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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.
The Phillies have turned me into a 13 year old girl. After their big win yesterday, I spent roughly an hour sending text messages to all my friends that said “OMG TEH PHILLIEZ R THA NL EAST CHAMPEENZ!!!1!1!1 WTF LOL” After a while Sarah had to take my phone away and slip me a mickey to get me to chillax.
Nevertheless: The Phillies are the National League East Division Champions, something that hasn’t happened since 1993, which is very nearly half my lifetime ago. Already I’m looking for omens: I realized that the last time the Phillies won a World Series was roughly 2.5 years after my birth, so I started examining statistics to see if the Phillies had out-of-character good years shortly after the birth of new Hearnspawn. Unfortunately the Phillies were the diahrrea of the National League for most of the 20th century, so as far as I could tell, my father’s and grandfather’s births were not harbingers of championships. They weren’t even harbingers of winning seasons, as far as I can tell.
Still. I’ve already ordered my “NL East Champions 2007” tshirt, and not because I’m Happy To Be Here, always the kiss of death for any playoff team, but because I’m hoping they’ll be able to get the bloody thing to me in time to actually wear while watching a game, which seems unlikely because MLB.com is a LIAR! (Their website said they had the shirts already in stock, only to send me an email after I ordered saying that they don’t actually have them, but will TOTALLY ship them when they do, so I sprung for expedited shipping for no bloody reason. Liars.)
I may have to run to Dick’s and load up on Phillies merch, because it is a requirement that I wear something baseball-related on all game days. I feel like a Virginia Tech fan! Except that I don’t have to root for Sean Glennon.
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.
I dunno about you, but any time I go to the Arden Fair, I feel the need to document the goings-on. Unfortunately there’s only about 5 pictures, because I am a rank amateur, still learning how to use my tools, and a significant number of the pictures were blurry beyond belief. Arrrrrrrrrgh.
The weather for the Fair was perfect, though. Just warm enough to wear shorts, not quite warm enough that the moisture in my groin was a bother. We ate kettle corn, and I wandered into the book sale and started making selections. After I had tucked 10 or so books under my arm, a nice gentleman volunteer came over and asked if I would like a box.
“I would LOVE a box,” I replied, and he fetched me one. After 5 or so more minutes, I had completely filled the box and was balancing even more books on top.
“Sir, would you prefer a bigger box?”
I agreed, and he got me another one. I ended up taking away about 2 dozen books, including a host of fiction (Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Trilogy, consisting of A Wrinkle In Time, A Wind In The Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, all of which I’d been planning to order from Amazon soon anyway, along with the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher), poetry, books on photography, and a few medical textbooks. Total cost: $16. I love used books. I don’t understand how people can get rid of books; I have three 6′ bookshelves at home completely stocked, and dozens of books laying around my basement with no shelves on which to reside. When we get our new house, I’m going to try and reserve one room as my library, assuming my wife permits such a thing.
Sarah and her mom looked over some crafts, most of which were a tad overpriced, and little was bought. But the food was decent, like it is most years, and the Diamond State Concert Band played marches and things in the “Beer Garden,” and all was riotously fun.
Sshhh….the Phillies have won four in a row and are only 3 games back of the Mets…if they win this afternoon’s game they will be 2 games back, and facing the Marlins over the weekend, while the Mets have to go up against Atlanta…
I’m not saying. I’m just saying.
In other news, I’m in the middle of a 2-week fantasy football draft, and somehow my 2 quarterbacks are Brett Favruh, who is 387 years old, and Tony Romo, who plays for a hated rival. I’m not sure how this happened. I haven’t had a single drink during the draft process, which is normally how I end up with, say, 4 kickers. I do have good running backs (primarily Steven Jackson; thanks Kyle’s dad for picking me #2!), but I’m going to get stuck with something like the Rams defense. Dang.
Not that any of you care, or even should. I’m just saying my odds of winning any “money” are grim.
I, uh, really don’t have much else to say at this point. My life is busy with boring crap. Unless you want to hear details about Disaster Recovery Exercises! (You don’t.)
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