matthearn.com

WednURLsday this week consists of (drum roll, bitte):

• This great picture of your dad! Totally quality, thanks to the inimitable James Lileks.
• Dave Barry’s Annaul Holiday Gift Guide is out! And yes, the scrolling LED belt-buckle is an Xmas requirement.
• Josh and I mulled over this episode of Achewood for like 2 hours on Monday. (Seriously.) I think it broke us.
• Thanks to the Sports Guy’s Intern, I now have discovered ProTrade.com, and I may never work again.
• Today is the 64th anniversary of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. Just a thought, in case you wanted to learn something today that doesn’t involve dancing cats or small backpacks for dog poop.

So in order that the celebration of my ability to reproduce can continue and grow, I have created an Online Baby Pool Thing Wooooooo! Simply go here:

http://www.expectnet.com/

In the upper left, in the field labelled “Go directly to a game by entering the game name:”, enter “Dontrello” with the capital D since it’s all case-sensitive and might get confused. Once there, you can enter guesses as to when the urchin will pop forth, what its gender might be, and exactly how much it’s going to destroy HW’s poor loins on the way out. (Meaning, weight and length. Of the baby, not Sarah’s loins.) It’s good fun for all, I’m TELLING you. Do it. DO IT NOW.

In other news: websites that have names like expectnet.com, thusly making me forget and type in expect.net, irritate me. I should move this whole site to matthearncom.net and then set up matthearn.com such that it just has a big picture of a wang. Possibly my own; possibly yours. Who’s to know?

That is all.

Everybody talks about how awesome “naturalness” is. Like, when you go to buy food, you’re supposed to buy organic “all-natural” crap. Avoid preservatives, wear only hemp, drink only water, and smoke enough marijuana to choke a goat.

You know what I say? To hell with naturalness and healthy living.

In the past 5 or 6 years, I have taken certain steps to try and improve my health, usually via a “natural” method, and it doesn’t make a lick of difference. I quit smoking, and yet I still can’t climb 5 flights of stairs without having to stop halfway, hunch over, and spit on the ground for a few minutes. I started drinking more water instead of soda, and 1. I actually feel less moist (my skin is dry, my throat is raw, my nose is all stuffed up with dry snot) and 2. I can’t stop peeing.

(To be clear: what I mean is that I have to go to the bathroom constantly. Not that I’m sitting at my desk right now wetting my pants or jetting forth a continuous stream into a bucket. Although at least in those cases I wouldn’t have to get up.)

I’ve tried exercise, and it just hurts, and doesn’t do anything to improve my ability to take a breath or shed fat. I’ve cut my daily calorie intake to something around 1600 calories, which by my calculations means I should be losing about one pound a week, which means I’ll be at fighting trim sometime in 2008. Added bonus: I’m hungry every minute of every hour of every single freaking day.

So here’s what I’ve decided: screw natural. As soon as I can save up a big chunk of cash, I’m having all my fat just sucked clean out of my body. The only potential downside is the monetary cost, but you know what? 10 grand is a small price to pay for not having a gut large enough to affect local tides. (I’m told there is a slight risk of death associated with the surgery, but I risk death every time I sleep with a pregnant woman who wakes up in the middle of the night and flings cats at my head claws first. I no longer fear the Grim Reaper. I can take that boney bitch DOWN, yo.)

I’d also like to note that 1) food without preservatives costs more 2) goes bad more quickly 3) tastes no better and 4) has never actually been documented to cause cancer or HIV or syphilis or whatever. So I’m gonna continue eating as many pesticide-sprayed carrots as I possibly can, while crying.

Forsooth, let us forthwith listen closely to the brass tintinnabulation from the large sled in our barn.
Let it be agreed that the current climate is greatly pleasant such that were we to embark on a trip together in our horse-drawn runner-equipped snow-conveyance it would probably end with great mirth.

Without, unthawed rain appears to be settling soundlessly on the ground, and some erstwhile companions are inexplicably standing upon same and uttering strange exclamations of what I perceive to be joy.
Prithee, as I have said, it is sufficiently temperate in the out of doors that a quick jaunt in our multi-person sled would be of great interest to all parties.

Accelerate, you vaunted steeds, else I shall lay waste to your hindquarters with the leather!
Let us look upon the white material that surrounds us! It is indeed an astonishing, stunning thing over which we pilgrimage.

Damnable worthless animals! Do not your exhilarating fleetness diminish!
Intertwining our appendages gives me great pleasure.
We continue to smoothly navigate to the tune of December’s pallid scenery.

The faces of our collective assemblage have reddened significantly, and yet the selection of blankets and footwarmers seems to have been particularly ingenious, as my core temperature remains unmodified.
We two are particularly well nestled in warmth and comfort, almost as if we were priests of the same cloth, and those priests were actually winged creatures, if you catch my somewhat incomprehensible drift.

I submit that the proper course of action would be for us to continue forward on this path, ideally while producing tuneful melodies from our throats such as would please what gods there may be.
I believe that I have previously commented on the suitability of our environs for a equine-pulled trip, and while I hesitate to repeat myself, I feel it necessary to point out yet again the fittingness of my earlier statements.

I can’t begin to describe how awesome this site is, so I’m just going to give it to you and let you go on your way:

www.pandora.com/

In case you’re still here (although why you would be, I can’t fathom), I have just a few comments:

• Fall Out Boy is a good band, despite the fact that English is clearly the lead singer’s third language. This guy sings the phrase “We’re always sleeping in and sleeping for the wrong team” so that it sounds like “We’re always seeping in and seeping for a long team,” which is a wholly different mental picture.
• Pandora’s played a few songs by Dispatch for me. I have a lot of friends who say that Dispatch is the absolute shiznit, so I say this with great sadness, but nevertheless need to report: I’ve heard better music coming from my wife’s ass while she’s asleep.

I hope everybody’s Thanksgiving was as thoroughly fattening as mine. I still can’t walk right, and I have enough tryptophan in my system that I’ve been sleeping 12 hours a day since Thursday. The leftovers merely add to the misery, and by misery I mean “extreme joy,” ’cause there ain’t nothin’ so good as Thanksgiving leftovers. Turkey lurkey jerky.

This year my parents went out to Lancaster to be with Mom’s family, and I didn’t particularly feel like doing early food at Sarah’s ‘rents and then driving 90 minutes for another dose of pie, so we just hung out at the in-laws all day and had a righteous time. The food was delicious, despite the apparent disaster that resulted from not having any remaining hard-boiled eggs to put in the gravy (I didn’t even notice, to be honest), and I got to spend an hour or so in the basement with my father-in-law shooting pellets at cans and paper.

After that we watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” which I think should become an annual tradition, and enjoyed pie. Then we went home and went to bed, at which time David and Stephen called us at about 11:30 to report that their car had broken down in New Jersey and could I come retrieve them? Luckily, I’m all about driving on empty roads in darkness (seriously!) so I went and snagged them and then returned home and slept until 10am. It was awesome.

Friday we had lunch with Lynn and Dave from Bawst’n, and then I helped Sarah with homework until rehearsal.

Saturday I got up, made pie, and then went to baptize my nephew Nathaniel, which was awesome with a capital Awe. I hadn’t seen him in roughly a month, so I was amused to see that he had porked up considerably. Then we went back to my parents’ house, where I drank too much wine but got to see all kinds of fun family.

Sunday I had church services all day.

I need some turkey and a nap, I think.

If you ever need me to drive you somewhere, 3am on a Tuesday is a great time for it. What I can’t stand are people that call me at like 3pm on Friday and say “Hey, can you drive me to the airport in an hour?” That makes me stabby.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all! Check it, here’s my list of dope things for which I, and probably others, are thankful:

• Justin Timberlake.
• My family, particularly my new nephew Nathaniel, who is radder than fresh cinnamon buns and twice as tasty.
• Pre-massive-and-terrifying-weightloss Jennifer Connelly.
• My health, which, aside from horrific obesity and lingering acne, has been superb.
• My tongue, which allows me to taste delicious things like fresh cinnamon buns and babies.
• Fat cats that sleep on your head and yell loudly for no reason when you’re on a conference call from home.
• Beer.
• Matthew McConaughey.
• The first good pee of the day.
• Mashed potatoes with butter.
• Shoo-fly pie.
• The fact that HW is pregnant.

Oh, had I not mentioned that? Yeah, I’m hell of gonna be a father in late May. WOOHOO BABIES.

Real busy today, but not too busy to share the fun with you: Click this for fun movieage. Sound not required, as Sarah’s little digital camera recordeth it not. The whole thing made us pee a little.

Yes, that is our kitchen; yes, that is our cat The Cheat (notable for her love of Christmas trees), and yes, she has an empty box of Diet Sunkist stuck on her head. Don’t be angry with me: I didn’t put it there. This time.

Sorry this is late (like, 2 days late), but my eentarweb hosting guy was doing some kind of experiment in spam and security blocking things that resulted in blogger posting not working. Sorry about that. Not that you really missed anything.

I’m gonna hork (steal) a meme (internet idea thingy) from James Lileks (short funny writer who is currently very cold and bitter about it): it’s ThURLsday!!! Check out this stuff that made me happy this week:

I definitely think everybody needs a flying pig hat, with flapping wings. Let’s all get one, and I’ll figure out a HOW-TO to motorize the flapping. It couldn’t be more awesome than that.

Of all the bobbleheads I’ve seen, this one is the only one that I covet. (Not for $800+, but still. Awesome.)

Useful information for all your spastic friends. (Emily, bookmark this one.)

More useful information from wikihow.

Placeopedia.com. Two of my favorite things, Google Maps and Wikipedia, together at least. Brings a tear to the eye, it really does.

I stayed home sick yesterday, because for the second time in under a month, I woke up feeling like Satan had peed fiery urine down my throat. (Yeah, think about that image for a while. Demons and golden showers…it’s a winning combination!) So I napped for a while, watched a little TV, checked email, did a little work from home.

I started feeling a little guilty for being useless, so I called my mom to see how my uncle (just had heart surgery) was doing; much better, apparently, which is superb news. I did some kitchen cleaning, set out some chicken to thaw for dinner, and said, “Hey, I’m gonna be making pies next week, I should go ahead and make the dough now and save time!”

So I kneaded up some of my mom’s patented pie crust recipe, which involves egg and vinegar, making things extra yum. Sadly, I didn’t have any vinegar that I could find. I substituted balsamic, which turned things an ominous color, but when everything was together I tasted the dough and it appeared to be fine. I set that in a bowl and refrigerated.

Next, I decided some cookies would be in order, so I threw together a low-carb/low-calorie peanut butter cookie batch and baked it up. Then I put on the new Diana Krall Christmas CD and sat in an easy chair with a blanket and a cat and read a book for an hour or so. Then to temper all that feminine crap I tore out some annoying sliding trays out of kitchen cabinet and replaced it with a single shelf. That was my day.

Oh, except for baking the chicken with minced garlic and powdered cloves. That was good.

Aren’t you happy to know how I spent my sick day? Then you’ll be thrilled to hear me relate this tale:

The things we do to lose weight and look good. Every floor of our building has a coke machine dispensing bottles of carbonated goodness. Sadly, the bottom 4 floors all were sold out of diet soda. Instead of getting regular coke and just taking the calories, I ran to the top (5th) floor, and ran back down, manboobs jiggling all the way! Aren’t you proud?

My life is boring and repetitive. Welcome to it, you crazy kids.