As you have no doubt noticed, the comments still are not working, and I have less than no idea1 when they shall rise again. Thus, we're going to make this more of a long-term contest, where speed does not matter as much as acuity. Each of the ten questions is worth one point. If the comments aren't working, e-mail your guesses. You shall be the predictor, and I shall be the predictee:
1) As of December 31st, 2002 -- also the ending date for this year's point contest -- what will be Matthew's favorite film of 2002? (Reasonable possibilities: Time Out, All or Nothing, Adaptation, Catch Me If You Can, Possession (on a second viewing), The Gangs of New York, Y Tu Mama Tambien, What Time Is It There?, Solaris, The Santa Clause II. Yeah.)
Alexander:Solaris Beth-Annie:Time Out Ed:Possession Kimberly:All or Nothing Lisa:Catch Me If You Can moM:Y Tu Mama Tambien
2) Between November 7th, 2002 and November 11th, 2002 -- a time during which Kim will be absent from this here Commonwealth -- how many films will I see, including both full length and short?
4) To the nearest person2, how many individuals will show up at the November 7th Our Lady of Lourdes Bell Rehearsal, even if they do not play? (Reasonable guess: Less Fewer than eight.)
5) What will be the margin of victory of Thelma Dawn Esprit! over the Dixie Co. Bears in Yahoo! Fantasy Football League 320812's widely anticipated matchup of 6-2 squads? (For reference: Thelma won 50-42 last week.)
6) To the nearest day, when will Kimberly's rarely-driven 1986 Camero, currently at about 99,940 miles, reach 00,000 miles?
Alexander: November 12th
Beth-Annie: November 20th
Ed: November 18th
Kimberly: November 3rd
Lisa: November 4th
moM: November 17th
7) On November 5th, what will be my favorite song on Sixpence None the Richer's Divine Discontent? (Late note: If no one gets it on the nose, the closest track number gets the French silk pie.)
Alexander: "Tension is a Passing Note," track 12
Beth-Annie: "Paralyzed," track 8
Ed: "Dizzy," track 11
Kimberly: "I've Been Waiting," track 9 (correct answer: track 9) Lisa: "Still Burning," track 6
moM: "Down and Out of Time," track 3
8) At this moment, how many minutes difference is there between my work computer's clock and the analog clock on my desk?
9) To the nearest minute, what time will my feet first touch the floor on Saturday, November 2nd, including the possibility of a late-night trip to the bathroom? (Note: There is no reason I can think of why I would wake up early that day.)
10) What is the current ratio of socks in my sock drawer curled up with their mates to socks that are lonely and alone? (The ratio will be the judged component; i.e. 1:2 is equivalent to 15:303.)
---
Surrealist of the week: Robert Flores, the man who killed three nursing professors at the University of Arizona before killing himself; specifically, the term-paper-esque cover page of his 22-page letter sent to the local newspaper. The entire letter is an odd but captivating read, in fact.
---
8 Women (François Ozon), C+ In six words: Clue as musical French sex farce. I appreciate Ozon’s subversion of the Agatha Christie genre without terribly liking it: The monotony of the unvarying plot points and constant “shocking” personal revelations is meant as satiric -- a commentary on the harm of unfettered truth -- but that doesn’t mean it’s pleasurable to watch the repetitive deconstruction. Unexpected ending works thematically but not as emotional apex, as was intended; Ozon obviously wants us to feel some compassion for the character at the center of the scene, but given the disclosures regarding the character in the previous 100 minutes, we can’t. Musical numbers lovely in an amateur Everyone Says I Love You manner.
---
Because of the comments problem, I may delay the contest once again. Check here around 5:00P for more details.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
this is comment, one.
Delaymentivity.
Due to about five different reasons -- I spent my lunch break getting Divine Discontent rather than write quiz questions; at 5:00 today I will either mowing grass or watching 8 Women, neither activity near a computer; as I write this the comments are not working again; I don't have any idea what the quiz should be on this week -- la concurrence shall be delayed to tomorrow, same time.
You are actively disinterested in what four classes I took at my bell directors' conference, no doubt, but no doubt that I will still tell you: "Music for Levels I, II and III," "Beginning Directors’ Issues," "Beginning Conducting" (which replaced Advanced Conducting, I guess), and some course not listed in Friday's entry that was about thumb plucks and malletting and bell trees and other non-traditional ways of ringing bells. There was no course on composing1 and arranging, sadly.
Decision time: For Advent and Christmas, I should really arrange some Christmas tunes (with cool, non-traditional arrangements) rather than write new pieces from scratch, no? I have this idea for the melding of "Silent Night" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" that may be trés cool, but probably won't be.
---
It has been over 40 hours since I saw Punch-Drunk Love, and I still have very little idea what I think of it critically. I've toyed with putting it number three on my top ten list. I've considered sticking it with a B-. It all depends on the attitude the film takes regarding the Sandler/Watson romance, and I still can't figure if Anderson wants us to view the relationship earnestly and mostly positively or, in the words of Quiz Kid Stanley Spector, as "This is something that happens." I prefer the latter, but I suspect the former; regardless, I may withhold my grade pending a second viewing.
---
Question: Should I put my reviewlets on different individual pages, or do you like them the way they are in my top ten list?
---
Quiz tomorrow: 5:00P. Topics, please.
---
Ballot choices for "CWMWWAW":
1) quiz
2) tomorrow
3) 5:00P
4) topics
5) please
---
1 Speaking of which: If anyone wants a copy of any of my compositions, let me know and I'll send it to you as a PDF unless you are Von or Pablo in which case I will unlock the church for you and you can grab your bell choir folder.
I know that I had ideas, I had these ideas that I wanted to write about, write about here, but now, now they are gone, gone, and all I am left with, I am left with this ungainly repetition of phrases, of these phrases in order to get this first paragraph, to get this first graf long enough so that my drop cap will not look silly.
---
From the New York Timescorrections page: "The Advertising column in Business Day yesterday, about the sponsorship of a concert and prayer tour by the Chevrolet division of General Motors, misstated the name of a performer taking part. He is Michael W. Smith, not W. Michael Smith."
---
This evening and most of tomorrow, I will be learning to be a less mediocre bell choir director. I am sure that they will point out that (a) my pinky-inside-the-handle-of-the-bell technique is immoral, (b) the bell pieces I have composed are atrociously atonal, and (c) the seriousity in which I take more role is absenter than absent. It should be fun.
But. Please tell me which four of these seminars I should sign up for this evening. (Blogger's been down, or else I would have had this up earlier today.)
Music for Levels I, II and III (pretty much should, I suppose)
Music for Levels IV and V (no)
AFC Reading Session (um, huh?)
Treble Bells Techniques (no)
Bass Bells Techniques (no)
Directors’ Concerns (perhaps)
Clapper Clinics (um, huh?)
Area III Board Chat Room (likely not allowed)
Composing and Arranging for Handbells (yep)
Advanced Conducting (if only they had beginning...)
Organizational Skills (yes! this is so what I need! except...uh...more of a life overview of such skills, rather than a bell-specific discussion. but still.)
Bells in Worship (perhaps)
Beginning Directors’ Issues (probably a good idea)
---
My Sixpence single finally came yesterday, so the winner is me with my guess of a week ago today. Yay me. "Northern Lights" is okayly okay, at least on first listen; Sixpence's B-sides can't all be "Sad But True"s, I suppose.
---
Wow. For the second time in two election cycles, a politician in a Midwest state running for Congress (first Carnahan in Missouri, now Wellstone in Minnesota) has died in a plane crash. Sad, and strange.
I have seen very few short films in my life, and very fewer that I have liked, and very fewest that I can even begin to emulate on any level in the creation of "Enciente," which of course as you have already figured out is an anagram for "C. R. Reilly." (I am not as funny as I think I am today, so please excuse me.) My first film, "Agnes: She is Missing," was essentially a parody of the quintessential short art film1, complete with Important Message. "Enciente" cannot be like that, at least not exactly, but I am not sure what I want it to be like. My mind keeps returning to Samuel Beckett's play "Play," which has a wife, her husband and his lover in urns talking very very quickly about the relationship among the three and then at the end of the play the play takes the D.S. back to the sign and repeats almost all the play over again with minute differences. I want to do something like that, but I am not sure how to without leaving in the urns, and I do not have any urns sleeping in the spare bedroom of my house, so I do not know.
I do have a germ of an idea based somewhat on "Play," but I would need a sevenish-year-old girl who can read well and talk quickly, and I do not even know a girl or boy in that age group, so hmmm.
---
1 So one of the two times I was a Comedy Sportz improv performance, I yelled out the suggestion "foreign art film," and the performers thought I meant "foreign film about art." Ha ha ha.
Moviely, moviely, moviely, moviely, life is but a dream.
So now we are at the time of the year where the movies that are good are only outnumber by the movies that are bad by a 10:1 margin rather than 50:1, so that is lovely. P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love and François Ozon's 8 Women are both opening in Richmond this weekend, and Mike Leigh's All or Nothing is opening in New York Friday and will soon be in Washington, and Spike Jonze's Adaptation is only a month-and-a-half away, and all is well, and all is good, except that the Dardennes' Le Fils has been postponed to next year, but like you care.
Time Out, seen last night, will top this year's top-ten list (au revoir, Possession) whenever I update it. Look for it on DVD in a couple months.
---
A review of Tomatoes and Cucumbers are Fruits Not Vegetables: The Movie, to which I gave a B-:
The main problem with VeggieTales at film-length is the same problem with VeggieTales in half-hour segments. There’s never an adequate reconciliation between the Biblical earnestness of the storyline with the wacky surrealism around the edges. It’s all pigeonholed: 2 minutes of wackiness, 1 minute of earnestness, 4 minutes of wackiness, 2 minutes of earnestness, and on and on until the numbers add up to 75. (With “Silly Songs with Larry,” the compartmentalization is even more explicit on video.) Please compare/contrast with the greatest comedic film to come out of the Christian ghetto, Steve Taylor’s Down Under the Big Top, where the humor is constantly and thankfully emasculating the earnestness (man with toothpaste coming out of his mouth during John’s “faith, hope, and love,” speech; Phil’s admission that he had only read the Cliffs Notes of the Bible). Also, as you may recall, the whale saved Jonah in the Bible; what in the world kind of symbolism is it that here the whale de Dios is shown as a punishment? Kudos, however, for a somber ending to the story-within-a-story (if not the movie proper, which of course has a cheery denouement) and a couple handfuls of typically bizarre Veggie moments.
---
My second short film, tentatively titled "Enceinte," will be five minutes long and filmed over the time period of November 8 through 10 of this year. I will be writing the script over the next week. Please tell me what should be in the film: Dancing tadpoles, polling dance tads, Canada, etc.
1) Using the numbers 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 exactly once, come up with two equations that both equal 53 (such as 89-76=10+24=53, excepting the incorrectness of that example).
2-3) Iowa State linebacker Jimmy Morris, who wears number 53, knows that if Iowa State wins the remaining four games on their Big 12 conference schedule, they will be tippy-top of the Big 12 North and get to play Oklahoma (almost for sure) in the Big 12 Championship. However, Jimmy is worried that if Iowa State loses to Texas this week or Kansas State in a couple more weeks, ISU has no chance of making the Big 12 Championship. In a cordial, soothing paragraph, explain a plausible scenario that will make little Jimmy happy.
4) What is the ratio of the salary Jim Morris received in 2000 for pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the salary Dennis Quaid received in 2001 for portraying Morris in The Rookie?
5) What is the ratio of the non-infinite maximum number of intersections of x circles to the non-infinite maximum number of intersections of x squares, where x is an integer greater than one?
6) Devise a non-constant (with regards to x) equation u such that y=tan(u) and u are non-infinite for all x. (You may not use tan-1 in your equation, and both y and u must have unbroken graphs.)
7) Regarding children's dictionaries: For all, "x" is the letter from unHeaven. Webster's for wee-ones are required by U.S. law to include a word that begins with "X," but neither "x-ray" nor "xylophone" is particularly inspired. Come up with a better one.
8) (Ed may not answer, because I know he knows.) The xylophone, like the piano and most every brass instrument and most every woodwind instrument, is chromatic. That is, for virtually1 all of its range, it can play any note that is called for: any C#, and Db, any B##. Name a non-chromatic instrument.
9) Brad was looking over all of his range, and he noticed something odd: Only four of his neighbour's cows were eating the hay that he set out in the middle of the field in a ten-by-ten box with one-inch-tall wooden walls. Then he decided that it was not so strange after all. Why?
10-11) The first line of Willa Cather's overly ironic "Neighbour Rosicky" starts with the overly ironic line, "Neighbour Rosicky had a bad heart." It is ironic, of course, because while Neighbour Rosicky had a bad physical heart, he had a very strong emotional heart that was shown over the course of the rest of the blah blah blah. In her hypothetical sequel to "Neighbour Rosicky," "Neighbour Melissa," the first line is, "Neighbour Melissa had a bad nose." In one long-winded but understandable paragraph, explain the irony of Melissa having a bad nose.
12) I knows bad grammer usually nonhereable, but I have intentionally made a blatant (for me) grammatical error in one of the other quiz questions. Find it.
13-14) I refuse to believe that this many people would make such a blatant logical error: "Perhaps you heard from Daniel A. Oluwa over the past few days. He's a member of Nigeria's Federal Audit Committee. He dropped you an e-mail, labeled "Strictly Confidential," stating that he's discovered a frozen account containing $42.5 million. Mr. Oluwa wants to snag the loot, but, for unfathomable reasons, he needs a foreign-based partner to act as an intermediary. Interested? Merely send along your "bank name, address, account number, swift code, ABA number (if any), beneficiary of account, telephone and fax numbers of bank." Thirty percent of the booty shall eventually be yours....This swindle is commonly known as "419 fraud," after the section of the Nigerian penal code covering cons. According to the anti-spam software vendor Brightmail, 419 come-ons are the Web's second-most common form of junk mail, ranking behind only those incessant "herbal Viagra" ads. Though most people merely laugh at the pleas' awful grammar and all-caps style ("I WILL LIKE YOU CONTACT MY LAWYER ..."), about 1 percent of recipients actually respond [emphasis mine]. Of that number, enough people fork over enough cash to sustain an industry that ranks in Nigeria's top five, right up there with palm oil and tin." Explain to me in one paragraph (that somewhere uses a phrase that is an anagram for "Nigerian penal code") why so many people would believe this.
15) What state has the 419xx zip codes?
16) Unzip your mind and uncode this message: "R szev wvxrwvw gl dvzi yfgglm-uob qvzmh rmhgvzw lu ark-fkh. Z tllw wvxrhrlm, ml?"
17) I was giving Kim a shoulder message a Sunday night, and this question occured to me: From I-95 exit 92 just outside of Ashland, Va., how many major escape paths (major meaning interstates and U.S. highways) are there within a 10 minute drive, assuming that the sniper was driving fast but not too fast?
18-19) While most interstates lining our countryside are numbered in a regular pattern: Odd two-digited run north to south (increasing in number from west to east), even two-digited run east to west (increasing in number from north to south), three-digited share the last two numbers with an adjacent two-digit interstate, etc. However, there our at least two examples of interstates that do not come close to having the number that they ought to. Name those interstates and the circumstances that gave them their odd numbers. (Note: The correct answer is not H1 through H4.)
20) Draw a road that connects each question in this quiz with its predecessor.
---
1 Footnote bonus question for one point: Tell me why I had to add the word "virtually." (Ed is allowed to answer this one.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 33.
Quiz in a war zone.
Tomorrow's quiz will again be at 5:00P. I am unsure of the topics, although I will no doubt have some logic questions regarding our friend the sniper and local reaction. (You need not read up on the situation; I will give you all necessary information to answer the questions correctly.) Please give other potential non-sniper topics, such as cute puppy dogs and cookie dough ice cream.
---
On the sniper: Now that it seems like neither of this morning’s Richmond arrestees are the sniper, the most fascinating part of the investigation are these cryptic messages that Montgomery County (Md.) Police Chief Charles Moose is sending to the sniper via the media. In case you haven’t heard:
Yesterday: "To the person who left us a message at the Ponderosa, you gave us a telephone number. We do want to talk to you. Call us at the number you provided."
This morning: "The message that needs to be delivered is that we are going to respond to a message that we have received. We are preparing our response at this time."
This afternoon: "The person you called could not hear everything you said. The audio was unclear and we want to get it right. Call us back so that we can clearly understand."
For some reason, I think that David Mamet needs to be the one to make the inevitable movie based on the sniper.
Let's start with the lede, for those of you who are not in the Richmond metropolitan area: This gas station, the one where they've arrested who may or may not be the D.C. Sniper, is about four miles east of my work, about three miles north of Kim's work, and about five miles southwest of our house; it's pretty much smack in the middle of those three locations. Saturday's sniper shooting in the small town of Ashland -- which, as you may recall, is where I talked about a couple weeks ago potentially playing volleyball in -- took place about 10 miles north of our house. So yeah.
I'm listening to an radio simulcast of the local CBS station, and the back-and-forth is pretty funny (sorry, tension makes me find things more hilarious): About every ten minutes, one of the anchors will throw the broadcast to a reporter with a line like, "And here's Joe Reporter with some new information," and then Joe Reporter will say, "We don't really have any more information, but here's a timeline of what we already know," or "We have this exclusive interview with a child psychologist from VCU," or "We have some breaking news: The press conference scheduled for 11:00 has now been moved to 1:00."
Points, points, points, points, and did I say points? Oh, I see that I did. Four times prior, in fact. My word; how could I not notice that sooner?
Point opportunity for math freaks. Please explain in one concise paragraph what is wrong about this statistical logic. One point for the first correct answer.
---
Point opportunities no one figured out. 1) The points on the right side of the page remind me of the updating of scores at sectional wrestling meets at Iowa Falls.
2) The first twenty-six non-numeric dropcaps I used when I started using dropcaps were twenty-six different letters. And no one got that?
---
Point opportunities that will end likely today or tomorrow. Supposedly, my Sixpence single was shipped Wednesday, so it looks like I may very well win this contest with my guess of today. Yay me. And if it comes today, I also get $100 for getting the date right on the nose.1
---
Point opportunity for those not easily perplexed. One point to the best explanation of the relative bowl statuses projected for Iowa State and Oklahoma, respectively, on the usually reliable (although now not free) CollegeBCS.com. (No points for the best explanation of Iowa's bowl status, which I half-expect to happen.)
---
Point opportunity for people who have time to use Google. One point to anyone who can debunk this seeming urban legend printed in a respectable enough newspaper.
---
Point opportunity for high-school students. Jo[h]n asked me to have a special 5-point quiz for the less-than-half-dozen high-school students who read this journal. I won't do that, but I will give them this one-point question: What is the Magna Carta, and how does it relate to our Constitution's Bill of Rights?
---
Point opportunity for middle-school students. One-point question: What are photosynthesis and chlorophyll?
---
Point opportunity for grade-school students. One-point question: If Johnny has two apples, and Molly has 8 apples, and Jeff has three apples, how many more apples does Molly have than Johnny and Jeff combined?
---
Point opportunity for preschool students. One-point question: If Johnny has two apples, how many apples does Johnny have?
---
Point opportunity for babies. Goo-point goo ga: Goo goo ga goo go gaa Johnny, goo goo ga ga [burp]?
---
Point opportunity for Janice Smith. One-point question: How did you find this page, considering that I do not know any Janice Smiths and just now came up with the name randomly?
I, in general, am a genial person who does not make enemies or harbor hatred; to my knowledge, the last person who extraordinarily disliked me had that unlove my junior and senior years in college1, and to find the last person whom I extraordinarily disliked one would have to go back to high school2.
However, there are people who make me nervous, and people who make me uncomfortable, and people who make me want to get far far away from them, and people who make me angry, and people who make me tense, and people whom I do not like for reasons unknown to me. I will unfairly call them all stupidheads.
Note: No one who reads this journal regularly (or at least who I know reads this journal regularly) falls into any of the postcedding categories, except perhaps Alexander because I have never met him in person but I'm sure he's perfectly swell in the face-to-face.
People who are extreme introverts: As a moderate introvert, I often use the conversation strategy of deflection: If I don't feel like talking, I attempt to focus conversations on the other party, who (like most people) are only too willing to talk about themselves (and I generally enjoy listening, to a point). However, extreme introverts generally give terse answers to any question I may ask about them, and so I am forced to take up one of two alternate strategies: The let's-both-not-say-anything-for-five-minutes-and-see-who-will-say-something-first strategy, or the let's-force-Matthew-to-pretend-to-be-a-talkative-extravert strategy, neither of which is conducive to quality conversation.
People who will not shut up. I can handle half-an-hour of an interesting monologueish conversation (that is, a conversation that I am barely participating in, even in the "deflection" sense) before I start wondering how many games Iowa State football will be able to win considering that four of their final six games are on the road against ranked teams but Kansas State hasn't looked all that good lately and with Colorado I know that it's always difficult playing on the road at a mile above sea level but still they've been inconsistent and it really just depends on which Colorado team shows up and Oklahoma well we just need to forget about that but Texas we may have a chance depending on...uh, sorry. Oh, and if the monologueish conversation is not interesting, five minutes. And I do not hide boredom well.
People with no compassion. Such as Dr. Laura.
People who say mean things about people I like. Kim and I were talking about this yesterday evening, so she knows specifically what I am thinking about.
People who shoot other people at random. But you may disagree.
People who seem happy all the time. I do not trust Mary Hart.
People who were former frat-boys and still act like quintessential frat-boys. That, among other very logical reasons that I will not mention lest Ed and Beth-Annie competently refute them, is why I do not like Mr. Craig Kilborn.
Please remind me of more.
---
1 Story time: So I wrote this review for Southeast's school paper on the drama department's performance of "The Music Man." In short, I said that everything was greatly great except for the accompanying band, which was eh. Two months later, my roommate Bob tells me that one of his friends who was in the band (and who [in the conocer sense] I knew) just found out that he was my roommate and told him how much she hated me because of that review. And occasionally after that, Bob would give me little updates letting me know that she still hated me. I thought about apologizing, but, well, the band was eh, and I don't think Bob was supposed to tell me that she hated me.
2 I will not tell you who this person is except to say that he was in my grade at Ames High and that he was not on the honors track and that Ed (in the conocer sense) knew him.
Hello. This is just a post to say that I will not be posting any more today because I have run out of posting time. I am quite sorry, and I will write about "stupidheads" tomorrow. Thank you for your patience, you loving fans.
Part one: Math that does not use anything fancy because that would just be too difficult for Jo[h]n.
1) Using the numbers 1 through 9 in order, and only using parentheses, multiplication, division, subtraction and/or addition, come up with an equation that equals 3070, e.g. 1-2+(3+45)-6*7+89 except of course that does not give you the correct answer.
2) Using six ones in order (heh), and only using parentheses, multiplication, division, subtraction and/or addition, come up with an equation that equals three ones in order.
---
Part two: Math that is fancy but sorta fakey.
3) It sorta holds true that a mod b = c mod d (or at least *can* equal) given what requirement? (Note: "a=c and b=d" is true but not the correct answer.)
4) What is the integration of xy dz?
---
Part three: Lame irony and symbolism in books I did not like when I read them in high school and would probably still not like now but who knows.
5) What is ironic about the opening sentence of Willa Cather's short story, "Neighbour Rosicky": "Neighbour Rosicky had a bad heart"?
6) What is symbolic about the bird with the broken wing in the dénouement of Kate Chopin's The Awakening?
---
Part four: The origins of the universe or Nora's Mexican Restaurant in Hampton.
7-8) Write an essay summarizing the different scientific theories regarding life on other planets discussed in Gregg Easterbrook's 10,000-word Atlantic Monthlyarticle from August 1988's entitled "Are We Alone?" Or write an essay about Nora's. Best of each gets a half-point.
---
Part five: Matthew Dale Prins or Matt Prins or Thew!! or you know that narcissistic lame-o.
9) What is Matthew's favorite non-disc sport?
10) When is the last non-holiday, non-weekend when Matthew did not write something in this journal?
---
Part six: Discussion of post-revolution Iranian films that is not at all related to Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
11) Which of Jafar Panahi's films is considered by right-minded film critics to be his most didactic?
12) In Dariush Mehrjui's Leila, a character tries to convince Leila to allow her husband to take a second wife. What familal relationship did that character have to Leila?
---
Part seven: Snot.
13) If you were to pick your nose at a rate of 1/8 teaspoon of snot per minute, and assuming you slept 8 hours a night and picked the other 16, how long would it take you to have a gallon of snot?
14) Add a letter to the beginning of the word "snot," rearrange the letters, and you will have the name of an object that is closely related to snot. What is that word and letter?
---
Part eight: Charles Nelson Reilly 15-16) Write a haiku and a limerick about Mr. Reilly. Best of each gets the goldfish.
Part nine: Discussion of post-revolution Iranian films that is at all related to Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
17) In Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up, a character is shown to be reading a book that is based off of an earlier Makhmalbaf film. What is the title of the book and film?
18) In Makhmalbaf's A Moment of Innocence, what symbolism does the final freeze-frame of a loaf a bread and a vase have?
---
Part ten: Meta-ality.
19) Not counting this question, who got the first correct answer in this week's quiz?
20) Not counting this question, who will get the most points in this week's quiz?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 47.
Three hours later, the red-line omnibus finally arrives.
There were other thoughts to be expressed -- other musings to be written for ridicule -- that I did not mention in the entry prior. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. Please, allow me to repent. Forgive me. Et alia.
I will continue now.
---
I have no idea what I shall be contesting about on Tuesday. Absolutely none. If people have suggestions prior to 11:30 Eastern tomorrow morning, I will be happy. Otherwise, I shall put together twenty questions on pre-revolution Iranian film and that shall be that.
---
Since there was a total of one vote for the last Choose What Matthew Will Write About Wednesday, we will try one more time to have my insufferable proletariat choose a topic. Five lovely choices:
a) Thanks
b) for
c) nothing,
d) you
e) stupidheads.
I predict that "you" will prevail, but who knows?
---
Sometime when I have a few more minutes, I need to tell you about the summer adventures of my wedding ring. Please remind me.
---
While Iowa State has absolutely no chance of getting to the Fiesta Bowl (because they will lose again), I believe that Iowa does. I mean it. An undefeated Big-10 season, a few well-placed (i.e. late in the season) losses by [whatever] and 0 teams, a win over Michigan, a loss by Oklahoma to the Big 12 North Champion, and wham! The Hawks v. the Hurricanes/Hokies victor.
---
I believe the most neglected key on the standard keyboard is the "Scroll Lock" key. I bet that I have not used the "Scroll Lock" key since my parents had their Tandy 1000.
From a Richmond Logos Bookstore e-mail:
"Everything in the store will be 30% off!! (some exceptions)"
---
Since Lisa refuses to name the time of the next contest, we will make it the same: Tomorrow (Tuesday), 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Please recall how quickly the last contest went and plan accordingly. (Note to certain people who cannot get the page to properly refresh: Try instead a hard refresh, which entails holding down the "Ctrl" key while hitting the refresh button.)
---
I say the following statement with all sincerity: This revelation strikes me as perhaps the end of the American Catholic Church as it is now known.
The Vatican has prepared a draft document containing directives against the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood...The document takes the position that since the church considers the homosexual orientation as "objectively disordered" such people should not be admitted to the seminary or ordained[.]
Let's not even get into why this is the wrong side to take on this issue1. Let us instead think about this: Practically every knowledgeable outside observer believes a large minority (30 to 40 percent, say many) of American priests are gay. Whether or not a large number of disgruntled priests quit in disgust -- I'd give even odds on this happening -- if this goes into effect, there is going to be an even more tremendous priest shortage than there is now. Priests will have to be shuttled from parish to parish for services, creating a situation where deacons (who can be married, and who can perform most of the same acts that a priest can) will be ubiquitous priest proxies. I'm not sure that this will necessarily a worsening of the status quo, but it will be a massive change in the life of this church in America. Read this entry again in ten years, and let's see how right I am.
---
A Dad-worthy "yeah right" on that last sentence, by the way. Like this'll still be up in ten years.
---
In D.C. this weekend, where I was not shot by any snipers, I twice thought I saw people from my class at Ames High School before I got closer and saw that they were not. Also, and I can say this because neither of Kim's parents reads this but don't tell them if you see them, Kim and I spent probably 45 seconds discussing whether this woman who looked from the back like Kim's mom actually was Kim's mom. (She was.) (At the end, before we heard her talking, Kim was leaning toward yes and I was leaning toward no. Yay Kim.)
---
Hmm. That last parenthetical gives me an idea:
Yays of the week.
I wrote my third- and fourth-ever music reviews. Yay me.
Devon is writing in her journal on a regularish basis, unlike some people. Yay Von.
Iowa State is ranked number nine in the AP poll, which is about six spots higher than they ought to be. Yay stupid sportswriters.
Our server at the sportsbarish restaurant that Kim's parents and she and I were at Saturday turned a TV to TBS so we could watch the Iowa State game (including The Run). Yay our server.
Now that a similar house in our neighborhood is being sold, Kim and I know that our house is worth a bit more than we thought it was. Yay economic theory.
---
1 Okay, let's. There are three points of view a Christian (or a group of Christians, e.g. the Catholic Church) can choose among on homosexuality and homosexual behavior: [a] Homosexuality itself is sinful; [b] Homosexuality is not wrong -- no more so heterosexuality -- but homosexual behavior is sinful (the same as, say, having a extramarital affair is sinful); and [c] God will be mad at me if I do not go have some gay sex right now. If one takes believes that homosexuality is not a choice -- as I do and the Catholic Church2 does -- it is impossible to accept [a] without believing that, say, the slothfulness tendencies that God has placed in me are sinful, even if I do not act slothfully upon them. Similarly, however, it is impossible for the Catholic Church to flat-out reject this entire group of people for the priesthood without believing [a]; otherwise, well, all of us have tendencies toward sin, whether or not we act upon them.
The other problem with the Catholic Church's position is this: If gays are not allowed to become new priests, how come the large number of homosexuals already in the priesthood will be allowed to keep their positions? Logically, shouldn't they be jettisoned as well?
2 "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. The persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition" (CCC 2358).
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
this is comment, one.
So I am somewhat more optimistic now.
As some of you who visit Beth-Annie may recall, a couple weeks ago I posted a review of Sixpence's first single in Annie's comments, writing, in part, "If ['Breathe Your Name' is] the best song on the album, however, I'm gonna cry." Well. It is not. Having now listened to almost all the songs on Sixpence's new album, I am now confident that it is at best the fifth best song, behind at least tracks eight through 11 ("Paralyzed" [on one listen, the best of the bunch], "I've Been Waiting," "Eyes Wide Open," and "Dizzy"). So that makes me happy. It makes me forget that the most recent Washington-area sniper shooting was about a 45-minute drive from my house. (Not that there aren't murders closer to me than that, but these are so dreadfully random.)
Oh. Talking about Sixpence: I still have not gotten a notice from Barnes and Noble about my single being shipped. Opie will win this contest yet.
I spent my lunch writing music reviews, so I do not feel like writing more today. And since this is my journal, and since I am only being paid $10 an entry to write in it, I will not. Instead, I will link to articles that you should read instead: This week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback, Slate on why sex causes death, The Onion on paradigmatic skews, a McSweeney's Amazon-user-rating parody, and an unlikely "Matt Prins" sighting. (By unlikely, I mean that it is strange that the information is online at all, not that it is strange that I was an alternate to the...well, you can see for yourself.)
Okay. I and others have been too long-winded recently on this journal, so I am going to try to keep this concise. Beth-Annie wrote last week about her and Josh's interest in keeping healthy, eating better, exercising, not spending all day watching Big Brother on a 15-inch monitor1, etceteras. So from that, I have started looking at gyms and health clubs and racket clubs and things such as that to join in the northwestern Henrico corridor, and I have come to two conclusions: (a) they are all very very expensive and if I won't spend $40 on 200 channels of cable why should I spend it on a gym that I will probably only use twice during the three-year contract they convince me to sign, and (b) I don't really want a health club, per se, now that I've spent three long days thinking about it.
No. What I want to do is join a badminton club.
I'm serious. I was awfully good at badminton when I played it in gym in eleventh grade; my female partner (some girl I barely knew) and I were terrors on the court, beating coed duos, beating all-male duos, beating Mr. Mendenhall (my favorite gym teacher ever by ten miles; may he rest in peace). It was fun, and I had a qualified talent; in general, I am (or was; it's been so long) good at sports that involve much diving on the floor2.
So while envelopes were printing here at work, and my computer could do little more than surf the Internet (and then slowly), I took a looksee and checked if Richmond had a badminton club. No ducks. However, my area does have three of the next best thing: Indoor volleyball clubs. This is perfect: It's relatively cheap (Ashland's seems to be $25 for two months of volleyballing), volleyball is relatively low-impact (which is what I like about disc golf, in part), and c'mon, if I go to the Ashland one, how many great volleyball players can there be in a town not much bigger than Iowa Falls? I like this. Hmm.
Because there has only been one vote thus far in Choose What Matthew Will Write About Wednesdays -- go to the 4th and punch your chad, people -- I have decided to devote today's main post to writings by two lovely readers of How Perfectly Swell, Kimberly Prins and Jonathan Giuffrida. Kimberly, as you may recall, had promised to write a journal entry for this weekend; having failed, however, she was "proactive" and "took ownership of the situation" and has written an entry for today.
In general, I feel no desire whatsoever to have my own blog. Commenting on Matt's blog when the mood strikes (or the contest requires) generally suffices for my need to share my life with the world. But I did have a bizarre experience last week that didn't fit with any existing comments and yet I felt the need to share.
So, Matthew has this strange fondness for French, puts it all over his blog, and yet can't speak a word of the language. I, on the other hand, had 8 years of Spanish complete with a minor and yet don't use a stitch of it. But, I guess all this foreign language stuff is getting to me subconsciously because last week I had a dream in Spanish. I don't remember an awful lot about the dream's content (something about a dance studio, I think), but I really distinctly remember that I was speaking in Spanish and so were the other characters. I wasn't a native speaker in this dream, mind you; I was just Kim in a bizarre situation in a Spanish-speaking locale.
Like I said, I don't remember much of the content, but I do remember a lot of my feelings during this dream. I was doing fairly well at conversing in Spanish, but I also remember searching for words and choosing the long way around at times (that is, describing a word when I couldn't think of the right word). I can remember the frustration I felt at losing those words, but also the satisfaction at thinking in Spanish rather than translating my English thoughts.
Has anyone else had such an experience? I feel like such a freak that not only do I think in Spanish when I speak it in real life, but I dream in Spanish! I'm sure Matthew can't say that about his lovely French!
---
In an act of brazen stupidity, Jo[h]n decided last week that he would interview me for a paper he had to write for English class; the paper was supposed to take a real-life incident experienced by someone and -- in a somewhat fictionalized manner -- tell the story from two divergent points of view. He did quite well, methinks. Not only is it well-written, but other than the shrinkening of Ames -- in a town of 50,000, not everyone knows everyone else -- it's shockingly accurate vis a vis my emotions and my perceptions of the incident. The bold statements are from me (specifically, a fictionalized me); the italicized statements are from the other main participant.
As a rising senior in high school, I need some sort of job to help pay for college. In my home town, Ames, Iowa, the only source of jobs for high schoolers is the fast food industry. Burger King is certainly favored in this small town, so naturally I have a summer job there. On this particular night, in summer, I was working in the dining room, which meant that my job entailed cleaning tables, refilling the soda machine, taking the trash out to the Dumpster, and ensuring that all the patrons are given mints. I have been doing this since I was employed at the Burger King.
Taking out the trash meant collecting the garbage bags, bringing them to the green Dumpster outside, and throwing the bags inside. When I brought the trash to the Dumpster around 7:00 that night, however, I noticed a man leaning against the Dumpster, eating a half-eaten sandwich thrown away earlier in the day. His clothing consisted of tattered remnants of a suit coat and slacks with holes. He wore tennis shoes as well; to me, it seemed he wore them almost as an afterthought. He had long, dark, and greasy hair that dangled just over his shoulders and the shadow of a beard implying that he didn't give too much thought to shaving. My first impression of him was that he was obviously either homeless or a druggie; what else could I think?
In Ames, there are just enough restaurants to let someone like me keep from starving. It's relatively easy to find the Dumpsters; they're always surrounded by high fences of balsa wood. Employees are usually too preoccupied to worry about locking the fences, and I don't blame them. In this small town, everyone knows at least half of the occupants. Nobody has any idea that homeless people live in Ames.
I was desperate for another job when I was unceremoniously fired only about two weeks ago. I had lived in an apartment near the center of town, where all the businesses have offices. On my salary, there was no room for anything more; I was barely meeting my monthly expenses and paying rent. When I lost my job, I knew I had no hope of keeping the apartment; nevertheless, I tried to bargain with the landlord. That did nothing for me but keep me under a roof for another couple of days and postpone my searching for jobs. Eventually, I sold everything but a few suits and some personal items to meet the rent. The one thing I least wanted was to lose my home before I found another job. I lost it anyway within a week and found myself stuck on the streets.
Just to my luck, no jobs were to be had in Ames. There were no openings anywhere and anyone who could have hired me was certainly turned away by my dirty suits - clothes only last for so long when you live in the streets. Luckily, I was raised to hate drugs and I never took them. I didn't even know where I could have obtained any in such a small town.
I turned to Dumpsters when I ran out the little pocket change I still had. This was a shocking change for me, going from a prominent position in a prosperous company to eating from Dumpsters in only two weeks. On this day, I had chosen to "patronize" Burger King and raided their trash for relatively clean food. I chose half a sandwich - as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers, and I couldn't reject everything that wasn't impeccably clean - and had just started to eat it when an employee walked out the back door, carrying two black plastic bags of trash. The gate was open and he spotted me immediately; I could follow his eyes, looking me up and down, taking in my soiled clothes and my dirty state. I could only guess what he thought of me. I froze in my position against the Dumpster while my mind raced for an explanation.
The man was frozen in place next to the Dumpster. I was in a state of complete panic. What should I do? Should I tell him to beat it, or ignore him, or tell the manager? The manager was always a lofty person at Burger King, with a commanding presence. I was, to tell the truth, afraid of him. I was in a dilemma, to say the least. I had no idea what to do.
The man moved just then, taking a dirty hand away from his sandwich and putting one finger to his lips, as if to say "shhh". Without warning, he spoke, in a soft yet raspy voice: "Our little secret." My mind was still racing. Did he want me to forget how he had just slipped into the Dumpster area and stolen from our trash? I didn't know whether or not that was against the law, but I knew it was something he wasn't supposed to do.
I put my finger back down to my sandwich, studying the employee closely. He was pretty young, probably in high school or college, working to earn tuition money. I could see the beads of perspiration on his forehead, though the night wasn't very hot. I could almost watch his mind working: here he was, a simple employee, suddenly confronted with a problem he didn't know how to solve. It was obvious he was thinking of turning me in to his manager; how could I blame him for that?
I stood there, as immobile as he, for close to fifteen seconds. I considered fleeing but decided instead to see what happened. Then, the employee's eyes once again emerged from his thoughts and he strode briskly to the Dumpster next to me. Throwing the bags swiftly into it, he turned away and walked back through the door.
I didn't see the man when I returned outside with another load of trash. There was no trace that he'd ever been there, but I remembered his image clearly burnt into my mind. I thought about his appearance while I continued with my work, cleaning tables inside the dining room. He was obviously on some type of drugs; why else would he have stood there so casually? Anyone else would have fled upon seeing someone in Burger King uniform.
Around 7:50, as I was refilling the ice in the soda machine, the bells above the door jingled. I ignored it, accustomed to the sound; all it meant was that customers had walked into the building. Then I heard the conversations die down around me and I looked up, curious. Two people had walked into the restaurant. One of them was the druggie and the other was a second man in the same general state as the first. Both held plastic cups in their hands.
We had gotten those cups from the Burger King Dumpster. As I walked in with my friend, whom I had "discovered" a few days ago was also homeless, the usual talking around us ceased and people turned around to gape at us. Even people like us didn't normally walk into a Burger King. We ignored the conspicuous stares and walked to the soda machine.
As I said before, I was working at the soda machine. When the two druggies walked toward me, I was intimidated, terrified that I had somehow angered him and that he was about to get even in some way. I backed away slowly, but the men only filled their dirty cups with ice and Coke and made their way into the dining room.
Everywhere we went, people looked up from their tables at us. To them, we were intruders in their normal, peaceful lives. There was no sound in the building except the dull hum of the air conditioning and the bustle of activity behind the counter, oblivious to events in the dining room.
We chose seats in the far corner of the room and sat down, ignoring once again the indignant looks of the people around us. I remember the thought that went through my head: Didn't their parents tell them staring is impolite?
I was once again in a moral dilemma. Two druggies had just stolen not only some trash, but Coke as well. I didn't know whether or not to tell the manager or some other employee. I was scared that the two men might be armed in some way and I didn't want anything like that to happen. Not in Ames.
Then, as I glanced at the two men, I caught the first man's eyes. He smiled at me briefly, not the forced, strained smile I expected, but with one that was warm and gentle.
My friend and I were talking to each other and telling each other stories. We laughed frequently, even though it unnerved the people near us. A few people left, but we didn't care. I looked around every couple minutes, however, to make certain no one official, like the manager, was in sight. The employee I had evidently frightened went resolutely back to work with the soda machine.
Then, during a break in our conversation, I watched as a man in an immaculate white suit walked out of a back room to the employee, who had turned to the basket of mints on the counter. He tapped the employee on the soldier and spoke something softly to him. Adrenaline filled my system; I didn't want to be in any sort of trouble, especially not when I was homeless.
The manager never acknowledged the dirty men in the back of the dining room - he probably didn't even notice them. I finished filling the basket and hurriedly clocked out. It was my leaving time, 8 o'clock. I walked quickly out the door without looking back one last time at the druggies. I haven't seen them since, and I really hope I never do.
First ten questions are mathematical; second ten questions are Englishy. Don't say I never made a quiz especially for you.
1) Using only three 5s and whatever mathematical operations you'd like to perform on them (multiplication, powers, hyperbolic cosine, et al.), come up with an equation that equals 29.
2) Using only three πs and whatever mathematical operations you'd like to perform on them (multiplication, powers, hyperbolic cosine, et al.), come up with an equation that approaches negative infinity.
3) Using only three xs and whatever mathematics operations you'd like to perform on them (multiplication, powers, hyperbolic cosine, et al.), come up with an equation that equals 53 for some x not equal to 52, 53, or 54.
4) Explain how a set of 53 lines in a plane could connect at a total of combined 100 points.
5) Martha has five apples. Margaret has seven apples. Michelle has 22 apples. Each person's apples are all sold for the same amount of money (each of Martha's is, say, 72¢), but the amount the apples are sold for varies from person to person (Michelle's might be 43¢). Each person bought their apples at the same price -- half of what Michelle is selling her apples for -- and each person will make the exact same total net profit if they sell all their apples. At minimum, how much does one of Martha's apples cost?
6) Jen has ten apples. While vacationing in sunny Iowa, Janice steals nine of Jen's apples. Assuming these apples were worth 95¢ each, what would be Janice's maximum possible jail time and/or fine?
7) By replacing the letters A, P, L, E, and S with five different numbers, solve the following long division problem:
LPPP0P r6 --------
S) APPLES
S
--
EP
EL
---
EP
EL
---
EL
EL
---
E
0 --
ES
EL
--
6
8) In which number base does the solution to 2+2 have the highest value?
9-10) Write a concise paragraph explaining the major problem with the mathematics in the Bowl Championship Series ratings; first person with the correct answer -- and there is one -- gets a half-point, and the best argument, regardless of correctivity, gets a half-point.
-----
11) Which is these words is not like the others?
gym, hmmphing, rhythm, shh, tsk
12) Which is these words is not like the others?
anachonistic, avent-garde, embochure, horrendous, nickleodeon
13) Insert the correct form (or forms) of "to be" in the following sentence: If I [to be] a doctor -- like my mother wanted me to -- or if I [to be] to die at an early age, or if Amy [to be] was out in Des Moines all day (like she said she was, and I guess I'll find out for sure tomorrow), I would [to be] a long, pointless sentence that cannot end in a proper manner.
14) Explain why many of the "haikus" in my old, long gone haiku contest were not technically haikus.
15) And tell us what they actually were.
16) Name at least three words where changing (or adding) a suffix in (to) the base word changes the pronunciation of the first part of the new suffixized word (e.g. anachronic/anachronism).
17) Name at least three words that end in "-ly" but are not adverbs.
18) Name at least three words that are adverbs but do not end in "-ly."
19-20) Invent two new words by suffixizing or prefixizing them (such as turning suffix into suffixizing and prefix into prefixizing); best two words each get a half-point.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 44.
A short note.
At exactly 5:00 p.m. Eastern today (that's 4:00 p.m. Central to those who did not learn to subtract in second grade), I will be posting the newest How Perfectly Swell Contest. Twenty questions, half-a-point each, first answer wins the goldfish, et alia. Please do have fun, if you would.
Friday Night Welcome-Home Kiss: B- A bit petite, minor; more of a peck than a kiss. Follow-up hug extended and intimate, which helps the above rating, but still middling as welcome-home kisses go. Participants likely distracted by upcoming weekend.
Friday Night Car Ride to Comedy Sportz: C Rather than try an innovative or creative path, the driver followed the same droning conduit that his passenger expected: Hungary to Woodman, Woodman to Staples Mill, left turn at the first light into the Ukrop's Shopping Center. Driver needs to be more uncharacteristic: Hungary straight to Staples Mill, perhaps, or Hungary to Woodman (as it becomes Hermitage) to Hilliard, then turn right on Staples Mill and backtrack a few blocks.
Friday Night 7:30 Richmond Comedy Sportz Show: B Perhaps a bit harsh on the rating -- the haiku finale is far superior to the "walk into a bar" game, and it did feature a performer drinking an audience member's beer -- but the unfortunate seating at the back of the room of the audience members with the greatest suggestions (where they could barely be heard: the only viable reason the referee would disregard the suggestion “Hershey’s gets bought out by the government of Liechtenstein”) was a poor decision on the part of the wait staff. Cuisine, tried for the first time at this venue, was ho-hum. Still, any show that has a four-headed monster answer the question, "Why did Michael Dukakis lose the 1988 presidential election to the first George Bush?" has a certain upside.
Friday Night/Saturday Morning Sleep: C- Fine until the midway point (approximately 3:00A), where the performer made the artistic decision to eschew a tender sleep for an avant-garde presentation of insomnia that led him, eccentrically, to sleep in the guest bedroom. Poor visualization and execution.
Saturday Morning Breakfast, Panera Bread, Cinnamon Crunch Bagel with Honey Walnut Cream Cheese: B As opposed to the "Friday Night Car Ride to Comedy Sportz," this incident -- while marked with the same unoriginality as "Ride" -- manages to make comfortable and passé feel novel yet contented.
Saturday Afternoon Shopping, Chesterfield Towne Center: C- Dismal; marked with the same issues of monotony as Virginia Center Commons and Regency Square Mall.
Saturday Evening Gillian Welch Concert: A- Welch and comrade David Rawlings are as talented live as they are on CD’s ones and zeros, marking out the limits to some fantastic, non-existent folk genre based in some Appalachian era that never existed. As technically wrong as Welch’s vocal embouchure is -- any accredited voice instructor would pry her mouth open -- her harsh yet mellifluous timbre remains haunting. Did death song "Caleb Meyer"; did not do death song "Wind and Rain"; made joke about how many death songs she does.
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning Sleep: B- Sequel better than the original "Friday Night/Saturday Morning Sleep," but still suffers from an post-performance drowsiness that is antithesis to the nature of sleep.
Sunday Morning Breakfast at Burger King with Bacon, Egg and Cheese Crossantwich: D No issue with taste, but certain consumers of the sandwich were known to have had to skip Sunday morning church services due to sickness that may have been caused by the sandwich; grade may be upgraded if other, more plausible causes of (very) short-term illness are found.
Sunday Morning Richmond Times-Dispatch Reading While Sick in Bed: C+ George Will missing from commentary section; travel section, as always, a waste; sports section irrelevant due to lack of Iowa State game. Fine otherwise.
Sunday Afternoon Octubafest Polka Band Rehearsal at Our Lady of Lourdes: B Euphonium player typically unrehearsed, and he continues to have low lip tolerance for high notes, but the rest of the band performed admirably, despite confusing German instructions on the music and numerous double codas.
Sunday Evening Mass at [Name of Guilty Catholic Church Removed]: C- Parking lot much less full than usual -- have they expanded, perhaps? -- but the priest is still too mannered and theatrical (he turns every final letter into a elongated "SSSSSSSSS" or "AAAAAAAYYYYYYYY" or [please no] "TTTTTTTTTTTT"; he speaks sing-songily, even during the Gospel reading), and the service, as in times past, has felt far closer to a performance than to a worship of God.
Sunday Evening Viewing of first two season-three episodes of "Sex in the City": C- Crapiddy crap crap. Even more stupidly narcissistic than "Will and Grace."
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 7.
Points they are a-changin'.
I am disappointed in my wife. However, I am proud of my mother. That all balances out, does it not? Special Iowa-centric1 one-point opportunity: With all those fractions, what does my point board remind me of? (I mean, of what does my point board remind me?) Special states-other-than-Iowa-centric three-point opportunity: I have on order from Barnes and Noble.com Sixpence's "Breathe Your Name"/"Northern Lights" single, which is supposedly going to come in one to two weeks. Closest prediction to the actual date I receive the CD wins the finger puppet. One prediction per person, moM.
---
Unnecessary subhead of the week: From MSNBC.com:
Jury Awards Ex-Smoker $28 Billion Philip Morris Says It Will Appeal
---
1 Although people with the correct experiences in certain other states could figure out what I'm talking about; it's actually something else-centric, but I can't really tell you what that something else is, can I?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 11.
So there are decisions to be made.
We are liking more and more the idea of Omnibus Mondays rather than Fridays because Mondays are days when our mind is not working so well and it is better not to have to think in an organized manner on Mondays. So we are going to do that. And then we will make Tuesdays quiz days, and perhaps we will bring back Choose What Matthew Will Write About Fridays, except we will make it Choose What Matthew Will Write About Wednesdays because we am thinking that Wednesdays are a better day for being led around by handcuffs. So that leaves Thursdays and Fridays and Weekends, and so this is what we are thinking:
1) Thursdays shall be Review Something At Length Thursdays, which is where I (I’m finally ditching the “royal we” today, yes) will review something at length. (Via a swiftly happening set of circumstances -- it started about six hours ago -- it seems that I will be writing a few music reviews for Plan 9's monthly music magazine, so that is quite swell.)
2) Fridays shall be I Have No Idea Fridays, which is where I will spend every Friday trying to come up with an idea that I can write about every Friday.
3) Weekends -- which are currently usually dark, as theatre folk say -- shall be Guest Commentary Weekends, which is where I do not have to do any work beyond simply hitting the "Post and Publish" button and on a bad day maybe also Control-C and Control-V. I have not asked Kimberly about this, but I believe I would like her to write the first guest commentary for Guest Commentary Weekends because she, um, I do not want to give it away, but she said to me regarding this happening, "If I had a blog, this is the type of thing that I would write in it." And so I was hoping that she would write about that this weekend. Will you, Kimberly?
So, Matthew, why do you feel this need to compartmentalize every day in this manner? Because.
Oh. That's right.
---
Possibilities for Choose What Matthew Will Write About Wednesdays! I was reminded of this failure of an experiment on Tuesday, when I gave one of those three fabled stories about Burger King that I was going to write about but never did to Jo[h]n for the basis of an English paper: an English paper that he will e-mail me very shortly and I will post on this website, yes, Jo[h]n? So because one of the stories is finally sneaking out, I do have a twinge of hope that this endeavor may flourish the second time.
Five possibilities you may vote for, or you may come up with your own:
1) A scathing statement about Craig Kilborn and his show that does not use the letter "r."
2) A sad soliloquy about the leaving of too many bell choir members (a list that now includes Lynn, for those who did not know).
3) A scintillating set of reviews about punctuation marks (A- for semicolon, C+ for left bracket, etc.)
4) A so-so submission listing the ten girls in my (either sophomore or junior; I can't remember) class with which a computer matching service said I was most romantically harmonious. (I do not know why anyone would vote for this, since only Ed and Beth-Annie would potentially know any of them, and we all know what they will vote for. But whatever.) (Oh, and in case Andrew is reading this: No, Buffy is not on there.)
5) A sufferable sonnet about Charles Nelson Reilly.
I know, I know: How can you possibly choose between so many quality choices?
That is, you do not want to read this post unless you are Ed or Beth-Annie or Alexander, because it is y'all whom1 I am writing this post for. If you are not one of them, please go down to the first set of three en-dashes.
Anyway, so I was searching the two most likely Richmond locations where the Nash/Slocum/et al. single might be located: Uber-music-store Plan 9 and uber-CBS Logos Bookstores. Plan 9 was a no go, so I went to Logos. After perusing the music section for too long (I could have gotten the new VOL, the live VOL, the new Poor Old Lu [already ordered], the new Bill Mallonee, the new Over the Rhine [have], and a blah blah blah), I didn't see it anywhere2 So there was this vaguely familiar guy overlooking the music section, and I asked him, and he said he didn't know about the single, but the new album would be coming out at the end of the month, and then some more crap I already knew, and then I ciaoed. All this time while he was continuing to look vaguely familiar.3
So once back at work, on a whim I went to Richmond Logos' website, and I figured out why he looked [awkward phrase removed]: The dude was Harry Gore of quasi-famous CCM indie band Harry Gore and the Measles. How cool is that?
Okay, not particularly.
But it at least partially makes up for the fact that there is no Sixpence single of "Breathe Your Name," nor will there ever be. Nope. This is all one massive, somber practical joke played on those of us who liked the band prior to "Kiss Me." I am sure of it.
---
Some have complained about the most recent contest; they have contested that such quizzes should begin at times that, say, high school students could also participate on even footing. To you I say: "Whatever." However, as I am the nicest person on the 1900 block of Washington Blvd.4, the next contest will start at 9:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday. It will be another first-one-who-answers-correctly-wins-the-baby-turtle contest, so please do be on-time.
---
I do not like getting my hair cut, even when the hairdresser does a fine job. I do not know why. I just thought I would share.
---
Devon: The rest of this entry is about television, and you do not care about television, and I do not want to take up any more of your precious homework-doing time, so please close down this window and do homework. You are welcome.
---
Why you should watch The West Wing: In one sentence last night, Donna mentioned Sixpence None the Richer -- the full name, even! -- Aimee Mann, and the made-up-band One-Celled Paramecium. Also, the episode had an intentionally comic scene in which Lincoln, Nebraska was hit by a Chinese nuclear missile. That was awesome.
---
Four observations regarding likely the only episode of "Ed" I will see until Thanksgiving:
1) Of course Ginnifer Goodwin is more attractive pre- than post-. I mean really.5 2) I do not like the new bowling-alley worker.
3) Kim and I actually came away with different interpretations of the ending: She thought that Ed was implying that they would no longer be friends, and I believed that Ed was implying that he would remain a friend yet stay out of her pre-marital business. Even watching the previews of next episode, I am unsure which analysis is correct. I’m usually all about ambiguity in television and movies, but this…this seemed unintentionally ambiguous; if it wasn’t, how would Carol know what Ed’s answer was?
4) I’ve mentioned this before to Joshua Edward, but I’m not sure I’ve written it here: “Ed” would be a better show if he just owned a bowling alley and did not practice law in addition, as is evidenced by this pretty-good episode.
---
I cannot believe that Craig cut off Charles Nelson Reilly after only three minutes of his story Wednesday morning. That is extraordinarily rude.
---
The last five minutes of last night's "Law & Order" were the worst I've seen in television in many-a-month. I officially give up on Orbach & Co.
---
1 There is something inherently obscene about following a "y'all" with a "whom."
2 I should not nit-pick about the greatest CBS east of the Ohio, but I cannot think of a crappier way to organize music than by distributor: Diamante, Word, etc. How I am supposed to know who Sixpence's distributor is, hmm?
3 That's right. He never stopped looking vaguely familiar. Thank you for noticing my gawky phrasing.
4 Kim will not let me list our real address, but that looks real enough, doesn’t it? You would have believed me without this footnote, would have you not6?
5 Also, I wasn’t terribly happy with the brash transition she made during the course of the episode; the whole geek-turned-beauty-queen should have been handled with more nuance.
Some person or persons have been pestering me for the answers to my most recent quiz, and I have been not prompt in this request because I am having difficultly remembering some of the answers. That is not perfectly swell.
So. Anyway. Here is what I remember:
1) 6 Planets Other Than This One and Uranus and Venus.
2) 35 C. on the D. P. to the G. B. T. in the S. H. T. B. [Dang. I still cannot remember this one. Three points to whoever figures this out.]
5) 3 Bears Whose Porridge Was Tasted By Goldilocks.
6) 1 Sheriff I Shot but Zero Deputies.
7) 49 States After California Falls into the Pacific Ocean.
8) 3 Downs in American Football Before one Should Usually Punt.
14) 33 Puzzles Before This One if one Includes Last Round.
15) 143 Stripes in Eleven Flags. [Fine: American Flags.]
17) 42 American Presidents if one Doesn't Include Grover Cleveland Twice.
20) 5 Visible Knuckles on a Man Who Is Wearing A Glove on One of His Hands and Has Not Lost Any Knuckles on the Hand That Is Not Wearing the Glove.
And as a bonus, the one unsolved clue from the first round:
4) 27 Amendments to the Constitution.
---
New quizzy quiz: Fun with geography!.
Twenty questions, each worth half-a-point:
1) Take the name of this state. Rearrange the letters into a two-word phrase that Anna Nicole Smith might use to start the sentence "_____ 9:00 sharp." What is that state and phrase?
2) Name the European country that shares 100 percent of its border with another country.
3) Name a state capital that shares its name with a nation.
4) Change the first letter of the name of this European country, and it becomes the name of a certain famous resident of Florida. Name the country.
5) Change the first and last letters of the name of this Asian country, and it becomes Qzerbaijax. Name the country.
6) According to Yahoo! Maps, what state capital is 26 hours, 46 minutes from Richmond, Virginia?
7) What is the closest town to Iowa Falls, Iowa that has a population bigger than Iowa Falls', and how far is it away?
8) What is the closest town to Anchorage, Alaska that has a population bigger than Anchorage's, and how far is it away?
9) What is the closest town to New York City, New York that has a population bigger than New York's, and how far is it away?
10) Take the letters of this body of water, rearrange them, and you get "Atlantic Canoe." Name that body of water.
11) In what Michigan county was Charles Prins shot and killed by police in the spring of 1998?
12) What is the aesthetically coolest state as judged by looking at an American map?
13) What country has the most people per capita?
14) In what state does "The Weekenders" take place?
15) Name a John Denver song that does not include a state in the lyrics. (Note: The "Plant a Tree" commercial does not count.)
16) If a state's "score" is their number of vowels minus their number of consonants, what state (or states) has (or have) the highest score (or scores)?
17) Take the letters of this African country, rearrange them, and you get "Bunko Safari." Name that country.
18) What is the 53rd tallest mountain in the world?
19-20) Essay: Write one concise paragraph explaining why Liechtenstein should be viewed as its own continent.
See, this -- this! -- is why one should not listen to Beth-Annie.
I am mortified. I am a casualty of Beth-Annie's confidence. Irrationally believing Sixpence's website, I spent five-sixths of my lunch hour today investigating four different stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, Barnes & Noble, and some Lemstone-esque1 CBS with a name I cannot remember) for a copy of the band's "Breathe Your Name"/"Northern Lights" single that was -- of course, no doubt, must be, can’t even consider alternate possibilities -- released today. I know this because that is the day it was scheduled to be released. Fortunately, I found the single in all four stores, and I am now playing it on my computer's CD-ROM, on the CD player in my bedroom, in my stereo next to the television downstairs, and in my DVD player.
Ha! That is just a bit of humor to obscure the disillusionment that was going ought-for-four earlier today. So, post-lunch, what do I do next? I go online to a number of stores (Amazon, B&N, Circuit City, Buy.com, Deep Discount CD, etc.), and what do they tell me? "Yes, Matthew, we will ship it today? " No. At each store, the CD was either (a) backordered or (b) "will take one to two weeks for delivery." That, that is a dire, dire sign.
Story time: This is not the first time I have had trouble finding a Sixpence CD. Before the ubiquitousness of "Kiss Me" and the more-annoying ubiquitousness of "There She Goes," I spent four evenings in a row my junior year in college doing little else but look for Sixpence's (then) brand-new self-titled album, checking the same stores four times in four straight days to see if any stock had come in. (It's easy to forget just how obscure they used to be.) On the third day, I took the 75-minute one-way drive to Paducah, Kentucky to check a couple stores for the album. Nope. One the fourth day, I took the 75-minute one-way drive to Carbondale, Illinois (with my friend Melissa, who inexplicably wanted to come along for the ride) to check a couple stores for the album. The second store had two copies. I bought them both.2
---
1 Hi. I would like to take this opportunity to post the mission statement of Beth-Annie's mother's employer, written in the same lowercase as on Lemstone's website: "welcome to the lemstone books in ames, ia. the store is located at the south end of north grand mall by sears and is owned by steve and char vankerckvoorde. 'upon entering the store you can expect to receive friendly, courteous service from any of the staff members. our passion is to exceed customers's [sic] expectations and match them with products that will meet their needs.'" I dunno. That just reads curious to me, especially with the atypical lack of capitalization. Annie, tell your mother to make them use larger letters at the beginning of words that begin sentences or are proper nouns. Thank you.
2 Okay, fine: I only bought one. But doesn't the story end better the other way?
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
