January 04, 2007
referrals
there is only one place to get poetry wax.
Posted by matthew at 12:26 PM | Comments (2)
February 03, 2006
surname mapper
map the distribution of your surname in england ...maps available for 1881 and 1998!
Posted by matthew at 05:09 PM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2006
earthlings
edited to correct the html bolluxation.
Posted by matthew at 01:56 AM | Comments (3)
January 29, 2006
don't believe everything you read
so mike infected me with the sudoku virus; very deliberately, i might add, and my cravings for mathematical balance have forced me into a conundrum, to wit:
compelling me to request a clarification, i.e.:
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY SOLUTION??
is there an error there that i am just not seeing? someone help me -- i can't play sudoku again until i understand... these are the pleadings of an addict who has just found out that the sweetness has gone out of the needle's sting!
Posted by matthew at 12:19 AM | Comments (7)
January 23, 2006
just a question
should people with multiple personalities get more than one vote?
Posted by matthew at 10:14 PM | Comments (8)
November 05, 2005
alphabet challenge
according to someone who knows, the NATO phonetic alphabet is:
Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
Juliet
Kilo
Lima
Mike
November
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
Xray
Yankee
Zulu
so my question is, if you are using it to spell the word 'Mike,' do you say "Mike-India-Kilo-Echo"? if you want to say 'bravo,' do you say "Bravo-Romeo-Alpha-Victor-Oscar"?? Does that make sense?
i wonder how many of these words you can get into one coherent sentence?"
Posted by matthew at 05:48 PM | Comments (10)
October 30, 2005
PSA
as long as we are talking about fine cronometers, i thought i would let you know about the upcoming full moons. this information is on the interweb here. of course many cultures have different names for these full moons, but i just picked my favorites.
2005
Nov 16 -- beaver moon
Dec 15 -- long night moon
2006
Jan 14 -- wolf moon
Feb 13 -- hunger moon
March 14 -- jealous moon
April 13 -- egg moon
May 13 -- milk moon
June 11 -- strawberry moon
July 11 -- thunder moon
August 9 -- grain moon
Sept 7 -- harvest moon
Oct 7 -- hunter moon
June 30, 2007 is the next blue moon.
Posted by matthew at 07:25 PM | Comments (4)
saving private moonshine
there was a notice posted on the main gate of the colony this morning, kinda rattled my cage a little bit. it said:
OFFICIAL NOTICE:
Early this morning, Moonshine Savings Time (MST) will commence at 02:00 and all residents are ordered to displace their fine chronometers back by one hour. All moonshine collected during this hour will be placed in escrow until the conclusion of MST. No further information is available at this time. or an hour ago.
FAQ
Q: does this mean that the government can control time or does it mean that time really *is* an illusion?
A: The existence of MST shall not be construed to support or oppose any argument regarding the existance of time; nor it's inexorable grip on us; nor it's transience or permanence; or of our inability to regulate time. Don't try to drag us into that one.
Q: isn't this kind of like folding time?A: um.
Q: isn't MST a waste of time?A: Time wasting by non-government-approved personnel is forbidden. Also, since time extends infinitely into the past and the future, we believe that you are referring, not to a waste of time but of life, which, unfortunately, is not under the purview of our overt regulation as yet.
Q: can i put the moonshine in an interest-bearing account?A: No.The moonshine saved by this action shall be deposited in trust of the Lunar Commonwealth, in order that it may be restored when the season changes next. Hoarding of moonshine is expressly prohibited.
Q: my family has religious objections to MST, is there a religious exemption?A: No exemptions to this policy are permitted. We would encourage you to move west for the duration of MST.
Q: you said there was no further information, then you post a FAQ?A: We're out of time here, we must adjourn to tend to our chronometers.
Posted by matthew at 01:19 AM | Comments (1)
October 23, 2005
GEN 11
I was walking along a the edge of a crater with Sparky and Sam Whitebread last night, Sam happened to kick a bottle that was lying there, half buried, and it went flying away. The girl who was with us, Daffodil, said something about recycling that made Sparky laugh.
"Beautiful," he said, "do you really think it makes sense for us to drive our cars, burning fossil fuels, to drop of glass to be recycled. you know glass is made of sand, right? and gasoline is made from something a little harder to find, isn't it?"
Daffodil just smiled, she knows when she's right and she knows when to avoid getting into a rustle with Sparky on one of his pet peeves.
"Hey," Sam said, "I wonder what would've happened if that had been a bottle with a magic genii in it.. i wonder."
Sparky said, "we'd each get a wish you numbskull... What would you wish for, Sam?"
Sam looked around, then looked at Sparky, a big grin on his face. "I've thought about it a lot, Spark," he said, "I know exactly what I'd wish for: another wish. THAT will set that genii back on his heels."
Sparky shook his head. "You are a boob, Sam" he said, "If you just wish for one wish, you'll be right back where you started. You should wish for a hundred wishes, or a thousand! Dang it." He shook his head again. "I'd wish for a million."
There was a little voice behind us, it was Daffodil. She said, "Do you want to know what i would wish for?"
"Absolutely," Sparky said, looking at her chest, "tell us."
"I would wish that i had no more wishes."
I thought about that the rest of the walk home.
Posted by matthew at 03:07 AM | Comments (9)
October 02, 2005
everybody has a secret
I saw the Captain tonight, he was grinning.
"what's the deal?" I asked him.
"oh, nothin'," he said, "just the usual."
"give." I said, "give, you bastard."
He took another sip of his drink. "ok," he says, waving his hook around, pointing at Sparky sitting over by the fireplace. "You know how I keep having this dream where--"
"Yeah, I know all about that." I say. You can't let him get started on THAT, he's relentless about his dream with the wedding on the cliff and the goats and the freaking crooked stairs. And the map.
He looked at me across his nose, pissed. He likes his dream, likes telling about it. He says, "Listen man, you asked me what the deal is."
"Ok, ok." I say.
"You know Mary Jane, Sparky's secretary?"
"yeah," I say, "white hair, cheerful; church lady. She handles all of Sparky's cash, does his books. Sweetest lady you want to know. I don't understand why she works for that bastard."
"I guess he pays her enough," he says, brushing his black hair back. "So I'm looking for this map--"
"I know about the map." I say.
"Will you just shut up and listen?" he says, "you're making it hard to tell this." He says the word 'hard' like 'hod', the Captain is from the City.
I sip my coke. "go ahead." The waitress rustles by and the Captain is distracted for a minute. I wait.
"So I decided to check out the pawn shops, see if maybe I can find the map there. I've looked in all the used bookstores, the antique stores, the frame shops, and I think, maybe it's in one of the pawn shops. So I check the yellow pages and write down where they are, I make a little map, and this afternoon I went around, checking them out. One after the other, no luck, nothing."
"The map doesn't ex--"
"Shut your face," he says, his black eyes glittering, "I'll find it, you'll see." He takes a long pull at his glass. I wait.
"So I finished my list and came up empty, no map, nothing. But I remembered there was one more pawn shop over in Titus, I didn't put it on my list, but by the time I was done it wasn't that far away, and I called Mary Jane, you know she lives in Titus, and I asked her if she knew where the pawn shop was. She said yeah, it's on 35, on the right, just before the intersection with 34. I was on 35, so I head over there and there's a video store and then the intersection." He took another drink from his glass and smiled. "I circled back and called her again, "Mary Jane, I don't see it. 'Do you see the coffee shop?' she asks me. 'Yeah,' I say, 'I'm passing it now.' She says, 'there's a spanish grocery, then an abandoned gas station, right?' 'yep, I see them.' 'It's in the next building,' she says. 'right there.'" Now the next building is the video store. So I pull in and park in the drive-thru -- it used to be a bank -- and I go in."
The Captain looks at me. I wait.
"It's one big room with porno videos on the walls all around, some pink toys, all the videos have these girls with great big eyes, you know the cheap kind of porn?"
I sip my drink, nodding. I know that kind of porn. Heard about it somewhere.
"There are two guys behind the counter, black t-shirts, pierced lips, greasy hair, you know the kind of guy?"
I nod again. I know the kind of guy... heard about 'em somewhere at least.
"So I walk over to the counter and the one guy says to me, 'Can I help you?' and he's got this funny little smile on his face... I say, 'yeah, I'm looking for the pawn shop, somebody told me there was a pawn shop here.' His face gets a little curlier, and he says, 'yeah, man. You're standing in it.' I look around and I still don't get it. I say, 'a PAWN shop, like where they have used guitars and computers and shit like that.' I'm thinking maybe it's upstairs."
"He says, 'no, man, we got nothing like that here.' I look at him and he looks at me. We're both smiling, different kinds of smiles. He says, 'I thought you were screwing with me man.'"
"So what'd you do?" I ask him. The Captain grins.
"First I called Mary Jane." he says, "she didn't answer, so I left her a message. 'I said *pawn* shop, Mary Jane, p-a-W-n."
"And then?"
"I bought a couple dvd's," he says, "why waste a trip?" He finished his drink and looked at me. "That Mary Jane, she didn't skip a beat."
Posted by matthew at 01:22 AM | Comments (1)
September 13, 2005
the other wingman dropped by
I found this note on the kitchen table this morning... looks like I had a night visitor.
I remember the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy" with Charlton Heston as Michaelangelo.
He was depressed and couldn't work or get inspired and couldn't complete the work he was doing. He was sitting in a tavern, and some nearby reveler told the burly tavern owner that the wine was bad.The tavern owner said, "Nonsense" and tasted it fresh from the new cask, a huge thing on a cradle.
He said: "Iccchhhh! Its' bad," and spit it out.
Everyone said to him, as Michaelangelo observed "What are you going to do about it!?
"If the wine is bad....POUR IT OUT!" and he took a sledge and whacked the cask and it let out all over. Michaelangelo was inspired by the scene: "If the wine is bad, pour it out!"
Posted by matthew at 05:58 PM | Comments (1)
August 16, 2005
driving
I was driving yesterday in the country, I was lost, going the wrong way. It was an area that the development hadn't reached yet, but it was coming. They were building train tracks and putting up towers for a huge overhead power transmission line.
The stores were closed, so I turned around in the parking lot, half-paved half gravel filled potholes; and started back up the road. Traffic got heavy, and up ahead we could see the highway overpass in the setting sun, but between us and the highway was the construction area full of half-built electric towers, trusswork and cranes.
The cars ahead of me took what looked like an exit to a shortcut directly through the construction area, at first it was a smooth road adjacent to the bases of the towers, but I could see bolt-heads sticking up through it and I pulled off onto the gravel on the side and slowed way down. Watching as the cars in line next to me slowed down and stopped, then the people started getting out of their cars, looking around, some of them trying to climb the towers to get a view and figure out which way to go to get to the two-lane access road that leads to the highway.
in a little stand of trees up ahead I saw a guy on a red riding mower, pull off the lawn and stop for a minute in the shade, watching the other cars as they tried to cross the ruts and ditches and get around the obstacles in the construction area. I got out and walked over to him and nodded in the direction of the road up ahead, "I'm trying to get back on the road, can you tell me the best way?"
He looked at me long and slow and at first I thought he might not have understood, but as I opened my mouth to ask him again he said, "you have to go back, the entrances to the highway are all through parking garages," and he gestured with his forefinger, making little quick circles.
"Thanks," I said, getting back in my car and putting it in reverse.
...and then I woke up.
Posted by matthew at 08:49 AM | Comments (1)
August 13, 2005
drivers ed safety tips
wear your seat belt.
if you're not sure what to do about any given situation on the road, it's ten-to-one odds that slowing down and leaving more room between you and guy ahead of you is going to be a good idea. three seconds is the recommended following distance.
d'ja ever hear of the term 'a stale green'? that's a green light that's getting ready to go to red. if you're approaching one of them, cover the brake with your foot, don't press on it, just be ready to. if you have to stop in that situation, being ready like that will let you stop the car about twenty feet sooner -- which is about the difference between stopping behind the white line (in plenty of time) and stopping in the middle of the intersection. stale green. cover the brake.
don't enter an intersection unless you can exit it immediately.
if you are being followed at night by a drunk driver, don't pull off the road onto the shoulder and stop -- it's good odds that the drunk will think you are in the road and still moving and drive right into the back of you, like a moth to the flame. turn onto a side street to lose a drunken tail.
don't stop in a railroad crossing. don't even shift gears in a railroad crossing.
if you have an air bag in the steering wheel of your car, drive with your hands at 9 and 3 o'clock -- if you put them at 10 and 2, the explosion of the airbag will throw them right into your face. you don't want that to happen. also, when you put your visor down, put it all the way down, parallel to the window, not angled towards your forehead.
the trick to driving the speed limit is to make the numbers on your speedometer match the numbers on the speed limit sign. it's just that simple.
when you're sitting at a red light, and it changes to green, look left, look right, look straight ahead, then look left again before you pull out. red lights don't stop cars.
if there is a driver going the wrong way coming at you in your lane, don't think that you should go into the lane that he improperly vacated... his instinct, if he comes to his senses, will be to move back where he belongs. you should just slow down and move off to the shoulder on your right; if you have to hit something, hit something softer than a car moving at you at speed, if you can.
when you hit a deer, you'll be braking hard. if it's obvious that you're going to hit it, at the last second, let off the brake. this will make the front of your car come up and prevent the deer from being deflected up over your hood, through your windshield and into your chest cavity. hopefully.
police cars have an alternator the size of a pumpkin. on the highway at night, if one of the cars behind you has headlights that are just a little brighter than everyone else's... that car probably has a big alternator.
also, don't read a newspaper while you drive. or work the crossword. pay attention out there!
Posted by matthew at 06:25 PM | Comments (3)
August 12, 2005
obfuscated
the last five pages is running obfuscation 3, you can go there to see what it's about. that'll explain this entry, which has three stories, two false and one true.
story I:
one time I tried to enter this writing thing, but in the end, i didn't do it, couldn't think of any true stories.
story II:
this other time, I DID enter the thing, but i was disqualified, because none of the stories were false.
story III:
another time, different from the first two times, I wrote this long and transcendent story about the yearning of the heart for companionship, the way friendship glows like embers, and drifting in the sargasso of time, alone, shipwrecked. but it was too personal, and I couldn't bring myself to post it.
Posted by matthew at 11:31 PM | Comments (5)
August 04, 2005
'night
Today was a rough day.. seems to happen a lot at the new moon, at the full moon. This was one of those days that I am happy to say good-bye to as it dawdles over the hill. The best thing about today is that it'd finished now, the stories of the day are done.
It's weird that at the same time that a day turns into yesterday... it turns into tomorrow as well.
Posted by matthew at 10:45 PM | Comments (3)