[fatal attraction]

in a word, I'm a sucker. for so many things.

a pretty face, shiny hair, a well-shaped neck*. any combination of these will surely stop me in my tracks. there is nothing like a girl and I have no trouble admitting it.

speaking of which. I believe I was flirted with yesterday whilst driving on the highway. I passed a car containing two young ladies. my cruise control was on, so I was going a constant speed. very soon after, this same car passed me and the young lady in the passenger seat looked in my direction with a slight smile on her face. very soon after, the car slowed down dramatically. so I did the logical thing and passed them again. very soon after, they passed me again, and again I got the same sort of corner-of-the-eye-smiley-look. it was all very confusing and I don't know what to make of it. surely they couldn't have been interested in me?--and if they were, what did they expect me to do about it? jump to their vehicle from mine, travelling at over 70 mph? silly girls, I'm no secret agent man.

dreams of late have been disturbing. last night's involved three pals I have who currently reside in thailand. I know the tsunami didn't threaten them; they've contacted me since. but still the troubling dream. I wish I knew whether dreams were based on reality, or pseudo-random (as I tend to think). that's all I'd like to know. it would make waking up a bit easier, sometimes.

this post so far has been brought to you by my desire to come clean. why, and with whom, perhaps I shall never know.


a year ago today I saw a car commercial. it said: 'make no payments till 2004!' (you can't make this stuff up.)


p.s. drew is the world's last bastion of sanity


*or one of the beauties in the victoria's secret catalogue which of course I've never even looked at not even once

[I meh the title]

dear self (in care of two hours ago),

DO NOT DRINK THAT MILK it is a bit past its prime and you will regret it.

ugh.


so. hope you all had a lucrative holiday. merry rotmas to all and to all a good night.

I'm having trouble focusing so this will be all you get for a while.


(who do I know in wisconsin?)

['tis the season to be easily offended]

it's never the majority; it's always the vocal minority.
(no) more on that later.


the really truly hard-liners of the denomination I nominally belong to think catholics are the beast that will devour the earth in the end times and that we shouldn't have anything to do with them--as in, we shouldn't speak to them, look at them, shouldn't use words that they use, and on and sodding on. in this xenophobic spirit, therefore, I want to wish you all a merry Christ-x.

if I wanted to be simultaneously politically correct and remain neutral with respect to tradition and culture and belief I'd wish you all a merry x-x.

but that's just lame. so: happy second day after solstice, everyone, and good luck in the arbitrarily-begun new year. unless you're chinese, in which case happy, uh, shiny, lucky ... golden ... dragon? SOMEONE POLITICALLY CORRECT ME PLEASE



happy whatever, weenies.

[sic]

CRAPE DIEM

[10 snapshots20 of30 GOTO 10]

JARNYAR through my so-phisticated inter-net know-how I saw you reading this. you, you who know the flesh-me, were not supposed to have clicked that link.


tea and iPod get me through the day. or rather, they would if I didn't have a healthy imagination. tea and iPod and imagination get me through the day. and corporate-sponsored sugar and cream and hot water. and vodka martinis that are not properly made because a) we don't have anything to shake them in, and b) we can't afford vodka. money is lame: I want it, just don't want to have to get it.

work philosophy that is sure to annoy my wife (if she reads this): go on break early, go on break often.

today I deposited our first paychecks. ordinarily this would make me feel rich, but on the same day all our bills arrived. how beautifully perfect. how perfectly beautiful.

current total number of hangnails = 3. current number of hangnails on left hand = 3. my left shoulder still hurts from when I slept on it wrong last week. I feel like neil. (who is feeling whose pain?)

today I also feel like an order post. in many ways.

[complaint]please, world: wherefore ≠ where. whence ≠ when.[/complaint]

thanks to arnoud, I now want to try spacecake. curiosity will inevitably kill the matt.

[confession(s)]

my name is matt, and I'm an anglophile.

I'll tell you what I mean.

the realization has been creeping up on me for a long long really long time. it started, I think, with monty python. I don't remember how old I was at the time, but it couldn't have been more than seven. I was on vacation with family in a hotel room with some uncles and cousins, flipping through the stations. I remember the black knight saying to king arthur that 'none shall pass' and the hilarity that crassly ensued, the knights who say 'ni' and (later) ecky-ecky-patang-patang-yip-boing-rowr,' the knight-murdering rabbit of doom, 'one, two, five!' and so on.

o fateful day.

ever since, I've been hooked on it all: monty python, radiohead, fish and chips and a pint o' guinness, cheers, fog and rain, cricket, parliamentary democracy, '-shire' pronounced 'sher,' douglas adams, mornington crescent, bbc radio ninety-four, future sound of london, words that end in -re instead of -er (and are spelled with s instead of z, and a 'u' thrown in here and there seemingly at random).

throughout my life, most of the girls with whom I've been infatuated have had something to do with england. examples: the one who is very english. the one whose parents are very english. the one who likes pink floyd, who are themselves english. most of the ones I saw whilst in england. the one who likes english muffins. the one who went to oxford and drinks tea and makes scones (and married me).

someday we're going to live there, see if we don't. I want gmt to be my local time. I want to call wankers and mates by their rightful names. I want to go pubbing and listen to dumb hip-hop music and see flashing lights. I want to have a royal family that I don't have to vote for. I want to have high tea at harrod's. I want to drive on the left, through a roundabout.

I want to mind the sodding gap.



...

that's that. you might recall my little run-in with the headache of total annihilation recently. this one was particularly doomful: it was the first migraine I've ever had that actually gave me hallucinations. waking dreams. the things that make one question one's sanity.

since I'm such a forward-thinking guy, I wrote down the visions I can remember.

1. I'm flying an airplane. my bed is somehow crammed into the cockpit and I pilot the thing with my head on the pillow.

2. I'm watching 'I love lucy' from inside lucy's house.

3. I'm in my grandma's kitchen (at her table) watching her make cookies. she talked to me but I don't remember what about.

4. I meet Arnold Schwarzenegger, who shows me his hummer and calls it his pride and joy.

5. I'm in the white house. I don't see anyone important or do anything significant; I'm just happy to be in the white house.

6. (this one isn't a hallucination; it's a recurring dream that I have when I'm headache'd.) inside my head I have a small number. it's not an integer or anything definite, it's just a quantity, like a stack of generic objects. the amount/stack/quantity suddenly doubles in size, then redoubles, and so on. very soon, the number is tremendously huge, to the point where it exerts pressure on the inside of my head. it is violently, painfully large. I realize this is my pain receptors incorporating their nerve signals into my dream. I just wish they wouldn't.


dreams are dumb; pain-dreams doubly so.

(to all you out there who felt my pain: I'm sorry.)

[every day today is painful day]

what I want more than anything is a cure for the common migraine. if a cure is unavailable, then I'd please like a drill to let some happy back into my head.


dear world,

please keep it down for the next six to twelve hours.

love, matt.


I didn't deserve this one.

[non-deterministic]

e6 3e c1 b0 dd 39 e0 e5 c1 dc 16 15 ff 7a 59 a1 8e cd ff cc 2a 5f b4 b3 1d 97 2c 62 7e 59 4b 8e
10 3e 5c 41 ce de 68 bf af 12 27 c2 85 81 ce fe ac 51 c0 87 91 74 11 ae 3b cf df 42 29 1a bc 55
8e 08 52 2c ea ad 5a c4 0a 51 2f d9 12 8c a0 0f ea a9 54 65 50 61 f9 7f b7 9c ad 3f 49 28 a5 ad
89 a8 52 d8 72 13 a9 e8 f6 49 f6 0b 8f bc 72 ad 19 9d 2e 31 48 b4 3f 9b 09 ca dd 60 6e 06 f0 5a
7f 87 6c 14 f1 cc f0 d5 19 fd 5a 6c 51 fa 33 d6 1e 4a 4f 93 0d b8 8e 77 c3 9e ac 38 40 09 a4 7f
93 a6 1f 82 b6 25 81 b2 aa d3 4e ed 3e e4 1b 59 94 2d 29 32 7f d7 77 5a 15 cb ea 2d 0c 7e e3 b4
b7 c6 4b 8d 77 c9 b4 bf fe 1c b0 23 07 0f 3e 23 5e 86 11 ba c7 4a 5b 33 eb 9e f5 68 ad 9a d8 cc
d2 38 e4 0b 99 87 35 30 16 1b 5c 33 90 54 b4 79 e5 45 60 22 e3 cf d7 8c 89 2f 63 8b 3c 07 15 4d
a7 9d 44 3b fc d0 82 1a 09 67 a0 3a d2 69 2d 74 fc 15 54 6e be d5 18 4e 40 5e 6a 79 cb 4e e2 65
b6 8d 9f 74 c9 3e b6 a6 81 a5 ed a4 53 e7 ad a9 52 dd 91 49 e0 93 1f ab f9 a0 63 1b 88 2a 7b d3
76 24 cf 8e 4b 12 f3 ff 32 26 4d af 9d 92 f4 c6 e8 ee 54 7f 8d 5a 5f 53 0e ee 9e e5 16 4c 34 a2
05 6f 9c f1 cb 04 06 6d 5f 27 61 0a 53 3e 63 08 0a e5 49 48 2c e9 59 03 11 9b 2f c4 92 1d 01 df
22 a4 24 f8 61 ca ec 86 81 78 08 a1 10 1e df b8 3a 7c 1a 39 1e 79 a3 c1 a5 c9 a1 54 5b 19 7f 68
e1 df 05 db 4b 24 b2 59 b9 85 ae 29 b5 18 45 da 41 63 86 af cd 03 d7 53 d6 23 b4 92 6c f7 c3 7c
9c e6 3c 9a eb 09 42 2a 1e 0c 72 3e 1a 60 45 03 0f 15 71 dc 5e 73 fb 3e 11 2b 42 5c 17 8e 87 ca
9b c9 c4 8e c2 61 22 d1 05 25 7c 9a 8e 23 31 2a d9 d4 40 98 d4 62 11 d4 14 26 bc 7f 3e 4a 64 1d
21 29 ec 92 ba ca e9 ab e4 24 c5 19 e7 ed 92 00 42 1f 2b 08 c7 eb 13 6a 6f 19 75 10 93 0d a1 fb
4a 1b 10 69 76 14 c5 b5 bd 38 26 fb a9 dc 1a e5 1f 55 79 37 ab 9b 0d d8 87 04 07 36 49 db ac bd
08 6b 30 f6 87 e2 b4 d5 64 9b c5 65 37 72 13 39 76 b9 b0 4e d7 be fc 48 e7 ec a5 52 ee c3 4e 81
f3 ab 60 9e eb cb c9 85 a6 87 c2 6b 0d c8 ed 6f 58 31 0c 6e b6 1b 76 52 49 c6 58 85 3b 38 bc af
26 6b e6 12 a5 b7 87 eb 8b 0f 79 5e ea a1 3d f7 7e 42 df d3 74 b2 fa bf 20 58 fc 7d ba e3 55 7d
06 af 7e 25 cf 8f ed 06 7a 03 90 a6 3c ff bd 2b b7 b8 b4 5b 52 ec 81 8a 74 28 3e cc bd 2c 5c b4
7d 6b 4e 41 02 04 3c 3b 08 6a 25 80 04 13 8b c9 2d fc cb 18 d9 f8 f9 25 c3 17 6e 3d 1a e3 0e bb
a2 a0 6a e4 e0 a0 0b fb 71 17 12 8d 30 69 32 97 6f c5 4d 2d 5b 6f d0 2d 47 93 83 5c 73 d8 a2 32
aa bc c1 12 c9 1d 87 a9 3c 87 52 a2 b8 ea 44 bc 26 b7 19 2c c0 22 8a 19 fb 22 1b 70 56 e7 c2 4a
d8 43 93 12 84 c8 7d cd 46 17 d6 20 db 31 0d 14 44 38 71 ad 64 c9 39 48 5c 6d 29 82 1d 12 52 86
d9 43 e3 89 4b 46 c0 db 11 58 62 31 62 04 b5 d9 f2 84 79 0d 8c 2b 44 b1 87 c3 b3 90 ec d3 9f db
8f b2 c8 49 4a 32 e4 d6 4a 0a 24 09 fb 76 5d cd 54 bc 7c 90 bd 47 6a c3 30 f3 75 80 d8 55 17 35
1a 86 20 21 bd 8c 4a 71 b1 2a 5f dd 7c a8 4f 2b e8 e5 32 ac 94 f2 fe f8 53 49 a0 c2 c4 14 68 cc
c3 d7 79 4f 64 ed 50 69 fa b4 03 d6 80 f1 79 e1 aa bd 89 a8 30 8b 38 4c cb f6 1d d4 c4 1b 33 66
ba 5a c7 45 91 e0 76 49 90 9b d4 a8 50 d1 66 7a 71 51 dc 32 be f6 1d 53 a2 ca 33 8f cd f2 dd f8
93 cf 0a a0 8e eb bb 1e 23 ab ae 25 3a 82 ae b9 71 e3 b4 59 6d 71 e2 a2 51 90 94 44 c4 b2 59 68




and on and on and on.


finally, I have found that on which all emotion is based:

a radio is tuned into a frequency where nobody is broadcasting. the atmospheric noise picked up by the receiver is fed into a workstation through the microphone port where it is sampled by a program as an eight bit mono signal at a frequency of 8khz. the upper seven bits of each sample are discarded immediately and the remaining bits are gathered and turned into a stream of bits with a high content of entropy. skew correction is performed on the bit stream, in order to ensure that there is an approximately even distribution of 0s and 1s.

the bit stream is converted into hexadecimal format and fed via VLF radio waves through the ether into the very lowest of brain centers, where it is interpreted by a process that doesn't understand either the input or what to do with it, as (due to an evolutionary oversight) it can only read binary. so it reverts to its error-handling code, which tells it simply to pass on the raw, unfiltered data to its supervising brain function.

this supervising brain function expects to get nicely filtered binary data with helpful multimedia metadata (such as the brain-equivalent of a powerpoint presentation with screeching tire noises and animated bullet icons)--when it gets raw numbers in .txt format, its central processor puzzles over the problem until it overheats and restarts.

upon rebooting, the same data is sitting in its little organic inbox. the first thing the supervising function does is to tackle the same workload again, only to hit the same problem of raw vs. filtered data. after encountering ongoing critical errors and rebooting repeatedly for a few minutes, the supervisor's hardware shorts out and fails completely.

with no central system to interpret and govern the incoming data, it streams in without guidance, passing and bouncing through the brain at random, messing everything up and knocking everything over.

this happens at a very young age; in fact it is not long after the formation of the emotion center that the emotion center unhappily dies. the sad truth of it all is that emotion is completely random and possibly even dangerous! your brainwaves, yea verily the very stuff of thought is threatened! sanity's only hope is the tinfoil hat.

[in many ways it still has its place]

hatelife is headphones that randomly emit very high frequency 120 dB noise into one's ears. (this noise is so loud that, even though it is emitted through headphone speakers, it causes one's wife to turn down the television and inquire what that horrible noise was.) hatelife is subsequent specific-frequency hearing loss.

hatelife is the second helping of excellent food that is served approximately two minutes before the first helping hits the gut. hatelife is needing to ask for a to-go box for a homemade meal at a friend's house.

hatelife is being immediately pegged as 'the guy to beat' in a friendly game of speed-scrabble. hatelife is having to use lower-scoring words to prevent one's friends (and spouse) from being mad.

hatelife is being not mentally aware enough to focus on a conversation with: 1) sister; 2) friends (in person); 3) friends (on phone); 4) nearly everyone else.


however.

hatelife is not a lazy sunday at home.

hatelife is not sweet earl gray tea and toasted english muffin. with honey. with a blanket and a good book.

hatelife is not a four-month-old quarter-bobcat kitten (though it might be the manifold scratches on fingers received as a result of playing with the beast).

hatelife is not a newly employed spouse.

hatelife is not recent hatelife activity.

but hatelife is still hatelife.

[blast from the past]

because I'm lazy and TUI (typing under the influence) and I really really felt it was necessary. avid readers will remember the following.

QUOTE:


freedom, I got here too late.

this won't match the standard I've set for myself because simply I'm just too tired now. I'm sorry for getting your hopes up and everything. I know I did. I'm intuitive like that. if I were a superhero I'd walk around with a big N on my chest and I'd be called N-tuitive boy.

but that's not why I'm here.

RUM & COKE is why I'm here.

I think I put too much RUM in the glass. I don't remember how much was in the glass when I stopped pouring. it couldn't have been too much, otherwise my mates would have said 'whoa there matt you'd better watch it' but I don't remember them saying that and now they're gone so I can't ask them. at any rate I filled the rest of the glass with COKE so the RUM was probably pretty diluted when all was said and done and poured.

I can't find my nice fuzzy warm sweatshirt and it's the time of night when evertyhing starts getting cold.

[liver] DAMN IT matt you've got to stop, give me a freaking vacation
[matt] YOU'LL TAKE WHAT I GIVE YOU AND YOU'LL PROCESS IT TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY
[liver] you're the boss
[brain] matt, he has a point; I mean, even I find it hard to work in this low-oxygen environment. in fact all I can do is this:
[matt] qasoinfg;j WHOA BRAIN WHY IS THE ROOM SPINNING
[brain] lack of oxygen, man. it's all I'm capable of
[kidneys] WE NEED OVERTIME PAY OR WE'RE GOING TO GO ON STRIKE
[matt] OKAY OKAY you organs everything will be okay, I'll just drink this magic elixir and everything will return to normal, like it was yesterday
* matt drinks magic elixir
[brain] THAT'S THE STUFF
[liver] AAAAHH FAILURE IS IMMINENT
[kidneys] UNABLE TO KEEP UP WITH INPUT
[spleen] for chrissakes will you all keep it down? I'm trying to sleep and OH GOOD HEAVENS, WHAT AN INTERESTING SENSATION, I FEEL FUZZY
[matt] thank you magic elixir a.k.a. RUM AND COKE, you have ruined my evening but it feels so nice
[RUM AND COKE] BEHOLD MY MAGIC, I AM SIMULTANEOUSLY WARM AND COLD AND BUBBLY
[matt] in the best possible way.
[brain] this isn't so bad I suppose, HEY I'VE GOT AN IDEA, LET'S POST TO HATELIFE!


:UNQUOTE


being subjected to bridget jones leaves me only so many options. (perhaps more vermouth would have helped.)

-matt.

p.s. jen sister jen, you are not allowed to know what any of it means.