Christmas wrap up

That about says it all.

Christmas was good. I scored some pretty sweet swag. Including but not limited to Battle for Middle Earth 2, Boston Legal: Season 1, Anchorman, Little Miss Sunshine... I can't remember what else. I found out that there is a new fables trade that I don't have yet so I gots to pick that up sometime before whenever we go to St. Louis.

Anyway I gots to go to bed cause I gots to get up early tomorrow cause I gots to do a morning route. Word.

Neighborhood 4!!!!!

I've been listening to Arcade Fire a lot lately. I'm sort of tired of Christmas songs, plus I refuse to believe Christmas is next week.

THIS HAS BEEN THE LONGEST WEEK EVER!!!!

One of the two meters at work have been broken since monday, which means we are fifty percent less efficient than we could be. Plus we're getting a shitload of mail. A SHITLOAD!!! It's very frustrating sitting around waiting for Pat and Renee to finish all the mail on one machine, almost as frustrating as being the one that has to run all the mail on one machine, which I did last night since Pat was gone, she'll also be gone tomorrow so that's nice. It's like driving to St. Louis going 35 miles per hour.

After work, Work Jimmy, Terrence and I went to go see Rocky Balboa. One of the previews was for a werewolf movie so I was immediately engaged, the movie looked pretty bad though and it appears that the people just turn into actual wolves which is always a dissapointment, the highlight though was when the announcer said the title of the film which was "Blood and Chocolate" the audience, including myself burst into laughter.

Rocky Balboa wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The ending seemed sort of anti-climactic and there was some sort of pep talk or inspirational heart to heart about every 2 minutes. The fight scene (singular) was sort of rushed, I felt that they could have strecthed it out about since it was the climax of the film. The best part of the movie was the part where Rocky totally made out with this chick while holding a picture of his dead wife. It was totally hot in a PG kind of way.

Children of Men is supposed to be amazing. I heard a story about it on NPR today, and it was on everyone's list of best movies of the year over at The Onion Av Club. I don't really know what to think about that though since almost everyone had Prarie Home Companion on there as well which seemed fairly unwatchable to me.


Post Script.

Oh, the minarets of Constantinople are plated gold, ivory and opal.

Just another post about sleeping

Well I'm done with about one eighth of my Christmas shopping. Hurray!!!!

I've gone out to eat entirely too many times this week. Seven times since Friday, and we're supposed to be going out tonight for the Christmas party thing. I've started running again in hopes of countering this ridiculous intake of food, I've also started limiting my soda intake. I've more or less been abstaining from soda between meals fairly consistantly for a while, but I've also been not drinking soda when I got out to eat recently. I really don't notice a difference when I don't drink soad, apart from being hungrier, but the evidence that soda is bad for me (and when I say "me" I mean people who drink it) is really too well documented for me to ignore.

NOTE: We're still working on the kitchen. We are still dog sitting Dutch. I asked Ben to take Dutch and Buster outside while I start painting. The dogs are still in their kennels and have been since about 10 pm last night. So what does Ben do, first thing, when he goes down stairs? Take a shower. Sure the dogs have been couped up for the past 13 hours, what's another 45 to 50 minutes going to hurt them! That's right 45 to 50 minutes is how long it takes Ben to get ready in the morning. EVERY MORNING.

I have to go paint now.

Post number 1,467,982

Jimmy and I went to go see Apocalypto tonight. It was better than I thought it would be. I had no desire to see it in the first place, and I probably won't ever see it again, but it was still a decent flick. A solid 6, with aspirations for a 7.

It's really hard for me to get in the Christmas mood when It's almost 70 degrees outside. I can't listen to Christmas music anymore, it mocks me so with its depiction of wintery scenes; snowy hillsides, warm winter coats and scarves, frosty windows... this blows.

THOUGHT!!!

You know what guitar hero needs desperately songwise? The Overture from Jesus Christ Superstar. That is a rocking guitar jam.

I've been listening to the Fruitbats this weekend, particularly "The Wind the Blew My Heart Away". I find that track particularly inspirational as it helped me come up with an ending to a story that's in my head that I will never write down because I suck at writing.

Night!

Is it really Saturday?

Josh is back in town. Joshwa, Matt B and I played some guitar Hero 2 tonight. I still would rather just play a guitar than that game.

We're working on painting our kitchen this weekend. I'd like for it to be completely done this weekend so I can help Jimmy with his film next week.

All the cookies are baked, at least the ones I help with. It seems like we got a lot of cookies made this year, which is nice. I still might make a batch of oatmeal cookies or something before Christmas... if I have time. This week is going to be super busy. Monday I need to get my oil changed and I'm going into work early, Tuesday is the Christmas party, Wednesday and Thursday are probably going to be big cleaning days because Dutch will be back with Terrence so Mac will be able to move downstairs and we can actually get stuff cleaned without him messing it up. Friday Joe comes into town. Saturday will be more cleaning and cooking. Sunday will be cooking cleaning and Christmas eve. I think I'm going to go to midnight mass or early morning Christmas day. Also I haven't done any Christmas shopping.

Anyway, I'm going to bed.

Sunday's blow.

My online final goes up at midnight. I'll probably take it tomorrow morning.

I did some cleaning on Saturday. Today I did nothing. I sat around all day. It was pretty ridiculous. I did go for a run before I went over to Matthew, out of protest.

We picked names for our annual Christmas gathering. I got Spants. I think I know what to get him.

While we were waiting for Droib to show up we were playing some Mario Tennis and since I'm not a big fan of video game music, I turned on Pandora. Since I tend to use Pandora more than Matthew, my account was the one that loaded up when I opened the page, we listened to a couple of my stations. I have my stations sorted by similar music, for example my Rufus station has Rufus and Andrew Bird, who I think are sort of similar musically. I have a station of the Bens (Folds, Kweller, Lee). Music I think that will overlap I put in the same station so there is not a lot of crossover. Anyway we were listening to my Sing Me Spanish Techno station and Cacth My Disease came on. I made a comment about how it was sort of weird that Ben Lee would be on a New Pornographer's station and Bucket said something to the effect of "that's because you don't like different types of music." I took offense to that for one thing it's patently untrue, but also I pride myself on my openness to different styles of music and it seems that too often do I have to defend my musical tastes to Matt Buchheit. There are certain types of music that I don't have a lot of patience for; Opera, Rap, Hip-hop, Nu Metal but other than that, I'm fairly open minded. There are some bands I like that have fairly similar sounds: Rogue Wave is sort of like a less talented the Shins, Mike Doughty, God bless him, is sort of generic accoustic pop rock, Andrew Bird is like a better version of Rufus, and the Bens all sort of cover the same ground sonically. A lot of the bands I like are pretty much in a league of their own. Wilco does noise rock like no other, Sufjan Stevens is better than anyone has any right to be, The White Stripes are pretty much the best thing that's happened to popular music in my lifetime, The Beatles are the greatest band of all time, Neko Case made me like country music, Nickel Creek introduced me to bluegrass, The Giants made me pay attention to music, The Decemberists are best people making music right now. This list isn't particularly diverse racially and probably not socio-economically either. You could probably count the number of tatoos possessed by the people on this list with 2 hands (if you don't include Chris Funk) But the musical landscape of these bands is quite varied.

Holy day of Obligation Batman!

Happy Birthday Droib!!!!!!!

As far as I can remember I have always gotten Droib terrible presents. I can't remember ever getting him something that he wanted or enjoyed. Here's some presents I seem to remember getting him.

1. Some sort of Illustrated Encyclopedia or history book or something... Yikes.
2. Shaft (Sam L. version) Not bad in and of itself, but still.
3. Soundtrack to American Gladiators. Wow, I'm a jackass.

So this year I'm going to try to find something that he'll actually like or use. I'm thinking maybe a crossbow.

Christ. http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1529799&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300

Next year there are some pretty awesome-looking movies coming out.

January brings us Pathfinder (and Smoking Aces, for what it's worth)

February:
Reno 911:Miami (February? Seriously? Ouch)
Ghost Rider (It IS a comic book movie...)
Black Snake Moan (Jimmy is really excited about this movie... I trust his judgment)

March:
300 and Hot Fuzz open the same day. I doubt I'll have time to see any other movies that month

Grindhouse in April, Spiderman and Pirates in May. Next year will be a good one for movies.

Lord of the Rings the Third Age is fun. I like console RPG's. Ok I'm going to bed.

No one is asleep at my house

It's almost 2 in the morning and no my dad is the only person in the house that is sleeping. I'm waiting for my family to go to sleep so I can put their St. Nick's day presents out.

I went to Popeyes with work Jimmy tonight after work. We waited for like half an hour for our food. To be fair the first fifteen minutes of the half-hour was spent waiting to order. My advice to you is to not eat at Popeyes. At least not yet. I'm not a huge fried chicken fan to begin with, but the food was ok, just not worth the wait.

JimmyK is mostly over his sickness and almost done editing his movie, which means we'll probably start work on our project pretty soon. I'm fairly stoked, though simultaneously worried. I'm not really good at being creative on demand, especially the kind of creative that's also supposed to be funny. We'll see.

The Proposition is a decent flick. I think I liked it more than I should've. It's not particularly good, it's just not bad. It doesn't do anything wrong but it isn't overflowing with rightness. The cast is really strong though. It was written by Nick Cave, if that means anything to you. Yes, that Nick Cave, I checked.

HOTT FUZZ!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7J_vYN5ZkY

So Pete was like....

Matt you gotta check out this video that Neil Gaiman linked on his journal today. And I was like this video http://www.fabulist.org/archives/2006/11/to_rouse_you_fr.html ? And Pete was like yeah. So I did. My life will never be the same.

I forgot that I had changed my password...

I was feeling kind of sick Saturday night after I got second at the euchre tournament so I came home and slept.

Sunday I went to see For Your Consideration with Jimmy (it sucked, lots) still felt kind of sick so I came home Sunday night and slept.

Monday felt slightly less sick, but work Jimmy was really sick so he didn't come in on Monday. I ended up having to take early and late run together, but it wasn't a big deal cause I'm a hoss.

Tuesday, Jimmy was back at work. I realized that the first of the month is Friday and freak out a little. Tuesday night, in bed by 11. I woke up this morning looked at the clock. It said 11:15. I slept for 12 hours. I am some sort of sleeping demi-god.


Ok so here's what's happening to me the next few days. Tomorrow is all about homework, with a bit of giving blood in the middle, followed by some working then some more Battle for Middle Earth. God I love that game. Friday is going to suck because it's going to be snowing/raining/sleeting and it's the first of the month and I have late run. Saturday I'll be getting up ridiculously early to go read at the Notre Dame Scholar Bowl Tournament, if it isn't called off due to snow. Some point this weekend I need to cancel my subscription to Final Fantasy 11. 11 is a decent game, but I don't feel like the time investment is worth it. The late game content seems pretty cool, but getting there would take a lot more time than I care to spend playing a non-RTS. I don't regret buying it. It was only $20 and like I said, it's a good game. Maybe I should just stick to the console RPG's.

So I'm in a LOTR kick due in large part to Battle For Middle Earth. It's the best RTS I've played in a long time. I'm trying to read 2 towers now. I'm farther than I've ever been (Chapter 3).

Anyway. I'm going to try to read more now.

Matt v. Tea; Round 2

I feel like I'm starting to get sick so I'm drinking hot tea to nip the sickness in the bud. I tried to get into the habit of drinking hot tea earlier this year, it didn't go over so well. I'm trying a peppermint, herbal tea with a spoonful of honey in it. It is making me feel better. The problem is when I'm in these early stages of sickness and my throat gets all gunky there are certain things that if I drink them it makes the problem worse, dark sodas (not really a problem. I don't need soda like some people *Matthew K Long*) and milk. Not being able to drink milk is a problem. Milk, Peanut Butter and Ranch dressing are the foodstuffs I consume with the most frequency. I drink milk with everything, especially with things that I have with peanut butter or ranch dressing.

I got up about 8 this morning to play football with Keith, some Strohmeyers and their friends. It was fun, but I was completely useless. I can't throw a football and I couldn't outrun anyone else out there. I did make a couple of quick completions for first downs but other than that. Mr. Garner, the guy who taught me physics was an unstoppbale football god.

Also:
Curb Your Enthusiasm is great, but I'm sure you already knew that, but did you know that the second season of Extras is also great. I'm sure you assumed it would be, but I have evidence to back it up. It's important to note that it is NOT, I repeat, NOT as good as the first season, but it definately has some great episodes. Specifically the Ian McKellan episode.

EUCHRE TONIGHT!!!!

Friday no more; A Boring post about my job

Worked sucked so much more than the Friday after Thanksgiving should. Here's a rundown of Clockout times this week vs mail we ran.

Monday: 8:10 ; 26,000
Tuesday: 8:20; 24,000
Wednesday: 8:45; 23,000
Friday: 8:55; 21,000

Tonight we ran 21,000 pieces. Over half of the businesses whose mail we sort were closed today. We ran a lot of mail from my two least favorite accounts. They're my least favorite especially when I have to meter them, which I had to do tonight. An important thing to mention is that metering mail takes considerably longer than just screening it. When companies send us their mail and it already has postage on it, all we have to do is screen it, which means we flip through it to make sure every letter has postage and make sure there are no stamped pieces in with their mail. It takes about 20-30 seconds to screen a tray of mail. When the mail doesn't have postage on it, when it comes from companies that don't have a postage machine and we have to meter it it takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes to prepare a tray of mail to be run through the sorter. It sucked so much. I can't express to you how easy tonight should have been. Fuck Great West Health Insurance. I hope the building catches fire and the flames burn hot with the massive amounts of junkmail that they send to people on a nightly basis.

I still think Borat is mean.

I saw Borat last night with Work Jimmy. It was ok. There were some really funny parts. I read on IMDB that it's set to become the highest grossing comedy of all time. Anchorman is funnier.

We're finally done with taxes at work! Yee -haw!

That's really all I had to say

Monday!!!!!!

I've been in a spectacularly good mood since Saturday. I think it might have something to do with the joint the guy next to Steve was smoking before the concert. Maybe not.

I talked to my cousin Josh-shwa tonight. He's going to be home the Tuesday before Thanksgiving which is pretty bitching. His family goes to Texas every year for thanksgiving day so I usually don't get to hang with him over Thanksgiving break which is a bummer.

I keep watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I think it is a very bad show, but I hope it stays on for at least the rest of the season. It's certainly better than CSI Miami and it gives me something to watch on Monday nights. In tonight's episode we found out why Tom was speeding through Parump, Nevada (It had something to do with his brother who's in the air force and was being protested. John Goodman told us why, but I didn't really follow him nor did I really understand how he came by this information). Also the thing that Harriet and Matt were fighting about for the past two episodes was just Matt being protective of Harriet *aww*. Here's a reenactment of their conflict.

Matt: You're a Christian!
Harriet: I certainly sound like someone who could be Christian.
Matt: I'm mad at you for believing things that you believe in.
Harriet: *shouting* Hey everyone!!! I believe and Jesus and stuff! But unlike ever other Christian I have a sense of humor, you know cause Christians don't have senses of humor and spend all of their time boycotting crappy SNL knock-offs that aren't funny!
Matt: Was that supposed to be ironic?
Harriet: No. The writing is just that bad.
Matt: Wow... this is painful. Anyway. I'm mad at you cause of gays and stuff.
Harriet: Blah blah blah. You're a liberal, I'm a conservative but we still love each other even though you dumped me.
Matt: I'm still angry at you.
Harriet: Ok.
Matt: Now I'm not mad at you, I just wanted to be there when those gay street thugs one of which looked like the lead singer of Beulah accosted you.
Harriet: Let's hold hands.
Matt: ???

Apparently they're going to kiss next week, so get your TIVO's ready.

Oh by the way, I was going to mention this last post but I forgot. If anyone is looking for the hot indie chicks they're at the Decemberist's concerts. Yikes. Lots of solid black frame glasses. Lots of scarves. They were everywhere. Jimmy K, a good friend of mine and a veteran of 2 Decemberists concerts said that this was not a fluke, it is not limited to Chicago. Where the Decemberists be, so be the hot indie chicks. You've been warned.

I should be tired of this song, but I'm not.

I've heard Crane Wife 3 about 8 times the past 2 days. It's still an amazing song and I still enjoy it every time I listen to it.

Well this weekend was a blast. Friday, after I got to St. Louis, I hung out with Pete briefly and spent the night at Steve's and reread 300. Saturday morning after everyone was awake and what not we, we at this point being Me, Steve, Mary (Steve's lady) and Frank (Steve's roomate) assembled at the van and then went to retreive Petus and Kaelin (Pete's lady) {Note: I really don't know how to spell her name, and for what it's worth I wasn't even aware that Kaelin was a first name as the only experience with the name Kaelin that I had before meeting Pete's girlfriend was from Jenifer Kaelin, some girl in my cousin's class in high school}. It was 7:40. The ride to Chicago was unspectacular, except for Frank vomiting in the van and the subsequent cleansing with lysol. Also the book of Neil Gaiman short stories I was reading was pretty fucking spectacular. As we got closer to Chicago there was a lot of quoting of Arrested Development. All and all the trip to Chicago was fairly pleasant.

We found the venue and parked relatively close to it. It was balls cold in Chicago. We hung out in a Borders while the people in our party made contact with their friends that were in Chicago. They came to meet our group and then we had lunch at a Thai place.

Ok I could keep going on with this boring play by play, but I won't. Here's the highlights.

I bought this kick-ass Nazi sweater at this Army Surplus store and put it on under my Fleece Jacket thing, bringing me to a mind-sweltering 4 layers of shirt.

We went to this used book shop that sold a ridiculous amount of pornography. Actually it just had a ridiculous amount of pornography on display. I can't really comment on the quantities of pornography that the store moved, but I can say one guy that was there when we were there bought like 8 magazines. Also I think I should point out that there were like 13 of us college kids moving about in these very small stores on the street near the venue.

While we were waiting at Borders the second time I was reading this book of 1001 albums you have to listen to before you die. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake both had albums in there. You know who didn't? The Decemberists. Neutral Milk Hotel. Ben Folds/BFF. Cake. THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS!!!!!!! That book was bullshit.

There was a lot of standing around and waiting. In line to get into the Venue. In the venue waiting for the concert to start. Waiting for the lame opener to stop playing so the Decemberists could come on and rock the house. Waiting for Frank to come back with water to revive our fallen comrade Steven Wissinger. That's right folks, after the boring, but entirely Scottish opener finished my dear friend Steve Wissinger was overcome with some sort of fever and nearly fainted. Thanks the quick thinking and acting of the girlfriends and Petus and Frank, Steve recovered quickly and was able to enjoy the rock that soon followed his spell. What was I doing during Steve's near fainting spell you ask? Doing what I do best my friends, keeping people away from Steve while he sat on the floor trying to not pass out. Giving him room to breath, as they say.

So a word about the Decemberists. Spraelificent. What does that mean? I'll tell you.

sprae-LIF-i-cent: adj. The Decemberists rocked hard, no doubt, but it wasn't a rock concert. They Might Be Giants put on rock concerts. Actually they put on Rock Shows, but still. The Decemberists put on one of the best live shows I've ever seen. They play the songs almost exactly like they sound on the album, which is how you would want a Decemberists song played. Colin Meloy is so engaging and fun to watch. He has so much control over the audience. He can work a crowd like no other.

At some point during the concert I got it into my head that the Decemberists look like they could all be high school teachers. I spent the majority of the rest of the night trying to figure out what subject each one would teach. John would teach history, obviously. Jenny would be the choir teacher. The choir wouldn't be very good, but she wouldn't care. She would love her job anyway. She would be fairly strict but also very kind. Nate would be the chemistry teacher, but he wouldn't like teaching chemistry or teaching at all probably. Chris would teach Math or art. Probably math. He might be a coach too. Probably tennis. Lisa would be the new English teacher that all the boys have a crush on and Mr. Meloy would be the Drama teacher that all the girls have a crush on, and some of the boys too. I don't know why, but this little exercise gave me endless amounts of satisfaction during and after the concert.

Wow. This post is really long. I'm going to end it now.

Watching Big Fish. Yippee

Wow, I love this movie.

I'm totally stoked about the impending weekend.

Work was incredibly long but highly tolerable due to my super Decemberists playlist. Nine freaking hours.

So almost everyone and everything I voted for on Tuesday didn't pass.

Gosh, I haven't blogged for a week and I have nothing to say.
Sorry gang.

Secret Movies

I just saw the Prestige. First of all, anyone who doubts that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world just take some time and observe Ms. Scarlett Johansson. Still not convinced? Look again. Any country that can produce that clearly has something special. God Bless America.
Anyway about the movie. I think I figured it out too early. I can't say when I figured it out, but it was definately before the final act of the film. Also it was just me and Bob in the theater so we just speculated out loud for the majority of the film and as it turns out, we were mostly right. I'm not saying it isn't enjoyable once you know what's going on and where the film is going, it just sort of takes the wind out of the sails a bit. Fortunately the cast is so superb the film would be a joy to watch if they were just playing Ping Pong for 2 and a half hours.

No good trailers before the movie sadly. Stranger than Fiction. A Good Year (what the Hell is with this movie!? Ridley Scott, that angry Australian guy I keep hearing about, making some sort of "love" movie?) Deja Vu. Apacalypto. Deja Vu. Ho hum.

So next weekend is fast approaching. Huzzah.

Work is going to suck today. Just thought you'd like to know.

11 days later

I haven't posted for a while. Sorry bout that kids.

The Halloween game went wellish. It went ok. It wasn't our worst, it wasn't our best.


I saw some movies. I saw The Departed. It was enjoyable. I saw Slither. It was good, but not as good as it could be. I'm listening to Colin Meloy lead the audience at a Decemberists concert through their vocal warm ups. I'm really stoked about the concert which is in 2 weeks? I don't really know. Yay the Decemberists.

I rented FF 12. Want to fight about it?

OH!!!! We showed J-Spaeth Army of Darkness tonight. He had never seen it before. Can you believe that. I can't.

Halloween is over. I'm not really sad. It didn't really feel like Halloween at all this year. I hate working on Halloween. It sucks toast.

Aftermath

Well the Halloween game was last night. I think it went ok. It was probably our second best game. Last year's game was our best I think. This year's game felt like it was really thrown together. But I think everyone still had fun. Kurt was came to the game, so that was cool. I hadn't really seen Kurt since he got married.

Halloween is in 2 days or something. Yipee.

Nacho Libre was a pretty good movie. It was better than I thought it would be. I give it a 7 out of ten.

I also watched Slither. It was not as good as I thought it would be. The problem was mostly that it was too short of a film. The movie was good, but lacking. Nathan Fillion is amazing though. He needs to be in more mainstream films. Anyway 6 out of 10.

Good Lord, is it Saturday?

ZOUNDS!

I'm listening to the Wilco concert NPR recorded. It's a whopping 2 hours long. I was thinking about going to see Wilco in Springfield MO. I didn't, but apparently some guy who did got and stage, tried to kiss Jeff Tweedy and got punched in the face. Way to go Jeff. People who jump on stage during rock concerts deserve to be punched in the face.

Work was the suck tonight. I won't go into detail, but I will say I don't like the new guy.

The Halloween game is a week away. I have a lot of work to do.

I watched Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World tonight. I liked it. I haven't seen a lot of Albert Brooks movies. I've seen The Muse and The Rookie (is that what the one with Brendan Frasier is called?) Anyway, I liked it. It was subtle and somewhat unfufilling, but very funny. I think that's sort of his thing though. I reccomend it.

Is it still raining?

I did absolutely nothing this weekend. And unlike some people who revel in those kinds of lazy days, I always feel bad about them. I'm so unproductive during the week anyway, when I do absolutely nothing constructive on the weekend I feel tremendously bad about it. Especially with all the things I could have been doing. I did do some laundry, and I worked on the game a bit, but for the most part, I have nothing to show for the 48 hours between friday and today.

This week in Matt Essner

Musts:
I have to work this week, pay Semo lots of money, work on the Halloween game, work on School Work, clean the kitchen and bathrooms (before Wednesday when my Parents get back from San Diego)

Would Like to's:
Finish all the planning of the Halloween Game
Make some oatmeal cookies
Time Spiral Draft (Friday Night? Anyone!?)
See the Illusionist

I'm going to stop writing now.

The Cardinals are going to lose.

The Mets are going to score again and the Cardinals can't get runners on the bases. They're going to lose. Carpenter pitches tomorrow, but that doesn't matter. Weaver pitched just about as good a game as anyone could've hoped for Glavine just shut them down offensively.

Joe Buck is awesome.

Have you seen Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? Yeah. Me too. It's kind of dumb. Not as dumb as CSI Miami, it's Monday night competition, but yeah... dumb.


Work is the suck.

I'm cold.

The End.

Blue is not my color

We had fun playing magic tonight. That's what happens when you have an Eric McLain there.

I bought God of War. It is engaging. It's a lot more fun than Devil May Cry 3, I can tell you that right now.

This weekend I finished all of my MC 101 projects. I have to take a test online tomorrow. I have to finish my Bibliography project for EN140 tomorrow as well. I also rented From Hell from Kent library. It's pretty good so far. I'm not suprised.

I went to 9 o'clock mass today and I was literally surrounded by the parents of people I went to school with. Mrs. Glosemeyer was sitting in the same pew as I, two pews ahead of us were the Medlins, the Lages two in front of them, the Buherles three in front of them, the VanGennips and the Enderles were in across the aisle, the Wittenborns and Wencewics (I have no idea how that's supposed to be spelled) were also there too. It was an impressive gathering of people whose children I used to know 4 years ago.

October. Oh Me. Oh My.

I haven't posted for like 2 weeks! It's crazy.

Well it's October, my favorite month of the year. The month of hoody sweatshirts and Halloween (2 of my all time favorite things). I feel like I'm really behind on my Halloween game. I have a lot of work to do, and only 3 weeks to do it.

I got my ticket to the Decemberist concert. Yippee!

So what have I done since last I posted?

I saw some movies.
1. Black Dhalia (liked it)
2. The New World (liked it)
3. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (liked it)
4. The Warriors (liked it)

I played Devil May Cry 3. (It was hard)
I kicked everyone's ass but Spants (as usual) in a magic tourney. I technically didn't play Kevin, but he stole my side board which is counts as an automatic loss for him.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Work is going to suck tomorrow. Adam isn't going to be there and neither is Pat. If the new girl shows up today, she'll probably be there tomorrow, but still.... Jay better stay or we better not have any mail or both. Also Pat is gone all next week and Wednesday is Adam's last day. But we are off on Monday.

Accoustic Head Wizard

The office is on at 7:30 now so I'll never catch it live, ever. I don't know if I just want to tape every episode, or torrent it or just not watch it till it's over than torrent it. The 3rd season started tonight. The first episode was very good. There was a lot of stuff happening in that 21 minutes of show so it felt pretty rushed. I'm stoked for this season. I need to find a game to play. I'm going to watch a movie now.

Things you need to know

Here are some things you need to know.

1. I cleaned my room tonight. I just got done in fact. It's hard for me to clean my room without completely rearranging it. I just need some change every now and then. Some new features in my newly cleaned/rearranged room inclued:
i. Organzied DVD/Music/Game Shelves
ii. Finally sorted through those laundry baskets sitting in my room
iii. For the first time ever I have a bedside lamp! WOOT!

2. I haven't shaved for more than a week and it's gross/uncomfortable.

3. I shouldn't have eaten at burger king tonight.

4. I wrote a commercial for my EN140 class. I think it's kind of funny, but I have to memorize a lot of lines becuase we're supposed to perform it live in front of the class.

5. The fight scene in the middle of The Last of the Mohicans is one of my favorite battle scenes of all time. It's a skirmish between a raiding party of Huron and a retreating battalion of British troops and it is a great scene. The Last of the Mohicans is the first part of my fall trilogy of awesome. TLOTM sometime in early to mid September, The Patriot in mid to late September and Sleep Hollow at any point in October. All three are set in New England between the years 1750 and 1799 and though they are not particularly seasonal, they are my quinticential autumn films. I think this connection stems from the fact that in school, anytime I learned about or talked about this particular time period it was during fall.

That is all.

Still not cleaning my room.

I watched the Matador last night. It was good. Pierce Brosnan was hysterical.

Here's a list of some of my favorite things.

1. The Complete Series of Arrested Development
2. The second season of the American Office
3. My Cat
4. My dark blue jeans

I bought Rise of Nations. It's a good game, but it doesn't hold my interest because I've played it before because it is Age of Empires. It's a prettier, better Age of Empires, but it is exactly the same game.

What's happening this week... not much. I might be doing a trivia night with my uncle Roger on Saturday. Sunday is the big 50th anniversary party for the Diocese of Springfield Cape.... it should be exciting.

I'm going to take a nap now.

So it's September now

I went to the fair tonight with Jimmy, or did I go with Jimmy to the fair tonight, English majors, help me out. It was neat. The arena building wasn't open and the livestock wasn't there. It was still pretty neat.

Work was too easy last week. We pretty much kicked ass every single day. This week, however, work is going to suck incredibly hard since Pat is gone tuesday-thursday.

I had a good idea for the Halloween Game this year. I think it's going to happen. We'll see.

I have my first test tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. It's online and it should be lots of fun.

L'office

I just watched the last episode of the second season of the American Office. I felt that the writers sort of rushed things, and I felt they didn't earn all the sort of plot turns that happened, certainly not the ending. The worst part was Jim's revelation to Pam that happens not 10 seconds after Pam's fiance leaves the parking lot. I like the American office, but they are much better at the comedy than they are at the serious parts. The last scene of the second season is particularly shocking.

Work sucked again today.

The Best Free Scrapbooking Class Ever

The new place that work moved to sucks. It's loud and small and it sucks.

I bought Arrested Development Season 3. It was well worth the $20 I spent on it.
I also bought "Z" by My Morning Jacket. It's ok.

It turns out that song I kept hearing on the radio that I really like is by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I'm going to have to do some research now.

I'm an American aquarium drinker

Wilco is playing in Springfield on a tuesday in early October. I wouldn't mind going to see them. In fact I would very much like to go see them. Springfield is like a five hour drive though. It's also on a tuesday. I probably won't go, but I'd like to.

This week has been really long/sucky. A lot of early mornings. A lot of moving. It kind of blows. Saturday is going to suck a lot. The company that is supposed to move the big machine is supposed to start at 730. They are moving it using the big truck that Jay rented to move all the stuff. They aren't going to be done till like noon at the earliest. Which means we aren't going to start moving stuff till then. It's going to blow.

I was going to start running again this week, but the lots of work/school starting prevented me.
Anyway, I have homework to do so I gots to go.


OH YEAH!

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday. He'll be 49. I need to get him a present.

School Starts tomorrow

I have my IRL class tomorrow. My online looks like it will be fun. It's a lot of forums and stuff. I should be going to sleep right now (because my class is at 8 am), but I'm not even remotely tired.

I need a new game to play. Guild Wars is ok, but I need an RTS. I'm playing X-2 right now, or I would be if I could skip the opening cut-scene. Paine is the most Japanese looking character ever to be in a Final Fantasy game.

Ok what else. CMS moves on Saturday, so I'll be going in early every day this week to pack stuff. It kind of blows. I don't mind the moving. But the packing is not cool.

Did you know that Ben got his learner's permit? Cause he did. I don't know if I told you, the internet, but Ben got his permit last thursday.

Ok I'm going to try to get tired real quick.

We'll build our walls, aluminum.

So I get this e-mail this morning from Pete with a link to download a file. This particular file, or more precisely collection of files happened to be a certain album from a certain rock group that certainly isnt available for purchase, and won't be for another month and a half. The album in question is amazing. I've been listening to it all day. I should stop before I get tired of it.

I'm registered for a class. I'm hoping to double the number of classes I'm in by the end of the week. We'll see what happens.

What should I do this weekend? This weekend is the last weekend of summer vacation so I feel I should do something special.

Ballaz do it on the court.

Da Ballaz (the dodgeball team that I play on) got second place at the tournee. This isn't so great an accomplishment considering that the tournament had a grand total of 5 teams, one less than the last one I played in. It was kind of sad. I didn't play much in any of the important games as we had more than enough people on our team, and I was definately the worst player. It was still fun.

I finally watched Running Scared. I purchased last week along with 16 Blocks and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the best of the bunch. Running Scared is very good though. I don't think I'll ever watch it again, but I'm proud to have it in my collection. Paul Walker is very good in it. I know. It's shocking. Scandalous even.

So August is almost half-way over, which means September is fast approaching, which in turn means that October isn't too far away. So now is the time that I need to start preliminary planning on the Halloween game, if I'm going to do one this year. I'm still sort of undecided about it. I have no idea what to do about it. I don't even know if I can get enough people to play. I don't think I can top last year's game. I try to think about putting on a game and it doesn't excite me at all. It seems sort of daunting. I don't know. It's still summer. We'll see how I feel after the fair (the unofficial start of Autumn).

Ted Leo rox.

His name is Leather McWhip

This has been a really long week.

Friday: Work
Saturday: Dodgeball
Sunday: ???

That's my weekend folks.

In other news... there really is no other news. That's about all I have to say for now. I will hopefully post the dodgeball results Saturday.

My skin is white as parchment

Last night I played in the poutiest game of ultimate frisbee ever played. I was on Layne's team and she was displeased with the throwing-off style of play. I understand why she doesn't like playing throw-off (because she just wants to run around a lot), but people like me who are completely out of shape enjoy the respite that the walk back after a touchdown affords us. J-long's team was mostly upset by the fact that we don't play by official rules. We allow three steps, which Jonathan always takes out of spite, and we don't play slaps. The three steps are pretty much just for touchdowns but the no slaps rule just seems more fair. It doesn't affect the game too much, plus I feel that our group isn't good enough to play slaps. There wasn't a lot of fun being had, especially by Josiah, who I accidentally slide tackled while trying to intercept the frisbee. I pretty much felt like a complete d-bag after that happened.

In other news Cole Jenkins is still one of the coolest people I know. He came out to The Ballaz "dodgeball practice". Jimmy didn't show, so it was just me and Adam. Cole showed up, we called J-long and decided to play some sand volleyball instead. It was pretty righteous.

Ok I'm going to golf

The Slow Clap

I finished Strange and Norrell today. It was a good book. It took me two months to read it, but it was worth the time.

I just watched A Knight's Tale. That movie still rocks. It's kind of like an anti The Reckoning. Both films have Paul Bettany, but one of them sucks. Speaking of movies that have Heath Ledger in them, how about The Dark Knight! Heath Ledger as the Joker? AMAZING!

Ok what else... Been listening to a lot of Rogue Wave as of late. They're keen.

I think i'm going to Carbondale with Pete and Steve this weekend. I also have a secret mission I have to complete on Friday... well by friday. I suppose I could do it tomorrow. We'll see.... oh yes. We shall see.

Return to life online

I got a new network card today so I have the internet again. It's nice.

Hey listen to the Boy Least Likely To's cover of Faith, it is amazing.

http://www.theboyleastlikelyto.co.uk/playfaith.htm

So we didn't end up moving this weekend at work. We're now moving the last weekend of August.
You'd think I'd have something interesting to say after not being online for 2 weeks, but I don't. Sorry.

Washing Machine

I was at pitchfork today and saw 2 things that caught my eye. One was an excerpt from an interview with Rivers Cuomo. He's married now and has no intention of putting out another Weezer album. It's not so much as a breakup as it is a hiatus. It seems pretty amicable as Scott, Brian and Pat were all groomsmen at River's wedding.

Two: LOOK OUT KIDS. There's a TMBG tribute album coming out! In honor of the 20th anniversary of the album TMBG, barnone is releasing a tribute album featuring such luminous acts and TMBG fans as Frank Black, Okgo, Jason Trachtenburg, and Hotel Lights (Darren Jessee's {of BFF fame} band). Tribute albums tend to suck. This one might not.

Stu came to visit us at work on Tuesday. He is still unemployed. But he is a college graduate, so he's not only unemployed he's also thousands of dollars in debt. Stu's awesome though. If you or someone you know needs to employ someone with a degree in criminal justice, Stu is your man.

Castaways and Cutouts.

I should be listening to the Decemberists.
That's better.

Ok, so Pat is off this week so we'll be short handed every day! YAY! It also means I'll be metering all week. Yippee!

This weekend went by quicker than most. I think it's because I was always doing something. Friday we played a rousing game of Arkham Horror. We summoned Yig illegally, but completely kicked his ass. We could've won the game legally if Steve would learn how to roll dice. Saturday Pete, Steve, and I saw Pirates 2. It was really good. I enjoyed it immensely. I don't know if I'll see it 5 times in the theaters like I did the first one, but I'll probably see it again when Joe comes home, which happens on tuesday. Sunday was the prerelease. Matthew and I got shafted in the common/uncommon department so we got schooled. We had a total of 0 counter spells, one burn spell, and two removal spells. It was ballstastic. We frisbeed Sunday night. It was intense. We played by the throw-off rules, which made the game much more interesting, plus Marcus was there so there was a lot of running.

Yup. That's it.

Staying up later than I should...

I've decided that I'm going to cool it on the Stripes for a while. White Stripes, I love you but I don't want to burn out on you. I've already had three dreams in which Jack White hates me. These dreams are very troubling.

Fortunately I have plenty of other music to listen too. I listened to Cake Bake Betty's "Songs About Teeth" today. It was a good album. I'll probably listen to it again tonight. Guster's new album is growing on me. At first I was cold to it, but it's insidious. It sort of sneaks up on you. It's probably their most listenable album. The best tracks on Ganging up on the Sun aren't as good as the best tracks on Keep it Together or Lost and Gone Forever but there aren't any tracks on GUOS that are unlistenable.

Tomorrow is thursday. THURSDAY! COME ON!!!!! Work did not suck today as much as it could've.

I think Matthew and I are going to a magic tourney on Sunday. It should be lots o' fun. It will also last a really long time. These sort of things do. They usually last about 1-2 hours too long. But hey, I really like limited magic, even though I suck at it.

Well I've said all I have to say.

Dodgeball and Sunburns

I am not a good dodger. Not at all. I got pegged a lot. Katie Jenkins was on my dodgeball team. It was pretty cool seeing her again. Cole Jenkins was also there and he is still on my top five coolest people I know list.

We played some magic tonight. It was pretty intense. Jonanthan kept winning and kept being suprised/angered when everyone would attack him, and then he would win anyway.

I am sunburned like a fish.

Oh yeah. I saw Squid and the Whale. I didn't like it. It was not a very satisfying movie.

Tired.

Matt Buchheit, you magnificent/old bastard!

Matt Buchheit will be 23 in about half an hour.

Droib gave me his hated light fixture as a "birthday present". I don't really know where to put them. I could put them over the bed, but they are going to need some wiring done to them to make them usuable. I like to put them in front of the window, but I don't think that's doable cause there aren't any outlets over there. Hmmm....

That's all for this week's episode of Matt Essner's Decoration Chat. Join us next week, or you will pay.

What have I done since last I posted. I gave blood. Well technically I gave plasma and platelettes. There was some blood in there too I suppose. I bought Star Wars Battlefront 2. I played it. A lot. I worked. I ran. I haven't seen Superman Returns yet. I've heard it's good. I've also heard that they had to alter Brandon Routh's package because it was too distracting.

Ok, other things: Earthsea was good. Did I say that yet? It was. The Spiderman 3 trailer is sort of underwhelming. Futurama, Venture Brothers, Home Movies and the Office are all enjoyable. Crash was ok. Everyone else seemed really down on it. It wasn't an amazing film but it had some really good performances. My new Green/Black deck will eat your children and you will thank it for the kindness. This is the latest I've stayed up all week. It is 11:45 pm.

I'm supposed to play in a Dodgeball Tournament this weekend. Saturday, specifically. Adam from work is one of the organizers and Jimmy and I are supposed to be on his team. I have a feeling Jimmy won't show up though. I don't know why, but I get that feeling. Maybe he's a little too old to play dodgeball with people in their early 20's. He's in his late 20's for god's sake! Come on! (with club sauce)

Ten minutes till Matt Buchhet's birthday. I don't want to see tomorrow for 7 hours or so. I'm going to sleep.

DVD's of some importance

Apparently News Radio season 4 came out on DVD this week.
Some other upcoming DVD's of TV shows that I'm stoked about:

July 11: Reno 911 Season 3 (finally)
July 18: Adventures of Brisco County Jr AND Jack of All Trades (I'm prolly not going to buy these, but I'll enjoy them when Ben does)
August 29: ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT SEASON THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Tick (animated) and Tale Spin (which are two of the handful of cartoons I watched as a kid that I would probably still enjoy now, the others include, but are not limited to, Eek the Cat/Terrible Thunder Lizards, and Animaniacs)
September 26: My Name is Earl (apparently they shot a DVD exclusive episode for this release)

I didn't notice a release date for The Office: Season 2, but I still need to pick up the first season.

Tribute to my friends that were born today:

The Big Guy

There was a man named Spants
Who lacked the skill to dance
till he bought some new socks
and some music that rocks
and put on some bellbottom pants

Once Upon a time there were two boys named Pete and Steve. They lived in a place called Cairo Illinois with their parents, Mary-Helen and Pete and Steve's Dad. Things were going great until the Necromancer showed up. That guys is a total D-bag. Anyway some crazy shit happened after he showed up, but I'm not going to tell you about it, except to say that this was some of the crazy-awsome-est shit to ever happen, ever, I am going to tell you about Fringle Skipplehop's really boring trip to the store. He went to the store. He bought some tic-tacs and a cup of store-brand vanilla yogurt. By the time he got to Pete and Steve's house everyone had left to go to the crypt of eternal suffering, which was also really awesome. Anyway, Fringle watched "The Animal" on comedy central. Later he would tell people he watched it because "there was nothing else on" but really there was plenty of other stuff on. I think there was a Bond marathon on A&E or something. That would've been hella better than "The Animal". So Pete and Steve went to college and became doctors and lawyers and had a bunch of babies with two totally smoking hot chicks who were also lawyers and doctors. It was a pretty crazy day. The End

Because of the shoes.

I've never started a Blog title with a B, until now.

Not much has happened lately, which is why I haven't been posting much. Yesterday I had to get a new tire for my car. This is the fourth tire I've replaced on my car since I've had it, so they're all fairly new. I'm almost done with the first Earthsea novel. I was going to finish it last night, but I fell asleep at a ridiculously early 10 pm. I think I'd miss staying up late more if my friends did stuff on weeknights, but we really don't. Everyone works in the morning now, except for Matthew and Jonathon, well Matthew does sometimes, but it's the other part of morning. The part I don't see anymore.

Guster's new album comes out today. I've listened to it a couple of more times. It's an ok album, just not what I was expecting.

I didn't go for a run this morning cause it's too hot. I think I'm going to have to start running at night.

Trick implies that we have a playful relationship

So Jay comes up to me and says, "Well it turns out we're not going to move until July." Tentatively scheduled for July 22, 2006, the CMS move is going to be an event to remember.

My jogging experiment is going really well. The key is that I sort of do it spontaneously, so that I'm unable to come up with an excuse not to.

I've gone out to eat entirely too much this week.

Ok, I'm going to take a shower.

This post is about Me.

I e-mailed Dr. Hill. Did I already tell you that? He hasn't e-mailed back yet.

Today I went on a tour of the old seminary/future river campus. It brought back some memories. My uncle Kevin came down for the tour because he went to school there (it was a seminary high school when it closed in 79, he went to school there frm 76 till 79). Two other St. Vincent Seminary alums were there, Fr. Charlie and Mr. Koehler. After the high school closed down it was the vocation center for the vincentians in the Springfield/Cape diocese. I'm not sure what that means, but part of it's function as a vocation center allowed it to be used as a TV studio for a local access Catholic TV program that my mother produced and hosted. It was during the period that I spent a lot of time there. I don't remember much of that period mostly because it was 16-17 years ago, but the memories I do have are vivid.

My running experiment is going well.

I can't think of anything interesting to say, goodnight.

I'm not going to write about how tired I am

We played Arkham Horror tonight. We totally illegally summoned the elder god, and totally sort of kicked his ass.

What am I going to do this weekend? I have no idea. It's sort of nice, not having any sort of obligations. Next week starts the CMS moving process. I'm going to get a lot of hours. Yippee.

I should buy some shorts this weekend. That's what I'll do.

OH! I e-mailed Dr. Hill. He hasn't e-mailed me back yet, but it's only been a couple of days. I'll prolly wait a week or so, then I'll seek out another means of class applying.

Ok. That's all.

In the Time of Chimpanzees, I was.

A Monkey.


So Guster is streaming their album for free at Rhapsody.com. I'm glad I listened to it there instead of buying it. Guster really wants to be famous. They want to be Matchbox 20 famous. They want 13 year old girls to mob them when they go to buy laundry detergent, or pick up a couple of shirts at American Eagle. Ganging Up on the Sun is their desperate cry for mainstream attention and it's not very good. Well it might be good, but I don't like it. It's not what I want to hear when I listen to Guster. It's one thing to evolve as musicians, but this album is not a change for the better. This album is a marginalization of a mediocre band that used to have a great sound. I was hoping that under the guidance of Joe, Guster would change into something great but alas greatness is not what's in the cards for the Gusters. Adam is hardly on the album at all. Ryan's lyrics are just getting cheesier and more cliche. There are a couple of brightspots on the album. There are about 5 songs that don't suck on the album. I don't remember all of them, but I'm sure that you will figure it out, if you choose to listen to the album.

Beck is cool.

Sweeps Week Part 4: A Mysterious Ending

Previously on "Matt Essner: Philosopher in training"

Ernest: Are you sure this is the right key?
Hamilton: I'm pretty sure. Is it not working?
Ernest: It doesn't appear to be working.
Hamilton: Oh, no. That's not the right key, use the one with the round head.
Ernest: Oh, ok. There it goes. *opens the door* Here we are. Did Beverly call yet?
Hamilton: No. He doesn't get off work till 9 anyway. We've probably got an hour or so to kill. Wanna play some tennis?
Ernest: Sure *They sit down on the couch*
Hamilton: *Handing Ernest a controller* Did you see what Lucas was doing last night?
Ernest: No, but I heard about it. I'm suprised he could hold it that long.
Hamilton: Yeah. The sad thing is that he probably spent a ridiculous amount of time practicing that at home.
Ernest: Yeah. Hey, I'm going to get a soda, you want one?
Hamilton: No. I'm fine.
Ernest: Ok, you set the game up, I'll be right back.
Hamilton: You want to do one on one or team.
Ernest: *sitting down* Let's do one on one.
Hamilton: Cool.
*they sit relatively silently and play tennis for an hour*
Ernest: It's after nine. He should be done by now.
Hamilton: Yeah. I think I'm going to call him. *he pulls out his phone, dials* It's ringing. Beverly, what's going on...cool...Yeah, me and Ern are over here.... your place.... ok, cool. Alright, man. See you then. He's on his way here. He just had to stop by the store to pick something up.
Ernest: What did he have to get?
Hamilton: I don't know.
DUHN DUHN DAAAAAA


So, here it is, the last day of sweeps week. It's been quite an adventure hasn't it. I mean, I've been on the edge of my seat since day 1. Biting my nails. Holding my breath. Layering the kickstand.

I had two meals of pizza today. Carbondale with Pete and Steve rocked. Carbondale is pretty cool. They have a bitching game store, a bitching comic store, and a highly decent record store. Beat that Cape Girardeau.
Our kitchen is functional again.
Buchheit and I walked home from downtown. It took about an hour, but it was time well spent. Honestly it didn't feel like it took an hour. It was very nice outside. It was a very pleasant evening.
Ok this week I'm going to sign up for classes. Our, at the very least, talk to an adviser. That's my goal.

I feel like I should rant about something. Hmm... ok. I thought of something. People spend too much money on bottled water. There it is. That's it. Well I think I'm going to go to bed now. Yup, just going to hit the sack, catch some Z's.

Sweeps Week Part 3: A mysterious Guest

I watched Jarhead. It's good. I liked it. Work sucked the last two nights, but you knew that because it's the begining of the month. You guys are so smart.

Ok, since it's sweeps week I have a special guest blogger. You might remember him from Back to the Future, as Lorraine's little brother Milton (and if you don't just pipe down and show some fucking respect, this guy is a hell of a lot more famous than any of you will ever be) Jason Hervey!

Hello. I'm Jason Hervey. Today I bought some new laundry detergent. The store brand was giving me a rash or something... at least I think it was the detergent. I don't know. I got some new detergent, and hopefully that will make the rash go away. Let's see, Stacie's coming in from Dallas tomorrow. I'm going to meet her kids. The thing about Stacie is that, I mean the sex is amazing, totally off the charts, but you know, she has all this baggage. She's got two kids (you wouldn't know it from looking at her though, damn) and she's always going on about what a jerk her ex is. It's usually meant as a compliment but seriously... get over it. She's always like "Oh, you brought me soup, Todd would never bring me soup," or "Todd never helped with the dishes" or "Todd never brought me to orgasm". I get it. I'm better than Todd. I'm better than most guys. I'm not bragging. I just stating a fact. I am a great catch. So that leads me to my question. Do I stick with Stacie, or try to find someone with a little less history. I don't know... whatever I do, I'll decide after this weekend. Never break up with someone in front of their kids. It's just a shitty thing to do. Alright, I have to go walk Kody. Peace.


Wow. That was incredibly lame. I thought he was going to say something cool. Or at least mildly entertaining. That sucked. Oh well. There's always tomorrow, or IS there? You'll just have to stay tuned and find out!


(Way to go Matt, you got them hooked with that last line. There's no one anyway could resist checking in tomorrow to see if you've posted again. "I Know.")

Sweeps Week Part 2: A mysterious disease

Go to Youtube.com and type in "oozinator", it's worth it.

Work was pretty easy yesterday. They ran out of money so there will be a little extra mail tonight.

I really enjoy my morning route. I also enjoy my cat, a glass of doctor pepper, and "Broken Boy Soldiers".

I got these Tic-Tacs at walgreens, they weren't very good, so I coated them with poison and gave them to Matthew. He seems to like them ok.

Let's see, what else. Oh yeah. I have fucking amnesia.

Maybe I should write the title after I blog, so the title is related to what I write about...

So the thing about this morning route is that I get home from work an hour or so before I would normally get out of bed. This leaves me with more time than I know what to do with. I think I'll watch a movie this morning. I still haven't watched Jarhead.

Work is going to suck tonight. It's the day after a holiday AND the end of the month. Yup. Screwed-town, population CMS.

My blog is so boring. That's it. I've decided that this week is sweeps week.

I killed a guy yesterday. I think I killed him. I hit him pretty hard in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and he wasn't moving when I left. Let me add that this "guy" was really an alien disguised as a guy, so it's not like I killed a person. But I think it's also important to note that this "alien" was on a mission of peace trying to unite his planet and ours, which would usher in an era of incredible prosperity for both planets, and bring technologies unimagined to the people of earth. I would also like to say, in my defense, that this alien was a total D-bag, and everyone at the Galactic Symposium for Peace and Unity knew it, I just did something about it. I'm pretty sure that the Phlum are going to cover for me though. They were hosting the gathering, and they're usually pretty good about keeping these sort of incidents on the down-low. If not, then earth and everyone on it is probably going to be destroyed by the Aigan Death Fleet. And if they do, I'll totally understand. It's not personal. They're just doing their job, which is to enforce the rules of the galaxy. And there are rules about killing amabassadors on missions of peace during a peaceful trade negotiation, the operative one in this case being, "don't kill them". So yeah... I guess we'll see how this one plays out.

I'm not really digging Empire at War.

Autobiographical Nonsense.

I think I overuse elipses (... , ... , ... , ...). It is my single flaw.

So me and Bucket (or Buchheit and I for those of you that enjoy formality {or Sir Matthew Haberdasher Buchheit and Myself, Captain Zany Mc Sweatertan for those of you that enjoy opiates}) went downtown tonight to listen to Renick's band.

Firstly, observations on the band. Although they songs were pretty good, they were quite formulaic: sing the verse, sing the chorus, jam for about 3 minutes, slow down, end song. They playedevery song this way. EVERY SONG. They played "Me and Julio down by the school yard". It was not as good as the original.

Secondly, observations on the evening:

1. Matt Buchheit is a good person to hang out with.
2. I saw a lot of people from highschool including but not limited to: Liesl Schoenberger, Matt Pobst, Nathan Legrand, Jen B, Jen Van G, Lara Slaten, and Jacob Roth.
3. Jacob Roth looks a lot like Kevin Smith, but Nathan Legrand looks exactly like Jason Lee as Banky Edwards.
4. If I liked beer, I'd probably like dark beer. Of the ones I tried tonight, I definately liked the darker.

Hanging around with my "peers" makes me very self concious. I was very over shod. I think Buchheit and I were the only guys there wearing shoes. Sandals defiantely were the order of the day.

Seeing bands play makes me wish I was better at playing guitar. I feel like I'm actually getting better, but I'm probably not. I need to practice more.

Still, it was a pretty fun night.

Beulah, Bishop Allen, The Islands, Danielson all rock pretty hard. The Raconteurs are ok.

I'm so tired

I went to see X-3 at midnight last night. I'm not sure about it yet. I'm definately going to see it again.

This week has been CRAZY! We got a new guy at work, Adam, after Mark quit. I didn't like Mark. I don't miss him. I do miss Stu. Both because he was really good at what he did, and when he was there we got done by 8 every night, and because he was just a really cool guy. He had a great laugh. Adam has a really bad fake laugh. I do too. I've been doing a morning route, which means that I'm pretty much back to old man hours during the week. I'm pretty much in bed by 10, 11 at the latest. I don't mind so much, cause most of my other friends have similar restrictive work schedules.

So as I said, I saw x-3 at midnight, I got home at like 230. I went to sleep at like 3, I woke up at 730. I have some napping to do.

The Pirate King

I won five bucks at poker last night. Jimmy won the first game, I won the second. I took Stu out both games, but the hand I won it on was quite amazing. I was up like three hundred on Jimmy. He goes all in (which is like 200) after the flop. I have a 5, 7 suited and am looking for a straight or a flush, but I follow him in anyway without much on the board. A five and an seven end up coming out which leaves me sitting pretty with two small pair, much to Jimmy and his pocket aces chagrin.
I got the complete series of The Lone Gunmen for my birthday, from Ben. For those who don't remember, The Lone Gunmen was a spin-off series of the X-files that focused on this group of guys and their whistle-blowing independent newspaper. It's really not as good as I remember it being when it aired on fox 6 or 7 years ago, but the pilot episode features a 737 being hijacked by "terrorists" and almost being flown into the World Trade Center in New York. That was kind of spooky.

The Da Vinci Code opens this weekend. I heard it sucks. I might go see it if I got nothing better to do.

Reflections on being elderly.

So I've been 22 for a day or so now. It doesn't feel any different from being 21. It's slightly different from being 20, but the differences are sublte enough to be negligible. I didn't really do much for my birthday. I had lunch with my family, hung out at Danny's for a bit, then went to work, came home, ate supper, played some Warcraft three for a bit, then went to bed. I tried to make it an early night cause I had to get up early this morning to do a morning route at work. I really have rather low expectations for my birthday. I'm not 13 anymore, so it's pretty much up to me to make my birthday whatever I want it to be. Turning 22 a week or so after I would've graduated from college, had I been trying hard sort of puts this getting older business into a harsher light. Kind of makes me realize that I've got 2 more years (at least) of college ahead of me. My goal now is to graduate by the time Pete, Steve and Josh do. Barring that, graduating before Katie, Lauren and Ali.

Holy crap it's thursday. Today is Stu's last day. We're supposed to play poker tonight after work to celebrate his departure. Real poker, for money, not rubber bands. I'm pretty stoked, even though i'm going to lose. I always lose. Stu is just too damn lucky and Jimmy is too damn good. Oh well, maybe with actual money on the line people will play more cautiously allowing me and my "Always Bluff" strategy to win the day.

This is a story about a boy named Sue.

I'm thinking about changing the name of this blog to Alan Weber:Ok Guy. I don't know... I'm thinking about it....


So I had this mp3 downloading service for a while. When I upgraded Winamp they gave me 50 free downloads. I got this live Johnny Cash album. It's pretty cool. He bleeps out his cuss words.

I saw Capote last night. It was ok. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was amazing, but he always is. The movie was actually pretty dull. It felt like it was building up to something but it never payed off. I was expecting a lot more from this film. Capote was one of my 3 for 25. The other 2 were Jarhead and Harry Potter 4. I'm pretty sure I like it. It does some stuff really well. It does some stuff rather poorly. Three's probably my favorite. It was a tough three to pick though. My alternates were Walk the Line, History of Violence and probably Elizabethtown... maybe something else. Yeah.. Hollywood video rocks. I've probably got 4 Bond movies there.

I need a new game. I've played the hell out of B for M E. I really kind of feel like playing a console game but my PS2 is still being a communist. I should have Bucket and Droid do what they did to Matthew's to mine. I haven't seen droibus for like a week. I wonder if he's grown another appendage or contracted some horrible disease or got a really bitchin tatt. This is a really wordy post. If'd I post more often I probably wouldn't have this problem.

Sleepytown

I slept till 10:30 this morning.

This week has been going by really slowly. I have done some stuff this week though. I bought "I am trying to break your heart", the movie about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I made a new magic deck. I went to see MI:3. I've eaten some trail mix....


This weekend is mother's day. I don't know what to get my mom. I'm sure I'll think of something.

Return of the Slumber Pants

Ben's hours got cut back at the radio station. He's now working Saturdays. I don't know why they didn't just fire him. I feel bad for Ben, but hopefully he'll be able to find something that's a little more his style. Benjamin J. Essner isn't really a "Pure Country" kind of guy.

I'm also looking for another job, but more of the "in addition to the one I have" sort. I really should have been working two jobs this whole semester away from school, but if I start in on the "should-have's" there are ones far more relevant than that.

I did entertain thoughts of going to Bonnaroo, but they were thouroughly dashed upon the rocks of impossibility, crashing against the shore of Implausibalia, on the Sea of Probably Not Going to Happen when Jay announced that Saturday, June 17 would be the day Commercial Mail Services would be moving. This event is not only a rare chance to get some extra hours it's also (yippee!) mandatory for all employees!

And Kenny Rogers as himself...

I was slightly dissapointed with the Giants last night. I kind of wished they would've just played the older stuff. I mean Istanbul is amazing live, but Dr. Worm, New York City, Fingertips, Alphabet of Nations all songs I don't need to hear live anymore. They played some songs from their podcasts. Those were pretty fun, but the stuff they played from their new album that they aren't promoting and that isn't released yet was sort of boring. Even the one that they did with the Dust Brothers... kind of not amazing. Their banter was top notch... it was also Flans's birthday. Overall I'd give it a 7 out of 10.

I finished watching Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin. It was pretty cool. I reccomend any Michael Palin travel series that you can get your hands on. They are vastly entertaining.

Professional Poker Player

I was paid to play poker again tonight. It was looking like it was going to be hella early too... then the machine stopped working, except it didn't start working tonight. We just sat around and played cards for an hour.

The Giants tomorrow! Booooooo Yahhhhhhh. Dig it. I'm too tired to write more. I'm so lame/tired.

Unrelated Title

I got payed to play poker for an hour tonight. The printer for the machine stopped working correctly so Jimmy had to restart it, a process which takes anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes. We played some poker. I lost. Twice. Sentences. Without. Verbs.

I caught part "Beyond the Sea" after work tonight. My dad was watching it when I came home. My love for Kevin Spacey not withstanding, I thought this movie wasn't very good. It was more of a showcase of Mr. Spacey's considerable vocal/acting abilities. It was pretty weak compared to some of the other recent bio-pics about dead musicians.

So I got some free songs from e-music when I upgraded Winamp. I used 10 of them to download "Funeral" by Arcade Fire. What the Hell were we thinking me, Pete and Steve? This album pretty much rocks. I blame our collectively tepid reaction to a Mr. Sufjan Stevens, who's gentle pop masterpiece "Come on Feel The Illinoise" shut our minds to the sometimes gritty sounds of the Arcade Fire.

I'm torrenting some Big Train. I'm torrenting Michael Palin's first travel documentary. It's a very exciting time.

Two Movies

I watched 2 movies this weekend. I watched Life As A House on Saturday. It's not very good. Kevin Kline kicks ass in the movie. Hayden Christensen plays Anakin Skywalker circa Attack of the Clones with more swearing and drug abuse. Jena Malone is...well... she's in the movie.

I also saw Brick. Brick will kick your ass. It's amazing. See this movie. It's a murder mystery starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, TV's Tommy from Third Rock From the Sun.

I'm going to see the Giants on Saturday. Yippee!

Revenge of the Sith

I just watched Episode 3 again... it'd been a while. It's not as good as any of the originals, but still the best of the prequels.

Here's a trivia question for you....

Who's older: Ian McDiarmad or Harrison Ford? That's right, Harrison Ford. Han Solo is 2 years older than Emperor Palpatine. That's movie magic for you.

Speaking of Magic, Matthew should be getting his new decks built tomorrow, which means we'll be playing some hardcore constructed. Huzzah. I've tinkered with some of my old decks. I tried to make a new one, but I couldn't make it work. Anyway... Magic... Hells yeah.

Another Post About "Spaced"

The torrent of Spaced I dled is apparently ripped from the super special edition DVD release. There's this bitching documentary included. I've decided that I will see Mission Impossible 3 and the only reason I will be seeing it is because of Mr. Simon Pegg. Other than that though, there aren't any movies coming out that I want to see until X-men 3 and then after that nothing till Pirates 2. Oh well.

The prerelease is tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked. Magic Tournaments are a lot of fun, if a tad lenghty.

I'm watching Episode 4 of series one right now. No grown man can cry like Simon Pegg. Nick Frost probably has the third best mustache in television history.

Space Cowboy

I just got done watching "Spaced". All of it. It's a brilliant show. If you like Shaun of the Dead but you thought it wasn't geeky enough, you'll like Spaced. There's also an episode that features a B&S song. That was a pretty cool moment.

I was going to do stuff last night, but Spaced got in the way. I still plan to clean up Ben's room while he's gone. Dad and I are going to do something to the kitchen. Sunday is the Prerelease. Yup.

There's a new guy at work. It's gonna suck without Stu.

Red Pants Day

Today is Red Pants Day.

I just finished watching Return of the Jedi. I watched New Hope and Empire last week. Jedi is by far the weakest of the original trilogy. You can definately tell that the person who made Jedi was very much responsible for the Prequels. I would also say that Jedi benefits most from the DVD upgrades... well if you ignore the whole "Jedi Rocks" musical number, which is not only incredibly lame, but poorly rendered and completely out of place. Jedi also features Harrison Ford's weakest performance in the trilogy. Empire is still amazing. It's by far the best of the original trilogy. And A New Hope... well it might just be my favorite movie of all time. It's so good.

Ben and Mom are going to California tomorrow to see Joe. I hope they have a good time.

What else... did I mention that it's Red Pants Day?

Happy Easter Everybody!

Today is Easter Sunday. It's probably the hottest Easter Sunday in recent memory too. It's only 7 in the morning and it's already 60-something degrees outside. It's only going to get warmer.

My PS2 isn't working anymore. It'll play DVD's but it won't play games. It's sort of frustrating cause I just borrowed Kingdom Hearts 2 from Matthew, and I'm was just about done with the nearly 5 hours of prologue before the game actually starts. I'm just a little irritated about it.

Anyway to help you all celebrate the holiday here is a picture of Colin Meloy being awesome. I think you'll find it extremely appropriate.

It's so Damn Hot.

I saw a commerical for a cooking show that is going to be on NBC. They were playing the song "You're so Damn Hot" in the background, but they were omitting the word damn. It was amusing.

I wasn't going to say anything cause I think it might jinx it, but my gameboy has been running for like 11 hours on one set of batteries. God love GBA. It's a hell of a system.

I was just checking out the Hot Fuz video diaries and completely forgot I was blogging. Anyway. Work is pretty easy this week. The Triduum is coming up and I think I'm going to stay in Cape for Easter. That's about it... for now.

I'm stoked cause tomorrow I start listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. I sort of don't listen to it outside of the Triduum pretty much becauseI listen to it nonstop the three days before Easter.

Anyway I'm going to go to sleep cause I'm not Matthew and I don't gain any sort of satisfaction from being tired.

Yay The Shins

I really like Chutes too Narrow.

I'm drinking tea now. Earl Grey. Hot. With honey. I can't yet tell the difference between Earl Grey and English Breakfast yet, but one day I will and on that day you and everyone you know will begin a long and lenghty rue.

At work last night we were talking about movies. I used the term "Black People Movies" to describe "Phat Girlz". Then we started talking about whether or not there are "White People Movies" and listing examples of such films. All and all work blew chunks.

The Life of a British Country Vet

James is all like "Oh Helen, I've got a little something for you," and then Helen is like "Oh James, you're wonderful." Then Tristian comes in and is like "I am so drunk. Hey James, I'm going to kiss your wife." Siegfried bursts in on the scene and says, "Ladies, ladies, ladies! I have a very well stocked liquor cabinet. SHABAM! Hey James, I'm going to kiss your wife!" Then every once in a while everyone is like "That Hitler... he's a real jerk." Then all the farmers are like "Got sick cow. Over by meadow. I don't use articles. James, gonna kiss your wife." Uh-oh, James is about to drop the hammer on this one farmer who was talking smack.

The most impressive thing about All Creatures Great and Small is the fact that the actors actually stick their hands up cows asses. They actually birth cows. They actually fall down in pig slop. You don't see those punks on the OC delivering cow babies. Those CSI blokes don't go around wallowing in pig shit.

The level I'm currently playing in Pharaoh has lasted two hours so far. I'm building a medium pyramid. Two hours of gameplay and it's 51% finished. You do the math.

Yesterday I lost a friend

Reeves died yesterday. RJ was my mom's friend Gina's service dog. He suffered a stroke sometime early Saturday afternoon and was put down sometime around 3pm. Gina and RJ lived with us for about a year. RJ didn't like storms, he didn't like thunder. When it would storm during the night Reeves would come upstairs (much to Mac's dismay) and wake me up, we would go downstairs and watch Monty Python until one of us fell asleep. RJ was diagnosed with a brain tumor last fall. The fact that he lived this long was some what of a suprise. Reeves was the best dog I have ever met and he will be missed.

Some Ominous News

Well kids, I'm pregnant. I don't know how this happened... well that's not true. I'm fairly well versed in methods of procreation. Anyway I'm in my second month. The baby is due in December. Actually it's due on Christmas day. So I guess what all of you are wondering is who's the father. Well there is only one man that could be the father of my child, and that is Matt Buchheit. I haven't told him yet, but I plan to do it a in a very private and careful way; skywriting.

Remember when the Simpsons was funny?

Whoa! It's been a whole week since I blogged! What have I done since then?

My dad and I put the starter back in my car so that's good.

HOLY CRAP! Iron and Wine was just in an M&M commercial!

I played a lot of Battle for Middle Earth. Watched a lot of News Radio. Read some H.P. Lovecraft. Worked a bit. Watched some All Creatures Great and Small. Cleaned my room. That's about it.

The Real Deal!

News Radio is amazing. That is all.


My favorite pants broke today. I'm very sad about that.

Happy Birthday Benjamin James

Ben is 23 today, and will continue to be 23 for a year or so.

Last night I had this awesome dream. I dreamt that it was 2002, I was still in high school, and the Decemberists came to play at Notre Dame. Apparently Pete, Steve and I still had our memories of the intervening years because we knew that they wouldn't be playing any songs from Picaresque because that album wouldn't be coming out for another 3 years. Also, at one point during the concert, Nate Query came up and told us to be quiet because we were cheering so loud.

Later that day...

Back in comtemporary time, I was hanging out at St. Vincent's, where Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix happened to be filming. I was just walking around the set when I saw none other than Grant Medlin! He was an extra in the movie. I went to go talk to him and ended up in the scene, which was disrupted by a bunch of toddler wizards that shot arrows at the extras, and killed quite a few. I was able to dodge the arrows and knock one of the baby mages out. Then I took him to Madam Pomfrey.

I think I'm going to do my taxes today. Maybe tommorrow. Definately this week.

HEY! It's spring break!

Easy like Sunday Morning

Yesterday was pretty spiffy. I started it off baking with my grandmother, which is always fun, then we had a big St. Patrick's Day lunch, which was delicious, then there was a bit of lazing about, which involved some reading of Lovecraft, which was followed up by a jaunt to Matthew's where the beating of the Dungeons and Dragons arcade game ensued, this lead to a couple of games of magic, one that I won quite badly, the other one I lost quite decidedly, which took me to the party at Jessica A's house. The party was quite delightful, as was the rousing game of capture the flag, which my team won.

Me and the major could become close friends...

I just back from a bikeride. I rode the bike trail. It's good to know that, as out of shape as I am, I can still do a ten mile bike ride with no sort of preparation.

I did stuff this weekend. Nothing amazingly interesting, but stuff I needed to do. Hopefully this positive momentum of doing things I need to do will continue for awhile. We'll see.

Just a little note about work last week. Jimmy A, Stu S and Matt E are the ubershit of Bad-Assia (not to be confused with Bad-Asia).

Constant Gardener is a decent flick. It's the kind of movie that's good once. Layer Cake is a good movie. Colm Meaney could eat your children and you'd thank him for it.

That is all.

Let me tell you a little something about Battle For Middle Earth II

It's pretty good.


Bob is working on a novel. I've been reading his chapter synopses/outline. His version of the creation story is excellent.

I hope it is not cold today. That is all I'm going to say.

I say Night Watch. It was pretty intense/Russian. I recommend it.

In other news: The Red Cross is after my blood. So anxious are they to recieve my blood that they called me to schedule an appointment. The manner in which they did this was both polite and extremely presumptuous. They were like "Hi this is the red cross, we really appreciate people who give blood. Everytime someone gives blood they save thousands of lives. What time can you come in to give blood?"
I don't mind giving blood, but come on.

Ok well I gots to take Ben to work. PEESE!

Oh lately it's so quiet...

I spent the weekend in St. Louis. It was, as usual, decapitatingly awesome. (Hey English speakers, try using "decapitating" as a adverb more often, just to spice thing up) I went up to help Brian move and stayed up there to hang out with Pete and Steve. I pretty much say the same thing in every blogpost after I spend the weekend in St. Louis, but I'm going to reiterate it yet again. Some of my fondest memories of my time thus far on this lovely little planet of ours involve the brothers Wissinger. Their awesomeness never ceases to astound me. I am lucky to count them as friends. Although, ironically, whenever I refer to "my friends", the collective, I'm rarely refering to them. Like when I say "My friends are such g-bags, especially Matthew," or "None of my friends like Neutral Milk Hotel," I'm not including Pete and Steve in the collective designation "my friends".

Ok. Well I'm going to bed, or something like it.

Stu is not a Rapist, nor is he really named Stu

Stu's frat house got vandalized. It was in the paper.

Neil Gaiman told me that News Radio Season 3 came out on DVD. I already knew that, but it's good to know that Neil knows. He is such a badass. If I ever met Neil Gaiman in person I would probably just explode.

Ok, go on IMDB and look up "My Little Pony" and click on the most recent My Little Pony release. It should be from 2006. What the F!?

Ok, go back to sleep.

Movietime

IMDB mentioned that Premiere magazine had mad a list of the worst Best Picture Winning films of all time. Chicago and Oliver were on the list, as was American Beauty. That's right, THAT American Beauty. So I high tailed it over to Premiere's website just to see what sort of magazine I was dealing with. Much to my utter and complete unsuprise, Premiere is a shitty magazine.

My car is still sick. I'm going to put a new starter on there and see if that helps. I hope it does.

I don't know what I'm doing this weekend yet. I think I might be going to St. Louis. I want to. I don't know what's going to happen.

Work was fun today. Work was long today.

My cat's throwup is the same color as my bedroom carpet

I think the subject pretty much says it all. Lent starts in a couple of days. YIPPEE!

Don't Tell Anyone!

March starts in three days... give or take. March means Lent. Lent is my favorite liturgical season.

I think today I will do something. Last night Bob and I watched War of the Worlds. It was ok. It wasn't a thinking movie to be sure. The red cross just called me. They want my blood.

I think I'm going to take a nap. I'll actually post something tonight... Just you wait!

Important announcement.

Patrick Stewart has something he'd like to say to you.

In other news...

I'm really coming around on the new Guster stuff. I've listened to their new tracks on Myspace. They're pretty good. Too bad I have to wait till June to get their new album, "Ganging up on the Sun". Yeah they're out touring right now... on the coasts. DAMN YOU THE GUSTER!!!!

So I watched Mirror Mask tonight. It was the awesome. Neil Gaiman owns you. He leased you back to yourself when it wrote Ananzi Boyz, but as soon as Books of Magic: THE MOVIE (or whateve project he releases next) comes out, he will go back to owning you and pimping your unworthy ass out to any and all persons he sees fit to pimp you to. Speaking of Neil, I'm re-reading American Gods. Here's some casting choices I would make If I were casting the American Gods mini-series that would be the most amazing thing ever:

Shadow: Nathan Fillion (Seriously. Fillion is amazing)

Odin: William Morgan Sheppard (Who is William Morgan Sheppard you ask. Well I'll tell you. I'll tell you. His performance in Star Trek VI is the most memorable to me, even though he's only in two scenes. He plays the Warden at Rura Pente. Ok, I just IMDBed him. He was also in Gettysburg. Wow! He was in Gargoyles as... get this... ODIN! Shabam. HOLY CRAP!!! He's also the dad of the guy that played Badger on Firefly. This guy has to play Odin.)

Jaquel: Michael Dorn (I don't need to justify this pick)

Mad Sweeny: Tony Curran (He's in 13th Warrior. He's also a badass. He's also in Underworld Evolution)

Ibis: Andre Braugher (Thomas from Glory, but more importantly Frank Pembleton from Homicide)

Mr. Nancy: Robert Guillaume (Seems like a Natural choice. I think he would bring considerable charm to the role)

If I think of more I'll probably let you know, the Internet.

Speed Trials

I used to name my posts after whatever song I was listening to when I wrote it. I'm glad I stopped doing that, but thst song, Speed Trials by Elliott Smith, has been in my head all weekend. I don't think I'm a shallow person... I'm biased though... anyway... Elliott Smith was not an attractive man. That is my opinion.

Sorry... I got distracted by Allmusic.com. It's a good sight to get very general information about a particular artist or group. It says Brian Doherty is still in They Might Be Giants. It's pretty vintage.

Ok. I"m going to sleep.

Valentine's Day

I enjoy holidays. I think they are fun. There are however several fake holidays. Cheif among them is Valentine's Day. I don't know... maybe it isn't completely fake. It's sort of good in theory. But I think it's sort of become too mandatory? People shouldn't get mad or depressed about or becuase of Valentine's Day. Labor Day is also pretty bogus.

I watched the last 4 episodes of Arrested Development today. It's sad. It's like losing a friend. A friend that you only see once a week, and then only half an hour. But a friend that you have vivid and infinitely replayable memories of. And the friend isn't as much lost as it was murdered, murdered by the Fox Broadcasting company, which in a grand bit of irony is that which gave birth to it in the first place. Anyway Arrested Development was amazing. It is amazing. Buy the DVD's. I did. Twice.

Hey, is tomorrow Pancake Day? I don't know. I have heard that it is, but there is little evidence to back it up. Hmmm.

My Crazy Weekend

My weekend was anything but crazy. This weekend was so mundane, so tame that I'm going to sigh, right now.

*Sigh* I need a hug *sigh*
That was my impression of people on instant messengers. I'm pretty sure, at one point in my life, I actually did type that on ICQ. Yup, I too was that lame.

I do actually feel bad for doing jack-nothing this weekend. I'm sort of ridiculous like that. I did watch some movies that I'd seen a bunch of times before. I watched the Negotiator and Star Trek6
Here's what I don't understand. The original cast of Star Trek wasn't that great on TV, but their movies are awesome. The Next Gen cast was great on TV but their movies are kind of weak. WTF?

Next weekend is trivia night. I have to work. Putting trivia night on a friday was a shitty thing to do.

I cleaned half of my room today

The side of the room my computer is on is clean. My bed and everything around it remains untidied.

So the Grammys were last night. They are kind of ridiculous. Green Day won another grammy for an album they put out in 2004 so did U2. I really don't understand the cutoff dates for these things. Kanye West didn't win a Grammy again, which is apparently some sort of travesty. Gwen Stefani was nominated for some of the worst music I've ever heard. I don't really know anything about the grammys. I do know that the bands I like are only allowed in the "Alternative" category. The White Stripes won best Alternative Album, beating out The Arcade Fire, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie and Franz Ferdinand. I wonder what makes Cold Play's newest album a rock album and Franz Ferdinand's new album alternative? Do the bands decide that they want to be a rock band or alternative? I haven't heard Cold Play's new album, but I'm pretty sure "You Could Have it So much Better" rocks the shit out of it. So here's my Grammy acceptance speech.

"I would like to thank everyone who made this award possible... but I'm not going to. No, right now I'm speaking to all of you that tried to stop me from getting this award. All the other nominees and everyone who voted for them, I know who you are. I can see most of you from where I'm standing right now. You motherfuckers better watch your backs. Now that I've got this *hoist up the Grammy* no one, I mean NO ONE can stop me. Your betrayals will not go unpunished. *throw down smoke bomb, escape in the confusion, say hi to Paul McCartney, maybe get his autograph*

In the quiet meantime...

Work has settled down a lot. Twice this week have we been done by 8. This makes me feel even less productive. I need to find another job or something.

Last weekend was fairly productive for me. I purchased and read Ultimates 2, not realizing I was missing out on Ultimates 1 part 2, but I think I caught up fairly well. Ultimates is amazing. At first I was dismissive of it. I thought it was name dropping to be cool or hip, but it's not. It's real. Instead of making up fake movie stars fake presidents, Ultimates is set in the real world. It's a great read. Unfortunately this is happening: http://www.ultimateavengers.com/ It's pretty much assuredly horrible.

I also picked up Tarkio: Omnibus. It's really listenable. Most of the tracks are pretty un-noteworthy, but there are a couple of standouts.

tikibartv.com is pretty cool. Lala is unbelievable. Check it out.

Backlash

I'm thinking about changing the name of the blog to "Matt Essner: Person who talks a lot about sleeping"

I fell asleep somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 this morning. I woke up about 9:45. Sunday is the only day of the week that I have to get up early (well early-ish)

I played magic last night with Spants and Bucket. I destroyed them utterly and completely. They had nothing that could deal with my onslaught. I brought it every game, with every deck. I am some sort of constructed magic god. At least that's how I remember it. I have to go to mass now.

Hey... come on... Phil?

Winter is back in town...sort of

Well it's finally happened. The people in charge of the weather realized that it was actually February not late March, so it's actually kind of cold outside. I just want some snow before spring starts. I got a sled for christmas. I want to use it.

I got an abusrd amount of sleep last night. I'm not going to tell you how much, but let's just say more than 10 hours but less than 12. I don't know what's wrong with me. I think I might be turning into a layabout. It's almost twelve and I haven't set foot downstairs. I have chores to do. I need to clean rooms of my house.

So it turns out that I owe Southeast Missouri State University some money. A fairly sizeable portion of money, at least to me. Monday I'm going to go talk to them and set up some sort of payment schedule. I don't like owing people money.

The super bowl is tomorrow. I'm thinking about watching it. I kind of like watching football.

That's it for now.

I just posted this on Mathew's Blog

Apparently people are getting warnings in WOW for trying to start Gay Guilds and have same sex marriages. Matthew (getmeoutofthis.net) has a couple of links to articles about it on his blog.

It's difficult for me to get indigent about this kind of stuff because:
1. I'm a Catholic, straight white male that's an American citizen and not a minor, I'm about as unopressed as a person can get.
2. It's a fucking video game.

Anyway I posted this as a comment to one of Matthew's posts talking about the issue.

"I'm sort of torn on this whole issue.
Part of me sympathizes with Blizzard's position to cover their ass. But who are they covering it from? Who are they protecting by enforcing this policy? Newbs?
I also think that people who get married in video games are retarded. Their plight of not being able to fake marry their fake people in a fake world does little to stir any pity. Why can't they just play the fucking game.
Then again, it's not just a game it's sort of a social club. So if people want to socialize with like minded people while they enjoy a common interest why stop them. WOW's player base is fairly diverse. So just because all the people are playing WOW doesn't mean they have common interests. Guilds allow one to have a group of people to play with that caters to their particular play style.
We should also consider the other offensive material that Blizzard doesn't censor. Namely the bludgeoning/hacking/burning/etc of charcters NPC and PC to death that occurs constantly in the game. Why is it that violence is so tolerated whereas homosexuality and what have you is so offensive?
Well I would say because violence is a fairly natural occurrence. Violence, like it or not is part of human/animal nature. It is easy for people to accept violence. They see it all the time. People feel violent impulses. People see violence as a very real part of life.
Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans is not, however a fairly natural occurence, not that these things don't occur naturally, but they are not a part of everyone's nature. Some people see homosexuality, bisexuality, transexuality as abberant. Since the majority of the human population is heterosexual, they probably see other methods gender/sexual orientation as foriegn/unnatural. Other orientations aren't real to them therefore, they find it difficult to accept/emphasize with them.
Now I would imagine that this sort of mentality will change as our generation gets older and our parents's generation starts dying off, as we tend to be more accepting of these sort of things than our preceding generations but until then, you can always turn off general chat.
Anyway the point is Blizzard is totally in the wrong here, but since it's their game, they can do whatever the hell they want. I mean, did you read the license agreement? Yeah. Neither did I. It could've said anything. But WOW is still a great game and people who have more active social life's in MMO's then in real life are tards (Unless they live in a lighthouse or something then it's ok)."

Hey , it's not January anymore

I just woke up about 10 minutes ago. I went to bed about 12.30. I have been sleeping a whole lot this week. I don't really know why. I think it's because I might be getting sick, but seriously, I've slept for over 30 hours this week. I need to start doing stuff in the mornings. This is ridiculous.

So I've gotten into constructed magic again. It's lots of fun. I reccommend it.

Ok, I have to go take Ben to work. I'll try to be more dilligent about posting.