matthearn.com

I have learned another lesson today: even zombies can suffer from tooth decay.

I had a dentist appointment scheduled back in September that got rained out. Before you ask, NO, my dentist doesn’t work outside, scraping at people’s teeth during breaks between horse-shoeing appointments. On the date in question, it rained all day, such that much of Newark flooded. My appointment was at 4:30; at 4:25, as I made yet another U-turn to avoid driving through running water three feet deep, I called to alert them that I would not be making the appointment, and would call back to reschedule. Fast forward 2 months to last week; I called and scheduled an appointment for Thursday afternoon.

The next morning, the dentist’s receptionist called to let me know my hygienist had called in sick, so could we reschedule? For 7am? The day before Thanksgiving? Argh. So I got up this morning at the ungodly hour of 6, scoured off a night’s worth of bed-bugs and armpit mung, and headed to North Wilmington for my semi-annual scraping.

Let me tell you people, the days of yanking teeth out with a pair of hot tongs are OVER! In the 8 months since my last appointment, they brought in all kinds of nifty new gizmos. Now instead of scraping your enamel off with a stainless-steel spike, they have this ultra-sonic water-pik doodad that can wear your choppers down to the nubs in half the time! They also developed a technique to test for periodontal disease in which they, get this, stick a metal object down between your tooth and gum and record how far it goes and whether or not it causes bleeding, which is sort of like testing someone’s skin resilience by carving at their arm with a steak knife and recording “whether or not it causes bleeding.” They jab you three times per tooth, and the experience is less than thrilling.

Another device they’ve developed is some kind of electronic doohickey that they can put on a tooth, and then it measures the electrical resistance across the tooth to determine how much decay may be inside it. Apparently in the past, determining exactly how much of a tooth was rotted out was mostly guesswork. Anyway, it’ll come in handy when I go back in a few weeks to have a cavity drilled out of my wisdom tooth. Assuming that is, I don’t decide to just pry the tooth out myself with my Leatherman and a meat thermometer.

There was a bit of good news: the periodontal disease test determined that my gums are hell of healthy, to which I respond, “Brush and floss twice (or thrice, if your dentist is a real hardcore mofo) a day, huh? Yeah, WHATEV. I’ll keep to my strict regimen of brushing once every two days whether I need it or not, and the only time that floss will go between my teeth is if I have a piece of rotting buffalo jerky stuck in my molars. So there.”

Tomorrow: THANKSGIVING! Probably no post from me. Friday I hope to unveil my new Christmas color scheme! I love xmas. STAY TUNED!

An old dying woman stole my soul last night on the way to rehearsal.

I’m seriously serious. I think. I’m not sure. I have no soul.

I got in my truck (running late, as usual) and made the first left turn onto the main street in our development, just behind an ambulance running with its lights off. Which means one of two things: the customer is pretty much okay, but needs to get to the hospital for observation, or the customer is extremely UNokay, and needs to get to the hospital for dissection and cold storage.

Just as I pulled in line behind the ambulance, I saw the old woman inside, and then my headlights reflected right out of her eyes. At least, that’s what my logical part is trying to believe. In reality, I know that her eyes simply glowed with the power of Satan, and stole my soul straight out of my chest, rending my viscera and turning me into a 6 foot 3 inch zombie.

I’m telling you, it was hell of creepy.

So now I’m trying to figure out what this really means for my life. As a n00b zombie, I’m interested in gathering as much information about the undead lifestyle (what an amusing oxymoron that is!) as possible. Questions I have include:

1. Is this a permanent thing? Am I going to be wandering the earth with the other zombies long after humankind has perished in the final cataclysm?
   • If so, can I do cool stuff like get in fights with crazed crack addicts and never get injured? Or is it more like I can get injured, but I heal incredibly rapidly like the ghosty-razor-blade-wielding-dredlock’d dudes in Matrix 2?
2. Do I have to feast on human brains? Is any human flesh okay? I’ve never been a big fan of headcheese, but a good braised shoulder is very tasty.
3. Can I still eat of other animals? It won’t go over well at Thanksgiving dinner if I poo-poo the turkey and start gnawing on my uncle’s forearm.
4. What’s the story on reproduction? I imagine my chromosomal makeup is largely unchanged, so if I knock up HW, do we get a normal human baby? Or some kind of half human, half zombie creature that’s immortal except for the vulnerability of a STRONG allergy to dandelion pollen? Is Zombism a recessive trait, or dominant? I would assume dominant, but I ain’t no gene doctor guy.
5. What percentage of the night hours do I have to spend walking the streets of a major city, moaning about my hunger for the contents of folks’ crania? I need a solid 8 or 9 hours of sleep per night or I’m useless at work the next day. Keep in mind the nearest major city is Philadelphia, a solid 45 minutes away, so if I have to spend 3 hours per night doing my Zombic Thang, we’re really talking about the loss of almost 5 hours of sleep. I can’t be having that.
6. What exactly are my vulnerabilities? Do I need to avoid water (I hope not, I’ve drunk almost a bottle of it already this morning), or just Scotsmen with katanas? I really need to rent some films on the subject.

Anyway, I’m still getting used to this whole “walking dead” thing, so wish me luck, and if you can help answer any of my questions, I’d appreciate it. In exchange for your help, I will try to make sure that your brains are the last I eat.

First on the list: whoever invented “Elimidate.”

Wild weekend, I’ll tell you. Nipples, NBA fistfights, girls making out, fried turkeys, it had everything but the Kitchen Sink, which I almost ordered at the Charcoal Pit on Friday to gross out my friends.

Friday we went to see the Brandywine High School play, “You Can’t Take It With You,” which was pretty damned funny. We did a little pre-eating at Lonestar (mmm…16 oz prime rib), and a little post-eating at the Pit.

[An aside: We had a discussion at the Pit on Friday (Me, HW, Mary, Milo) about the Kitchen Sink, which has 20 scoops of ice cream in it and, according to the Pit menu, serves 2 to 4 people. Everyone else was astounded to think that 2 to 4 people could finish off 20 scoops of ice cream, but then I got to thinking about it; when I have ice cream, I usually have between 5 and 6 scoops, coated liberally with chocolate syrup. It stands to reason that 4 Hearns could eat a sundae containing 20-25 scoops of ice cream. Of course, one would have to find 3 other Hearns, and after they made me, they broke the mold. (Thank God.)]

Unfortunately, the real fun to be had Friday night was not with Team Hearn. The Ychromes had an away gig at George Washington University, followed by a riotous afterparty with a bunch of slutty girls. Good times for all, I’m told. Even the fat kid with horrible teeth got to make out with 2 or three women. These things did not happen while I was in the group.

[Also occurring on Friday night: Ron Artest bitch-slapping Detroit fans! It’s a pity he got suspended, considering if you throw a beer at me, I’m going to at least punch you in the stomach a couple times. Milo says that’s fine for the average citizen, but professional athletes can’t go into the stands no matter what. So if a fan throws a brick at me, I still can’t do anything? Is there a line somewhere that I can’t cross? Beer throwing is okay, but am I allowed to go after a guy if he’s hurling shuriken at my teammates? Artest and I would just like this to be cleared up before next season.

Saturday we got a bunch of stuff done around the house, including the creation of a blueberry pie (with which my wife absconded on Sunday, forcing me to make two replacement pies). At 5, we headed up into Philly, where we ate dinner at “Fat Tuesdays,” henceforth known as “A Particularly Crappy Bar in Philly That Charges Too Much For Everything and Had a Sticky Floor.” Then we went to check out Rebecca Buswell’s nipples cabaret performance at the Red Room in the Society Hill Theater. It was highly rad, and featured our friends Nora and Cindy in a number of songs, and got HW to thinking: “Matt, you should do something like this!” I’m just a meal ticket to that woman, I swear. Or at least a ticket to maybe meeting Janet Jackson someday.

Sunday: Church, bake pies, more church, English “Cream Tea.” The last was amusing; Jill and Wally and I polished off about 18 scones, 40 tea sandwiches, and a gallon or so of clotted cream.

I scooted out of there around 6pm to roll to Colin’s for Thanksgiving dinner, at which I ate too much pie, and we all made fun of the people who weren’t there (Ian, Unga, Ian some more, Justin and his HOTT NEW GIRL, etc.). We also threw the football around, and surprisingly, my left arm still functions! I must be getting more athletic as I age. By the time I’m 50 I’ll be ready to start for the Jets!

Let’s hear it for the short workweek. I’ll be baking a lot of pies. I love pie so much.

Man, yesterday’s post sure generated some commentary! Mostly by one short-bus-riding friend of mine who is suffering under the delusion that John Mayer is not totally rad. That is sad. I recommend lobotomy.

Today I would like to celebrate the life of this man:

Mr. Gary Wayne Rodgers.

Gary Wayne, long a fixture at the University of Kentucky, passed away two weeks ago as a result of catching fire in the parking lot outside Rupp Arena. Let’s all bow our heads and each say a private prayer of thanks for the light that Gary Wayne brought to each and every one of our lives.

I tried to commemorate the 12 day anniversary of his passing today by duplicating the hair style in the above mug shot family photo. (I call it the “Reverse Transmogrified Yeshiva Mullet.”) Unfortunately, due to having washed my hair within the past 3 weeks, I was unable to really do anything but make it stick up a little in the back, and it does that anyway. My failure as hairstylist merely serves to highlight the genius that was: Gary Wayne Rodgers.

Rest in peace, Gary Wayne. ::sound of Hearn pouring out a half-pint of cheap gin on the floor of his cubicle at work::

So I was thinking the other day about H. Jackson Brown‘s “Life’s Little Instruction Book,” that nifty little tome filled with helpful, often contradictory tidbits to help you along with life. I realized that I, through my 26-odd years of existence on earth, have learned a great number of things that I am remiss if I don’t pass on to the masses. However, I am unlikely to find a publisher for anything I might put to paper, due to a variety of reasons mostly stemming from a medical imbalance in my brain. Then I remembered, Holy crap! You have a website, you idiot! Put it all online! Then I wondered why my coworkers had stopped their meeting and were all staring at me. Then I noticed I had been saying my internal monologue out loud for the past few minutes.

Anyway, here are my ideas. I plan to update this from time to time. Won’t that be nice!

1. If you are trying to get somewhere, and the elderly man who was lumbering along gamely in front of you decides to STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DOORWAY to get his bearings, and you then shove this man aside and cause him to fall and break his hip, YOU will be charged with a crime. This is one of life’s greatest injustices. Be warned.
2. 
   Sarah and Rachel and the Pacific, all three as purty as a posey.

   If you are working on a website post, and your wife instant messages you to say that she has a cute picture to put up, you need to delay the column for a day and just post the picture, or find a way to work the picture into the column.

3. The only time when it is reasonably safe to ask a woman if she is pregnant is when she appears to actually be in labor. Even then, it’s worth tap-dancing around the subject a little bit. “So, do you, um, have any children?” “I’M GIVING BIRTH YOU IDIOT!” “Oh! Really? I hadn’t even noticed! You carry it so well.”
   Note that if you are responsible for the pregnancy in question, the above technique could result in your death. Of course, any man with a pregnant spouse has the Sword of Damocles over his head anyway.
4. John Mayer is the best thing to come out of the American music industry, ever. There are some people around who don’t seem to grasp this. Avoid them at all costs, but if you can’t, and one of them makes fun of you for developing a lengthy interpretive dance to “Neon” or “Split-Screen Sadness,” and you stab them in the ear with a pencil, you will be charged with a crime. Be warned.
5. Trust no one that prefers Pepsi to Coke. Also, trust no one who prefers Diet Coke to Diet Pepsi.
6. You should always leave comments on people’s blogs. Everybody likes to be appreciated.
7. The left lane is for passing. Keep right. Or I will kill you. And then I will probably be charged with a crime.
8. If you see me walking by, and the tears are in my eyes, look away, baby, look away. If we meet on the street some day, and I don’t know what to say, look away, baby, look away. Don’t look at me . . .

   I don’t want you to see me this way.

9. Running from the police is always easier if you’re clothed, but much more fun if you’re nude. Make your own decisions.
10. Humankind’s greatest accomplishment has little to do with medicine, or computers, or the printing press; all that stuff is just convenience. The one invention that has changed the world for the better in almost every way: pie. I mean, seriously, what problem could you possibly have that isn’t helped at least a LITTLE bit by a piece of pie?
    Close second: donuts.
11. If you are very tall, you will never be able to find clothes that fit properly without having them custom sized. This is just something you will have to grow to accept. Try to marry a good seamstress so you can buy shirts with the 18″ neck and 36″ sleeves that you need, and have her remove the extra yard of fabric around the belly. Then use that fabric to strangle whoever it is that decided that anybody with an 18″ neck must also, by nature, have a 48″ waist. (Not that I wasn’t getting disturbingly close, for a while there.)
12. Try to avoid stabbing someone until you are reasonably certain he or she isn’t a police officer or important politician, unless you live in a state that doesn’t have the death penalty, in which case carve away at will!
13. Stereotypes were developed over hundreds of years of consistent behavior. Ignoring them is like playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic pistol.

Okay, that’s what I’ve got for you so far. I intend to add to this list, assuming I can figure out certain technical difficulties with the numbering scheme. Until tomorrow: stay loose, killers!

It’s not every day you get quoted in a column by Lileks, so I’m milking it for all it’s worth. Read that in lieu of my usual insanity. Good stuff here tomorrow, methinks.

[Sadly, James does ascribe Mozart to the Baroque period, despite the fact that the High Baroque is usually considered to have ended in 1750 (though Handel continued writing merciless dreck through to his death in 1757) and Mozart wasn’t born until 1756. We forgive him, though, because he’s so pretty.]

This column originally started out: What is it about Tuesdays, people? Yesterday was the second Tuesday in a row I had to make an emergency run to the data center to deal with something.

Then on Wednesday, the same thing happened, so I didn’t get to post.

Thursday: also found myself at the data center frantically putting out fires. Not literally, though, as I am ill-equipped for heat, what with my total lack of training and my bizarre preference for highly flammable fabrics.

It’s been a long week, and it’s not getting much shorter; I have to do some minor work tonight, plus some work in the morning, plus spending all of tomorrow night working the monthly outage for one of our clients. Plus I couldn’t get out of church on Sunday morning because Darryl is desperate.

Plus, Hearnwife is going out of town, so I have to be very careful not to let the house become a wasteland of fast-food wrappers, unopened mail, and other various detritus, since if the house isn’t spotless when she returns on Tuesday, I will be killed.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me whine about how busy my life is. (At least, I hope not. That would be kinda scary, and moderately stalkerish. Of course, that’s most of the internet for you.) You came for humor, for giggles, for pictures of me in a skirt. And because I feel your love all over my face, I give those things to you freely.

I say “freely” only because there are no ads on my site. And there are no ads on my site only because no marketing agencies have offered to put any up. Rest assured, however, that I feel your love. And I love you back. Maybe not in a “sharing fluids” kind of way, but it is definitely love.

Except, possibly, for Kyle; with him it’s more of a lust thing.

Ladies and gentlemen.

The picture page that will change your life.

I present to you:

Halloween Party 2004

I may have mentioned that the repairs to the support beams here on the first floor of The Mill at White Clay Creek continue. They have now finished the drywall enclosure very close to my desk, so I can report the following amusements:

• A great deal of welding. I can see the light reflecting through cracks in the drywall. I’m assuming it won’t blind me if I’m not seeing directly. Either way, I’ve contacted a lawyer.
• Enough banging and bashing of metal objects to cause me to start twitching like my Ritalin ran out.
• The sound of very loud drilling, followed by someone saying, “Just keep pressure on it,” which could mean either they are having difficulty getting into the concrete, or that someone has managed to run the drill bit through their own foot and are trying to stem the flow of blood with a flannel shirt.
• Someone behind the wall spontaneously bursting into song: “I’m in the Mood for love . . . simply because you’re near me!!!” I swear to you, this really just happened.
• Okay, he just did it again. I’m getting kinda scared.
• Additionally, there is a heated discussion going on involving Murphy Brown. Something involving Kramer being a secretary. I don’t know what it means, but now I’m truly terrified.
• Someone behind the wall has apparently dropped an entire bag of either screws, tuna cans, or 3rd century Roman coins all over the floor. They’re doing it again. And now they seem to be dancing on the detritus. I’m both frightened and confused.
• Uh-oh…a mistake has apparently been made. There are hushed tones, periodic “oops”es, and a complete lack of audible work.
• Now it sounds as if someone is crying…I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need to get out of here. Oh, there goes another bag of Roman coins.
• It occurs to me that someone may have been injured inside that little drywall room, and they are currently chopping the body up and hiding it in the concrete. Note to self: don’t ask any questions.

I think it would probably be best if I closed this up and snuck the hell out of here before someone comes out of the walled-off-area and asks me what I may or may not have seen and/or heard today. If nothing appears in this space over the next few weeks, tell Carl that we have a love that will transcend death.

So I was starting to think, “Maybe I should change around the format of the site.” Luckily, Blogger was kind enough to help me out by destroying half my template! YAY! MY ENTHUSIASM IS OVERWHELMING!

For right now, you’ll have to deal with whatever this craptaculousness is until I can try and save my links, blogroll, etc. Give me a few days to recover.

[UPDATE as of about 2pm: I managed to bring back all the usual links on the right, and things seem to look pretty cool. The upside to losing my whole template was that I finally had to redo the basic look, which is now greatly improved. There are still a few kinks to work out, primarily: why the hell the “Wir haben keine Bananen” up there is atop the picture, rather than to the left of it; the Blogger preview shows it to the left where I want it. As usual: Blogger sucks.]

Last night HW and I went to see Bette Midler, much to Milo‘s chagrin:

MattHearnCSC: Where do you actually work? At the Wachovia? Or is there an office building somewhere?
MiloBloom34: no, i’m at the wachovia.
MattHearnCSC: I was there last night myself.
MiloBloom34: oh christ, you were not.
MiloBloom34: you did not come to that s&#t.
MattHearnCSC: What?
MiloBloom34: why were you here?
MattHearnCSC: To see Bette Midler.
MiloBloom34: I repeat, you did not come see that s*@t.
MattHearnCSC: Yes, yes I did. It was rad.
MiloBloom34: Jesus.
MiloBloom34: At what point did you realize that you’d become gay, and does sarah know?
MiloBloom34: I mean, was it the manpurse?
MattHearnCSC: She came with me.
MattHearnCSC: It was fun.
MattHearnCSC: Although the parking situation needs some work.
MiloBloom34: I’m aware she came with you, but does she know you’ve made a complete transition to fag?
MiloBloom34: you didn’t actually pay money for the tickets, did you?
MattHearnCSC: Sure.
MattHearnCSC: They were like $60 apiece or so.
MiloBloom34: that’s horrifingly disturbing.
MiloBloom34: and for the love of god, I’d be much more concerned about doling out $120 to see that circus act.
MiloBloom34: I felt sick to my stomach every time I walked past that f#&$ing gaudy-ass stairway that she rides on.
MattHearnCSC: It was totally sweet.
MattHearnCSC: I daresay “Supersweet.”

The concert really was quite incredible. Bette puts on a hell of a show, and her backup band was incredible. I enjoy watching drummers; hers was very grood. She also had what appeared to be Tina Turner playing piano and directing the band.

Bette, amusingly, drops more F-bombs than Chris Rock. I enjoy a good bit of ribaldry, so I was pleased, although some of the old ladies sitting near us were slightly put off.

My only complaint about the evening was that parking at the sports complex is still pretty poor. I would have thought they could devise a better way to get everybody into the parking areas, but unfortunately no, you still end up stuck in traffic on the Girard Point Bridge. It took us 30 minutes to get from our house to the Broad Street exit, and then 30 minutes to get the additional mile from there to where we parked. Getting out wasn’t great either, although it was a bit easier because we ended up being parked right next to a lot exit on South 11th Street, so we were home about midnight.

Okay, I better get back to trying to recover as much of my original website as I possibly can, probably while weeping. I’ll try and keep you updated as to what’s going on.