matthearn.com

Things have been ungodly busy at the office, and I end up staying late and then not having time for anything in the evening but my usual crap. So the daily postings have suffered, and for this I apologize.

Even today, I don’t really have much to offer you, except that I’m going to post something that Brian made, that he probably should have posted first, but since he didn’t, I’m going to do so. The legality of this re: copyright is somewhat shady. Okay, it’s very shady. I AM A SHADY MOFO.

But it’s too funny not to post:

More tomorrow, I hope I hope I hope . . . even if I have to write it tonight in a drunken stupor.

Ah, the weekend. RAMBLE ON:

• We played our second doubleheader of softball love on Friday, and get this, WE WON A GAME. It was unbelievable. I still can’t believe it, although I can definitely FEEL it. I haven’t been able to walk for 3 days. Every part of my body hurts. Obviously this means I plan to go on a lengthy bike ride this evening, and possibly go to the batting cages. Am I a glutton for punishment, or am I just stupid? Only time will tell.
• Funny line from the weekend, as reported by my mother: apparently our friend Evelyn took her old cat to the vet, and the vet reported sadly, “I’m sorry . . . your cat has Feline AIDS.” To which Evelyn replied, “Wow! I didn’t even know he was gay!”

  Apparently the vet did not find this amusing, but on hearing about it, I definitely peed my pants a little bit.

• I spent Saturday during the day hanging at my parents’ place, recording some tracks with my dad so I can burn a CD of myself to send to a vocal competition in NYC. Hopefully tonight I’ll get the tunes moved onto my computer, and I can start putting it all on CDs and posting mp3s and things for y’all to listen to. I should mention that most of it is pretty damned AWESOME, if you ask my subtle opinion. Mostly because my father can play anything you put in front of him. The punk. Even with a tore-up leg.
• Speaking of which, I’m not sure I mentioned last week that my father managed to tear a calf muscle playing softball with us. He’s now hobbling around like a gimp, which is greatly amusing to me. He has crutches; I’m not sure why he doesn’t use them. Probably the same reason that I didn’t use them when I tore up my ankle: they’re lame and omnipresent. Everywhere you wanna sit down, you have to find a place to sit them. Totally craptastic.
• So now I’m basically off my low-carb diet, having gotten down to 225 or so (which sounds pretty fat, until you realize that I’m merely just phat). I’m hoping that frequent bike rides and a summer of softball-playing will keep me in fighting trim. As a result, I’ve taken to eating cereal in the morning again, and let me tell you: the awesomeness of cereal can not be overestimated. I’ve missed it so much. ::sniff::

RAMBLE OFF.

UPDATE from Rick: “Dude, I had dreams last night about that picture of your crotch.”

I’m so pleased.

Sometimes, the humor is just too much to bear. Some reports from friends on Yesterday’s Junk Post:

From Nora:
so here i am, sitting at my friend’s desk, filling in
for her for the day while she is away at a wedding. i
decide to check out your homepage today since i have
time to play on the computer. (so this is what you
“business” people do all day!) i can now proudly say
i have accidentally created a link to a picture of
your crotch on my friend’s computer. congratulations
on sharing the wealth……….

From Henna:
HennaB: he’s wearing pants
HennaB: but it’s a picture of the bulge
HennaB: his pants are too small in that area
HennaB: omg

Life is good.

It is really annoying to lose a bunch of weight, and buy new pants to fit your slimm’d-down waist, only to discover too late that despite having lost inches around the middle, you haven’t reduced the size of certain other things.

Wait, did I say annoying? I meant TOTALLY AWESOME.

That is all.

People have weird food tastes. I am no exception; I’ll eat pretty much anything, from sushi to curried beef to semi-rancid yoghurt. But I draw the line at lawn clippings.

On Sunday, HearnWife^TM and I headed over to my parents’ place to help celebrate the anniversary of the natal day of our friend Tolly, who is tall. David and Steven, among other foodstuffs, brought along some kind of olive oil to dip bread in that is apparently the best olive oil ever devised by man. Personally, my olive oil purchases are dictated by whichever brand offers the most oil for the least amount of money, but The Boyz apparently had to travel to Greece to personally select the olives that were to be used to create this particular model of oil, so they insisted we try it.

So we all dipped some bread in there, and munched away. To be honest, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. It tasted rather bitter to me. Normally, dipping bread into what amounts to liquid fat is a wonderful prospect, but this particular experience was not up to par.

I revealed to Stephen that I wasn’t sure I liked it or not, and he replied, “Are you crazy? MMMMM…this is good. You can really taste the grass!”

I . . . but . . . um . . . hold on, GRASS? I’ll pass thanks. I thought I was weird because I’ll eat sugar packets and have been known to chug Hershey’s Syrup straight from the bottle, but grass-flavored olive oil is not something I’m going to go to great lengths to try.

My friends are so bizarre.

In similar news, a restaurant in Pennsylvania has upped the stakes in the Burger Wars, coming out with a fifteen pound burger, which contains 12.5 pounds of meat, 30 slices of cheese, and god knows what other delicious things. Milo and I are hoping to organize a road trip to eat it, and we need additional volunteers to help out. I’d ask my wife, but her idea of a “full meal” is a bag of combos and half a diet coke. She’s a weird one.

Grass oil. What the hell.

I was unaware of this yesterday, or it would have been posted with the other URLs. I don’t really have words to describe it, so I’ll just bring you: Great. White. Hype.

You may have noticed the lack of a post yesterday; this was on purpose, because I wanted to leave Monday’s post up as long as possible. The basic reasoning was that it was hilarious, and I wanted to make sure everybody saw it, since it got put up so late.

If you didn’t find it hilarious, you need to slap yourself about the face, or perhaps rub butter on your chin and attempt to kiss a chicken. It was the bomb. Learn to accept it.

Today is a kind of linky day, true blog style. I think it’s a good idea to share the brilliance of my fellow web-dwellers.

• Achewood.com – I dream like this a lot, too. Although the food isn’t necessarily doing a jig, as much as it’s trying to escape my gaping maw. But the general theme is the same.
• WMTW.com – Maine is a strange, strange place. I recommend it. Although I don’t recommend sleeping with anyone while you’re there.
• Stuff – OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW. ow.
• jellyslab.com, via slashdot – Are you geek enough to understand this? Sadly, I was. Very much so.
• Yahoo.com – Mmmm…nothing like the flavor of throwing up in your own mouth to improve your afternoon markedly. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t mind living in Phuket.
• Yahoo.com again – Bangladesh doesn’t play around anymore. Seriously. You think this is bad, try buying crack from a policeman over there.

Now try to stay out of trouble, you crazy kids, until tomorrow. I’m not holding my breath for you.

Many of you have been contacting me to ask, “Hey Matt, I also would like to wear my collar in the popped style that is so popular with the young kids these days. My problem is, it makes me a little nervous, and I’m wondering if there are situations in which the popped collar might not be appropriate. I work in a conservative environment, you see.”

Good news, folks: the popped collar is appropriate for almost any situation you can think of. Some of the few exceptions include, of course, funerals:

And it goes without saying that the other attendees at any Papal funeral would probably frown on you a bit:

You might not think that going to work with your collar stylishly popped would be a good idea, but then you’d be wrong. Here you can see me in a meeting with my managers, collar higher than a pothead’s ears:

If you work in a more technical environment, such as, say, space shuttle commander, you’ll find the popped collar particularly appropriate:

Even better, the popped collar is hell of proper to display at any formal event, such as your senior prom:

And is even a nice idea for any pool party:

Last but not least, it goes without saying that the popped collar is an absolute requirement whenever you find yourself playing the role of Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz:”

In conclusion: always keep that collar popped, and watch as your peers and colleagues look at you in wonder and awe renewed.

I’ve been spending all day working on this, so you better freakin’ enjoy it.

In honor of Kyle and Kristy’s impending nuptials, I give you:

Kristy’s New Boyfriend

I have decided that I start WAAAAAAAAY too many posts with the word “So,” as in, “So I was throwing up in a bus station bathroom” or “So the new Pope came out of the closet” or “So tell me baby, what’s your sign?” I can’t say for certain why it might be that I do this, but were I to hazard a guess, I would probably say that it’s because I am an untrained amateur with all the writing skill of a rotting mollusk.

You’d think, after something like 4 years of having this website and over 200 posts, I’d get a little better at writing, but the truth is this: I’m not so good at learning. I’m also particularly bad at holding the attention of readers, which is why my webserver stats have been dipping ominously since my peak in January. For example: earlier I spent roughly 40 minutes writing a lengthy rant about why I hate carpeting. Seriously. I don’t use titles on matthearn.com, but after I’d written three paragraphs or so, I sat here wondering exactly what I would title such a momentous piece of prose. “Carpet: The Plush Killer?” “Dupont Fibers of EXTREME PREJUDICE?” “Delawarean Writes 200th Straight Piece of Boring Dreck?”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not planning to stop posting, or anything. I’m just wondering if I might need to come up with some better things to write about than looking around my cubicle for inspiration. So I’m hoping I can spend some time over the next few weeks coming up with some new online fun, such as new caption’d picture galleries and stuff, since that seems to get the biggest response from my mildly disabled readership. Expect changes around here, dammit, BIG CHANGES.

I’ve promised that before, you say? I have two responses:

1. Shut up. Jerk.
2. I’m not playing around this time. To be honest, I wasn’t playing around last time, I just never got the chance to do the stuff I wanted. This time: I will get that chance. Hopefully starting later this week, depending on my availability over the next few days.

So you better be prepared, fools, because the entertainment is just beginning! WATCH FOR THE APOCALYPSE! OR I WILL CUT YOU!

Sorry, I got out of hand there. It won’t happen again. (Or will it. Cut.)