matthearn.com

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:

Shut up. Jerk.
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.)

So it looks like the Catholics have gotten themselves a new pope! Good times for all! I’m hoping he takes a totally righteous name when he signs up, ’cause Lord knows there are some bitchin’ Saints out there who need to have a pope named after them:

Saint Birrstan – Pope Birrstan I just has a ring to it, doesn’t it?
Saint Alexander Nevsky – Patron Saint of Going Buck Wild On Teutons With A Big Axe Or Sword
Saint Winebald – I dunno what he’s a patron saint of, but I can only assume it involves Homer Simpson.
Saint Sean John – Patron Saint of Da Bling aka Da Blizing

Not to mention all the righteous GIRL saints who probably won’t get no papal luv:

Saint Isadore of Seville – Proposed Patron Saint of Internet Users (seriously)
Saint Isadora of Duncan – Patron Saint of people who get their scarves caught in the spokes of a sportscar and snap their necks (somewhat less seriously)

No word on who the new pope actually is, but I’m hoping he’s Irish. I can’t imagine anything more awesome than having the pope roll up in Boston in a few years and getting hammered on Harp and then getting in a soccer hooligan brawl. Can you imagine? His little papal toque floating above the fray, him all casting death electric jaunpiece out of his fingertips like Emperor Palpatine, and then when his posse tries to escort him out, he pulls the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from under his robes and tosses it among the fisticuffs, sending bleeding bodies flying through the air like it was Belfast 1983 or something.

Just awesome.

Sadly, it’ll probably be some Italian guy, and he’ll probably be Pope Clement XVI or some such crap, so my hopes of a Throwdown of Infallibility would come to naught. A man can dream, however.

Except that my dreams usually involve Eliza Dushku and a fraternity paddle. I think I need serious medical attention.

So the blogging idea for Thursday panned out pretty poorly, and my plan to get pictures posted on Friday worked out about as well. I’m sure you were all disappointed, which kinda sucks for you, but luckily I’m used to it, having disappointed my wife in every conceivable way for nearly 5 years now. So hurl your taunts and spray your wrath like me when I eat rare beef; I shall survive. My skin is thick. (It’s caused by a weird virus that requires me exfoliate with a blowtorch and a rasp every weekend.)

Anyway, the goings on this weekend were extreme. Kyle’s bachelor party was a great success, starting with the Phils beating the Braves 2-1 while we watched, and finishing when one by one the party-goers started passing out in pools of their own fluids on my floor. I won’t go into very specific details about some of the things that happened, to spare the childish naivete of my readership, but here are a few highlights:

Several hours of poker ended with me in the lead, but Kyle and Jeff continually biting into my massive stash of chips via beating me in close hands. At least 3 hands in a row, I called somebody’s all-in with something like “two pair aces and sixes” only to be beaten by triple-sixes or something. It was very frustrating. But then we gave up on the game to eat, and also because someone may have discovered some adult video entertainment on a computer owned by some unknown personage. I certainly have no idea what it was doing in MY home. I blame Jared.
Somehow, 12 guys managed to go through 2 cases of beer. This doesn’t seem that impressive, until you realize that
1. Only 10 of them were drinking
2. They also managed to down something like 40 jello shots
3. Nobody died
I made a birthday cake for Brian that featured dirty words on it that would be immoral of me to post, however it is worth noting that many of them were correctly spelt.
Someone managed to break the toilet downstairs, so we announced to the party that the downstairs bathroom was closed to all traffic. Craig was unaware of this, somehow, and decided to drop a Diesel Double Deuce in there, so I had to go in, take the top off the john, and manually lift the valve to permit Craig’s stankass nastiness to go the way of all turds. Wait . . . that’s not a highlight. That’s a horrible, horrible lowlight. I can still smell it . . . and I just threw up in my mouth.

Thanks for the shindig go out to:

Rece, who came over to help set up and clean and keep us fat and happy and full of tasty, tasty beers.
Craig, for arranging for the Phillies tickets.
The Phillies, for not losing.
Everybody that came, for not throwing up in my guest bed.
She-ra (HW), for setting everything up. She hath done hell of grood jorb. GROOD JORBBBBBB!

Also, I had Brandywiners auditions yesterday, and they went reasonably well, considering to be honest, the part I want has some high notes that I cannot technically hit. Also, in case you needed the reminder, I am not what one would term a strong actor. I’m about on par with Keanu Reeves, but without all the consistency. Also the part in question requires me to be in spectularly fit condition, and while I’m in better shape than I’ve been since high school, I do not exactly have a set of admirable abs. So we’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you updated.

So it’s been four hours, and nothing has leapt into my miniature little brain. Seriously, I’m looking around my cubicle for things to write about, and if I don’t come up with anything better by 5pm, there’s a good chance you’ll see a post on any of the following topics:

Inspirational, ain’t it?

Why I Still Have A Santa Claus Hat Atop My Computer Monitor, It Being Nearly 4 Months After Christmas (Or 8 Months Before, Depending On How You Look At It)
A Comparison Of The Takeout Menus Of C.R. Wings And The Cleveland Avenue Sub Shop
I Have A CD On My Desk From A Band Named “Snacks.” I Feel That Snacks Is A Particularly Boring Name For A Band. Discuss. Also Suggest Alternate Crappy Names, Such As “Pretzel” Or Perhaps “The Donut Projekt”
Why Am I Not Any More Productive Despite Having Two Functional And Two Broken Computers In My Cubicle?
Why Do People I Don’t Know Keep Walking By My Cubicle With Clipboards? Are They Noting Who’s Actually Working And Who’s Pretending To Work While Updating His Website? Do I Really Care?

So I was hoping to have pictures of Old New Castle from the weekend, but I just haven’t had time to take care of that. Tomorrow I’m taking the day off from work to prepare for Kyrone’s bachelor party, so hopefully I’ll be able to sneak in an hour to upload and edit some photoz for all-a-y’all.

Basically what this means is, I got nothing. So I’m thinking it may be time to go Tru-Blogggg-Stizyle, meaning I plan to post some random things throughout the day, as they come to me. Keep an eye on this space, yo. Great things are coming your way.

Just not at the moment, ’cause honestly I can’t think of anything all that entertaining. Your best bet is to head over to Jimmy the Profound’s Place, and tell him I sent ya. (He doesn’t know me or anything, but it never hurts to be nice. And don’t actually call him Jimmy or they’ll never find your body. He’s weird like that.)

Oh, oh, baby, here comes my random jams, pay attention or you’ll miss it, I like ham:

I recently bought a suit from this man:

Calvin Klein, maker of fine underwear
Is it normal that I am now terrified of what I am becoming?
So on Tuesday I went to Hollywood Tan and got one of them thar “spray-on” tans that doesn’t involve scorching the skin. So far, so good, I seem to be extra pretty as a result. But it occurred to me; is there anything more silly than actually getting into a true tanning bed, with the harsh lights and whatnot? I shouldn’t really bring it up, because I’ve been guilty of it myself, but it seems to me you’re paying $5-15 a session for something you could get from the sun for free. It also strikes me as truly bizarre that every morning, I put on a face moisturizer that includes a sunscreen of SPF 45, and yet I have laid under tanning lights for as long as 15 minutes and burned myself red.
The only thing I can think of that’s similar is the concept of an “oxygen bar.” Paying for air isn’t much better than paying for sun.

(BTW: If you’re considering a spray-on tan, I should warn you off. I can’t recommend it; I’m hell of blotchy. After you get sprayed, you’re supposed to rub the stuff in all over your skin. Unfortunately, I apparently missed a spot or 12, so there are random patches of darkness interspersed with disturbing paleness. I look like a burn victim that got some of my skin grafts from Dikembe Mutumbo, and the rest from Powder. Worst of all, I couldn’t reach my back to rub it in, so now it’s covered in bizarre, massive freckles. Bad times. I think I’ll go back to just accidentally scorching my skin while riding my bike.)
After work on Monday I went for a bike ride with my comrade Shady in White Clay Creek State Park. It was, how you say, FRICKIN’ AWESOME. Ripping down trails, grudgingly climbing back up them, almost crushing my cojones on big rocks, nearly wiping out two or three times but saving it at the last minute through sheer badassocity; I enjoyed it greatly. It was a way better workout than just riding on flat ground around my neighborhood. This afternoon after work I plan to find a few more trails in a different area of the park and see what kind of harm I can come to there.
Of course, I’ve also had to invest in all kinds of righteous equipment for the bike. Helmet, pump, water bottle, mirror, gloves, small storage bag for under the seat, everything. Yesterday I picked up a little speedometer that I want to install soon; yesterday we were flying down a hill on Paper Mill Road and I became curious to know exactly how fast I was going. Plus I think I’d rather enjoy knowing how far I ride when I go out.

In other words, I’m a super, super-ultra-dork. But you knew that anyway.

It turns out I’m not as think as I smart I am.

On Saturday, HW was out of town, so I had some free time that I used on lawncare and some cleaning and laundry and things. Around 11:30 I decided I should take a bike ride, and more importantly, I should throw my bike in the truck and cruise over to Old New Castle and have me a look around. So I did so, packing along a camera, my water, all kinds of tasty jaunpiece. I rode south through some kind of park on the bayfront, which smelled strongly of ass, and then back up a little bit, and found a little cut-through over to Route 9, which appeared to have nice wide shoulders that I could ride on without fear of having The Story Of Me concluded via high-speed impact with a jackknifing semi.

So I headed south on Rt. 9, noting some pretty homes, some rather nasty looking junkyards and warehouses, and then came upon a massive park of soccer fields. So I stopped for a bit and watched irate parents yelling at referees, and continued south another 1/4 mile or so, when I came upon the Ommelanden Shooting Range and Hunter Education Center. I’ve wanted to find out more about the place, so I stopped in, took a look around, watched some very poor shotgunners attempting to knock orange clays out of the air. Then I continued back north, and rode the few miles back up into New Castle.

I rode around on the side streets for a little while, and then locked the bike into the bed of my pickup, and took a bunch of pictures (appearing in this space later in the week, depending on my spare time to edit and post them) of the neat old buildings and some of the colonially-dressed peeps wandering around. I also poked my head into Immanuel-on-the-Green Episcopal, but didn’t linger long since I was wearing my bike shorts, and I didn’t think the Lord would approve having my pasty-white thighs so egregiously displayed within His House.

Then I threw the bike back in the pickup, grabbed some McDonald’s, and headed home to finish up my day of doing random homeowner jaunt. Sarah got home around 5pm, and immediately said, “Look at your nose! It’s bright red. What did YOU do today?”

That’s right, I head spent the hours of noon-2pm outside, including approximately an hour of riding my bike without any cloud or tree cover whatsoever, and it had not occurred to me that perhaps I ought to apply some sunscreen. My nose is burnt, my forearms are quite toasted, and most annoyingly, the tops of my thighs are beet red.

The lesson as always: I am an idiot.

Visual evidence of last Thursday’s attic-ladder installation extravaganza!

Here we see me holding the attic ladder in place with my head. Milo is in the attic getting his nail on, um, on. There are two things worth noting about me here:

I’m clearly wearing a shirt that is too tight by any reasonable standard. This is to show off my rippitude. Sadly, I am not yet ripped.
My ass is normally quite extraordinary, but for some reason my jeans are all clenched up such that I look like a fat woman in stretch pants wandering aimlessly through Walmart in search of the Swiss Roll That Got Away.

The amusing front side, featuring me smiling like an idiot. I did not actually get that shirt in Colorado. I got it at Old Navy. I am a poseur.

Disastrous

Okay, it’s late, and time is short. Here’s the latest amusement:

Attic Ladder Replacement

A multi-step plan.

(It is best if you continue with the help of a good friend, particularly one such as Brian, who has no apparent fear of heights and doesn’t mind if you get blue chalk over his pants.)

First, you must remove the previous attic ladder. The easiest way to do this is . . . who are we kidding here. There’s no easy way to do this. The least difficult (by which we mean the likelihood of mortal wounds is slightly decreased) is to have a your friend climb into the attic and start carefully removing nails via hammer and chisel, while you attempt to support the weight of the ladder so that it doesn’t crash down onto you. You will undoubtedly find that the previous installers had somehow managed to put nails in the most unlikely places, such as behind the ladder springs, and that the final nail will be almost impossible to remove because it’s supporting most of the weight of the ladder. You will also note that much of the pretty moulding around the ladder opening will start to fall off under the weight of the ladder.

After the ladder crashes down on you, get your friend out of the attic (you do have an 8-foot step ladder, right? You don’t? What the hell is the matter with you? Now your friend is trapped in the attic like a hunchback. Good job, idiot) to help you discard it and mend any injured limbs and contusions. Note that if you are not particularly careful when moving the ladder assembly, the lowest foot-rungs will take any opportunity to fold out and mash you in the jubblies. (Mine are aching considerably as a result.)

While the opening is unblocked by any ladder mechanism, now would be the time to place large objects in the attic, preferably ones you never intend to get back down. Brian and I took the opportunity to remove the particle board flooring installed by some previous occupant, and put three large sheets of 8×4 plywood in the attic to be secured with nails at some later date. In the process of doing this, you will undoubtedly, as we did, get blue chalk (they put it on the edges of the plywood, for some reason) all over your hands and clothes, as well as the walls of your house. Your wife will be thrilled, but not as much as when she notices you also got blue chalk all over the carpeting.

Next, drink a few beers, ’cause the hard part is just coming.

Now is the time to get out the new attic ladder (assuming you bought one; I’m not making any assumptions about the intelligence of my readership, not after the “dude u should totaly rite about that time i peed in a cup and poured it on jimmy remember that omigd i twas awesum” email I got yesterday) and prepare it for installation. If you got a good one, it will come with these handy straps that you use to hold it in place semi-securely while you nail it in. Nail those on as directed. After you’re done, realize that you put them on upside down, carefully remove them, and nail them back on properly.

Next, have your friend climb up into the attic again and hand the ladder up to him. This is nearly impossible to do unless you have biceps such that you can personally curl a half-height Whirlpool freezer, but do the best you can. When you do this, you will realize that the ladder is approximately 25″ wide, and the hole is only about 23″ wide. Worry frantically that you bought the wrong ladder, but then realize that no, the previous installers bought the wrong ladder, and compensated for this by nailing in a bunch of extra pieces of 1″ wood on each side. Carefully remove those pieces of wood. Note: the sound of nails being ripped from wood is louder than you think. I’d recommend you wear ear protection, but I’m not a wuss.

Lift the ladder up to your friend again. As he pulls the ladder into the hole, stand underneath it on the ladder and support it. The easiest way to do this is to simply rest it on your head and stand on the ladder with your arms at your sides. Then alert your friend he should bend the support straps around the joists to hold the ladder in place while you open it. As you do so, the entire apparatus will shift downwards very ominously; this is a signal that you should go back up and hold it in place while your friend nails the support straps to the joists.

Once that’s complete, carefully open the ladder partway and clamber up to help align things. Realize once you’ve done this that you are going to require shims. The ladder-maker will have supplied you with a single piece of plywood, about 6″ on a side, that they will refer to as “shims.” This is comically useless. While your friend sits in the hot attic, wondering if the sweat stain in the crotch of his pants will ever wash out, run downstairs into the garage, grab a bunch of 1/4″ plywood scrap, and run it through your table saw to create shims as needed. (If you lack a table saw, your best bet is to run out into the yard and gnaw the necessary shims out of living tree bark, because apparently you live in the paleolithic era. Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Urk.) Bring these back upstairs and slide them in place where needed.

Now, support the ladder while your friend nails it in place. (Make sure you have some large, preferably 2-3″ nails of good thickness. You know, we probably should have alerted you at the beginning of these instructions that you would need a bunch of tools and fasteners and things. Our bad.) Once or twice, he will probably “accidentally” bash you in the fingers or head with the hammer. If this happens, weep a little, and thank God he didn’t catch you in the eye with the claw part.

Next, fold the ladder all the way down to check it for obvious deficiences, and to see how much wood you’ll have to cut off the bottom so that it unfolds properly. Don’t actually cut the wood off just yet; you can put that off until the weekend. Shake your friend’s hand, bid him fond adieu, and go get a beer, and an icepack for your nuts.

So I’m on a 90-minute “town meeting” conference call, right now at about the 30 minute mark. As you might guess, the first 1/3 of the meeting has been less than thrilling. So I figured I’d take the opportunity to update you on a couple things, since I’m sure you can’t sleep at night without wondering about my health and prosperity:

The left foot is largely healed. It aches a bit if I try to run on it, so I don’t do that, but it doesn’t give me any trouble when I’m biking. I have to be careful when I lift weights, but hopefully it’s healing it up stronger than before. Thanks for all your prayers. Unless you haven’t been praying. In which case you obviously don’t care about me. I hate you.
Speaking of bike riding, I’ve been really getting into it. I need to find more places to ride, though, that don’t involve 50mph traffic. I’ve done all the exploring in my neighborhood that I can, so now I have to venture out on the major roads near us. Yesterday I was cruising down the shoulder of route 40 at about 15mph, while traffic flew by at about 50mph. Not the best of times.
I think in future I’m going to start taking the bike to work so I can go out in Newark, where there are more bike-friendly paths and roads, not to mention White Clay Creek State Park. I’m looking forward to flying madly down a hill in that place and erasing portions of my motor control via heavy foliage impact. Let the fun begin!
I have to stop listening to my friends’ movie recommendations, particularly when they say “Dude, you have to see this, the movie is so YOU.” You may remember a few months ago when I watched “The Big Lebowski” and was greatly disappointed with it, considering the number of people who had told me I would love it. I had the same problem with “Anchorman,” which I watched with HW on Saturday night.
You know a movie is lame when, about an hour in, I actually pick up an old newspaper sitting near me and scan it absentmindedly. “Anchorman” started out relatively fun, and it definitely had a few good lines (“Hi, I’m Matt Hearn. Drink it up . . . it always goes down smooth.” is now my standard greeting), but it was so over-the-top that it came full circle and started taking itself too seriously, if you can follow me. It was truly disturbing to see. Perhaps that was the point, to show how television news shows are so over-the-top with drama, but it made it pretty painful to watch. I think I’m just getting too old. Now I enjoy films with much more subtle humor, like “Napoleon Dynamite” and anything where somebody gets kicked in the nuts.

I also like nudity.

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