I am a coiner of words. Nothing major, mind you, but I've added a few idioms to the local vocabulary in my time, most notably the alternate meaning of "jaunt," which would basically mean "stuff." As in, "Stop touching my jaunt or I will pummel you without mercy."

I am also very interested in reviving slang from years past; you've probably heard me mention that I feel personally responsible (and I feel no guilt over this fact) for the reinsertion of "Word!" as an all-purpose exclamation to American English. This was a process begun in approximately 1998, when I began to revive this use of the word, it having died out at approximately the same time the New Kids on the Block broke up. (There may have been others who decided to bring it back at the same time, which would help explain the current widespread use of the phrase, but I can say with 99% certainty that I am the first, and so far one of only a handful of people, to use "Word" as an adjective: "That cheese-steak was totally word.")

My current personal projects involve the revivals of "def" and "ill," and I'm also assisting Chris Onstad (creator of Achewood) with the reintroduction of "rad," and even a totally new form of slang adverb: "hell of." (Not that Onstad actually knows about my assistance, or my name, or even that I exist as anything but a guy that periodically writes him sweet-smelling anonymous letters that I laboriously bang out on an old Hermes typewriter and leave lipstick kisses on the bottoms by way of signature.)

I am, of course, a leech of OTHER people's pet slang, which is really the reason I bring all this up. Paul Stamegna, a young friend of mine that I know from working with Brandywine High School, invented a word in 2003 that is a modification of "jaunt:" "jaunpiece." I thought the construction to be brilliant (it particularly works well in a form that Paul also developed: "Ease up off my jaunpiece," which I've slightly modified a la Strong Bad, "Ease up offs my jaunpiece"), and immediately stole it and began using it everywhere.

A few friends have picked it up, including my wife, my father, and good buddy Colin Pryor. In fact, if you go to Google and search for "jaunpiece," you get three sites (and a lot of duplicate links that were removed automagically by Google): this one, the Free Range Human (which often has many dirty words on it, so I admit of no affiliation thereto), and Colin's site.

Which is why I was absotively floored when Jared IM'd me yesterday and told me that the director on his movie, "No Retreat From Destiny" (which will undoubtedly win some award for having the cheesiest name of all time), said "jaunpiece" the other day:

SmithJub (1:00:53 PM): Dude, the director used the term jaunpiece the other day.
matthearndotcom (1:01:06 PM): He what?
matthearndotcom (1:01:14 PM): Holy [rather bad word].
matthearndotcom (1:01:18 PM): I assume he heard it from you?
SmithJub (1:01:22 PM): No.
SmithJub (1:01:27 PM): I never use it.
matthearndotcom (1:01:42 PM): I know the kid that [extremely bad word that I never use unless I'm jaw-droppingly surprised by something or have been stabbed] invented it. How the [yet another dirty word] did it get to some director of whom I've never heard?
SmithJub (1:01:54 PM): No idea.
SmithJub (1:02:12 PM): He was in a conversation about something and it just slipped out.

I can't begin to express my joy at hearing this news. I daresay, I nearly wept. It was so def.

Anyway, last night's Brigadoon preview went extremely well. Jennifer was still sick, but had visited the doctor and was duly doped up on all kinds of stuff, including a good dose of heroin, from what I understand. She refused to believe this no matter who told her, but she sounded great. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if she actually stops being sick and starts sounding even better.

The rain even held off! We didn't get a drop, although it was EXTREMELY humid. Tonight's forecast looks even better, although they're calling for intermittent thunderstorms from Friday well into the foreseeable future. Hopefully that stuff will break up and not be a factor for the weekend shows, since I have a lot of friends coming in from out of town who can't do anything but the Saturday show.

So, thanks for those of you that shot us a thought or three yesterday, although whichever one of you it was that managed to enter my brain and replace "I don't understand it! I'm beginning to feel a little like a damn fool!" with "I don't understand it! I'm, uh, feel, going insane:" I am going to pummel you without mercy.

Word of the day: irrefragable (i 'ref ruh guh buhl); adjective. Impossible to refute or dispute; incontrovertible. (Probably ©2004 wordsmith.org.)

Can I use the word in a sentence? Aw hells yes:

The fact that Matt Hearn is the coolest dude to come out of Delaware since George Thorogood is irrefragable.

Okay, moving on. One thing that I find interesting about the American system of law is that the simplest of actions can get you embroiled in a lawsuit. I got a very nice email today from the folks at Paypal informing me that because I opened an account with them between 1999 and 2004, I am now part of a class action suit. My mind's immediate response was, "Hell, all I wanted to do was pay for that massive collection of 19th century erotic paraphernalia that I won on eBay!"

Did I say erotic? I meant, um, baseball. Yeah, baseball.

I don't even begin to grasp what the whole thing is about, really. It has something to do with the "Electronic Fund Transfer Act of 1978," of which some folks say Paypal has been in flagrant violation, to whom Paypal responds that the EFTA doesn't actually apply to them, which strikes me as patently silly, since, last I checked, Paypal is in the very specific business of Transferring Funds via Electronic Acts, so saying the EFTA doesn't apply to them is rather like the Federal Income Tax Constitutional Amendment doesn't apply to me. (As if it wasn't approved by three-fourths of the states, or anything. Oh wait.)

Have your eyes glazed over yet? Stay with me, things will improve.

So anyway, apparently if I don't opt out of this class action suit, I get free money. In fact, opting out is relatively difficult, as I have to write a snail-mail letter to some court in California and word it just a certain way. The only benefit this would get me is the ability to sue Paypal on my own hook later, but I'm not personally feeling very infringed upon, for a change, so I think I'll let them slide, just this once, and take the 12 cents or whatever I'll get as part of a class that must include 50 million people, each taking a bite of a $6 million settlement.

That 12 cents could buy me, um...a gumball! Well, half of a gumball. Well, no, I'm sure I'll have to pay 6 cents in taxes to the government, so it's probably more like I could purchase a single Frito.

Oh, I have a favor to ask of you before you go: I need you to pray for two things:

1. That the rain that's currently moving vaguely north from North Carolina pushes off east and allows us to have our preview tonight, since last night's was rained out, and
2. That Jennifer's sore throat from yesterday was a weird one day thing and has subsided. (I'm personally praying for this one roughly every 2 minutes; I think God is starting to get a little irked with me.)

Ooh! Ooh! When I wrote yesterday's post about the Brigadoon-related events of last Saturday, I left out the REALLY interesting stuff about what I did that morning! Involving brake dust, horrific odor, maggots, and extreme back pain! It was happy fun times at Hearndom II, I tell you.

(Note: this is a long post, with many intricate plotlines. Go to the bathroom now, I don't want you getting up during my story.)

I may have mentioned (probably not) that I was temporarily storing a refrigerator for my good buddy Craig, who just bought a new house near us with his fiancée. Last Sunday (the 18th, I think? My ability to keep track of dates at this point is totally shot) we helped him move, and got the refrigerator out of the garage.

I also should probably mention at this point that we bought a freezer not long after we bought our house; a nice used one, about 5 feet tall, from a girl in Glasgow. 80 bucks, a great deal. Then I got it home and realized we don't actually have any wall outlets in the garage. The garage door opener is powered via a little grommet that screws into a light socket in the ceiling, giving you 3 un-grounded electrical outlets, 9 feet in the air. So I fetched one of those little "cheat your way around the fact that you need to ground something" connectors, ran an outdoor extension cord up to the ceiling, and plugged it in. Got a very satisfying whirr, and a day later it was nice and chilled, so I threw the turkey and some other meats in there.

Well, at some point during the migration of Craig's refrigerator last weekend, the extension cord came out. This, as you might imagine, results in a lack of electricity to the freezer, which then results in turkeys melting and dripping juice down into the bottom of the freezer, out past the door seal, and all over the floor.

We discovered this 5 days later, on Friday evening, when Sarah commented that the house smelled even worse than it normally does (we have four cats; our house, sadly, smells faintly of dirty cat litter in every room). I went out to the garage, which smelled like Jame Gumm's basement.

So, back to Saturday morning. I rolled out of bed, having gotten about 6 hours of sleep, at 7:45am, and began the day by driving to Pep Boys. Crap, I need to backtrack again.

For the last few weeks, Sarah's right-front disc brakes have been making rather horrific grinding noises. I figured it was just something caught in the caliper; she took the car to the dealership last December and those incompetents said she still had 5mm or more of brake pad on each side. Friday afternoon, I finally got tired of the noise and took the right wheel off, to discover that there was significantly less than 5mm of pad. As in, zero. She was basically trying to stop by using the rather rough surface of the metal brackets to which the pads are attached.

We took the truck to rehearsal that night, and gas mileage be damned.

The next morning, I headed over to Pep Boys for new pads, and possibly new rotors, purchased all of the above (although the rotors turned out to be the wrong size, and she probably doesn't need them anyway, so I have them in the truck waiting to be returned, which I intend to do as soon as I have half an hour of free time, currently slated for 2007). Drove back home, set the parts on the ground, opened the garage door, and was greeted with a smell not unlike that of roadkill on a July afternoon. Of course, that's basically what was sitting in my freezer at that point.

I had hoped Sarah would be up to help me at that point, but unfortunately she was still asleep (she needs her beauty rest; she's been awfully funny looking recently), so I set to dragging all of the junk in our garage out of the way so I could move the refrigerator. Most notable was the massive entertainment center, which is made of oak, and designed to fit into a corner; it's extremely heavy, horribly unbalanced, and largely devoid of handholds in the back. I basically dragged it along the ground while listening to the disks in my back rupture one by one. (It kinda sounded like when you play with bubble wrap; pop pop pop pop pop!)

I then soaked up, with paper towel, some of the wetter spots of rotting meat juice. Next, I got a trash bag, poured some kind of carpet deodorizer in it, and filled it with highly bacterial meat.

Then I spent a few minutes retching onto the compost pile behind the shed.

After brushing my teeth for a while, I dragged the freezer out into the driveway and started rinsing and scrubbing juices and chunks out while continually gagging and burping up enough acid to cause my molars to dissolve. You really can't imagine the smell of something like this. Remember the time you pooped your pants in the 3rd grade, and didn't tell anybody, and by the end of the day the school had been evacuated and you ran home in tears, threw your Underoos and jeans into the neighbors' hedge, snuck into the house, and spent 90 minutes in the bathtub trying to wash the smell of failure from yourself with a foot pumice stone?

Yeah, that, um, never happened to me either.

Anyway, that's what it smelled like, except worse, and the juices and chunks were covered with writhing maggots. GOOOOOOOOOOOOD TIMES!!!! Finally, I got the freezer pretty well rinsed out, and Sarah finally appeared and started scrubbing the garage floor while I took her brakes apart and replaced the pads.

(There are probably those of you who would be concerned about my wife driving around with a very important automotive component that I had repaired, but you can trust me. Just because I can't get my motorcycle to reliably run (or, in fact, start at all) doesn't mean I'm not extremely competent with my hands. (I was an All-State tuba player, for heaven's sake, and you don't get to do that unless you have superb hand-eye coordination, or at least massive lips.) You just have to give me enough time to do it right, and curse a lot, and probably cut the hell out of my fingers. Also, make sure I drive the car first; that's just good practice.)

(Nested parentheses are just elements of good style, dammit.)

While I was repairing Sarah's brakes (just about the time I was trying to get the piston to properly recompress, which involved me yelling many, many words that are extremely not appropriate for children, which was unfortunate since there were many of them bicycling up and down my street at the time), Sarah began mowing the lawn. I was mildly concerned about this, because our mower was constructed in about 1972, and weighs as much as a PT Cruiser. She was actually able to maneuver it pretty well, though, despite not knowing how to remove and empty the bag, which resulted in mammoth mounds of mow muffins all over my front yard.

Anyway, I managed to get inside, shower the worst of the brake dust and maggot stank off of me, and made it to rehearsal by 1pm, which is about where I picked up yesterday's post. (BTW: It didn't rain last night, except for a tiny bit at the worst possible time, but we still managed to get all the way through the show. I need more prayers about tonight, though, 'cause things are looking ugly: there's a storm the size of Jim Belushi floating over Maryland right now. Oh well, we have a rain date for tomorrow.)

I must be off, to try and wash the last of the brake dust out of my cuticles.

Brigadoon update: Orchestras are cool. Particularly good ones, that play in tune, and can follow tempo. Especially ones that can even follow along when I insert random pauses in the lines I'm singing, which happens a lot when I "emote."

Don't worry, it shouldn't be too over the top; my range of emotions when I sing starts at about "mildly sad" to "not unhappy," with a good dose of facial expressions that denote "insanity" more than anything else. Hence my use of dramatic pauses that drive the orchestra and production staff insane.

We had our first orchestra rehearsals on Saturday, beginning with a run-through of the music at the Opera Delaware practice building in Wilmington. It went extremely well, despite me still being a little raw from spending WAY too much time at Hugo's the previous evening. After that, My Illustrious Costar^TM (aka Jennifer), Cindy and I headed over to Iron Hill Brewery, where I bought them lunch in exchange for them buttering me up like I was a piece of cornbread for 2 straight hours. (The lesson: the way to a man's heart is through his massive ego.) (Or perhaps by giving him cornbread.)

Then Jennifer followed me up 52 to get to Longwood for dress rehearsal. During the drive, she called me twice on my cell phone: once, as she put it, because she "figured she should bug me," and then again as we reached Greenville, to alert me to the fact that "Sweet Caroline" was playing on 104.5 FM. (Although I have to be honest with you, it was one of the highlights of my day. I'll have to arrange to sing it at Karaoke on Thursday.) It's heartening to note that Jenny's almost as strange as I and the rest of my friends.

The semi-dress rehearsal went very well, and then we all headed over to Mike's to get our drink on and our snack on (all except Jennifer, who to the disappointment of many, pleaded fatigue and went home to get her sleep on). We finally left there around 3:30 after I started falling asleep in a lawn chair (life of the party! That's me!) got home at 4 am, and slept until noon. Muchas thanks to Mikey for hosting all of us, and also muchas thanks to my internal demon for not awaking and causing me to run naked through the streets of suburban New Castle.

Tonight: final dress rehearsal! Tomorrow: preview night! And no, I'm not nervous. The only thing I'm nervous about is rain. And it will not rain.

I decree it.

'Nother batch o' B-doon pixtures. Probably the last decent batch of actual stage scenes I'll be able to put up, although I'll try to keep getting fun candids of my various costars and stuff. Aw, snap.

The rain better hold off tonight; I don't want to have to go postal on God.

Do you ever write a nasty note to a technical support group of some kind, and then when you receive a reply email, hesitate to open it because you know the techie wimp that sent it is going to sound all nice and reasonable, and have resolved your issue, and you're going to feel like a class 1-A jerk for being mean?

No? Oh. I guess it's just me then.

I sent an email to Blogger support about a week ago to complain about their new editing screen. They now have the option of a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) composer, so you can just type in your post, throw some Microsoft Word-style bolding and eye-talics and stuff on it, and hit submit. It's great for low-tech folks who don't know HTML.

As you can probably predict, I hate it. Luckily, they still give you the option of directly editing HTML code, although as of last week (they seem to have fixed it now) it had some problems, namely, it didn't work at all. I would create a post in HTML, save it as a "draft" (so that it doesn't immediately appear on the website), and then go back to edit it later and all my HTML tags were gone, replaced with some kind of weird default things that the Composer thought might be a nice idea. This resulted in me having multiple seizures, because at the time I was trying to edit that post with the Switchfoot lyrics, and it kept dumping each verse into one long line, ignoring my <BR> tags.

Anyway, I went to the blogger support page and sent them a note, the subject of which was "New editing screen SUH-UCKS." I also went to one of the developers' blogs, where he had posted a lengthy article about why the new WYSIWYG thing was so rad, and everybody should use it, and it will make everybody's life SOOOOOO much easier. I posted a comment that basically read, "Yes, WYSIWYG is cool, when it works, though most of the time it does not, so GIVE ME BACK MY PROPER HTML CODING, YOU COMMUNISTS! Also, fix the preview so that it posts actually appear as they would on my webpage. Scalawag."

In my defense, a commenter (the only commenter, since my readership consists of approximately 4 people and a shaved bison) did note that she agreed with me. So I do have justice on my side.

Anyway, I have received an email'd reply to my queries. I better bite the bullet and open it.

Yeah, they were nice. Bastards.

Oops: Dumb Matt forgot to post a message on here noting the NEW BRIGADOON PICTURES yesterday when he actually uploaded them. The usual lesson can be gleaned from this: I am an idiot.

The new pictures include one final one from Aldersgate, and 18 more from Longwood, where we started rehearsing on Monday.

The Longwood Outdoor Theater is immense; it seats just under 2000, I'm told, and the stage is massive, as you'll see from the pictures. I'm so stoked for this show I can barely see straight, which gets a little scary for Sarah when I'm driving. (Not that my driving isn't already scary.)

We've gotten to try on some of our costumes, and mine fit reasonably well, although I'm going to bring in an old suit of my own to wear because the jacket they gave me is just snug enough in the shoulders to be a little uncomfortable. My outfit for the first act is kinda nice, albeit WARM. The pants are corduroy, with a denim shirt and a soft fleece jacket, which I expect to sweat through thoroughly before I even walk on the stage. I brought in a pair of standard yellow work boots, we'll see how well the directors like them. At some point I need to pick up a host of black socks, and a clip-on necktie (the suit is involved in a couple quick changes).

I have some more pictures from Tuesday as well, but I haven't decided whether or not I want to tie myself down to daily editing-commenting-uploading extravaganzas, since technically I should be working. What with being at work and all.

Matt Hearn's lifetime Brandywiners' League Softball statistics: 3 for 4, 2 runs, 2 RBI, 2 errors. I'm like some kind of palsied Babe Ruth! Although not as fat! But probably nearly as drunk!

The game was part of the Brandywiners' Family Picnic at Breck's Mill on Saturday, which also involved volleyball, free booze, frisbee throwing, and other types of carousing and devil-may-care whimsy. (Although as we later found out, the Devil did care, and was very hurt he wasn't invited.)

We stopped at Dead Presidents first for some hangover-reducing bloody marys, picked up some subs from Capriotti's, and went over to the picnic, where it was immediately clear that my decision to wear a sleeveless muscle shirt was correct. I was hot. I mean, it was hot.

Anyway, we got to meet the families of many of the Brandywiners' members; I should probably have gotten pictures of them, but I was busy playing frisbee with Jennifer's son Charlie, followed by beer, followed by volleyball, followed by beer, followed by beer, followed by: softball.

Over the first three innings, I got three straight hits, with some masterful fielding, including a diving attempt at a fly foul ball that caused great consternation among the production staff 'cause they fear my death more than I do. (I did, however, fail to catch the ball.)

Then my illustrious costar takes over shallow right field for Rachel, and I promptly commit two errors and fly out to center in my remaining at-bat. Not that I'm suggesting that she's responsible, or anything. Not at all.

The party really was a lot of fun, and it was particularly nice to meet everyone's family. As an added bonus, I didn't even embarrass myself too thoroughly! Probably because of the lack of hard alcohol, and a deeply-ingrained personal belief that getting schnockered in front of children is somehow wrong.

(I figure this is a nice instinct to have for when I've produced progeny of my own.)

Hey, Matt has nothing funny to write about today! (Hey, you're getting this for free. If you're expecting quality, go buy a New Yorker or a Hustler or something.) When Matt has nothing to write about, you get either pictures or poetry; today is poetry, or rather, a pretty cool song. (I think I'm turning into Jill.)

I'm all about Switchfoot (beware, it has sound, don't deafen your coworkers). You've probably heard the one single on Top 40 radio, "Meant to Live:"

We were meant to live for so much more
But we lost ourselves.
Somewhere, we live inside . . . somewhere, we live inside.

Decent song, but not the best on their new album, "The Beautiful Letdown." If you can listen to the samples on their website, give this a listen, it's rather my personal song (aka "my cut") of the week:

Twenty-Four

Twenty-four oceans, twenty-four skies,
twenty-four failures in twenty-four tries.
Twenty-four finds me in twenty-fourth place.
With twenty-four dropouts at the end of the day.

Life is not what I thought it was
twenty-four hours ago.
Still I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with you.
And I'm not who I thought I was
twenty-four hours ago.
Still I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with you.

Twenty-four reasons to admit that I'm wrong
With all my excuses still twenty-four strong.

But see I'm not copping out
When you're raising the dead in me

Oh, I am the second man
Oh, I am the second man now
Oh, I am the second man now

And you're raising these twenty-four voices
With twenty-four hearts
With all of my symphonies in twenty-four parts
But I want to be one today
Centered and true

I want to see miracles
To see the world change
I wrestled the angel
For more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
Singing spirit take me up in arms with you
You're raising the dead in me

I've been kinda down intermittently this week, and that song (along with a few other tunes on the same disc, and frequent doses of "Amahl and the Night Visitors") has kept me going.

The CD's worth picking up, particularly for $9.98 at Walmart. Go fetch ye a copy.

Biggest Brigadoon Pic Upload Yet!

Bad news: I'm in almost every picture.
Good news: So is Jennifer, so hopefully she can distract you from my jowly visage.

All the pictures in this batch were taken by Sarah, so they're actually all really good.

I have some questions about OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). Well, one, mainly. Do you always just have it, or can it develop late in life? 'Cause I think I'm getting it.

It's all been coming on over the last few weeks. I actually do a decent job of getting my lawn mowed every week; I cleaned the basement; I cleaned the garage (thereby refilling the basement with useless crap, although the basement has been avenged: my mother made me take about 300 boxes of various crap from her house, most of which is now in the garage); I've been doing things like cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry, things like that.

Even stranger, I'm now an absolutely stickler for personal cleanliness. Time was, if I was at home, and I had to pee, I usually wouldn't bother to wash up. It wasn't like I had peed on my hands, or anything! Now I wash my hands every time I do anything, and I feel vaguely repulsed by others who don't. Amusingly terrifying anecdote: I enter the work bathroom to "drain the dragon" (see also: "quench the urinal cake fire"), and a pair of middle-aged gentlemen are there ahead of me. One of them completes his urinary task and commences washing his hands, and the other apparently has a larger bladder, so he takes a little longer.

He then turns to his buddy, announces loudly, "Well, Bob, I didn't pee on my hands!" and walks out of the bathroom without washing. (I think he put his willy away first, but I have no proof of this.) I almost bit my tongue bloody trying to avoid screaming, "Yes, but you still touched your filthy 'old-man' wang, you foul, foul hottentot!"

I guess what I'm saying is, if you come to my office building, and you meet up with a pair of guys in their mid-to-late fifties, one of whom is tall and named Bob, the other being short and kinda moley: DO NOT SHAKE THE SHORT GUY'S HAND. Or at least spray some Lysol on him first.

As an added bonus, a sign on an upstairs water-cooler had me thinking twice, even three times (making a total of 6 total actual thought processes for me that day, a new record): "If you fill your water bottle, please do it without touching the bottle to the tap. It is unsanitary." My initial instinct was to lick the tap good and germy and share the Hearnovirus with the rest of the building, but then I thought, "Ew. I've been rubbing my water bottle against something to which other people have touched theirs. Meaning my lips have been like 4 steps removed from the mouth of someone who may or not have washed his hands last time he successfully didn't pee on them."

Then I threw up in my mouth a few times. Now I'm much more careful to not let my bottle touch the tap. Admittedly, this means water tends to get everywhere, much to the chagrin of the person that comes in for coffee, slips in my spillage and demolishes his nose on the refrigerator door, but if that's the price someone else has to pay, I'm more than willing to let them pay it. Plus, I plan to post a little sign on the water cooler that reads "Whichever of you jerks gave me dysentery: I will find you. And then I will cut you." You know, just to keep everybody honest.

Also, I've gotten into the habit of putting the toilet cover down before flushing anything 'cause I'm told that fecal matter can spray out and onto your toothbrush, the thought of which caused me to interrupt this sentence twice (right after "fecal" and "spray") and put my head between my knees.

Permit me to set the scene.

Saturday morning: Sarah and I went for a nice long walk around our development, and then returned home to shower and prepare to meet our friends for drunken revelry and poker. Sarah jumped in the tub while I watched Norm Abrams carve wood, and when she was done I stripped to my skin and went to start the shower. Then my cell phone rang. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hello?
Brian: Two things. First, I'm going to go to the Phils game today [instead of coming over to play poker with you]. Second, do you have a minute?
Me: Uh, sure, I guess.
Brian: Okay, you're about to be interviewed.

Here's where I should explain that Brian works Saturday mornings at WDEL (1150 on your amplitude modulation dial). So here I am, standing in my living room, nude, on my cell phone (which doesn't work very well in the house), and the following thoughts are foremost in my mind:

1. I'm about to be WHAT?
2. I doubt I should mention on the air that I'm buck naked.
3. Don't drop the F-bomb . . . don't drop the F-bomb . . . don't drop the F-bomb . . .

Then I got to talk to some woman whose name I never caught while trying not to pee my pants. If you don't mind the 1.3MB filesize, give it a listen, and let me know if you can hear the abject terror in my voice.

Of course, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, of course, because I have an ego like Antarctica has ice.

More Brigadoon pics AGAIN! It's like I've completely given up on my ability to write! Which I probably should have done years ago!

(Must stop babbling . . . must stop babbling . . .)

Anyway, this particular set is DEFINITELY worth a look, since I finally got some great pictures of Ariann and Jennifer, the two ladies in Tommy's life. They are rad.

New Brigadoon pics! And for those of you who missed the first bunch of pics, just go straight to http://www.matthearn.com/Brigadoon2004.

Whew, LOOOONG weekend. I'm sure you want to hear all about it! It'll be great! Have a seat! Hey, where are you going, come back! Really, you'll enjoy this. It involves livestock!

NOW I've got your attention, you perverts.

Anyhoo, the weekend began with a nice day off on Friday during which I cleaned out the garage. I then promptly filled it back up with more junk, particularly my buddy Craig's refrigerator, which I'm storing for him until he moves into his new place in a few weeks. My mother was also kind enough to give me boxes and boxes of useless crap that I'd left in my old bedroom at her house.

I did manage to get my motorcycle free, so hopefully I'll get it running soon and be able to ride it around the neighborhood a bit; I could use the practice before riding it to the repair shop for further maintenance, since I figure it might be nice to not crash into a tree on the way there. As we shall soon discover, I'm fragile enough as it is.

Friday evening, Brian and Mary came over; we moved a piano, and then went to a bar and ate things that are not on my diet.

Saturday, we went to Home Depot and purchased all kinds of paint supplies, steel brushes, spray paints, many grood things, and after spending a few hours chatting with our friendly peeps Dan and Lynn, got our paint on. We had to begin painting the living room because I want to be able to tune the piano. The logic of the previous statement is explained thusly:

1. The piano is in the living room.
2. It needs to be tuned.
3. Per #2, it is scheduled to be tuned on Thursday.
4. When you move a piano, it tends to go out of tune.
5. We wish to paint the living room.
6. To paint a living room wall, it is usually necessary that there be nothing blocking your access to that wall.
7. The piano was against a wall.
8. Ergo, it needed to be moved.
9. Per #4, I didn't wish to pay $150+ to have it tuned (it's very out of tune) and then have to move it a few weeks later to paint, thereby putting it out of tune.
10. We needed to move it out of the way and begin painting, which we did, so that when the piano-wall was done we could move the piano back into place to be tuned. Which we have done. Q.E.D.

Sunday, we got up and went to church since my Moms and El Maj were singing duet-type jaunpiece. It was very nice, even though poor Sarah got a little confused from time to time. (I'm trying to actually get to church with reasonable frequency this summer to try and stave off my eventual damnation.)

After that I put another coat of paint behind the piano and on myself, and we headed over to Mandy and Speech's for drinks and grub. While there, we noticed that they had a girl's 10 speed bike on the front porch, that Mandy immediately gave to HW. So I get to go over there later and pick that up, which will be nice, since Sarah will take any opportunity to injure herself on two wheels. (Says the idiot that fell off his bike during the motorcycle course 2 years ago.)

The remainder of the evening became rather anacreontic, as we went over to The Boys™ for vast amounts of food, wine, and political argument. (My parents friends are rather liberal; I am rather, um, not (Vote Libertarian!).) I was asked several times during the course of the evening whether or not I had an off switch. (Answer: hells no.) I was also chided by my friend Michele for pronouncing the word "absurd" in this manner: "abzurd," as opposed to "abssurd." I, of course, looked it up later, and discovered that either pronunciation is legal (although the latter is the preferred), so I offer this in response: Nah. Nee Nah. Nee Boo.

Boo.

Man, was I hammered on Sunday. Luckily, Sarah drove home.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bad in a BAAAAAAAD way. I actually got outside and ran a mile before we got in the car to drive to Lancaster for the day, stopping first at my Aunt Rebecca's house, where we ate crab-toast, cinnamon flop, and Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding. My mother made it. I'm pretty sure she's a hecubus, or at least a sizeable imp of some kind.

Next, we headed over to Aunt Nanette's farm, where we feasted on rosemary-coated lamb (as opposed to Rosemary Clooney lamb) and I ate the rest of the cinnamon flop. I also took the opportunity to take pictures of her sheep and calf. The calf will be a steer in a few weeks, and looked exceptionally tasty. The lambs, of course, looked absolutely succulent. Before I remembered myself I found myself gnawing on the thigh of one of the larger ones, which earned me some strange looks from the other barn-dwellers. My relatives, of course, took it all in stride.

Last, but certainly not least, we went over to Uncle Gord's place, where we stuffed ourselves with dessert and swam in the pool, not necessarily in that order. Because Uncle Gord no longer drinks, nobody else was drinking, so we were even able to stay sober for the 90 minute drive home! I even managed to get off of Rt. 30 at Rt. 741 and didn't get lost once! Man, I'm hell of brilliant. Sometimes being me hurts.

Tuesday started off poorly when I ran for 6 minutes and then threw out my back. (See? Being me really DOES hurt.) Particularly when I realized that I'd be moving our dining room furniture, and the piano, later that morning. Not good times. Excruciating times. So I pounded half a bottle of Advil with a vodka chaser and got to work, driving up to Sarah's parents to pick up the furniture, load it into my truck and their van, and then drive it back down to the house. Luckily, it was mostly veneer-type stuff, so it wasn't terribly heavy. The piano, on the other hand, is never getting moved again without the benefit of a crane. We'll just leave it with the house. Or perhaps burn it, while drunk. I'm looking forward to that bacchanalian extravaganza.

The day didn't improve when, at 4pm, I got paged for the first time all weekend, and the issues escalated from there, to the point that I missed most of Brigadoon rehearsal, for which I still feel rather guilty, since as a lead, my presence is rather important. Plus I lend an air of sexiness to the whole production that it sorely needs. I ended up being stuck at the data center until almost 1am, after which I passed out in my bed in the nude. (That's right, picture it. I was lying face up. Blind now, aren't you? Welcome to my wife's world.)

I told you you'd want to read this.

My main homegirl Jodi sent me another of those amusing email questionnaires! Of course, since I'm averse to adding to other folks spam collections, I'll just go ahead and respond online so everybody can read how I'm a freak.

1. What time is it? Well, this is in intriguing way to start a list. As of right now it's 10:42, although by the time I finish it will probably be much later. It turned out to be 11:06.
2. Name as it appears on your birth certificate? Senor Cardgage. Oh wait, sorry, no. Matthew David Hearn.
3. Any nicknames? The Hearn, Waffy, "That Sexy Guy With Great Hair."
4. Parents' names? Unfortunately, they're in the witness protection program, but I can tell you that one of them was previously named "Alphonse."
5. Candles appeared on your last birthday cake? I think you're asking my age. I didn't have a birthday cake. (I prefer pie.) I'm 26.
6. Date that you regularly blow them out? I like to let them burn for a few months before I get to them. It's kinda like the olympic torch; we get special gas-powered candles. Leaves a funny aftertaste in the frosting, though. Anyway: August 27th.
7. Pets? I think we started with 1 cat. Now we have like 11. My house smells like pee.
8. Tattoos? Not much of a drummer, personally. Oh, you meant skin art. Got me a cowboy hat and geeeeeeeeetar on my shoulder. It's why I spend so much time shirtless. That and my incredible ab.
9. How much do you love your job or jobs? Computers: Like the work, like the people (mostly), hate the company. Music: All about it. Can't get enough. Anybody wanna hire a full-time choral singer and pay me like 80 grand? That'd be rad.
10. Ever had a car accident? My attorneys have advised me not to mention details. (Short answer: yes.)
11. Your fault? Most DEFINITELY not. I'm an excellent, an excellent driver. Excellent.
12. Favorite vacation spot? Any warm, uncrowded beach, where I can drink heavily and bodysurf.
13. Ever been to Africa? Nope. Not a huge fan of populations of AIDS-ridden poor people. That probably sounds selfish, because it is.
14. Ever Stolen anything? Just the hearts of ladies (and mens) worldwide. ::wink::
15. Croutons or Bacon bits? Oh, you gotta go with the bacon bits there. I'm on the Atkins joint, so Croutons are out, and I have a love for bacon that's only rivaled by my love for middle-aged grandmothers.
16. 2-door or 4-door? Not particularly picky on this point. My truck has 4 doors, but if I ever got around to fixing up a 1987 Monte Carlo SS Aerosport, it would have two doors. And a MONSTROUS engine.
17. Coffee or juice? I like both, but juice is out (Atkins again) 'cause of all the sugar. I drink coffee, although not often recently because I've been singing so much and caffeine plays with one's vocal cords.
18. Favorite Salad? Tossed. I PREFER SYRUP.
19. Favorite type of car? Large trucks, medium-sized muscle cars, and massive 1972 Pontiac Grand Villes in hideous colors.
20. Favorite type of movies? Comedies, action, porn. I mean . . . not porn. I would never watch that kind of thing. It makes your eyes bleed!
21. Favorite Holiday? Christmas. Thanksgiving is a close second, but Christmas RULES. I love presents.
22. Favorite Food? Beef. Pretty much any form, although medium-rare prime rib is better than sex.
23. Favorite day of the week? Today.
24. Favorite song? Not sure. Right now, probably "From This Day On" from Brigadoon (Get your tickets now! 478 3355!). I tend to get attached to songs that I sing for one reason or another.
25. Favorite TV Show? Probably Family Guy, although Sports Center and Band of Brothers also could be tops.
26. Toothpaste? Would I like some? Probably. I taste like cat butt right now.
27. Most recently read book? Uh...Stalker, by whatshername. Just a fluff murder mystery. I'm also working on a book about Hold-'em poker.
28. Perfume/Cologne: Can't stand the stuff. Clogs my nose up. Sarah sprays on some kind of flowery crap from time to time and my whole head just fills with mucus. BAD TIMES.
29. Favorite scent? Cotton candy and scotch. (You should hung out, maaaaan!)
30. Favorite Fast Food place? Right now, Taco Bell. If only 'cause each soft taco, if you just eat the innards and throw away the shell, has only one net carb. So I eat 8 in a sitting.
31. When was your last hospital stay? Hm. I've never stayed overnight, but I did have to sleep there for a half hour or so while I was getting an EEG in 1991. (I had fainted in health class, so they thought I had a seizure, although in reality they were talking about surgery on testicles and I ::THUD::

    What happened? I was in the middle of a parenthetical aside and I woke up on the floor in the fetal position with my thumb in my mouth. Weird. Oh well, moving on.

32. How many times did you fail your driver's license? I assume this means my driver's license TEST. Ah, gotta love English and the people that speak it. Anyway, I never failed, although getting a license in Delaware is roughly as difficult as finding a heroin dealer in Newark.
33. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Two possible paths: 1) living here in Delaware, suffering at some computer job, have a couple of cool kids that I'm teaching to snap Sarah's bra, and doing some musical stuff on the side. 2) Touring as a professional actor or musician. No, I'm not drunk again.
34. What do you do when you're bored? Work on my house; answer questionnaires.

You may notice that some of the roads have been over-colored with pink or red. This is to show you where construction is happening near me.

That's right, every single major road I use to get to any destination! WOOHOO!

I'm pretty sure that DelDOT found out I was moving to New Castle and they had a big board meeting about it. Apparently everybody that I ever pissed off in my life (all four of them, including my wife) is on the board, and figured the best way to get vengeance was to make sure I could never drive anywhere again.

Here's a little more detail (speaking of which, you can click the picture to look at the large version if it's hard to read): the red sections are parts that are currently under full construction, including road closures, sign holders, the works. The roads with pink on them are roads that are either under periodic construction (every few days, they inexplicably close a lane of 95 all the way through Wilmington and do some kind of jackhammering at the bridges. I have no idea why.), or are scheduled to be worked on later this year (like when they basically shut down Route 1 south of 273. I almost cried when I heard that).

The real fun is when things happen like what went down Tuesday night. Bill had let us out of rehearsal early, around 9:50, so I got in the truck and headed south, down 95, to my usual exit at Route 1, which was closed. Dammit. So I get off at 273 East, which was open, but a little slow. Then slower. Then stopped.

Up at the front of the line, just at the top of the hill, was a massive dump truck that had inexplicably halted, with no way for anyone to get around. It had broken down.

It was at this point that I realized how badly I had to pee.

Eventually, some good Samaritans walked down to the exit and started routing traffic away from 273 East so we could slowly back our way down and take 273W and make a U-turn. I consider these people to be the coolest people of all times, even eclipsing me and Dustin Diamond.

Okay, sorry for the extended (and highly stupid) rant. I just had to let it out. So that I can stop crying, and stuff.

Tomorrow: day off to clean out the garage! I do have some pretty artsy-fartsy pictures to upload, and hopefully tomorrow I'll have a sizeable collection of Brigadoon shots from tonight's rehearsal. If I find time I'll get them uploaded.