You know, no one ever says "I want to be a junkie when I grow up." Oh wait, I guess everybody says that. They're all making fun of that commercial. Right... Anyway, even after all these years it sometimes surprises me how my coffee addiction can creep up on me. They've at least temporarily closed down the coffee hutt that I go to on the way to class every morning (and as I've said before, *$ is anathema to me) so I missed my usual 10am pre-coffee coffee. I also had some stuff to do in the library before heading downtown and so it was that I found myself walking out of the library at about 12:40 with a pretty solid headache, disoriented, and having difficulty making my eyes focus. Yep, because I was three hours late with the caffine. I mean, this sort thing doesn't always happen, I can sometimes go a day or two without ill effects, but it's just ridiculous. At least I'm starting to recover. (On a side note, my vision snapped into perfect clarity after about my third or fourth swig of espresso. I mean, literally snapped. I've had that happen before, but it's kind of a cool effect, everything suddenly has edges.)

Anyway, as always on a monday I feel compelled to give a report of my weekend. I think I can safely say that this weekend rokked. I think it was possibly the most event-filled weekend that I can even remember. I don't even care in the slightest that that the Decemberists show was sold out. (No, really, for once I'm not being sarcastic.) It was the kind of weekend that makes me sad that I'm moving in a few weeks. C'est la vie, I suppose. Carpe canum, that sort of thing.

Matt on 06.28.04 @ 02:12 PM PST [link] 

Seems like the reason I was so low on consciousness the last couple of days is that my faithful roommate, El Pat, was trying to infect me with the Pat Virus (not to be confused with the Q Virus). Why he would want to do this I do not know, although I suspect some sort of mind control on the part of the virus itself. Anyway, he underestimated the powerful immune system given to me by the NerdX program (a little-known subdivision of WeaponX)*, and after going to bed about an hour and a half earlier than usual last night I'm feeling fine. Whether this will hold remains to be seen, as the Pat is an insidious breed.

Other than nearly succumbing to a vile disease, not much has been happening of note. Since my boss left the company two or three weeks ago I've been trying to figure out how and who to talk to about my "change in schedule" as I like to call it. (Though 800-mile change in location would be a more accurate term - I'll be working the same hours). Basically as it stands I have no idea when I'm leaving, how I'm getting there, or what in the name of Alan Hale Jr. is going on around here. I'm sure I'll figure it out sooner or later but it's a little annoying at the moment. Everyone knows that my one weakness is awkward social situations! (Wow, ever get those super-long drawn out deja vu sequences? I hate those.) Alright, well, I'm just rambling at the moment, most likely due to my having eaten one of those brownies from Cafe Italia that are at least 90% chocolate. So I think that's all the posting you get for today. Or at least for the moment, I could theorhetically get bored later.



Matt on 06.23.04 @ 01:49 PM PST [link] 

So I must be in pretty bad shape today or something. All I know that I woke up exhausted (and incidentally almost slept through my midterm) and that people keep thinking there's something wrong with me. Lynnea called me earlier and on hearing my voice asked me if I was ok. Matt called me a little later and thought that he'd woken me up. Also my brain seems to be taking even longer than normal to parse through human speech and extract the meaning therein. I think about a minute went by before I realized that the guy from Pete's Quality Meats had asked if I wanted my order to go. Luckily he just assumed.

On the other hand my creative ablities seem to be functioning quite well. I've been minorly obsessed with bats lately, so while waiting for Illustrator to finish crunching something I drew this cute little cartoon bat on a sticky note then cut him out and stuck him under my monitor. Which made me happy. Also Lynnea made some joke the other day about having a bat and a butterfly on our wedding invitations (which I have been slacking horribly in designing) so in another slow spot I designed a bat and butterfly invitation and sent it to her as a joke (Hopefully she checks her email before reading this and so doesn't spoil the surprise, but there's little danger of that). So all together I'm fairly sure that means that the left side of my brain just never woke up this morning. That's silly you say, even if such a thing were possible you wouldn't be able to write in that situation. All I have to say is that you have no idea how many typos I'm making right now.

Matt on 06.21.04 @ 05:48 PM PST [link] 

The morning sun has vanquished the terrible night. Or something to that effect. By which I mean that after sleeping like the dead for ten hours my mind has readjusted itself. I seriously think that I go into an entirely different mode of thought while I'm with Lynnea, which is why after leaving her I'm always incredibly depressed until I get some sleep. My synaptic patterns need a good solid reboot or something like that.

But I didn't come here to talk about that today, came here to talk about the draft. (Heh, I'm just full of references today.) Well, I didn't really but actually I should mention this. It doesn't seem like it could seriously pass, but it's dangerous enough to pay attention to. I'm too much of a dissident to go to boot camp. So, speaking of snarking, for anyone who hasn't noticed, The Hurting is back online and Tim has already stirred up the hate mail. Seriously, I mean, I love comics. About the only thing I did last weekend other than get seriously depressed was read 40-some issues of Bone. I've spent the last year and some months trying (and failing) to get my drawing skills up to the level to at least do a mini-comic or two out of love for the genre. But who are these people that they have the time to write lengthy criticisms of other people's opinions of superhero comics? I mean, I guess I manage to consistantly write lengthy and whiny criticisms of various things (usually myself), heh, but get a life, will you people? Ah well, it gives me something to read on occasion I guess. Alrighty, well, I think I'll break off for now. Oddly I feel like I've still got some posting left in me but I'll save it for later.

Matt on 06.18.04 @ 01:54 PM PST [link] 

Somewhere over the Sierra Nevada mountains in a steel and glass capsule kept aloft by sheer thrust the girl I love more than anything hurtles through the empty night sky towards the second phase of her vacation. Yep, as of an hour ago Lynnea is gone and with her my momentary desire to live. It seems to work out lately that just when I start feeling really close to her we're hugging eachother goodbye, and it's back to the common despair.

For those that don't know, or don't realize, Lynnea and I have been carrying on an 800 mile long distance relationship for the past, well, it'll be exactly four years as of sunday. But actually, believe it or not, there's one bright point in tonight's gloom: this was the last goodbye. After four years and more tear-filled goodbyes than I care to remember it's almost over. Another three or four weeks and I won't ever have to spend months at a time missing her again. Actually I think part of tonight's depression is based on the fact that I can't even wrap my mind around a post-missing Lynnea existence. Sure, I've always spent the summers with her, three months or so, but there's always been a black pointy-toothed cloud hanging over the end of August. That's not to say everything will be perfect. I'll be switching from missing Lynnea to missing my friends in San Diego. Fall may still find me moping around feeling lonely, but maybe it won't be as bad.

Eh, sorry for this post. I'm sure these overly-personal ones don't go over that well. Sometimes I just have to go over this stuff for my own benefit. And you know, actually I am feeling a little better. Guess it just proves that even if no one wants to read it, blogging can be good for the soul.

Matt on 06.17.04 @ 09:50 PM PST [link] 

Yowsa, I be tired. Too tired to even use real words or proper grammar. Hopefully I'll start waking up around sundown like the vampire I am at heart. Admittedly, if I had some sort of statistical counter to keep track of how often certain synapses fire in my head, the ones that fire off the phrase "I'm tired" would doubtless be in the lead by a large margin. At least I have a reason for it this time though. The thing is, Lynnea is in town for a couple of days and while it's really wonderful having her here, trying to make the most of the limited time she's here can be a little overwhelming. Or actually, since in my case I generally manage to make the least of any amount of time, I'll just say that it's whelming. Still, it's always really fun when she comes down because she basically forces me to leave the few small little sections of town that I inhabit and go out into the larger city. We actually went to beach and did some swimming yesterday. The beach. Me. Swimming. Not the sort of thing that happens in any normal sort of context. Nor probably should it, but it was a good time.

On a side note, for those wondering about the fate of my weekend last weekend, let me just say that except for a few good bites here and there, the pie of life is waxy and bland, with a sort of rubbery skin of depression on top and covered with that weird, oily, sort of hard not-really-whipped-cream substance that I hate. 'Nuff said. (wow, I have been reading too many comics lately. Natch!) Alrighty, well, I'ma gonna go back to pouring coffee in my ear in a effort to retain consciousness.

Matt on 06.16.04 @ 03:39 PM PST [link] 

Heh. So today was the going away party for one of my co-workers, Norma. Actually Norma is one of the few co-workers who I talk to at all and I've enjoyed working with her over the last couple years. But anyway we had a going away party for her starting around 3 today. Which means that we've all been up on the roof drinking beer and eating barbeque for the past 4 hours or so. Heh, so now I'm going to have to wait a little while to sober up so I can drive home. Which makes today the best day of work ever. I bet this is what work is like in Europe every single day. If this Protestant Work Ethic I hear so much about is what prevents us from drinking at work, it should be done away with I say. I for one welcome our new alcohol overlords... oh wait this isn't slashdot. Heh, ok, I'm gonna go drink some coffee.
Matt on 06.11.04 @ 07:11 PM PST [link] 

Happy Regan's Day to all my fellow Californians out there. Everybody remembered to send out their Regan's Day cards right? Good. Hmm, so that means that last night was Regan's Eve. And here I didn't even celebrate. Man, do I ever feel foolish. So I think in honor of Regan's Day this year I'm gonna listen to some dub. It just seems fitting somehow.

Despite incredible grogginess this morning I'm actually feeling pretty good now that I've got a little C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ in my system. And why not? The entire weekend stretches out vast and silky before me like so much chocolate pie. I shall eat the pie of life down to the cookie crust! Or spend 8+ hours reading old X-Men comics. One of the two. (Though perhaps I can make time for both). Seriously, old comic books have begun to take over my life lately. I just sit in my room for hours burning stick after stick of incense, listening to indie rock and reading comics. It's not a bad life I guess, I could do worse. I try to consider reading X-Men 100-150 in two weekends a feat rather than a sign of some kind of serious problem. Ah well, at least it keeps me off the streets.

Matt on 06.11.04 @ 02:42 PM PST [link] 

Danger! I'm posting for posting's sake once again, which means that I have nothing to actually say. Not that I ever do, mind you, but I like to pretend. Actually I was vaguely considering doing an intelligent post discussing my theories on the rise of millenarianism in American protestant sects in the post cold-war era, but I think I'll save that for awhile yet (Although I think that sentence was in itself the most intelligent thing that's ever been on this blog.) I'm just not in a partictularly contemplative mood at the moment. I'm more in the mood for sleep. Actually the thought of my nice warm bed is all but making me salivate right now. It's not that I'm really deathly tired or anything, I just missed my morning coffee today because the coffee hutt on campus that I usually go to was mysteriously closed. And I don't do *$. So basically my early afternoon coffee, which is usually for overclocking purposes, did nothing more than warm up the circuits today.

So I finally got around to starting Pattern Recognition last night. I'd been holding off awhile so that I wouldn't run out of Gibson too quickly, and because I read nearly all of his books back to back last fall and didn't want to get burned out. But from the first bit, I think might end up agreeing with Neil Gaiman's blurb on the back about it being Gibson's best book since Neuromancer. I've barely scratched the surface, but so far it's amazing. The prose is absolutely frenetic. Just reading the first couple of chapters got my mind working to the point that it gave me insomnia. I find that impressive. Also the specific mention Tarkovski's Stalker was delightful. I know that pan. I definitely know that pan. Well, it feels like a few more of my subroutines have come back online, so I think I'll get back to what I was supposed to doing now.

Matt on 06.08.04 @ 02:16 PM PST [link] 

Alright, I think this proves it. I'm definitly some degree of hypochondriac. Not to the degree that I run around thinking every cough I get is cholera, but appearently I'm not too far off. I woke up this morning after a fairly restless night (three shots of espresso an hour before bed doesn't provide the deepest sleep it seems) and was sort of noticing that my right side felt a little stiff. By the time I got out of my music class at noon, the lower right section of my abdomen was feeling constricted and vaguely numb. Now, I've been drinking a bit more than usual the last couple of weeks so my first thought was, "Damn, liver failure!" which then made me think, "Or maybe kidney failure..." I wasn't turning yellow or feeling any pain or passing out or dying though, but I still felt damn weird so my brain kept working. After a little more thought, the constricted feeling made me think hey, maybe it's appendicitis. My appendix is swelling up and it just hasn't burst yet. So when I got to work I decided to check WebMD (or the Hypochondriac's Helper as it should be known) and find out what the symptoms of appendicitis are. Pain... in the... lower right abdomen region. Ah ha! Well, ok it wasn't pain but maybe it just hadn't gotten to that point yet. So for a good couple of hours I was fairly sure that my appendix was going to burst at any minute and I'd have to get dragged off to the emergency room. Then, about twenty minutes ago it hit me: I did some situps last night. That's why my abdomen feels stiff.

I think I laughed for about five minutes. Once again the words of Rebecca Howe ring true: "I am too stupid to livvve!"

Matt on 06.02.04 @ 04:27 PM PST [link]