meet lil’ matt

Yea! Thanks to Jenny I have a cool cartoon version of myself! Everyone, meet lil’ Matt (he’s a lovable scamp, just like me). lil’ Matt, meet everyone. Other than being really self indulgent, our new friend is going to serve a purpose on this blog. I’ve got a lot of great stories about my past adventures (that can translate as “stupid things I’ve done”). When ever you see lil’ Matt on the blog, he’ll be here to share one of those tales.

In other news, my brain has been ruined by pop culture. I’d like to formally request that everyone stop referring to Valentines Day as “V-Day.” In today’s world V-Day is a very different, ummm, celebration(? I guess) and conjures up things I’d prefer not to associate with Valentines Day. As for my Valentines Day, it wasn’t too bad. I got a lot accomplished at work. Made some progress on this web page and the left over dishes from the party. And then ended the evening in the most masculine way possible: red wine, long bath, and good book.

author’s note #1: God, I’m such a chick at times. Yes it was a bubble bath. Vanilla scented, thank you. No I didn’t buy the Bubble Bath myself, it was a gift…. Grrr… Ok, for the rest of the month all the posts are going to be about red meat, martial arts, sweat, blood, cars, knives, guns, and sex, sex, sex in hopes of regaining some semblance of male pride.

author’s note #2: Sorry for making you good readers think of me naked (agghh! I did it again). My goal on zee blog is to entertain not nausiate. From here on all discussions of me in baths (agghh! again with the pain) are right out. Unless of course you want to hear more…

Happy Valentines Day

make your own heart In honor of today I thought I’d share some wisdom I’ve gleaned throughout the years. So here are Matt’s Three Rules Of Men and Relationships (or at least the three rules of relationships and me… though I know that they apply to other folks as well):

1. While in a relationship every woman you meet wants you and is totally obtainable.
   

   example: Your walking down the street with your girlfriend. You spy a fine lookin’ woman and you think “ohhh yeah! She wants me. I could get her. But of course I won’t because I have this wonderful girl on my arm….”

2. Once out of a relationship women become these scary animals that travel in packs.
   

   example: A week later, after breaking up with your girlfriend you spy that same woman. Except now she’s surrounded by a group of friends and for some reason far more intimidating then when you last saw her. And everything about her that said “I want you, you big hunk on manliness” now says “don’t even think about it…”

3. The universe/God/gods/fate/Buddah/karma have a sick sense of humor that ensures that you will only stumble into love when you have given up all hope and have stopped looking. It’s also important to note that even if you internalize this, those same entities (in what ever for you choose) also know when you’re faking giving it all up and will send nothing your way. It’s just a cruel fact of life.

In other news: great martial arts class last night, I HATE UPS, and there is a new MP3 available to the left. I have more stuff to blog about than time to blog. Hopefully I’ll catch up soon.

mardi gras

Well the party has come and gone. Here are a few fun facts about the party:

• # of Guests - 107+ over the entire night

• # of Turkey’s fried - 2 for a combined weight of ~24 lbs
• amount of Oil Used - ~6 gallons
• # of empty beer bottles by end of night - 206
• # of flaming deserts - 2 Banana’s Foster Bread Puddings
• # of beads given out - 288+
• amount of male nudity - 0 (woo hoo!)

A good time was had by all for the most part. We really nailed the food this year. Not too much. Not to little. Nothing much left over! (which means I won’t be eating red beans and rice for weeks to come! And I finally deep fryed a turkey to perfection. Special thanks to Mike N. and Mike Z. for all the cooking help (especially for two people who are supposed to be guests) and to Roy and Courtney for the phenominal costumes. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to put up. Unfortunately I didn’t take any. For some more accounts of the party check out Julia and Jenny’s blogs.

in other news

I had a great conversation with Cindy last night. I’ve agreed to be the videographer for the wedding. I’ve photographed a few weddings before, but this will be a first for me. Thankfully I have a lot of time to think about how to shoot this one. But I’ve promised Cindy and John that the results will be wacky and memorable!

quickie

My home computer seems to have developed a nasty virus. It’s sorta been an issue of when not if this was going to happen. Serves me right for running without virus software or a personal firewall. *Sigh* My procastination comes back to bite me again. Thankfully my files don’t seem to have been corrupted. Un the down side it’s remapped my keyboard. So that’s going to be a pain until I can fix it.

The Mardi Gras is further along than in previous years. I ended up buying two smaller fresh turkey’s to deep fry (rater than go through the pain on defrosting one large one). All the ingredients have been purchased as well. I’ll start cooking tonight and be done tomorrow ’round 6.00pm. Rock on! Hopefully, if I can lick that virus tonight, I’ll have a webcam up and running this year!

odds and ends

to escape work for a moment or two I finally took time to catch up on everyone’s blogs. Here are my comments:

• Heather just redesigned her blog. Very Cool (plus she lists me as a hero blog)!

• Tina made a comment about finding a website about TV shows Jumping the Shark (to understand the reference check out Tina’s site or jumptheshark.com). That website (and its being recently features on lots of radio/tv shows) made the term famous (which many claim caused jumptheshark to jump the shark). However Tina’s blog is as fresh as ever (no sign of a shark there)!
• Kristen updated her blog! yea!
• Joel registered hannahandhersisters.com (which I’ve added to my links!)
• 

  Which drink are you?

• Julia, Aaron was going to direct the wedding (including hiring actors to play us so the pictures would look good) and play the voice of God (who would deliver the vows). The solid gold dancers were for the reception. I’m tellin’ ya babe, you missed out.

a rock ‘em sock ‘em update

Last night my new gloves and focus mitts came in. Yea! Now I get to play in all the reindeer games during the Shootfighting class! I can pound on Aaron again! Watch out.

In other news, the apartment is pretty clean for the Mardi Gras Party this weekend. I went on the first shopping run and will start cooking officially tonight (although I did mix spices last night). I have decided to drop Crawfish off the party menu. It was just too expensive to drop ship them at this time of year. Also I’m trying to cook much smarter this year so I’m not burnt out halfway through the party.

There’s a new and very cheesy MP3 available to your left. I think I’ll put some better stuff up next week.

testing, testing, testing

because I wanted to support blogger and in hopes that I’d get more stable service I decided to sign up for Blogger Pro. The server is definitely faster and there are some interesting in-line editing options. For example, here’s a picture from a few days ago of myself and Ken on the top of Kodak Tower setting up the birdcam. This was inserted to the blog using the upload file tool which FTP’d the files and generated the HTML and everything. (Yeah I know it probably would have been quicker for me to do it by hand… it’s still cool… don’t rain on my BloggerPro parade!). Without further adu some birdcam pics:

This is from late last week. I was just clearing some gunk off the perch and wishing I had brought my clip on sunglasses (*squint* *squint*). In the background you can see the lot where I park my car and two of the Birdcam cameras. The large unit to the right is the one that we were up there to work on.

What a difference a week makes. This was Monday, during the snow. Kenn were putting the camera back up after we had taken it down to repair it. I’m wearing the super cool (and warm hat) that Jenny made me for Christmas!

Now I’m tightening the bolts on that camera. What you can’t tell is that I’m extended over the railing (an below that empty space) to do that. I guess my fear of heights is finally under control.

Here’s a view from one of the other cameras of my cool new hat as I continue to tighten bolts.

Kenn and I confirm that everything is in the correct position.

While I wait for confirmation that the unit is transmitting, I snap a last minute movie of the nest using my MC3. Note that I remembered to wear my sunglasses in order to maximize my looking cool cool and minimize the amount of glare (’cause there is oh so much of it during a snowstorm).

author’s note: Ok, while the upload feature is pretty cool, the grammer checker leaves a lot to be desired.

a poetic interlude

It’s my blog, so I can indulge myself and sprinkle in some bad poetry/broken prose. This is one that I’ve been toying with for years that seemed oh so appropriate today.

winter

For just a moment

the child holds the hammer

suspended

above her head.

A look of great conviction

crosses her face

and suddenly,

with a great exhale of steam,

she brings it

CRASHING down

SHATTERING

the ice

on the cold, concrete steps

of that small blue house.

She pauses,

again for just a moment,

to examine the damage.

Contented,

she looks up

to wave to a passing car,

and goes

to find her brother.

up where we belong

monday was just a typical day at the office*. Projects like Birdcam make my life interesting on snowy days. More on that tomorrow.

The weekend was good. My apartment is starting to get ready for the party next weekend. I finished of the collection of Japanese Short Stories I was reading. Saturday night was spent visiting friends in Syracuse. Sunday was spent at the theatre (with a far better audience) and then watching the Big Game (which was great, one of the best Fourth Quarters ever)!

oh, there’s a new MP3 De Jour to your left. Check it out!

* 700KB Quicktime movie

note to readers: this blog is going use up my saucy word allotment for most of 2002. Not for the faint hearted

assholes

the title says it all. For the last few days (outside of quality time with friends) I seem to be surrounded by them. Which came to a nasty head on Thursday night when I took in a play at RIT. Clearly I missed the note on my ticket that I was sitting in “Section Asshole. Row 3.” The guy next to me spent the entire play doing his homework. I understand that students are assigned in classes to see these productions. However that’s no excuse. Especially when you need to continually flip through pages. Then his cell phone went off. Admittedly I’m a theatre/movie person. I really enjoy both. I’ve been involved with the production of both. I respect both. And I respect the people around me. I’m not super bright, but even I can grasp the idea of “shut off your damn phone before entering a theatre!”

(Side note: Personally I’m always paranoid about my cell phone going off during this type of event. I actually had it happen to me once. I had just gotten my phone and was at a movie and this cell phone goes off, and I think “Great, some asshole forgot to shut off their phone. Way to ruin it for everyone jerk!” After the movie, I pull the phone out of my pocket to use it and notice that it was on and that it told me I had missed a call. Ever since then I’ve removed the battery before entering a theatre.)

So, you would think that after one phone went off, everyone else with a phone would think “hey maybe my phone is still on… I’d better check and turn it off if it is….” Oh no, not in section Asshole. It happened one row in front of me ten minutes later.

Then, even through we are at the back of the theatre, the guy behind me decides it’s time to take some pictures with a small point-and-shoot camera (can you say “not going to come out well?”). And so Asshole Adams behind me starts snapping flash pictures. Once, when acting, I had the distinct pleasure to be distracted by random flashes of light from the audience. It’s not a fun experience for you or the other actors on stage when your mind goes temporarily blank because the mother of some kid in the chorus really needed to share that moment. The playon Thursday was a difficult enough piece without the added distraction. I finally had to turn around and, as quietly as I could, ask him to stop. The worst part is that he didn’t really get what he had done wrong.

Thankfully I managed to get a different seat for act two. And wouldn’t you know it, ten minutes into the act, another cell phone goes off in the section I had been sitting in. God, sometimes I hate people.

Other than that things are pretty good.