My ankle REEEEEAAAAALLLLY hurts. A lot, a lot a lot. Right now it's resting on a bag of frozen broccoli, which helps a bit, but I seem to have sprained it rather drastically.

Saturday night we went out to a variety of places, and ended up at my boy Noah's house, where I slipped on some ice and landed very awkwardly on my left foot. I swear I heard a crunching or popping noise, but I vaguely remember someone telling me I had landed on a plastic cup. The pain was so unbelievable I almost blacked out, and most of the rest of the evening is a dim blur.

Anyway, my buddy Kris dragged me into my house and into bed (thanks, Ungadogggg!), so I went to sleep and woke up Sunday morning in horrible, agonizing pain. So of course I took a shower, downed 4 acetaminophen, and went to church. Kris had parked behind my wife's car, so I had to take the truck. Let's add this up:

• I had seriously injured, possibly even broken my left ankle.
• I had to drive my truck, which has a manual transmission.
• Cars with manual transmissions have clutch pedals, which are operated via the left foot.

By the time I made it home, I wasn't even using the clutch unless I had to stop.

Anyway, it's now Monday, about 4pm, and it's feeling a little better, depending on how recently I've taken drugs, and whether or not ice is currently being applied. (It is.) I skipped work today to rest it up, but I plan to get in to the office tomorrow, and of course go to school in the afternoon for rehearsal. Semi-luckily, HW is out of town, so I can use her car until Wednesday. I'll let you know if any part of my left foot falls off my body.

Late update today! Here's the lowdown: the Comcast tech, through the power of his touch, fixed my cable modem. I'm now using my awesome-tastic and highly reliable Linksys modem, so things should be up and running for grood now. The Comcast tech just checked the signal strength, which was fine, and then plugged in the Linksys modem, which immediately came right on and started working. Magic, I tell you.

Okay, not really. Here's what I think happened (some of this you saw already on Wednesday, but I wanna make sure everybody's up to speed; pay attention, this is important). I've been running on my RCA cable-modem, the one that responds badly to vibrations 'cause something's loose in it somewhere, for about 3 years. Last year, when HW bought me the wireless setup, it came with a Linksys modem. So I was all, let's switch since the RCA is ghetto.

So I called up Comcast, gave them the MAC address (the number that identifies network objects), and they tried to set it up. No dice. The nice Indian on the phone informed me I probably needed a signal booster, 'cause my signal strength was weak.

So I went out and bought a signal booster, but then the RCA box started working pretty reliably. It would go out periodically, but a few whaps on the top of it, and it'd start working fine. Until this week, when the RCA started giving up the ghost. So I put the booster on the line, plugged in the Linksys modem, and called up Comcast.

They still had the Linksys MAC address on file, but it turned out they had one digit wrong; where I had said "A2," they had heard "82," 'cause they were Indian and I don't speak English very well. So they corrected that, but STILL couldn't get the modem to work. So they scheduled the tech to come out today, some time between 10 and 2. I took the booster off the line, plugged the RCA box back in, and made do for a few days.

So today, the guy comes out, and everything works. He informs that regular cable boosters don't work very well with the cable modems, because they screw up the signal going in both directions, which the modem requires. So what had really happened was that a year ago when I had tried, the Linksys box didn't work 'cause they had screwed up the MAC address. On Wednesday, it wouldn't work because my booster box (that I thought was HELPING), was screwing everything up. Today, with the corrected MAC address, and no booster, it fired right up.

Argh.

So now I have to figure out why my router won't let me in. It works (in that I can get to the internet from all my various computers), but it won't let me access it to make changes and update my IP (if it has indeed changed). I better drink some Sambuca first.

Attention all able-bodied people within driving distance of New Castle County! We're getting the band back together. Wait...not band...softball team. Yeah, that's it.

Milo and I are determined that this is the year we sign for organized co-ed softball. And we need people, particularly chicks. So if you have any interest in playing very low-key softball, on a team of people who can barely tie their own shoes, let alone hit an object flying at them at 25 mph, shoot me an email at spam (the IZAT) matthearn (the DIZOT) com.

We're planning to have a team of about 20 people, and we'll play doubleheaders every Friday night from late April until early July, so everybody will have a chance to play every week. Having that many people also means that when people have to be absent, it ain't no thang. Also, it cuts down on the share of the $400 team fee that everybody has to pay.

Important information can be found at the New Castle County Sports Department website. Initial investment should be around $20 a person, if we can get 20 people, and then we have to buy shirts, which I may make myself with iron-on patches, which makes things pretty cheap, plus we have to pay umpires, which amounts to $15 a game or something (from the whole team, not $15 per person), so I think we can come up with that.

Also important: we're pretty sure our team name is going to be the "Prancibald Duckshirts." If that makes no sense to you, turn your speakers on and go here.

Most important: If you're sitting there going, "I dunno if I can do this . . ." permit me to pick apart your worries in FAQ format:

I'm not very good at softball. I don't want to be embarrassed.
Yeah, we suck. I fully expect to go 2-16, and laugh uproariously while doing so. It's gonna be awesome.

I can't make any games in May because I have rehearsal/foot surgery/I'm coming out of the closet/my mom will be washing my hair/methadone rehab!
That's why we want to have a large squad. If I get the part I want, I'll have performances on Friday evenings for 3 weeks in May, so I'll miss those games without a doubt. It's all grood.

I don't have a glove or a bat or anything!
I'm sure between 20 people we can come up with enough bats and gloves to outfit us. Just show up.

The voices in my head tell me softball is the devil.
Take a frickin' Xanex and get to the field, bozo.

First of all, my apologies to those of you who may have been attempting to download any of the Y-Chromes alumni songs, or view certain things that are hosted on my server at home. My RCA cable modem appears to have finally given up the ghost. It had always been very flaky; there's something loose in it, such that if you move it, it completely spazzes out. It'll be very reliable for a couple months, and then something will make it freak, and I'll spend 2 days going down there and hitting it, unplugging it, hitting reset, or any combination of the three, trying to get it back into shape, and eventually it sort of comes back to life. Well, not this morning.

The truly annoying part is that I already have its replacement. When Sarah got me the wireless setup for the house a year ago, it came with a Linksys cable modem. I immediately slapped it in there and called up Comcast to alert them to the new box, but they couldn't connect to it. The very nice Indian gentleman on the phone commented that sometimes Linksys cable modems are very finicky about signal strength; if my cable is split more than once before it hits the modem, it's likely not to be powerful enough. He advised if I want to use it, get a signal booster. In the meantime, we switched back to my old RCA modem.

At some point over the weekend, it went out again, so I slapped it back into shape, but then it went out again late last night, so I slapped it back into shape again, and then this morning I woke up and it's out AGAIN, and no amount of slapping was going to fix it. I took the opportunity this morning to finally install the cable signal booster I bought (with great trepidation; I didn't want the added voltage to cause my DVR cable box upstairs to explode and lose me all my episodes of Doctor Who), and all of my TVs still seem to work, although the cable modem still wouldn't reset. Tonight the Comcast Indians and I will switch to the other cable modem, and hopefully we'll have a totally awesome signal. And then y'all can go back to downloading copies of Prayin' for Daylight.

Okay. That's enough excuses. It'll be fixed tonight, that's all you need to know. Possibly sooner, if I continue feeling like I'm going to blow chunks all over my cubicle. (I shouldn't have put on sunless tanner this morning; it has a rather distinctive stench, and it's making me nauseous.)

Next, I want to talk about two major media sensations, one of which is probably well known to you, and the other is probably not. The former: "Napoleon Dynamite." The latter: "Strange Love."

Sarah and I watched "Napoleon Dynamite" last night, and there are only two things I can say about it:

1. WHAT. THE. #$*&. WAS. THAT.
2. Man, I'm glad I drank most of a bottle of Sambuca before I put this DVD in.

Sadly, neither of us were Mexican. Josh was Jewish, though. Technically I suppose he still is, unless he's converted to Baha'i; anything's possible.

The plot, basically, is that Napoleon digs this girl, and then he meets Pedro, who transferred up from Juarez, and then Pedro asks out the head cheerleader and gets shot down, and then Pedro asks Napoleon's love interest to the dance, so then Napoleon asks out the daughter of one of his skeevy uncle's customers, and they all go to the dance, and Napoleon likes his girl's sleeves, and then Pedro runs for class president, and a bunch of stuff happens, and then it's all good when the Uncle leaves town and Napoleon gets to play tetherball with the girl he likes, who turns out to be kinda hot if you get her out of her stretch stirrup pants.

The other totally awesome tidbit of entertainment that's sucked us in like a college girl after a 4 pack of Bartles & James is Strange Love, which is a spin-off of the Surreal Life. If you missed Surreal Life (I sure didn't, although I never watched a single show), it involved getting a bunch of has-been C-list celebs into a house together for two weeks. It had Charo, Brigitte Nielsen, Flava Flav, and a bunch of other dorks. Well wouldn't you know it, Brigitte Nielsen and Flava Flav fell in love. She: tall, buxom, blonde, Danish. He: Short, black, American, over-the-top. After Surreal Life broke up, Brigitte went back to Milan to live with her fiancee Mattia, and Flav went back to New York to mix up a really poor album.

In Strange Love, Flav decides that he misses Brigitte, so he flies to Milan to find her. He gets her address from a guy who believes he knows where she lives, which of course is wrong, so Flav starts walking the streets of Milan, asking random strangers if they know where Brigitte Nielsen lives. Of course, he does this while wearing a massive clock around his neck, and a large Viking helmet on his head. Absolutely priceless. Mix this with his propensity for periodically yelling "FLAVA FLAV!" at the top of his lungs, and you have comedy that knows no equal. It's on VH1 just about every day at some point, find it and Tivo that jaunpiece, it seriously is the best thing on TV.

Are people asleep today? In the 25 minutes it took me to get to the office this morning, I noticed 6 instances of people clearly not paying the least bit of attention to their driving, or to the other cars around them, or to the fact that dammit people I need to get somewhere, stop driving like there is an active blizzard, as opposed to slightly moist roads.

First, I made the right out of my development, and then eased into the left lane behind some kind of Oldsmobile that insisted that the proper distance between cars stopped at a redlight was 347 feet. This drives me nuts for many reasons, but in this case primarily because I needed to get into the left turn lane to make my U-turn, and this idiot wasn't giving me enough room until I honked the horn for about 20 minutes.

Needless to say, I missed the left turn arrow. Luckily, there was no oncoming traffic so I was able to make my "u-ey" without waiting; if I'd missed the arrow and had to wait 5 minutes for a complete cycle of the light, that Oldsmobile would have gotten its license plate number taken down and reported to, oh, the IRS or something.

Next, while sitting at the red light at the intersection at Route 1, the person next to me realized they apparently didn't want to be going west on 273; they needed to get on 1 North. So, rather than just turning right onto the exit ramp, (which has doubtful legality, but is definitely less likely to get you ticketed than reversing on a major road), he backed up 100 feet so he could take the proper exit. This wouldn't normally be a huge problem for me, if he hadn't timed it just so that he hit the exit at the same time as oncoming traffic began turning left onto the ramp. Technically, he did yield, once the traffic that had the right of way almost hit him.

Then, I had an idiot that apparently was reading the paper, or putting on his eyeshadow, or some such crap, and refused to accelerate away from the stop light. So I honked at him. Well, let me tell YOU, wasn't I just the biggest #$*hole ever. This guy was gesturing, and waving, and of course still not accelerating, so I floored it around him in the turn lane, and THEN, boy howdy, did he get his revenge! He tailgated me all the way to the next light, at which point I changed lanes in such a way that he got stuck behind a mini-van driven by what appeared to be Connie Chung's secret black cousin, if Connie Chung's secret black cousin had a face raisin for a nose. (Which she just might. Anything's possible in this great land we got us right heah.)

So, in case that fine, turtle-neck-wearing gentleman happens to be reading this: I apologize for interrupting your daily dose of "Cathy" just so I could get to work. It won't happen again. (Next time I'll just ram your ass.)

Of course, didn't it happen again not 3 miles later, when some idiot in a jeep had one of his or her narcolepsy fits in front of the Avon plant. This person was a lot more apologetic about having fallen asleep, but then of course refused to drive any faster than 45 mph all the way into Newark, which happened to be the same speed as the elderly black woman in an 87 Cutlass who was immediately to my left, and whom I had diligently been trying to get past for 2 miles.

The Jeeptard also, of course, followed the standard procedure of blowing through the 35mph limit on 273 at close to 50mph, and then driving on Cleveland Avenue, which has the same 35mph limit, at 25. By the time I made it into work, the tears were streaming down my face, and I was seriously considering placing an order with "Massive Vehicle-Mounted Machine Guns R Us.com." Then I remembered my job involves doing little more than keeping an eye on a bunch of computers, playing Freecell, and listening to mp3s of the Thompson Twins while my butt spreads out into the shape of my ergonomic chair. And I smiled.

There's really only one way to put it: The Onion-style.

HOLY #*$&ING #*$&
THE EAGLES ARE GOING TO THE #*&$ING SUPER BOWL

I don't know how we're going to do it, but we're going to win this game. Somehow we have to beat the two-time Super Bowl MVP, the best head coach in the NFL, one of the top 8 running backs in the NFL, and a defense that gives up points like a fat kid gives up his bag of Doritos. But we're gonna do it.

I'm told that the Patriots are favored by 6 points. Lame. We're gonna crush them, and then I'm going to laugh, and possibly pour beer on myself and others.

I have to figure out where I'm going to watch the game. In a bar in Philly would be ideal, although difficult; inexplicably, Christ Church scheduled an evensong for that afternoon at which I'll probably be expected to sing. I'm all, "What the hell, man? Jesus is gonna be watching the game! And probably wagering heavily on the over!" But nobody listens to me, because I'm just a little bee in a big hive. Also, I'm one of the sexless drones, according to Sarah.

So anyway, I'll be stuck at church until 6pm, and I think the game "starts" at 6:30, which means 15 minutes of interviewing random players, followed by 7 minutes of commercials, followed by 5 minutes of watching the National Anthem be sung by a cancerous child backed up by 17 amputee midgets, followed by 11 minutes of commercials (featuring a new Aflac commercial where the duck gets decapitated and eaten by Raquel Welch, who not surprisingly was available), followed by kickoff at around 8pm, give or take 14 Coke commercials featuring polar bears with serious caffeine addictions. So hopefully I'll have time to strip out of my robes and into my McNabb jersey, followed by driving at a highly non-recommendable rate of speed to a place with a large TV and a massive supply of cheap, low-carb beer.

Hm. Mikey has a widescreen. Note to self: purchase widescreen. Or at least go to Mikey's for the Super Bowl. In which, I may have forgotten to mention, the #$*#ING EAGLES ARE PLAYING.

(Amusing side note before I run: I'm considering purchasing a new car for my wife, 'cause her transmission squeals like an altar boy in an S&M club. So I'm poking around the Mazda website. Mazda appears to be going for the "hip," mid-20s demographic of which I still barely count myself a part. Their current ad slogan is "Zoom, zoom," and all their cars seem to be designed with "performance" in mind: nimble suspensions, powerful engines, sleek lines. I find it amusing, therefore, that their website is slower than VW Bus with a parking boot on one wheel. That is all.)

It's my birthday and I'll dance if I want to
Dance if I want to
Dance if I want to
You would dance too if it happen'd to-oo yoooou

Oh yeah. Who's 27 today? THIS GUY.

Anyway, here are some thoughts on birthdays in general, mine specifically, and why I am the most righteous dude since Simeon:

• 27. That's an awesome number. 3 cubed. 3^3. 3**3, for the truly geeky. I haven't been a perfect cube age in 19 years! I won't be again for another 37! Hey, 19; 37; prime numbers. What's the difference between 5^3 and 4^3; 125 - 64 = 61. Prime number! I might be on to something here. 6^3 = 216; 216-125 = 91, or 13 times 7. Crap. Nevermind. (Well, at least 13 and 7 are each prime numbers! That's still kinda cool, right? No? Nevermind.) (And yes, sadly, I just did all that in my head.)
• They're expecting a big blizzard this weekend! Just like the weekend I was born, way back in 1978! Hopefully this isn't some kind of portent of doom. (Is portent the right word? Somebody tell me, 'cause I'm WAAAAY too lazy to look it up.)
• Have I officially reached my late 20s? Or do I have to get to about 27.5 for that? Should I start having an emotional breakdown in July, or can my "biological clock" start ticking (LIKE THIS: STOMP STOMP STOMP) now? I just need this cleared up before I drive my wife crazy. (Correction: craziER.)
• Here's a list of awesome shiznit that has occurred on my birthday:
  • 1189 - Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade.
  • 1793 - After being found guilty for treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France is guillotined.
  • 1853 - Russell L. Hawes patents the envelope-folding machine.
  • 1861 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.
  • 1908 - New York City passes a law, the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public only to be vetoed by the mayor.
  • 1924 - Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership.
  • 1950 - Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury.
  • 1954 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States.
  • 1994 - Lorena Bobbitt is found not-guilty by reason of temporary insanity for severing the penis of her husband John Bobbitt.
  • 2003 - The terms of Kevin Mitnick's parole allow him to use a computer again.
  Awesome.

  Info swiped from Wikipedia

• I think today's Achewood says all that needs to be said.

A great number of people have asked me, "Hey MattyMatt, what do you want for your birthday?" (Okay, only two people have asked me. It's cool...I know you all don't really like me. You just love my doggy style.) In the spirit of Christmas, which of course happened almost one month ago now, here are my wishes for the commencement of my 28th year:

• I want to pay off all my outstanding credit card debt. I'm tired of owing money to organizations that charge interest only slightly better than you can get from a bookie.
• I want to finally finish up with puberty. Ya know? It's been like 13 years? I think it's time for my acne to clear up and perhaps for the missing patches of facial hair to go ahead and fill themselves in. I don't think it's too much to ask.
• I want a set of totally rockin' abdominal muscles. Something with which to teaze the ladeez.
• I want to bring peace to the world via the expedient of slaughtering all those who disobey me. Wait, I mean, um, via prayer. Yeah. That's it.
• I want another soda . . . be right back.
• Okay, got it. Mmmm...that's good Diet Pepsi!
• I want to get in better shape. I'm tired of being overweight and lazy. Who's with me? Okay, not Sarah. But I'm all about it. After this soda.
• I want a copy of Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.

I was never a huge fan of The Honorable Ruth Ann Minner, Governor of Delaware. I didn't agree with the ban on smoking; I thought it would have been cooler to just force places that wanted to have smoking to get licenses for it, and be stingy with the licenses. I also thought it odd that she'd focus so hard on smoking, and yet continue to allow the refineries on the Delaware River to dump out pollution like 19th century London. But you know, I hung out with her a little bit on Saturday, and she turned out to be pretty cool.

Okay, technically we didn't "hang out." It was, sadly, more like the Cathedral Choir sang at some kind of "Thank You For Electing Me Again" party she threw for her loyal supporters. It all went down at the big conference center down on the Wilmington Riverfront, the "Bank One Center" or the "Bank One Monstrosity" or something. We arrived around 2:30, as the staff was setting up the place, so as a result the security stations weren't ready, meaning that the entire Cathedral Choir could have been strapped and they'd never know it.

Once everybody was there, we grabbed our music and ran through our set, which included two pieces by John Rutter, three gospel tunes, and "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley. (Just kidding. Nobody performs Rutter anymore if they can help it.) One of the pieces was "Every Time I Feel The Spirit," which features a jammin' baritone solo by yours truly.

Anyway, the party began at 4pm, but we weren't going on until 4:30, which gave us time to relax in a room in the back, and gave our audience time to get nicely tuned up themselves at the cash bar ($7.50 for a mixed drink? Is this New York? What the hirsute heck is that?). We went on, jammed out with our collective clams out (those of us that had them handy; I try to keep a few fresh bivalves in my pocket for just such an occasion), and then had to stand there for 10 or 15 minutes while the Governor thanked half of Christendom. I was hoping that the Academy Awards orchestra would start playing somewhere near by so that she would WRAP. IT. UP.

After she was done, we filed off the risers and had the opportunity to shake hands with our head of state and her lackey, the Lieutenant Governor. The Governor took my hand and said, with great awe, "What a voice!"

I replied, "Yo, that's how I roll, baby girl. Tell your friends." Or rather, that's how I would have replied if my damnable conscience hadn't gotten the better of me; what I actually said was, "Thank you!" and then moved along to where I could gather my coat and get to a bar to watch the football games.

The lesson here is that flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. Because flattery is awesome. I'm so easy.

She chased me out of class she was strapped with a ruler
Went to the bathroom - rolled myself a wooler
With bottle in hand at the microphone stand
A. yo homeboy - what you drinkin' man
©1986 MC A, Mike D., and His Majesty the King Adrock.

Why are you wasting time here, when you could be investigating this? Go! Go! Turn up your sound! I almost peed a little!

Except that it wasn't "almost" . . . and it turned out to be a lot. Of pee. Now I smell like cheerios.

I'm sure you've all heard about Mozilla Firefox, and how it's the greatest thing to happen to the intarweb since badgerbadgerbadger.com. (If many of the nouns in the previous sentence confuse you, congratulations, you are not a geek. Also, you may be mildly stupid. But that's neither here nor there.) If you haven't, here's the lowdown: Mozilla, who developed one of the earliest world-wide-web browsers, has come out with a totally new and updated version called Firefox. It, like the Clint Eastwood movie of the same name, shoots missiles at its enemies via Russian voice commands is supposedly an extremely good web browser.

Maybe the movie comparison was inapt. Anyway, it's this badass new browser that apparently resolves a large number of the issues with Microsoft Internet Explorer, particularly in the areas of security and spyware and spam-killing and whatnot. So geeks around the world are migrating to it like swallows to San Juan Capistrano.

Unfortunately, it suffers from a few problems. The nyerds agree that it's not entirely what it COULD be, although they insist that much of the problem is that people haven't developed plug-in tools for it yet, like the Google toolbar. Whatever. Not having a search toolbar is the least of the issues:

• It doesn't handle HTML code exactly the same way IE does. Many compudorks will insist that Firefox handles it BETTER, and in closer form to what the original RFC (Request For Comments; basically everything on the internet is defined via RFCs) specifies. That's great. Except that when I open my own website in Firefox, it looks like unlaundered skidmarks, because Firefox doesn't handle comments like IE does, and I built my site with IE in mind. Things that in IE are commented out, appear on the page in full glory in Firefox, such as the comment I had in there at one time that read something along the lines of <!--REMEMBER TO PUT THE PICTURE OF KYLE'S GIRLFRIEND IN THIS SPOT YOU #*&$ING #*&$-->. I think I fixed it, but it's frustrating to deal with the dual standards.
• If you set Firefox as your default browser, and you click a link in AIM, it opens the link in an existing window. So I hope you weren't updating your website through Blogger! 'Cause it may have been cleared out when you absent mindedly clicked on the "Paris Hilton Naked" link your buddy sent you. More frustratingly, Firefox has built-in window tabs (in which you can have multiple browsers that appear as only one browser on your explorer taskbar, but you can tab back and forth between the windows within it), but it doesn't open a new tab for the link you clicked on. It just wipes out what you might have had open. I almost had a seizure when I discovered this.
• It automatically makes itself the default browser. Of course, IE does this as well, and Opera, and every other browser, but it's frustrating to have to cut and paste links into IE because I don't want to open firefox.
• Worst of all, it doesn't work with my webmail very well. Every time I try to do something, it conveniently forgets it has a "cookie" (the small stored data on your computer that helps your computer remind a website of who you are, which is how Amazon always recognizes you, and all your favorite webcam strippers can call you by name) for the site, and forces me to enter my password again. Open a mail? Enter your password. Go back to the inbox? Enter your password. It gets rather frustrating.

So who else has tried Firefox? Anybody else unhappy with it? I haven't talked to any geek yet that doesn't think it's the bee's knees.

Because I have no capacity for original thought, I usually find that stealing ideas from the webpages of others is not only effective, but a real time-saver. Accordingly, I swiped Jill's "40 Questions For 2004" jaunpiece and shall be getting my answers on:

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
Conducted a high school pit band; performed the lead of a musical in front of almost 10,000 people over 6 nights; turned 26.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I have no recollection of any resolutions from last year. (If there were any, they probably involved weight loss. They always do.) For this year, the ones I've made include:

• Lose the weight I gained at Christmas
• Work harder
• Stop sleeping in until 8:30 am every day

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Jodi and Todd had themselves Conner! Conner est awesomus.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Oddly enough, no, I don't think so. I'm trying to think back, but I can't remember attending a single funeral last year for which I didn't get paid. Which makes for a pretty awesome year.

5. What countries did you visit?
Um...this one. Woohoo! C'mon, I barely left the state. And sadly, I didn't even visit any NEW states. On the other hand, I did hit every state that touches the Atlantic Ocean except for the northernmost (Maine) and the southernmost (Florida). What can I say? I like road trips.

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
A body fat percentage under 20%, and a set of rock-hard, slammin' abs.

7. What date(s) from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Hm. This is a toughie; most of the things that were important to me last year didn't necessarily happen on a specific date. Additionally, I'm horrible at remembering when, exactly, something happened. I guess July 29th was when we opened "Brigadoon" at Longwood; I'm not sure, though. Eh. Let's pretend this question never happened.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Brigadoon. It was nice to do something to inflate my own ego, 'cause Lord knows I need that. (Sarcasm is a wonderful thing.)

9. What was your biggest failure?
It's not something I'm at liberty to discuss at this particular juncture.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Of course not. I'm immortal. What kind of question is this?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
New computer. It'd been roughly 8 years since the last one, a bizarre fact for an IT professional. It's made it possible for me to do all kinds of cool things, like edit music, track my finances, etc. Totally rad. It also supports decent games.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Lots of people. Sarah, for not divorcing me; my parents, for being awesome; the rest of my family and friends, for being my family and friends (a harder task than one might imagine).

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? My own, as usual.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage interest. WOOHOO TAX DEDUCTION AW YEAH. After that, probably cable TV.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Brigadoon and Christmas. I'm always excited for Christmas, though. (I sure do love me some Hot Xmas Action.)

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2004?
The Heather On The Hill

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? About the same; I've got things to be happy about, and things to not be happy about.
ii. thinner or fatter? A little thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? A little richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Everything. I just wish I'd gotten out more, done more things, seen more stuff, partied with friends more.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Sitting around on my butt watching TV or playing video games.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
The usual. 5 church services over 3 days, brunch with the inlaws, dinner with the parents.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Probably a coworker of mine named Linda. I'm not a big talker, really. I use email and instant messenger more than anything else, but I did a large project with Linda so I was probably on the phone with her a couple hours a week for most of the second half of the year.

22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
Already WAS in love, you crazy kids!

23. How many one-night stands?
That'd be zero.

24. What's your favorite TV program?
Probably Family Guy, although "Drawn Together" has turned out to be unbelievably hilarious. Heehee: "Let's egg the trainable." That kills me.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Not really. There's one or two people that drive me nuts, but I don't hate them. I just wish they would shut the #$*& up.

26. What was the best book you read in 2004?
Eek...no idea. I read a lot, some were rereads. Oh, probably A Separate Peace. I think I was supposed to have read it in school and did not, so I grabbed a copy and read it on the pot last fall. Absolutely crushing book.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Discovering that practicing the piano can be hell of fun.

28. What did you want and get?
Lead in the musical; nice payraise at work.

29. What did you want and not get?
New, better job. Although it's not like I really worked to find one.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Jeepers, I dunno. I haven't been to a theater in roughly 4 years. I watched Miller's Crossing a few weeks back, though, and it was as awesome as I remembered it. Sadly, it was made in 1990 so it doesn't count.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I were 26, yo. I don't remember what I did ON the date (which was a Wednesday, as I recall), but I'm sure we had a wild party that weekend at which I probably took off my pants.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Impregnating my wife.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Queer.

34. What kept you sane?
Sarah.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Kyan Douglas Eliza Dushku

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Probably gay marriage, although my feelings on drug legalization and gun rights were always a-bubbling.

37. Who did you miss?
All the bastard friends who keep moving away from me: Kyle, Kristy, Josh, Rachel, Jodi, Emily, etc.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
This is tough, 'cause I met all kinds of people last year. Jenny and Tim Lau, Llij, Shady, and Lord knows how many other awesometastic peeps that aren't springing to mind.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
Work hard, play harder, and don't let friendships lapse through laziness or "he never writes me back; I'm not calling him until he calls me" BS.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Et resurrexit tertia die secundum scripturas.

Yeah. I'm cryptic like that. You know how I do.

Hi-5!!!

There's still some stuff to fix, I think, but the gallery and captions are up. And now you can leave amusing comments for each picshture, so prithee do!

Some of you have heard me use the word "awesome" in the past to describe things that I like. Some may think that I use the word too lightly, to describe things that are not really "awesome," but are merely "super" or "cool" or even "neato." Thusly, in order that you may understand what I mean, I will not use the word "awesome" to describe the weekend of January 8th and 9th; instead, I will invent yet another lengthy adjective. I'm going with:

Superhumongofreakyfridaycooltasticawesomalicious.

Saturday morning we awoke, stretched, ritually cleansed our bodies (we like to use censers and holy water and stuff; it's expensive, but WE'RE trying to get into HEAVEN, thank you very much), and caravanned with Fitzy and Rece down to Baltimore. There, we met with Jared, who came up from DC, and Ungafkdalfskljsky and Aaron who as usual were running horribly late due to Ungadjkfs;ldkfjsky having been out for his birthday the night before. Then we went to see: Hi-5.

Shaun Taylor-Corbett, who plays the role of "Shaun" on the TV show and subsequent tour, is a Ychrome Alumnus (and singer of No Diggity and Insomniac: see Ychromes Alumni Concert) and good-hearted fellow who hooked us up with free tickets roughly 15 feet from the stage. They sang all their hits, including "Robot #1" (a personal favorite), "Pizza Pizza Pizza," and "Straight Outta Compton."

Even better, we were a group of 7 adults, with no obvious children near us, at a concert geared for humans under the age of 7, so we garnered a lot of attention from the parents of children near us. Their expressions varied from "warm amusement" through "cold annoyance" straight on to "stark terror," and during intermission a number of them came up and asked us which of the performers we knew. It was like being in Allen Iverson's posse, except we were slightly less likely to be shot at.

Highlights of the show:

• During the "Captain Puffypants" number, when the two pirates (Curtis and Kimmee) bump into each other and there's a moment of chaos on the stage, Shaun leaping into a sudden karate stance. You had to be there, I think, but we almost wet our pants. The best part about it was, after we revealed to Kimmee how much we were amused by him doing that, at the DC show she apparently almost lost it when she turned around and he was in his "clenching dragon" stance, staring right at her.
• Shaun revealing that the best frogs in the world come from "Puerrrrrto Rrrrrrico!" Again, you had to be there. Having already peed my pants, I nearly poop'd 'em.
• Jenn sang a very pretty lullaby that got us all a little choked up. It was pretty dusty in the Hippodrome, I'll tell you.
• Shaun doing all the songs involving Latin beats, despite the fact that he is not predominantly Hispanic, but is predominantly Blackfoot Native American. This never failed to slay us.
• During Curtis' Star Song, the name of which escapes me, he asked the audience to essentially coax the stars out by doing spirit fingers. In unison, all 7 of Shaun's idiot friends in the 5th row all put their hands above their heads and started waggling their fingers. To the parents around us, this was beyond hilarious. One gentleman immediately behind us definitely let loose a horribly inappropriate guffaw that echoed through the theater. It ruled.
• Shaun is basically a rockstar for 5-6 year olds. It's unbelievable. He went offstage at one point and a little boy behind us almost wept. "Shaun!" he cried, sniffing back tears and choking on his oversized tongue. At the end of the show, kids started streaming down the aisles to give highfives to the performers, and one enterprising young man held up a massive red sign reading, "Shaun, please hug me!" We were all like WHAAAAT?

I also got about 50 pictures of the show that I plan to post over the course of the week.

Afterwards, we managed to get into the autograph signing session, where we met the cast, and got all kinds of things signed, including a massive poster/program that Sarah bought at the show. Oh yeah: that's going in a place of honor on the ceiling over our bed. Then Shaun ran off and changed clothes, and we drove to Fells Point where we spent too much money on a totally awesome dinner at John Steven's, featuring Brie with Chambord glaze, clams, crab cakes, and totally righteous beers. Kimmee met us there, and then we all headed back to their hotel where we met up with Jenn at the hotel bar and hung out for a few hours, before meandering back to New Castle for naptime.

Sunday we had church in the morning (the bishop was there, so the service was 1 hour and 45 minutes long), and then skedaddled down to Fairfax, VA, for Conner's 1st birthday party. (I have plenty of pictures of that as well.) It went about as 1st birthdays usually go, except that Conner wanted nothing to do with the cake, so we were sadly spared the classic picture of the birthday boy with cake all over his face, hair, and the surrounding walls and floor.

After that wound down, we headed back into DC where we met up with the Hi-5 crew again, watched "24" in Jenn's room, and then headed to the "Green Lantern" for Karaoke. The Green Lantern turned out to be a gay bar (one with which Jared was unsurprisingly familiar), which is not a problem, except that it was completely packed. There was no way we were going to be able to get on the stage, so we bailed.

ATTENTION any gay folks at the Green Lantern: when 3 guys and 2 girls wandered in around 10:30pm, looked around for 45 seconds, and then bailed, it was not because we fear homosexuality. Nay, we embrace it closely, as being raised by 10-15 gay mothers resulted in my ability to decorate, cook, and dress with flair and style. The bar was simply too full, too loud, and too smoky. Also, much like at the club in London, I kept getting glances from middle-aged men wearing shirts that would have been too tight on a 7 year old midget.

We wandered back a bit to a bar called Stoney's, on L street, where we ate cheesesteaks and fries and tossed back a friendly beer or three before bidding our comrade Shaun good luck on the rest of the Hi-5 tour (coming to a major metropolis near you!!!), and heading home, where we arrived at 1:30am, exhausted, but awesome.

Having hung out with three of the 5 members of the American Hi-5 Team, I can report the following:

• Kimmee: Totally awesome, totally sweet, totally hilarious, also easily freaked out when, for example, Jared comes up and taps on your car window and asks for your license and registration while you're parked on a street in Baltimore waiting for the rest of your crew to find you. Her hair is also rad.
• Jenn: The only person I've ever met who is actually BETTER looking than her headshot would indicate. She is deeply concerned about the fate of Jack Bauer and Secretary of Defense Heller's hot daughter.
• Shaun TC: Shaun is basically the nicest, kindest person I have ever met in my nearly 27 years of existence. If he was a chick, he'd either be 1) the one that everybody loves because she's so awesome, or 2) the one that everybody hates because she's so awesome. Luckily, as a dude, he's not subject to the same bizarre chick rules, so he's just the bomb. He also is deeply interested in kicking some pirate ass.

Today I'm going to be running all over the data center handling my BWEEEEEEEZNASS (my businassssss), so I don't have the necessary block of time to sit down and write something coherent. (As if anything I post is coherent . . . har! I'm killin' me.) So instead I'm going to periodically jump on here and post some bloggish type stuff. I won't be posting it as individual posts, though, since that would artificially inflate my post-totals, and also I don't want this site to actually turn into a blog, since it's definitely more of a "one post per day" kind of jam, even if it does fulfill the "newest stuff at the top" paradigm.

Wait . . . got lost again for a second. Okay, I'm back. On to the randomness:

• 11:30am - The other day I was reading this post over at Sneaking Suspicions and it made mention of a variety of "readability" calculations that you can use to figure out how hard it is to comprehend something you've written. I did a little googling on the subject, and found this handy dandy php program that will calculate the readability of a document according to three standards: Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and the Gunning-Fox Index.

  For the first, higher numbers indicate better readability; for the second and third, LOWER numbers do the same.

  For example, I entered the phrase "I am rad." A relatively short document, it scores high for readability: 92 (out of 100) on the FKRE (60-80 is ideal for web documents), a FK Grade Level of 1 (meaning the average 1st grade student could understand it), and a GFI of 6 (11-15 is ideal; anything over 22 is post-graduate level textbook stuff).

  To take another example, this column by Bill Simmons, ESPN's funniest mofo, scores thusly: 62 on the FKRE, 8 on the FKGL, and 15 on the GFI. Everything right where it should be. Hence: he is awesome.

  I bring this up because I ran this post of mine from Tuesday through the readibility calculator, and got the following scores: 46 on the FKRE, 14 on the FKGL, and 21 on the GFI. My stuff is downright unreadable. (Yesterday's silly short story fell right within established norms, though.)

  Either I'm waaaaaaaay smarter than everybody else, or I'm completely insane. Or it could be both. I dunno. Either way, I'm scurred (scared).

• 12:30pm - I've had two songs stuck in my head today, alternating back and forth:

  O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get the up into the high mountain!

  and

  Many a lassie, as everyone knows, 'll try to be married before 25.
  So she'll agree to most any proposal, all he must be is a man and alive.

  I'm gonna snap soon.

• I feel I should note that my birthday is 2 weeks from today. I will be 27 years old. I am awesome. That is all.

Note: This is the first in a series of short stories I'm writing based on amusing pictures I find online. The reasons for this are manifold: 1) I want to improve my fiction writing, 2) I like looking for pictures online because sometimes the ladies are nude, and 3) I like making my readers suffer. Thank you.

Sung stared at her new, as-yet-unnamed turtle for roughly 2 hours, without moving a muscle, before Steve noticed and asked her if she was okay.

She wasn't.

It wasn't the first time that a 23-year-old girl had suffered a stroke, but it was certainly the first time in the collective memory of the 1st Korean Methodist Church. The usual phrases were uttered: "so young," "so beautiful," "so much to look forward to." Steve sat in a chair in the third row, barely paying attention, barely conscious. He didn't cry; every ounce of emotion in his body had been drained from him in the 4 days since she died. All that was left was actual, physical pain; it felt like someone had hooked a crowbar under his sternum and ripped it from his chest. Or something like that.

He hadn't bothered to ask if he could sit with Sung's family. Her parents were tolerant people, and over the years had grown to accept that Sung might marry someone not of Korean descent, but moving in with a black guy had not even been considered. Her grandmother had been living under the delusion that Sung and Steve were just "roommates," but Mr. and Mrs. Yun had seen their apartment, saw both sets of clothes in one closet, the unmade bed, the condom wrapper in the trashcan. Steve was reasonably grateful they had bothered to let him know when and where to come "celebrate Sung's life."

His father couldn't get out of work, but his mother came along. He wasn't sure if having her there made him feel any better, or worse. At least, for once, she had the good sense not to say much. Anyway, if Steve had driven himself, it was even odds he'd slammed head-on into a bridge abutment.

Suddenly, the congregation stood, as Sung Yun's coffin was rolled into the church. As soon as he saw it, Steve's knees began to buckle, so he sat down, which got him some dirty looks from other mourners. He knew that one of her strongest beliefs was that wasting space on cemeteries was a sin; when she died, Sung wanted to be cremated, so that her ashes could be spread on the Gulf of Mexico. He knew it, and her parents knew it, but they said she would go in the family plot, and that was that. The decision might have been partially affected by unvoiced suspicions of what went on during the "field trip" to New Orleans, but it wasn't as if Steve could ask. "Hey, are you failing to honor your daughters wishes because she and I did it in a bus station in Baton Rouge?" Yeah, that'd go over GREAT.

The service was in traditional Korean, although one of the eulogists, a young cousin, said her piece in English. She and Sung had been close growing up, but when Sung went away to college, they drifted apart. Her speech talked about lost youth, and she didn't have a lot to say about what might have happened after high school graduation. No mention of Sung's summa cum laude degree in politics, no mention of the night she spent in jail for punching a bartender that called her "slanty," no mention of stealing a golf cart from a country club in Arizona, and certainly no mention of her black boyfriend.

The congregation sang several hymns together during the course of the service. Steve spoke little Korean, only what he'd been able to gather from Sung in their 18 months together; mostly expletives and simple idioms. By the third hymn, he didn't even bother to stand up, until he realized he recognized the tune of the introduction. He opened the hymnal in front of him to the same page as everyone else; he couldn't read the title, but he could read the English words at the bottom:

Words and Music: Thomas Dorsey

While the congregation sang the Korean translation, Steve softly murmured,

Precious Lord, take my hand.
Lead me on, let me stand.
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.

Steve's mother, who had been standing, but staying respectfully silent, during the hymns, joined him.

Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light.
Take my hand, precious Lord, Lead me home.

By the end of the first verse, other people, Korean people, were singing the English version as well. No one remembered the words to the second and third stanzas, so they just sang the first one three times.

As the song wound down, there seemed to be as many voices singing in English as there were in Korean, but for some reason it didn't sound bad. The two different languages somehow meshed, in a way that added a syncopation to the song, something jarring, yet very joyous. The lyrics were tender, and the volume very soft, but throughout the last verse there was the hint of a wild woman.

When the hymn concluded, Steve sat heavily on his seat, and began sobbing uncontrollably. His mom wrapped her arms around him, and he collapsed into her, burying his head in her shoulder. There were no dirty stares from the surrounding people, just consoling glances, and not a few tears. Someone mumbled something, and Steve heard the muffled squeaks of the castors as they rolled the coffin out. He stood with the rest of the congregation, wiped his nose with the sleeve of his suit, and watched the family walk by. Mr. and Mrs. Yun had trouble making eye contact with Steve as they came up the aisle, so to make it easier on them he looked away as well and studied his cheap brown shoes.

"Um . . . Steven?"

Steve turned back toward the aisle. Mr. Yun was looking at him.

"Steven? Um . . . would you . . . could you please walk with us to the cemetery?"

Steve felt his knees start to give way again, but managed to stay on his feet and squeeze past the other people in his row. He could hear his mother following him, periodically coughing to hide choked sobs. When he got to the aisle, he and Sung's father looked down at each other's cheap brown shoes, before courage caught up with Steve.

"Thank you, sir," he said. Mr. Yun looked up, and held out his hand. Steve took it. Mrs. Yun smiled.

People, we need to have, um, a chat. We have a problem, and I'm not sure how to fix it. For the roughly 19348th straight month, the top search that leads people to matthearn.com is:

Well, I can't say it. Because when I do that, it makes it MORE likely that people will come here looking for things I can't provide, and that saddens me. Let's just say it involves a famous, and highly hilarious, black comedian, known best for imitations of Rick James, Lil Jon, and Prince, and for adding the phrase "I'm rich, BEOTCH!" to my daily repertoire. More specifically, it involves his wife, and whether or not she is Asian.

In fact, if you click here, you can go to a search for the young lady in question, and you'll note my site appears on the second page. This scares me.

Some other interesting search strings:

dread	Locks? Judge? This is a stumper.
prison shank	I do tend to write about this at length.
bikerfox	Sarah's dad has never looked so grood.
hippie	I know a few. Okay, maybe one.
soul glow coming to america	Doesn't this sound like an announcement by a misguided Motown group to kick off their new tour? Soul Glow! COMING TO AN AMERICA NEAR YOU!
josh groban sucks	True, true.
john mayer sux	What? WHAT WHAT WHAT? I will CUT you.
your vs. you're dumbass	It makes sense if you've been arguing the subject with your friends for 3 hours. And you're all drunk.
@people.it 2004	Um...are the happiest people?
(dirty christmas poetry)	Why the parentheses? I sense shame. I also sense a complete inability to grasp the concept of "well-formed search string."
'50s neiman marcus lichen	It almost makes sense. Until the last word. (This sounds like something for which Lileks would search.)
babes crapping	This guy has no children. (Also probably no wife or friends.)
free fram sex	I'm assuming that "Fram Sex" is the alias of someone unjustly imprisoned for getting it on with an oil filter.
blogs download bang bus video -gay	I'd think this was a gag by one of my friends, but none of my friends would be averse to watching gay bangbus videos. (That means you, Jared.)
blogs jockstrap	I . . . uh . . . let's just move on.
browneye	I can't even begin to tell you how much it warms my heart that this search leads here (among probably 3000 other sites).
do i look like a slut lyrics	Short answer: yes. Long answer: what lyrics?
does jude law have any pets	No, but he'll soon be taking auditioners for the part of "caged gimp."
friday ezal	"HEY! SMOKEY BACK HERE TAKIN' A S***! Well, I ain't gonna tell nobody ELSE."
gay black guy with lawn mower	Porn is really going after specific demographics these days, huh?
gay in track suit free pics	Yep, sure is.
pictures of men naked in baseball pants	Boy howdy.
hearn clothing	I'm expecting to start my own line of capri pants in Summer 2005.
how did i get a beer gut	The same way I did. Exercise and self-discipline.
how to get remove meat juice smell from carpet	Why would you want to? Meat juice has a splendid odor.
post-game hangover o	O, O-U-Z-O, O, O-U-Z-O, O, O-U-Z-O and Ouzo was it's name, O! (And yes, I did sit here for 15 minutes trying to come up with the name of an alcohol that ends in O.)
josh groban leather pants	Hey look, I just threw up in my mouth.
john mayer overrated	That's it, somebody's going down.
fatboy pants	Shut up. I hate you.
magnificent breasts	I am the proud owner of a fine set, so small wonder, this.
locking for a free condom sit	Ooh! Spam poetry! But seriously, what the HELL is this schlamiel talking about?
matthew hearn dds	I'm absolutely terrified at the thought of someone out there practicing dentistry using my name.
nipples ice	Nothing goes together better! Except for nipples and chocolate sauce. And maybe ice and vodka.
walmart...a store for people like me	This strikes me as an incredible start to a country song: walmart...a store for people like me And everyone can clearly see That my favorite place will always be The store where I met my baby ('s momma)
horrific fart	When I discovered earlier that not only does this search lead to my site, my site is at the top of Google's list for this string, I wept.

It is worth noting that December was the largest month for matthearn.com ever in every category, which warms my heart and moistens my loins. I resolve to make 2005 the Year of Badassidnousocity, so keep checking here for more hilarity and references to obscure pornographic magazines.

So you thought I gave up on you, huh? Jigga please. I just didn't want you stealing my stuff, you scurvy scalawags.

The low-down (on the down-low): I spent all of last week at a beach house in Bethany Beach, culminating in a New Year's Eve party so totally unbelievably awesome, I can't even begin to describe it. Actually, that's mainly because there are significant portions of it that I don't remember. If I called you shortly after midnight and left a lengthy message on your voicemail, um, I apologize if I said anything untoward. Which I undoubtedly did. (More on this later.)

I didn't bother to tell you crazy fools where I was because revealing to the entire universe, through the medium of the Eentarweb, that nobody was at my house but four stupid cats and some mildew, would have resulted in the theft of all that I hold dear, namely, my computer, my TV, and my collection of plates from the Franklin Mint.

So ANYwayz, all I have to offer you today is a tidbit of rantage concerning self-checkout lanes, which I consider to be either the best invention ever, or the stupidest invention ever, depending on whether or not I'm currently using one, or in line behind other people to use them.

Kmart had self-checkout lanes for a while, but eventually removed them. When this happened I became angry, and wrote many the nasty email to Kmart, most of which read as follows:

What the F, mans? I used to be able to check myself out of your jams without any difficulty. It took me like 45 seconds to get through a self-checkout in your store with my copies of "Vogue" and "Boys' Life" and "Handgun Times" and "The New England Journal of Medicine." Now you've gotten rid of them, and so now I'm stuck waiting in lines with the rest of the proletariat! That's so totally uncool, I've invented a new adjective to describe it: "crapflastic." Bring back the self-checkout joints, mmmmBEYOTCH!

However, I have come to realize that, instead of being able to save money on pesky employees by making customers do the work themselves, they actually have to hire MORE employees to make the self-checkout idea work, and here's why:

Most people are death-defyingly stupid.

I mean, I don't understand how these people manage to walk upright. Yesterday, at the Acme, I bought four items: a pork roast, some seasonings, a new meat thermometer (I melted the old one), and a head of cauliflower. The Acme, in its wisdom, reacted to a sudden onslaught of customers by having only two cashiers. The line for the four self-checkout stations only had 2 or 3 people in it, so I headed over.

Station Number 1 had a woman who clearly did not understand the concept of "express." She had roughly 4037 items, each of which she would scan and bag, until the bags were full, so she just took them off the station, which of course made the computer bitch and moan because it senses the weight of your stuff to make sure you didn't scan, say, a can of DelMonte spinach, and instead place a 3 pound halibut in the bag. This woman was scanning items when I got into line; she was still scanning items and fighting with the machine when I left the store. She was also notable in that she had the ugliest child I have known since a guy in college revealed to me that his own afterbirth was, at first, thought to be his twin brother. This child, despite having the size and color of an 18-month-old, had no more hair on her head than I have on my right kneecap, and had been gnawing on the same drool-coated graham cracker for roughly 3 hours. She also was kind enough to attract the attention of Steve, the handi-capable bagger/gofer, who stood in my way and babbled incoherently at the child for roughly 27 minutes.

Station Number 2 had an old man that was determined to use his Acme key-fob-card to save 11 cents on the three items he wished to purchase, but it wouldn't scan, and he couldn't figure out how to key in the number, so he had to enlist the help of the self-checkout manager. He was 2 people in front of me in line, and was still trying to buy his three cans of unseasoned chicken stock when I left the store.

Station Number 3 seemed to have the only person in the place that knew how to operate the machines, except for the part where she kept getting interfered with by Handi-capable Steve, who just HAD to get the grocery baskets at her station, and he had to get them NOW.

Station Number 4 had a woman who had been in line in front of the old man, but left the line to "go look at something," and returned roughly an hour later expecting to be able to reclaim her spot in line, and the kindly old chicken-stock-smelling man let her back in. (My ability to cause rapid, violent death through the power of my glare is as weak as ever.) She managed to scan in her items relatively easily, once she grasped the concept of "you have to put the item in the bag, not your purse," and even managed to insert a twenty into the machine on the 17th try. Thinking that she was nearly done, I began to edge towards that particular station, but no, she stood there for a while and counted her change, and then checked her receipt, and then frantically started pressing buttons on the touch-screen, and then gave up, and then dropped all her spare change out of her purse onto the floor around the station, and then I was going to fling my pork roast at her head, but luckily the woman at Station Number 3 managed to fight off Steve long enough to pay for her items and run out of the store, so I meandered over there.

I, of course, already had my Acme and debit cards in hand, and set a new record for checkout speed: 4 items, totalling $16.64 plus $50 cash back, in 74 seconds.

Then I went out the wrong door and had to walk the long way around to my truck.