Clue of the Day. You do not deserve a Clue of the Day because you have figured too much out too quickly. So just go here and put me out of my misery, won't you?
Since you are asking: No, I could not possibly have a race shorter than a marathon as my goal below. But thank you for your stupid thoughts.
I have belched out my worries, so they are in me no more. I was getting apprehensive about "12 Stories About Eileen" not having been accepted to the Vinegar Hill Film Festival with barely three weeks left before the screenings, but I have been told my the organizer that they have not looked at the tapes yet. Whew.
Song Going Through My Head Today of the Week: John Anderson's "Countrified", which, and this will make no sense to anyone except moM and Ed and Kim, was a KIFG song from my childhood. I want an MP3 of it, please, despite that (now that I've looked at the lyrics for the first time) it's a really idiotic song.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 13.
Please tell me where to go from here.
So now that I have walked/runned my 10K, if I am to continue this putting one leg in front of the other at a marginally quick clip, I need to decide what my ultimate goal is. Here are five thoughts:
Advantages: Path goes within...oh, wait, I'm sorry. I forgot to put up the logo.
Ah. Much better. Anyway, advantages: Path comes within five miles of my house at its closest. 24-week training program exists, put on by the same fine folks who did my successful 10K program, and at the informational meeting I went to while picking up my 10K packets, I was told that about a third of those who were in the program finished the race in over five hours, which means that I will not be the only slow one.
Disadvantages: To finish the race before it officially closes at six hours (they continue clocking times for another hour or so, but the roads will be open to traffic), I'd need to keep up a 13:44/mile pace, which is virtually equivilant to the 13:38/mile pace that I had during the 10K, which I see as difficult to keep up over more than 40K.
Advantages: Doesn't close for seven hours, which means I'd need to keep up a 16:01/mile pace, and I could almost walk a 16:01/mile pace. Not too far from home; one night in a hotel would be the only extra expense. One of the fifteen or so largest marathons in the country, numberwise.
Disadvantages: No training program -- I mean, I could sign up for the Richmond training program and the Baltimore Marathon, I guess, but the cost of that program ($125, I believe) includes being signed up for the Richmond Marathon, and I am not going to do both, thank you kindly.
Advantages: It's Chicago! Certain in-laws and brothers and maybe even parents could see me fail. Largest marathon in the country, numberwise; it's even bigger than Boston (if only because one must qualify for Boston).
Disadvantages: Expensive -- not only the marathon itself ($80), but travel. No training program. Six-hour cutoff (or six-and-a-half, depending how you read it).
I was so, so, so, so close to my goal time of 1:25 that I can smell it. (It reeks of sweat, as one might guess.) I officially started the race about six minutes after the gun, and I finished the race just under 1:31, so I will be v. v. close to my closer-to-80-minutes-than-90 goal. I need to check here over and over and over again until they post the official results.
Late-breaking update: 1:24:44, thank you much. (If you don't believe me, and why would you, click here and enter bib number 6666.) I finished a not-too-terrible 5930th out of 7469, which means 1539 people ate my shorts. Statistics that are less pleasing to me:
Eight of the 10 boys age nine and under beat me.
Three of the 5 girls age nine and under beat me (including, and I'm not sure I believe this, five-year-old Ann Robertson).
Six women over the age of 65 beat me (including Ruth Dulaney, 70, who trounced me by six minutes).
23 men over the age of 65 beat me (including Wheeler Stanfield, 74, who walloped me by 20 minutes, which is awfully cool of him while still being depressing to me; good job, Mr. Stanfield).
Of the 93 25-year-old men in the race, I finished 91st.
Of the 53 Matthews, Matts and (one) Mattie in the race, I finished 52nd. (And no, it wasn't the Mattie I beat, thank you.)
It is tomorrow, the race is, and I am very much not ready, mostly because of the lack of training I have done since the beginning of the London trip. (I was doing very well prior, but.) My doable goal is to finish closer to 80 minutes than 90 minutes, which should put me ahead of about 15 percent of the participants, and you can see if I met the goal Saturday afternoon (so they say) over hereish. (The chip time is the time that I care about -- it is the time from when my left foot crosses the starting line to when my left foot crosses the finish line.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, absent.
Pro-America confusion of the week.
When a radio station says to itself, "Self, it is time to play patriotic, pro-America music," what is the first song that it pulls out of its metaphoric CD rack? Of course, "Born in the USA," because, "BORN IN THE USA! I WAS BORN IN THE USA! I'M A COOL ROCKIN' DADDY IN THE USA!" And no one cares about the verses because, well, it's Bruce, and Bruce has the diction of Bob Dylan. To some of you this will not be new, but here are the non-"Born in the USA" lyrics to "Born in the USA":
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
...
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
...
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says, "Son if it was up to me."
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said, "Son, don't you understand now."
Had a brother at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Now here to run ain't got nowhere to go
Oh, yeah. Real patriotic. That said, it's a much better song than any patriotic ditty that they could call up, particularly "God Bless the USA" by the bankrupt man's John Denver, Lee Greenwood:
From the lakes of Minnesota
To the hills of Tennessee
Across the plains of Texas
From sea to shining sea
From Detroit down to Houston
And New York to L.A.
There's pride in every [yes, every single one] American heart
And it's time we stand and say
I am sure I have ticked off someone with my dissin' of "God Bless the USA," but I do not yet know whom. It will be interesting to find out.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 8.
Woo hoo of the week.
My mother, known to all as moM, was accepted into the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) licensed ministry program yesterday. Woo hoo!
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 10.
And number ten from the last contest has been answered.
I am very disappointed in all of you except for Kim, who finally came up with the answer: 1 Vasectomy Dr. Phil Has Had and Had Reversed. Yay Kim.
I am very disappointed in me, because I did not post a clue today. How sad. How bad. You must be mad.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 7.
I am too lazy to come up with a witty headline.
Clue number 2: Frito-Lay (Recall that we know that it is somewhere in Iowa.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 15.
Kinky.
Because one Stupid Virginia-Based Play of the Week is not enough, I have spent a few lunches the past week revising my short play that takes on the forbidden topic of girl/tree romance. It is now creatively called "Girl and Tree," it is now about nine minutes long (at least during my mental reading), and it is now available as a PDF file here. It is about one-third pretty decent and about two-thirds snotcrap. (A quarter-point if your favorite moment in it is the same as mine.) It flows as if it were written by the bastard love child of David Mamet and Samuel Beckett (assuming it was logistically possible for them to have a bastard love child). Really, I need to be much further removed from it to decide whether I like it or not; regardless, I am going to send it tomorrow or Friday to here because why not. If you see stupid mistakes in the play or in the formatting, let me know.
Please read the sample text starting, ironically, at the words "Sample Text" on this page. And prepare yourselves for the surprise ending!
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 12.
Strange contest idea.
Okay. This may be a bit weird, but hang in with me. I am thinking of a place. A very specific place, such as, "In the Eddie Bauer in the Mall of America." (I do not know if there is an Eddie Bauer in the Mall of America, but that is the picture you should be getting.) You are to guess that specific place. There are 7 points available, one point for each step along the way where you get closer and closer to the right answer. For example, point one for the above could be "North America." And point two could be "the United States." In the example, if you were to guess "Alaska," and no one yet had guessed either "North America" or "the United States," then you would get two points because Alaska is within blah blah blah. So your guesses should be as specific as possible.
This will all make more sense as we play it than it does right now.
I will give a clue every day at 5:00P. Each person gets one guess between 5:00P and the next 5:00P unless their answer got them points, in which case they could guess again. I am going to give you the bonus clue that this place is on the Earth, slightly above the Earth, or slightly below the Earth. Okay, then.
Clues for last week's contest. These clues are meant to be ever-so-helpful so we can close down this contest.
4) Math. 5) Phone.
10) Letterman. (This is my very favorite contest question and I will be sad if no one gets it.)
14) Stallone. 15) Phone.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, absent.
Stupid gay and lesbian statistical breakdown of the week.
Please recall that New Jersey is 100 percent urban and 0 percent rural when you look at the final chart on this page.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 2.
Five things that are strange.
1) My hatred of hair cuts.
2) My love of trees in playwriting and screenwriting.
3) People whom I do not know who comment on one of my tree-obsessed plays weeks after I'd posted it and then I don't see the comments to reply to their comments until three months later, and then because they left their e-mail address I do not know if I should write them back because are they going to remember what they wrote three months earlier on some website that they never visited again? I think not.
4) The horrendousness that is England Dr. Pepper.
5) The violent dreams that I have after violent world events. I had one last night, which was the first one that I'd had since a couple days after 9/11/01 (in which Peter Jennings, while giving a nightly newscast, gets shot in the head by his cue-card guy [a cue-card guy that he wouldn't have, I know -- he would have a teleprompter -- but dreams are not logical]).
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 8.
Clues.
4) The two "T"s are the same word.
5) Upon reflection, I think I've done this exact same bit before, except reversed.
7) Don't ignore your intuition.
8) There's some book that would help.
9) There's some musical that would help.
10) You figure out the V-word, and it all falls into place.
12) Ditch the letters S. and K., and then you can subtract a few from 29.
14) There's some movies that would help.
15) If you ditch the parenthentical, you could potentially subtract a few from 10.
19) The first two "D"s are the same word.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, absent.
Part two starting now.
I think some of these are just too easy.
11) 4 C. that M. U. the U. K. 12) 29 L. (K.) in the S. A. 13) 4,014,489,600 S. I. in a S. M. 14) 4 R. S. (N. I. the O.) 15) 10 D. in a P. N. (if Y. I. the A. C.) 16) 997 P. (out of a T.) W. L. W. 3 S. D. of the M. 17) 720 W. M. in a H. D. 18) 2880 H. M. in a W. D. 19) 1 D. K. in a D. C.; they J. H. D. S. P. 20) 92 B. of B. on the W. A. S. H. B. T. D. and P. A.
Clues on both sets start tomorrow, so do not be too discouraged. Yet.
Also, do not forget about the quickly closing b-ball point opportunities from Monday; if no one else enters the pool, then more points for me.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 20.
Change o' plan.
Rather than write a one-act play, as implied in my outdated anti-lethargy list, I am going to write a full-length play. Someone please find some contest that has a date at least a month out, and someone else give me some, you know, play ideas.
Okay, how about this: First ten now, second ten at 5:00P tomorrow. Good? Good.
Half-point each, per usual.
1) 23 C. to S. a P. 2) 63 S. and S. in the A. F. 3) 282 S. D. U. C. (as of T.) 4) 4 E. T. P. T. 5) 2 L. M. from S. T. K.
6) 6 D. T. Z. that C. A. 7) 9 S. in the A. for W. W. W. as O. to 3 S. in the W. W. W. W. 8) 490 T. W. S. F. O. (A. to J.) 9) 2 B. on a D. B. E. 10) 1 V. that D. P. H. H. and H. R.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 35.
We sold our cow.
Correct answers to the vacation quiz listed in the comments. Points up-to-date. We at How Perfectly Swell are going to try really, really hard to get back on schedule with the Tuesday, 5:00P Eastern quiz schedule, starting today: 20 of those "88 K. on a P." things that will hopefully be difficult but not too difficult. And for a bonus half-point: Explain this post's title as it relates to this post. (If no one else, Ed should be able to get it.)
Dear Anyone Whom I Will See In The Next Month Who Is Neither A Friend Nor A Particularly Close Acquaintance:
Hi. To those of you who do not know me, my name is Matthew Prins. I live in Henrico County, Virginia, probably not very far from where you live. During my prayers before bed last night, I made a request to God that he send me the list of everyone I would come in contact with during the next month, and this morning he e-mailed that list to me, a list which included your name and address. (I removed all friends and close acquaintances from this list, so be assured that by receiving this e-mail that you are neither.)
You see, I have had a problem the last five days that I am trying to rectify, and I believe the only way to rectify the situation is to write a letter to everyone whom I will see in the next month. It has come to my attention that certain people who are neither friends nor close acquaintances of mine -- and in fact are sometimes nearly perfect strangers to me -- believe that I am a good person to direct their gripes about other people to. In fact, five times since Thursday, in three very different situations, people who are neither friends nor close acquaintances of mine have in essence taken me aside and said, "Ugh! Can you believe that [someone else's name]? They said I [did bad thing], but they [did other bad thing], and poor, poor me!" (I will admit that not all of the statements were quite this blatant, but three were close.) Ironically, in four of the five situations, I was actually a closer "friend" to the complainee than the complainer. In all five of the situations, I responded in the way I generally respond: a look downward followed by a weak shrug of the shoulders -- a combination that ought to imply concerned indifference or some other oxymoron. Alas, this does not seem to be having the desired effect, and now I am getting tense any time anyone pulls me to the side to have a conversation regarding please don't complain about someone please don't complain about someone please don't whew it's just about the NCAA tournament pool. I believe I may have rolled my eyes at person number five's complaint -- I am not sure -- but I am sick of this.
I realize that I will have to deal with these situations again during my lifetime, but all I would like is a month-long hiatus. That is why I am writing to you. Before you say something to someone you barely know such as "Is does that guy hate me, or does he act all b****y to everyone?" -- a near-direct quote from this week, mind -- please ask yourself: Is the person I am telling this too male? Do I know his name? Can I be positive that it is not Matthew Prins? If it is Matthew Prins, am I positive that he is a friend of mine? Please, think before you fink.
There will be a 1, 2, 4, and 6 seed in this year's Final Four, methinks. You thus have a one-in-24 chance of guessing what teams I have chosen as the fourth-round winners in this year's men's NCAA tourney. For one-and-a-half points, guess them. If you know how to cheat, please do not.
---
For another one-and-a-half points, win Yahoo! Men's NCAA Pick 'Em Private Group No. 40462, password CNR (for the greatest actor in the history of film, of course). Does Yahoo! no longer have a women's NCAA pick 'em? For shame.
A needle pulling thread. I am going to send off my "12 Stories About Eileen" MiniDV tape in the next weekish and get it turned into a DVD. And then I am going to take that single DVD and turn it into numerous DVDs for about $5 a shot. Gluteus maximus. I do not know how many that I should order. There is a minimum of 5, and I do not get a price break until 100 (and then barely one).
I need help, then. Here is the thing, then. My plan was to send out free VHS copies of "12 Stories" to 13 people/families: Chris, Mom/Dad, Devon, Paul, Alexander, Annette, Ed/Beth-Annie, Opie, Lindsey/Jessica, my boss, Jo[h]n, Andrew, and Kim's parents. However, for only $4 paid via cash or check (the cost difference between a DVD and VHS), I will substitute a DVD for the VHS for any of these entities. Yes, I am a cheapskate. (Mom/Dad and Ed/Beth-Annie do not have to pay for their upgrades, because they are family. Kim's parents wouldn't either, except they don't have a DVD player.) So, if this is something that you would like to upgrade to, please let me know in the next weekish.
Also, I hear that copies of "12 Stories About Eileen" make great Easter egg stuffers if you have giant Easter eggs to put them in. Eight bucks I will sell them to you for, shipping inclusive. Preorder today. Or, you know, tomorrow. Sunday's fine, too.
Ten questions. Each worth a point. Kim is inelidgidgable, except where noted. Closest answer wins. Last day to post answers: Mondayish.
Points all fixed. Top seven finishers last year get a slight head start.
1) To the nearest two letters and three numbers, what was the flight number on the first leg of our trip?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 5.
2) In Iceland Air's in-flight magazine's article that listed 20 supposedly great things about Iceland, how many dealt with male genitalia?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 6.
3) What is the ratio of pieces of Björk memorabilia bought in Iceland to pieces of Björk memorabilia bought in England to pieces of Björk memorabilia bought in Spain?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 6.
4) To the nearest letter (using either artist last name or name of group), what musical artist did Kim and I miss in London by less than a week that we both would have wanted to see?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 8.
5) How many attempts did Kim and I make to see or purchase tickets to the longest running play in the world, “The Mousetrap,” before successfully doing so?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 5.
6) To the nearest fraction less than one, about how far into “The Mousetrap” (yes, we did finally see it) did Matthew guess the Big Secret of who the killer was? (Kim elidgidgable, although she does have extra knowledge; she knows at what point I told her who the killer was, even though I knew a bit before then.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 8.
7) To the nearest one-sentence description (as judged by me), what was unusual about the boarding procedure used on our Madrid-to-London EasyJet flight?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 10.
8) As of today, how long as the Central London Underground line been closed? (Kim elidgidgable.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 6.
9) To the nearest percent, how full was my Yahoo! mailbox on Monday, despite the fact that I had cleaned out a bunch of it in Madrid? (Kim elidgidgable.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 7.
10) To the nearest one-sentence description (as judged by me), what will be unusual (and likely disastrous) about an upcoming London revival of an ‘80s play by one of my favorite playwrights? (Kim elidgidgable as long as she’s forgotten what I told her.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 11.
European art.
The greatest piece of art housed in Spain: Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas." Three or four different sources at Madrid's Museo del Prado spouted statements that said, effectively, that "Las Meninas" is not only the greatest Spanish painting of the 17th century, but the greatest painting of the 17th century, period. I am inclined to actively ignore such statements out of hand, but just as sure as the Lord made little green apples this is one heckuva work. What is the artist shown in "Las Meninas" painting? The girl at the center? The two adults seen in the mirror at the back? Us? And what use of proportion; it must have taken Velázquez months just to work out all the lines in the painting (not seen well in the image I linked to). Kim and I must have spent close to ten minutes in front of the work, thinking, thinking, thinking.
The greatest piece of art housed in England: Rebecca Horn's "Concert for Anarchy," which, when translated from pretentious English into conventional English, roughly means "The Killer Piano." See. This is the thing. There is a large room in the Tate Modern. In this room are about four pieces of art. One of them is a baby grand piano, all closed up, suspended from the ceiling perhaps 10 feet from the floor. Trés bien, I thought. This work is challenging my inborn perceptions of pianos. Pianos are on the floor, and this piano is in the air. Interesting. (This is only somewhat sarcastic; my perception of "Anarchy" at that point struck equilibrium between enchanting and kinda stupid.) So I said to myself, "Self, I am going to stand under that suspended piano." And so I stood directly under the piano, looking up, when there was a loud atonal piano chord coupled with a loud creaking coupled with a giant piano seemingly falling to the floor. I ran about 10 feet, peed-pants-worried1, looked back, and saw this. Perhaps five minutes later, while some softer atonal piano chords were played, the piano atrophied back to its original position. The work’s inconsequential unless one searches far and wide for some tortuous subtext, but it is absolutely, utterly awesome.
---
1 Please trust me when I say that I mean that solely metaphorically.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 2.
Requisite film post before I start discussing my vacation (which I do hope Kim will summarize in an e-mail to me that I can post here so I can be lazy).
It has been almost two weeks, and I have not heard back from any of the three projection entities that I sent "12 Stories About Eileen" to. I assume that this is because my film is a red blot on the pure white slate of cinema, and not because two of the entities would not be showing my film until summer at the earliest and thus have no reason to tell me yet and that the third entity is still accepting entries. That is what I am assuming.
Also, it has been almost two weeks, and I have not heard back from any of the two familial entities that I sent "12 Stories About Eileen" to. Well.
Also, if you were in the film, you will be receiving a VHS copy of the film in, oh, two weeks, after I add a couple pictures from Andrew V. and fix a couple timing issues and little things I've mentioned before and perhaps integrating comments from those few who have seen the film thus far.
Also, I have decided that my next film needs to be about money, at least implicitly, because that is the theme of the Virginia International Film Festival this year and that would be quite awesomely cool to have my film play there. I have until July 1. Please help with ideas.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 11.
Something sad always happens when I'm on vacation.
So we are in Spain; specifically, we are at an Internet cafe in what we will call the Times Square of Madrid. In Spain, they apparently use these snotcrap keyboards where there is no at sign, but there is a ñ key. Please figure that out. (The ñ is where the semicolon should be; let me tell you what trouble this is causing semicolon-happy me. Also, the dash key has been replaced by the useful ¡ key.)
Anyway. This is what I will tell you about our trip thus far, glossing over the boring good stuff to give you the stuff that is less good but also importantly less boring:
1) There was no ice in Iceland.
2) Our London hotel was very lovely and upgraded our room and it has this great location approximately 100m away from the Central line in the London Underground (known in Paris as le tube). Of course, the Central line has been closed for the past month due to an accident and will not reopen until the week after we leave. (Kim would like to point out that we do not know the veracity of that final phrase, but I know in my heart of hearts that it is true.)
3) The equal sign is where the ) should be. Ugh.
4= Ugh.
5) Apparently, channels 6 through 11 on our Madrid´s hotel´s television are used for hardcore porn previews, which we were kindly not informed of. Well.
6) Really more of a 3´, but because of the closing of the Central line, the London buses that go approximately 10m from our hotel are always filled to the brim with the fresh taste of people who will not get off at our stop and be nice and let us on.
Okay. Let us say some positive things that are also boring.
1) We saw the reconstruction -- no, no, recreation, as we were told again and again -- of Shakespeare´s Globe Theatre. Trés bien.
2= Ugh.
3) Kim´s Spanish skills are supurb for an ugly Americana; she´s already held four or five decent conversations with service people. Yay Kim.
As this is becoming more of a postcard, and I am no good at postcards, Kim is taking over. She has six minutes before our time runs out.
I have always loved postcards -- both writing and receiving. Here goes:
Having a great time here on our European adventure! We had a lovely view of Hyde Park from our hotel in London, where we went shopping at the art fair that´s held around the park every Sunday. We bought 2 paintings -- one that Matthew preferred and I could like, and one that I preferred and he could like. We used the beautiful weather on Sunday to cross the Thames and tour the Globe. On Saturday, we wandered around Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus, but when it started raining we hopped the Tube and finished off our day with some shopping at Harrod´s. We tried to see a movie that evening, but it was sold out, and most of the movies were very expensive and movies we hadn´t even really wanted to see at home. In any case, we had a nice time in our start in London and are looking forward to a few days here in Spain.
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.
