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So, um, I definitely need to get to the December Over the Rhine show in D.C. or Baltimore.
From Linford: "We always try to do something a little different on these December tours, and we decided to spread the love around somewhat as far as the band goes for these particular [Christmas] shows. Devon Ashley (one of two drummers we used on OHIO) will be joining us this time out, and Matt Slocum (of Sixpence None the Richer) will be playing cello and guitars."
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Trivia question that you have no way of knowing the answer to but hey try it anyway of the week.
I recently put in a Best Buy order at work for five desk chairs, each weighing somewhat above 30 pounds. All five have been shipped via USPS, and for reasons that are not evident to me, each was shipped separately. I have the USPS weights for each of those chair-packages to the nearest ounce. The question: In ounces, what is the difference between the heaviest identical chair and the lightest identical chair? (Slight hint: The answer is greater than zero.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
The hidden tribulations of moving, no. 1.
So I was driving back from D.C. with Kimberly two weekends ago, and about five miles outside of Richmond I thought, "Huh. I do not know the quickest route to our new house." And during those five miles, I came up with five different paths, all of which would have taken about 15-20 minutes from the Richmond outskirts, by my reckoning. I did not know which to take, and on my next trip to D.C., I still do not know which to take. This is more annoying to me than you would guess.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
The ceiling saga is over
That's right, folks. Our bathroom ceiling is fixed, or at least as fixed as it's getting. I still can see where the hole was, but of course I'm going to be the harshest critic...or so I think. You be the judge.
oh so lovingly written by
Kimberly
How Perfectly Swell Marginally Cool Friday Giveaway!
Five choices, I am only taking the first two requests, don't cry for me French
Guiana, etc.
a) An empty box that has written on the outside, "WARNING: VOLATILE AIR MOLECULES ENCLOSED."
b) The name of the upcoming winner of "Survivor: Pearl Islands" on a piece of paper, to be sent by this coming Wednesday. If I am wrong and the name of the future winner is not on this piece of paper, I will pay you $200. I am completely serious about the $200. (I will not pay you $200 if I am late, although I promise I will make a good-faith effort to get this giveaway out on time.)
c) A sucky black 900 Mhz cordless phone that has never worked particularly well.
d) Two bathroom faucets that are in fine working order but that neither Kim or I particularly likes so we are replacing them this weekend. (Note: This is contingent on me successfully putting in the two replacement faucets we have bought.)
e) The entire contents of my upper-left-hand desk drawer at work, because no one requested it either of the three previous times and I have it all boxed up and everything.
All requests have been caught up upon, I believe, except Alex's, and his is not because I want to send him a copy of "Eileen" along with his requests.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
What it is that I am looking for.
A good pumpkin pie recipe. By 7:00p Eastern. Today.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
For those pining to see film no. four.
I have been wondering when I would be able to give y'all copies of my latest (and in about 75 percent of ways, best) film, "S.C." I had not heard from the man with the film's master in about a month, and after a conversation that Kim and I had a couple days ago, I was ready to e-mail him with my pleadings to please, please let me have a MiniDV copy of my film.
Fortunately, I received an e-mail from him today saying, hi, I am late, but I am going to try to get this on MiniDV next week, and hopefully I will be able to give everyone their copies so "we'll have something for you to take home to mom [sic] over the holiday."
Also, Opie has told me that he is sending the "Patty Gets a Haircut" master to me in the near future, so I will edit that and maybe I will have that done by Christmas as well.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
If Garfield's canine friend had comments on his weblog, like proper webloggers ought, I would comment that...
..."30,000 Pounds of Bananas", specifically the live version, is his crowning achievement.
Harry Chapin's Greatest Stories...Live! was my family's travelin' music when I was a child; specifically, I remember listening to the album every time moM, daD, Ed, Ryan Dougan (a childhood and adolescence friend) and I would go to away football games and watch the Iowa Falls Cadets cream the Hampton Bulldogs, or cream the Clear Lake Lions, or cream the Eagle Grove Eagles, or lose to the Webster City Lynx. Greatest Stories...Live! us so ingrained in me at this point that there's no way for me to listen to the album objectively and know whether I would have liked his music had I started listening to it at age 26. All I know is that it means something to me because of my history with it. It will be like with my children and Steve Taylor's Squint.
Speaking of Iowa Falls, it is my new goal in life to either the second or third most famous resident of Iowa Falls ever (either before or after Bill Riley, but certainly after Nick Collison). We shall see. Hopefully the play I am working on, "Father, Daughter, and Holy Spirit," will win a Pulitzer, and that will help.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Um.
Andrew. Please get your comment system working properly enough for me to switch to it. Thank you. If you are not Andrew, or even if you are Andrew, and you are getting zero comments when you ought get more than that, please go to here, and login as username "mdprins," password "[e-mail Matthew for the password]." (AP style mandates I put punctuation within the quote marks; however, you should not when logging in.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Marathoning.
I have been good so far in my walk-a-marathon training, which has (perhaps only temporarily) supplanted my run-a-less-than-marathon training. I am in week two, and I have only missed one of the six scheduled walks thus far. (This does not include the walk today, which I will miss due to winds so velociful that they blew down some of the gutters on our new house -- gutters that made it through Hurricane Isabel fine, mind.) So. This is the pledge I make to you all. If I am successful keeping to the program through week 8 -- the week that ends on January 3rd, and the week in which I have my first 10-mile walk -- I am going to plunk down my $50 for registration in the Shamrock Marathon and book a Friday-night hotel room in Virginia Beach, as a major incentive for me to keep with the program. I legitimately feel that this is possible -- after all, I have 450 minutes to finish the race, and if I can't walk 17 minutes to the mile, well, I don't deserve the nickname "Edwin Moses." Fortunately, that is not my nickname, so it's all good.
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Realization of the day, the day being yesterday.
You know, when I don't have to four-in-hand, I can be a pretty awesome bell-ringer.
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A quarter, two dimes, and a penny.
There is a change coming to How Perfectly Swell. A quiet change. A gentle change. A straightforward and honest change to sit with me in a cottage somewhere in the state of Iowa.
Ahem. Sorry. Let us just say that it is for those more interested in us than in me.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Standardized test of the day.
Kim and I did well on this one, as I recall.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
I have been hoodwinked.
I was looking at the Iowa State women's basketball schedule on Yahoo on Friday, and I saw that on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Iowa State had an away game at Virginia Tech -- a team which, as you might have guessed from the name, is based in Virginia. So I was happy, and this morning I went to Virginia Tech's website to get more information about the game, and while it is an away game for Iowa State, it is apparently also an away game for Virginia Tech. In the Virgin Islands. I cannot drive to the Virgin Islands, so thus flutters away that Thanksgiving plan.
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We are lame.
This past Friday night, Kim and I went to five different K-Mart stores. I am not joshing.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
How Perfectly Swell Marginally Cool Friday Giveaway!
Five this week, but I am only taking the first two requests (and leaving the rest for next week):
a) A CD copy of a program (version 1.4.3) that will help you comply with the privacy regulations within the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
b) A signed copy of my arrangement for five octaves of handbells of "Christmas Is..."
c) A 14"x20" piece of orange translucent paper with the words "einblick," "insight," and "apercu" printed in red block letters upon it.
d) An external 33.6 modem that probably works, but we no longer have the power cord for it.
e) The entire contents of my upper-left-hand desk drawer at work, because no one requested it either of the two previous times.
I've started sending out people's requests, except those people -- say, Lisa -- whose addresses I do not have. (Actually, Kim does have Lisa's address somewhere in the stacks of boxes that fill our house, but she does not have it handy, I believe.)
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Christmas movies.
So my next paid film review assignment -- I've been doing about one a month recently -- is a consumer guide to some of the best Christmas movies. Being me, however, I want to do something more unusual than list just the Wonderful Lifes and 34th Streets of the world, so I am trying to think of:
a) Obscure Christmas-themed movies that are cool, awesome, and/or gnarly.
b) Movies that do not focus on Christmas, per se, but do take place during the holiday season and are also cool, awesome, and/or gnarly.
c) Movies that don't take place during the holiday season at all but have story arcs that allude to or parallel the birth of Christ. (For example, if Superman were born in a manger, that would have been good. If he were born in a manger in Israel, that would have been better.) Also, the cool/awesome/gnarly bit.
If you help me, I will work in an anagrammed version of your name into my review, assuming that your name anagrams to "Matthew Prins."
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Upstate New Yorkians who want to go to Asia useful tip of the week.
Go to Orbitz. Pretend you want to take a trip from Buffalo (BUF) to Toyko (NRT), and pretend further that you would take it from, say, November 26th to December 2nd. Gasp at the price. Gasp at the price again when you realize that includes all taxes and fees.
Of course, it's more than $600 more from Richmond.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
How you know you have officially moved into your new house.
Your computer is hooked up and connected to the Internet.
How you know your old house is no longer yours.
Someone else's truck is parked on your front lawn.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
"Five Church Tales," or "Andrew Needs to Devote a Large Block of Time to Commenting to This Post, Assuming That the Comments Are Working, Which of Course Right Now They Are Not."
Tale one:
I don't think I ever told this on my weblog, but stop me if I have. Except you can't. Stop me. Because how could you.
Anyway, Kim and I went to a different Catholic church one Sunday because we (a) were unable to wake up in time for 8:30 mass yet (b) had somewhere to go that made attending 11:15 mass impossible. So we attended this other Catholic church, and one of the songs for that Sunday was "Amazing Grace." The music and lyrics for the song was in the bulletin, and I didn't bother to even look at it until I heard the congregation singing the following:
"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
"That saved a soul like me!"
It is difficult to express how angry I was, but let me try: I was angry.
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Tale two:
Also, the priest kissed Kim on the cheek on the way out. That was weird.
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Tale three:
Not being Catholic, I'm occasionally a conscientious objector to parts of mass I don't agree with or aren't applicable to me -- for example, unless I'm zoning, I won't follow the rest of the congregation in saying, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed," not because I disagree with the notion, but because I won't be imminently receiving Him, be it symbolically or physically.
But there is one part of mass at our particular church that I don't have any theological issue with, yet refuse to participate in out of purely aesthetic reasons. As the children are leaving to go to their own ministry, the priest has them face the congregation, put their right hands up in the well-known blessing manner, and say, "God bless you as you stay." And then the congregation (sans me) does the same, but instead says the line, "God bless you as you go."
Please, someone give me some good dogmatic reason to hate this cloying blessing.
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Tale four:
We have a new priest at our parish. I do not like him. I liked him for about a month because he writes decent sermons and, unlike at least half the priests in the Richmond area, he is not excessively theatrical. (One local church feels more like "The Father John Show, Starring Father John!" than a legitimate body of God.) But now has decided that this parish is not enough like his old parish, and it is now time to change everything in our parish to match his previous one. For example:
a) During the portion of the main prayer where the reader will list the names of those sick or passed away, the congregation will now repeat the first name of each of those people, i.e.:
Reader: "Matthew Prins."
Congregation: "Matthew."
Reader: "George Bush."
Congregation: "George."
I do not like this, and I only partially know why.
b) Rather than have choirs at two of the masses, the choirs will be merged into one giant superchoir, which will sing at one mass a week. I can see advantages to this, and if it were a decision made by the choirs themselves or the music coordinator herself (whom Kim and I are both fond of), I'd have little issue with it. But having the priest come in and, two months forward, decide this is the way "his" choir shall be run is disingenuous.
c) Rather than have 10-12 cantors (read: song leaders) rotating among the many masses, they will be auditioned, and only three will be allowed to remain cantors. And they will be paid. Although, apparently, the bell choir director will not. (Not that he has an expectation of such, mind, but still.) I can see advantages to this -- although I think they're far outweighed by the dis- -- and if it were a decision made by the cantors themselves or the music coordinator... You get the picture.
There's more, but I forget what. Largely, it's not the decisions themselves that bother me, but the autonomous way that the priest is thrusting his own personal aesthetic preferences upon a parish that has its own aesthetic preferences, thank you very much. I don't believe anyone from church is reading this weblog, and if they are, oh well, but after Kimberly and I have given this priest a bit more of a fair shake, there's a not-piddling chance that we will change churches.
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Tale five:
There’s a problem with the way Catholic churches pick priest rather than how protestant churches (at least the ones I’m familiar with) do the same. Protestant churches use the corporate America model, with minister as “CEO”: They interview, they look at past results, the “board of directors” looks at the CEO’s likely fit with the “company,” and a decision is made from inside the individual church. (Part of the reason why there was never as much of a child abuse scandal in the protestant church is that bad eggs are likely to be successfully vetted by this process.) There are problems with this method, no doubt -- churches are less likely to be challenged by the ministers it choose -- but all-in-all, it’s not a bad system.
In the individual Catholic church, the priest for a particular parish is chosen by the bishop, who has hundreds of parishes under his jurisdiction and thus doesn’t know the tenor of each and every one. He knows enough to put a priest that speaks Spanish in a highly Hispanic area, I’d hope; beyond that, the priest a church gets depends mostly on what other area priests have ended their seven-or-so-year stints within the past few months and are looking to be relocated. And because Catholic priests have autonomy over their parishes -- unlike in protestant churches, where the church council runs the show -- rather than a reflection of their parishoners, Catholic churches are instead largely a reflection of their priests. (No church, of course, is a perfect reflection of God.) And in a Catholic church when one doesn’t like the priest, one is more or less resigned to not liking the church.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
I am good and I am bad.I am good because I am very much ahead of the Christmas-present buying game. Not only do I have moM's present (which, by the way, have you received yet, Beth-Annie?), but I have four presents for Kim (plus one that I need to go pick up later this week), and I have ideas for everyone else on my Christmas list except daD. This is very, very strange.
I am bad because I have unlost some of the weight that I had lost earlier this year -- although I'm still certainly more svelt than I was at either Beth-Annie's or Kim's weddings -- so now that this stupid house stuff is mostly done (other than unpacking 7200 boxes and shaving a quarter-inch of the bottom of 12 doors because our carpet is too tall and finishing up patching the ceiling in the bathroom and finishing up plywooding the attic and, um, probably more I'm forgetting), I am going to start running ay-gehn. I have spent $10 and signed up for the 18th Annual 5K Toy Run/Walk on December 14th, and now that I have put down money (or fake credit-card money) on the event, I will feel compelled to get into shape for it, because I am clever like that.
Here is my boring running schedule for those five weeks:
Wednesday, November 12th: 5 minute walk; 8 reps 60w/90j; 5 minute walk
Thursday: 30 minutes on exercise bike
Friday, November 14th: 5 minute walk; 8 reps 60w/90j; 5 minute walk
Saturday, November 15th: 5 minute walk; 12 reps 60w/90j; 5 minute walk
Monday, November 17th: 5 minute walk; 6 reps 90w/120j; 5 minute walk
Wednesday, November 19th: 5 minute walk; 6 reps 90w/120j; 5 minute walk
Thursday, November 20th: 30 minutes on exercise bike
Saturday, November 22nd: 5 minute walk; 9 reps 90w/120j; 5 minute walk
Monday, November 24th: 5 minute walk; 2 reps 90w/90j/180w/180j; 5 minute walk
Wednesday, November 26th: 5 minute walk; 2 reps 90w/90j/180w/180j; 5 minute walk
Thursday, November 27th: 30 minutes on exercise bike
Saturday, November 29th: 5 minute walk; 3 reps 90w/90j/180w/180j; 5 minute walk
Monday, December 1st: 5 minute walk; 180j/90w/300j/150w/180j/90w/300j; 5 minute walk
Wednesday, December 3rd: 5 minute walk; 180j/90w/300j/150w/180j/90w/300j; 5 minute walk
Thursday, December 4th: 30 minutes on exercise bike
Saturday, December 6th: 5K pretend race
Monday, December 8th: 5 minute walk; 5j/3w/5j/3w/5j; 5 minute walk
Wednesday, December 10th: 5 minute walk; 5j/3w/5j/3w/5j/3w/5j; 5 minute walk
Friday, December 12th: 5 minute walk; 5j/3w/5j/3w/5j; 5 minute walk
Sunday, December 14th: 5K race
I hope that was confusing enough for you.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
"So they love Jerry Lewis in France. Does that make him funny?When discussing the 16 best music videos of all time -- as, not at all ironically, I am going to do -- it is best to put them into three categories, except that one of them does not fit into a correct category, so I had to throw it into one of the other three categories, so what I am saying is that it is your job to figure out which song does not belong it the category it was thrown into and why.
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Beck, “Deadweight”
Bjork, “Bachelorette”
Bjork, “Human Behaviour”
Bjork, “Isobel”
Chemical Brothers, “Let Forever Be”
Cibo Matto, “Sugar Water”
Foo Fighters, “Everlong”
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Jamiroquai, “Virtual Insanity”
Radiohead, “Karma Police”
Steve Taylor, “On the Fritz”
UNKLE f/ Thom Yorke, “Rabbit in Your Headlights”
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Bjork, “It’s Oh So Quiet”
Fatboy Slim, “Praise You”
Fatboy Slim, “Weapon Of Choice”
Wax, “California”
Weezer, “Buddy Holly”
The bolded four are in the top quartile within the best 16 videos of all time.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Inadvertently Beth-Annie-pleasing house decision of the week. (The week being about four weeks ago.)Today was and is our move. It is going well. Our movers are Paul Arpin Van Lines. You do not care about this, unless, of course, you are Beth-Annie. Why would Beth-Annie care? On each side of our Paul Arpin Moving Truck are two sizeable phrases. The biggest reads, “Paul Arpin Van Lines.” The second biggest reads, “Official movers of the LPGA.”
This is very, very strange, not only because I don’t know why LPGA needs an official moving company, but also because Paul Arpin is seemingly also the official movers of the NFL, yet this information is not on our truck anywhere. Did they give us a girly truck because Kim is the one who made set up the moving appointment? I do not know.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
How Perfectly Swell Marginally Cool Friday Giveaway!
Two this week:
a) A Compaq Presario 1625 laptop, which has not worked properly in at least 18 months for reasons unknown to me, my boss, and the computer repair folks at the Richmond CompUSA. (By "not worked properly," I mean that I cannot even turn it on.)
b) The entire contents of my upper-left-hand desk drawer at work, because no one requested it last time.
First respondent gets first choice. Second respondent gets second. Third respondent gets you know.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
New segment: Furnish the HPS house!So, Kimberly and I made the decision this past weekend that we wanted to change all the locks on our new house, just because it seems like the thing to do after buying a new house. So we bought three doorknob/deadbolt sets that Kwickset numbered the same (meaning that we can use the same key with all of them), and Saturday night I swapped in the new doorknobs and deadbolts in the back door and the door to the garage.
However. We are not so sure what we want to do with the front door. We have the boring doorknob that we've already bought, but Kim and I are considering returning it to Lowe's and instead installing something vaguely more exciting. O'er here are the seven handlesets that Kwikset makes (Sonoma is listed twice on the page for some reason), and here is the breakdown:
Arlington and Chelsea: About $75 more than boring doorknob.
Sheridan: Too ugly to consider.
Gibson: About $90 more than boring doorknob.
Sonoma: About $55 more than boring doorknob.
Dakota: About $50 more than boring doorknob.
Farmington: Not made in polished brass, which is the only finish we're seriously considering.
You have through the end of today to make your opinion known. Kim and I will abide by the majority's vote unless we don't.
Next up: What color shall we paint the family room?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
Trivia question of the week.Who, back in 1990, wrote the now-retired NBA on NBC theme song? Now, before you cheat and look at the answer, listen to the song and say to yourself, "Self, if I had heard this song outside the context of an NBA game, who would I have thought had written it?"
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew
