devil's plaything

2004-12-10T02:20:00.000-08:00

alas, we have finally reached the end of our time here at blogspot. time to be a good microsoft employee and leave googles adopted bastard child in the dust. please join me at our wonderful, brand new msn provided space at:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/greatstink.

blogger.com, to you and your evil parents, i wish you all the worst failures imaginable. you may be on top at the moment, but i look forward to the day when msn looks down upon your quivering corpse, chuckling, wondering what you were thinking trying to act like competition. death to google! long live msn!

o yea, one more thing ... thanks for hosting me and my thoughts for the past five months. au revoir ...

2004-12-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

its kind of like school a little bit, being this busy at work, having a deadline looming, vacation coming soon ... i guess some of you just went through something similar, or are in the process of doing so. i really feel good about what i do now though, even when my PM finds a million things wrong with everything i checkin. cause i can fix everything he brings up and i have a yes for it all. thats what matters right? so i finished the website today. tomorrow i have to do some changes to my thing i thought i was done with. day or two of that. then its on to the last big hurdle, a whole application to write in a week. we will see how i do, could involve some night and/or weekend work. bit of an inconvenient weekend, since john and corey are headed to portland and it would be fun to go. ah well. cant have it all right? i had some barbecue tonight, it was actually pretty good. not texas good, nowhere near memphis good (mmmm), but the best ive had outside those two places. some really bad blues band was playing in the restaurant, it was upsetting, cause i love a good blues band. i dont claim to be any expert, but blues is all in the guitar and the voice. if you have one or the other youve got a good start. you have both, youre a legend. you have neither like these clowns in the restaurant, youre just annoying background noise. but the food was good and i ate too much and got bloated ... like home again. i really cant wait to be home again. i miss my house. i miss my family. i miss my dog. i miss my friends. i miss just the feeling of texas. i miss breakfast tacos. i miss mexican food. i miss dodging 18-wheelers on i35. i miss thunderstorms. i miss the hot sun.

its nice to know i still miss these things. i dont really miss them in a sad way anymore, just an "awwww" way, brings a little smile to my face, like seeing kids excited in the malls before christmas, or playing with a puppy or kitten. its a real simple emotion. i like simple emotions, ones i know the source of, i know i should feel, and i know ill never have to pretend dont exist. and yet, if all feelings were that simple, then what would i have to ponder laying in bed late at night. maybe god made the world the way it is, put us all in the situations were in, put us with the people were with. maybe he really does have his hand in our lives in ways noone could imagine. maybe he gives us these sensations of affection, of optimism, of pessimism, of short-lived happiness, of failed endeavours, all just so we have things to think about. perhaps he knows wed go mad otherwise, if every situation worked out the way we wanted. you can only think "wow, im lucky" or "this is great" so many times before it turns passe. but give me something i screwed up, sometihing i dont understand, something that might work, something i feel will work but never does, something that slowly and completely slips through my fingers, and that can roll around my noggin endlessly for nights and days and weeks and months. and then when good things happen its like wow, look how much bvetter this feels then everything else, and you can lie there and appreciate that more truly. more things to ponder, and i know id go insane without it, im guessing you would too, even if you sleep alot and claim not to spend much time in useless self-assesment. so gods really looking out for us by making us "suffer". think about it, it makes sense.

alternatively, maybe its all just random, people meet each other randomly, the law of averages says some good things happen, some bad things happen. and we all just float through life making it day to day trying to feel the happiest we can at any given moment. survival of the most satisfied. if thats the case, looks like ill be going the way of the dodo bird. man i love the dodo bird. is anyone really surprised they went extinct? its was called dodo. not a good start. it actually had the nerve to evolve backward, from a flighted bird to a flightless one, just cause it found an easy place to live and it got too lazy to fly. surprisingly, that didnt turn out to be the brightest idea. i think of the dodo whenever i want to devolve back into a pile of goo, or more reasonably, a monkey. they got life pretty easy, huh? sit in a cage at the zoo, play with yourself, eat and poop. how can you beat that? we say we evolved into a more advanced species. maybe, but i dont know that our quality of life is that much better. monkeys dont have to mess around with abstract thought or senseless emotions. whenever they wonder hmm i wonder why this is like that, they get distracted by a bodily function and move on. hmmm, speaking of which ...

2004-12-05T02:30:00.000-08:00

what am i missing exactly? somebody tell me. and then tell me how to get it. i want it now! just once. please. i dont think its too much to ask. ive tried and waited long enough. now its matts turn. dammit.

2004-12-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

so i was going to move to spaces.msn.com to set up my new blog until i tried it and found out that everyone has to sign up for passport account to leave comments. i find this lame and im sure those of you without a hotmail or msn account would not enjoy it much either. so i dont know if i will make the move or not, we will see.

in other news, i dont think the steph situation is going to work out ever. i get the distinct impression that there is no reciprocal feelings and i dont see them developing. its quite disappointing, but hey, life goes on. shes still my favorite person in seattle and a whole lot of fun as a friend, and thats gotta be worth something. so thats all there is to say about that. well, assuming youre like me and dont believe in miracles. if one occurs, youll be the first to know. we wont discuss how much optimism can suck the life out of a man. instead, we will fold clothes. goodbye.

2004-12-02T02:13:00.000-08:00

the ronco knives are out of control cool. my new favorite infomercial of the current day. "youll chop onions so fast you wont even have time for tears. the only tears youll have are tears of joy." i agree. if i had those knives i would cut everything. just cause i could. imagine the possibilities.

that is all tongiht. hehe i said id share a thought a day, i didnt say how long theyd be. look for some changes coming soon including a new address for my space. courtesy of msn. might take a little time to get the motivation though, so dont hold your breath. unless it stinks. cause noone like halitosis. thats what its called right? bad breath. hold it.

2004-12-01T00:57:00.000-08:00

so its not that i dont like working with people. i do. i like the interaction, i like getting help, i like the input and the education that comes iwth it. but i really dont like depending on other people to do my work. i was never great at group projects in school for that reason. i work on my own schedule, i get things done as i do them, and when im ready to do something, i like to be able to just do it. so when i have to wiat on my program manager to get me something, and he takes over four weeks to do it, it really bugs me. i spend two weeks making this website like forever ago, then wait for the UI spec, and then its completely out of my mind. he gives it to me today, and now they want it done as soon as possible, cause code complete was supposed to be the end of the week. yea, not gonna happen. not my fault though so i dont feel too too bad about it.

work is cool though. i like it. im pretty consistently busy these days, which is perfect. days fly by, weeks fly by, then weekends are fun. its really what a job should be. i enjoy what i do, im doing well at it, and theres very little stress and pressure involved. some people i know complain about their job, say they dont feel like theyre making a big enough impact on the world, that theyre overloaded, blah blah. i dont need a big impact, i dont care about changing the world, ya know? my ambitions arent that high. i mean if i end up in the situation, and im sure i will at some point in my microsoft lifetime, where i am working on an important commercial product with real visible financial impact, i will be trapped in solid product cycles, stress everywhere, constant changes ... it will be a blast. but till then ill stay in my cushy little position, work my 9-10 hours a day, and feel good about myself. and drink mountain dew. lots and lots of dew. i think im getting a dew gut hehe. shhh dont tell anyone.

two signs its december. first, the date at the top of this post says december 1st. second, i just saw the m&ms/santa commercial. he does exist. they do exist. man i love christmas m&ms. or just christmas altogether. i was going to buy lights and decorations, but im afraid ill blow out my fuse again. my guess is they didnt have big electric bulbs when this place was wired. but i think i will buy a wreath. i need some spirit. i love spirit. i will go shopping this weekend for fun knick knacks for gifts for people. then i will be spirited. what do you want? nothing? cool, ill get you one of those.

2004-11-30T01:44:00.000-08:00

"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see."

man ive been sitting here trying to figure out what to say about this quote for like two hours. watching family guy (when you wish upon a weinstein), seinfeld (clip shows, 2 of them), daily show and simpsons. its gotten me nowwhere. i really like this quote though. its from rene magritte, a surrealist author and painter in the twentieth century. he was describing a painting called the son of man, with an apple hiding the face of an otherwise visible man. i think its kind of an interesting idea. im not exactly an overly curious guy, ive never been one to pry in other peoples affairs, spy on them, sneak through their mail or diaries or anything to find out secrets. but its cool to think of the fact that theres always more out there, you know? sure, physically this is an obvious thing. a wall hides the outside, a lid hides the inside, masks hide the ugly, ummm something else hides the pretty. you get the idea. but its kind of true in the abstract as well. everything you do in life hides something else that you could possibly be doing or have done. and arent we all pretty curious as to what is hidden by life? everytime you ask "what if", thats essentially what youre asking. what is being hidden? its an interesting exercise, even if futile and useless. im still stuck on that course from time to time. see, i love where i am right now. i love this city, i love my job, i love my apt, i love my few but good friends. its really a great situation. i mean obviously its not perfect. i miss things about the other life i used to live. i miss the simplicity, i miss the people, i miss the culture. so i think, what if opportunities had come different. what if my life had stayed in texas with my friends there. it would have been fun i think. but would i have been as happy there? would i have the same satisfaction? i dont think i would. it was fun, but i think im glad i moved on. even with everything i miss. i think when i first moved out here, my emotions hid the accomplishments i was making. i think i fooled myself by only seeing the difficulties and uncomfortable loneliness of it. but as was pointed out to me recently, ive made a pretty good name for myself in the few months ive been here. im pretty happy. there are things i want, things i may or may not get. but who knows, maybe by focusing on those i am missing something else in life. maybe i should look for the things that my current feelings are hiding ...

nah. i dont think so. abstract thinking sucks. i want what i want. now give it to me. pretty please.

ps. written on a key lime, a sex in the city, a playboy, and a kingston
pps. those are martinis
ppps. with steph :-)

pppps. still nothing :-(

2004-11-28T22:22:00.000-08:00

five day weekends rock. vistors rock. it felt kind of like old times again, hanging out with mary and teresa. i loved it. and now im left with starting to miss them all over again. you know? like its not that i stopped missing them, but its always more difficult right at the beginning. and then you see them again and then you say goodbye again, and its all repeated. but we had fun here. touristed around, got stuck in the rain, got blown off the needle, ate well, shopped well, danced well. or they did. i just danced regular hehe.

i posted a few photos of their visit, as well as alot of pictures of the sunset from my window or just down the road. i cant get over the beauty of these sunsets up here. i used to think the view i got from my apartment was just a fringe benefit, but now its an everyday source of peace. even in the clouds, in the rain, i just cant get enough of it. take a look at them and youll understand. someday i will buy a boat and go out on the water on days like those, just float around and stare at the sunsets. just chill out there, clear the mind, and enjoy the beauty.

im still pretty exhausted from everything this weekend. sleep on the couch is a bit less restful, tourism is tiring and other things are mentally draining. so now i will try to sleep in order that the week might start on productively. however, i do have some good news. some may have noticed my recent slacking on this blog of mine. i will attempt to make up for this betrayal of my audience by posting a thought every night this week. i cant promise they will be good or interesting, for it appears i have a one track mind this day. but with work starting to get a little more pressure, the holidays coming and who knows what else, we will see what comes of it. so tune in.

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2004-11-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

sing it in motion

2004-11-28T21:47:00.001-08:00

follow this star to macys

2004-11-28T21:47:00.000-08:00

christmas in the northwest is a gift god wrapped in green

2004-11-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

mmmm ... herbivores and carnivores combine to make a wonderful thanksgiving meal

2004-11-28T21:44:00.000-08:00

i almost blew off the top of the needle, but luckily there were a couple folks there to hold me down

2004-11-28T21:42:00.002-08:00

one of the prettiest sights these eyes have seen in a long long time ...

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2004-11-25T01:55:00.000-08:00

i love my visitors and am never letting them leave. they are now seattlers. MY seattlers. so if you ever want to see them again youll just have to come be a seattler too. but do it in the summer when the rain doesnt dampen the plans. tomorrow we cook and eat. friday we shop and dance. saturday they try to leave. if they succeed, i will cry. but they wont, so i will keep them here. they can get a job at a coffee shop or down at the market. we will all live in my apartment. it will be wonderful. i love my visitors.

2004-11-16T01:09:00.000-08:00

o yea, and the new mustang ... freakin sweet. i really like it. and i havent liked mustangs in a long long time. so you know its gotta be good if i can put aside my prejudice against mustangs and say its pretty. pretty freakin sweet. check it out.

2004-11-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

i got my dvr today. its lots of fun. i can rewind and pause stuff im watching. and record things while i watch other things. its fun. very fun. plus the guide is alot better to use, faster, cooler. yay. only 9 bucks a month more, i think ill get good use out of it. if only to record the basketball games that start at 5 oclock my time. dont think ill get nba league pass though, just dont think ill be able to watch it enough. cause i am going to start going to one of my gyms here pretty soon. or both. havent decided yet really. see, heres the thing with my gyms. i pay 15 bucks a month to be in both gyms, only cause one is a five minute walk from my apt and the other is right by work. and one is huge and has pools and everything. but the other has the same cardio equipment and weights and stuff. and its right by my apt. but the other is right by work and has the stuff as ive described. but having two is kind of a waste. and ive never really been against driving places. but then again the other one is generally really crowded i think. i dont know cause i never go. so the one close by might be useful for that. its one of those tough adult decisions. maybe ill just waste the 15 bucks and be in both. that way i dont have to make a decision. more time to record things on my dvr. like everybody loves raymond. a hilarious show i never knew was so funny until recently. it really is funny.

i went for a walk on sunday morning, really early. it was quite nice actually. i walked around capitol hill a little, just thrrough the neighborhoods and stuff. then i walked across the highway down to the market. it was still really early so the market wasnt open yet, but people were getting all set up, the bakeries and restaurants were making their breakfast so the smell was just wonderful. hustle and bustle of activity that you dont see when everyones there shopping. walked up pine and pike streets. big christmas setups already starting at the bigger department stores exteriors. dont remember if it was nordstroms or macys that had the candy canes all set up and everything, but it was kind of cool. stopped in at starbucks for a juice and a cinammon roll (still dont drink coffee, so ha! to all you shmucks who said id be drinking coffee within a few months of being in seattle). then wandered home as the sun was rising behind the clouds. what a cool city, even when noone else is up and out. a lucky couple of folks get to find that out next week. awww yea.

2004-11-13T18:59:00.000-08:00

apartment clean. finally. took one of those gross discoveries to finally get on it. i found a glass that used to have orange juice in it. now it had green juice. mmmm. cleaning ensued.

last night we went down to pioneer square: me, corey, john, steph and trish. really the group of people i enjoy hanging out with the most. there are other people i know here and hang out with and its generally fun. but this group is kind of my best friends in a sense, at least my best seattle friends. we always have fun going out on the town, or eating, or sitting around watching a whole dvd of family guy at a time. its kind of an interesting group too. so im ok with having a small number of good friends. there is kind of a problem with the situation though. now without going into details, i have a slight thing for steph. ok maybe more than slight. not a problem in itself, right? well it isnt and it is. see im having real trouble reading this girl as to her interest in me. so some say go for it and youll find out, which also doesnt seem like a bad idea. but then the danger arises that things could get "weird". which could be very unfortunate for our little group here, because pretty much everything i do is with that group. and if i make it uncomfortable, things could get bad. so i am working in my own wannabe stealth mode, trying to put out all the clues i can for her to pick up. and then i wait for the sign. theres gotta be a sign right? ace of base saw it, and it opened up their eyes. you know, the sign that there is or isnt a possibility. then i either act or revert the feelings back inside. nothing i havent done before i guess. however, there are risks with this strategy. such as she doesnt pick up on the clues and does have interest and then thinks i dont. or she meets someone better than me. which isnt tough to imagine. risks in both strategies, but i think this is the one i have to follow. i just have too much fun with her and them and everyone to risk it. and who knows what can happen, right? stay tuned.

2004-11-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

i just never get anything done outside of work. im so lazy with everything. not lazy enough to sleep, but lazy enough to leave clothes everywhere, dirty dishes everywhere, eat junk. its absurd, the state of my home life. and doesnt look like it will be taken care of anytime soon. so we went to the basketball game on sunday and had fun. so we got the cool game seven pack of tickets. wednesday is the first of those game against the kings. coming up in the future is lebron and the cavs, kobe and the lakers, shaq and the heat, the spurs, the pistons, and the rockets. fun stuff. im excited. i love basketball. speaking of which, im getting dvr on monday. which means i can record stuff and whatnot. which means i might get nba league pass! spurs games! yeaaaaaaaaahhhhh! maybe. havent decided for sure yet. fun toys if it works out though.

if only i had the energy to play with the toys i already had. doom 3 hasstill only been played twice. and now to find out that half life two comes out this month. an halo 2 is out now. but i dont play any of them, i just bum or go out instead. too bumto play games, who woulda thought. baically im just really bum right now. need something to juvenate me. not sure what that is. well, i can think of a couple things that might bring some life into normal life here. still dreams at this point. hmm, dreams. dreaming might help too. but that means sleep, and im allergic to that. maybe ill just start doing crack instead. crackheads dont care about messes or what they eat. crackheads rule.

2004-11-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

so yea, i figured out the picture posting thing. neato. enjoy. someday ill start taking some real pictures with my new toy. and share them. but for now, its all baby clara, all the time.

and thats all for now. cause i dont feel like anything else. bye.

2004-11-08T01:00:00.000-08:00

theres no crying in baseball!

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mine!

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what do babies dream about anyway?

2004-11-08T00:54:00.000-08:00

umm, not hooray

2004-11-08T00:53:00.001-08:00

hooray!

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family photo

2004-11-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

grandma makes clara smile

2004-11-04T02:13:00.000-08:00

and what is with all this uniting stuff? what does that mean? lets all unite behind president bush and the republicans. what does that mean? does that mean agree with them? suddenly like him? do what he says? i dont understand it at all. how can we unite? did you not notice how ununited we are? how separated people ideologies are, coasts versus middle, north versus south. lets ask everyone to unite magically. heres theone thing we all agree on that we can unite behind. everyone thinks half the country is wrong and unreasonably so. so lets unite unite unite. grrr. if i hear it one more time im gonna unite cnn with my fist.

2004-11-04T01:46:00.000-08:00

sorry i was a bit too depressed last night to post this. so yea, election didnt work out so well. im firmly of the belief that democrats would win if they could just get their people to actually show up. see, theres alot of them, but theyre all either busy or lazy. whereas your bible-thumpin red folks dont miss a chance to ban gay marriage. which honestly i believe is why bush won the poipular vote. that issue brought peple out. cause if kerry was in there, the moral fabric of america would be lost among a sea of married gay people. noone cares about the awful economy, hopefess social security, failing war efforts, the couple trillion dollars that have been added to national debt over the past few years ... just gotta make sure we dont offend god. all go to hell or something. remarkable. all i can say is im glad i live so close to canada. when this conservative experiment all goes to crap, i have my escape planned out. what are you gonna do? get drafted? sucka!!

whatever, i got basketball, football, movies, and a fresh weekend coming up ... who cares about thre real world?

2004-10-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

cutest. thing. ever.

2004-10-31T21:56:00.000-08:00

im in a mental slump of some sort at the moment. i dont really know what it is. i feel drained. it could be the lack of sleep i got this weekend, for all the wrong reasons. or it could be nothing, which is what i choose to believe. tis just me i guess.

the halloween costume(s) worked out nicely this weekend. friday night i had to get something together real fast which consisted of bad old clothes from goodwill and a fake afr and pink glasses. till someone decided they didnt like the glasses and smashed them to pieces. the joker costume was awesome. im very proud of it. wish i had gotten better pictures, but it was pretty cool. certainly the best costume ive ever had. party was fun, but not as fun as some other things. part of the slump. but a good measure of malibu later, it got better. too much rum this weekend if were being completely honest. some good costumes out in the world though. like indiana jones. ali g. nurses. maids (none quite as hot as a certain maid i know from a year ago). and cute bumblebees.

bought a camera finally, so were going to have to find a photo-hosting solution sooner rather than later. assuming i ever remember to take pictures of anything. i spend my whole life not taking pictures, its a tough habit to break. its a tiny little thing, a very nice piece of technology. id take a picture of it for you but, you know, its a camera. the one thing itll never get a good shot of is itself.

very important week in life i think. cynics will tell you that elections dont really matter that mcuh, that your just choosing between a "douche and a turd sandwich" (south park). anyway, ive talked about my feelings on it all. it all just seems so obvious to me. cant really figure out how anyone could come to other conclusions. on a local level, i dont know anything about our local candidates, even for senate and congress and stuff. guess ill just be lazy and do party lines on that. some other things that could change here in the state of washington: 1% higher sales tax to make some school fund (booo), slot machines allowed in "non tribal gambling establishments" (why not), public school funds going to charter schools (never liked this idea), and some weird change to the primary system where two candidates are chosen without any reference to party, so like two democrats could be nominated and run against each other in the general election (just weird, dont think i like this either). nothing too exciting. i wish we had some fun same-sex marriage referendum or stem cell or something like that. were boring though.

three hours of aqua teen coming up in a bit. im in heaven. makes me wish i had tivo, i would never delete it. maybe ill fall asleep watching it. that would be divine. yes, id even sacrifice aqua teen at this point for sleep. how lame am i. or normal. either way, i dont like it.

i do know this feeling. the mental slump. its like, in school, when you spend too much time working on one thing, like studying for too long about a single subject, or reading horribly boring chapters of a history textbook. and your brain is just frazzled, and is like hey, i dont want to think about this anymore, soill shut down completely. the question is why is that sensation here on a sunday when i havent thought about anything since friday afternoon ... well, thats not entirely accurate i suppose ... ok ok. it all makes sense. im honestly still a child. back in high school, not knowing how to make the moves i want to make. humorous really.

i just blew my nose and the snot was green. which doesnt seem like a big surprise, except it was bright green. like my hair coloring last night. whcih means i inhaled the aerosol. yummy. hmmm alright, forget what i said before. the mental slump thing? ive found the cause. hair coloring in the brain. this is your brain. this is your brain on green hair color aerosol spray.

2004-10-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

today, my car odometer hit 38900. not a very exciting number when taken by itself. however, when it switched, i looked at my clock, and it was exactly 900 am. so i did what anyone would do. i drove at exactly 60 miles an hour so that the odometer would change every minute on the minute. sure it wasnt exact, but it was close, and it was fun. led zepplin helped me along. cant beat that in the morning. hey mama said the way you move gonna make you shake gonna make you groove. and shes buying a stairway to heaven.

and some other stuff too. im bored with typing.

2004-10-27T14:58:00.001-07:00

Important advice for all women.

2004-10-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

the little things in life make me smile. like getting my electricity bill in the mail at long last. seems that i only get billed once every two months. guess how much it was. guess. guess. $11.72. for two months. far cry from the 150-200 bucks at crossing place. yes, its the little things. like driving home late enough to have totally clear roads, on a crisp october evening, with reel big fish blaring through the speakers and the breeze blowing through your open window. like mac and cheese, hot dogs on the foreman grill, a shiner bock and three hours of law and order. like waking up as the sun sets then going to sleep as the sun rises. like dancing at an after hours club till almost four am and hearing that one random techno song you actually know mixed in to everything else. try it. any of them. you wont be disappointed.

you may recall at one point in my life i said i would be making my own website. i lied. i hate web development. its quite annoying. however, with any luck i will figure out the picture function of this blog sometime soon. there are some priceless images of niece clara. and i am going to make the plunge and get a digital camera next paycheck or two. so we will add photos to our existing words. and i wont have to make a website. cause thats annoying stuff. except when i get paid to do it i guess.

2004-10-23T04:15:00.001-07:00

another week, another weekend. another tired night, another sleepless night. theres just too much my brain has to do i guess. i went out the past two nights and had fun. theres a bit of a limitation on my whole life at this point though. i have certain hangups that preclude me from getting the most out of my nights on the town. mainly, i have no concept of how to approach people i dont know. i dont dance particularly well. im not overwhelmingly attractive. i have no good pickup lines, nothing that distinguishes me from anyone else. im a lost fish in a big ocean. my two good friends i go out with most times, john and corey, dont seem to have this issue. theyre quite comfortable with the unknown, with random strangers. always ready with a bit of wit, a bit of conversation. all the poeple i meet are because of them, not really my doing at all. they have something to get started. i just dont have it. guess im just not comfortable enough in my own skin. im a loser at heart, what can i say.

there is something i do have. and im not sure what to do about it. girls really have all the advantages. i mean, i guess theres guy advantages too, but in the grand scheme of thigns, girls have it made. the social experiment is own by the females. males just kind of try to get whatever piece they can. ive found a piece. im overwhelmed with anxiety about it though, becuase i dont think its reciprocal at this point. its just fun, nothing more. which is ok. but of course i cant be satisfied with that. i have this annoying habit of taking things too far in my mind and wanting more, always. "why is it i fall in love with every girl that pays me the least bit of attention?" i dont know. maybe its really nothing. and maybe it will never progress. it wont be the firs ttime i wished for something tht couldnt or didnt happen. maybe i just dont really know what the hell i think about these things. or maybe im just too insecure to ever find out if these things could or could not be true. or maybe its all in my perpetual overtthinking. maybe i just need to sleep.

maybe i shoudl jsut be one of those wonderful tools that fill up the club scene these days. they always seem to have females around them. blah. one of these days ill just accept what i am and stop trying to be something else. but i always think that this something else is what will put me over the top, get me back in a situation where i am truly happy and fulfilled. like if i can turn a little into something else, ill be just what someone else wants. all falls back into my propensity into jealousy. virtually every guy friend i have, i am jelous of something about them. whether its their talent, thier personality, their skills, their friends, whatever. always something they have that i dont have. where is that satisfaction with ones self that could lead me out of my funk and into the real social world? or is this just where i will always be, and until i find someone as insecure as me, i just continue in my sidekick role. i dont know.

ramble ramble ramble. none of this is necessarily what i really belive. im both tired and slightly inebriated. so thats a recipe for mental disaster. im going to pretend to sleep now. then kil lmy sleep scheduel even more by sleeping all day long. four hours sleep a night gets kind of old after a whole week. god i hte my existence sometime. guess i relly dont have anything legitimate to complain about though. i have a good life. im just still lost in the world i live. not comfortable at all, even when i have fun. which i do. ill just concentrate on that. anything that comes or doesnt come from that, well, whatever. once again, my insecurity is topped only by my lethargy and detachment. yea, i know that doesnt make sense, except to me. man, i hope noone here in seattle knows about this blog. i cant see straight enough to edit out the embarassing parts of whatever ive just written. impossible dreams, come save me.

2004-10-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

i dont watch baseball. i dont like baseball. really, at all. i find it to be an incredible bore. except for the red sox in the playoffs. its remarkable. i cant get enough of them. maybe i identify a little with the pain of boston. i know a litlte something about cursed sports teams. anyway, they were dead and came back and now its tomorrow. game sevens in every sport are great. i promise. drama baby, drama.

movies coming this week: day after tomorrow, ladykillers and the beginning of my run of sopranos discs

itinerary is set for christmas vacation. coming in on the 23rd, staying until january 3rd. should be a blast. spend some time with the old crew, some time with the new niece, some time with my bro and bro and sis and bro-in-law. some christmas joy and new years debauchery. im quite excited. and its only a couple months away. but in between now and then is the highly anticipated visit of mary and teresa for thanksgiving. so so stoked.

ANOTHER family guy ive never seen! thats two this week!! what a successful life i leave!

i got my voter card in the mail today. im really starting to get intrigued as to what will happen. you know, i view it kind of as a sporting event. like, im really excited to see who wins. its real close right now. i still believe bush will win again, which i think sucks, and dont particularly want it to happen. but i am fairly confident that is what is going to happen. ive also realized that i am deteriorating into one of those selfish voters. which i think is one step away from being a republican. weird, huh. like, theres an initiative here in washington to raise the sales tax across the state a whole point to pay for school stuff. and im like hey, i dont have kids, why should i vote for that. thats bad, huh? cause, like, i dont want to live in a state with all poor dumb kids. but then im like, that could cost me like 20 bucks a month or smoething. so maybe i wait till i get married and have a kid, then vote for education then. see, im selfish. i also have a new selfish reason to not like bush. i fear a draft kind of. like, it doesnt seem too likely. but what if it happened? i aint fightin no war, thats all i gotta say. the good thing is i live real close to canada, so ill just run up there till it all blows over. start saving up some cash just in case, you know, the rainy day fund, all that.

man, did you see jon stewart on crossfire? totally ripped them. completely right in everything he said, completely honest about how theyre all just partisan hacks with dishonest debate, propagating the dishonest atmosphere in politics. and then he called someone a dick. o man, good stuff.

i find its impossible for me to come up with and maintain coherent thoughts these days. except as i lie in bed not sleeping. then things run through my head at warp speed. past, present, wishes, desires, dreams, annoyances, plans, arguments, memories, everything. but then around four when i fall asleep, they all go away. and i have nothing great to say about them. its basically a dream. i had a funny dream the other night. i kept falling over trying to walk. i was trying to carry on a conversation with someone, im not sure who it was, someone i really wanted to talk to. but he/she kept walking so i was trying to keep up, but i kept falling over. frustrating. i hate falling over.

anyway, early morning trip to jify lube in the morning for an oil change. im about a month late on it. im terrible to my poor car. someday it will just give up on me. please dont pretty baby. i looooove you.

2004-10-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

it was a bust of a weekend, really. except for the movie watching, which was spectacular. we had caddyshack and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind off the blockbuster line, then from tv we had top gun, cliffhanger, my cousin vinny, sweet home alabama (shut up, it was just on) and princess bride. good entertainment. the nights werent that great .. well they were fun while they lasted, they just got cut off kind of early. anyway, no need to go into details. we did have an incident involving some dancing with some older ladies. not real old, but really older than me. it was actually really funny. they were playing these old school songs. and i had never heard them, but they knew all the words. and we were tring to guess how old theyd have to be to know all the words to songs we had never heard of. pretty old is the conclusion we came to. then i slipped on a step. shamed.

im gonna make a kickin joker for halloween. jack nicholson eat your heart out. costume rentals are much better than frogs coming out of your bloody shirt. i will long for sexy cats and french maids though. sigh.

i had more to say. some things on my mind. but theyll have to wait for another day, because i am not feeling verbose tonight. my apologies. dont fret though, ill try to work something thoughtful up between law and order episodes tomorrow night.

2004-10-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

here are some pictures of the baby and the happy mom and dad. so cute.

https://webspace.utexas.edu/mdtucker/DSC00158.JPG
https://webspace.utexas.edu/mdtucker/DSC00156.JPG
https://webspace.utexas.edu/mdtucker/DSC00161.JPG

2004-10-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

my sister had her baby tonight. im very very excited. uncledom rocks. little clara jennifer fueglein, eight pounds four ounces. perfectly healthy. yay! i cant wait till i get to see the baby. i cant wait. im so happy for my sister and brother in law. im happy for my parents who get to be grandparents. im just happy. once i get pictures i will of course share them with the world. excitement!

quick hits before bed:
1) i need halloween costume ideas. as witnessed by last years umm, creative inspiration, i can not be trusted with coming up with costumes. it is vital that something is thought of before it is too late.

2) politics are getting serious. i got the state voting guide in the mail today. last debate was tonight. im actually watching a replay of the debate right now. bush has that stupid arrogant smirk on his face the whole time. hes so damn smug. how did he get the label of "likeable"? and why would they both wear red ties? i thought you were trying to distinguish yourselves from each other?? geez, get a clue.

3) some good movies in the mail. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, thankfully brought up on marys website, is coming. that is one of the most remarkable and satisfying movie experiences ive had in years. i cant wait to see it again. farenheit 9/11 to satisfy my curiosity and political nature. we will see if it is as honest and compelling as his last one. o, and i saw my first movie since moving up here last night. friday night lights. very good movie, if you like football. or football movies. roy made a cameo, i was stoked. really good movie, even better being from texas. shows the insanity of high school football in small towns down there. can you imagine every living in that environment? it was bad enough in converse, i cant imagine a place like odessa. good luck keeping your sanity there. anyway, im glad to be back in the movie scene. next week is the puppet movie from south park people. o man. thats going to be hilarious.

4) programming is fun again. learning some asp tricks and web methoding. i think it would be more fun if i slept more. but thats not really for me to decide i guess. things on my mind, blah blah. i hate my thoughts. pointless thoughts.

5) did i mention im an uncle?!? i love being an uncle!

2004-10-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

"breakfast taco? whats a breakfast taco?" those words still echo in my head. heres the situation. were just completed a fun night out on the town for another saturday. were all pretty tired, but hungry, so we hit minnies. minnies is this 24 hour diner down in belltown. mmm breakfast at 230. i was stoked, salivating mentally at the thought of a couple breakfast tacos ala jims or taco cabana back home. i get the menu. wheres the tacos? no tacos. no breakfast tacos. im crushed, and i say as much. then corey asks the question mentioned above. i cant believe first of all that this place doenst have breakfast tacos, but even more that someone doesnt know what one is. wow. i ate breakfast tacos like twice a week at least back in texas. what is better as drunken food than a breakfast taco? nothing. and some poeple have no idea about this. dont know what it is, or why they shoudl have them. remarkable. i thought the culture shock of the northwest was over, but i guess you still run into these things from time to time.

now that was the second time i missed texas terribly this weekend. ou weekend made me long for the days of college. old enough now that i would be able to fully enjoy the whole weekend, i know i would have had a blast. i miss my college football life. those games were some of the most fun things ever, and ou weekend was just an incredible environment. the game, the people, the fair, the everything about it. even losing all the time, i still left in awe of the whole thing. now heres my first time where thats far away. people cant understand why i would wake up at 9 am on a saturday after a sleepless week and a friday night out. its texas football! of course, they lost again. fruitless effort. really didnt even play as well as the score said, let that stupid kid run for a million yards. ah well, thats what happens. so i am upset about the game. then i do my best imitation of a girl and decide that shoppoing will make me feel better. express fall sale, holla! three pairs of jeans, a sweater, a belt and two shirts later, i do feel pretty good. its not like im not used to football misery.

somoene got into a bad accident this weekend. totalled her car. on the road that i drive on everyday. that is scary. i dont like it when other people get into accidents. when i do it, its fine. but when other people do it, i get scared. she didnt get hurt at all, by the way. but i dont see myself being that lucky if i was in an accident such as that. i dont see it happening, but i guess noone does until it does. be careful folks.

is it bad if i want to exercise just so that my legs dont hurt when i try to dance low? hehe. o yea, speaking of dancing, we were out friday night, and it was hilarious. like, theres this club we go to alot called j&m's, usualyl a fun place. good music, met some cool people there. but this friday, for some reason, the whole scene changed. like, it was full of some of the biggest tools ive ever seen in my life. now, i was tired from a week of no sleep, but i was still stoked about going out. when we got there though, i just had no desire to dance. did make fun of a lot of the people though. it was just absurd, i cant even describe these guys. so shady, but so funny. there are some disgusting people in every nightlife, but they all decided to go there for some reason. i think im taking a break from there, mgiht start a fight next time with some of my comments. tools tools everywhere.

you remember lewis blacks routine where he talked about hearing a quote that made no sense and it racking your brain? a hilarious routine. well i had a real one of those happen to me the other night. in an elevator, one girl says to the other: "you know that thing you get on your eye sometimes? i got that on my finger." wow. im still stumped.

2004-10-07T01:39:00.000-07:00

yea i know. im lame. i got everyone all used to these essays three or four times a week, about everything from bowel movements to home memories. you were all impressed with my rhetoric and my knack for capturing the interesting and thought-provoking elements in life and presenting them for your enjoyment. then i go and start slackin off. i get sick. i dont post. days and days go by, and people say where has matt gone? is he still alive? is there nothing left in the world to talk about? what has happened??

the answer is yes. i am dead. which is why i have had little or nothing to talk about. and i really still dont. dead people just dont have much to say. or people with electronics to play with. dvd recorder and dvd player, both shiny silver new. and dvds appearing in my mailbox at random. its great stuff. yesterday we watched pumping iron, the documentary with arnold swarzeneggar. o man, so funny. arnold is the most entertaining person alive, i swear. everything he says or does i find funny. especially young arnold. its the one with the infamous pot smoking scene, and of course, the scene where arnold compares lifting weights to sex, leading to the one of the funniest lines you will ever hear. body builders are so funny. then someone suggested we get the sequel, pumping iron 2, which is the same thing but with women body builders. but i had to draw the line there. arnold is funny, but i cant take those muscly women. gross. o and you know who else is in pumping ron? lou ferigno, the incredible hulk. so we imdb'ed lou ferigno for some reason and found out he is in some movie called miss castaway. now this piques my interest, and i go to learn a little more about it. and it is clearly one of the must-see movies. i am not even kidding. you know playmate of the apes, how funny and absurd that is? this is like that times ten, just without the nudity. visit the website at www.misscastaway.com, and youll see how important it is that someone buy this and i watch it. michael jackson is in it. for real. nuff said.

so yea, the pumping iron thing was off of the blockbuster online rental thing i signed up for at a deal cause im with msn. watched lewis black stuff today. i have big fish out waiting for me. and shawshank redemption just cause it doesnt show up on tnt quite enough for me. next time around ill get some farenheit 911 and then some caddyshack (i added today in tribute to rodney, how funny was he ... hes looked old for like a hundred years, but he was still funny. im a sucker for one-liners, what can i say). and then i got some tv shows coming, finally see the first three seasons of sopranos, first seson of curb your enthusiasm, got some family guy, some south park, some aqua teen, some sealab, and a whole bunch of standup dvds coming. then i will steal it all. because i have no morals. in fact, i think i want to steal them just to payback the industry for making me sit through those awful anti-piracy ads before movies where theyre saying that the set designer is going to go broke if i dont buy his dvd. man i hated those. back in my movie-going days. and yes, i still have not been in a theater since i got out here.

a couple boss stories today. first of all, found out today he watched girl next door. why? i dont know. his kid is like five, so not for her. but it made me laugh to think about him watching that movie. cause hes like 40 and korean, not exactly the principle market for girl next door. i chuckled. he also thinks that the people up here drive very aggressively and he doesnt like that. he asked me how i liked the drivers and i said they were too cautious. apparently he had never driven in texas, so he wouldnt know. its not his fault. he described some situations that he thought were "crazy" and i thought hmm, thats how i drive. i did not pipe up too much about that though. didnt want to ruin my impression i guess. a couple weeks ago we were talking about drinking and he was asking if i had ever passed out from drinking. when i told him i had, he was quite surprised. apparently he didnt think this happened alot. so i ahd to tell him some stories. all within the last few months of course, as that is when i have been 21. before that, i would pass out from all the, umm, coca cola i drank at parties. then i learned that in korea people would go out drinking and just pass out and sleep on the streets. like, it happened all the time and it was safe and everything. people just lied down in the street and slept. which is a concept i never would think of, but really think i would like that story. have such a fun night that you wake up in the street. im so for that. and i thought waking up in a bathtub was disorienting. imagine waking up outside, on a sidewalk. im so doing that next time i go to korea.

and theres a funny story about me taking a dump and someone coming in next to me and taking a dump. making some dump noises. which we all know are funny. and then, by coincidence we finish at the same time and open the doors at the same time. and its my boss. and i almost bust out laughing right there. but instead netiher one of us says anything and we wash and walk out. then i trun down my hall and start laughing. i dont know. why are these things so funny to me?

2004-10-03T03:27:00.000-07:00

there was a microsoft party tonight. which means a couple things. theres some fun things about it. and theres some lame parts of it. and its not really anyones fault, its just the way they are. the fun was more than the lame though, so i think it was good. although i didnt get my exercise this weekend. thats right, no dancing for matt the dancing machine. ah well. i did get to see salmon swimming upstream tonight, which has to rank as one the funnier ive seen lately. ive always heard of this phenomenon, but ive never seen it. very funny stuff. that they cant realize how much effort they waste. there was this one cool artist at the festival. i almost bought one, but the prints of it were all too small. it was called the voyeur and it had this guy looking out his window with the reflection in other part of the window showing the stuff the guy was looking at. a very neat painting. i got a pillow today, so i have my regular two again. it will be exciting to sleep on it. i also have a new thing i do when im drunk, i text message people. i find its better than calls cause it doesnt really interrupt people. but it works well for people who dont have internet or sometghing to do while i walk home. but i fear i may be hitting the same people too often. i hoep they dont mind, but maybe they do and they just dont tell me. so i think ill branch out. so look out, it may be coming your way next. booyah! good stuff. anyway, time to sleep for me. hittin up a sunday market tomorrow. and wathcing football too. sundays are cool. nighty night. o yea, and im like not healthy, but im close to it, so i think thats good enough. i still have some symptoms but i dont feel all blah and ill. so thats why im back. yay. hope it lasts, cause im all out of robitessum and dayquil. and i really want to play this donkey kong drumming game on gamecube. how cool is that.

2004-09-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

this cold is killing me. its all that i think about because it dominates my life. if im not coughing, my nose is running. if nose is not running, im hacking like a chain smoker. drugs help some. cough drops help some. but it wont go away. i was hangiing out with a friend tonight and we were watching a funny movie (emperors new groove) and i had to leave after fifteen minutes of the movie. yes, the laughing brought my cough back up. so its ruining my life. how come theres no cure for the common cold yet? why the hell has noone come up with this? how hard can it be?? you can make great technology, cure everything in the world, but i gotta suffer through hacking and phlegm and snot and sniffling and everything else. cmon now. get with the program. cure it already. before i tear out my own throat just to stop the coughing. and no, its nothing but a cold. a terrible terrible cold. i wnat to laugh without suffering!

i think i will hold off on any more posts until this has passed. i feel like all i will do is complain. plus its hard to type and blow your nose at the same time. this had better be gone by the weekend, thats all i have to say. sniffle you jerks later.

2004-09-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

hehe and sometimes youre not quite as sober as you thought. what was i talking about down there?

2004-09-25T04:08:00.000-07:00

sometimes youre a bit too sober on your walk home. and your mind starts going. and you realize that your life is really just as it was a few yaers ago. you still have the same insecurites, the same flaws. and one incident brings the same things back up. you thought they were gone. you grew out of them. but no, they just reappear in someone else. in some new, yet familiar situration. and at some point during th enight you learn a small bit of information that really changes your outlook on things. again. so repetitive. ive been there a couple times. but then shortly after, you learn that theres something else, another opportunity. and you like the posiblietes. but you know deep down, theres one thing and youll never get there. its hard. then you cough a couple times. and put it all behind you. breath into the early morning fog and finish your trek home. and realize you had fun. agian. and thats all you need, really. the rest will take care of itself. and if it doesnt, ah well. youl take care of yourself. and youll kleep having fun. cough cough. i put the drugs on hold for that. it was wroth it. even though it might not have been all you hoped. hope is overrated anyway. wheres reality?

blah blah. cough cough. where sibriety? wheres sleep?

2004-09-24T01:19:00.000-07:00

i think you were right rania. that very well could have been you as the short attractive girl in my dream. you have all the characteristics. very short. and always smelled lovely. and i would certainly be heroic for you anyday. thank you for clearing that up.

i think coughs are dumb. all they do is make you feel miserable. but not miserable enough to stay home. what a worthless illness.

i think theres no way im letting the cough ruin my weekend.

i think i might call "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" or maybe i wont. i think i havent decided yet. "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

i think if youre going to make a commercial for a university and have the student be taking french, you should get someone who can pronounce "tres bien" properly.

i think the world would be a better place if more people in service industries were like the odd gay barber i had today. noone really knows why he talks about the things he does. but he does, and its funny. and very personable and pleasant, even to his last customer of the night. compare that how i treated my last customer at kmart.

i think the fact that tomorrow is already friday again makes me feel like i dont do enough during the week.

i think if i died right now and wen to heaven, i would ask god why he hated florida so much. can you believe theres another hurricane gonna hit there this weekend? and the dolphins ... geez, thats just about too much for any state to handle.

i think that once i get my large rug tomorrow, and go shopping this weekend, i may get some artistic inspiration to fill my walls. where can you find cool art for cheap though?

i think that sometimes, after getting beat down by a long and frustrating day at work, you run into a friend on the way to your car, and get a companion for the trip home, and find that twenty minutes of simple conversation brings you back up to a semblance of sanity. and i think that made my night

i think this "i think" gimmick is pretty tired. and so am i.

i think the medicine is kicking in ...

2004-09-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

only in texas would anyone ever have a birthday party for a light bulb ...

2004-09-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

"im helpiiiing ... im helping youuuuuu"

hehehehe the funniest 11 minutes of tv ever is on right now.

"bizarro i love you, bizarro i love you"

one of those cool yet forgotten dreams occurred last night. im not sure much about it except there was motorcycles and bad guys and i was heroic some how and got the girl at the end. not sure who the girl was, but i saved her life. i do know she was short and attractive, with a very lovely scent. yes, my dreams have graduated to a sense of smell. kinda neat how i cant think of much of anything about the dream, but that scent is fresh in my mind. cant describe it really, just one of those really nice girly scents. maybe a little fruity, im not sure. but its one of the good ones. cant get enough of that stuff. but honestly, the subject matter and senses of the dream were secondary to the novelty of the fact that it had five parts. yes, i woke up four time during the night. first time was after only about ten minutes of sleeping, but was a long dream sequence so it seemed long. then back to sleep and the dream continued like it never ended. then i woke up again an hour later. then back to sleep, repeat. but the dream didnt repeat. the story just continued each time id go back to sleep, in perfect smooth transition, like i never woke up. and it even made sense all the way through. i wish i remembered more details. it could be made into a blockbuster movie. millions and millions of dollars. i could have written it. in my sleep. with me as the hero. and hot girl. what a winner that would be. ah well, another missed opportunity. and in the end, what else is life but a series of missed opportunities?

i did learn a little something today. apparently the seattle police are communists. they take over peoples brains and make them hear satans voice. but satan will not be victorious. god will come down and send his vengeance upon them. so says the son of god. i am he. ummm, at least thats what the screaming homeless guys sign said. sounds about right. i always pictured the son of god having no teeth.

2004-09-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

seems like im in the same place i was last sunday. tired already, before the week begins. this football thing is killing me. i may have to forget about the early game, cause ten is too early to get up. especially when you dont get to sleep till after five. just got stuff to do, ya know? had a very fun saturday night to say the least. ran into several, ummm, interesting characters. but i did dance alot with one particular girl. whcih was cool. then i found out her name was khanh. and like a nerd, all i kept thinking of was star trek. "KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!" hehehe how lame is my humor. but we danced alot and then went to an after-hours club with some of her friends and danced some more. and then i walked home. thats alot of work for a skinny pair of legs like mine. feel the burn baby. needless to say i was tired when i got home. but really hungry too, so i made me a quesadilla and watched some bad comic on tv. and then some infomercials. i cant get enough of that magic bullet. my friend leah actually bought one. i look very foward to playing with it. i was actually making some breakfast tacos for dinner and wished i had it. it would have chopped my potatoes and stuff. in one. ... two .... three! hehe i should really watch less 4 am tv.

wow, my boy roy williams had a couple spectacular touchdown catches today. go lions. and good ole chris simms even got some PT for some reason, didnt do too badly for himself either. too bad another ut alum, mike williams, cant save that awful bills offensive line. its going to be a long long season. sigh. thank goodness i just love the game of football, so i can still enjoy a nfl season without my team in the mix. ill just wait for nba time to smell a hint of success ...

2004-09-18T04:40:00.000-07:00

so someone told me i zhould write a blog drunk. so here i am.. yay. steph was really drunk. like, pass out on the couch drunk. not my couch. unfortunately. however, i am obligated to call starbucks in the morning and sayshe is not coming in.. cause shes not. we didnt get into club element tonight. supposed to be a free show with a free cover and good music. but they wouldnt let anyone in and like six people wer on the dance floot. totally lame. it was all ashow to say hey, were popular. o well. never go back there again. so we went to belltown billiards and danced the night away. very good music. and totally deadly long island ice teas. wow. so good. i danced alot. and got drunk. but then steph was dead so i helped her up to john and coreys apt and helped her get rid of a bit fo the alcohol and then fall asleep on the futon. good for her. glad she ahd good friends, i was always glad i did. umm, after i was legal, of course. befor ethat it was diet coke. so im gomnna watach sportscenter for an hour and then clall starbucks. hope you feel ok steph. goodnight everyone else.

2004-09-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

i have a limited store of motivation in my life. i spend alot of that at work. umm, all of it. so when i come home, i find it real hard to do anything. so i sit and watch tv. eat something, probably not anything great. watch mor etv. mess around on my computer. lay around. occasionally chat, talk on the phone. sit. im so lazy that i would rather lay on my couch than go sit up at my computer and play doom, a game ive wanted to play for over a year. its still unopened. if i didnt have this laptop, i wouldnt even write things on here. and i feel like every day im getting worse and worse. and yet, im not sure how to break out of the funk. i need an overhaul. and yet, every time i think about it, i dont get very far, cause my couch is so comfortable. im enrolled in two health clubs and go to neither one. go figure. seems that in my life, activity is a four letter word.

they looked at the control i created and they liked it. that makes me happy and quite a bit more confident in my purpose in life. and then i spent today making it even better. so there, mr boss, theres your stinkin aggression. i think. ummm, you tell me.

i think my car may have been broken into and i didnt even know it. someone was in our garage like two weeks ago and went through the jeep and took some stuff and they changed the code and all that stuff to combat it. i didnt think much about it cause i didnt see any evidence of my car being broken into. but then now my sunglasses are gone, along with my case of about ten copied cds. nothing really of value. but they were all in my car and they are no longer in there. so they may have been stolen. what kind of desperate theif takes copied cds and bent three year old sunglasses? guess my car was a big disappointment to him. although im not sure how he he got into the car. not through the lock, but opening the door. its hard. all that work for him to ge tin and out, and he made out with trash. at least he didnt damge the car. he let me do that all on my own. much nicer than the evil mexicans who busted in last time and tore open the console. and took things of value. bad mexicans. stay on your side of the crossing place moat. (no, im not racist against all mexicans. just the ones that take my stereo)

we were talking about homeless people yesterday and i thought back to the folks at the corner of riverside and i-35. at the employee lounge hehehehe. o man. hilarious. yea, thats an inside joke. a darn funny one too. heh.

2004-09-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

in an inevitable development, i decided it was finally time to rub the side of my car against the white concrete post which i park next to everyday. thats right, it wasnt quite ghetto enough. i figured i wanted to get rid of any inkling of trade value that might be left in it. maybe the new car idea isnt such a great one after all. at least as long as i have to face the evil concrete nemesis of belroy apartments. i may not react quite as calmly to the destruction of a new car as i did to the destruction of the car ive spent the last few years destroying.

another one of those weird things happened today. the things that make you feel grown up. i flipped through the channels, hit channel 40, and saw fresh prince of bel air was on. but wait, its like ten pm. and whats channel 40? its nick at nite. yes, fresh prince has hit nick at nite. the channel with the old shows, now plays on the network with three's company and and the cosby show. i watched fresh prince every day in middle and high school. every day. now its a classic. sigh. the good news is it means a long marathon of fresh prince. whcih was almost enough to tear me away from law and order. almost. whoops, theres another one on now.

2004-09-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

another fun weekend in the books. lots of drinking, lots of dancing, lots of football, less of sleeping. i even got called "the good dancer" at a club on saturday night. remarkable. cause im not. but apparently if i and someone else are both intoxicated, im a good dancer. go figure. a nice change of pace though. really kinda shoulda slept a little bit more though. ah well, sleep is overrated. i also grew up a little bit this weekend. yes, financial planning. sigh. retirement, funds, bonds, insurance, etc, etc. guess im an old man now.

i had a talk with my boss on friday. he said he thinks i have lots of potential and im a good worker, but i should be more agressive. im not sure what that means exactly, but i guess ill do it. maybe theres something about the job im missing. like, the poeple i meet who work at ms are always talking about their job and the company and things like that. but i dont. i have zero desire to discuss my job with people. i find it boring to talk about. fun to do, but boring to talk about. so what makes these other people feel like their stuff is so interesting? is it and im just missing the interesting part? perhaps thats what separates the successes from the chumps. not sure where that ties into aggresiveness. and im not sure how im supposed to be aggressive in coding? does that mean do more and magically come up with my own work items, since my boss doesnt give me any? i dont know. i think ill just do my job as it comes. and then once i get some more work items, ill aggressively do them. or something.

i bought the wrong milk. its fat free. so its gross. quite upsetting,as i was looking forward to drinking that. ah well. still good enough for cereal. mmmm rice krispies at midnight.

2004-09-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

i am pretty pathetic. i have lived in my apartment now for about 5 weeks, and it is still not even close to set up. so today i decide i will do some more on that. i set out all my little items in the places they go. that takes a while, as some of you know i have quite a few nick nacks. i find places to hang the few pictures and things i have, although not having any screws or hangers, i cant really hang them. and i go on target.com and order my black shag rug. which will take like two weeks to get here. so heres what i still need. i need the big rug to get here. i need about five or six large pieces of art to go in various places. i have alot of walls in this place. ill make my friend kathryn paint me stuff. and ill need a rug for my bedroom, maybe one for the entryway too. and a nightstand for my bedroom. then i think i will be set for a while. o wait, i need to get a couple new pillows and a comforter before it starts getting cold. then ill have a home. hopefully all in time for my thanksgivng visitors. theres confirmed itineraries for both. so they couldnt not come even if they wanted to, unless they wanted to waste their money. how great. and then a month later, im back in texas for an extended visit. to see my family, including what will be my brand new niece or nephew! yes, the countdown to uncledom is under a month now. wow. i saw some pictures of the babies room. it is very cute. what an exciting time this is.

some news items:

1) a puppy shot its owner when he tried to kill the puppies cause he couldnt take care of them. just awesome.
2) the jeopardy guy lost. incredibly sad. what a remarkable run, thought it would never end. he was only on for 75 episodes and only made like 2.5 million dollars. thats fifteen weeks. wow.
3) the colts lost. in terrible fashion. so many opportunities squandered, which i think is the title of their life. the patriots won again, further proof that hope is wasted on sports. but it never goes away completey. even in my land of cynicism, hope reigns eternal. reality has no place in the life of a sports fan
4) there will be a sequel to clerks. the actors have all signed on. and as horrible as this idea make strike some people, i think it can work. as long as it is not overdone. we shall see. kevin smith has had a rough couple outings, so hopefully he can get back to form.
5) god hates florida. hurricane after hurricane. impossible bad luck. although, if youre living in florida, i guess thats the tradeoff you make for beautiful weather/people/beaches/etc most of your life. you may just get hammered three times in a month by hurricanes. not sure if thats worth it or not.
6) avril lavigne is cute. i have a newfound like of her. im not sure why. i never really thought that much of her, music or otherwise. now i think shes is insanely cute. not hot, but cute. the worst part is that her songs are so damn catchy that theyre perpetually stuck in my head at any mention or thought of her. "all this time you were pretending, so much for my happy ending." yea, music not that great, but catchy. and did i mention how cute she is?
7) fingerprint technology is coming to computers. microsoft is releasing keyboards, mice and devices that allow you to use your fingerprint to enter passwords for things. so, like, when you log on to windows, log in to your website, etc, its no typing, no remembering, nothing, just use your fingerprint. i find this to be a wonderful idea. i hope the device is cheap at the MS store cause im so getting it.

ok, so not all that was real news. but its news to someone. so shut up.

2004-09-09T01:50:00.000-07:00

football season starts tomorrow. nfl baby. nothing beats it. theres something about football that just captivates me to no end. im not sure exactly what it is. youve got the strategy, which i would argue is highest among all sports. theres the precision of it, how throws have to be in the exact right spot, people have to run at the exact right speed, linemen have to push their man in the right direction. everything on cue. the play even has to start at the exact right second. theres the raw physicality of it. huge men just smashing each other. theres few things more spectacular than witnessing a monster tackle. theres the big play, where one great play, or one mistake, can mean a huge swing in the game. theres the roar of fifty thousand plus in a stadium, making the most noise possible. plus every game means so much. its not baseball where you play four hundred games, or even basketball where you play almost a hundred. only sixteen chances. you squander those, youre screwed. i love it. i love it all. i couldnt be more excited. no wait, i lied. i could be more excited. cause i am about a certain ticket purchase someone made today. very very.

the walker texas ranger clips on conan obrien are the funniest things in life. yes, they are. goodnight.

ps. i really do have a bad case of writers bloc on here. all i can say is, itll come when it comes. this is why im not an artist. i have no creativity. if its there, its there. unless you want to here about the .net control that i am writing to simulate a windows wizard without calling the generic win32 api. probably not though, huh?

2004-09-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

ok ok im a slacker. dont hate me. ive been, umm, busy. for once in my new life, seattle weekend was fun. lots and lots. bumbershoot was this weekend. im not sure if i can describe to you how much i really liked this thing. just an all around wonderful time. i saw music ranging from blues to bluegrass, from five players on a large drum orb to soloists with just a guitar and a voice. i saw emcee battles, bboy battles, food vendor battles, hippies dancing, babies dancing, protestors, high schoolers, high schoolers, high schoolers ... ye athere were alot of high schoolers. they suck. but the rest of it was awesome. some of the notable bands i saw that you may ahve heard of: death cab for cutie, presidents of the usa, puddle of mudd, nickelback, byrdie, public enemy, nas, harvey danger ... and a slew of great musical talents that noone will ever hear of. my only disappointment is that i was not able to be there longer. but alas, i had work on friday and i was just plum exhausted by monday. if any of you fools are in the area next labor day weekend though, ill be there. hopefully ill build up my stamina to go for the whole time. and hang out with the hippies. and maaaaan, were there some hippies out there. like, real hippies. doing their hippie dances, wearing their hippie outfits, not wearing their shoes, their long hair and huge beards flapping as they flop around to all music imaginable. gotta love the hippies. as long as you dont have to smell them. just laugh, err observe, from a distance.

also spent some time sampling the seattle nightlife down in belltown. went dancing with a few folks, theyre pretty social folks. i got pretty toasted. and danced alot. and apparently surprised people with my knowledge of hip hop lyrics. i have no idea why that would be shocking to anyone. but it was lots of fun, we started dancing with some other people at the bar, they were from california. relatively attractive asian girls. luckily, i kept myself not drunk to the point that i cant dance with the beat, so it was fun. noone hated me. although i apparently got quite upset when they closed at 145. o well. the 25 minute walk home was a nice sobering event, didnt even get lost. which is a feat in itself. fun fun time. then sunday night i went to a karaoke bar in queen anne. no karaoke for me. although i did yell along as corey karaoked to bon jovi. i just dont go for the microphone. which i think is a good thing for both me and the others in the bar.

so theres the weekend. this week promises to be good. most importantly is the beginnning of the nfl season. sorry i forgot to do the fantasy thing there marc. hope you win your league hehe. since you aint winnin no games with your real team. go bills! and ill try to get back on track on here. so stay tuned.

2004-09-03T02:11:00.000-07:00

the song says you dont know what you got till its gone. very true. no, not in a sentimental, i miss people kind of way. today its way more practical. like a switch box. do you know how great switch boxes are? today i was cooking my dinner (eggs, bacon, sausage, etc) and i lost power. ok i thought, i must have just blown another fuse. but when i try to replace the one extra fuse i have, i find nothing turns on. so i go to target and buy more fuses, replace them all. still no power. i managed to blow the main fuse down in the main box. pretty impressive huh? stupid fuses. wasted a another thing: dishwashers. o man, how i miss my dishwasher. some may know that i am not exactly high on cleanliness. well, more im not high on cleaning things. so i go to do dishes and theyre fairly nasty. wash some, then the plug comes out and my water goes away. i refill, wash some more, then get to the pots and pans that need rinsing and soaking. but i only have one sink, that wont work. so i just stick em in the water and it gets so nasty i have to empty and then rinse and then refill. blah. so much washing. but thankfully my kitchen is clean and the smell is gone. i was going to actually put my trinkets up in their place tonight, but since i couldnt do that by flashlight, they remain in their spot. quite messy this place is.

so apparently there was this guy ranting and raving at the republican convention, some disillusioned democrat senator, and he was just ripping kerry apart. kind of scary. this columnist from the new york times just said that including him was brilliant because he made cheney look normal. funny. but anyway, this guy goes on one of the news shows afterward, i think the hardball show, and the host criticizes something he said in the speech, and the senator guy goes insane, ending with this line: "i wish we were still in a time when you could challenge someone to a duel." wow. what a psycho. but he did speak some truth. cause duels rock. pull out the glove, slap across the face. ahhh, i pine for the good ole days.

this weekend is bumbershoot. i think i may fork out the cash and get the whole weekend pass. theres just so much to see. 3 day weekend, 4 day festival. so ill probably leave work early tomorrow too. so ill go in a little early. hmm, maybe i should get some sleep. stupid two oclock.

2004-09-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

i was going to write about the beauty i witnessed today on my river adventure, the majestic moutains and forests breaking through the low clouds and pouring rains, the rush of being at the mercy of running rapids, the peace and tranquility of the wild ... but then i was reminded of the darker side of nature. and now it is all gone from my mind, replaced with a stunned sadness. sorry.

2004-08-31T01:26:00.000-07:00

so i guess i kinda forgot about this journal thing. had a busy brain lately. i wont bore you with the details, but its been programming hell in my mind. come to find out today it was all pretty worthless. coulda done it all alot easier and faster instead of trying to port over old code. .net rules. i just wish i knew it. anyway, i dont think ill be too hung up on this anymore. got bigger fish to fry. like doom 3 that i finally bought. woohoo.

things are looking up though. on wednesday my group in ms is going rafting on a guided rafting expedition. all day excursion. then this weekend theres a huge arts festival im gonna check out. kind of expensive, but i think it will be worth it. friday night theres presidents of the usa and death cab for cutie. then the rest of the weekend is a shmorgasboard of comedy, music, theater and everyting else. its called bumbershoot, which is an odd name i think. im hoping i can find someone to go with me, but its a bit pricey so im not sure ill have much luck. one of the people i hung out with last summer some started today i think. i hope i can get in contact with her quickly, she was pretty cool. o man. you know what i just realized? that was her who called yesterday. i got this call and someone asked for chris. didnt think much of it. but now that i think about it, the number was from rhode island, which i thought was odd, but i didnt make the connection. she went to brown. in providence. i bet that was her and she just got my name wrong. hehe funny. hmm, should i call back now? maybe i will tomorrow. sure wish i woulda made that connection at the time. my mind was somewhere else though.

lot of good news coming out of texas too. i have my first visitor confirmed for thanksgiving-time. teresa apparently has nothing b better to do than come see me. and i couldnt be more thrilled. sources say that she may have someone else accompanying her too, as long as everything works out. which would only make it like the greatest thanksgiving ever. even though it means preparing tofurkey. and tofuffing. and tofanberry sauce. maybe some mashed tofatoes and tofavy too. tofummy in my tofummy. but yes, it definitely puts a big smile on my face to know that i have people who will sacrifice their holiday and money to come see me for a few days. plus theres a magical tin out there slowly filling up, along with several outstanding promises. guess maybe im really missed as much as i miss people, as hard as that is to believe.

i find politics to be endlessly frustrating, which is why i could never ever become involved. its all just a self-perpetuating culture really. they feed their own problems and then have to solve their own problems, when if they just let things go, everyone would forget about them anyway. like these commercials where they say john kerry was a wuss in vietnam and didnt deserve his medals. so what. they say it, you deny it, you condemn it, let it go. but no, this is repeated every day for like two weeks, and then the news keeps talking about it, and thats all anyone hears about. so then naturally, when it keeps coming up, people start to think about it more, and it might have an effect on their perception of kerry. whereas if he just condemned it once, told the real story and moved on to bigger issues, everyone would forget about it. and sure the bush people say they condemn it and all that, but behind the scenes, guess what, the ridiculous ad is played in the lead story of every newscast across the country for free. then the republicans can parade out an iraqi woman at their convention and say how great it is to not have saddam in power so they can not be oppressed blah blah blah. yes, great, everyones excited that saddam is gone. noones saying theyd rather have him in there. thats not the friggin point! the point is .. well, you know what the point is. lies about the reasons for war, dangerous precedent of preemptive military actions without imminent threat, international rules of engagement, etc etc. o yea, plus all those americans died to fight someone elses war for them. if a soldier dies, it should be defending their country, either here or abroad. they were defending against nothing in iraq. saddam was not about to jump across the ocean with his six-shooter and take us all out. id rather have those men protecting me against real threats and dangers when, o, half the world wants me blown up. especially now that i live in a port city. i sit here and listen to all the stories about how poorly inspected and protected the ports are. how someone could sneak a nuke in and itd pass by unnoticed about ninety percent of the time. hmmm, the port is about three miles away from me. so how about you protect me here instead of blowing up some dumb little country just to get rid of a bad leader. yes, woohoo for your freedom to unwrap your face and speak your mind iraqi woman. but guess what, even in the declaration of independence life came before liberty.

basic point is, kerry and bush are both stupid. so, umm, vote for me for president instead. my only platform is "I'm not stupid and I won't get you killed." what else do you need in a president?

2004-08-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

i am a computer programmer. i spend my days modifying and writing code. its what i do. and im not that great at it. honestly. its not that i dont know how. i understand how things work for the most part. im just not very good at getting the details right. ive never been a details oriented guy. i dont have the focus or the attention span to get the little things right. and this can be disasterous in programming. today i spent three hours trying to figure out why this text box wasnt showing up. i was fairly certain i had set up the structure properly. but who knows with these things in memory? so i search everywhere for the problem. restructure things, realign them. blah blah. three hours later, i find some remote site that mentions this one style setting that needs to be on to make it visible. sigh. there it is. of course, it takes about ten minutes after that to realize that i need to approach the whole thing differently. details details. its all in the details folks. so either learn to pay attention to them, or get a job where they dont matter. like garbage man. or olympic gymnastic judge.

id write more but im going to try to sleep early so i can get up early and try to salvage the week. blah. my only mental escape is sealab, hilarious stuff, twice a night. no matter how many times i see it. "like a steak drizzled in slut sauce." hehe.

2004-08-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

john kerry is on the daily show right now. hes remarkably awkward. just an incredibly awkward man. jon stewart will make a joke and kerry will try to play off it but just kill the joke completely. at a level i thought only jason was ever able to do. nad physically, hes just ... awkward is the only word i can come up with. wheres my thesauraus? my old boss used to be like that at the greening law firm. ron greening. he was the defininition of awkward. had no clue how to interact with anyone, how to take or deliver a joke, how to carry on a normal social conversation, to pat on the back or anything ... just could not do it. always seemed uncomfortable in every situation with non-old people. i feel this john kerry is very similar. but you know what? im not sure it matters. actually, im sure it doesnt. awkardness makes for good snl skits. and ill take awkwardness over whatever it is thats in there now. he still makes more sense. and hes still not bush. plus, i noticed as he waved to the crowd that he is wearing one of those lance armstrong yellow bands on his arm. something tells me bush is not wearing one. which leads to the obvious conclusion: bush loves cancer. and if you vote for him, you must love cancer too. so vote for kerry, hes against cancer.

coming home from work today was a long journey. its remarkable to me that this land of rain and bad weather breeds the worst drivers on the planet. if its dreary and wet all the time, why have you never learned how to drive in it? i swear, a drop of rain hit my windshield and everyone hits their brakes and just stops. its amazing. so anyway, im sitting in traffic, knowing it will be at least twenty minutes before i get to the bridge and then its smooth sailing from there. im jammin to some barenaked ladies in my car. this red car pulls in behind me. theres some college age girl inside, quite attractive. so im kind of checking her out in my rear view mirror. she starts like fixing her hair and stuff. and i decided i kind of liked this girl. so i start wondering what shes like. i make up a personality for her. i figure shes one of those assertive girls, real outgoing, always cracking jokes, sometimes going to far with it. one of those people youre not really comfortable around when you dont know them, but once you get to know them, theyre funny. real frank, just says whats on her mind. imake up a voice for her. i even make up how her laugh sounds. i even come up with a scenario where we meet. see, im sitting in my car, shes in hers. i turn aroudn to look, she smiles back. so i point to my phone and she nods. so i start giving her my number by holding up the appropriate number of fingers. she calls, and we start talking. she tells how she just graduated from school, has not found a job yet. we chat for a while, and as we near the bridge, i ask if shes hungry and she says yea, so i suggest we get some dinner. she agrees and i ask what she likes, she says everything, and i say if she would like some pizza and beer, and she says yes, you read my mind. so we head to bills off broadway, eat pizza and hang out all night. thats as far as i got in my fantasy land before some jerkface in an suv cut in behind me, ruining my train of thought and killing the dream. i was upset at first. then, later on, she passed me on the bridge. and im glad that was all jsut a fake reality. cause she wasnt really very attractive at all. the rearview mirror added like three points to her score. what a disappointment.

2004-08-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

ive gotten to the point that i can not go to bed until i write something in this dumb journal. or maybe i just cant sleep. either way, some things i just cannot seem to verbalize properly. guess four hours of law and order will do that to you. i was writing something while watching an episode of mash. it was interesting because i wasnt really focusing on what i was writing at all, i wasnt reading it as i typed, it was just flowing. an intriguing exercise in what my mind can produce all by itself without any sort of filter attached. needless to say i am not sharing that. the content is deleted. educational for me, a bit frightening ... but not fit for public consumption. i apologize, but matt brain must have its filter.

today was a partly to mostly cloudy day, one of those days with all different types of clouds. beautiful big white clouds, wisps of light grey, everything you can imagine. i came home and looked out my window on this spectacular display of color and cloud behind the needle, with the rolling mountain ranges and water in a dark silhouette in the background. just gorgeous. i sat and stared at it, then the generic thought popped in my head wondering if anyone else had an equally gorgeous sunset to observe. did not take long for me to remember that everyone i knew was long done with sunsets, plunged into the dark of night. you were missin out though. i told you to come up here with me. thats what you get for staying behind. no seattle skyline sunsets for you. im not even going to take pictures of it. youll just have to come up and see it for yourself.

o yea, and im done with titles. found out i can get rid of them. they were holding me back anyway.

petty

2004-08-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

as i was nearing my apartment this evening, tom petty's "into the great wide open" was on the radio. the song ended and the dj had this to say: "there's tom petty. how could anyone possibly not like tom petty? if you know anyone who has even hinted at this, turn to them now, and say, 'you are a .... liar'."

very true. although i would replace the word liar with fool.

relations

2004-08-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

ok folks, we really gotta get better at the names in the comments. otherwise, ill never know who plays euchre or who wants to come to ms parties with me. although i would imagine the answer to the latter would be everyone. cause noone knows how to party like mt. and dont you forget it.

my brain is very relational. not sure if thats the right term, or a term at all. but what i mean is that once i make a connection between one thing and another, or one thing and a person, it remains forever. or at least a very very long time. take cars for example. i still associate cars with people i know who own or have owned them. and i still find myself wondering if that person is driving them, even when its fairly obvious they are not. i used to play this game in austin all the time. whenever id see a rav4, for example, i would wonder if it was rania driving it or not. and i always hoped it was, but then thought better and hoped it wasnt (ranias driving, umm, talents are known far and wide). or a bright blue saturn, always wondered if it was teresa or not. and it usually was, cause noone else drives those weird little cars around. with their dashboard in the middle for all to see. and then id call her and be like hey are you driving down and shed say yea and wed both have a chuckle. or natalie in her escort, jason in the toyota, jon in the truck. never really had one to associate with tony cause he never held onto a car long enough for me to make the connection. whats it, like five cars in four years? thats high turnover.

hmm, what was my point in there. o yea, mental connections. the reason this comes up is a blog i read from one of the folks at microsoft whom i used to hang out with last summer. i dont believe ive spoken with her more than once or twice since then, but as her name resides on my buddy list, i read her journal. its quite fascinating. shes a writer so her thoughts are much more wellformed and crafted than mine are. and she has never even had to resort to posts about poop. thats talent. but anyway, she recently returned from a month or two abroad and was talking about how she bought a souvenir and tried to attach certain thoughts and memories to it to help her recall the whole experience, and yet it fell short. i feel like i understand that sensation and in large part it is a reason i do not keep much of a record of my own life through pictures, movie stubs, programs, notes and such things. they just never did it for me. however, since my apparent emotional renaissance over the past few months, ive found the complete opposite to be true. pictures bring back a flood of memories and feelings, no matter what the subject. the picture of my and my siblings at my sisters wedding reminds me how great it was to have all the family there at that time and how fun it is when we all get together. and then reminds me of the excitement of my impending uncle-hood in a month and a half. the few printed and framed pictures of me with friends can overwhelm me. like when i got that roll of pictures developed of what i thought was just car shots and apartment shots, and then found a hidden treasure shot of me and mary the night before i left, i just stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. and my mind went through so much stuff, the happiness of that moment but the sadness of that night, the speed at which we became friends and the abruptness of my departure from it all. this never used to happen for photos. i would appreciate the picture, appreciate the time i remembered from when the picture was taken. but that connection to the rest of my history with that subject, that person, that emotion ... it just didnt register. now i wish i had been more sentimental before in collecting such things. a ticket stub from rent, a postit with a short note or a smiley, a picture here or there ... theres value in those. its nice to see my brain can make use of these relations now. i just wish i had known about it before.

"what ive kept with me, and what ive thrown away
and where the hell ive ended up on this glory random day
were the things i really cared about just left along the way ... "

333

2004-08-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

its kind of late. i suppose its not surprising that when one does nothing, one does not end up very tired. and therefore one is up as late as i am. im not sure how to get a life started up here. im pretty sure it does not involve sitting at home on a friday night in my boxer shorts playing free poker and watching endless hours of mtv hits. gonna have to rethink this plan. otherwise, whats the point?

ran across a funny quote today on someones away message: "most people are like slinkys ... not really good for anything, but you cant help but smile when one falls down the stairs." i found that amusing. and in a cynical way, true.

EWF

2004-08-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

so i get to the party. its at this warehouse or something down by the docks. and its this huge affair. like, huge. they have enormous air conditioning units to cool the place down. i walk in the door to flashing lights, table, hot dog stand, beer stands, and couches. over to the right is where the dodgeball is. its not just a roped off area, but one of those dodgeball rings, like the pros use. with the plexiglass and everything. impressed, i grab a red hook from one of hte many bars and continue along. food everywhere, sandwiches, chicken, beef, fruit, snacks, cheeses, rolls, sushi, desserts. food everywhere. and bars eveywhere. i move to the next room, where there are foosball tables, air hockey, pool tables, and a large dance floor with a dj. o and one of those fake rock climbing walls. the dance floor has a large light assembly around it and the floor is lit. this is honestly an amazing production, the whole place. i could not believe it. you may think youve had a company party. but you havent. microsoft doesnt know how to do things without doing them out of control.

i wander around, find some people i know from my group, play some pool, wander around some more, drink a decent amount of beer along with one rum and rum and rum and coke. and i say that on purpose, cause there was like no coke. the bars are pretty decently stocked with different bottles, the beer of choice is red hook which suits me fine. i eat some too, a hot dog, some chicken, some bbq beef sandwich things, a few other odds and ends. all the time im wondering where this legendary band will perform. then around 730 they open up these large doors to the outside where a big old stage is set up. the head of msn comes out and yaps for a while about how our division had a 600 million dollar swing in revenue andmade alot of money, blah blah everyone claps. then he introduces mr gates, who comes out to talk for a while. always fun to see bill. after some sititng around, they unveil the logo of the band ... and nooneknows what it is. well, if they do, they dont react. i see theres an E and a F and something weird in between. turns out thats a w. yes, its earth wind and fire. guess they got the legendary part right. those classic acts always kill me, theyre so choreographed and perfected. and the bassist was outrageously funny. not a group i cared to see, but its cool i got to see them.

all in all, the party is impressive, probably cost them so much money, completely larger than life. mystery band .. ehh, a bit of a disappointment. with all the hype, all the "you cant miss it" stuff that was going around, i expected a little bigger and better. but hey, we all got to eat, drink, play and shake our groove thing shake our groove thing. yea yea.

beerbear

2004-08-19T01:55:00.000-07:00

i told you the beer up here in the northwest in incomparable ... even the bears know how good it is.

wega

2004-08-19T00:58:00.000-07:00

my new tv is beautiful. it is a flat screen. it is bright and colorful. it is large. it is beautiful. theres nothing else to say. i dont have many dvds to test it with, but thankfully my friend natalie reminded me i own x2. so i popped it in and navigated to the nightcrawler scene at the beginning. he was flying around kicking ass. and i sat in amazement that this was in my living room. just gorgeous.

tomorrow we have a large msn event downtown. its inside one of the large warehouses on the dock. it involves free food, free drink, dodgeball, and some mystery "legendary" national band. how fascinating is that? what kind of band could msn come up with that would be legendary but would still play for a large collection of nerds. i cant even begin to come up with possibilities. cant wait. who knew an msn sposored event could hold such promise. plus theres free drinks.

o yea, and i get friday off. very important day to have off. i plan to get a wa license, wa plates, and change my address on my remaining bank accounts and loans and things like that. so by the end of the day ill be an official washingtonian. at least legally. ill miss the 20201616 and the V26FMH. i wonder if having washington plates will turn me into a terrible washington driver. then i will drive really slow in the ultra fast lane while people behind me are going insane. rather than being the guy going insane. what has texas turned me into?

f

2004-08-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

tomorrow will be better than today. i will not get held up on one little problem for hours on end. and i will not waste an hour in target looking for one stupid little piece of rubber that isnt in the store somehow. honestly, how does target not have a simple sink plug? absurdity. frustrating. most of the day frustrating. and since i share an office, i cant even express my frustration by talking it out to myself as i normally do. so i get even more frustrated at not releasing my frustration. a downward spiral so to speak. and led to me staying at work till seven thirty jsut out of stubbornness that my frustration wont be wasted. its the f word du jour.

"frustration gets the best of me so i dont speak coherently ..."

on a good note i get my phone turned on tomorrow with a new fresh phone number for myself. another tie to the atx cut away. the new number will be 206.251.0243. learn it. call it. often. i promise ill get better at calling people too. im not going to be ususal self who cant keep good contact. routines are coming, ones that involve a bit of decent diet, a bit of decent physical activity, and a whole lot of work. but for now im doing fast food, sitting, and shopping online. unsuccesfully. might have to break down and spend a hundred and fifty dollars on a dresser. lame. the used dresser market is tough to crack, especially with nothing to transport one in and noone to help me transport it. the rug is still a pipe dream, i refuse to spend two hundred dollars on it. i need color reccomendations for a rug to go with a dark green couch on a hardwood floor. id like a bit of color, but nothing too garrish or busy. im a simple guy. solid color rug, or simple pattern, possibly shag. that would make me happy. tv is something im looking at too. im less simple in that category. willing to spend a bit more. found a dix month old wega twenty seven inch flat screen for three hundred bucks. i like sony. i like wegas. i think ill get that. remember when i was poor and had to split a five hundred dollar tv four ways? i guess sometimes change is good.

hehe the canadian beach volleyball player fell on her derriere and the ball hit her on the head. canadians are funny when they suck.

deboxed

2004-08-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

all the boxes are unpacked. and put onto the floor or dining room table or bookshelf. not where any of them belong, but hey, we all gotta start somewhere. i like my boring little dining room table and two chairs i bought today for thirty bucks. but i did forget to go to the grocery store. so i will just starve to death. or go tomorrow after work. neither option is all that great, but hey, i made my bed i guess i have to sleep in it. thats how that saying goes right?

football is coming. are you ready for some football? preseasons already going on, the real stuff starts in a few weeks. im so stoked about seeing where my bills are. my misguided sense of preseason confidence is off the charts, as it is every season. one problem though. i need a new tv before football season though. this nineteen incher just aint gonna cut it. i was going to get hd but i decided it was a waste of money at this point. might as well wait a couple years till i get a real place where i can buy a big plasma with lighting changes based on what you are watching. then i will just watch it all day. o wait i do that anyway. watched some olympics today, decided i really like beach volleyball. the americans were beating up on some japanese people today, it was so unfair. like the american girl was 6'2" and the japanese was only lik 5'9". japanese just shouldnt play volleyball. and apparently the us should not play basketball. puerto rico kills us. thats just absurd. and as natalie correctly pointed out, isnt puerto rico like part of the us or something? i know theyre not a state, but theyre something. they shouldnt be allowed to beat us. or it should only count for like half a loss.

i got my hair cut today. the supercuts lady was doin all sorts of crazy stuff to make my hair less thick and puffy without cutting it too short. the most complicated cutting ive ever gotten at supercuts. and i was just gonna tell her to shave it all off. instead i have hair. but since i wore a hat all day, i dont know if im hot or not. and since scott wont change my phone service over, i cant share any pictures, so you cant tell me if im hot or not either. how will i ever know??

non-emo

2004-08-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

i was out shopping today and i re-realized that i am a cheapskate. so i decided i will buy cheap stuff and then wait till i find the good stuff i want and then replace it, rather then spend alot of money on stuff i only kind of like. i got a chair for my desk and a coffee table, from goodwill and a garage sale respectively. the chair is actually quite nice for fifteen bucks, only a small creak to complain about. but the coffee table is two pieces made out of two different types of wood. any shmuck can have furniture made of the same wood. but im not just anyone. so back off. i really need a rug though. probably a couple. and a dresser. then i can start unpacking the rest of my stuff, get rid of the boxes, and make my home a home. im pretty excited about getting there, but sick of what im going through to get it done. i also need food as i officially ate my last possible meal that i could make with the food currently in my apartment. all i have now is part of a box of mashed potatoes and some cereal.

on the work front, im on the verge of doing some real code work finally. were about to start making v3 of one of our programs. i wont bore you with the details, but it will be my first experience working on a substantial coding project in a team setting. im glad im where i am on a small team with an internal product on a flexible schedule. because im quite intimidated by my job still. i hope once i do some real code and see my contributions produce some real results that i will feel like i belong. like can i really do what they want me to do. i have a feeling i will work long hours trying to get things done on a proper schedule though. the good news is i think they all realize my experience level and will not give me more than i can handle. i hope so anyway. we had a meeting on friday where we discussed all the implementation of the changes we are going to have to make, and i did not have much to input to the meeting. i didnt feel comfortable enough with my knowledge of the program to make suggestions about it. plus, theyre all asian, and all different asian, and all very asian. which means they all have very thick accents, and theyre all different. so when all three of them are in the same meeting, i have to work real hard just to make sure im understanding what they are saying. plus im trying to understand the technical aspect of it all as well. so my brain was pretty occupied, not much excess capacity for speaking up. the whole time though i was like man, i should say something, make a suggestion, but i just had none. i knew i should though. bah, im still so worried about being a disappointment. i know i will not let that happen, no matter how much i have to work at it at first. but i still fear messing up and losing it all. i wonder how long it takes for that to go away. or if it ever does.

daniels new website is pimp, you should check it out. hes a bit of a showoff with his web design skills though. he says its to show potential employers, but i just think hes bragging. plus hes all opensource and linux now. what a hippy. ill crush him with my might microsoft fist. someday when i dont have all this furniture crap on my mind, i will make a microsoft-product created website and we will dual it out. battle for the ages. mary keeps improving her little part of the world as well, i always enjoy the updates to that. i have a lot of catchup work to do to become respectable in the eyes of the web world. like not using blogspot. what kind of generic commoner uses a thing like this? wow, i just realized this is a google product. shame on me, supporting the competion. shhh, dont tell.

stars

2004-08-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

last night was the first night i did not fall right asleep when i laid my head on the bed. so im staring at the ceiling for the first time. lo and behold, there are those fake glowing stars up there. only one section of the ceiling has them. at first im a little upset, as im not a huge fan of the fake stars look. but then it takes me to freshman year. jester dorm. those stupid stars are on the ceiling there too. how far have we come from the dorm room. and yet, there are things i miss about it all. so innocent, so wide-eyed, just excited to be living in the freedom and irresponsibility of college life. eight people in the dorm room at a time, playing perfect dark, watching wrestling. just hanging out. always poeple in there, always. tony in bed early, me staying up late to work on a program, listening to him mutter to himself in his sleep. all you can eat in j2 for free on our prepaid meal plans. alot of things happened in and out of those dorms freshman year. good things, bad things. but the one thing i remember is the great group of people that were seemingly always together in one form or another. right out of high school, all still friends, all still enjoying each other. look what it came to be by the end of four years in school. most things changed, fell apart, or just faded into the past. few things remain from freshman year.

some things remained the same. my revolving door of friends and roommates kept a few costants in order to give me a chance at survival. alone in my apartment right now, i miss having roommates. i guess the one roommate who lasted with me for all of school was tony. others went from friends to roommates to other things, but tony was all of em. for a long time just kinda got used to him being there. i knew i could trust him. i knew he would have my back with whatever, he would give me rides to wherever, he would lend me money if i needed it, he would just be there to hang out. almost every one of the experiences i will remember and cherish from college, from high school, heck even middle school, hes a part of. ive known him for ten years. thats half my life for gods sake. one of the few constants in my life through all its important stages. like a brother, in the truest sense of the term. all the friendships that changed in college, all the ones who drifted one way or the other, everything that happened. this one was there, never giving me a reason not to trust him. we rarely sat around talking about personal things, emotions, girls, things like that. but there was an understanding there, htat if you needed to, you could. nothing was hidden, just some things werent neccessary to bring up. best friends mean different things and come with different expectations for different people. we didnt know everything about each others lives, but we knew everything abut each others person. and we could rely on each other whenever needed, no matter what. you dont know how important it is to have someone like that right near you until you dont.

sheesh. yet another reason to not like glowing stars on my ceilings. apparently they turn me into a sap. sorry about that tony. even so, i think ill leave those stars up there. give me some memories to stare at on a lonely night.

yum

2004-08-11T01:09:00.000-07:00

What NOT to serve at your wedding.

testing

2004-08-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

i have some pictures to share with you. assuming this works. please let me know if it does. and then make fun of how bad the pictures are. you can do it all at the same time! dont you love technology. anyway, these are just a few that turned out decent. they show my couch in all its glory, some of my apartment in its empty glory. and some of my face in its not-so-glory. i even resized them to make it faster for yall. so be patient. and enjoy.

ho

2004-08-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

my dad informed me today that my nice sateen sheets were "ho sheets." thanks for making me a ho teresa. o yea, now that i think about it, that would make you one too, huh? who knew, who knew ...

hehehehe. just wanted to share that highlight of my afternoon, as well as give a bit of insight as to possibly why i turned out the way that i did. gotta love dear old dad. now one year older. happy birthday.

sickness

2004-08-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

i got sick on saturday. quite sick. completely out of the blue. ever have that happen? its frighteningly sudden, exceedingly messy and then sickeningly ... sickening. it was bad. the day started a bit hectic, i forgot to set my alarm and checkout was early, so im rushing around to do last minute packing/cleaning. i make it in time, i head to my new place, excited about the whole thing. after doing a little unpacking, i remember im supposed to call usaa and set up my own policy for car insurance, along with renters insurance. so i call, and after a bit of talking with the nice usaa lady, she quotes me at 368 dollars a month. im speechless. i know im 21 years old and ive had a couple minor at-fault accidents in the past year, but still ... thats alot of dough. flabbergasted, i decide i can no longer continue my life until i find cheaper insurance. so not having any internet here yet, or even a phone line to dialup on, i zoooom to microsoft. couple hours later, i find the wonderful progressive will give it to me for much much less. ahhh, sweet relief.

im driving home, ready to get back to unpacking. plus im going to go bowling that night with a group of ms folks. should be fun. but wait a second, small hitch in the plans. i start feeling a bit ill in my stomach. not sure why. but its getting worse and worse as i continue on. suddenly, as im about 4 blocks from home, i realize im not going to make it. i pull over my car and roll down the window just in time to, well, get sick. a couple times. gross. needless to say the whole rest of the day and night are ruined. i crawl up to my apartment and attempt to continue existence, but instead pass out on the couch. then get up and move to the bed, still devoid of sheets. and sleep. i wake up around 1130 dazed and sweaty, disoriented beyond belief. i gain my bearings and feel a little better so i eat a couple pieces of toast and drink a glass of water. now i still feel sick, but not nauseaous. so i put the sheets on my bed and go back to sleep. so comfortable. the bed and sheets were worth every dime i paid for them. i lay there for about thirty minutes just reveling in the comfort, forgetting that im sick for a little bit. then i fall asleep.

now comes the dreams. i have a series of the most painful and frightening dreams in recent memory, two of which i remember and will detail here for your enjoyment. the first i dream that i am sleeping. this is always a bad start to a dream, because it means the dream is going to be overly realistic. at least for me. so im sleeping and i hear someone walking around my apartment. and im lying in my bed scared out of my mind. let me remind you this seems very very real. what do i do? i finally muster the courage to jump out of bed and flip on all the lights and i cant see who it is. but i hear them walking around. then they run out of the apartment and i run out after them, but instead run into an old man who is looking at me and laughing. i start yelling at him asking who was in my apartment but he just keeps laughing and laughing. then i wake up. im lying in bed, hot and relieved that it was all a bad dream. i feel something crawling on the inside of my hand. it then pinches on my hand, impossible to shake off. it hurts. i look down and its some sort of scorpion thing pinched on. i try to swat it away with my hand but then it sticks me with its pincher on my other hand and it hurts like i just got stung. so i rip its stinger off and it just keeps stinging over and over and over again till i wake up. and my hand hurts! thats right, i was like three levels deep in my dream and had a physical/mental reaction to it all. mentally demolished, i go back to rest without incident, and wake up mostly healed from my virus or whatever it was. but psychologically, i feel like i can never be safe in my sleep again. like this was seriously messed up. im not sure if i can express how disturbing all this was. just believe me when i tell you of all my messed up nights, this was one of the worst. topped only by those rare and great occassions i wake up yelling. in the lounge at the union. with everyone looking at me.

dreams are pretty f***ed up. so is random sickness ruining my first night in my new apartment. we wont even talk about how or how i couldnt take a shower when i woke up cause i had no towels. or how i sucked horribly at poker on friday. or how the cable guy was three hours late on sunday, ruining my ability to go shop for the coffee table, tv, rugs, table, chairs, dresser and desk chair i need. i dont like to complain too much. cause hey, weekends are great, right?

apartment

2004-08-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

my apartment is full of stuff. my stuff in fact. well, not full, but semi-full. and as good as that is, it does point out some glaring holes already. for example, i put my desk together only to realize that once i set up my computer, i do not have a chair. and i brought some clothes only to realize i have no dresser. but i do have some good stuff. and im excited about unpacking and making a home for myself. by the way, next time you move, get movers. its awesome. i sat on the couch and checked off items as they lugged them from the truck down the path through the door up two flights of stairs into my apartment. felt kinda bad. and then our water wasnt on so i couldnt even offter them a glass of water. not that i had any glasses. or water.

i was in there at night for the first time tonight. not overnight, just to drop off a couple suitcases and do a bit of work. first of all, let me say that the parking garage spots are honestly the smallest parking spots on the face of the planet. and its a tiny garage. i think ill just climb out of my sunroof instead of using a door. anyway, i crawl through the underground passageway from the garage to my apartment, up the stairs, and open my door. the view out my window is just beautiful. ive told some of you about this. i am directly across the highway from the famous space needle and seattle cetner. from my window, i can see that very clearly, union bay off to the north, downtown to the south, queen anne hill and the sound off to the west, and mountain ranges off in the distance. its wonderful. the one complaint i have about the apartment in general is that due to its proximity to the highway, i get a generous amount of road noise. its nothing i wont get used to. i really like my apartment. you will too. come see it. now. right now. get off your butt and get up here. its not like youve got anyhting better to do. so make the trip. itll be great. so do it. now.

cowboys

2004-08-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

so the cowboys finally get a decent running back. theyre lookin like they might break through, be good again. then, inexplicably, they cut their drug addict quarterback. now theyre left with a fossil and a rookie who played baseball the last few years. o man. one good hit to old man vinny and poor keishon wont have anyone to "throw me the damn ball." so so great. in the past two weeks, both the dolphins and cowboys, two of my more hated nemesises, have seen their season flushed down the toilet. im gleeful.

bed

2004-08-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

its amazing how poop can bring us together. dont worry teresa, im not going to write about it anymore. my point is that my fecal anecdotes have increased the audience of this journal. see, my family is a little bit, well, lets just say unique. we have a very simple yet, lets stick with unique, sense of humor. so my mother shared the journal around to all the internet savvy of the johnsons. and my dad too i guess even looked at it, leaving a message in the guestbook. i have to say that was great. never thought that he would be leaving messages. or even being able to figure out how. thanks dad.

ann failed me. who is ann you say? ann is the lovely lady i purchased a bed from this weekend. she was a deadly sales combo - both attractive and incredibly nice and personable. i didnt stand a chance. the good news is she sold me a very good deal. cause i might have bought anything from her. so i bought a great mattress. now, let me tell you my dilemma in picking one out. i have never had what one would call a great bed. ive lived on generic provided mattresses for the last four years. so here i am presented with a pillowtop mattress, and it is too comfortable. so comfortable that it is uncomfortable. so i am jumping from one pillowtop to another, trying to decide. i pick the lesser of the two, just to ease myself in to the whole comfort thing. as ann correctly pointed out, one can always make a mattress softer, but you cant really make one firmer.

now to the part where ann fails me. there is a third mattress in this particular line, a nonpillowtop. due to a fluke in the sales they have going, this particular nonpillowtop mattress is the same price as the pillowtop that i wanted to purchase. and of course, on receipts, it merely says the line, not the specific model. so i get the thing delivered on monday, drive out to the apt from work in the middle of the afternoon, wait for an hour, and here comes my mattress. yay. but wait, theres no pillowtop. ann had ordered me the wrong one. she did correct it later in the day but failed to notify the delivery people, who had already loaded the sucky nonpillowtop version. phoen calls and inquiries and annoyances later, we figure it out, real mattress coming in on thursday. assuming ann didnt mess anything else up. just goes to show you, even hot women arent perfect. and i always thought they were. are no truths sacred in this world?

i bought some nice stuff to go on this bed. 400 thread count sateen sheets and a 220 thread count egyptian cotton mattress cover. when i went to the cashier, he looked at my products then looked at me with this quizzical expression on his face. "i had some advice in my selection," i explained and he smiled and nodded. "these are pretty high quality for a young man such as yourself," he said. i just laughed and left. it would have offended me if it wasnt true. cause left to my own devices i woulda get the twenty dollar cover and thirty dollar sheets. thats how dumb i am. get a good mattress and then scrimp on the accessories. i never know what deserves my money and what doesnt.

bottom line: i really do hate shopping. i just despise it. and i have so much more to do. have i mentioned how bad i am at starting a new life ....?

ashamed

2004-08-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

** hanging my head in shame **

man, i shoulda made the sofa king joke in the last post. i cant believe i let that opportunity pass me by. how many times do you get to talk about a bad experience with a couch where you could say it was sofa king terrible, sofa king annoying, sofa king painful ... on and on. and its actually about a sofa! unbelievable. what a waste. im sorry to let you all down. we should all expect better of me.

ill get this thing back on track soon, i promise. the exciting stuff is ahead. and some pictures too.

sofa

2004-08-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

my couch was a half inch too big to fit through the doorway. the delivery guy said take the hinges off and itll slide right in. but he had to go. wait, no screwdriver. sorry, dont have one he says. knock knock neighbor, noone home. blah. searching around, i find a clip thing that can take the screws out. yay. get behind the couch, give it a shove. bang. its too big. aint happenin. push, shove, push, shove. still not movin. frustration. despair. think matt think, it has to fit. think back to geometry. tilt, shove. no luck. people walking up stairs. real nice, ask me how its going. i say not well. they laugh and do not offer to help. nice people though. shove, scrape, twist, push. took me 2 hours to get it in. a couple new scrapes along the back. but its in. and i did it myself. go to hell other people. i dont need you. being alone rules.

tomorrow would be the company picnic. could be fun. unfortunately, i still need a bed. shopping rules.

potty

2004-07-31T02:24:00.000-07:00

i just broke my tv. well not my tv, the tv i am borrowing in this borrowed apartment. see, im not very good wiht my anger. i take it out on inanimate objects. so when i spent 30 minutes of my busy busy friday night writing only to have it disappear into thin air, i lose control. and smack a tv really hard. now there are line across the screen, and the picture is all otu of focus. thats what it gets for ruining my post. stupid piece of crap tv.

speaking of crap, i took a beast of a one today. smelly. o god, was it horrid. you know the kind. youre sitting there taking care of business when suddenly you realize that what you are producing is so vile in its stench that you dont know if you can stand it. a defecaction that even flies would stay away from. a turd with the potential to cause asthmatic attacks. excrement worthy of hall of fame status. and its instantly uncomfortable. because you know someones gonna walk in. and weve all been that guy. walking innocently into a restroom, then realizing youve just entered the land of disgusting. and you wonder if someone died, because there is no human function that could produce something so horrible. quickly, this wonder turns to disdain, and you wish that whatever concocted this biological warfare was dead, for anything that caused you this much nausea and discomfort in your own bathroom experience certainly deserves a slow and painful death, followed by a quick trip to whichever cocentric circle of hell involves bad odors. and noone wants to have that wished on them. so you try to think of ways to make the smell disappear as quickly as possible. you force the action a bit, rushing things more than you probably should. you do courtesy flushes. you pray, o lord you pray, that noone walks into that bathroom. but of course someone does. so what do you do? you just sit in the stall, waiting for them to leave, wash your hands and escape with your eyes lowered in shame. and it is a shame. what should be a relaxing and relieving experience has been ruined, and now the quality of ones day has been lowered a notch. the tragedy and embarassment of stinky poo.

which is all really stupid if you think about it. why should we be ashamed of natural functions? why is it taboo to spend a whole paragraph describing the sensation of ones feces? in reality, it is our natural instincts and actions that make us all equal as human beings. ill give you an illustration of this from my own personal experience. at ut, i used to work on campus in a place called the thompson center, part of the college of continuing and extended education. there was one large bathroom in this building that was for those attending conferences and such, and the rest were pretty small. one urinal and two stalls was the norm. one day, i am taking a dump in one of these smaller restrooms. its an average dump. a gentleman comes in and enters the stall next-door to me. he proceeds to unleash an orchestra out of his posterior the likes of which i have never witnessed. there were spurts, squeaks, squeals and sputters all just exploding from within. one of thos things thats so disgusting you just burst out laughing. and i did. i quickly suppressed this laughter, got out, washed and left. however, curiosity overtook me, so i waited at the water fountain for the gentleman to emerge. he came out, and it was the dean. the freakin dean of continuing and extended education.

i walked away quickly and began to laugh again. the thought of this important, distinguished, classy guy making those kinds of noises amuses me to this day. but it gave me another thought. no matter how far we get in life, no matter how much we make, how much respect we garner, how much poise we possess, we are still disgusting animals. we all produce stinky turds on a daily basis, some stinkier than others, and we all occasionally make noises during production. were all the same. i later wondered if the dean still laughed when he heard others make funny noises in the bathroom, or if he had pushed that childish instinct too far back in order to present the professionalism required to gain dean-dom. maturity is a farce. its a front we put out to the world that says hey, im a grownup, respect me. its something we are taught to be because thats how the adult world supposedly should be. beneath it all we all still laugh at potty humor. or at least we should.

ok ok, ill get off my soap box now. i have to apologize to the tv anyway.

political

2004-07-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

real quick at top, let me give this recommendation to you: if you have comedy central, check out the graham norton effect on thursday night. hes a british guy who does this talkshow type thing. its so hilarious.   i promise you wont be disappointed. unless you hate very gay british people. but honestly, who could ever hate them?

i watched john kerrys speech today. and i have to say it was pretty good. i kind of think hes a real person now, and could maybe do a decent job at this presidenting thing. its interesting to think about the progression of my politics through the last four or five years of my life. its a pretty big swing from one side to the other really. i suspect many people experience this in school. i came in not really a republican per se, but very conservative. it had a lot to do with how i was raised, with my religious beliefs and all that stuff. i can recall several times having long arguments with my more liberal friends about such subjects as welfare, abortion, death penalty, homosexuality .. fun things like that. me chris and jason were generally the conservatives in these conversations, and everyone else was on the other side. i felt pretty comfortable with my beliefs on all these subjects. now i think back and try to remember when these things started to change, and i dont really know. but now i wonder how i ever believed many of the things i used to.

i dont know if i am more enlightened or not. but i do know this.   if it costs me an extra 3 or 4 percent of my income for other people to have things to eat, books in their schools, and affordable health care, take it. if there are all these people getting cleared of crimes they were convicted of, if peoples lawyers are falling asleep, if mentally retarded teenagers are being sentenced to death, maybe we should cut back on the death penalty just a little bit. if my faith tells me that life starts at conception and yours does not, if science cant say definitively one way or the other, then the government has no right to decide either. and if two gay people want to commit to each other and start a family, why the hell cant they?

now if i went back to freshman or sophmore matt and told him these things, he would argue with me for hours. then he would realize it is me he is arguing with. actually, this happened. i saw the future version of myself, and he taught me the error of my politics. he told me that i would end up in seattle, living in capitol hill, the liberal bed of the northwest, and being a conservative up here would just be silly. so i changed. and its all for the better.   think about it, if i was still conservative, maybe id be voting for bush. yikes.

last but not least, and almost as important as my opposition to bush, is my opposition to carson daly. how did this chump ever get to host anything in his life? he is dull, has little charisma, and gives the most generic and worthless interviews on the planet. is he funny? no. is he talented? no. think about all the funny and talented entertainers out there who could host his lame late late night show and make it good. those of us up at 130 desreve better. i feel very strongly about this. god i hate carson daly.