it is not Tuesday, November 30, 2004.

[more of the depressingly same]

dear fellow intertron nodes,

this is to follow up on my previous post regarding the un-beauty of airports.

they are still un-beautiful. still expensive. still full of whiny angry hurried people who are not satisfied with where they are and infinitely anxious to get somewhere else.


[matt's wife's litany of complaints]

matt's wife sez: I hate flying I hate flying I hate flying. etc. moreover, I hate airport people. you know them too well and yet not well enough to say, 'shut the ---- up' or, "shut your phone the ---- up." *also is weird to be known as matt's "wife," or anyone's wife for that matter.

[/matt's wife's litany of complaints]

(yes, she wrote that.)


shoutz out 2 mah wiggaz:

UNITED AIRPLANES PILOT we the passengers demand that you stop injecting narcotics into your blood before you start flying aircraft, especially ours.

PARENTS please accept my apologies for mentally yelling at you. you see I thought the car was mine when I told you to go ahead and sell it and therefore thought that money was mine. keep every dime and I will stop cursing your good names.

GUY ACROSS FROM ME stop yelling at your cell phone, it has done nothing wrong.

GIRL WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE MY WIFE i don't know how you did that but it is really creepy.

BECK thank you for coming with me in my portable electronic devices, without you I would never have survived so long. it is perfectly clear you wrote this song for me, here, now.



it is not Sunday, November 28, 2004.

[many words accumulated]

airports are not beautiful places. they are not places where beautiful things happen; they are places where people sweat and swear and shout and get advertised at. one could easily liken it to a large cattle ranch, with cattle arriving and departing daily at a furious pace--though not so much a furious pace today, since it's our thanksgiving, and most sane people have already gotten where they ought to have got. but the point remains, I do not like airports. I compulsively want to get there two hours early for the vaguest of vague reason 'just in case,' and subsequently end up sitting for at least an hour and three quarters. silly matt. but this one does have free wireless internet service, so I can't complain ... as much. but I did have to remove my shoes so yes I certainly am going to complain.

since I've been here I've heard many interesting things:

1. the word 'fuck,' twice; didn't hear the context either time
2. 'this is the first time I've flown since 9/11; I'm scared to death'
3. 'I could think of better ways to spend thanksgiving'
4. 'who are you emailing, your other wife?' (quoth my current wife just now as I'm writing this)

the world should listen to itself more. discuss.


(transition)


I am now in seat 8D in a united airlines b-52 or somesuch flying machine. more excitement was had whilst boarding (as most travelers suffer from either brain damage or mad cow disease (refer to paragraph 1)). a lady wanted to put her four-ton luggage device in a space the size of, roughly, a shoebox, above her seat. much shouting and whining and finger-pointing and finger-raising and throwing of punches, culminating in the bag's ejection from the aircraft and escort to the baggage check area. in this post-9/11 world, we can only assume that 'baggage check area' means a holding cell in guantanamo where it will be regarded as an enemy combatant and where it will be given a half-hour's worth of air and sunlight a day and no legal counsel other than a retarded orangutan and an uneducated roll of industrial carpet. it seems this is where all my bags end up.

here I see a cross section of the entire human race: the two men across the aisle from me who discuss venture capital and non-recoverable assets like geeks talk about linux. the polite but socially backward japanese couple who utterly stopped the boarding process so they could (with smile-laden faces) put their bags in the storage compartments. the satisfied coy newly married people. the parents with their equally tired children. the pretty teenagers with their smug mobile phones. cattle all.


(transition)


I'm now in my parents' house in the general vicinity of los angeles. [aside: I used to be particular about specifying that no, indeed they do not live in los angeles proper; I no longer care.] on the very short flight from los angeles to the airport closer to their house (on a 30-seated propeller plane) we saw l.a.'s protective layer of smog. from the air, the firmament here between clean air above and dirty air below is as clear as though cut with God's own straightedge. it occurs to me that if anyone ever tried to detonate a nuclear weapon above the smog layer, the city would be completely untouched: no force in nature, pressure waves and gamma radiation included, could penetrate that disgusting armor. and this filth is repeated in a thousand, ten thousand cities worldwide. it's amazing how thoroughly we can bollocks up a planet.

but back to me. I've once again sorted through all my old things, my dad's old things some of which are now my things but all of which are just things. back-story: he died when I was three. I remember him but not much of him, and as time grows on I find it hard to distinguish between real and false memories, between mental images and photographs. I'd swear I can remember his voice.

I've fixed my parents' computer; I have set the table for dinner; I have made and consumed some better-than-mediocre tea; I have lost to my wife at poker; I have played with the legos of my childhood. I have a family who loves me and for whom I have great affection. there are many and varied things I am thankful for.


(transition)


I have been at the house for quite a long time and cannot get my computer to speak to the existing wireless network here and have no time- and/or effort-efficient way of transferring this text to an interweb-connected computer, so it is possible that you will not receive it for a very long time. you have my apologies.

so now it is after midnight, friday-saturday night. my sister is staying in the room next to ours, and she is speaking loudly on the phone and playing some sort of music through her computer. why I am telling you this is beyond me.

it is now after midnight, saturday-sunday morning. I've said goodbye to my sister. I've played poker again with my family, this time winning. I've played pool and won. I've played a brainless dice game and won. I've hemmed and hawed about fixing my internet connection and have finally succeeded, albeit only after employing all my tricks and pushing my computer's (and wife's) patience to the limit--and in the end I must consider this a win as well. I really need to get to las vegas.


(transition)


please forgive some things:

0. the time elapsed between starting and completing this entry
1. its inevitable incoherence and failure to follow any single thought to a logical conclusion, which I am, right now, too tired to consider
2. its general illusion of substance. I promise it is a fluke
3. (t.b.d.)



it is not Monday, November 22, 2004.

[crap deleted]

summarily.

the end.



it is not Saturday, November 20, 2004.

[an email of sufficiently large mass]

this entry was CRAP that somehow made it through my mind's usually effective filter.



[inside joke]

when talking in real time to silly girls in australia, don't be sick. sick means slow, slow means inarticulate, and inarticulate means disillusionment.

I enjoyed myself, I really did. but I think they were straining to.

we needed more people on the line. (where were you guys, anyway?)



it is not Friday, November 19, 2004.

[swear words: not just for grandma anymore]

a list of minor goings-wrong, which in their entirety make up a very bad day.

we had to (read: volunteered to) drive friends to the airport at 3:00 in the morning yesterday/this morning. got back at five. slept not-at-all well and not nearly long enough.

my ipod's battery died with hours of work ahead of me.

the network hiccupped at a crucial moment (right as I saved all my work and was logging off), choosing that exact time to disconnect my computer and somehow in the process delete all the updates and entries I had made during the day. that's right, I worked all day and at the end have nothing to show for it. nothing. it is gone. all gone. unceremoniously deleted.

the cute co-workin' girl at work had her last day today. she leaves for ireland soon.

my throat hurts, and relatedly, my voice is on the outs. I am short-sighted: the tea I took to soothe it was very probably caffeinated which is why I can't sleep even though I'd quite like to.

the ctrl button on my keyboard is currently finnicky. unresponsive. in a 'phase.'

I can't get quicken's online update features to work properly.

I can't find a certain power adapter I need to find. I can't find my new online banking pin number that I swore I wrote down right here two minutes ago. I can't find my keys, my coat, my wallet, my shoes. oh I found my keys but set them down to look for my shoes and found my shoes but forgot where I put my keys. I can't find my sanity.

we're out of clean spoons. it's my turn to do the dishes and I have no one to blame but me.

we're nearly out of comfort-flavor ice cream. ... moot'd! no spoons.

it feels like today should have been a friday, but no. I still have that to look forward to.


as the venerable douglas adams might say in such a situation:
'this must be thursday. I never could get the hang of thursdays.'

thank you, mr adams. you left me just when I needed you most.



it is not Thursday, November 18, 2004.

[the wheel is spinning but I can't see the hamster]

I tried to mail a boomerang a few days ago but it keeps coming back.


seriously, though.

it's been a serious while since our last time together, mostly because I've been distracted, and because I've decided to spend my time on tweaking the template again. that's not what you want; I should know better.

but since you're here and since I'm needy, tell me what you think about the link hovering thing. we (I) aim to please.


the job dillemma remains so. the one that would require us to move is looking brighter every day, while at the same time I quite enjoy what I'm currently doing. it's going to be a tough decision either way. tears will be shed. names may or may not be called. I do not like making decisions. it is my most annoying feature, something I really wish I could just iron out. to my infinite discredit, I'm a sucker for the easy road.

I might be setting myself up for disillusionment with a certain future conference call, but I remain an eternal optimist. at least I'll be able to more-or-less keep the voices straight (having heard half of them already).


aivapot leaves me speechless and helpless. and even though it's none of my business I wish it could be. I've always always been on your side.


my nanowrimo word count remains steady at an unimpressive 41,942 (bugger); I thought I could make it but I'm impasse'd. I'm thinking about running it through a web translator and back a few times to generate some extra words, but I fear something might be lost.


winter is just another way of saying 'I'll be constantly cold for five months and no number of blankets and/or heaters can remedy it. in many ways I despise this town, these environs, these doldrums-but-not-technical-doldrums ... but I'm to love the one I'm with, right?

bleh. it's late, and I'm still insubstantial.



to obscurely steal style from a guy I miss:

matt_'you may already be a winner.' thanks, but I already knew. I don't need junk mail to tell me.



where oh where have you got to.


*title used by wife's kind permission



it is not Wednesday, November 10, 2004.

[bandwaggin']

so apparently (some of) you have head-pictures of me, without having any useful frame of reference against which you can compare them. you might have seen pictures of me a long long time ago but even I've forgotten where I put them. I probably should have pre-emptively fixed this long ago, but since that's no longer an option, I'll just fix it, uh, emptively.

will I re-regret this? internal oracle again says yes.


firstly, pictures of a boy in front of big awesome water. clicky linkies.



clicky linky for to see the first one with added bonus detail. one free in every click.


secondly, pictures more clearly of my facial region, though in neither picture can you easily see my eyes. this is because I do not have eyes.





left is circa bachelor party. right is circa barely-pre-engagement. in both I am wearing my prized Che shirt.

okay, fine, you can kind of see my eyes. I guess I kind of fibbed that bit up; it's just that it's always been a recurring nightmare of mine, not having eyes, and I occasionally accidentally think it's true. (unless I photoshop'd them in. I'm keen on computers like that.)


if you came here wanting to hear about my job, then, sorry. [in the immortal words of the mortal jen, 'weenies.'] I'm avoiding writing about my job because I don't want to turn into a guy who writes on the interweb about his job. I couldn't bear it.


neil, I want to write you something but now is not the time. this is not a time for substance, because of late I find I am insubstantial.



it is not Saturday, November 06, 2004.

[re-update]

and we're job'd, the two of us.

finally! I can instead whine about something substantial. stay tuned. (for now I'm tired.)



it is not Thursday, November 04, 2004.

[everything happens at once, reprise]

unfortunately, everything happens in almost precisely the wrong order.

update: second interview has turned into a definite offer of immediate employment. I could be well and truly job'd next monday morning.

ordinarily, under other circumstances, this would be known as an Absolutely Good Thing™. the reasons it is not an Absolutely Good Thing™:

1. it is not full-time. it is 20 hrs/week.
2. being something I very much enjoy doing, it is not the One Thing™ I really want to be doing.
3. I have another possibility on the line, which would be the One Thing™ I really want to be doing. however, this won't even turn into an interview for at least three weeks, possibly longer. possibly much longer. everything is up in the air and refuses to come down.

also in the air is Chelsey's (where Chelsey = wife) employment situation. she has a semi-ideal possibility that will (with 75% certainty) turn into an offer, but we haven't heard from the would-be workplace. tomorrow we might, and if that were the case, then--regardless of the answer--that would simplify things a bit. by 'a bit,' I of course mean 'a ton.'

tonight I received tea and sympathy tough love. sometimes that's the best a situation allows.

will I sleep tonight? the answer is no. as usual.



moving on to something less meaningful.

you'll notice that the sidebar is in a state of ever-changingness. consider it my silly gift to you. and it keeps on giving (?).

change is a Good Thing™. (well, at any rate anyway, it's a Thing™.)



[(positive) reinforcement needed]

in the original draft of kerry's concession speech was the line 'I want to thank my wife, teresa, without whose billions of dollars this hair would not have been possible.'

har.

someone (not me) said to someone (me) recently, regarding the election: 'we are watching it with the distracted attention that one might watch a car-crash in progress. i myself have little hope for a happy ending.' you and the rest of the world, that is. was. whatever.



it's getting to be that time of year again. that really, really expensive time of year. so: does anyone know what women want for christmas? ... specifically, does anyone know what my wife wants for christmas? I mean, something that I can put on my current credit card, not something that requires me to go see vinny the loan shark or to get a mortgage. or both; vinny doesn't offer very competitive rates on mortages.


a recent interview turned into a skills test turned into tomorrow's second interview. government job is still up in the air. wife's second interview has been and gone and we still await the result. wife also turned down the pseudo-volunteer position, which would have paid her $850/month (crap) for the next eight months (crap) with very very few days off (very crap). it's a trying time for us. SISTER if you're reading this don't tell mom, we think that telling people the last time bollocksed it up for us last time. can I work for you?


everyone please join me in my hatelife disillusionment.

I'm tempted to begin writing stories en masse again, something I basically haven't done since I started jobbin'. it was always therapeutic for me, and I wonder if that added stress reliever would be worth its time. and there was a lot of time involved. why am I telling you this? there is insufficient data for a meaningul answer.

things get mixed up in my head. when I do something for an extended (or short but intense) period of time, any sort of stimulus I'm getting at the time is tied to that action. then, whenever I experience that stimulus again later, I'm reminded of whatever it was I was doing. I just thought you all should know because the stove light keeps randomly turning itself on, and the last time that kept happening was the last time I did some serious writing.



it is not Tuesday, November 02, 2004.

[part 2: midnight]

OHIO

MAKE UP YOUR MIND



[I approved this tripe]

I should keep a tally of the number of ads I see or hear between april and november of an election year. it would be in the thousands. if yard signs and bumper stickers are included, the number jumps to the tens of trillions.

BUT today marks the end of the dreaded election ad season! this one was particularly nasty, so tomorrow the sun should shine particularly brightly.

some of the polls are in, badnarik seems not to be doing so well ... perhaps the sun will not be shining so brightly tomorrow? MICHAEL BADNARIK you've had my vote since last friday, I hope it's the one that breaks the duopoly's back and crowns you president.

the results page refreshes unbearably slowly. it is unbearably slow. we want the answer now, dammit.


the electoral college system currently in place in america allows for some interesting results, e.g. in the last election when al gore won the popular vote but not the election. so that got me thinking about just how few votes it would take to win an election, assuming every american citizen can and does vote. I've been working some figures, and here are the results:

say Candidate A won the states (North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Indiana, Washington, Tennessee, Missouri, Wisconsin, Maryland, Arizona, Minnesota, Louisiana, Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Arkansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, DC, and Wyoming) with half-the-votes-plus-one in each (so it's the barest of majorities). because Candidate A won the popular vote in these states, Candidate A would get 270 electoral votes and would win the election. in all other states, Candidate A does not receive a single vote, and the electoral votes from the other states go to Candidate B. Candidate B receives 268 electoral votes and loses the election.

in the states listed above, there is a rough total of 122800000 voters, and the same number of votes for Candidate A (by assumption). half of this number is 61400000.

according to a july 2003 count, there are roughly 281420000 people in the u.s.

what percent voted for Candidate A? the number is less than 22%. fewer than one in four people in the country voted for Candidate A, who still wins the election. talk about a supramajority.

glued to the screen,

-matt.



it is not Monday, November 01, 2004.

[countdown to the recount]

political drivel lies ahead! ye be warned.

well huh. osama bin laden wasn't captured today. kerry might just pull it out.

but really: whomever wins, we lose.

I do not want george bush be reelected. if george bush were running against 'not george bush,' I think not george bush would win. the problem is I don't want kerry in.

a vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil, and americans everywhere don't seem to realize this.

I voted (absentee-like) for badnarik, a libertarian. he's a smart guy, as evidenced in many many many recent interviews. if you're sick of the system (and even if you're not), please check him out.

the end (of that).

...

dear coors beer corporation incorporated,

you stated in a recent television advert that your beer was the 'coldest tasting beer' in the world. we beg you to tell us: how can beer taste cold? come to that, can beer taste red? can beer taste loud? we're all very confused.

love,

a billion drunk people

...

tomorrow night I'll be drinking not to remember, but to forget.

remember: that's badnarik. no no, bahd-nah-rik. yes, that's right, less nasally. baaahd-naaah-rik. you've got it.