Straight from the horse's mouth

How 'bout that

2007-07-11T20:57:00.001-07:00

So I'm watching the Colbert Report, and Stephen Colbert is interviewing David France, author of The Science of Gaydar. The article is about supposed prevalent physical features in homosexual people. I actually don't care about that, honestly, because it doesn't matter to me what someone's sexual preference is, and I'd feel like a jerk trying to see if someone's hair swirls counterclockwise or whatever. The thing that really interested me, weirdly enough, is that apparently, men have longer ring fingers than pointer fingers (which I knew) and women have the opposite (which I did not)? The point of that discussion is that a statistical majority of homosexuals have hands oriented like that of the opposite sex, but I was just stuck on that basic premise. Do *most* women really have longer pointer fingers than ring fingers?

How 'bout that?

Back up in yo' ass with the resurrection

2007-07-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

Philadelphia + San Diego = God yes.

So let's see, what have I been up to. Mid June I went down to Philly for a few days, and that was pretty awesome, as expected. Turns out Citizens Bank Stadium, for all its lack of personality name-wise, is a beautiful ballpark. I say this because we sat in the second cheapest seats in the entire building, about 150 feet above the field, and the view was better than the $70 something seats near the field at the other stadiums I've been to (Fenway and the old Camden Yards). Phillies vs. White Sox... go Phils.

Oh. I had my first ever visit to an actual real gym, which was neat, given the weight loss competition I'm currently in. And kicking Ben's ass.

Also... Redding Terminal Market = <3. Christ, I can't get enough of that place. amazing food, lots of distinctly not cranky people (unlike, say, Troy).

After that trip, I "helped" put on a baby shower for my cousin Jennifer. She's due at the end of the month... woo baby-fever.

The rest of June was the trip to San Diego, which was great. Once we got there. I land in O'Hare Airport outside of Chicago for what is supposed to be a half hour layover. We board the plane to San Diego, sit down, whatever. Then the flight attendants come running down the aisles yelling for us to get off the plane, which as you can imagine is not a great sign. Turns out the ONE FREAKING COMPUTER that they have controlling EVER FREAKING UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT went down, so a couple million people ended up rather irritated. Me more than most, because once the computer came up, they found a problem in our plane that required them to disassemble the wings right in front of us. I ended up being in that God-forsaken place for over seven hours.
But that was that. We got to San Diego, where I spent eight days, and it was really cool. It's a great town, with lots of great food and stuff to do. Did I mention there's lots of food? I didn't finish my meal for the second time in my memory, which is impressive. Then there's the zoo, and the wild animal park, and malls, and... God, San Diego.
The flight back. Hehe. Because United hadn't screwed us over enough, we're driving to the airport when we get a call from my sister who I'd visited in San Diego saying that our flight back to Chicago was delayed. NATURALLY, the connecting flight to Hartford hasn't been delayed. So we get to fly to Chicago, stay overnight in a hotel near the airport, and then spend another fun few hours at O'Hare.
Fucking O'Hare. I never want to go there again.:P
And here I am now. I got a haircut and trimmed my beard two days ago, and I am now four pounds lighter. Think about it.

Def Leppard concert on the 19th... bringin' down the walls of wonderland.

Busy, busy

2007-06-19T10:30:00.001-07:00

I can't get over how much people will pay for books I bought for a buck when I was like eight years old. It's pretty neat.

So tomorrow I get to wake up at 5 and sit on a plane for six hours. Yay me.

That's pretty much it.

Ah, the life I live.

2007-06-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yep, crazy week of craziness mark two.:P

Sunday was graduation at St. Bernard (congrats, all), and that made me feel old as hell. I haven't accepted that I graduated yet, so it'll be a while before I realize the class behind me has graduated.:P So that was neat; got to see all my friends who are still in high school, as well as the other losers from '06 who had to show up because they had siblings graduating. The great part was the party afterwards in Old Saybrook; lots of food, and hugs, which I love, and I made some new friends, too (I swear to God I let her win at foosball. Really, I did. I promise).

And now I'm in Philadelphia visiting Kate and Albert. Yesterday we went to a Phillies game (my third Major League ballpark, after Fenway and the old Camden Yards), which was pretty awesome. Kate's coming back to Connecticut with me on Friday, because we're having a party for our cousin who is having a baby. Whoo babies. And next week I take off to San Diego for eight days to visit my other sister, Sarah, so I'll have been at home for a total of like six days this whole month or something.:P

And yes, sibling acts. Jerk.:P

Whooo

2007-06-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm just now starting to recover from my crazy week of... exploring southern connecticut-ness.:P

So. Tuesday, I awoke to the gentle sounds of my mom yelling in my ear at 6:45 AM. Which was great. Really. We went down to Three Rivers, where the Physics and Networking classes from St. Bernard were taking a field trip (before heading up to Six Flags). That was cool, because I still know most of the juniors and seniors at St. B's, and also not, because none of our demos worked the first time and I was half asleep the entire time.

Wednesday... what happened Wednesday. Oh. My buddy Tim Gaudette's older sister Stephanie, who graduated from Bryant out in Providence this year, put on this "Hero Dinner" thing that I volunteered at. All the proceeds from the tickets were to fund a new playground at the elementary school that Mrs. Gaudette works at... it's to be handicap accessible, which I thought was neat. So anyway, I spent a good 4 hours serving food with a girl whose younger brother I went to middle school with. Which beats my previous record of time spent with her by about three hours and fifty minutes.

Thursday. Coffeehouse at St. Bernard... it's always a good time, but this one might've been marginally less interesting than the first three. It was good to see a bunch of people I haven't seen since high school (and some of the acts were neat; I liked Jill and Maddie Mador's tap dancing, because I'm partial to sibling acts, and Emma Savitsky might be the best singer I've ever heard). And that was that.

Friday was pretty intense. Tim's band played at a show in Mystic... so I drove to Tim's house in Montville a while before everything, so I could help pack/move stuff/whatever. Little did I know that we would then have to go to New London to pick up the vocals/backuo guitar/sometimes drummer, and then drive out to Mystic. I thought I was getting a ride from Tim, and I had no clue how to get to either of those places.:P So I ended up following him about 40 miles all told... too bad the audience of the show consisted of the other bands, three people that worked there, and me.:P

And that's my life. Next week I go to Philly to visit Kate for three days!

Sup y'all.

2007-05-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

So here's the lowdown on my summer so far:

1. I'm too lazy to get a real job, so I'm working for the people my mom works for (the New England Board of Higher Education)... $10 an hour, which is awesome, but I sit in a room and transcribe hours and hours of videos for some ungodly scheme they've cooked up. Boring as all hell, but I need the money. I've also put about a decade's worth of old books into boxes and am selling them on amazon.com (I've made over $100 already).

2. I'm apparently not as lazy as I claim, because I've been riding the exercycle about 20 miles a day (serious), and I've lost 6 pounds since I got home (May 13th). This is neat because I'm into the whole having self esteem gig.

3. Movies. Sooo many movies. I've seen three so far (Spiderman 3, 28 Weeks Later, and Shrek the Third) and there's approximately forty nine quadrillion coming out in the enxt few weeks that I want to see. Yay for $5 Tuesdays at Groton Cinemas.

That's about it. I'm fairly bored a lot of the time, but apparently not bored enough to remember to update my blog.:P

2007-05-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

Know what's fun?

Car alarms. Especially car alarms that go off FOUR FEET from your window. And car alarms that go off at 2:43 AM on the Thursday of freaking Finals Week. And ESPECIALLY car alarms that go off for 20 minutes and counting, that Public Safety (USELESS) comes to investigate and then leaves in shame and disgust.

And when you wrap all three of those things together, Matt just feels so peachy-keen.

Bah.

Good ol' Barry Bonds

2007-05-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

Baseball rants are fun. Barry Bonds is ten home runs away from tying the all-time home run record. I'm super excited... oh wait, no I'm not, because he's a cheating asshole who runs around on hourly steroid-induced rampages. Hank Aaron set the record of 755 home runs early in the season in 1974... when he was asked at the end of the '73 season about the possiblity of breaking Babe Ruth's record, he said he hoped he lived long enough because all of the death threats he was getting from racist bigwigs. It's bad enough that Bonds is blatantly cheating, having amped up using (illegal) steroids (there was also that whole perjury deal), but he's a jerk to his fans. I hope he has some kind of career ending injury before he gets the record, but I doubt he will, so there will soon be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Nah, that's not fair. His head is MUCH bigger.

Some pictures from when Bonds was approaching Babe Ruth's mark of 714 home runs (a record for over 50 years that most people thought would never be broken

Move-out day

2007-05-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

Moving into/out of college sucks pretty hardcore. There's nothing cool about putting your life in boxes. The only thing that makes moving out is the big old four month vacation lurking around the corner. But it's not here yet, which makes me sad.

I've discovered two things that you don't ever want to do if you can avoid it. Cleaning a fridge (I'm not going to ask why there was a HAIRBALL in my FREEZER) and removing double stick tape from drywall. They're probably going to charge me like $50 for the one piece of tape still up there.

Seriously. Why don't I have a TV show.

2007-05-05T22:28:00.001-07:00

Normally, any story involving an ambulance is probably not something I would laugh about. That said, here's my night.

I'm sitting in my room, not doing much of anything. My roommate Luke walks in, piss-drunk, which doesn't really surprise me. He's hungry, but neither of us has any money, so I go out to the ATM to avoid anything involving paying my roommate's bail. When I get within sight of my dorm, there's three amblances, a fire truck, and public safety. They're actually turning people away from the door (the door to my freaking dorm. God.), so I do what any law-abiding citizen does. I snuck in the back door. Nothing's going on, so I just go back to my room. Luke isn't there, so I'm like "Shit, this really can't end well." CHRIST, was I wrong. I look outside, and Luke is wandering aimlessly, with no shoes or shirt on, taking periodic sips from a bottle of mouthwash, still drunk off his ass, giving a statement to public safety. For something he wasn't even there for! Apparently, some kid passed out drunk (while my roommate was sitting in our room), and Luke went over to investigate and started talking to the cops. He actually wrote out a freaking WITNESS STATEMENT for PUBLIC SAFETY, which incidentally has now cemented its position as the most useless organization in the history of ever. I don't know how funny this is to you all, but it's pretty much going in my highlight reel of awesomeness and wow.:P

Just freaking picture it.:P

Laziness

2007-05-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

...is retarded.

And confusing. For the first three years of high school, I did almost no work. I took notes in class, but I never actually cared about what was going on. I was lazy as hell, and it got me a 96 average. Senior year was a bit of a bump in the road (the only time I actually worked my ass off, and my average was a good dozen points lower). Now I get to college, which in all honesty is no more difficult academically than high school, and in some cases is noticeably easier. I'm only now realizing that the programs at St. Bernard (with a few glaring exceptions) really were a cut above the rest. In any case, without college being hard, I managed to pull a 1.16 last semester (that's a D- average, kids) and the best case scenario for this semester is about a 2.50. Yay C. My consolation is that my best friend, who I consider at least as smart as me, though maybe with different concentrations of knowledge, is doing about the same over at UConn.

I don't know what the point of that was. Actually, I'm pretty certain I didn't have one, which is pretty kickass. Rambling is amazing. Try it.

I was bored the other night and, for some reason, made a "List of People Who Are of Extreme Importance to Me." It's pictures of maybe two dozen people, with about a paragraph about each of them. It's basically a project that a third grader might do, but for whatever reason, I'm kind of proud of it. It was fun to do. Also, Sarah and Kate, find me good pictures of you so I don't have to use the doofy/embarassing/incriminating ones I've collected on my hard drive.

My life needs to be a tv show.

2007-04-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Seriously. So I'm down by the Approach to Troy tonight, watching the sunset. Which was gorgeous. It made me happy, which confuses me, because I don't really get happy.:P But anyway. I'm sitting there, about to solve all the mysteries of the universe, when suddenly I hear sirens coming towards me. Next thing I know, there's a guy running down the street in front of me with his hand down his pants, followed by no less than four police cars.

I thought I'd share that. I know y'all'll appreciate it.:P

April showers...

2007-04-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

We're going to be drowning in May flowers. >_<

Today was beautiful. We saw the sky for the first time in weeks, and it wasn't below zero! Ha. Anyway, it's probably 70 out, and people are playing volleyball, and sitting on the grass, and... yeah. Spring. Whoo.

I've honestly never been a real big fan of spring. That's probably because when I was younger, winter ending meant Christmas was over, I had to go to school, et cetera, not to mention all that fun "season of love" stuff that I conveniently ignored. Go me. This one's been neat, however, mainly because winter started in October and hasn't quit since.:P It's also lovely that summer vacation starts like the second week of May or some nonsense like that.

Summer should be, dare I say, epic. There'll probably be moviegoing on practically a daily basis, what with TMNT, Transformers, and Spiderman 3 coming out. I also have a running bet with Ben involving the loss of our considerable excess weight. The loser has to pay the winner a dollar amount equal to the weight the winner lost. Ben's my dearest friend, and I fully intend on robbing him blind.:P

Optimus Prime for the win.

2007-04-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

each lonely scene shall thee restore;
for thee the tear be duly shed;
belov'd 'til life can charm no more,
and mourn'd 'til Pity's self be dead.

It's the end of the world as we know it,

2007-04-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

I feel fine.:P

By the end of the day tomorrow, I'll have had a grand total of four classes this week. That's four out of... 14? Ish? I <3 class cancellations.

So, pardon me for being better suited for high school melodrama than real life, but here goes. I've been lucky enough to not have drama of my own since about New Years (a byproduct of not ever talking to anyone new, I suppose), but I often counsel my friends on their problems. I love it, actually. I'm pretty much a personal psychologist, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Tonight I was thinking about what drama really is, or more specifically, what qualifies as a "problem." Obviously, compulsively cutting yourself is a problem. Depression is a problem. But I think that some of this teenage drama counts too, and people shouldn't keep from talking about it because it sounds stupid. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to imply that losing a class election is as bad as having a severe neurological disease. Far from it. I'm just saying that something like... being dumped by your significant other, who proceeds to ignore you for months on end because they don't want to deal with you... is worthy of discussion.

Heehee. Bitterness is fun. However, I've adopted Ben's "Being sad sucks, I don't think I'll do it anymore" attitude. Hopefully that works out neatly.:P

Ohhh Monday.

2007-04-09T17:10:00.001-07:00

So I wake up at 2:30 this afternoon, having slept through all four of my classes.:P All of three seconds later, I get emails from the respective professors saying that class for the day has been cancelled for on bullshit reason or another. I love it.:P

Rooming for next year. The way that works is that everyone fills out a lottery card, and they randomly assign you a number. Out of 860 some-odd people, I am number 4. Go me.:P

Hmm... four classes cancelled, fourth in the lottery... coincidence? *twilight zone music*

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, counting down the seconds until summer vacation, wondering why the hell there's snow collecting on the ground on freaking April 8th.

So here's the thing. Easter, like any other religious holiday, will inevitably cause somebody to say, in response to an innocent "Happy Easter," "I am offended by that." Now, my problem is not that a lot of people don't celebrate the holidays held by my particular religion. I don't care what you believe. That's your business. My problem is that, honestly, I don't believe that most people who say that are actually offended by that. I mean, if someone wished me a happy Chunnukah (sp), I would thank them. When a few of my friends went to Mecca recently for Hajj, I wished for (dare I say, prayed for) them to have a good trip. If you're genuinely offended when I wish you a Merry Christmas, then that's completely fine. My bad. But if you're just saying that for the sake of being disagreeable, then go stick your head in the microwave. News flash: attacking other people's beliefs doesn't make you more righteous with regards to your own.

Heh, I love it when I get bitter. Pachelbel's Canon played on guitar... listen to it. Props to JerryC.

I have great sleeping habits. Really.

2007-04-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

That's why I'm posting at 3:04 AM on a Tuesday.

Nothing interesting is happening. I'm a boring college freshman who sits around watching Indecision: 2004 and making fun of politics. However, I'm bored as shit, and Kate needs something to read, so here I am.

So course registrations are this week. Changing majors is a bitch. Not because of anything that actually relates to the process, oh, no. All you need to do is fill out about a half page form and give it to the registrar. The problem is getting the math department to acknowledge your existence. I can't even coax a response from the curriculum coordinator, whose JOB is listening to me complain about how retahded Computer Science is.:P That kinda makes you wonder what they're all actually doing deep within the bowels of the Amos Eaton building. *insert Twilight Zone music here*

Maybe they don't want to talk to me because my class rank is like 1320 out of 1357 or something like that.:P

Looooove is in the air

2007-03-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

No it isn't. Or it could be... I wouldn't notice if it stapled itself to my face.

RIP winter. And by RIP, I mean I'm dancing on your grave. Normally I'm a fan of cold and snow (being a December baby and all), but even I got tired of winter after about the fifth goddamn month. Seriously, this week has been the first time since like October that it was above 30 degrees. And when it's not freezing, it's raining. Good ol' Troy. But enough about that... It's warm now, and I can once again go to class in pajamas and slippers. ^_^
So the next few weeks involve registering for classes, the lottery for on campus housing, et cetera. Some of my friends are getting apartments for next semester; they're kind of high on independence and adulthood and crap. I've never been a fan of the whole "growing up" deal myself. Grown-ups are stupid, and I don't intend to ever be one.:P

Whimsical

2007-03-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

Continuing the last post:Whoo Sadra.
"...who will fight for your right?" This is RPI, not Riyadh.
Bush: my guys are in ur base killing ur d00ds
Saddam: oic
Malik, the notorious Computer Sceince professor, is in fact the meanest man on campus. I speak from experience.

This would be a lot more threatening if there were ANY WOMEN ON CAMPUS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Thanks for rubbing it in, Michael Battista.Arthur Galpin, the inflatable whale, is the frontrunner for all political races at this time.

I have no idea who Teddy Tablante is, but his use of gummy bears intrigues me.

"The secret of politics?"

2007-03-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

"...make a good treaty with Russia."
-Otto Von Bismarck

Boredom is a terrible thing. Sitting here in my pajamas, watching Office Space for the fourth time in a week, I started thinking about the upcoming student government elections here at RPI. The 2008 presidential election will be the first one in which I'm able to cast a ballot (although I still need to go register :/), so I figure this election would be a good time to show my glorious dedication to the political process (sarcasm).

The only student election with which I'm relatively concerned is the race for Grand Marshal (the highest position a student can hold here). I won't pretend to be social enough to have even heard of most of the candidates, but the person who wins will be the only one who really has the power to improve conditions here, or else make my life nice and miserable. The candidate I'm most acquainted with (and the frontrunner, if all the signs around campus influence everything :P) is Sadra Azizi, currently a Resident Assistant in my dorm building, and an all around good guy.
I'm not thrilled with all of what I've seen in the signs around the RPI grounds. Maybe my opinion is not indicative of the that of the general population, but "TWO ENGINEERS BEST KNOWN FOR THEIR LARGE erections MONUMENTS" isn't a slogan that fills me with confidence in a potential leader. If I had seen that in, say, the fourth grade, I would've said "Ha...erections...that's funny." Unfortunately for "Team RV," I am not in the fourth grade anymore.

When I see their sappy faces...

2007-03-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

One of my most fun memories from growing up is that of watching 7th Heaven with my sister. It was understood that we'd come away from that show with about half as high an IQ and some severe doubts about humanity, but it was good times nonetheless. Upon reading Kate's blog, I started thinking about the theme song parody we made for that show, which I will now subject you to.:P Anyone who's ever seen the show should get a kick out of it.

Seeeeeventh Heaven.
When I see their sappy faces frowning back at me...
Seeeeeventh Heaven.
I know there's no worse feeling than to watch this on TV...
Where can we go when Ruthy comes on the screen?
We'll poke out our eyes and plug our ears and scream.
Oh please turn it off, Lucy's got a date,
We'll need Jimmy Moon's drugs to save us from Fishface.
I'm going to cry if I have to see Mary;
She sounds like a guy, and she probably has fleas...
Oh what can we doooooooo to help Simon with his hair,
There's nothing to dooooooo, let's feed him to a bear!
Matt, get off this show; you're so old you're almost dead,
And you have no brain, and your girlfriend's Chickenhead.
Don't have any more kids, RevCam and Supermom,
We don't need any more of your little devil spawn.
Dumb Happy the Dog has really got to go;
But too bad for us, she's the best one on this show...

I find it hilarious that both the parents on 7th Heaven were hired from the infamous Former Star Trek Actor Cesspool of Unemployment.

When I move, you move...

2007-03-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

...just like that.
For some reason I've been thinking about conformity lately. That probably spurred from one of the random thoughts I have when I'm inevitably wakened by some nutjob screaming his ass off in the hallway at 3 AM (Although this particular night, it was more like five nutjobs). It's amazing how so many different people, from so many interesting backgrounds can end up being exactly the freaking same. I think that's retarded. Keep in mind that I've generally been a conformist since about the age of four.
On a totally different note, I spent a fair amount of time today checking out old Super Nintendo roms (the ones not protected by the ESA, and therefore 'legal' to download). I was raised Catholic, so I feel I should confess my sins: I tried out Barbie: Super Model. Not only did I play it, but I had my ass handed to me on a silver platter, apparently proving that I have less of a right to exist than a six year old girl. Most of the other titles where (rightfully) obscure games that even my twisted mind couldn't have created, although I enjoyed the Japanese game Go Go Ackman (as far as I can tell, you're a mutated version of Trunks from the japanime Dragonball Z
who goes around beating up angels and taking their souls) and the cult classic Lemmings.
Frankly, I'm terrified at whatever message was being sent to my generation in the early 90s. I mean, Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure? Oy vey.

2007-03-21T11:37:00.001-07:00

Dear Mother Nature,

Make up your goddamn mind.

Love, Matt.

Know your onions

2007-03-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my latest attempt to put off important tasks by wasting my time online. With any luck, I won't have forgotten I made this by... say, tomorrow morning... and I'll eventually spread some sort of mildly interesting opinions/information. I'm a notorious comment whore, so please, say something. Tell your friends. I'm good times.
It's actually my hope that I'll come up with something that not everyone agrees with. I'd love to start some sort of cogent argument, or even better, provoke some asshat into saying something stupid and unsupportable. Oh, how I love to talk to people who don't think.
Well. If nothing else, check back to be subjected to some of my wonderful thoughts about fascinating things like carrot cake, why C++ is the work of the devil, my life-consuming quest to do nothing, and what exactly a PC Load Letter is (I'm curious myself).