all just because this is the cold that never ends...

It's not a BAD cold, it's just ANNOYING. Just a sort of general ague that leaves my nose running, though I can still breathe through it, and my throat filled with various goos that I can't seem to cough up. Plus my earache comes and goes, that's an added bonus. I managed to fight through it for a Messiah performance yesterday, but that's mostly because my solos were all in the first part, so I didn't have to try and save myself for stuff towards the end. All the worrisome bits were done by intermission, which meant I could just stand up and sit down and periodically yell in baroque counterpoint, while stuffing cough drops into my mouth and yawning to drain my eustachian tubes. It was good times for all! Yes, yes it was.

The performance went superbly, actually; we had some new soloists this year, a tenor named Ken, and an old acquaintance named Gus singing countertenor. Dude sings like a lady! It's awesome.

The rest of the weekend was spent completely ignoring my self-imposed dietary restrictions in favor of chips, fudge, and alcohol. These are a few of my favorite things, particularly when the chips are Grandma Utz's, the fudge is handmade by yours truly, and the alcohol is in vast quantities. Plus my wife let me sleep in on Saturday for no good reason at all. If I could have figured out a way to not get called for work all weekend (despite not actually being on call; my job is really great) it would have been very restful.

I hope your Christmas shopping is in a better state than mine; my usual effort to make up for being a dick 364 days a year by spending too much money on friends, family, and charities is WAAAAAAY behind. I have some stuff, but need to make an inventory before making any further purchases so I don't end up with a situation in which I have 17 items for my father and 3 for my mother. (This is hyperbole, you understand, but I'm pretty sure as of now I have 2 or 3 big presents for Dad and not one thing for Mom. Although I think Sarah has stuff for her; I'll just replace her labels with ones that say "from your loving eldest progeny." Just like every year!) Usually by this time I've already basically completed my purchases and just have to make with the wrapping, but it's been a busy fall. BTW: people that want good presents make and update their Amazon wishlists. If you leave me to just buy you whatever I think you might like, well, that's how people end up with CDs like this.

I'm still sick, and it's starting to become a Nuisance. For example, I have to sing in a Messiah on Sunday, and during last night's rehearsal I developed what felt like an ear infection. Today it seems better, but I'm all clogged up again.

Is this God's punishment for that time I wiped a booger on another chorister? Uh...my bad.

More heavenly disdain is being communicated to me by the fact that my /? key is faulty. In order to get it to work I have to push really hard on it; I think there's a pretzel crumb under there, or a piece of salt, or maybe another chorister's boogie.

I wonder if I could hook a vacuum to my head to relieve all the pressure. A few months back I bought a 16-gallon 6.5HP Wet/Dry Super Industrial Kickass Vacuum/Leaf Blower; the thing could suck the stain out of an Affleck end table (just like your mom! Ha ha!). I bet I could suck mucus out of my sinuses with it. Maybe I'll try later.

Speaking of furniture, my lunch today consisted of a 220-calorie bowl of Kraft Easy Mac, which I got from a machine and heated up, and which tasted like wood glue. I think the Diet Coke I had with it was more nutritious. Dieting straight sucks, lemme tell you; I could've also run to the Wendy's down the street and had 4 Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers, a "Biggie" Fries, and a "Biggie" Diet Coke for like $7 and then just gone back to work and had a nap. It would have been fantastic, and I wouldn't have the raging headache I have.

Yep, it's bitch bitch bitch bitch, all the time, at matthearn.com! Glad you're here. Now go forth and sin some more.

Let's chat about humor for a moment. I'd just like to take the time to address a big problem in the world, and that is that a surprising number of people have a misconfigured sense of humor. Oh sure, some things are universally funny:

• Fart jokes
• Actual farts
• Reference to the sex lives of the Amish
• That story your dad tells every time he gets hammered about the time he took a dump in a mailbox
• Any joke involving a priest, a rabbi, and a 300W rainbow-colored marital aid
• Covered wagons, aka Dutch Ovens

The laughs never end, when those topics get broken out at parties. Particularly if the party as at my house, and the participants have drunk between 5 and 17 bottles of homemade Continental Pilsner apiece. But certain topics seem to make certain folks laugh, and other folks whine in great dismay.

For example: my wife is in the business of assisting the differently-abled. (They used to be called "handicapped," and before that, "crippled;" by 2015 they'll be called "Judiciously Improved.") I fully support this, except that the Political Correctness Brigade has now weaseled its way into my very home. During my adolescence, it was perfectly acceptable, when someone did something stupid, to call him "retarded." And mirth would result. Now, I have to expend great amounts of brainpower trying to not say that word in front of my wife and her coworkers. (In a similar vein, we were allowed to call anything we disagreed with "gay," as in "Dude, homework is totally gay," or "Bobby and Jimmy kissing behind the school was so gay." No longer. The internet has invented a substitute word, "ghey," which is totally gay.)

As far as I can tell, the word "retarded" is no less funny than it was in 1993. And yet nowadays people get their undergarments in a SEVERE bunch if you break it out anywhere but a hockey team's locker room. This is a disturbing indicator of the path we're on, in which I won't be able to say things like "Dude, your new subwoofer has a totally fat sound" without some overweight ninny saying "What did you say? Fat? How dare you!" and then attempting to kick me in the nards but failing because her thigh-fat precludes any actual upward motion of her legs. (Note: this would actually be HILARIOUS to witness.)

And lest you think I'm just some completely irreverent buffoon that would laugh at a baby's funeral, let me show you the depth of my intellect: I have seen the other side of the coin, albeit for a totally retarded stupid reason. Last night I was watching David Letterman, something I normally avoid because Paul Shaffer's voice makes my ears bleed, and they were doing the top 10, which was something like "top 10 ways you can tell that gasoline prices are out of hand." #3 was, "Anna Nicole Smith married a Texaco franchisee." My initial response was "Damn, that's cold. Her bloated corpse is barely cold yet." But then I realized that, due to the Writer's Strike, all the late shows are in re-runs until like 2009, and the joke dated from 2005 when Anna Nicole was still barely alive. Why did the fact that she's dead make the joke seem less funny and more mean? It's ridiculous. It should be the other way around; now that she's dead, it's not like she's gonna hear about it and get pissed off. The joke is just as funny as it was in 2005, which is of course to say that it's not funny at all and never was. (Brian will probably have a heart attack, but I've always found Letterman (and all the late-night guys since Johnny quit) to be pretty overrated when it comes to bringing the funny.)

I got to thinking about this, because a few weeks ago I set my Facebook status message to something like "Matt Hearn is wondering how people can confuse 'they're', 'there', and 'their'; is it because they have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?" Which you have to admit, if you don't have FAS, is pretty funny. I still got some irritated messages about it. If you do have FAS, it might be perceived as insulting, but 1) if you have FAS and know the difference between those three words, then obviously the joke isn't directed at you and 2) if you have FAS and don't know the difference between those three words, then perhaps my little jibe will inspire you to go to school and study hard. It's win-win! And if you don't have FAS, but have a problem with sand in your vagina, just go to the bathroom and rinse it out. Stop annoying me because Uncle Gropey took away your girlish laughter.

It's hard to avoid being insulted by certain jokes. I think the secret is not to flip out about it. If you hear a joke that offends you, just laugh along with the rest and tell your own insulting joke right back. Note: this may only work with minorities.

The human body is a strange thing. And not just because the last few days mine has been filled with phlegm and other gross things and has been completely unresponsive to medications. (My throat feels like Rachael Ray has been trying to zest it, which, if you aren't familiar with basic cooking techniques, is less fun than it sounds.) I've been dieting a bit over the last few months, basically just trying to avoid stuffing my face with bacon and Mimolette long enough to maybe fit in a few leaves of romaine. Anyway, because of my moderately freakish size, my weight fluctuations are...out of the ordinary.

The 2 weeks before thanksgiving, I had managed to get down to about 233 pounds, 9 pounds of which I lost in about 7 days due to the magic of water weight. Then, over the break, I gained 11 pounds in about 10 days, back to 244 as of Monday. Today, 4 days later, I weigh 235. It's all very amusing, except for the part where I still have a big ol' gut and my ass looks like a pair of basketballs stuffed into cheap khaki. That part, well, that part sucks.

Today's post is in the style of Samuel Pepys.

Tuesday, 6 November, 16672007

Up, and to lessons; much accomplished on Ravel's Prelude. The nimbleness of my fingers quickens, despite my recent frustrations. All the morning spent at the computational room, that I might improve the notes thereon, but was denied. Submitted necessary forms to be allowed to continue my efforts. Meetings through the afternoon, accomplishing little, and wasting much tyme. To the in-laws to retrieve My Lord and bring him then home; there we made much merry whining. A bath, and then idle. Ate sparingly, and to bed.

---

Notes:
Lessons: Piano studies.
Frustrations: On Monday, Hearn was so incensed by his inability to play a Brahms waltz that he punched a dent in the adjacent drywall.
Meetings: Technically, conference calls.
Idle: Technically, 3 hours of Flight Simulator.
Ate sparingly: Hearn is on a diet, and hopes to lose about 15 pounds, despite the Holidays.

WOW. WHEW boy. THAT woke everybody up, didn't it? Apparently I need to throw a little more controversy up on here! Stir the pot, I guess. Okay, here goes:

Gay men are better at interior decorating than straight men.

Is that going too far?

Anyway, I suppose I should respond to the responses, but I should post a few disclaimers:

1. Sunday school is routinely held at the same time as choir practice in all of the churches at which I've worshipped. Since I've been singing in choirs of one kind or another since I was roughly 12, I haven't had a lot of theological instruction in almost 2 decades. Any insight I have on the subject is stuff I've gathered from Dilbert cartoons.
2. My theological beliefs are entirely colored by my experiences, not the other way around. I'd like to believe God exists, but so far He hasn't revealed Himself to me fully. And that's fine; maybe He will someday. Meanwhile I have to live my daily life in a Schroedinger's Cat situation of "God exists/God doesn't exist," so I hedge my bets (example: instead of donating all my cash to the poor and wandering the earth in sandals and a robe, I toss a few bucks to worthy charities occasionally and spend the bulk of my money on, say, housing, food, diapers, and high-end electronics). What I'm saying is, if God really "hates fags," then he needs to find a better way to say it than Fred Phelps, 'cause the gay folks I know are pretty much all awesome.

Having said that, let me make a few points:

• To quote my boy HeavyDluxe:

  Interestingly, the Bible itself really presents you (in numerous places) with an all or nothing proposition. It either is all true, or it's a complete lie. Doesn't really give you a middle ground, sadly.

  I'm not sure about that. The fact that the Bible is technically the Word of God as written down by fallible humans means to me that, if we were to assume that God Himself was telling folks what to write down, some things got lost in translation. Genesis, for example, was passed down orally for generations before being put to parchment somewhere between 900 and 450 BCE. The New Testament is obviously different, since theoretically it was written down by people who knew Christ, or at least knew Him second-hand, but it speaks volumes to me that there are numbers of gospels and other documents that were considered for canonicity and discarded. It'd be nice to think that they were excluded because historical documents abounded showing them to be false testaments, but from what I've read it seems like often they were thrown out because they showed Jesus in a light that the church leaders didn't like (as more of a man than the earthly manifestation of the divine, etc.).

  What I'm saying is that there are probably parts of the Bible that are true, parts that are outright false; most is somewhere in between. My view of BELIEF of the Bible, however, is either you believe it wholeheartedly, or other. (Other can be "I believe it's not a literal account of anything, but shows a greater truth" or "I only believe the New Testament, because it's clearly intended as a replacement for the Old Testament" or whatever.)

  I do concede the point that the rules outlined in the Old Testament may be there to show that nobody can be perfect, and the New Testament shows the way to heaven despite our imperfections. I had not considered that before. So in theory you CAN believe that the Bible is entirely literal, and still get your bacon on. I'm not sure that I like the implication that God is basically saying "Okay, here are the rules. Now don't worry about them, break them as much as you want, but MAKE SURE YOU BELIEVE IN MY SON."

• The Bible is merely one of many documents, including the Koran, the Vedas and Upanishads, etc. that purport to show some kind of True Way (although they all seem to lead to different places). The only reason most Americans follow Christianity at all is because it's what they were raised with. It's like preferring steak and potatoes (Mmmm...steak) over vegetable curry (Mmmm...curry).

  If an alien was flying through space alone, searching for the meaning of life, landed on earth, and decided to pick himself a religion because he wanted to believe in SOMETHING, which one would he pick? They're all pretty much equally well-documented. If he wanted to pick one based on which had the EARLIEST documentation, it'd probably have to be Hinduism. If he picked the one followed by the most people, it'd probably be a form of Christianity. If he landed in downtown Mecca, he'd probably pick Islam. In the end, he'd have to make a decision based on whichever religion felt right to him. It's all a matter of faith.

  I guess what I'm saying is that when it comes to religion, you have to choose what FEELS right. To get back to the reason I originally opened this massive ridiculous train of thought (anti-homosexual feelings in the Christian church), a God who makes a person gay, and then denies him the right to be who he is, is not a God who feels right to me.

• One more HeavyDluxe quote before I get back to my usual thoughts of booze and women:

  God = Holiness + Justice + Love + Wrath Against Sin. God without wrath/justice/holiness is neither God nor loving.

  Which makes sense short term, but not eternally. For example, I love my son. I show this by smothering him with hugs and kisses whenever he gets within reach, and also by disciplining him when he, for example, tries to touch a hot light bulb, because I don't want him to get hurt. With God, it seems like he wants you to believe in him, and if you don't, you get eternally damned. Which is similar to Charles refusing to acknowledge me as his father, so I kill him. That's not an act of love. That's solely an act of vengeance.

  Of course, that's projecting human feelings onto an omnipotent being; I obviously can't know how God thinks. What I do know is that I have a hard time having faith in a God who is reported to be loving and yet supposedly lets people burn in eternity, often for the simple act of growing up in a remote place that hasn't heard of Jesus yet. I actually have a much easier time believing, for example, that if you are a dick to people you get reincarnated as a tapeworm, but I like celebrating major Christian feast days, so I'll stick with what I got.

Okay, I'll shut up now. Remember: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. Next week: how God demonstrated Himself to me by way of a massive jolt of electricity through a 5-iron!

In poking around Facebook recently, I came across the True Love Waits group (link only works if you're, you know, in Facebook). I'm not much a believer in it myself, but I do think that overall it's a good idea, because the numbers of young people who are too stupid to be having sex before marriage seems to be growing (because they won't stop having sex, you see, which often results in reproduction). If we could maybe get all these folks in one place and maybe get them to hold off on the nooky as long as possible, or lordy at least until they're in HIGH SCHOOL for heaven's sake, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, of the people that I've met who joined the True Love Waits organization, all tended to be people who weren't going to be having any pre-marital sex even if they weren't opposed to it, due to significant personality/body mass/acne problems.

Upon viewing the group, I noticed the "Recent News" section, and read through it, and it's a bit terrifying. It starts rather tamely:

Purpose of Group: I do not want to be the one who secludes others because they simply believe differently than myself and how I interpret God's moral code. Even though I believe in absolute truth, I believe in showing love and respect to all first (even though I heavily disagree). First, I want to address why I created this group, this group is meant to be a place of encouragement to others who have decided to be virgins until marriage.

Great idea. If someone wants to remain chaste until they get the gold band, I'm all for it (though I have to admit, if I were single, and went on a date with someone who revealed they intended to wait until marriage to give up the punani, well... I probably would not call her back). But scroll down further, and things start to get a bit creepy:

This group is based on God's absolute word revealed to us in the Bible, and the God that I serve is a God of love (who is also a God of justice and wrath)...

Uh, okay, sure. Unfortunately, the love>justice+wrath prioritization doesn't seem to hold with what comes next:

The concept of Homosexuality if [sic] strongly forbidden in the Bible. Such examples include Leviticus 18 (Old Testament) and Romans 1 (New Testament). I cannot and will not condone such actions to be pure or holy in any shape or form. Homosexuality is a direct perversion of God's created sex and therefore I will not allow any such discussion in this group.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, first of all, congratulations on not having made any intellectual progress since, oh, about 1840. Secondly, looking above, it seems like you're FAR more interested in the God of Wrath than you are in either the God of Love or the God of Justice. Thirdly, let's talk about the absolute truth mentioned in the first quote. As I see it, the Bible can be looked at in one of three ways:

1. The Bible is the absolute truth: God made the universe in 6 days and partied on the 7th; He really did kill all but 8 people and 2 of each animal with a huge worldwide flood; and he actually sent His Son to earth, had him killed, and then raised him from the dead; etc. If this is what you believe, then you're ignoring valid science (which led to, among other things, the computer you're looking at, the construction of which isn't detailed anywhere in the Bible) in favor of a document that is between 1800 and 6000 years old, depending on which section you're reading. At least no one will ever tell you "Don't be so smart."
2. The Bible is Man's version of God's word, and therefore flawed, but still contains valid instructions that must be followed. Of course, these instructions include things like:
   • Deuteronomy 22:5 - The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
   • Deut. 21:18-21 - If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
     Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
     And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
     And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
   • Deut. 22:23-24 - If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
     Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
   Those are from the King James Version, and say, in order: if a woman wears pants, it is an abomination to the Lord; if your son is a jerk, you and your friends must kill him; and if your fiancee gets raped but doesn't scream loud enough, she and the rapist get killed. Definitely an authoritative moral code for the 21st century. Oh, and don't forget all the dietary laws that somehow get ignored these days.
3. The Bible is, at best, a collection of jazzed up stories handed down by word of mouth and eventually put to paper. It contains some nice ideas about love, and how to treat other people, particularly in the New Testament, but should never be taken literally.

How anyone can believe option one is beyond me. And yet a surprising number of people do, even young folks, which astounds me. How can you sit through a basic 5th grade science class and still believe that the world was created in a matter of days? Doesn't it make more sense that, maybe, JUST maybe, some skeevy priest made that story up in 4000BC because people kept asking him how the world came to be and were getting tired of just hearing "God did it?"

The second option I can at least understand; follow the rules, and you go to heaven. Don't, and you go to hell. Super simple. However, since the Bible contains all those crazy Old Testament minor commandments about keeping kosher and stoning disobedient children, which even hard core conservative Christians seem to ignore these days, folks are just picking and choosing which rules they want to follow. Which leads to the question: what exactly makes you think that the rules you've chosen are the ones that really count? For example, the most frequently quoted Anti-Homosexuality Bible provision is Leviticus 20:13:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

But in Lev. 11:12:

Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

So crawdads, lobsters, shrimp, crabs, etc. are all abominations too. Not to mention, of course, how pigs are unclean (which I gather is one step below abominable), and yet I don't see the churchgoers at the Bob Evans on Sunday afternoons asking the servers to make sure the cooks hold the bacon. What fundamentalists are saying is basically "Okay, you only have to obey the IMPORTANT rules, and we get to say what those are." Sorry, but no; either you obey ALL the rules, or you don't get to condemn others for saying that the prohibition on homosexuality is no more valid than the prohibition on eating delicious pork chops.

What scares me isn't that some people believe that gay folks are going to hell. You can believe that Jesus appeared to you in a vision and told you to sell all your possessions, buy a used Harley Softail, and ride around Arkansas preaching Rastafarianism for all I care. What terrifies me is that folks that believe this crazy stuff have a tendency to band together and convince the government that they have some kind of True Path, and that True Path involves telling the rest of the world what they may and may not do. Religious fundamentalism is religious fundamentalism; the difference between telling homosexuals they can't get married or adopt kids and stoning them in the streets is just a matter of degree. And time.

Even if fundamentalist Christianity starts to decline, I'm still saddened by the fact that, assuming popular statistics hold true, 10% of them are repressed homosexuals. The likelihood is that they'll force themselves into marriages, and then get divorced many years later when they can no longer contain their own sexuality; the results of this are never pleasant, particularly if there are kids involved. I was hoping we were moving into a time where we'd see less of it, but I guess not.

I apologize for this not being even remotely humorous; I don't know what came over me. Stupid facebook.

Like many Americans, I am on a diet. And also like many Americans, I hate it and it's not working. Well...it sort of is. I can't tell.

The problem is that I weigh exactly the same as when I started, roughly 240 pounds. (What can I say? I got a BIG ASS.) But my pants fit better, my belt is on a thinner notch, and people have been asking me if I've lost weight. I'm all, whaaaaaa? I have lost no weight! I weigh the same! And yet am thinner!

Perhaps my guns are getting bigger. Yeah, that's the ticket. And my MASSIVE PECTORALS! Or, and this is far more likely, my neck.

In other news, I have gotten addicted to MS Flight Simulator 2004. I don't think I've played a flight sim since about MS FS 4.0, which wasn't actually a half bad game, but 2004 is way bitchiner, with full training programs, a number of built-in airplanes (plus bajillions of downloadables), real-time weather, and the ability to connect to the VATSIM network and interact with amateur air traffic controllers.

It's not a bad deal, really; FS X is now out, so 2004 is a steal, brand new, at Amazon for $19.99. I got a Logitech Extreme 3D controller at Target for $26.99, and it has more gizmos than my car: throttle, twistable stick (for rudder control), trigger (in case I get a combat sim some day; meanwhile it controls the brakes), and 11 other configurable buttons. I haven't crashed yet. Even on purpose! Although I've flipped a few planes by taxiing too fast.

I've gone through enough training to get my Private Pilot's Certificate, and it makes me wonder; how much harder could it be to do that in real life? I mean, aside from the written test, and the costs, of course.

So now of course I'm looking at how much it would cost to someday buy a used airplane, and wondering how easy it is to make a flight in a single-engine airplane from New Castle County Airport to Mason, Texas. As usual, I'm whole hog into something that will be forgotten in 3 weeks. YAY FICKLE BRAIN!

Yeah, I was working crazy hours last week, blah, blah, usual excuses. In exchange for not having anything new, here's something that will probably take you DAYS to wade through: Anything Goes, 2007! Enjoy.

I found a picture of your mom, and her friend, and the man who might have been your dad if he hadn't gotten stuck in traffic:

(Yeah, I'm posting a lot this week. So? Shut up.)

I think I have mono. I don't know why. I haven't been near anyone who has it, as far as I can tell, but I am just EXHAUSTED. I guess getting paged at precisely 1:15am every night for the past 3 has something to do with it, but it's KILLING me, whatever it is.

I'm tireder than a one-armed paper hanger who also has mono. (You can tell how tired I am because my humorous comparisons make even less sense than normal.) It's 12:40 pm and I'm ready for a nap. I NEVER nap. I consider it an affront to all that's good in the world; it's not dark outside, so why would I be asleep? That's CRAZY talk.

I once got into a really stupid argument with my wife about this; I think we were on vacation with some friends, and I was downstairs playing video games and carrying on and getting frustrated trying to beat some kind of level, and she was upstairs attempting to nap. Eventually she came downstairs and asked me if I couldn't possibly shut the hell up, and I told her it's daytime, I'll make exactly as much noise as I want to. At some point during the argument, I uttered the brilliant observation, "I have no respect for anyone who sleeps in the middle of the day."

It was not one of my kinder moments.

What I had probably meant to say was "I'm sorry honey, I'll quiet down. Can I get you a drink? Foot rub? Vicodin?" but as frequently happens with me, the words that come out of my mouth have absolutely NO relation to the words that were formed in my brain. This is how I end up saying things like, "Sure, I'll drive you to the airport on Friday at 5pm!" when what I mean to say is "Hire a bleeding cab, you putz."

This all points to one thing: I'm a dingus.

Hi, my name is Matt, and I'm a Facebook addict. Here is my story.

A friend suggested I sign up, so I did so, back in August. I was immediately intrigued by the complete lack of all the annoying crap that makes MySpace suck donkey teat (ads, overwhelming page designs), but was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't FIND anybody. I could only seem to search my own "network," and only in a way that basically presented to me every Facebook account in the Greater Wilmington Area, which is several thousand people. Left with no option (I believed) but searching through poorly alphabetized lists of people I don't know, I said "F This" and went back to my life of chasing my son and watching Doctor Who.

And then my boy Shaun TC added me as a friend; I got the notification email, and said to myself, "Meh. Let's go see." I confirmed his friendship, and then scanned his friends list for people I knew. Hm...there were many. I added them. Then I added their friends. Then I added my friend's friends' friends' friends. Plus, I discovered that the way I had been searching was faulty; once corrected, I found even MORE people.

Now my social life has been quantified: I have 144 friends. The ramifications of this are as yet unclear. Also, I'm in touch with people I quite literally have not communicated with since 1994. And I refresh my Facebook homepage every 15 minutes, looking for new Wall posts and pictures.

When do I sleep? I don't.

In an completely unrelated story, "Under African Skies" by Paul Simon just popped up in iTunes, so you'll forgive me, I need to take a brief moment to bust it.

Bust what?

A move.

Mmmm...autumn. The time of year when I leave my house in a heavy jacket and long pants because it's 54 degrees at 9am, and end up having to strip to my knickers when I get out of work because it's over 80 and the AC in the house isn't on. I kid, because this is pretty much my favorite season. I love the leaves changing, I love the cooler temps, I love wearing layers, I love the smell of people getting their fireplaces going for the first time since March, I love the way my wife smells in the fall. (Musky.)

I've always been conflicted, though, because growing up I was not such a fan of school. And September was the beginning of it. I remember going to first grade on rainy Tuesdays and depressed all day, not least because I was a Talker, and was therefore usually on punishment. I think I spent the entirety of that year with my desk pushed far away from the rest of the class because I had problems "shutting the F up," as Mrs. Morgan put it to my parents during parent-teacher conferences.

(Note: Mrs. Morgan probably never said that. I don't know, I wasn't there. But I wouldn't be surprised if she had. I was . . . frustrating.)

Now, of course, I have to work my 8-9 hours a day year round, and I combat the depression with ill-gotten meds, but I look at Charles and think: dang, boyo. If you're anything like me (and he's almost identical to me, so far), in about 5 years you're going to be sitting in first grade, talking a mile a minute, until your teacher throws a stapler at your head.

(Note: no teachers ever threw staplers at my head. Mr. Eshelman hit me in the eye with a piece of chalk once, but he assured me it was on accident. Though I did see him collecting a sawbuck from Ms. Shepard later, as if he had won some kind of bet.)

And as much as I enjoy cooler temperatures, the timing of them kinda sucked; it was warm most of last week, until I drove to the beach on Friday and the temps hovered in the high 60s all weekend. Not exactly "fling oneself into the surf" weather. Luckily, we (Sarah and I and her coworkers and friends) combatted this by drinking staggering amounts of red wine, and eating enough Mimolette that I still ain't poopin' right. (Which you totally needed to know.)

It amazes me how one can get trapped in an information hole and miss all kinds of important stuff. I've been working like a beaver on meth for the last week or so, and then today I casually went to Wikipedia, and found myself clicking on the recent deaths.

Remember last Wednesday how I mentioned I was thrilled to find three books by Madeleine L'Engle? She died on Thursday. I can't help but feel responsible.

I scroll down a little further, and discover Pavarotti died! What in the holy hand grenade? How did I miss that? Something like that, you would think, would be SOMETHING THAT WOULD COME UP IN CONVERSATION WITH OTHER MUSICIANS. But nay.

Nay.

This is the worst short story ever. By me. Based on true events from Monday.

Robert didn't think of himself as high-strung. He was a pretty relaxed individual. Which is why it was such a surprise when he killed that guy.

All he'd wanted to do was go for a bike ride. So he put his bike on the rack on his car, packed up his helmet and other associated gear, and went to work. Around lunchtime, he gathered up his stuff and changed in the bathroom.

"Damn it!" he said to himself. "I forgot a towel." Hm. Robert was going to have to shower after the ride, but without a towel he'd have to stand around air-drying. Just then he thought, "Wait, I only live 5 miles from here. I'll just ride home, throw a towel in my backpack, and then finish out the ride!" Good thinking, Robert.

So that is what he did. Sort of. Except for the retrieving a towel part, because Robert got all the way home and was pulling into his driveway before he realized he had forgotten his keys.

So, he spent a few minutes trying to figure out a way to break into his house, but being a security-conscious soul, every door was locked, and every window latched. "Well, that's just great." Robert considered his options, and realized there wasn't much he could do. So he headed back to the office.

The sky grew ominous as he rode along route 40, and eventually turned into a torrential downpour. Robert was soaked to the bone, but didn't slacken his 15-mile-per-hour pace. He stopped only to check his phone and make sure it wasn't going to short out and melt or anything.

After 8 miles of being really pissed off about being stuck in the rain, Robert came back to the office, went to the bathroom and showered. He came out and prepared himself to just stand around while waiting for the water to drip off. Just then, a man came in to change for HIS workout.

"Rainy enough for you?"

So Robert beat him to death with a cycling shoe and dried himself off on the man's pants.

Weird Dream Number 1: Saturday night, after hanging out with my college peeps, I dreamt one of them (Todd) was picking a fight in a diner with someone much larger than he. They went outside, and Todd tried a sneak attack in which he punched the guy in the junk three times, but it didn't faze the big dude, and so Todd basically got his ass kicked for a while. Then some kind of clown showed up to break things up, and I ran outside to help, ending up putting the big guy in a choke hold that involved forcing his jaw open so far that I nearly cracked it. Later, the guy came into the diner, but it was a different guy (but the SAME GUY!), and he kept talking smack, so I put him in a choke hold again. Then later he kept talking about how he was going to find out where I lived and come over to hurt my family, so I held him against the wall with a butter knife to his throat and asked him what it was going to take to get him to go away.

Just then several naked women came in.

So the guy says I have to pose with two of the women (who somehow found some clothing to put on, meanwhile) while reading a note he handed me, that I can't remember the exact wording of, but the gist of it was that since I was married, I was never going to have sex with these other women, and he videotaped it. I assume that mollified him, because after that I woke up.

Dream Number Two: I had gotten involved in some kind of massive benefit concert in which I was going to be the headlining act, except that I hadn't rehearsed, didn't have a band to back me up, and in fact hadn't even picked any songs to perform. I did have all my instruments with me (not an insubstantial collection, at this point), so I set them up, and started asking around for people to play them.

The concert was to be outside, so at some point I wandered away from my stuff to inspect where the stage was, which was sort of in a big field with the stage set in the shade provided by a wooded bit. Then I went back to the main area and was alerted to the fact that the wooded stage was only for the warmup acts; the main attraction (me) was to be playing on the main stage nearby, which was already packed with like 40,000 people.

At some point Brian showed up and I recruited him to play bass or something. Then I woke up.

What's wrong with me?

This may be the most rambling, disjointed post I've ever put on here. And that is seriously saying something.

I dreamt last night that I got my truck back. The circumstances surrounding it were vague, but for some reason I found myself at the Ford dealership, and the guy that originally sold me the truck said, "Hey you know, we have your truck outside." And I drove off in it without having signed anything. Immediately I scratched the hood of it on some kind of post.

Anyway, I was so ecstatic to have my truck back, but I felt a great deal of guilt because somehow, despite not having signed anything, I knew it was going to cost me money that I don't need to be wasting, since HW and I are trying to figure out how to move back up to North Wilmington. (As it turns out, most of New Castle is a cesspool. Our particular neighborhood isn't too bad, but go 1/4 mile in any direction and the people have fewer teeth than my son. I hate to sound like a snob, but I need to move back to a place where people drive late model Camrys instead of 1993 Ford Tempos with Monza exhausts and plastic rims. Just seems like a more...intellectual environment. Plus, most of the things I do outside of work (church, drama productions, etc.) are in Wilmington, and both sets of parents are up there.) I recently got a pretty decent payraise at work, but we need to save up some serious down payment money, and also we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that our monthly mortgage+tax+insurance payment is probably going to DOUBLE.

So anyway, I felt guilty for having the truck, and was trying to figure out a way to return it. Then I found myself playing softball with a bunch of people I don't know, and somehow I was managing them and attempting to put together a lineup card while the leadoff batter was already at the plate. At this point Sarah woke me up 'cause it was like 9:15am and I needed to get to work.

Oh, the reason I slept in until 9:15? The Brandywiners "preview night," in which they give a bunch of tickets to current members and participants, was last night. Since they do the show in an outdoor theater at Longwood Gardens, they have to start hella late or it's not dark enough to use the lighting system. So the show didn't end until just after 11, and then we had to go to Applebee's for mad delicious flava.

Oh yeah, Applebees: I used to hate that place, but now I don't. The reason? The one by us is really really, really REALLY bad, and the one up by Longwood is less so; the Walmart-adjacent one we went to a couple times had service worse than a prison cafeteria. Plus it seems like Tyler Florence's influence has improved the quality of the food a great deal, such that I had some kind of shrimp fettuccini and it was heck of enjoyable.

This concludes the most rambling, pointless thing I've typed since my 6th grade "Invent A Country" project. (Its name: "Hoyaglitchland.")

I'm going to see John Mayer tonight with my sister, and here's the plan: we're going to sneak backstage, and then Liz will distract the various roadies and Ben Folds (who is apparently there in "support" of John, which I assume means he'll just be cupping his balls during the show, which is nice in that John gets a nice little lift, and Ben Folds has something to do to keep him from actually singing) while I grab John and kiss him full on the mouth, probably with a measure of tongue.

That is my plan. Your thoughts?

Yeah, I was heck of up all hours of the night for work, so we're going to do a link day. But before we get to that: have you ever listened to a song, divined what you believe the lyrics to be, and think wow, that's amusing/cool/sublime/sexy/etc., only to find out later that the lyrics AREN'T what you thought, and what they really are isn't as cool?

I've been rather suckered in by Timbaland recently, such that he can release a completely repetitive song entitled "The Way I Are" and I'm immediately listening to my head and singing along. At any rate, during the chorus, Timbaland sings something that sounded to me like:

I'm about to strip
And I'm well-equipped
Can you handle me the way I'm are

The "well-equipped" part always amused me, for some reason; I assumed he was alluding to the massiveness of his wang, which was about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting Keri Hilson. Imagine my dismay when I looked up the lyrics to try and figure out something that Keri sang, only to discover what he's really saying is:

I'm about to strip
And I want it quick
Can you handle me the way I are

Which is less funny, doesn't rhyme well, and is just disappointing from every perspective (except I guess from Timbaland's, since I'm sure he's raking in unbelievable dough off the single). I was very saddened by the whole thing. Anyway, if you've got any examples of similar lyric anomalies, let me know, I'll be amused by them.

The linkz:

• Best. Headline. Ever.
• What in the heck is this? I am beyond confused.
• Now, THIS guy is really on the ball.
• I don't know many Canadians, and yet from the ones I'm closest to, this isn't even remotely surprising.
• And let's close things down with a quote from Bill Simmons's latest mailbag. This may be the funniest thing I've ever seen on the internet:

  I want to go to the top of a really tall building, take a leak, finish, zip up, and then have my pee hit the ground. I want my entire pee to be airborne. Man I love beer.

  What more needs said?

omg no time to talk on vacation just go here look at new pictures ok thnx bai

Seeing as how I'm a bit of a gadgetphiliac (which is like being a fecalphiliac but with marginally less, you know, poop), I cannot tell a lie: I love the new iPhone. I covet it. Deeply. Which is completely stupid because it's a PHONE. A $600 PHONE. (Which I want.)

But I won't buy it. (Not least because if I spent $600 on a phone there's a non-trivial chance my wife would kill me with a thatching rake.) I just don't need it, which is how I justify most of my expensive doohickey purchases:

• New acoustic guitar: $800. Needed because my sister wanted back her guitar, which I had been borrowing. Or something. (I'm not sure she noticed she didn't have it.)
• New camera: $900. Needed to take pictures of my adorable infant. (The camera I already had, well, it just didn't DO it right.)
• New 50mm lens for camera: $100. I totally needed it to take more pictures of my adorable infant INDOORS. (I will use a similar justification next year when I spend $400 on an external flash with wireless remote.)
• New 28mm-300mm zoom lens for camera: $250. I just wanted to take better pictures at baseball games, really. But I do take pictures of my adorable infant/toddler with it.

Spending money is like an addiction, though, and sometimes it takes a hard moment to break one of it, like when one checks one's bank account and discovers that one has overdrawn same. Not that I have, of course. But in the last few weeks, I have discovered that I need new pants, so I had to buy those; I couldn't find my softball glove, so I acquired a replacement; I needed new batting gloves, so I bought those too; it adds up! Luckily, when taxes come around, I will deduct all these expenses because I'm writing a new novel about them, or at least that's what you're going to tell the IRS on my behalf if you get subpoenaed during the audit. (Burning questions: can other people be subpoenaed? Is "subpoenaed" the hardest word I've had to type all day? If I sell a single picture of Charles to my mother for like 50 cents, can I deduct all the camera-related purchases?)

Listen up people: here is the big news. Me and Old Navy are BOYS. Or...boyz? Boyxi0zrzx? I can't keep track anymore. Anyway, once again, Old Navy has saved me from a fate worse than death: not owning any pants that fit over my Beyonce-style derriere. (Note: this fate is worse than death for anyone who may meet me in their daily travels. For me it'd be fine; I'd go naked most of the time but for the restraining order and all.)

My pants situation has been worsening, 'cause I'm hard on clothes; my inability to eat without dribbling colored liquids onto my lap, coupled with general clumsiness and the fact that my junk and booty both apply TREMENDOUS pressure on anything attempting to contain them, means that pants just don't last very long. I finally had to throw away one of my few remaining pairs of good khakis on Monday because I sat down to eat my morning omelette and split a hole right through the crotch, through which my various Bits attempted to fairly LEAP. I think I ended up putting on pajama pants to go to work.

The big issue is that I am just fat (38-inch waist) and tall (34-inch inseam) enough that nobody bothers to stock clothes for me. Target has fat kid waists up to 42 or so, but doesn't carry any 34" inseams once you get past about a 34" waist, because apparently people over 6 feet tall are NEVER anything but completely skinny. The same thing happens at pretty much every store at the Christiana Mall, including Macy's, Aeropostale, The Gap, all that good stuff. A notable exception is Penney's, which does have a boss Big-'N'-Tall section, if you don't mind wearing Dickies, which I do.

Old Navy, however, has 34-inch inseams all the way up to 40 and 42-inch waists, and is therefore my solution for all fat tall kid pants. Yesterday, HW and I finally found time to go (I bribed her by also taking her to Red Robin for gourmet burgers; mine had guacamole in it and was SO GOOD (and yet I wonder why I have a 38 inch waist)), and I picked up two pairs of pants that make my ass look absolutely delicious. For reals: one of the sales girls got that look in her eye, you know the one where they're all "I want to bite you on the butt," but she managed to restrain herself, probably because she saw that my wife and son were there.

And no young boy should have to witness his father's booty getting chomped on by someone other than his wife.

I'm a picky guy, but only in the stupidest ways. For example: I'm picky about certain foods; macaroni and cheese for example, which I only like if it came from a box with a powdered cheese mix that you mix with a half-cup of milk and a half-cup of butter and then eat straight out of the saucepan after between 7 and 12 beers while watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I'm picky about my clothes, and yet own a blue shirt that you can see my nipples through. (And I don't mean you can see the shape of them when it gets cold; I mean literally you can tell that I have a weird hair issue in which my right nipple is dramatically hirsute and my left nipple has a total of 3 hairs, one of which is at least 4 inches long.) I'm picky about what grosses me out, in that I can watch movies in which nuns are decapitated and spray gore onto schoolchildren, but the House episode in which a guy's testicle exploded made me curl up into the fetal position and whimper softly for a good 10 minutes.

One thing I'm picky about is women's hair. Mostly, hair doesn't bother me; even if it's bad, I usually find it very amusing, such as this fetching look, which probably cost that woman over a hundred dollars (money that would have been better spent in a money market account, saving up to have her nose reduced by 75%). But there's one thing about women's hair that annoys me, and it's bangs. I don't know why they drive me crazy, but they do. The feeling they give me is mostly "Wow, that girl has such beautiful hair, it's too bad that she feels necessary to chop off most of the front rather than investing in a 50-cent barrette or something."

Let me draw you some pretty pictures to show you what I mean.

This is Margaret. She's very pretty, is she not? She spent roughly $150 getting her hair done, including removing the grays to get back to the jet-black mane she grew up with, and a set of stylish bangs that hang down just ever so slightly into her eyes. It's all layered, and very well done. She tipped her hairstylist, Alejandro, $25. Now let's look at her sister:

This is Molly, who has her husband Joe cut her hair with a Flowbie. She hates having hair hanging over her ears, so she just leaves it long in the back and short in the front and sides, a classic mullet.

As you can see, the only difference between having bangs and having a mullet is maybe 2 extra inches of hairline on each side. In fact, were you to tuck your hair behind your ears, there's a good chance you'll get embroiled in a conversation about Dale Earnhardt Junior driving for Hendrick Motorsports and whether or not this is a travesty. (Yes.)

I have a problem. Namely, I have a TRULY GIGUNDOUS HEAD. Being a totally hep (hip) guy, I like to make sure that my hairstyle is up-to-date and super-duper stylish. This is hard when one's cranium affects tides, for a variety of reasons. Number 1, any short haircut, which was the style from about 1995 to 2003, looks ridiculous on me because you can see my scalp, which leads most folks to comment "Holy crap, look how much skull that guy has!" It's depressing and said. And number 2, long haircuts make me look like a goddamn hippie, because clothes aren't made to fit my frame, and I hate to iron, so I end up dressed like a 1992 fat chick, all hiding my frame with baggy sweaters and loose jeans and with a mop of unkempt hair.

This is just NOT cutting the mustard, people.

So, I've made a study (I ran "fat head" through Google Image Search) to get a sense of what other nogginly-blessed folks are doing with their hair. The following is the result of that study.

Here we have Alan, who is getting in some early combover practice in case he starts to bald, which is pretty smart planning, when you think about it. It's not something I'd wear out of my bathroom, but then I wouldn't do a combover outside my bathroom. In fact, if I ever go bald, I'm going to spend the rest of my days lying in the tub, having HW bring me bon-bons and cognac.

I like to think Ray here went to his hairdresser and said, "Listen, I'm starting to develop a little lazy eye problem here, is there anything you can do to cover that up?" And the hairdresser replied, "Oh honey, if I can hide the fact that Mrs. Nelson lost an ear to a rabid Great Dane, this'll be easier than finding love at Club Fist."

And Ray slowly sat down in the chair, and Ray prayed.

This is Jimmy. He may or may not be French. Either way, he walked into the stylist hoping for "Gordon Gekko" and walked out with "Joe Dirt". On the other hand, he's wearing an argyle sock as a tie, so his style is clearly rather avant garde.

Remember when I mentioned I can't wear my hair short? Yeah, this is why. Also, Paul here appears to be 80% jawbone. I can't imagine how he talks, let alone chews.

Or perhaps he got jaw implants? Now THAT's a solution to a self-esteem problem! Here I've been considering tasteful liposuction to eliminate the ENORMOUS MASS OF FLESH HANGING OFF MY RIBS and I could just be getting collagen injected into the sides of my face!

When in doubt: take it back to the 80s. I don't know what kind of band this guy is in, but I GUARANTEE it could have opened for A Flock of Seagulls, or maybe Devo. I also guarantee that it never, ever, EVER ever ever, would have opened for Styx.

This guy is clearly at a Styx concert, meaning he's wearing a band's shirt to go see that band, which makes him That Guy, which we can all agree is a bad thing to be.

Yeah, I dunno. I guess it's your dad, or something? Search me.

If you can pull it off, add a gold chain to the mix. A necklace can make all the difference between "mildly overweight guy" to "guy named Tony who could probably make you disappear with a minimum of fuss."

Alvin here is totally rocking the "Boring Literature Professor" cut. I say rocking because, as it turns out, Alvin is the largest collector of antique nursemaid rocking chairs in all of Devonshire. He even has a stuffed one that he sleeps with!

Shaving cool designs into a close-cropped cut is a hip way to show your support for the local football or cricket club, or even give a shout out to a recently imprisoned/murdered homey. Or, as seen here, your favorite walrus down at the inner-city zoo!

I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty, and witty, and HOLY COW AM I WHITE! I think a tanning bed would do more for Pat here than a haircut, so let's just move on.

Oh, I'm sure that's exactly what you want these people to believe. You know something, Bender? You ought to spend a little more time trying to do something with yourself and a little less time trying to impress people. You might be better off. All right, that's it! I'm going to be right outside those doors. The next time I hafta come in here...I'm cracking skulls!

Did you think I'd leave out my African-American brothers? Of course not! That would be racist. This is Steve; he sports a classic black man's cut, cropped tight around the ears, but without the careful trimming of the edges that indicates true sophistication. This haircut says: I'm not paying more than $15 for a haircut, and that $15 is COMING OUT OF YOUR ASS, BOY.

I know! It's honestly just 8 hairs! I grew them all out, carefully curled them, and applied them around my face using approximately 3 pounds of spirit gum and enough hairspray to glue my entire head to the ceiling!

As far as I can tell, no, this is not Lou Diamond Phillips preparing to play Jaime Escalante in a prequel to Stand and Deliver. But I've been wrong in the past. Of particular interest here is the old "concealing the weak chin with a beard" trick, which has failed, as it always does. The joke's on YOU, Lou!

If you really want to find a good hairstyle, look to professional athletes, right? Um...not so much. But you have to give this guy some serious props for trying to bring about some kind of dreadlocked Jheri curl.

Speaking of athletes, this fine fellow is Kevin Mench, a professional baseball player. He has what is widely regarded as the largest head in professional baseball, a size 8 (the same as mine!) noggin. He has the enviable sense to just cover it with hats and batting helmets as much as possible, and hope no one notices the fact that he doesn't technically have a neck. Kevin also hails from Delaware, which basically means there's something really nasty in our water.

I feel like I probably shouldn't really burn this guy, since he's, you know, the Archbishop of Canterbury and all, but come on, people, what better way to distract from the bald spot on the top of your head than by developing the most AWESOMELY OUTSTANDISHLY RIGHTEOUS pair of eyebrows EVER? If I didn't know better, and I don't, I'd think he was planning to grow them out so that he could comb them back over his head, totally putting the Combover Style Establishment out of business. I mean, who could compete with that?

Finally, we have what is probably the ideal big-head style; simply shave that crap off completely, and make sure there's a pretty girl in all your pictures.

The graphic atop this here page sure is grim, ain't it? It's been up since winter, and I intend to put something more spring/summery up ons, but sadly my time at home with the computer has been SEVERELY curtailed by the fact that my wife is working on some kind of paper, and hasn't let the laptop out of her grasp for 3 weeks. (I suppose it's also possible that she's developed a life-altering addiction to Teh Pr0n, but I don't think so.)

It's kinda sad, really, 'cause I have like 8 tons of totally hott photos I took with my camera over the last few months, featuring flowers and trees and geese and whatnot, that would be hella rad up there, but sadly I have not been able to edit and upload and make the necessary template modifications. Which is sad, really. Totally sad.

What is also sad is that, despite not having posted in roughly 9 days, I don't have much interesting to say. I thought I did; I had in fact written four or five paragraphs of something that I thought was totally AWESOME when it was rattling around in my head, which of course turned into absolute pap when neatly typed into El Computador. So, I beg your forgiveness. I'll give you a hint: it described my boy Kyle as "the fastest human being I personally know." So, you know, HILARIOUS stuff there.

The weekend was pretty busy; I helped my dad move a piano to my sister's house AND some of my grandmother's stuff OUT of hers before she moves to Florida, and managed to do it without exploding my spine. We saw "Chicago" at the New Candlelight Dinner Theatre (it's New!), which was outstanding. We went to a birthday party for our friend John, who is Old (not New!). Sarah went to the beach for a fun overnight with friends, and Charles and I joined her on Sunday morning because I was singing an evensong in Lewes that afternoon; it was windy and cold and I about froze my nads off. BOO TO THAT. We did get Nicobolis, though. Can't beat 'em!

I've been keeping up with my jogging, although I haven't been SUPER good about it; I try and get out three times a week, but sometimes it's just one or two. I've basically been eating everything in sight, justifying this by saying "Hey, I'm jogging like ALL THE TIME!" As a result, I'm getting fatter and fatter, so now I'm back to my "eating nothing but vegetables and small amounts of meat with no sugar" diet, along with drinking buttloads of water. Great times! Not really.

Wow, I'm sure typing up the hilarity today. I'll try and do better later in the week, really I will.

In which I hate technology, and technology hates me right back.(All up in my grill, yo.)

It's heck of warm out today (low 60s), so, being a forward-thinking individual, I thought to myself yesterday "I should TOTALLY go running at work and try to eliminate the enormous amount of fat located between my crotch and my boobs," and brought in running clothes and a towel to store in my locker downstairs in the poop room that has showers. And lo, I took an early lunch, went out, and ran 2.75 miles before the agonizing chest pain and developing foot blister made me stop.

Have I reached my point yet? Not even remotely.

So I came back in, showered, and grabbed lunch, which consisted of a Salisbury "Steak" made of, as far as I can tell, pressed gerbil cremains, along with green beans and cheesy potatoes au gratin (a quality side, to be sure). A few hours later, I realized I was still pretty hungry, so I said to myself, oh man, the SNACK machine will hook me up with FLAVOR.

So I wandered into the snack room, bought a bottle of Diet Coke, and then studied the snack machine for delectables. Sure enough, they had some kind of Apple/Cinnamon-flava'd Danish, all over which I desired to jump. I attempted to stick my dollar into the machine, but was foiled! It would accept no bills. And I had just used the bulk of my change on my drink. Bemused, I pressed a few buttons on the front of the machine, which showed no sign of even being powered on. Argh!

I wandered aimlessly around the halls, looking for another snack machine, and finally found one. Sadly, it had no Apple/Cinnamon-flava'd Danish. It did, however, have a three pack of chocolate cupcakes of the type I subsisted on in high school, so I inserted my dollar and pressed the proper buttons. The machine whirred for a moment, then beeped, and a small light appeared next to some words reading "Please make another selection."

"What?" I replied. "But the other selections are not what I desire. Don't mess with me, machine, I COLD RAN 2.75 MILES EARLIER AND AM NOT ONE WITH WHICH YOU SHOULD TRIFLE." And I pressed the buttons again.

"Please make another selection."

I tried to outwit the machine by requesting my dollar back, which came back in quarters, and inserting exact change, but I came to the conclusion that whoever inserted the latest supply of foodstuffs had improperly loaded the chocolate cupcakes. In the end I realized that the machines were involved in some kind of conspiracy not to sell me anything that might increase the amount of lipids bonded semi-permanently to my stern. I relented, bought a small package of peanut butter crackers, and went back to my desk to weep silently.

Just a few short notes for today:

• They still haven't plowed my neighborhood, and so now the ice has sublimated and refrozen and is perfectly slick. I basically sledded out to the main highway today. Note that the 1998 Mazda Protege is NOT equipped with runners. I'd make some calls, but you know me, I don't like to create a fuss. Plus I have a sneaking suspicion the guy in our neighborhood who is in charge of such things has probably taken 37 calls on the subject and might strangle me through the phone if I call him up and employ Sarcasm. So I'm gonna let it slide. For now. Unless I'm driving home with my son and I slide into a parked car at 5mph.
• My homeskillets Ped and Andy have started themselves a blog in which they intend to ridicule all things artsy. I fully support this, and not just because I've known the two of them for like 8,000 years.

  In fact, it's an odd story, woven through the millenia: I knew Ped when I was like 8 or something, in public school. I think we ran across each other in Math League every year all through middle school and high school. Andrew I knew because we were in band in high school, but he also may have done dorky science and math stuff with me before then. And then we were all in the Ychromes together in college. Delaware is a small place.

  Anyway, check out their site, it's highly amusing.

• I'm setting myself up for a serious amount of abuse here, but on the advice of my attorney Josh, I have invested in a neti pot. The idea, and this is really gross, is that you make a saline solution, and then you pour it into one nostril while it drains out of the other one. Then you switch nostrils. It's very new age. It cleans out your sinuses, and then you get to spend a few minutes spraying water out of your snozz and spitting out nasty wet loogies.

  It's almost as fun as it sounds, but I can report that my sinuses are so clear it's disturbing. I've used it twice a day for about 3 days (although not this morning, 'cause I was in a hurry, yo) and have achieved major awesome results. There are downsides, however:

  1. The sensation of water pouring into your sinuses and back out the other nostril is pretty disturbing. It goes against all my principles of "avoiding sinus burn in the pool." Doesn't burn a bit, though, unless you're an idiot and double the amount of salt in the solution.
  2. Sometimes the saline gets sort of trapped in your sinuses, and you can't really feel it in there, then later on, you bend over for some reason, such as to kiss your wife, and salt water pours out of your nose all over, say, your wife's face. Her response to this may be unpleasant.
  Still, it's given me a reasonably clear schnozz for the last few days, and I'm looking forward to finding out if it improves my singing noticeably.

Okay, so uh, what's in the news? Apparently that girl Anna Nicole Smith died, but I joked about that yesterday. (Was it too soon? The response I got from the interwebs was cold, to say the least.) There's some banshee crazy astronaut ho that drove from Texas to Florida in DIAPERS to kidnap and likely kill her romantic rival. Apparently she wore diapers so she wouldn't have to make unnecessary stops, but here's the thing:

Distance she drove: about 950 miles.

Distance most cars can go before they need to stop for refueling: 350 miles.

So she had to stop AT least twice to get gas; would it be that out of the question to maybe take 5 minutes to whiz while the gas is pumping? Here's the lesson I have learned: women are crazy.

What else? The weather has been making up for lost time; it hasn't been above freezing, as far as I can tell, in like 6 days. I can't say I'm sad about it, since I enjoy me some cold weather, but I'd like to have a good dose of 8" of snow to go along with it and make it impossible for me to drive to work. They say we're supposed to get snow on Tuesday, we'll see how it goes.

I'm low-carbing it again, but it doesn't appear to be working as well this time, probably because I'm screwing it up. It's not my fault! People keep making me pies! I need to get on my bike some more and see if that helps force the old belly into "ketosis," which apparently is what they call it when your body starts burning your fat for energy. I fully support the burning of fat; I am, at last check, roughly 85% fat myself. Maybe self-immolation is the answer...I'll look into it.

Speaking of death-wishes, Charles has been crawling for a few weeks now, and has developed quite an interest in flinging himself down the steps into the foyer. So far I've caught him before he does so, but we need gates; a friend of ours is going to lend us some, but I've yet to go pick them up, so I guess I'd better do that. You know, before my son lands nose-first on cold, unforgiving ceramic tile.

As you can probably tell, I really don't have anything of any interest to share with you, so I'll just point you to Vinegar Man-Douche and let you have your own fun.

Hi y'all...I was going to post something more substantive today, but I just don't have it in me. My world is shattered.

Link day, y'all! HECK YES!

• I got a new haircut yesterday, and trust me, I definitely considered this. It was simply fear of my violent wife's wrath that kept me looking my usual self.
• It's new! It's fast! It...is it frowning at me? That's an interesting marketing ploy.
• I admit: in an effort to understand this comic, I looked up the Ackermann Function as well as whatever g₆₄ is. I think the brain overload gave me cancer.
• This reminded me of my Recording professor at Peabody, Alan Kefauver, who had a reputation for making dumb freshmen believe that if you held a piece of recording tape to your ear and ran your thumbnail on it at just the right speed, you would hear the recording stored thereupon. He didn't try to pull it on me, which nice 'cause I'm an idiot and would probably have tried it, but now I can pretend I wouldn't have fallen for it.
• The beauty of socialised medicine! (Spelt all Britishly 'cause the story's all Britishy.)
• Speaking as a Fat American, this is hilarious.

That's all I got! So...bye!

Oh snap son it is TOTALLY 3:21am and I am working, doing work things at a work place. Technically my work is pretty much done, we're just waiting for word that everything worked. Meanwhile, I'm putting up with my laptop keyboard, which is not so grood. The control key is not great, and also the O, U, and L keys have an annoying tendency to to type extra letters in strange ways, such that sentences often look like this:

I'm goiong to opoen the lletter, sir, lelt's make sure to hide the childrens.

The backspace key is getting a heck of workout.

Anyway, I wanted to report two important things:

1. My friend Rachel now has a blog, although she feels remorse and guilt about the whole thing. Nevertheless, you should read it, as it's far more entertaining than anything you might read here. I post horrific camera-phone pictures of my hair, for Jebus's Own Sake. What the hell is wrong with me.
2. I have decided to start a new internet meme. It is entitled:

My Favorite Canadian

My favorite Canadian is Alex Trebek. Born to gay furtrappers in Jonquiere in 1765, he grew up learning the art of Indian negotiations. When one of his fathers was captured by the Algonquin tribe, he travelled by himself over the Mighty Mississipp' to retrieve him, but found only the sweet ethnic love of a Cherokee medicine woman. She bore him 17 children before dying in a tragic balloon animal accident.

Alex found his true calling 180 years later on a Dutch variety show, hosting a segment entitled "Het Gevaar," and occasionally smoking vast amounts of herbal seaweed and performing free appendectomies for Amsterdam's large prostitute population. Eventually, he was invited to perform for the czarina in Prague during her tour of the Western Continent, and she saw fit to have him sentenced to death for referring to her as "That Wild Moscovite Skank."

After the czarina was revealed to, indeed, be a pretty skanky ho, Alex's sentence was commuted to 6 days cleaning the royal garderobe and occasionally shaving Royal Auntie Esmerelda's neck.

By 1976, Alex Trebek was the most famous game-show host in the galaxy, and spent his evenings being serenaded by Pavarotti and fellated by Maria Callas. It was all downhill from there.

Who is YOUR Favorite Canadian?

I got pulled over on Saturday, but received no ticket. Wooooooooo, says I.

It was rather late (I had actually just turned the clock in my car back, as it was 2am EDT and 1am EST) and was heading home from the Carmen cast-party (Carmen opened TEH BOMBZORZ, as expected) and traffic was heavy (I don't know why; this is the third parenthetical aside this sentence, a new record even for me). Over on the right hand side of I-95, the cops were sitting with their flashers going, which usually indicates they've already pulled over somebody, so slowing down is dumb. Everybody, of course, slowed down, including one idiot that swerved in front of me and then hit the brakes.

So I flashed my highbeams, swerved around him, and accelerated back to a healthy seventy miles per hour. Apparently the policefolks disapproved of this move, so they chased me down.

"What's going on?" he asked. He appeared to be one bright policeman. What does one say to that? I went with

"Um...nothing, officer."

"Where you goin' in such a hurry? I saw you whip in and out of traffic back there."

"Well, sir, the fellow in front of me swerved into my lane and hit the brakes when he saw you folks, so I had to swerve around him to keep from hitting him."

The officer grunted at this. "You have anything to drink tonight?"

"Yes sir. I had two beers about 2 hours ago." This was true; I'd stopped drinking at the party around midnight.

"Just two beers?"

"Yes sir."

"Got your license, registration and insurance?" I handed them over, and he went back to his car, while I sat and waited. I couldn't figure out exactly what they intended to charge me with; he couldn't possibly have clocked my speed from where he was. I assumed they might charge me with an unsafe lane change, which I figured I could probably fight successfully in court, since technically a guy did change lanes in front of me and hit his brakes. I assumed I would probably get a warning for having one headlight out (the Mazda seems to go through them like Rush Limbaugh goes through oatmeal cream pies). After a few minutes, the cop returned.

"Slow down."

"Yes sir." I drove off. A surreal experience, all in all.

Disastrous

Okay, it's late, and time is short. Here's the latest amusement:

Attic Ladder Replacement

A multi-step plan.

(It is best if you continue with the help of a good friend, particularly one such as Brian, who has no apparent fear of heights and doesn't mind if you get blue chalk over his pants.)

First, you must remove the previous attic ladder. The easiest way to do this is . . . who are we kidding here. There's no easy way to do this. The least difficult (by which we mean the likelihood of mortal wounds is slightly decreased) is to have a your friend climb into the attic and start carefully removing nails via hammer and chisel, while you attempt to support the weight of the ladder so that it doesn't crash down onto you. You will undoubtedly find that the previous installers had somehow managed to put nails in the most unlikely places, such as behind the ladder springs, and that the final nail will be almost impossible to remove because it's supporting most of the weight of the ladder. You will also note that much of the pretty moulding around the ladder opening will start to fall off under the weight of the ladder.

After the ladder crashes down on you, get your friend out of the attic (you do have an 8-foot step ladder, right? You don't? What the hell is the matter with you? Now your friend is trapped in the attic like a hunchback. Good job, idiot) to help you discard it and mend any injured limbs and contusions. Note that if you are not particularly careful when moving the ladder assembly, the lowest foot-rungs will take any opportunity to fold out and mash you in the jubblies. (Mine are aching considerably as a result.)

While the opening is unblocked by any ladder mechanism, now would be the time to place large objects in the attic, preferably ones you never intend to get back down. Brian and I took the opportunity to remove the particle board flooring installed by some previous occupant, and put three large sheets of 8x4 plywood in the attic to be secured with nails at some later date. In the process of doing this, you will undoubtedly, as we did, get blue chalk (they put it on the edges of the plywood, for some reason) all over your hands and clothes, as well as the walls of your house. Your wife will be thrilled, but not as much as when she notices you also got blue chalk all over the carpeting.

Next, drink a few beers, 'cause the hard part is just coming.

Now is the time to get out the new attic ladder (assuming you bought one; I'm not making any assumptions about the intelligence of my readership, not after the "dude u should totaly rite about that time i peed in a cup and poured it on jimmy remember that omigd i twas awesum" email I got yesterday) and prepare it for installation. If you got a good one, it will come with these handy straps that you use to hold it in place semi-securely while you nail it in. Nail those on as directed. After you're done, realize that you put them on upside down, carefully remove them, and nail them back on properly.

Next, have your friend climb up into the attic again and hand the ladder up to him. This is nearly impossible to do unless you have biceps such that you can personally curl a half-height Whirlpool freezer, but do the best you can. When you do this, you will realize that the ladder is approximately 25" wide, and the hole is only about 23" wide. Worry frantically that you bought the wrong ladder, but then realize that no, the previous installers bought the wrong ladder, and compensated for this by nailing in a bunch of extra pieces of 1" wood on each side. Carefully remove those pieces of wood. Note: the sound of nails being ripped from wood is louder than you think. I'd recommend you wear ear protection, but I'm not a wuss.

Lift the ladder up to your friend again. As he pulls the ladder into the hole, stand underneath it on the ladder and support it. The easiest way to do this is to simply rest it on your head and stand on the ladder with your arms at your sides. Then alert your friend he should bend the support straps around the joists to hold the ladder in place while you open it. As you do so, the entire apparatus will shift downwards very ominously; this is a signal that you should go back up and hold it in place while your friend nails the support straps to the joists.

Once that's complete, carefully open the ladder partway and clamber up to help align things. Realize once you've done this that you are going to require shims. The ladder-maker will have supplied you with a single piece of plywood, about 6" on a side, that they will refer to as "shims." This is comically useless. While your friend sits in the hot attic, wondering if the sweat stain in the crotch of his pants will ever wash out, run downstairs into the garage, grab a bunch of 1/4" plywood scrap, and run it through your table saw to create shims as needed. (If you lack a table saw, your best bet is to run out into the yard and gnaw the necessary shims out of living tree bark, because apparently you live in the paleolithic era. Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Urk.) Bring these back upstairs and slide them in place where needed.

Now, support the ladder while your friend nails it in place. (Make sure you have some large, preferably 2-3" nails of good thickness. You know, we probably should have alerted you at the beginning of these instructions that you would need a bunch of tools and fasteners and things. Our bad.) Once or twice, he will probably "accidentally" bash you in the fingers or head with the hammer. If this happens, weep a little, and thank God he didn't catch you in the eye with the claw part.

Next, fold the ladder all the way down to check it for obvious deficiences, and to see how much wood you'll have to cut off the bottom so that it unfolds properly. Don't actually cut the wood off just yet; you can put that off until the weekend. Shake your friend's hand, bid him fond adieu, and go get a beer, and an icepack for your nuts.