halloween. it seems kind of ridiculous to dress up and go to work, doesn't it? well…i decided to wear a shirt and tie today, which isn't really a normal occurrence (but i do look snazzy…take a peek). my costume? corporate asshole. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen…i know i'm a genius.

other than that, i have what some might consider a follow-up date (which was actually planned prior to the first date) tonight. we're going out with some of her friends in a (gulp) limo, ostensibly to drive around, drink and act like total asses. i can't wait. keep in mind i'm accessorizing my "corporate asshole" costume with a gasmask, later tonight. once again…pure genius.

one of the good things about living in an apartment is that you usually don't get hit up by trick-or-treaters. not that i have anything against kids, mind you. it's just that i'm never home halloween night, so there'd be no one there to hand out candy. well…our front door is locked, no one on our side of the building will be home, and to top it off…our porch light is burned out. which reminds me…i need to replace that. tomorrow. along with cleaning off the back deck and generally preparing for scott to move in.

my biggest fear of scott moving in is that the two of us will become alcoholics who do nothing but sit around and play playstation2. this could do quite a bit of damage to our already weak social lives…oh well.

i somehow cleverly dodged getting sucked into the fantasy basketball craze that seems to be grabbing the majority of my co-workers by the balls. they're all sweatin' it out, talking about who they're gonna pick in their "draft." it's kind of annoying, really. i wish they'd just go back to talking about sex in the lewdest ways possible. that was at least moderately entertaining. it's always a plus to marvel at how completely, ridiculously stupid people can be, sometimes. seriously…you can't beat it.

plans are to try to get the rest of that at the drive-in set up on transmission3000 as soon as possible. you can still grab that advance track that was previously only available through slatch.com's blogmix. i think we'll try to get around to finishing up that braid set, too…

keep your eyes peeled for those sets, as well as sets from golden, man or astroman?, three second kiss, and of asaph.

while i'm talking about of asaph…they're playing thursday night at the aslans how gallery, here in louisville. check out the of asaph site for more details. i'll also be interviewing them, "seven questions" style, for carrie's zine, a pretty pickle.

i think that's enough for one day, don't you?

(or, the playa strikes again.)

continuing the story of our trip to bloomington, let me first explain yesterday's "hey, is moves there" thing. it's a kevin smith reference. basically, when kevin and jason mewes were first hanging out, jason was still a 15 year old virgin, whereas kevin had had some "exploits." when kevin told jason that he had, in fact, kissed a girl, jason from then on called him "moves."

anyway, after the thoroughly enjoyable visit with Kevin "moves" Smith, paul, nathan, and i grabbed some grub at the Bell, some refreshments at Marsh, then headed home for a relaxing rest of the evening (it was already close to, or later than midnight) of playstation 2 and some Batman Beyond on DVD. Since i'd never gotten to see the first few episodes (or any episodes, really) of batman beyond, i enjoyed the pilot movie and first episode quite a bit.

we did crash before too long, since we'd all had full work days, a moderately long drive, and a four hour sit in a crowded auditorium.

the next day, nate and his wonderful girlfriend heather took us out to lunch, then to the comic shop and little kids toy store (heather had to buy some gifts for her little nieces.) in the toy store, nate and i had a great time playing with magnets for more than a half-hour. i think i'm way too easily amused. i also ended up buying one of those little balsa wood wind-up rubber band planes.

after all this fun stuff, we went back to Marsh to gather groceries for dinner, then back to the house to chill for a while. nate and i (primarily) played quite a few rounds of Gran Turismo 3, with paul jumping in occasionally. we watched the rest of the batman beyond episodes (four in all, i think) and "Mask of the Phantasm" (yet another batman animated movie…) while we were all in the living room, doing our guy things heather was working up a storm preparing some delicious chicken enchiladas and (makeshift, but very tasty) spanish rice. we also spent quite a bit of time outside in their huge yard winding up and tossing around the little airplane. it as actually a lot more fun, and lasted a lot longer than i expected it to.

all the while dinner was cooking, heather was putting the finishing touches on her and nathan's costumes (blossom and space ghost, respectively). finally after dinner had been eaten and all the preparations had been made, we hopped in the car and headed for the party.

now, the people who's party we were going to, were (pretty much) all grad students and all psych majors. fortunately, the party wasn't nearly as weird as i thought it would be. despite the fact that i was pretty much in neanderthal non-talking matt mode most of the night, i had a good time. the crew had gone to great lengths to decorate for halloween, and pretty much every room or available space was decked out in gory halloween fright-fare. zombies in the front yard, a mad scientist in the living room, pitchforks mounted on the drum kit, and all sorts of other things, including a (motion-sensitive) skeleton hanging in the bathroom that sang "bad to the bone" every time you went to take a leak. they'd even built a maze in the back yard by hanging black plastic tarps or garbage bags or something and putting scary things in the nooks and crannies of the maze. it was, needless to say, a big to-do.

later in the evening, paul, nathan, and one of the house residents picked up the musical instruments and jammed a little. at one point, paul took off and handed me the guitar. we jammed for a little bit and kind of hit our stride on a song or two despite the fact that i was feeling uncomfortable about my lack of really rockin guitar playing ability, paul eventually came back, picked up the mic, and started to sing.

if you notice in the first paul pic, his little cowgirl's right there in the background… which leads to the next part of the story (of which, paul would have more to say than me…). apparently, paul was feeling a bit frisky that night (way friskier than me, anyhow) and after talking to several girls, got invited to go run around town with them. they were headed to a different party, then to a bar. from the story heather told, paul was uncertain at first, but heather insisted… "go. go! we'll find you." so, at heather's prompting, paul took off to parts unknown with girls unknown. go puffin go, indeed. i, for one, enjoyed living vicariously through paul's ability to throw caution to the wind and take off with strange, beautiful (drunk) women.

we were still jamming when paul left, so i got a great kick out of heather whispering in my ear "paul took off with a girl!"

myself, i stayed right there, sat for a couple hours (in between warm-up visits to the indoors) out on the front porch listening to psych majors talk about bloomington or Indiana things, smoking cigarettes, and freezing my ass off.

we went back home late late late and nathan made the "concerned fatherly" call to his friend who'd run off with paul, to make sure our boy was being taken care of. in the morning, through a series of phone calls, heather located him and brought him back while i drifted in and out of sleep.

most of sunday was another lazy day, punctuated by a good lunch and the eventual necessity of saying goodbyes.

all in all, as i've said before, i had a great time, and i look forward to the next time i get to visit. even if there won't be Kevin Smith or a hottie psych major halloween party.

this is possibly the funniest thing i've ever seen: triumph at a bon jovi concert.

today's fortune:

your persistence and diligence are appreciated by all.

what does that mean? everyone likes the fact that i don't know when to quit? well shit…that's news to me.

while i'm here at work thinking about it, i should probably write the post i've been promising my co-worker i'd write for several months.

mainly it's to point you guys to his site www.ae4rv.com so you can go get your fun on. geoff has several nice flash games that he's been working on. the big daddy of his games is his (nearly) world-famous version of asteroids/lunar lander called Flashteroids. it's a pretty complex little game that can be quite challenging. he's started liscensing the asteroids portion of the game for a few sites, and even has a custom version (called "Hendroids") up on the phil hendrie show's funhouse.

really though, as far as i'm concerned, the nuclear powerplant simulator is his best game so far… and it's not even finished. but he's threatening to one-up himself with his newest game, the flash based WWII Pacific Theater war game.

he's also got a nice High Frequency Radio Propagation Primer (primarily for HAM Ops, but an instructional piece for the layman as well…) which will soon be featured at the Swiss Museum of Transportation and Communication. (and probably on their site, as well, assuming they can get it working properly.)

anyway, check it out, play some games and enjoy yourself.

okay…fuck it. they're having an open casting call. i'm gonna go try to be on the real world. i'll see if adam wants to join me. this just makes me think of all the funny plans of getting on the real world and being the drunkest, most worthless one of the bunch. think puck revisited.

i know, in these current times, that we're supposed to be loving all forms of authority, all the cops and firemen. i know this is our duty, as americans, to respect them and their jobs well done. well…shit…firemen rock. my friend courtney is a fireman. he rules. i've skated with courtney for years. now he's a fireman and an ems responder. that kicks ass. he's married, happy, and has a dog.

but cops…when they get on the highway…they suck. seriously. it's like they're the world's slowest pace car. it drives me nuts. and to tell the truth, maybe it's not exactly the cop's fault. it's just all the idiots who slow down to 45, no matter what lane they're in, just so the cop will pass them and they can pretend to resume normal speeds. the cop i was following this morning was doing a nice respectable 70-75. not too bad. but he and i had to keep dodging jokers that would slow down to under 50 in the fast lane. it's insane. i wish i had a police radio to call mr. policeman up and tell him to pull over those jokers "for being suspicious." now that would rule.

cop: i'm sorry, sir, but i thought it was mighty suspicious that you slowed down from 85mph to right around 40, in the fast lane, just because i rolled up behind you. are you high?
man in car: no sir…i just beat my wife to cover for my own penile inadequacies.
cop: fair enough.

or something like that.

the date last night? glad you asked. it went quite well. third time was apparently the charm. let's just say that i beat the handshake curse.

oh yeah…don't forget about those record reviews at 75 or less. i'm thinking over recent albums that i have purchased that might be worthy of reviewing today…

next year for halloween i am going to be iggy pop. you heard it here first.

hey…new guy at the coffee shop…when i say no whipped cream, guess what that means. yeah…it means no whipped cream, retard. better luck next time.

here's an invaluable resource for anyone who loves rock: the black sabbath lyrics archive. just remember, folks: when ozzy left, they replaced him with dio. black sabbath + dio = bad. as in not good. the companion equation, iommi + dio = weird looking band, does not justify it in the slightest bit. please don't try to use that to support your half-baked theory of "the dio stuff wasn't that bad." face it…the dio stuff sucked.

a reader made some interesting comments to one of my past posts the other day, and i've just now had time to catch up on things.

read the comments to that post for a little fun discourse.

(gotta have something to keep you busy 'til i can finish the bloomington stories…)

you can now consider me a full-fledged rock critic. i know this is just what you've been waiting for, huh? i'm now reviewing records over at 75 or less, which is an offshoot of the venerable (ha) slatch.com. today's reviews: the new hey mercedes, the newest neurosis, and the remixed and remastered version of raw power. enjoy.

(or, how i lost my ass)

let me start out with this: Kevin Smith is a funny motherfucker–smart, witty, insightful–but then, we knew this already.

paul & i got off work on friday and hauled ass up to Bloomington, IN for a weekend visit with our close friends. we made good time, surprisingly, considering we left during rush hour and the interstate was packed all the way to the bloomington exit, as was the two-lane highway you have to take to actually reach bloomington. we basically got out long enough to stretch our legs, visit the facilities, and greet the pets (and their owners, of course), and then we were off to see the king of the dick & fart jokes.

the plan, according to the show "program," was for Kevin to talk for about an hour, maybe two, then to go to the lobby to sign autographs. well, apparently Kevin has something of a problem with authority.

once he got on stage, he almost immediately opened the floor up for the Q&A session, explaining that he wasn't really much of a public speaker, and felt more comfortable answering questions.

as soon as the first person spoke, he started busting the poor guy's balls, as he would continue to do for the rest of the evening. one thing Kevin Smith can handle is hecklers and morons. that was almost the most fun part of the evening, listening to him berate those who just got up for attention and not because they had a decent question. it was all in good fun though–he was never really hostile, just having a good time.

frequently, when people would hit on a good subject (or even sometimes when they didn't) he'd go off on a funny story for 15 or 20 minutes. at one point, he talked for almost 45 minutes about his experiences working with Prince at some week-long Paisley Park event.

we got to hear about how he met Jason Mewes (jason originally was an acquaintance of some of kevin's friends, and when they got tired of jason, he ended up bugging kevin until he gave up and decided to hang out with him.) he related the story about the time he and his friends were working in some recreational center, and jason just walked in the room and gave blow jobs to all the even slightly phallic objects in the room (for 15 minutes, without so much as a word to those in the room) until he reached a centipede (i think) arcade game. since there wasn't anything phallic on the arcade machine, he just went down on the rollerball. (the story was much funnier when kevin told it…)

at one point, kevin's cell-phone rang, and he answered it. after a brief conversation he told the audience that the caller wanted to say hello, and held the phone speaker up to the mic. we heard the unmistakable voice of jason mewes yelling "whazzup!" after a couple seconds kevin put the phone back up and jason asked "where's all the indiana ass?!" it was a funny little interruption that again loses a little in the translation. probably the funniest part was just hearing kevin's one-sided conversation with mewes. "yeah, there's about 3200 people here." … "dude i gotta go, i'll call you when i get done."

the prince story was about the week he went to minneapolis at Prince's request, and was asked to film a documentary about the religion themed event (partly a pre-release event for Prince's new album). kevin discovered through the course of the week that Prince was now a Jehova's Witness and had become rather a freak about the whole religion thing. he did say though, that for the first time, Prince joined the visitors to the park and presided over many of the religious discussions kevin was filming for the documentary. it was an interesting story about life in the park, and about being under the direct influence of one of the most eccentric people alive today. as an aside, i love prince's music, but i'm afraid this album may be too much of a stretch for even me, mr. eclectic.

after about two hours, the people running the show were telling the people in the question lines to sit back down, that the time was up. when one of the questioners told kevin this, he mentioned how he didn't like to sign autographs, but would rather just answer questions until everyone was ready to call it a night. the union board (i think is who was "in charge") trying unsuccessfully to shut down the mics and ask kevin to please leave the stage, but kevin didn't leave, and the people who'd gotten back into the question lines wouldn't sit down. people were booing the poor ushers out of the hall (at least, until they just gave up and let kevin and the audience do what they wanted). kevin proceeded to talk for two more hours.

i'd like to relate more funny stories, but really, the funniest parts of the evening were him riffing off of the audience, and ripping into the occasional idiot with little enough self-respect to get up and ask a stupid question or make a stupid comment.

seeing kevin smith speak for four hours was more than worth the two hour drive up to bloomington, even if i hadn't been up there primarily to visit friends, and if you're in the area where he's going to be speaking, do yourself a favor and grab a ticket any way you can. you'll be glad you did. (this is all, of course, assuming you even like Kevin Smith. if you don't like him, you probably shouldn't go.)

i've just found a post by Kevin himself about some of the night's events.

paul's just informed me that his post about the weekend is now up as well. — go read it after you finish reading mine! (that's if you can stand to read anymore, anyway)

so, there ya go. tomorrow i'll post a little more about the weekend, probably about a little less specific stuff–more about the weekend in general and some of the highlights.

tomorrow: "where's paul?"

today: "hey, is moves there?"