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Here’s the thing: I’m pretty fat. I mean, if you haven’t seen me lately, and all you know of me is my Brigadoon pictures from a ways back, then you might be surprised at the chub that has made itself welcome on my front. I just don’t do, you know, activities. So you know that, if I were to do a major athletic event, there’d better be a dang good reason.
Which brings me to the Livestrong Challenge, a day of events in Philadelphia that include a 5K (not doing that), a 10 mile bike ride, and a 45 mile bike ride. I have volunteered (and even paid for the privilege) to ride in that. There is a problem, however, in that I need to raise $250 to qualify. The race is 8/24, so it’s gotta happen by then. The good news is this: according to Facebook, I have approximately 375 friends. If they all chip in a dollar, I’m gravy like Thanksgiving giblets!
I’ve set what I believe to be a rather conservative goal of $500. I figure a few people (my parents, maybe) will be willing to chip in a lil bit wuxtree, plus people that I stop on the street and say crazy things to will probably give me quarters to make me go away. Either way, you need to give the Livestrong Foundation some cash via my webpage: http://philly08.livestrong.org/matthearn. Go do it, man, it actually does benefit cancerous individuals and their families. And if you don’t, and I don’t raise a lot of money, then when I have a coronary at mile 28 my obituary will be insufficiently glowing. Unacceptable. I’ll put a link over in my list of, um, links, so you’ll be reminded every time you come to matthearn.com, something you should be doing hourly, because even though my track record is usually twice-weekly posts with occasional month-long disappearances, I might start posting hourly! Anything’s possible! I might even blog the race!
I’ll probably be too busy passing out. Oh well.
So the pictures of Charles that I promised would be up last Wednesday or Thursday are up on Tuesday the following week. Don’t let anybody tell you I’m on time, because they would be UNCORRECT.
Click here for the rad. Party on!
Dr. Tea-Gar pointed out in a comment to my last post that I was horribly remiss to not report the birth of my niece. Yeah, I am dumb. Somehow, the birth of my parents’ first granddaughter slipped my mind. And I wasn’t even drinking at the time! Of course, statistics show that I actually have a more reliable memory when I’m half in the bag.
Anyway. Moving on:
I would like to present Kathryn Amelia, born at 8 pounds 1 ounce, 20 inches long, on July the First.
(Link goes to Shutterfly, where those of you who are so inclined could order prints. It’s a 10MP shot, so it should inflate to just about poster-sized, although it’ll be grainy ’cause it’s ISO1600.)
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.
So: my homey Shaun TC is in the cast of “In The Heights,” which you may or may not know is up for something like 11,304 Tony awards. (Okay, it’s just 13. Still.) You know what that means? Running diary. OH HECK YES. I should warn you; I was hard pressed to keep up with events, what with Whoopi being out of control and HearnWife constantly talking to me. So things are a little…”stream of consciousness.” Also I may have been drinking.
- The Lion King…meh. Meh? Yeah, meh. It was a great Disney Movie because James Earl Jones, Matthew Broderick, and Jeremy Irons were involved. As a musical with a bunch of no-names? Meh.
- Laurence Fishburne adds nothing but class. He’s like Sidney Poitier 2.0. Except where Mr. Poitier played Detective Virgil Tibbs, Laurence played Cowboy Curtis.
- Crybaby: The Musical? Really? Wow. The only redeeming thing about the movie was Johnny Depp, and I remember being sadly disappointed that he didn’t get shot. I have to say, the guy playing Crybaby would NOT enjoy prison. Because of all the RAPE. He would definitely be somebody’s TOTALLY SWEET GIRLFRIEND.
- Nice to see that the guy that played Will’s boyfriend on “Will and Grace” is still working as something other than an EMT or cop. I think he played a blue-collar public servant in 34 straight crappy TV dramas.
- The one guy that apparently missed a memo and showed up in white tie just made me think: why isn’t anybody wearing a white jacket? It’s after Memorial Day, right? I think everything that’s wrong with American can be traced to folks not owning and wearing formal wear when warranted and men not wearing hats.
- HOLY CRAP BISHOP BRENNAN FROM FATHER TED WON A TONY! Seriously, being one of maybe 3 Americans that recognized him has made my life worthwhile.
- Boo Counting Crows guy. Holy over-rated. (Sorry, all my friends that are huge Crows fans.)
- Who, uh, is Stew? And what is this “Passing Strange?” Because it’s, uh, not so great. The best I can say is that the one girl’s “English” accent made me laugh a little. Amsterdam seems to be involved. Does this makes sense if you’re high? Per…haps. HW: “This is stupid. Fast forward.” Done, and done.
- Nice! John Lithgow! Crap, he started talking, that ruined it. Oh good, he’s being ironic; that saved it. A little bit. Nice, the first Tony that In The Heights is up for! Boo, South Pacific’s guy won it. (Best Director.) Why does this guy sound like the creepy guy from “Back To You?”
- Jack Klugman? I thought he was dead! Oh, he just SOUNDS dead. Does he even have lungs? I think I saw a gill.
- Diesel, here comes “Gypsy.” I have heard incredible things, and plan to try and seduce a producer for tickets when I visit NYC later this week.
- Patti LuPone…uh…holy crap. Yeah, gonna try and see that, and soon, before she blows out a kidney singing that.
- Now that we’re on commercial, I can note the following: everyone talks about Patti LuPone’s acting and star power, but I gotta tell you, based on what she just sang, she is a simply fantastic musician. Diction, pitch, dynamics, all that. Spectacular.
- Hehehe Whoopi in “Phantom Of The Opera.” C’mon, go for the high note! Wow, I can’t believe they bothered to rebuild that set just for 15 seconds of gag.
- Hot. They’re going through the stuff they gave out before the telecast started, and “In The Heights” won for Best Choreography and Best Orchestrations! I can say firsthand: both those things were phatty phats. I have seen them. And then I walked and danced on the stage. People were impressed.
- Good to see Nathan Lane getting work. He’s so…shy.
- Wait, Duncan Sheik scored “Spring Awakening?” How about that. And here I thought he was a one-hit wonder. Here’s what I can say: he’s not even remotely funny. He just tossed a joke out that the audience wasn’t sure what to do with, because he had all the comedic timing of MY SCROTUM. (Actually that’s not true; my coin-purse is hilarious.)
- Nice!!! “In The Heights” just won for best lyrics, and the guy is rapping. Fantastic. He needs his hat, though. Nice! A shout-out for the hat AND Stephen Sondheim. The whole thing was actually kinda touching; normally you want a winner to act like I’d been there before, but his whole “holy crap this is unpossible” rap came across mad authentic. That’s right: he’s the Barack Obama of the Broadway Stage.
- South Pacific: Emile. Uh…that particular Emile wouldn’t have looked at Nellie Forbush twice. Or even once, because he would have been trying to have vicious animal sex with Lieutenant Cable. There’s nothing wrong with that, but next time let’s try and find someone a little more manly? The guy has a hot voice, though, I’ll give him that. (Update: later on he won best actor in a musical production, which is actually probably true because acting heterosexual was a SERIOUS stretch for him.)
- Did Nellie Forbush just smell a hat? I’m kinda thrown here. She sounds a little old. And the one girl in the flesh-colored bathing suit appears to be simply naked. Which is disappointing, compared to actual nudity.
- Whoopi just came onstage as Mary Poppins in the worst-disguised flying wires ever. Giggles all around.
- Kristen Chenoweth just made a “Defying Gravity” (a “Wicked” reference, if you were heretofore unware) joke that pained me. Then she stuck her hand in her armpit as if she thought that was a Polish Knee-Slapper. I’d assume she was high, but no, she’s just stupid.
- Barry Bostwick! I could not be more excited! He once played George Washington. Did you know that? I did. I bet you did not. He’s introducing “Grease,” which means I hate him! Hate him. I hate “Grease.” Have I mentioned that? Yeah. You know how you hate racism, or terrorism, or Hitler? I hate “Grease.” Watching this may well give me a stroke. Even worse, they’re doing a number that was NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SHOW. IT CAME FROM THE MOVIE. CAN YOU BE ANY MORE CRAPPY. I say no.
- I hate Grease so much.
- One of the Grease actors appears to have POLISHED THE ASS OF HIS JEANS. Hate.
- Dang! The “Gypsy” guy beat out the “In The Heights” guy for “Featured Actor.” Now I have to see “Gypsy” ’cause the “In The Heights” dude SLAYED. Gotta love the Gypsy guy for bringing back the Hitler moustachio, though.
- Marisa Tomei came out to introduce something with what could best be described as a “natural” look, and said: “One of the wonders of theater is that it is a shared experience.” HW: “Yeah…makeup can be a shared experience too.”
- Oh good. Disney didn’t irritate me enough with “The Lion King,” they had to do a “Little Mermaid” show too. It’s sad that there so many starving actors that they can staff these ABOMINATIONS. HW: “I thought [Ariel] was scary. And boring.” Yeah, even the red hair couldn’t save her.
- “A Catered Affair:” I don’t know Kate Prince, but I can say that she hit a loud note of some kind and my left ear started bleeding. Bad times.
- Megan Mullaly! I’ve always been fond of her. Heheheh…she made a penis-related joke. “Deep Love.” I like. HW is not as much a fan, ’cause she hasn’t seen “Young Frankenstein” (the movie), which is sad for her.
- Whoopi’s introducing a bunch of sets from plays I didn’t see…makes it kinda hard to keep up. Luckily, as it turns out, she’s funny! Has no eyebrows, though.
- David Morse! YES! I love him. Dunno why, just do. ACCEPT IT.
- There’s a play of “The Thirty Nine Steps?” Somehow I missed that. Looks…freaky. Exciting. I’m excited.
- I feel similarly about Gabriel Byrne as I do about David Morse, except FAR more overtly sexually.
- Hee..the chick that won for best Director of a Play has a tattoo that she deeply regrets. I think it was something commemorating “Where Eagles Dare.” Somewhere, Richard Burton is DRINKING HEAVILY.
- Mary Louise Parker is hot, but she’s either stoned, or that glittery black thing on the side of her head is a REALLY BORING alien that has rooted into her brain and taken it over. Because she’s about as lively as the chunks of hair and flesh stuck to my wife’s leg-razor.
- Is it just me, or is it totally awesome refer to The Scottish Play as “The Scottish Play” even when they aren’t involved in a production thereof? Fantastic.
- Mark Rylance of “Boeing-Boeing” SLAYED me. Sarah found him boring. This resulted in an argument. Yay marriage!
- Lin-Manuel is up ons! GO TC GO GO TC Yes. That show is ridiculous. Compared to all the other stuff, I don’t see how it could miss on a big win, even up against Gypsy.
- Wow. “South Pacific” is tearing it up, which is kind of a pity, because that show is SO 1946. Right? I mean, what could it really bring to the table? Wow, racism against Indonesian natives! That really speaks to me! (No, it doesn’t.)
- I like the guy presenting with Harry Potter. He’s quick. ON THE BALL, if you would believe it.
- Whoa! Look at Mandy Patinkin’s face! That beard is…nautical.
- I gotta say; Sondheim. Certainly interesting. But doesn’t do much of anything for me, to be honest. It seems like he sacrificed melody for a feeling of “Hey! Listen to how weird this is! I would like another Tony!” People are willing to let this slide, for some reason. Me? Nay.
- HW on Glenn Close: “Severe.” Uh…yeah. She looks like she’s been sharpened.
- Lily Tomlin’s not dead? Wow!
- Can’t say I’m excited about “Xanadu,” since the movie was, at best, homicidal. (Everybody that watched it died of suck.) Oh good, rollerskates. I…uh…am fast-forwarding past this horrific crap. Uh…why did that guy walk up from the audience? And now there’s a pegasus dropping from the season? I need a grenade. Was that supposed to be ironic? That was bad.
- Oh, that’s Anthony Rapp? I just remember him from “Road Trip.” I don’t hate Rent as much as I hate Grease, but it’s reasonably close. Take it from me: if you want to see Rent, just go get tickets to La Boheme at the Met. Or even at a local regional opera company. It’s just like Rent, except not stupid. Though, I gotta say; the 525,600 minutes song is catchy. Hellacatchy. Not “Quando m’en vo” catchy, but clearly good enough to hoodwink thousands of Musical Theater fans. Seriously, if you’re willing to drop $60 to see Rent but won’t drop the same amount to see opera att the Met, you’re basically saying “I want to seem like I enjoy culture without actually having to expose myself to it.” You probably also like Jack Johnson, who I’d like to see reenact the rock-crusher scene in “The Temple Of Doom.”
- “Liza Minelli” and “Short Skirt” are not phrases that should EVER go together. She is definitely turning into her mother as she gets older; Judy had the good sense to die young, though. HW: “Is her bra supposed to be hanging out like that?” Yeah…I think that was intentional. In a related story, I just threw up on my socks.
- Wow, the chick from Xanadu is BEAT. She needs less teeth and more lips. I kept wondering if a second mouth was going to come out, all Alien-style.
- Go Patti LuPone! HW: “Yeah, like nobody knew that was coming. Certainly wasn’t gonna be that Xanadu b****.” Don’t let anybody tell you HW isn’t profound.
- Best Musical to “In The Heights!” Hell yeah! Fantastic. If “Xanadu” had won I might have torched something. I’d just like to poit out that I saw the show that wont the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical before it actually opened because of my connections.
A successful night! “In The Heights” pulled down Best Choreography, Best Orchestration, Best Original Score, and Best Musical. Mad shout-outs to Shaun and his castmates for being AWESOME.
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:
- 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!
- 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!
- 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.
So I finally broke down and got myself a recording setup. It is PIMP. It is centered on a PreSonus Firebox, which connects via Firewire to my HP desktop. I also got microphones, mic cords, a pop filter, and 2 mic stands which of course have not yet arrived so I had to hold the mic and a pop filter like a putz to record my first jam. This is just an experiment, really, just the first 20 or so bars of William Byrd’s “Nunc Dimittis,” Gradualia I No. 4, whatever that means. We’ve been singing it in Cathedral Compline Choir for the last few performances, so I had a handy copy, and when transposed down a third it actually fits reasonably well into my voice. I’m still learning, but comments are ALWAYS welcome. I hope to heck this works:
Well, dang, it didn’t. I was trying to embed it in a thing so you could totally just click and be all WHATUP. Darn. Oh well, here’s a regular link to it.
Update: I got it working. Check it out! You can still download it from the link above if you wanna throw the awesomeness on your Ip Od.
Did you notice I’ve started using titles on my posts? I totally am! The reason is this: I felt that the Chase Utley post from last week needed a title, so I turned them on. That’s it. I guess I could turn them back off, but meh. At least this way the RSS feed will be a little better organized. A few quick things, and then I have some fun links to share:
WebMD may well be the best organized, fully-featured, almost unconscionably useless website to be found on the Intarwebz today. I have some kind of problem wherein my left foot feels like it has a broken bone in it, so I went to WebMD, entered my symptoms, and was presented with a list of something like 15 possible problems, such as “stress fracture in foot” (Really? You think?) and “sciatica,” which I thought went out with gout and scurvy. (Actually, I know two middle-aged gentlemen who are suffering from gout. I keep begging them to start dressing up like Benjamin Franklin, but they refuse.)
I went to the doctor, who said it might be a stress fracture, so she had me go get an X-ray, the results of which have not yet come back. On the other hand, the X-ray technician was a stone cold fox. If I wasn’t so lazy, I would TOTALLY stalk her.
A few weeks ago, Charles and I went to the Brandywine Zoo (Sarah is frantically trying to finish her “case study,” which is sort of like a master’s thesis, but not really, so we try to stay out of her way) because they had advertised that Curious George, in mascot-sized form, was going to be there, and also because if I have a chance to see a capybara, I am going to take that chance. Sadly, apparently every other parents in New Castle County had the same idea; the line was, according to other folks nearby, THREE HOURS LONG. So Charles and I went over to the monkey house, which is separate, and stood outside and watched simians leap from tree to tree.
Screw you, Curious George, I wanted to see a rodent of unusual size.
Teh Linxorz:
- This is beyond creepy: Coffin Calendar. Click the picture in the middle. MIGHT be a little NSFW, as some of the ladies are en lingerie. (I don’t speak French very well.)
- You may remember last fall when I posted a completely nonsensical post involving Christianity, homosexuality, and why some people seem to think the two are incompatible. The comments got a little wild, and then there was a follow-up post that did nothing to stem the tide of ignorance coming from my fingers. What I really meant to say was this post by Rev. Wendy Porter, who was an associate priest at my pops’s church for a while, and has since moved back to her old Atlanta stomping grounds. Sadly, while she was in the area, we didn’t really get to hang out, because she’s cooler than the other side of the pillow, if that pillow was in a freezer. Also, I was dismayed to log into facebook and discover that she’s YOUNGER than I am; there’s really no reason to think she’s OLDER than I (she certainly doesn’t look any older than about 25), but my worldview up to that point had no place for Episcopal priests who were not at least five years my senior. Also: no one who is younger than I am has the right to be that eloquent.
- It’s common knowledge that groin injuries are always HILARIOUS if they are happening to someone else.
- This guy is a total winner:
Peckman, 54, who is single and lives with his parents . . .
You don’t say?
- One more game that I was unaware of the other day, but is taking up FAR too much of my valuable time: Armor Picross 2. Simple puzzle game with a Sudoku feel that will not allow you to stop.
Somehow I managed to write this in its entirety last week, and not post it. Good job, Hearn! Idiot. Here it is, a week later:
In lieu of actual humor and important stuff, I give you a modified link day! Today’s links are all games that I’ve come across lately, and they are AWESOME.
- Storm Winds: an opportunity to buy anti-aircraft weapons and use them to blow up steampunk enemies. A good way to waste a half hour or so after you eat your Lean Cuisine at lunch.
- Sea of Fire 2: The sequel to Sea of Fire 1, which had basically the same plot but the gameplay was pretty weak. They fixed that in SoF2; if you liked “Age of Empires” or “Command and Conquer,” this is along those lines. Build stuff, upgrade it, use it to build weapons, and blow up your enemy. I’ve beaten both sides of the conflict up to the “normal” level; the “hard” level lets me get to about 2/3 of the way through and then just says “screw you, you aren’t getting any further, jerk.” Frustrating, but still fun.
- Magic Pen: I quite literally spent something near to four hours playing this earlier this week. It was one of the most depressing displays of wasted time since college. Either you will not really get this game, and give up after round 3, or you will simply not move until you beat it, which will take a while. Oh, what’s it about? Drawing objects and watching how they interact with physics. Seriously, it’s awesome.
- Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3: Do you like Guitar Hero, but don’t want to shell out the benjies for the guitar and game combo? Have you always wanted to play your keyboard like a guitar? This is the game for you. It’s basically a complete Guitar Hero ripoff that you play on your keyboard. The first few songs are pretty easy, but it gets Hard with a capital iz-aitch.
- Forum Warz! They warn that this game is highly offensive, although I’m about 3 levels in and it hasn’t been TOO execrable yet. A little gross, to be sure; I’d imagine anybody over the age of 40 is probably not going to like this game. Or if you’re just a prude. I’m having fun with it, though.
That’s all I got. Have a good’n.
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
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