I dropped my phone in a puddle.

Why did I do that? Now it doesn't work. If you call me I won't answer, because my phone is like a homeless man in Seattle: broke and recently in a puddle.

A: Yes, and FUCK YOU.

Q: Are you on your man-period or something?

I behaved like a child and now I am embarassed; let me try to explain

Do you feel mature? Do you feel in control of your emotions? Do you think you are above it? Do you think you are detached enough from it? Are you "over it"? Try this:

-Pitch in what appears to be a pretty well-matched softball game
-Get two outs in the second inning
-Walk nine batters in a row, one of whom may be retarded and two of whom cannot hit the ball forward into the field of play
-Finally get out of the inning on a lead-off technicality called by your merciful merciful man in blue
-Strike out at the plate

Now, you may be more mature, but what happened with me is that I threw a fit and beat the shit out of a plastic gas can and a water bottle, and suddenly I couldn't slow my breathing or look any human in the eye lest they know that I HATED THEM ALL.

Now, try this:

-Go out and have a bit more control, but have every walk followed by a home run, or every error followed by a triple, etc.
-Despite it all have your team be hitting well, and keeping the score within reach
-Get some people on base in front of you, so you have a chance to redeem yourself
-Strike out at the plate

I know I am 31, but it was all I could do to not just throw myself face-down on the ground and pound my fists into the dirt and scream. I stopped talking to others, and did not register when they talked to me. I stared blankly ahead. I threw a pitch and stood there quietly until it was time to throw another. I tried to breathe deeply and tried not to hate everything in the world, especially softball, but I failed. I hated every single thing about everything. I was filled with hate. I could feel the blood in my cheeks, and it was the feeling of hate. I could feel the sweat building in my pores, and it was excess hate that couldn't fit in my body. My eyes were misty with hate-condensation. Every movement of every muscle in my body was a meticulously choreographed physical expression of pure hate. My focus was nearly complete, but utterly negative. You have perhaps heard of a "fuck all" attitude. This was my complete focus: fuck EVERYTHING. My mind was sharp. My thoughts were crisp. Every ball and every strike I threw were balls and strikes of pure hate. I hated myself for throwing the ball; I hated the ball for floating towards the plate; I hated the plate for being next to the batter; I hated the batter for swinging the bat; I hated the bat for striking the ball; I hated the ball for flying through the air; I hated the air for providing refuge for birds; I hate birds because, well, I don't know, that's just sort of personal.

We rallied late, and I was on deck as the game ended, one ball away from another chance at redemption. And yes, I hated the person who struck out in front of me. That final keystone of hate called "strike three" should have been mine to lay in my own perfect collosus of suck.

Raj Nachos

-Get some tortilla chips and put them on a cookie sheet.
-Pre-bake them if you want (it is a trick I learned from the Achewood cookbook)
-While the chips are pre-baking, tear open a pouch of Indian food like you can buy at the international food store for like $1.39 (my choice: Paneer Tikka Masala) and heat it up in a little pan.

Figure 12: My Choice

-If you are like me, you chose Paneer Tikka Masala. This is actually one of those dishes that I understand isn't even that Indian at all, but more a UK imperial choice. Like how General Tso's Chicken was invented in, like, Scranton PA. Don't feel bad for being inauthentic. It is a scientifically proven fact that oftentimes the tastes of other cultures are ridiculous and wrong, and need adjustment to be reasonable to us. Besides, you need that cheese to be the "cheese" of the "nachos." Cut the big rectangular chunks into smaller ones so they are more evenly dispersed.
-Drizzle it over the chips.
-Shit, there isn't quite enough to go around, and plus it looks kind of more solid than it ought to in order to get those chips kinda soggy like I like them.
-Oh, I know, deglaze the pan! With rice vinegar, Sriracha sauce, and barbecue sauce. Damn, that is a tasty pan sauce you just made! Now pour that over the chips too.
-Bake'em. I don't know, you probably know better than me, I guess at like four hundo for maybe ten minutes?
-Eat'em. At first they seem ok. Then they start to seem really good. Then they start to make you feel a little bit ill. Try to focus on just that part where they seem really good. Is it worth it? I don't know. Maybe. It's so hard to tell these days. We live in a world that is full of uncertainty. Seriously. There is some crazy shit that happens, like, all the time. I bet some kind of totally crazy shit is happening RIGHT NOW. I mean, shit, some dude just broke his leg outside my house when he was tightening some lug nuts and one snapped, causing his full weight to push the tire iron into his ankle, and -snap-. That shit HAPPENED. That shit is CRAZY. Are regular nachos just too regular for these CRAZY times we live in? I'm not gonna say they are for sure, but I am gonna say if you eat regular nachos you are probably BORING and WRONG, and possibly BAD AT GAMES OF CHANCE. Not to mention PREMATURELY BALDING, LACKING IN DISCIPLINE, and possibly HAVING ONE LEG SLIGHTLY LONGER THAN THE OTHER. This is to say nothing of your HAVING A PROPENSITY TO PASS GAS IN THE SELF CHECKOUT LANE and HOLDING STRANGE IDEAS ABOUT BIRDS. Do you want to be that person? Do you?

Nobody said it was gonna be easy, indeed

Well I'll be god-damned

Wouldn't you know it, but the league run by some kind of strange tribal warlords who have instituted a form of cheating into the rules of the game won again. I for one am shocked that the league which builds its teams around this institutionalized form of cheating ends up being better every year. It just doesn't seem to follow from the fact that said cheating increases revenue, attracts more sluggers and lets them play longer, and allows pitchers to focus solely on pitching. So why, since the DH was first introduced to the mid-summer classic in 1989, has the AL won sixteen games and the NL only three? Beats me. In the words of my favorite cartoon cat, Ray Smuckles, "Dear. God. I. Am. Not. A. Religious. Man. But. Please. Help. Me. See. The. Connection. Here."

Also, there is the matter of this:

Two tips for the attentionally challenged

People, all my life I've had this thing where I'm not very good at paying attention to stuff. "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening," while honest and heartfelt, doesn't always cut it. "Huh?" gets really annoying after you use it once or twice in the same conversation. "Mmm hmm"s and head nods can help, but can also backfire, as you may find later you've agreed to something you never even registered in the first place. Randomly switching between confused shrugs (as if to say "heh, how about that crazy shit"), "amens," and various "ssss" or "clucks" (meant to denote understanding) can sometimes work in a pinch, but can also make you come off as, well, aribitrary.

Through careful research and a lot of trial and error, I have arrived in my older age at two short phrases that can actually make sense if said in response to quite literally ANYTHING ANYONE might say, EVER.

1. "Nobody said it was gonna be easy."

2. "There's only one way to find out."

Not only do these phrases fit anywhere, but they often come off as insightful and/or hilarious.


Figure 12: Example Conversation

Dude, wanna watch the game?
-There's only one way to find out.
Wait, I can't tell if that was a yes or no.
-Nobody said it was gonna be easy.
Do you or don't you want to watch the baseball game?
-Huh?
Fuck you.
-I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
I'm gonna watch the game. You wanna join me?
-There's only one way to find out.
Ya, asking you. So what do you say?
-Mmm hmmm.
Cool, I'll be over in a bit.
-Wait, what?
Were you even listening to me?
-Nobody said it was gonna be easy.
[CLICK]
-(to self): Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

How I feel is how a butt feels

Man, I feel like twenty-six types and four sub-types of ass.

• I feel like a unique blend of domestic and imported butt.
  
• I feel like a towering stack of asses.
  
• I feel so much like ass that the ass I feel like feels like butt.
  
• Count the grains of sand on the shores of the mighty Pacific– so inumerable and diverse are the categories of ass that would contain my physical description.
  
• Mountains have been moved with less than the amount of ass and butt.
  
• Ass ass butt I feel like ass.
  
• Butt, and also ass, are what I feel like.
  
• I feel like ass.
  
• There are kinds of ass and butt that are good, but they are not the kinds of ass and butt that I feel like.
  
• The stack of asses that describes my feeling is so densely packed that it has become impossible to tell whether each contiguous pair of cheeks belongs to the same or to two different asses.
  
• The butts also do not smell good.
  
• Imagine a world in which there are up to twelve times as many butts as people.
  
• I feel like a butt that got shoved up inside of an asshole which itself is afloat upon a body of water I do not trust.
  
• Strangely my own ass feels fine. It is the only part of me that does not feel like it is ass at all. It is the ass that is no ass.
  
• The shape of my feelings is the shape drawn by a skilled artist rendering a line drawing of a pair of asses.
  
• In my stomach there is a family reunion. It is the family reunion of the Ass family. The Ass family is a large family and they are rude.
  
• It is my understanding that through a complicated system of inumerable pullies and levers, one man could move the heap of asses one inch in one minute.
  
• Take all the pants in all the lands of this great world, and still you will fall short of covering even half the asses I feel like.
  

I guess what I'm trying to say is I love my softball team.

New bombshell dropped in sandwich case

Authorities recently obtained a warrant to search the defendant's wardrobe, where they found this possibly incriminating T-shirt:

Photograph 12: The Shirt

The shirt appears to be 80% cotton, 15% acrylic, and 5% "other." As of publication time authorities have not ascertained whether this is a shirt one actually might wear, or "more of novelty gift shirt," as one unnamed detective described it.

       |PREVIOUSLY...|

Even Newer Evidence! Even Newer Evidence!

An unnamed attendee at the party the night of the alleged sandwich consumption turned in this excerpt he recorded "you know, to make, like, sound art and shit."

Exhibit 12, telling excerpt from the recording

       |PREVIOUSLY...|            |NEXT...|

New Evidence! New Evidence!

Found among various papers in the suspect's chambers: evidence of what one unnamed correspondent described as "a classic brainstorm sesh."

Special Exhibit XII

       |PREVIOUSLY...|            |NEXT...|

Mystery sandwich

The other night I got pretty drunk. I'm not gonna lie to you, it was kind of excessive and ridiculous. You know, that happens sometimes, if you are a man, and you like to do that sort of thing sometimes. But this night was different– I think I ate a sandwich before I went to bed, though I have no explicit memory of doing so. Here are the facts which have led me to this startling conclusion:

• Fact: I woke up the next morning with that feeling in my mouth like I must have eaten something.
  
• Fact: There was a plate with some crumbs on it on my nightstand that morning.
  
• Fact: I had a bit of salami the day before, but it was gone that morning.
  
• Fact: My hunk of Muenster cheese looked a little bit smaller that morning.
  

Now this ain't no CSI Miami kind of shit right here. I don't have no DNA tester, I don't have no saliva sample distiller, no blood type cyclotron or retinal scanner or penile plethysmograph or nothin' like that. This is some old school Encyclopedia Brown meets the Hardy Boys shit right here. What we got here is straight up Sherlock Holmes style crime-solvin'. What we got here is some primo Law and Order shit, served up hot for your pleasure.

Ladies and Gentelmen of the jury, the defendant would have you believe he didn't eat the sandwich just because "he doesn't remember eating it." Now the lawyer for the defense is gonna come out here in a few minutes, and he's gonna try to convince you that the defendant holds strong views on eating before bedtime, and the digestive troubles it can lead to, and yadda yadda yadda. He's gonna blow a lot of smoke, he's gonna try to trick you with some verbal stunts, but I remind you to keep close to the facts of the case. I know we've all seen enough courtroom dramas on TV to expect more sophisticated evidence, but ask yourself, can you really reasonably doubt that this man before you made and ate the sandwich in question? Can you? I mean, can you really? (No, you can't.)

Exhibit L: Theoretical Recipe for Alleged Sandwich
 -Take some bread
 -Put some salami on there
 -Also some cheese (the defendant allegedly used Muenster)
 -Most likely some kind of condiment as well
 -A pickle spear, dill (stricken from the record; heresay)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I ask of you this. Before you put me away, listen to my words. I stand before you today a free man, on trial not for a sandwich but for a philosophy. Let me be remembered. Let me be pitied. Let me be . . . avenged.

                                    |NEXT...|

Positive effects of not smoking

I'm not the type to idealize something like quitting smoking. For the most part, it sucks. I've never minded the smell of cigarettes or the taste of people's mouths I am kissing who smoke, so I can't take any comfort in smelling better or not 'tasting like an ashtray.' Long-term health is something I can get behind in theory, but does not affect my day-to-day feelings. I'm pretty sure it is a scientific fact that smoking makes you look cooler, and I got this dorky-ass haircut to boot.

But now that I've made it a month and a half, I have noticed the following positive results:

1. Longer trumpet phrases. I had adjusted how I thought about trumpet to my shorter breaths as a smoker, so a lot of times since I quit I will get this mental thing where I think "hey, better wrap this phrase up, you're gonna run outta breath," only it is a vestige of my smoking self, and it turns out I can go another four bars or so. Which is good, because usually an idea gets better as it unfolds, since there is more already out there to react to. Also it is good because I don't have to be as careful about planning out my breaths in written-out lines.

2. $$$, $$$$, & $$$$$. I think I was about a five-pack-a-week consumer. That's twenty packs a month, at about $3.50 a pop, so $70 a month right there. But it is more complicated. Having more breath makes me more likely to ride my bike longer distances, so I buy less gas for my van, so I think I'm probably saving another $50 a month on that. That's $120 a month I can use for stuff like replacement phones and trespassing court fees and drugs and strip clubs. And wheat thins and twix bars and cheez popcorn. And peanuts. And beers and also whiskey. Avocados. Assorted fine cheeses and meats from reputable Italian delis. Low-odds investments in shady venture capital firms. AIRA's (anonymous individual retirement accounts). CDs, stocks, and bonds (that is the kind with music on them, and the other two kinds for S&M activities). Personal enrichment programs. Assorted domestic and imported salves and poultices. Haircuts, medical screenings, petty cash disbursements. Tropical snakes, macrobiotic health shake mixes, historical reproductions of compasses and sextants, tube socks, outdated pre-formatted 3.5" floppy diskettes, prescription sunglass holders. Also self-healing cutting boards, projector alarm clocks, graphite lubricant, shoelace repair kit, picture frames, club soda, and sunscreen. Not to mention a bronze and leather letter opener, an RCA converter, blank VCR casettes, gourmet mustards, a beginner's set of marbles, an Idiot's Guide to Metallurgy, sock darners in all three usual sizes, piano scores to the complete Mozart piano concertos, crocheted doorknob covers, noise-cancelling earbud headphones, lead-free solder, electrical tape, two (2) packages Hanes Perfect T's (M, assorted colors), 12 rollerball blue ink pens, one ten-gig SCSI hard drive, 3 packages Hebrew National kosher franks, and a year's subscription to the Utne Reader.

New looks

New look around here. Been tweakin' it. I know just enough html and css shit and all to knock humpty dumpty off the wall, but not quite enough to put him back together again. There's egg on your face.

Also I got a haircut. Once again I look like Bob Saget. That's ok, the last time I got as shaggy as I was, some dude told me I looked like Daryl Hall.

Um, what else. You guys should feel my pecs. My pecs are for some reason so strong now. Makes me want to set up a weight bench and a kiddie pool in my front yard, get a little Muscle Beach STL action goin' on (J. Richardson, K. Malley et al, ca. 1998).

Let's see, there's this hot new blog out there I got a hand in.

I been cookin' mostly non-comedy food lately. Some sci-fi (astronaut ice cream), some drama (using my tears to brine some chicken), even some biopic (I recreated the actual sandwich Hall & Oates shared backstage before their famous concert at the Apollo on September 20th, 1985) (I realize there isn't a biopic on Hall & Oates. Yet...)

And yes, in case you were wondering, there is such a thing as a porno cooking show (NSFW & also NSFTWADBHPSRB) (=Not Safe For Those Who Are Disgusted By Horrible Plastic-Surgery-Ridden Beasts). Talk about your Adult Education.

Figure 12: Adult Education, Live at the Apollo,
September 20th, 1985
(oh my god is that G.E. Smith?!?!)

People, I have found a new technique for making a hot sandwich of exemplary texture.

• Get a tortilla.
  
• Put some ham on there.
  
• Also half a sliced up avocado.
  
• Also some sliced up cheese (I used Muenster).
  
• Maybe some salt and pepper in there too.
  
• Roll it all up, like a "wrap."
  
  --now here's the kicker--
  
  
• Microwave it for a little.
  
  -But Matt, won't it get soggy?
  -Yes, it'll feel low. It'll get a little soggy and droopy. Also the cheese will melt.
  -Noooooooooo!
  -It's ok, because get this: once it's droopy, it'll sit flat. Then you can
  
  
• Put it on a big flat pan or griddle, turn the burner all the way up, put a plate on top of it to kind of smoosh it down, and like cauterize it forever into that droopy flat shape on each side.
  
  -Now will it feel low?
  -Not at all.
  -Huh?*
  -Put a cork in it, sandwich philistine. See, 'cuz the cheese will already be melted so you won't have that thing happen where you toast the bread part before you ever melt the cheese part. Instead you'll have a perfect amount of crispiness on the outside and meltiness on the inside.
  
  
• Maybe you should dip it in some of your regular mustard mixed with your roommate's jalapeño mustard.
  
• Maybe you should pry it open and stick a pickle spear in there.
  
• Maybe you should make two of 'em. I mean what else you gonna do with that half an avocado? Those things don't last too long once you open them.
  

* in the style of the interchange between the lead singer and the rest of the band right before each chorus of Television's Venus.