matty lite

Photoshop

2011-11-19T17:07:00.001-08:00

It'd be cool if someone photoshopped a picture of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, only instead of their usual bodies they'd have lady bodies, and they'd have elongated breasts. I mean, super duper elongated, like ten feet. And the two of them would be standing in front of a road that dead-ended in about eight feet. And then there'd be a caption underneath that said "you and I have mammaries longer than the road that stretches out ahead."

No wait, that would be stupid.

Dummmbbbbbb

2011-11-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

Hey, dudes. What's up? What's up in the "blogosphere?" I haven't been in here in a while. Is anyone still there? I suddenly have all this leisure time but I don't want to water down my facebook post quality, so let me tell you these things here:

I am driving around in a legal van for the first time in months. It will be hard to quit the habits of the illegal driver, though, like parking really close to the car behind you or pretending you arrived at your destination when a cop is behind you or taking the alley.
Pet peeve: when people say night-times after midnight are the morning. For real, that drives me nuts. Night is when it is dark. Morning is when the sun rises. It's not tomorrow until the sun rises. I know it's just a little joke, but it's such a petty way of thinking in terms of technicalities. You can do it, but don't do it at me. On the radio. I will change the station. I feel that strongly about it.
It's the same problem I have with how people in America sometimes say "an history" or when people get all up in arms about the correct use of commas. The "n" in "an" only needs to be there when the next word starts with a vowel sound. We pronounce the "h" in history, so we shouldn't say "an" before it. The comma simply denotes a pause in speaking the sentence. Say it out loud, and if you pause there, use a comma, and if you don't, don't. Especially when talking about that final "Oxford comma." Sometimes you want a pause before the last thing to emphasize it, sometimes you don't. It's not a thing where there needs to be a rule.
I have this new food I make where I have a leftover bit of a King of the Hill sandwich (a giant Italian salami sub, for you non-STLians), which tends to get a little soggy, and cut it up into bits and put them and some pepper jack cheese in a flour tortilla and microwave it for way too long and let it cool back down. I swear to god, it is incredible.
I also made this green curry burrito with some leftover veggie green curry with these weird ultra-dense Japanese yams and some off-brand laughing cow cheese. This one is more of a sealed-up toaster oven burrito. Unreal. The tang of the cheese and the sweetness and hotness of the curry. Yes.
My experience with my dissertation has changed my mind about something: you can polish a turd, after all.
Let me say here in this exciting historical time that I think this is an exciting historical time. I mean, every time is, but all these protests and shit. The next generation will ask us what it was like. It will make us feel cool.

Well, that's about it. Goodbye, blogosphere. I'll try to have something better for you next time.

2011-08-02T08:51:00.001-07:00

It's a well-known fact that great ideas often occur on the shitter. Measuring mass by water displacement, Ohm's law, the flux capacitor... the list goes on and on. Today, I had a great idea on the shitter, after having one of those times where there is a hell of a lot of effort for a very small output. "Much Ado About Nothing" popped into my head, and I quickly realized that Shakespeare has provided us with a wealth of terminology for different types of shit experiences:

As You Like It (your favorite kind)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona or The Two Noble Kinsmen (two homogenous portions)
Venus and Adonis, or Troilus and Cressida, or Antony and Cleopatra (two contrasting portions)
The Phoenix and the Turtle (two wildly contrasting portions, one of which floats and one which took forever)
The Tempest (rough seas)
The Taming of the Shrew (an epic battle)
All's Well That Ends Well (eventual victory)
Henry VI part 1
Henry VI part 2
Henry VI part 3 (a three-stage hungover morning's worth)
A Comedy of Errors (I've never experienced this one, but I've seen it in some gas stations; as is often the case with comedies, there is an underlying tragic nature to these ones)

Well, sorry to break a seven-month blog silence like this. I guess since so much of the writing I do is on the level of figurative bull's shit, I just wanted to tackle some literal human's shit.

$100 Ideas Part 12: Picture-Plain™ Boob Shirts

2011-01-10T08:14:00.001-08:00

You know how it is, when boobed people put on a t-shirt with a design. There is warpage. I think there was even a joke about it in that movie "Stand By Me." Well, what if you custom-printed the design to correct for said warpage from an individual wearer, so that the design struck the eye as optically sitting in a straight picture plane? IMPOSSIBLE, you say? Well here's the real magic. You would send out a test t-shirt, that would just be plain white and have a grid printed on it. Then the wearer would take a photo wearing the grid T. Then I'm pretty sure you could make a computer analyze the photo and figure out like which squares of the grid got distorted and how, and adjust the image accordingly before printing it on a shirt of the same size and fit.

Don't tell me the science isn't there, people have been doing this kind of perspective thing since Leonardo, like this famous one with the anamorphic skull that only looks like a skull from way up close and to the right.

Hans Holbein the Younger's "The Ambassadors"

This also gives me some ideas about anamoprhic tattoos that would only look right from certain angles. What angles? Use your imagination.

KEN

2010-12-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

It is here. The dawn of the age of Ken.

Of course if you read this I bet you anything you've already heard about it. But still. It is here.

And sometime, especially if I receive the brilliant cover illustration, I will youtube up the Back to the Future album my brother made that started this whole thing. You hear that, brother?

This was fun enough for everyone that you bet yer best half we do it again, be a part of it, get in touch.

Good bye.

The first note of Frogger

2010-11-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

On the old Atari 2600 I would play a lot of Frogger. The opening theme, you may recall, went something like this:

(at 0:49 in this review)

However, if you held down the reset switch, that first note would go until you let it back up, which made it seem like a pickup note and made the melody sound more like this confusing version:

I remember holding down the switch for as long as I could. That's still the feeling I have for long pickup notes landing into the start of a melody. And maybe it has something to do with these retarded remixes I am so fascinated with.

Also, there is the matter of

Barbarbara Ann

2010-11-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

Take my hand.

Do you have to?

2010-11-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

Do you have to?

Yngwie's Odyssey

2010-08-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

So my "little" brother made these albums you've maybe heard me talking about. He took existing albums and then made new songs with the song titles of the albums. He did My Name is Sasha Fierce first, which I forget the story on that one. But then he did the Back to the Future soundtrack, and he called it Cousin Marvin, and it told the story of Marvin Berry's tragic life after Chuck stole that "new sound" from Marty and never gave him credit for it. So I got pretty into that idea and then I figured out of brotherly competition I better do one myself. So I did, and so here it is, as a youtube playlist for your coninuous enjoyment.

Diggin' for gold

2010-08-08T09:06:00.001-07:00

Readers, let me just be honest here. I love picking my nose. I am an avid nose picker. I think, at heart, many of us share this love. Whether you do it in private, in your car, or brazenly at the dinner table, we can all share the glory, fulfillment, suspense, sometimes failure, and usually satisfaction of such classics as

The Snap: when the initial booger is attached by a thin line of strong snot to some more booger material, which then snaps out to join it. Or, for the less fortunate or less skilled picker, the Failed Snap, in which the snot breaks, leaving the top booger stranded.
The Diamond: Often to be found high in the nasal cavity in the early morning, the Diamond is a super-hard boulder which would be a sitting duck if it weren't way up where you have to use just the very tip of your pinky, entering at an odd angle. When performed correctly, the entire boulder can be shaken lose and allowed to drop out. More often, one's finger crushes the boulder, destroying all the satisfaction of such a massive haul by breaking it up into more run-of-the-mill material.
The Clean Sweep: This is the one that keeps you going back time and time again, though it only happens about once a month if you're lucky. It starts with what feels like a normal booger, but then as you pull it out, it is attached to a vast network of snot and boogers that covers the entire interior of the nostril in question, which all breaks free and pulls out like a molted layer of skin. This is the strike, the home run, the touchdown of nosepicking.
The Thumbtack: These small boogers are so hard and pointed that when you try to pry them lose it is difficult not to push them painfully into the side of the nose. Best to just leave these ones be, as recent research suggests a Thumbtack may evolve into a Diamond if given enough time and space.
The Interior Zit Dweller: These ones are dicey. They are just run-of-the-mill boogers, but they are located on or around one of those nascent interior nose zits that usually never really come to fruition but cause so much pain and eye-watering to the avid nosepicker. They are best approached with caution and with repeated, honest assessments as to whether the find will be worth the pain.
The Wait-That's-Actually-Skin: Usually found at the inner bottom of the nasal cavity, these seem like boogers but you soon realize they are little flaps of actual skin. Some nosepickers will then back off, others treat them more like a hangnail.
The Disapparator: This is a booger you feel on first probe, but then as soon as you go in to get it out, you can no longer find it. Sometimes an explanation comes-- you find a Diamond on your shirt a few hours later, or it turns up when you next blow your nose. But sometimes it is just plain gone, and nobody knows what happens to those ones. Some say they are there, in your heaven nose, when you go to heaven.
The Fool's Booger: Sometimes your inner nasal walls will have little ridges or bumps that interact just so with your fingertips to produce the sensation of a booger being there when really there is no booger. Many a nosepicker has squandered seconds, or even minutes, searching for the Fool's Booger.
The Booger-Snot: As its name suggests, this is a hybrid between solid booger and gel-like snot. It is best disposed of by an authoritative "farmer's blow" in a suitable direction (downwind, clear landing zone). In some unfortunate cases, Booger-Snots have been known to be accidentally snorted inwards and disposed of orally like their cousin the Loogy. This is another zone of inquiry entirely, and frankly not my area of expertise.
The Super-Glue: This one comes out of your nose just fine, but somehow the oils on your fingers seem to activate a clinging mechanism, whether it be strictly adhesive, magnetic, or caused by some subtle manipulation of quantum gravitation. The effect is that you cannot get it off your finger, or if you do it is just onto another finger. It resists both flicking and wiping and often must be pinched off with a neutral substance like paper or tissue.

Records and CDs

2010-07-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle (well, closer to the end, thank God) of moving across town right now. Today was my big day of going through all my records and CDs and deciding what to do with them all. I was struck by something I never really thought through. CDs suck. They are a horrible product. The shitty plastic cases break. I'd say 70% of my CD cases were broke. No matter, I just put them all in one of those binder things anyhow. Which now seems just about out of date, cuz I could as easily rip them all onto a hard drive. What would make me want to keep them would be the art, but since all the shitty ass plastic cases are broken and infuriate me every time I open them and they fall apart, I just stuck them all in a box that will go to the basement and probably never again see the light of day.

I paid probably an average of $7 each for all those CDs-- lots of new, lots of used, lots accidentally stolen but balanced out by those accidentally stolen from me.

Then my records. My records had to be winnowed. I have limited shelf space and tons of good rock, classical, and a few jazz records. I mean for real good, not just tons of Sergio Mendez or 101 Strings or stuff. These records look beautiful. The sleeves, even when worn, are often things you could hang up or frame. The most broken ones just need a little tape to keep the discs from falling out when you pick them up. The older ones have a circular halo around the record, like the back jeans pocket of a seasoned tobacco chewer or the wallet of a wishfully thinking horny young teenage boy.

I paid probably an average of $3 each for all these records-- lots of used, a few new, a few in bulk, a few individually ordered or sought after.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I hate to be one of those people who thinks newer stuff is shitty and older stuff is awesome. But in this case it is true. CDs are just a piece-of-shit product that got sold for way too much money and used shitty plastics that are probably filling landfills right now. When the shitty plastic cases break, the shitty plastic discs with the thin metal coat are bared to the elements, like cold, or heat, or friction, or, I don't know, air, and now lots of them won't play unless you play them on a super quick drive. Where's the super quick drive but in a computer, where you could just rip them and not have to get infuriated with the broken case in the first place.

Whereas records, you can hold them and feel the weight, you can look at the art at a reasonable size. Having to flip them engages you in the music, if you are paying close attention, or encourages multiple listens if, say, there are lots of people hanging out and someone just keeps flipping the record when it runs out. They are hard to break, hard to lose, and easy to love. I'm sure the markup on records was astronomical too, but at least the product was worth a shit. Plus isn't it true that they sent out that stuff to space for aliens to hear and they decided they better use a record since a CD might be hard to figure out? Um, plus, don't those crazy audiophiles say there is like a 7 micro-hertz band that CDs cut out but you can hear on a record, if you have a titanium needle and vacuum-sealed superconductor speaker cables?

So I guess I'm saying that, in my opinion, records are a superior product to CDs. That's all. And just to be clear that this isn't one of those knee-jerk older-is-better sort of things, let me say that I prefer DVD to VHS, and maybe even laser discs to DVD. Then again, film and projectors aren't quite as affordable and available as records and record players...

Alaska: Fact or Fiction

2010-07-08T11:37:00.001-07:00

It has recently come to my attention that there are those among us who don't believe in the existence of Alaska. I am outraged and propose in this modest post to prove, using the latest scientific and philosophical methods, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that this majestic state does indeed exist. The argument is circuitous and involves eyewitness accounts, false steps, red herrings, and logical brain-teasers, so bear with me, non-believers.

Postulate 12: Alaska is huge
You could fit like seven Texases in Alaska. Three of them could fit on Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) itself.

In the literature and maps I read about climbing "the big one," there seemed to be an almost obsessive focus on when and where to dispose of one's shit. Latrines and crevasses mostly. Each day is a struggle to get to the next place to put your shit. If you fall down a certain crevass, you will plummet into one thousand and one explorer's shits.
Caribou sausage tastes like kilbossa.
Mosquitoes have no known predators and so rule the wild. But their bites itch less than mosquitoes in the lower 48.

Sub-Argument 12b: The Tundra
Tundra comes in three exciting flavors: bog tundra, high alpine tundra, and original tundra. They say walking on tundra is like walking on bowling balls covered in something squishy which I can't remember. I found it to be like walking on circus peanuts.

Did you know that high alpine tundra has twice the potassium content as original tundra?
There is also something called the "taiga," which I can't remember what it is.
If you were to lay motionless in the tundra for 24 hours in the summer, you would wake up covered in lichens and mosses. These are said to give you Powers.

Philosophical interlude: The Kenai Peninsula
Kenai is an Atabaskan word that means "tons of dudes fishing." The Kenai peninsula is peninsula'd from the north by the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet, so called because left turns are illegal in these waters, so if you want to turn left, you have to turn right, then turn backwards, then turn again. Perhaps it is the dizziness brought on by this local custom that first drove men south to the Homer Spit to dwell in broken old ships and discarded spires from long-closed Chldren's Palace locations along the Western seaboard. It was here that man first invented a string long enough to catch the locally preferred gigantic sea-catfish, dwelling at the bottom of the ocean where it thought it was safe.

My understanding is that salmon are basically trout that went out to sea and didn't come back. Except for their patented sexual perversion of swimming up a river and auto-asphyxiating in freshwater.
Beginners are often taken in by the so-called "Fool's Halibut," actually not a fish at all but a member of the marsupial family.

"Alaska's Playground"
Alaska bought it off craigslist for $50 from some dude in Wasilla. It was hardly used at all and would cost $69.99 new, so it is widely considered a pretty good deal.

N.B. For the purposes of this argument, the following shall be taken as axiomatic:

Each one of us was born with a certain form of "Fool's Bear," which we forgot when we turned one year of age, but which we can once again remember. What is your Fool's Bear? Mine is the tree stump. For many it is the rock. For others, the bush. For a few of the most unlucky, their Fool's Bear is the Bear itself, which confusion has led to not a few maulings.
Bears in southern Alaska come in three exciting flavors: Brown, Black, and Fool's.
The Fool's Bear is not a bear, even to a dyed-in-the-wool phenomenologist.
If a Black bear charges, you are to stand your ground and fight back, going for the eyes and nose.
If a Brown bear charges, you are to stand your ground, but play dead, and only fight back if it does more than just flop you around.
The Brown bear is also known as the Grizzly Bear, after the Brooklyn-based indie folk band.

The Muskeg
Do you like sphagnum moss? Then you'll love the Muskeg. I don't know about you, but I like my water tables high. I like decomposing muck. I love tiny little trees. I love beavers, and I love agaric mushrooms. Who am I? I am Muskeg. Hear me decompose.

Into the Wild
I liked this movie. I read a little about it, and it is a real mystery. I went with my family out to the end of the driveable part of the Stampede Trail, same place some dude dropped the main guy off and gave him some boots. It is about a ten-hour hike to the bus where this guy stayed, which I understand is still there, with a journal in there and all kinds of things left/brought by visitors. I gather that a lot of Alaskans think of it as a suicide. After all, what the dude didn't know because he didn't consult a map or anything is that the river that hemmed him in when it rose had a hand-winch crossing about a quarter of a mile from where he left that hat (in the movie), and that there were several well-stocked sort of emergency hunting cabins in the nearby woods. What I like in the movie is this new idea of how to be an explorer by forced ignorance. Since everywhere is pretty well mapped, the only way to get lost is to avoid maps. You could think of worse ways to accidentally die.

Beer and Coffee
Like the Pacific Not-As-North-and-Not-as-West, Alaska loves their nice coffee and nice beer. Even pretty far out from any bigger town, there will be drive-up little coffee huts with espresso and stuff, and every store or gas station seemed stocked with all those crazy-ass hoppy ales from Montana and Oregon. Plus there are like twelve breweries in Alaska, such as:

Alaska Brewing and Bottling Co in Juneau (diggin' the stout)
Homer Brewing Co in Homer (diggin' the bitter)
Silver Gulch in Fairbanks (didn't get there or taste the beer)
etc.

Resurrection Bay
There were some Russians out in the greater Pacific back in the day, and their boat broke, so they came down a fjord-lined inlet to the site of present day Seward. Then they fixed their boats, and it was Easter, so they called it Resurrection Bay. We went out there on a boat and it was where I saw sea lions, orcas, mountain goats, puffins, seals, a really far away humpback whale, a shitload of bald eagles, and a sea captain with TWO hooks. Seriously.

Sub-Argument 12c: Concerning the Leading Cause of Death for Mountain Goats and Dall's Sheep
It is commonly held, or at the very least held by the aforementioned two-hooked captain as well as the hippie bus driver at Polychrome Pass, that the leading cause of death for these creatures is falling off the dang mountain.

* * *

ERGO,

Alaska does exist, Q.E.D. So suck it, non-believers.

My own personal bias vis-a-vis living history

2010-06-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

On a completely different note, I want to talk about two ways of enacting history, and my bias about them. First, you got your history-killing Olde-Tymey-ness. This is when you try to reenact historical artforms just as they were, down to the clothes and styles, etc. I call this history-killing because it freezes things into a period and stifles them there. It makes the period itself the showcase, rather than the art that flowed through it. I get most annoyed with this in music, because it just so happens I am really into acoustic instruments, but this buts me up against so much Olde-Tymey-ness I could puke on your suspenders and washboards. Cuz see, my bias is towards the second way of enacting history, which is radically directed at the individual artwork and its enduring message in today's society. No need to beat around the bush here, I am talking mostly about silent film, and the way plenty of those movies are awesome and plenty of them suck, and how that distinction is being lost by their historical fetishization by Olde-Tymey-ists. Each film before and after sound is its own deal, and putting them all to shitty ass old ragtimey huzzah music just dilutes the good ones and makes the bad ones even worse. To reenact movie history, you have to take the movies seriously as though they were made today, and part of that is playing music that is relevant today. It's like the difference between baby-talking to kids or treating them as real honest-to-god people. I get pissed about this issue because to me it is a matter of respect, and my bias is that respect is important, and you disrespect history when you fetishize it and parade it the way Olde-Tymyists do.

So I guess I'm saying there are things within the arts that endure and things that don't, and making that classic argument about how styles change but substance stays the same. Wow, I never thought I'd be that guy, but I guess in my older age that is what I believe.

There is an element of tragedy to historical style-peddlers, because it takes incredible talent to recreate a style, but that talent seems wasted to me when it parades the dead for the living, instead of trying to create something that will have life long after the maker is dead.

Miscellany

2010-06-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

What are blogs even for anymore?
The delicious curry I made yesterday, which I think is vegan even:
- Have some yellow curry paste, a can of coconut milk, some garlic, a humungous yam, and some spinach and mustard greens in your back yard you better eat quick cuz they are going to seed.
- As per the instructions on the container, stir fry a giant spoonful of the curry paste in some of the coconut milk for a while. Nice and hot.
- I usually would put onions in there but all I had was garlic so I put a bunch of cut up garlic in there, like six cloves worth, just at the very end of the stir-frying part, so you don't burn it.
- Then add the rest of the can of coconut milk, and about a can's worth of water, and the yam, which you cut up into lil' cubes
- Let it come to a boil, then turn it to simmer, with a lid on there.
- Oh, did I mention you should be also making a pot of rice? Be making a pot of rice.
- Go to your backyard and grab a bunch of spinach and a bunch of mustard greens. Oh also some fresh basil if you got it.
- Rinse off the greens and basil. Then just shove it all in the pot, even if you have to squish it in, they will shrink so much, it'll be fine.
- Wait til the potatoes are tender. You want that to time out with the sauce getting to a nice thickness. If it is too thin, take the lid off and turn up the heat. If it's too thick, add a little more water and put the lid on tight.
- I like to add something sweet, usually pineapples and pineapple juice, but if yes you have no pineapples then just use sugar, it's what I did and it was fine.
- Pour that shit over rice, it's delicious.
- Don't be alarmed when you piss and it smells weird.
I recently heard about how it is too late for anything to save the planet except massive changes in personal behavior, which obviously will never ever happen because humans are designed for shit and even if 99 people somehow change how they live, that one person out of a hundred can still fuck it all up (some brilliant engineer who used to be into wind kites did some calculations or something, I forget). In other words, the situation may be hopeless. This depressed me for a few days, because I didn't know what the use was of trying to live in a more responsible way. Then I got the idea of the "Last Sip of Milk" theory. My mom used to get pissed when someone would just leave like one swig of milk and put the carton back in the fridge (yes, the cardboard carton, remember those, anyone?) I mean, the milk is doomed, it's gonna get killed by someone eventually, but you can at least do your part by taking a small enough amount that it is the next person who kills it. Not because it is morally good, just to not be an asshole. I don't know, I'm still working on this one, cuz it also occurs to me another way to not be an asshole about the milk is just to put it out of its misery so you at least don't get the next guy's hopes up...
Like every two-bit asshole in the world, I have my two cents on the big oil spill. It is this: boycotting BP does no good-- every oil company does the same sort of shit, and you'll only make the other ones stronger, thus creating an even smaller group of multimillionaires, who will squabble less with each other, and form an even mightier and more focused pile of money to influence politics. The only real retaliation is to boycott oil at all, or at least use less, about which see the above item about how nobody will ever change their personal habits ever and we are all fucked, or at least our children are.
Speaking of changing personal habits, I think the main people who need to change first are the poor people. It seems like poor people buy the stupidest shit, live the stupidest unhealthy lives, and care the least about the health of the planet. This is so ass backwards it infuriates me. As a poor person, I have found that living healthier, being a more responsible consumer, and caring about the planet more are all mutually beneficial to a low-income way of life. You walk or bike more, you buy less gas, you save the planet. You grow more food or at least cook your own food, you spend less money, you save the planet. You recycle, you get some money, you maybe walk or drive to the recycling place, you get healthier. You grow food, you don't drive to the grocery store, you save the planet. It all works together, health, ecology, and economy-- which gives you three reasons to do it. No moral posturing necessary, because saving money and being physically healthy are their own rewards. But instead you so often see poor people driving their fat asses in gas guzzlers through McDonalds drive-thrus. I have heard it argued that fast food is so cheap it makes poor people eat it. Bullshit. A one-dollar bag of raw beans and a two-dollar sack of rice can hook you up for a week for less than a Big Mac. That is fucked up, friends, and though I believe people on the whole are fucking idiots, I still hold us responsible for the idiotic choices we make on a daily basis, i.e., I can't comfortably lay the blame on advertising or education or cultural values or whatnot.
It's not like I sit around worrying about this shit, I just wanted to actually write something in my blog, and this is for some reason where it went. Jeez, come on, I'm not one of those people. I mean, shit, I eat fast food like once a week and when I'm in a bad mood I will drive my van ten blocks to my girlfriend's place. I got no moral high ground to stand on, so the arguments I'm making are not morally based.
I have another big idea I've been working on, I guess I'd call it something like "Halfway." It is a way to address the difficulty of changing personal habits. The idea is that you are always gonna fail if you try to do it all at once. So if you want to change your economic, ecological, and health habits, every little bit helps. Instead of not driving, you can park further away-- that way you use a little less oil, you pollute the environment a little less, and you get more exercise. You can take your bike in your car and park pretty damn far away, then bike the rest, which may also save you money if you have to pay to park. You can order a shitty pizza, but then put garden spinach on it. You can only ever buy shit that has coupons. You can only turn on your AC when you get home, or turn it off in the middle of the night. Every time you go shopping you can gather all your shit, then at the last second pick three items to sacrifice.
God I sound like an asshole. Sorry.

Why am I awake already

2010-04-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Chee-Bone: this is when one gets literally or physically erect as a result of cheese or the idea of cheese.
IWHSS: the Infinite Wiper in a High Stress Situation is a common occurence when moving one's bowels directly before important events. As the old adage goes, life is but a series of infinite wipers in high stress situations (IWHSS).
. . .
I was laying by a cat that will start purring if you barely touch her, and I farted pretty loud, the bed vibrated, and she started purring. This really happened.
I just found out that Jessica Biel and Jennifer Beals aren't the same person. This breaks my biggest Similarly-Named-Celebrity-Conflation (SNCC) since I successfully differentiated Mickey and Andy Rooney in late 2006.
. . .
What if Harold Ramis decided to make a movie about two men from the year 1 A.D.? One of the men would be really awkward, and one would be portly, hyper, and prone to flights of fancy, both cast by the leading actors of those varieties. What if a fried chicken chain restaurant decided to make a sandwich where the bread was fried chicken breast and the inside was bacon and cheese? Answer: of course it's gonna be pretty funny, of course it's gonna be pretty delicious, these are not ground-breaking ideas here, more like reverse alchemy, start with gold and end up with I guess gold of a lesser carat but still quite desirable.
On the other hand you got your surprise combos. Chicken and waffles. Popcorn and Good-n-Plenties. John C. Riley movin' to comedies, Bill Murray to dramas.
. . .
Now that I am a little older and a little wiser, I think my favorite line in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is at the end of their history report, when Ted says "Thanks to great leaders such as Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, and Socratic method, the world is full of history."

Not the way to fight prejudice

2010-04-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

When your super race-sensitive friends are describing someone to you who you know but don't know you know, they will tend to say stuff like "oh, he's pretty tall, he's got black hair, um, he wears a hat sometimes, hangs out with so and so," and either not mention "oh he's black/latino/asian" or else they will kind of squeeze it in between other identificatory variables like in the olden days when you were embarassed to buy a porno mag so you'd get like a candy bar and a newspaper too. That's not being open-minded, that's just being really bad at describing the salient properties of something. Like say I left my bright green jacket at your house. I don't call you up and say, "hey, I left my jacket... it's like a men's medium or so, got a zipper on there, a collar, I think there's a little tear in the sleeve."
"People-first language" is this thing I've heard about from a few different places where institutions try to get their employees to always say "person with mental retardation/intellectual disability/learning disorder/whatever" instead of "mentally retarded/intellectually disabled person." The idea is that by changing the word order you highlight the fact that they are people first, and their disabilities are secondary. As if the arbitrary fact of word order in the English language, the result of years of conventional shifts and circumstance and practice, has some massive effect on the meaning of a sentence. As if the tall man is different from the man who is tall.

What these two strategies have in common is that they are easy. Too easy. The real actual way to overcome prejudice is to work through common ideas and learned beliefs slowly through education and exposure to the various cultural "others" we're talking about. This is hard, it takes time, it takes mental re-programming, it takes constant effort and constant attention to unique details of each day's situations. I mean, I guess people's hearts are in the right place when they take the above roads, but I think the main effect is just cluttering up the language and exhausting oneself trying to thwart vary basic perceptual principles of discrimination (not the bad kind of discrimination), and, more perniciously, giving people an outward reason to assume their journey to open-mindedness is over and done with rather than ongoing.

Jeez, I can't believe I wrote about race in my blog. I must be hurtin' for funny anecdotes or comedy food recipes lately.

Is this what wisdom smells like?

2010-03-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

In certain cultures, hunger is personified as a wolf. When you get just a little bit hungry, then eat, it is like you ate the little baby wolf. How could you do it. If you get moderately hungry, you then kill the hunger by eating the adolescent wolf, a better adversary. But if you get really really hungry, then the wolf grows stronger. Too strong. Now the wolf is invincible no matter what you eat to kill it. Then you have no choice but to call upon the deity known as the Crazy Hunger, who alone is capable of dispatching this terrible wolf-beast. You set up a massive feast, I mean we're talkin' a competitive eating type of setup here, just neverending let's say hot dogs and apple pies, and you get down on your knees, and you shake your fists and call out to the heavens, 'Crazy Hunger, EAT THIS WOLF!"
I noticed I waste a lot of time worrying about things that actually turn out to be just the problems I was worrying about. Like, e.g., waking up thinking about how later on I will have to pay some bills and find something to eat and figure out what to teach some kid on the piano. But this is such a stupid thing to worry about, because whether or not I worry, I'm still gonna pay those bills, find something to eat, and figure out what to teach some kid on the piano. So I was thinking what are better things to worry about. Of course the saints among us can probably worry about something unrelated to themselves, like global warming or hunger or that sort of thing. I tried that and it doesn't do the trick. Don't get me wrong, I care about those things, but I can't get myself to wake up too early worrying about them. I need some self-interest in there. So my new plan is instead of worrying about the inevitable and inescapable knots and obstacles of the everyday, I will start worrying about what to do in unlikely situations. Like for instance, say you were falling from a blown-up airplane towards the sea from not all that huge a distance. I figure if you are able to streamline your body into a perfect dive, you might not break all your bones and die when you hit. Or how about if you hear a nuclear explosion but it is a good ways off and you have like ten seconds to get somewhere safe from the shockwave, where are you gonna go? Or say someone wants to mug you, what sort of things are you gonna do to make them think you're too crazy to fuck with? Or what if someone decides to interview you about something you did, what are you gonna say to not sound like an idiot? What if you are driving across a bridge and there is an earthquake and you have to decide in like two seconds whether to try to slam on the brakes or accelerate enough to jump the newly formed gap in the middle of the bridge? These are the sorts of unlikely but possible scenarios that I want to waste my worrying energy on from here on out.
Every single time I ever get annoyed with someone, and I mean EVERY single time, I then realize it is really something about myself I see in the someone. This goes for cats too.
I taught a kid to play the drums. I am a dude who taught a kid to play the drums. If I didn't teach him, well, probably someone else would have. But still.
Little kids like Buster Keaton because people falling is still the funniest thing.
It turns out it is really easy to make delicious mustard at home with nothing but mustard seeds and water, and probably you want some vinegar or white wine too.
It ain't no Hubble deep field, but when you look in ordinary binoculars, you are fucking looking back in time. I mean, not much, just a tiny little infinitesimal micro-nano-mini-second, but still.
Our understanding of the things and relationships in our world can be favorably compared to the Hubble deep field. For one thing, we only see shit if we look really close at a spot. For another, things look 2D unless we use our brains and more evidence (like, say, the red shift caused by the electromagnetic radiation doppler effect from galaxies receding from us at varying rates) to figure out how they fit together in 3 d's. There's always gonna be more to understand the closer you look, and you're still gonna be wrong from the perspective of the dude in the future who gets a better look.
You should google up some info on the Hubble deep field, I decided it is kind of ridiculous to link to general information like that in a blog post.
If you're naturally curious, the internet makes you smarter.
The most normal person you know is completely fucking weird as HELL.
Keep your eyes on CERN, they are gonna discover some shit that will blow all our minds, even though it is just the shit that everything is made out of. Which fact itself blows my mind.
I guess not all of these count as wisdom.
I guess potentially none of these count as wisdom.
Just because you're older doesn't mean you're wiser.
It's not up to you whether what you say is wise anyhow.
Just because you put things in topical bullet points doesn't mean they follow any sort of organizational pattern beyond the visual.
Good bye.

The PhD Omelet

2010-03-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided to try to start working on my dissertation again, so naturally I commemorated this decision with its own omelet, the P (for Provel-style* cheese) hD (for hot dogs).

I get a lot of flack for my cavalier use of cut-up hot dogs, but I don't care. I like them. I put those shits in all kinds of stuff. I mean, in a perfect world, I'd only buy grass-fed free-range beef that had its feelings affirmed, and bacon from pigs who were read the Bhagavad-Gita daily from birth. But right now it is Spring Break, which means I make no money cuz all my students are on vacation, which means when I see a pack of shitty hot dogs at Aldi's for 81 cents, I'm going for it. If you cut 'em up and fry 'em, with some spices on there, they taste fine. In fact, if you spice them right (salt, pepper, a little chili powder, some like oregano or thyme or stuff) I'd say they are a better-tasting meat product than Dominos' sausage or the turkey in Lunchables, for instance, though still well below fried Spam or the cheaper, "off" brands of beef jerky.

So you spice-n-fry the cut up dogs, a couple of them, and then you pour in three or so eggs you whipped up pretty good and put pepper and a little salt in. The hot dogs will magically rise to the surface, and once the bottom starts solidifying, put in a slice and a half or so of your Provel-style* cheese. Hell, you know how to make an omelet. Fold that shit in half at some point, and then also flip it over, it ain't rocket science. Eat it. It's good. Especially if you put on home-made hot sauce that your friend made, if your friend is good at making home-made hot sauce and generous in sharing it.

*Provel is a registered trademark, I think maybe it always was, of Churny Company from Glenview IL, but Churny was recently bought up by Kraft, and now all the sudden when you go buy provel at DiGregorios it is called provel-style instead of provel. I wonder if Kraft stopped making provel, or if my fave deli changed wholesalers. I don't remember ever being this interested in such a boring subject. It must be that PhD omelet, focusing my mind once again on the most arcane and most over-thought details. Maybe I'd best get to a-writin'.

Fun with anagrams

2010-03-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

I saw that movie The Vanished a few days back, and like a week or two before that, Shutter Island, and then maybe a couple years ago Memento, all of which got me thinking about anagrams in the back of my mind somewhere, I guess, cuz then lo and behold the other day my mind went blank for a while, then when I came to I realized that "saint" and "isn't a" are anagrams, and then I did this thing you always have to do in music theory where you find the different "rotations" of a series of notes, resulting in something like this (only scrawled out in the sort of messy writing indicative of a crackpot revelation in progress):

isn't a saint
(sntasainti)
(ntasaintis)
(tasaintisn)
as ain't isn't
saint isn't a
ain't isn't as
in 'tisn't as a
(ntisntasai)
(tisntasain)
isn't a saint

Then I thought it would be cool to make a poem where you had to use all the five letters before you reused them, but I had to sort of cheat, and it looked like this:

saint isn't a saint
-but-
saint ain't isn't as saint isn't
-so-
ain't a saint a saint?

I dunno, it seemed worthwhile at the time but now it seems like Matty ran out of crosswords and the internet was broke.

Cheddar & Rye

2010-02-16T10:44:00.000-08:00

This isn't a sandwich, but a cocktail. I invented it. Last night. It goes like this:

Buy a bottle of Old Overholt (it is the manliest looking bottle on the shelf) and an econo-sized block of sharp cheddar cheese.
Put an ice cube in a cup.
Pour some rye in that same cup.
Break off (don't get a knife dirty for this) a pretty huge hunk of the cheese.
Drink the whiskey; eat the cheese.

Figure 12: The Manliest Bottle on the Shelf

Ok, I guess it isn't a cocktail. It's just cheap rye on the rocks and a hunk of cheese. What. You got a problem with that?

The top four lines from "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger

2010-01-29T16:54:00.000-08:00

"I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."
"Never worried about paying or even how much I owed."
"I was living to run and running to live"
"I found myself alone, surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends"

Also, the top concept from the song: the transition across the three verses from running to seeking shelter and back to running against the wind (first a youthful running against & not even noticing the wind, then with age noticing and seeking shelter against the wind, and then the final running against the wind as the conscious choice of the aging rocker burdened with worldly duties).

It's so surprising to finally listen to these lyrics that have gone in one ear and out the other my whole life, and find them so poetic.

Also, the piano solo.

Steroid-related hypotheticals

2010-01-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

A guy who took 'roids for the same amount of time as Big Mac. This guy, though, wasn't as good. He never made it to the big leagues. He never even made it to AAA. His minor league career was a series of moves from one medium-sized city to another, never making all that much money, always working his ass off, and now that he retired he is sorta fucked as far as his employable skill set goes. Even in low A baseball he was around incredible players from all over the country, all sacrificing so much to try to make a career in pro ball. These guys were so good any little edge could be what separated them. So this guy started using the 'roids. Let's say by some weird circumstance he used exactly the amount of 'roids Big Mac used, through the exact same time-frame, breaking the exact same laws and all that. Do we hate this guy? Do we punish him the same way? Do we pity him more? Is it more tragic? Is he less guilty because he was less of a role model?
How about a guy who took HGH until the day before it was outlawed by the mlb. Before that, let's say he took, Idunno, andro or whatnot until it was illegal. Basically this is a guy who took every available PED until the day before it made the list of illegal substances. He never broke the laws of the US or the mlb. Do we judge him the same way anyhow? Are the morals involved attached to laws and regulations?
What about like how people get upset at certain countries' gymnastics programs. Say they don't use any PEDs, but they start rigorous training really early in a kid's life. It maybe stunts the kids' growth. But of course it pays off, they become amazing gymnasts. How about that? Is that ok? No drugs or nothin'. No laws broken. Just a really amped up training regimen. Is that fair? To dip below our own culture's ideas of when is too young to push a kid that hard? At what age do you draw the line?
How about the guy who took bum 'roids, it was a hoax, someone sold him saline solution for ten years. He shot it up thinkin' it was 'roids, he did his workouts, he did his training thinking the 'roids were making him stronger when it was really just his workout schedule. He improved a lot, made a career, eventually stopped using when the mlb started testing more, but always wrongly attributed his moderate success to the roids.

I'll be the first to admit,

2010-01-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

I like instant mashed potatoes better than mashed potatoes.

I am sorry about this.

The MDOAT (Most Delicious Omelet of All Time)

2010-01-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

Have some leftover black olive St. Louis style pizza in the fridge.
Have some delicious homemade hot sauce your friend made.
You probably have some eggs, right?
But do you have some locally made peppered brie cheese?
Dice the pizza. I cut it first into long strips, then little squares. Squares beyond compare.
Figure 12: This pizza is in the process of being diced
Cut up some brie cheese and mix it in there with the pizza.
I got this idea to make it into some sort of like fritterish thing, so I also put cornmeal and a little egg in there, and tried to squeeze it into a cohesive patty, but it didn't work.
So then I just put in the rest of the egg plus another egg and mixed it up and poured it into a little pan and made it into an omelet.
Figure 12: It turned out so beautiful I thought I would cry; I thought I would die
See now, what happens is the provel on the pizza melts all up and so does the brie, and the black olives are perfectly salty and well-seasoned to begin with, and the eggs go so good with the cheese, and the sauce is in there too just waiting to be complimented with some home-made hotsauce (pictured, in the jar), plus you were just hungry as SHIT before you started, so lemme tell you, dear readers, maybe it wasn't heaven but you could see it from there. You could take pictures of it.

S.F.F.S.P. Episode 12: The Tot-Rito

2009-12-18T10:42:00.001-08:00

Get a flour tortilla, a pretty big one, preferably one of those awesome ones I think they must make with lard or something that come in bags unmarked except with a ruler to measure the diameter.
Have your roommate be just taking some onion-flavored tater tots out of the oven.
Put about 10 tater tots on your tortilla.
Put some ketchup, some sriracha, and some mayo on there.
Microwave it for too long, in order to make the tortilla do that thing where it gets kinda dry and crunchy.
It sure tasted good last night, though it may never again...

G

2009-12-10T23:40:00.000-08:00

G is for a lot of things but for today let's say G is for Gravity.

Because when I was oh let's say 12 I must have learned about Gravity, probably there was an inset on a corner of a page of a brown-paper-bag-dust-jacketed book. It must have been from some source less reputable, though, that there was, there in my 12 year old mind, the strangely potent word Vortex, that fascinating kind of scientific word with both a V and an X, its definition vaguely trailing behind.

The two ideas were there in my 12 year old mind, in my 12 year old brain inside my 12 year old body, inside a blue dodge van that hurtled what I imagined to be tens of thousands of miles from Akron to let's say Utah. They must have been there still beneath that tree, where on a family hike I found it slightly harder to stand from a crouch than it ought to have been.

This is the place, my 12 year old self thought. This is the Vortex, this is a glitch in the structure of Gravity and it has only this subtle effect: that it is slightly harder to stand from a crouch than it ought to be.

G is for Gravity but F is for Fishing pole, and as I recall it now, I guess I had one in segments in my backpack, the longest and most elastic of which arched like a Bow-flex between backpack and tree limb as I rose and fell, flush with the sense of the Momentous.

Help me complete my Magical Bandana Color Vortex

2009-11-17T08:41:00.000-08:00

Thee Fyne and Sordid Taile of Gabblecocke the Crabgath'rer

2009-11-11T09:42:00.002-08:00

Well, I guess all we know for sure about the guy is he lived long ago, he was a brilliant board arguer and the first Dean of Arguments, he was known for his zero tolerance approach to scab-grappling and filimandering, he probably had a flowing, white beard, he practically invented modern techniques of both ghost-tittification and wang-wrangling as we know them, and you gotta imagine he carried some manner of staff or scepter.

A point about baseball and money I think it is important to keep in mind in these boring times

2009-11-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is boring and predictable that the Yankees, what with their payroll about a third larger than that of the next biggest payroll in the mlb and closer to double their NL rival this year (according to this), won the World Series. We have all heard it before, about buying a championship team. And listen, I hate the Yankees as much as the next guy. I felt almost physically sick when they were talking about A-Rod's and Texeira's first rings like the endpoint of a great hero's journey instead of the result of playing on shitty teams for a few more million until now.

BUT, I submit to you the following counter-arguments before you point your hate the wrong way:

Spending money is American. That is the American way. The Yankees wouldn't make all that money in the first place if they weren't putting out a great product, both on and off the field. Sure they live in a giant metropolis, but I'd be interested to find out how much of their income doesn't filter in from the immediate area. They have I guess what people call a "brand." That is American. Baseball is American. Capitalism is American.
So-called "small-market" teams (don't know about you, but I would love to be the guy with the biggest take of the Florida Marlins' 36 million) still make a SHIT TON of money. Where does the majority of that money go? In the owners' pockets. Every time you go to these annoying new stadiums, with their mall-like interiors and their $10 beers, most of your money is going into the owners' pockets. Every owner in the mlb is making all kinds of money. But guess what? Some owners don't give a flying fuck if their team does well (see the Chicago Cubs up til recently) and some do. Some owners, like some players, will take a couple million less to put more money into building a better product. Don't think for a second the Yankees wouldn't pull in just as much dough if they came in second, and then more of the dough could go to the owners' pockets. But instead they go out and buy the best team in baseball. That is American. That is baseball.
Amid all the talk of Pay-Rod and stuff, it's easy to forget about some long-time Yankees like Andy Pettite or Mariano Rivera. Those guys are old-school, man, playing for the same team for so long. Pettite's salary isn't even all that ridiculous. Almost any player in the mlb will tell you they want to play for a contender, and therefore the Yankees are easily the most desirable team for the players, since they know every single year the front office is going to do everything possible to win.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, ya, I hate the Yankees, but also I am pissed at every other team for not spending more dough. You know they got it. There's no such thing as an underdog, just owners who don't care enough to make a mil or so less. And I guess that, too, is pretty American. That's baseball.

Shitty Food for Shitty People Episode 12: The Weekly Diet Edition

2009-11-04T10:14:00.000-08:00

Monday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
Tuesday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
Wednesday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
Thursday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
Friday: cereal
Saturday: make mac and cheese but stick tuna in there.
Sunday: go to Subway

One or more of these statements is true

2009-10-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

Needing life is stressful. Life needs stress, but life puts stresses on one's capacity to need. Needing stress is a part of life, because stress isn't just needing life-- stress is also living need.

Shitty Food for Shitty People Episode 12: The Dessert Edition, aka Eat Shit and Die

2009-10-03T07:12:00.001-07:00

I went camping and had some leftover marshmallows from "S'mores" (man that is a terrible name, why is it called that, it makes me cringe to even type it). So I made some rice krispy treats, you know. Easy. Not blog-worthy. But then a few days later I realized I still had more generic rice krispies, a few marshmallows, and a chocolate bar I hadn't noticed. So in a temporary fit of over-confidence I decided to try my hand at one jumbo...

Crispy Chocolate Dooky Roll

Melt some marshmallows and a little butter in a pot
Not too much butter, now
Put just a little shake of generic rice crispies in there and stir it up as smooth as you can get it
DON'T just pour it on some wax paper-- I did that and regretted it
DO pour it onto like a dough-rolling type surface that you have sprinkled with-- get this, this is my real innovation here-- fuckin' NON-DAIRY CREAMER, people. Seriously. It works.
Roll that shit into a little shit.
Meanwhile be melting the chocolate bar you found in your cupboard. Maybe add a dash of milk.
Oh ya I think it seems like a good idea to put the crispy marshmallow dook into the fridge while you melt the chocolate.
But then take it out and pour the melted chocolate over it, and roll it around in the chocolate to coat it.
Then sprinkle a bunch of salted roasted peanuts on there, and roll it around in there so they stick all into the chocolate
Put that shit in the fridge
Save it for when someone special comes to visit
It looks quite literally like shit. Eat it and die a happy man/woman/man-woman.

It was supposed to be like a mixture of

and Instead it turned out looking like something you'd find here. What you gonna do.

Regular generic cheerios mixed with honey nut generic cheerios

2009-09-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

I have discovered the greatest cereal. Let me share with you this new recipe.

Get some generic cheerios.
Get some generic honey nut cheerios.
Pour some of each into a bowl-- oh, half and half, I'd say.
Put milk in that bowl. What kind? Get creative-- there's 2%, 1%, whole, soy, rice, goat, mother's, reconstituted powdered, anything!
A spoon is recommended
I am thinking of commandeering some sort of tupperware container to store this new cereal pre-mixed, since I am, as they say, "on the go."
Careful research has shown generic cheerios take on more milk and exhibit a greater degree of softening/bloating behavior than do their name-brand counterparts, increasing both their refreshingness and deliciousness indices by up to 20%.
However, it is literally impossible to open the inner plastic bags of generic cereal in a way that allows a controlled pour into the bowl; I for one am convinced this convenience is what you pay for when you shell out the big bucks for that ebullient bee on the label, and depending upon your baseline patience level, may just be worth it.

New words for these new times

2009-09-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

You guys. It's 2009. We don't have time to say all the syllables we used to say. We're on the go. We're fast-paced. We're active. That's why I will never again ask you if you want to go eat at a restaurant. Instead, I will say "yo you wanna hit a 'straunt?"
You might reply, "ya let's go to [your favorite 'straunt], they got great apps and some bomb-ass 'trées."
Then I might say "ya, man, those 'tizers are to die fer, plus it's like the only place in town where I always order some 'sert."
You will reply "LOVE their 'sert, let's hop in my 'yota and get there."
"Chicks," I will think to myself, "do dig the 'yota, helps you score like Nino Rota," but I will not say this aloud as I get up and start towards the door, suddenly doubling back and explaining, "hold on, man, lemme grab my red bandana, I'm fully 'steenin it tonight."
You will nod thoughtfully and summarize "tonight, every street is gonna be E street."

Recent revelations and sub-revelations

2009-08-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

Adults shouldn't have to say words like "panini," "sammy," or "yummy."
If you think you're good enough, maybe you'll be just that. If you think you aren't, maybe you can be great.
- Here are the particular memories which have led me to this startling conclusion:
  - When I tried out for the track team in 10th grade I was sprinting, and then suddenly for the first time ever asked myself if I could go any faster, and found out that I could, a lot.
  - When I was in 4th or so grade I was in music class and was singing along all bored when I realized by controlling my throat and mouth I could actually sing the actual pitches I had theretofore falsely imaginined myself to be singing.
Somehow every previous time I listened to Bach's St. Matthew's Passion I just thought it was "pretty good."
- Bach, as I have recently been told, as paraphrased by me, said writing invertible counterpoint was easy-- he would just talk to God and write down the conversation.
  - Bob Uecker, on the other hand, said catching a knuckleball is easy-- all you have to do is wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.
  - Charlie Lau, on the other other hand, said there were two theories on hitting the knuckleball, but unfortunately neither of them works.
Doing the dishes is actually pretty easy, plus then you have something clean to put your food on.
- Example: eggs.
The right music, editing, and narration can make you feel sorry for planemos that have been kicked out of their solar systems by gravitational conflicts.
- "...They're by themselves" -- a real honest-to-God scientist, not some wistful poet.

The lottery: fuck it

2009-08-18T11:00:00.001-07:00

Have you ever noticed that the only people you ever see wasting their money on the lotto is usually really poor people? Plus how many times have you been at a checkout counter waiting to buy like a beef jerkey and a four-pack of Stag, but first you have to wait for someone to buy ten scratch-offs, do them right there, cash in the $4 they won, buy four more, do them right there, cash in the $3 they won, buy three more, do them right there, cash in the $1 they won, buy one more, do it right there, cash in the $1 they won, buy one more, do it right there, bust, fish in their pockets for another dollar of change, buy one more, do it right there, cash in the $2 they won, buy two more, do them right there, cash in the $1 they won, buy one more, bust, fish in their pockets but come up short of a dollar, look around to see if anyone in line looks like they might give them a quarter, then see how everyone is impatient (either to buy their beef jerkey and Stag or to go cash in the $3 they won on scratch-offs) and finally shuffle off after taking like a full minute to count and recount their change and put it back in their pocket?

Wait I started out pissed but now I am just sad because I accidentally remembered the scratch-off buyer's essential humanity, damnit. But still, fuck the lottery.

"Put your tits on the table"

2009-08-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

This is a new phrase I'd like to hear used in earnest. It means to assert oneself, like "damn, girl, you really went out there and put your tits on the table tonight." Or it means to be really frank and up front about one's business, like "Ok, let's just all sit down, put our tits on the table, and see where the cards land," or "all right, bitch, you talk a big game, whyn't you put your tits on the table and let's see what's what."

The great thing is that I mean as far as I know it seems like people don't really literally put their tits on the table that often, so this metaphor doesn't have that messy overlap with the literal that can really ruin a phrase for everyone, especially foreigners.

tromboneorfart.com

2009-08-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

This is a new website concept I thought of yesterday where users would submit small sound files, and people would vote on whether what they were hearing was a fart or a trombone. Also I think it would be funny if every once in a while it would be Chewbacca.

The local farmers' market: fuck it

2009-08-08T09:56:00.001-07:00

I finally got my ass out of bed early enough to go to the little farmer's market in my neighborhood, all excited to buy some basics and maybe some bacon or something. But no. All the food is twice as expensive as the grocery store. That is not why I go to a farmers' market. That is the opposite of why I go to a farmers' market. I guess some people do though, because it was packed with people and dogs, despite the heat. Guess I'm stuck riding to the big one, where I can get three onions for a buck and some asparagus for 75 cents, instead of almost tripping over six dogs so I can not pay four dollars for a tiny purple potato.

How to make me hate your bar 101

2009-08-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Be located in a pain in the ass sort of place
Don't give bands free drinks, or even drink discounts, or even one free drink out of shame at your stingy ass
Get your sound guy to tell me how to use a microphone
Kick me out of an empty bar stool because apparently like an hour ago someone ordered food there and now wants to eat there
Have the sound completely and totally suck
Oh also could you make it all hot and muggy and fill the place with annoying cocks in white caps?
Congratulations, now I hate your bar!
Maybe if you suck my balls I will ever go there again!

SFFSP Episode 12: Breakfast sandwich of the gods, if the gods ate breakfast (I have it on good authority that they do not)

2009-08-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Have a barbecue where someone leaves some hamburger buns
Hardboil some eggs that are pretty old but not too old
Cut up an avocado and I like to squirt some lime juice on there
Wash off a couple pieces of romaine lettuce
Put some spreadable cheese (laughing cow or that like armenian knock-off) and some mayo (for once in my life not miracle whip but mayo) on those buns
Cut up the eggs and probably hit them with some salt and pepper
Put all those shits together in whatever order you see fit; I'm not one to tell a man how to stack his sandwich, that shit is PERSONAL, but for me, from top to bottom, it was like this:
- bun
- mayo
- lettuce
- eggs
- avocados
- cheese
Oh my sweet lord it is delicious

Figure 12: How are you to know whether the cow, whose earrings are a packaged cheese product, is laughing at you.

Dear everybody,

2009-08-05T19:42:00.001-07:00

I am sorry that I never go out with you anymore. I am really really poor and also I am seriously always working on these movies, plus I have a girlfriend and forget what bars are for in the first place. Maybe we can hang out after the two big shows on September 27th and October 31st. By then I bet I have a little dough too so like we can go to a bar or a show or something. Also I will get you back for those beers you bought or for that time when you paid for a pizza that I ate some of. It'll be fun. I hope you will still be my friends, everybody. I miss you.

Love,
Matty Lite

Well I'll be... (repost from last year)

2009-07-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

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 seventeen 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:

The Shin Ramyun they don't want you to know about

2009-07-08T10:28:00.001-07:00

Get a pack of Shin Ramyun.

Figure 12: Some of a Nearly Life-Size Pack of Shin Ramyun
Smush up the noodles before you open it.
Put them in boiling water, along with the dried vegetables.
Meanwhile sautee like 1/5 of an onion in a little leftover bacon grease.
Once that onion is all nice lookin' put some garlic in there too.
Then here's the kicker-- get a couple eggs, a dash of that Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce, a dash of rice vinegar, and little bit of plain old barbecue sauce. Put all that in there with the onions & garlic.
Oh shit forgot about the noodles, go strain them with a plate or a lid or something (can't use a collander or you'll lose the not-dried-anymore vegetable bits). Put some of the flavor packet on there now.
Stir up that "omelet" all nice til the eggs are mostly cooked, then pour it in with the strained noodles and mix it around over a lil' heat til the eggs are all cooked in little slivers and bits.
Probably add some more of the flavor packet too.
Just eat it out of the pot in order to stay under the two-dish rule.

This meal does not taste like it cost $1.03 at all. It is more of a $4.28 taste we're talkin'.

--Brought to you by Shitty Food for Shitty People, Inc.

Even bluer

2009-07-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

This one was too easy so I only did some.

A time to die

2009-07-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

I heard Gram Parsons talked them out of this version.

Crossword nerd humor in today's Wondermark

2009-06-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

Also remind me sometime, dear blog, to try a post in the style of Rex Parker like I've been meaning to do for a while.

Land World!

2009-06-10T09:12:00.001-07:00

There is a place under the sea, somewhere under where the Bermuda triangle is, called Land World. It is a theme park. When people disappear in boats and planes sometimes they end up there (sometimes they were drunk and just crashed). It is a bubble. Like in that movie The Abyss. In the bubble there are rooms in which they have air, and in those rooms they have bugs, rodents, dogs, dancing bears, and people. If you are a shark, or a whale, or a fish, or a squid, you can go to Land World with your children. You can walk with the dogs. You can show up at 2:15, 4:30, or 6:15 when they feed the humans. This one shark mom let her stupid ass sharklet reach through the bubble and this human punched the sharklet pretty bad. Some people thought it was sad but mostly it was considered hilarious, at least on the internet.

This was the idea I had last night. It seemed a hell of a lot funnier then. Now it just seems like a scenario for that one-panel Far Side rip-off they run in the Post.

Rare Vincent Price outtake from the Thriller sessions

2009-06-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Most people don't know this, but they actually had to bring in a ringer with a spookier laugh.

Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do?

2009-05-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Flannery O'Connor asked that question in the author's note to the 2nd edition of Wise Blood. Then she answered herself:

I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

I kind of hate it when good writers can just take four concise sentences and cut to the core of ideas I've spent a lifetime chipping around the edges of. The plurality of will, the complexity of freedom, and most importantly to me, the deadly serious task of living comedy.

Fuck you O'Connor. Fuck you to HELL.

New names for my balls

2009-05-28T15:22:00.001-07:00

Inspired by that Love track, I want to name my balls after streets. I am gonna name them Spring and Gustine. Then I can make all kinds of jokes about living between Spring and Gustine. Get it?

Please update your iphones and your circular mailing lists.

Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale

2009-05-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a rare outtake from the Forever Changes sessions. Arthur Lee and the trumpet player both nearly passed out after the passage beginning around 1:43, so they decided to shorten it in the album version we all know and love.

Ritchie Valens rare studio outtake

2009-05-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this rare recording of Ritchie Valens' Come On Let's Go. I guess he had to shorten some of these notes so the song could fit on a 45. Also I never knew he was part robot.

The Internet

2009-05-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

The internet is a battlefield where every hour of every day some motherfucker is trying to get you to click on their useless link instead of the other guy's useless link.

It isn't easy but I'll try

2009-05-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

I woke up with this terrible pun in my head, then spent the past hour or so trying to build a joke around it. I think it was gonna have something to do with that movie Throw Momma From the Train. It was gonna be something like "What did Sidney Poitier say to Danny Devito on the set of Throw Momma From the Train?"

Figure 12: Toss her with love.

Dear blog,

2009-05-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

I am sorry for being away for so long. I have been busy with other things. But don't think I haven't thought of you. I have some ideas. Wanna hear them? Want me to make an unordered list? You got it, B!

a hilarious new youtube video based on the law and order theme
the story of how my friend got mugged and then became a softball hero
plugs for shows I am in
new stand-up style jokes I made up, like this one: "Seriously, though, it's great to wake up next to a beautiful girl . . . [comedic pause] . . . who's still alive."
a song-by-song comparison/review of Alex Chilton's and Chris Bell's first (and, in the latter's case, only) post-Big Star solo records.
stupid ideas for commercials that would be funny once, but then irritating as HELL
versions of famous songs where certain parts repeat too many times, or where certain sequential processes are carried on for too long, to comedic effect
brand new nicknames for my balls
anti-bird propaganda
a memoire of the challenges inherent in trying to love, or at least not hate, a dog I hate
not smoking for a year
my continued love affair with the unordered list tag

Another matched pair of T's

2009-04-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

When you and your buddy go out with these babies on, people's minds are just gonna turn straight to DUST, my friends.

Figure 12: Matched pair of paradox T's

Nothin' special here.

2009-04-04T11:37:00.001-07:00

Just a custom-tailored, double-wide, two-headed Van Halen T-shirt and the tell-tale smiles from the happiness it brings.

I talked to the people down in creative...

2009-04-03T09:02:00.001-07:00

...and here are a couple new designs they came up with.

Figure 12: A matched trio of T's

Figure 12: Another matched pair

I've been thinking . . .

2009-04-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

. . . about getting into the T-shirt design game. Careful research and focus group data suggests this initial prototype:

Figure 12: Matched pair of novelty T's

The cutest in medical terminology

2009-03-03T23:07:00.001-08:00

I broke my toe. It's the first bone I've ever broken. It hurt and it turned all blue. It is the second from the left on my left foot. My "ring toe," as you might call it. I wouldn't call it that, though, because I mean when am I ever gonna wear a ring on my toe, you know?

Well I don't know if you've heard, but there isn't much they will do for your broken toe if you go to the hospital. Even WebMD admits it, and usually they are great at convincing you a muscle cramp is leprosy and a cold is lupus (who agrees with me that WebMD is a scam to try to get more people to go to the doctor?).

Figure 12: It's never lupus

Instead, they recommend the cutest-sounding medical procedure on the books: the "buddy tape." This is the process of taping your broken toe to the toe next to it, so they can be "buddies" (I got a certified nurse's assistant to help me with this part; as far as I can recall it went something like this).

Naturally I spent the day imagining the fun times my "ring" and middle toes were having together now that they were buddies. In my mind my toes were like two adorable kittens that had been taped to one another.

Figure 12: What my full complement of left-foot toes would look like if they were five adorable kittens duct-taped together

The only downside to the buddy tape is it made it hurt less to walk, so I wasn't able to limp around and pretend I was House anymore.

Figure 12: Never forget

Way early, but...

2009-02-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

...mark your calendars. Write it down in your date-books. Update your blackberries. Or is it blueberries? Whatever. Put this shit in your iphone already. Etch it directly into your forearm, if you are a goth and a cutter. Tie a string around your finger. Don't cut off your circulation. You'll need that. Buy your tickets. There's only a hundred. It comes with a pint of beer. I recommend the English Brown Ale. I just had three of them yesterday. Each one more delicious than the last. I drank them as I talked to a guy who agrees with me that you should come to this show. Listen to him. Listen to me. Listen to us.

Check out some sneak previews if you don't believe it's all that.

Late to the party, part 12

2009-02-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

Holy titty-fucking christ these things destroy me. (not even close to SFW, probably not at home either unless you are totally 100% sure you are NOT a pussy).

You ever try and use this shit? Fucking impossible.

2009-02-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know what happened

2009-02-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

I was trying to do some schoolwork when all the sudden my scanner went to work on the box from some novelty salt and pepper shakers my brother got me for Christmas and my photoshop opened and then this happened:

Sweep out the old, sweep in the new

2009-02-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

I changed my picture there and my background color. Do you like it?
Have you heard of "the modulator"?
Did you know there are over 150,000 parts in a piano? We invented that shit. Humans like me and you invented that shit.
It's the today, ghost titty.
Also, this:
Well that's all folks.
[insert youtube video for Fleetwood Mac "That's all for everyone" here, the only one I found was a soundtrack to someone feeding a baby]

To my St. Louis reader(s), please come see this tonight

2009-02-11T09:23:00.001-08:00

You'll cry.

But take heart– you can can come back to my place afterwards and do any one of the following:

Shoot a BB gun at some cans or maps of Europe
Drink one or several beers
Give us adulations various and sundry
Listen to a recitation of some of the Illiad, if it turns out to be That sort of night.
Spill things on my floor
Listen to music on my ipod until someone decides to change it because I have the same seven or eight non-party-friendly albums on there I always do
Make merry

Soft boiled eggs have changed my life

2009-02-06T11:43:00.001-08:00

Examples:

Avocado, hard salami, cheddar, and soft-boiled egg "burritos"
Hot Sopressa, provel cheese, and soft-boiled egg grilled cheese sandwiches
Soft boiled egg with salt and pepper
Hard-boiled egg you meant to be soft boiled but I mean who cares right
Soft boiled egg just stuck in a leaf of romaine lettuce with maybe some cheese? (I haven't tried this but there is always lunch and I am out of bread products)

They also have such a stunning visual appearance. They make anything look like it is in a food porn magazine.

Figure 12: Soft Boiled Egg Food Porn

All thanks go to my mom who showed me how to soft boil eggs over Christmas vacation. Also, thanks mom for that time I called you about how to bake a potato and you told me to turn on the oven and put the potato in there. There's some kinds of advice you just don't forget.

Man I can't wait til I'm hungry.

I was a highwayman

2009-02-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

Willie Nelson says:
I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

then Kris Kristofferson says:
I was a sailor
I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

after which Waylon Jennings says:
I was a dam builder
across the river deep and wide
where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

and finally Johnny Cash concludes:
I fly a starship
across the Universe divide
and when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..

In this song Willie Nelson is a dude who robs ladies and kills soldiers. A bad ass. An outlaw. But eventually he gets caught, and hanged. But see, then his spirit returns, a bit later in History. Now he is Kris Kristofferson, who is by far the most likely sailor of the bunch. Now who can say how glorious it is to make a boat go around some land (I mean, what the fuck, are you gonna go through the land?), I guess in this chapter it's just he's kind of an idiot and he fucked some kind of thing up with the sails or jibs or whatever, I dunno, go ask some blue-blood yacht dude. Anyhow, you'd think this spirit was gone by now, since it got hanged and also drowned. But nope. It comes back, a bit further into History, this time in the person of Waylon Jennings, who got a hand from FDR what with the WPC building a gigantic dam. Here things might be said to get a little metaphorical. The place is called Boulder but it's getting filled with concrete. The Colorado was wild but they are taming it. Steel and water did collide, but at what cost? At the cost of one Waylon Jennings. Granted, he was clumsy and he was the guy who didn't do the smart thing and be extra careful while walking around on top of a giant not-yet-solidified dam. So anyhow now the spirit got hanged, drowned, and encased in what was at the time the largest man-made monument named after a vacuum in History. This brings us, dear reader, not to the present, because the present can't really mean anything to itself, now can it, so instead it brings us instead to the Future, in the person of Johnny Cash, starship pilot. He is flying the entire distance of the universe, not just lurkin' around outside a town, or going around some land in a boat in the water, or spanning the distance between two sides of an enormous gorge. As we well know the universe is finite and who knows what is on the other side. There are those who say it is the same, only backwards, only you can't even tell it's backwards, since you, too, are backwards. There are those who say it is just sort of boring. Nobody knows for sure. Johnny Cash doesn't even know for sure, but he has whittled down the possibilities to two: either he will become a highwayman again, thus starting the cycle anew, or, alternatively, and I'd like to put in my vote for more likely, he may become a single drop of rain. Here is where I like to imagine that every drop of rain used to be a highwayman, an inept sailor, a clumsy dambuilder, or an astronaut. One of those four. Nothing else. I myself, when I reach the other side, may turn into a single grain of sand. I think that is the fate of the musician, the logger, the banker, and the flight attendant. Whereas it has been demonstrated that piano tuners, butchers, systems analysts, and tinkerers shall return a single breath of air. We will all try to find a place to rest our spirits if we can, but chances are we will be back again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, only each time one step lower in a major scale, until we get almost back to the tonic again, at which point I suppose you should just restart the song because not even Johnny Cash could hit that bottom one if he tried.

I never thought this would happen to me.

2009-01-28T10:34:00.000-08:00

Figure 12: I have a tail now

I swear to god it was an accident. I never planned it out this way. If I could turn back time, maybe things would be different. Nobody can live a life without regrets, you know, and if I could choose just one thing to change over all these years so various and full of detail, I'd never have accidentally grown this tail.

Look, I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore. I mean, I have a tail now. Things are gonna be different. I can accept that. I got no one to blame but myself. I let my guard down, you know? God help me but I let my guard down, and now I have a tail.

I thank you all in advance for your continued support/condolences as I ponder my next course of action. Certain tails are reversible, but that's pretty much only in the movies. I'm afraid this one may have reached a certain "escape velocity," so to speak, and has now doomed me to a life of sitting in ever higher chairs to keep my tail from brushing the ground. I hate high chairs.

Don't cry for me. Don't you dare. You have a wonderful head of hair with all the correct protuberances befitting. Don't waste this gift. Sometimes the Lord will open a window, and another window will open out into a door with a window, but sometimes when He closes a window He opens a window. It's like, you can see the Universe in that window. Its like, there were two footprints in some places but in others there was a third footstep, but only the third footstep was just a faint dragging line, because all along my tail was behind me, and now it is all sandy. And it's like in each grain of sand is a whole entire Universe, and in each Universe is a man, a man who has accidentally grown a tail. There is a place for us, though. Dont you cry. Don't you cry tonight. For everywhere a child is mesmerized by the ever-rising spiral of the classic barber's pole, I will be there. Everywhere a man walks into Great Clips not looking like Bob Saget but walks out looking just like Bob Saget, I will be there. Every time a woman tells her hairdresser to make her look like Jennifer Aniston, but then she doesn't, I will be there. No, don't cry for me. As sure as "two bits" must follow "shave and a haircut," as sure as each day somebody responds "all of them" to "did you get your hair cut," as sure as even the most unobservant man happens once in a blue moon to guess correctly when asked if he "notices anything different about me," I will be there, my glorious tail fluttering majestically in the breeze behind me, the mane of the mightiest lion, the tail of the mightiest ass.

Know this: the mightiest ass is me, dear reader. And this is my tail.

Jesus fucking christ did I pick the wrong fucking day to try to take a fucking nap.

2009-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

Fuck.

I made up a new word

2009-01-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

"Adaptacious." It's a word for when you are trying to describe why some trait evolved. Kind of a mix of "advantageous" and "adaptive."

Example usage: Flashing lights capture our attention because it was adaptacious for early humans to notice sudden luminance changes in their visual environment, such as those when say a giant flaming meteor was coming down to kill their dinosaur buddies, or a burning bush was trying to tell them it was that it was.

I will fight you if you don't start using this word.

Tiny Fractal Tuba: Science Fact or Science Fiction?

2009-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

Hey, look, I'm not one of those dudes who's all into fractals as a Thing. I mean, you're not gonna see me hangin' around in like a fractal shirt and you're not gonna hear me talkin' about how if we could understand fractals we could like solve hunger and racism and probably travel to distant reaches of space besides.

Figure 12: I'm not this guy

But check it out: have you heard about fractal antennas*? It is so cool. They can make antennas with a ton of surface area but still tiny, because all the surface area is from all the little tiny details instead of in broad lines, you know? Shit, there's probably one in your cell phone! Believe it.

Figure 12: Believe it

Well anyhow I was thinking: why can't we use this technology to make a tiny tuba? It could have a pretty small tube, diameter-wise, but one that is just outrageously long, but you know, long from being all bent around into outlandish, somewhat psychedelic shapes that are produced from the same kind of self-similarity iteration type processes as those t-shirt patterns.

It would make such a low sound, but yet it would fit in the palm of your hand. (If your spine isn't tingling right now, either you don't care about the inconvenient size of the commercially available tubas of the day, or you maybe have some sort of neural problem you maybe should get checked out). I'm serious. This could change everything.

Scientists! Metallurgists! Help me! Now we make our millions! This is the dream that John Phillip Sousa never even knew he had!

Figure 12: Every Single Music Video in the History of the Genre was Leading Up to This Moment, But Still, Imagine it With Four Tiny Fractal Tubas

*I dare you to tell me I should say antennae. I fuckin' DARE you.

A new tongue-twister / This is serious.

2009-01-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

I accidentally thought of a tongue twister. It is "ghost titty." You gotta say it ten times fast, but you can't just make one "T" sound for the end of "ghost" and the start of "titty"-- you gotta do the full stop there to get both "T"s in. Go ahead, try it.

* * * * *

I'm gonna not be funny for a week. Starting today. I'm not gonna make any jokes. I'm not gonna share any creative mishearings. I'm not gonna tell any hilarious stories. I'm not gonna say things with any weird timing to make people laugh. I'm not gonna make any funny faces or deadpans even. Please don't laugh at me. Not this week. I'm gonna walk real carefully to make sure I don't trip, since that is also funny. I'm gonna keep really alert so I don't seem stupid in a funny way. I'm gonna eat food that isn't funny (caesar salad), watch TV shows that aren't funny (Everybody loves Ray), go to movies that aren't funny (that one where that mopey actor is a child-molestin' priest), and hang out with people that aren't funny (shit I may need some new friends). See, nobody takes funny shit seriously. Bein' funny never got nobody nowhere. I am on strike. I am on strike until people take funny shit seriously. This is a call to action. People who are just always trying to be funny, are you with me? Let's not try to be funny. Not this week.

God damnit, though, I'm pretty sure it's gonna turn out just fucking hilarious. Fuck.

I got a cool idea for a commercial for a dryer or maybe for a hairdryer

2009-01-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Actually that is a lie, it is a Terrible idea. It is to use that James Brown song but change it to "dry me" instead of "try me."

I'm sorry.

Shocking confessions

2009-01-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

Here are some realizations that I came to much later than by rights I ought to have:

That word that sounds like "shiek" and that word that is spelled "chic" don't just have similar meanings, they are the same word! (2001)
It's "up and at 'em," not "up and Adam." (2000)
"News" is just the plural of "new." (2007)
"Specific" and "general" come from species and genera. (2009)
Just as that old cheap beer called Meisterbrau is the lion of beers, the lion itself is the lion of the animal kingdom. (2003)
Mickey Rooney and Andy Rooney are two completely different people. (2007)
Tom Colicchio (the bald judge from Top Chef) and Andrew Zimmer (the bald dude who eats weird food) are two completely different people. (2008)
The Indian dude in Short Circuit isn't Indian at all. (2006)

I know I have had some more hilarious ones than this. Such are the consequences of not demanding too much sense out of the world. If I should die after all please let my epitaph be "late to the party." Do this for a man who only this year finally unravelled the concepts of Judge Reinhold, Judd Nelson, and the guy who played Judge Harry Stone on Night Court.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-21T10:56:00.000-08:00

WE HAVE A MOTHERFUCKING BLACK PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*in the style of this.

Karaoke fail

2009-01-13T10:16:00.000-08:00

Heart's These Dreams: too high to sing like them, too low to sing like me. Every second on the stage, the further I was away... from not sucking.

Genesis' Invisible Touch: the lyrics got to me and slowly tore me apart.

Better luck next week.

It is hardest to lose what was never found

2009-01-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid I used to cheat at Battleship sometimes. What I'd do is keep track of all the squares my opponent guessed and keep moving my ships around to the remaining empty spaces. You'd be surprised how many misses it would take to eliminate every group of five contiguous squares, to just the extent my brothers and friends were surprised at how many rounds it would take to get that first hit on my aircraft carrier.

I am trying to tell a story whose moral is this: it is much harder to let go of something that doesn't exist than something that does. Things that actually exist have edges and locations. Ghosts cling to every cell and will take up residence in any space they can find. Made up things are even harder to sink than that tiny little destroyer I'd keep moving around until I'd win.

Hobosexuals

2009-01-06T10:10:00.001-08:00

They're freakin' everywhere. Watch out. They're comin' out of the walls. They're increasing in numbers. They can really squeeze it into a place, too, to the tune of an entire OC* per barroom. They might... bump into you. They might... question your authenticity. But also they are loveable little ragamuffins who deserve all the love and respect you'd give their new-tymey counterparts. I'm just sayin', some of my best friends are hobosexuals.

*Oliver Cast: the basic unit of number of hobosexuals in a given horde is the amount needed to cast the movie Oliver.

This happened to me yesterday.

2008-12-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

I was watching Caddyshack, and I suddenly didn't think it was funny. I mean, like, at all. But then after the commercial break it seemed funny again.

It was weird, man.

I'm surrounded by pussies and assholes

2008-12-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

People,

Help.

I rode my bike to school today despite the winter weather advisory. Ya, I'm tough. On the way in it was fine, it was snowy on the ground, and a little slick here and there, but I just slip-slided my way there and even got used to skidding around enough that I was doing it for fun and profit*.

But then fast forward to this afternoon, when I rode home. Now the streets were actually in better condition, but there was a sleety snowy "wintery mix" coming out of the sky, and if I know one thing about drivers, it is that whenever something is coming out of the sky, about half of them turn into either a pussy or an asshole. Both of these are dangerous. Assholes get impatient, they swerve around from lane to lane, they jet down streets they ought not jet down, they honk a lot, they behave selfishly at four-way stops, and sometimes they even directly antagonize other bikers or drivers without cause. Pussies slow down too much, wait for every single other person to go at a four-way stop, brake for no seeming reason, antagonize assholes by being too passive, confuse other drivers by behaving in a ridiculously accomodating-to-the-point-of-what-the-fuck sort of way. See, both these types of drivers are dangerous enough on their own, but the bad thing is they tend to amplify one another's faults, especially when something is coming out of the sky.

Cases in point:

Some asshole decides he can fit in my lane (he could not) and succeeds in simultaneously almost pushing me off the side of the road and almost making the car in the next lane over drive into oncoming traffic (the car in the next lane was too much of an asshole to accomodate the other asshole, see).
Some pussy tails right behind me for about three blocks, wasting chance after chance to go around me because they were too pussy to go in the oncoming lane for like a second. Effect: now there is a funnel of assholes behind the pussy who are so pissed that when finally I go a different way from the pussy, the assholes swerve around me with fury and spray snow on me and end up driving way out of control in a school zone (nobody was hurt).
Some pussy going perpendicular to me at a traffic light won't turn left on that last dying yellow light like people do. Therefore as I start on my own green, I am not ready for the asshole behind that pussy who has swerved around that pussy to turn left. {Corollary: at least the asshole just kept going when it was clear I saw and was not gonna get hit by him. In this case, a pussy would have been worse, because a pussy would have slowed way down and given a vague hand signal that maybe I should go but then would be all hesitant and would behave in a way that made it impossible to tell if they were gonna go or if I was.}
Some pussy must've waited for like seven other cars to go in the other three directions at a 4-way stop at the bottom of a hill, so even though I had adjusted my speed so as not to have to stop, I ended up having to stop, thus losing my momentum that I was gonna use for the next hill.
Some asshole pulls up to a stop light where there aren't really two lanes, but sometimes you can squeeze down the right side and turn right, but this time you obviously couldn't, but still this asshole jammed his nose in as far as he could and honked with rage and impotence, effectively shutting off my usual technique of creeping up to the red light and getting across the non-busy cross street far enough ahead of the drivers that I can get safely by the potentially-about-to-open doors of the row of parked cars on the next block.

Sheesh. Maybe I'm just being a dick.

*There were no profits.

Where'd the muse go / askphilhartmansballs.com

2008-12-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

I usually write about funny things I cooked, but I am on a boring-ass streak of just cooking good food that is not that unusual.

I usually draw a shitty comic strip during the class I TA, but classes have ended for the season.

I usually write about new names I've come up with for my balls, but lately they haven't changed in character enough to warrant it.

I guess instead I will tell you about the idea for a website I got way back around 1996 or so, in the precipitous uprise of the world wide web. It was a time when people still used Gopher to get on those weird not-quite-internet internets, and when I would type my emails through Telnet on a completely text-based system called Pine. It was a time when if you wanted to download a porn video, it would take about a half hour and be like ten seconds long. It was a time when people used a lot of flashing text, when horrible fanfic sex stories (smurfs, brady bunch, etc.) were forwarded in wide circles, it was before much advertising, before Flash, before firefox, it was the era of Netscape Navigator and every other person having an aol account. It was in this environment that I conceived of askphilhartmansballs.com. The idea was simple: a blank page with a crudely drawn picture of Phil Hartman's balls, which you would click as you thought of a question. Then the balls would reply in the style of a magic eight-ball, probably using the exact same set of responses: Yes, No, Outlook foggy, Ask again later, etc. That's it. No other features, no explanation.

Twelve or so years later, I think I have the skills to make that site. But now I don't want to. Isn't it a conundrum about wanting and time? About wanting what you get and getting what you want? About wanting what you want, even?

Signs point to yes.

Post number 211, in which I go from Point A to Point B

2008-11-30T10:38:00.000-08:00

Point A: Anton Chekhov's The Student.

* * *

I was driving down to Lee's Summit on I-70 and I came to my favorite part of the trip where this huge valley just opens up out of nowhere. Whenever I drive into that hollow, I look to the crest of the next hill and think to myself, "that is where I am gonna be in about a minute," and then I try to remember to notice when I get there. Usually I forget. Like when you are pumping gas and you say to yourself, "make sure you pay attention as you screw the gas cap on, because otherwise you won't be able to remember if you did it or not." But this time I remembered, and it was cool.

* * *

My grandpa told me something a friend of his had said about music. This friend said that musical sounds are only there for an instant, then they're gone. If they were random and unconnected, you'd not remember them, and not be able to predict them, and it wouldn't be music as you know it. But if each tiny instant has some connection to the one before and the one after, we can entrain ourselves to this string of instants and share in a way of experiencing time. My grandpa then defined music as a way of connecting sound and silence in time.

* * *

My uncle was talking about the pilgrims and how they believed in predetermination as far as who was getting into heaven. But their version of fate had this weird twist where earthly behavior, though it could not have any bearing on one's future after death, could reliably be taken as a reflection of that future. So if you go to church and live a pious life, it must be because you are one of those chosen few to begin with.

* * *

My grandpa told me about how amazed he is that the earth is in just the right place to sustain life. Not too hot, not too cold, enough water, and a good atmosphere. I told him I agreed, sort of, but also that the very basis of our conversation was the life that earth makes possible. The odds seem low, that is, but who could talk about those odds but us lucky few who are on a planet in which atoms can combine into people and not just rocks?

* * *

Point B: Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics.

Shitty Food for Shitty People, Episode 12: APBizza

2008-11-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

APB: Avocado, Pepperoni, and Banana. I should tell you right now: this isn't very good.

Turn on your oven
Smoosh up an avocado and a banana in a bowl with some salt and lime juice, like you were gonna make some kind of gross-ass banana guacamole or maybe like some real weird baby food or something.
Take all the imitation pepperoni off a Tombstone pepperoni pizza and stack it up and cut it into smaller bits (I bet it would be even better if you used bacon instead though, maybe then it would push it over the edge of actually being pleasant)
Stir those in with the gross banana and avocado paste
Put that shit all on top of the pizza
Try to hide the shame by grating some more cheese over top, like say some Swiss and some Cheddar or something like that.
Bake it and eat some of it (you will probably get sick of it after you get 2/3 done, and then you should just probably throw the rest away, because, I mean, are you really gonna eat that? I mean, it isn't very good.)

See though, dear reader, I fucking hate bananas. I know they are so good for me so I make myself eat them, but they are disgusting and awful. So here was a way to trick me into eating them by mixing them with things I love. Because why should my nutritional decisions be based on Taste? Fuck Taste. Taste is boring and predictable. I propose the following alternatives to the outmoded idea of Taste as a decision-making tool vis-à-vis what you're gonna eat:

Will I vomit?
If so, how much?
Is it cheap?
Is it funny?
Can I make a blog entry out of it?
Will it take long enough to fill up the time I am trying to waste?
And what of its nutritional value?
Will it make me feel good about myself?
What's it look like?
How long will it make me not have to eat again for?
Does it have a name that sounds cool?
How fast can I eat it, in case I have to eat it really fast to get full before I fully realize it is disgusting?
Is it biodegradable?
Do I gotta worry about what happens on the other end of the ol' GI tract?
Later on in the next day or two can I eat something that actually tastes good?
What color is it?
What time is it?
Seriously?
Fuck, gotta go, bye.

Two (2) revelations about the future

2008-11-26T00:06:00.001-08:00

1. In the future, it is no longer up to you whether what you've just said is or isn't a joke.

2. The future is now.

Corollary 1-9A: We don't have to think stuff like Shakespeare comedies or 'I Love Lucy' are funny now. It's ok not to laugh.

Corollary 12: This kid made the funniest joke, and he didn't even know it.

spwned

2008-11-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

This is a thing we invented Saturday where you sneak up behind someone and spoon them and hopefully snap a picture too. Then they have been spwned.* But have they have become "the littlest spoon?" This is a matter of some dispute.

Also, there is a secret way of giving five where you make your hands spoon.

Spwnman. Cum 2gether w yr hanzz.

Figure 12: Spwned

Figure 12b:Spwned.?.

Figure 12c: 5PWN3D!!!!11

* The internet claims that "spwn" is some kind of video game thing, but I'm pretty sure we have made that meaning obsolete.

Do you love me?

2008-11-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

Laffy Taffy

2008-11-21T10:09:00.000-08:00

Whachu readin' on?

2008-11-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

Skelly remembers...

2008-11-17T10:07:00.000-08:00

Dear would-be guacamole makers who don't have any lemon or lime juice but DO have some frozen lemonade concentrate,

2008-11-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

Listen: I had an avocado, and some chips, so naturally I figured I'd make me a little guac. Now I know everybody's got a way to make it, but for me it is mainly a matter of avocados and salt. Sure, if I have some garlic I'll put that in there, some cilantro or some sour cream or even some tomatoes or onions or something. But I had none of that on hand. The one thing I thought I did have was some lemon or lime juice, which I like for guacamole, because it makes it not turn brown so fast (I think maybe this has to do with.. science...?). This is where my terrible mistake happened. I had no lemon juice, but I had a little lemonade concentrate in the freezer (you know, to make lemonade with). I thought, sure, it's sweet, but it also has lemon juice, right? So if I just use a little it won't be so bad?

Fuckin' WRONG, my friends. That shit tasted like lemon cupcakes. It was so gross, even my pride (which makes me eat just the most awful shit if I'm the one who cooked it) made it so I could only dip like four chips in there and tell myself it wasn't that bad before myself was like, it IS that bad, and I just threw that bullshit away.

DON'T DO IT.

Sincerely,
Matty Lite

An old man's possessions are cut in half

2008-11-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

I had the following revelation

2008-11-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

Just out of nowhere it popped into my head: Kermit the frog must have been riding fixed gear in that scene in the first Muppet Movie where he's biking through the park (damn you youtube for not having it). That way the pedals would keep going and his feet would go up and down with them, so it would look like he was pedalling, even though he is not an alive animal but a puppet.

Figure 12: This bike is unusual

Of course this is the internet and so like 1000 people have already had this same revelation.

Us and Them and Him and Here and There

2008-11-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

Well I am no political expert, you know, but I noticed this thing about Obama's acceptance speech that I thought was interesting. It seemed like his speech had kind of two climactic moments, both of which were encapsulated in a three-word phrase. About halfway through it was "we'll get there," and then at the end it was "yes we can."

"We'll get there" is my favorite. First off, we never know quite exactly where "there" is. So that's kind of nice, because it involves the listener in inventing their own there. Also, it is such a flexible phrase, to be found in exasperation by some parents to some kids in the back seat, in the desperate promise of a repentant lover, reassuringly from teacher to baffled student, in resignation by the leader of a slow-moving group, or even sidesteppingly by a slacker who would rather defer blame for a later day than face it head on.

"Yes we can" is similar in its vagueness and its catch-all quality: the go-to retort to "No you can't," the simple proclamation of simple entitlement, the mantra of the little engine that could and I'd imagine the hope-against-hope mantra of plenty of little engines that couldn't, the gambit of the motivational speaker, even the rallying cry of the willfully apathetic.

I like to imagine a Venn diagram for who the "we" (and its compadre the "they") is in both of these phrases. The way Obama talks makes the "we" region comparatively huge, and the election results are evidence enough that the majority of voting Americans reside there in "we"-land. But then I think maybe the most clever line of the speech puts a bigger bubble around "we" and "they": "And for those who did not vote for me I will still be your president." First off, this change of voice turns the grammatical subjects "we" and "they" into the political subjects "us" and "them" (grammatically, Obama becomes the subject, his 'subjects' become the object). Then by subsuming both under the presidency, Obama is able to say at the same time 'I will still listen to you,' but also 'you better do what I say because I'm the motherfuckin' president and I'm takin' ya there like it or not!' Boo-ya!

Figure 12: Some Political Topology

Soundtrack for this post generously provided by:

There's no accountin' for taste

2008-11-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

They probably should have coordinated on this.

2008-11-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

Critique of Pure Reason, Part VII

2008-10-29T22:38:00.001-07:00

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I think I better ask first.

Critique of Pure Reason, Part VI

2008-10-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

A stitch in time saves nine.

How you think the first plushy hit upon the first glory hole?

The Ass-Cam

2008-10-29T17:04:00.000-07:00