good morning, faithful readers. not much in the way of brand new content today. i'm clearing out all of the ghost posts from my inbox today, so there are interesting things to look at elsewhere, but nothing new here regarding my thoughts, feelings, intimate details of my private life or me bitching about work. which should come as a relief, i would think. oh, i picked up the two other tee shirts last night and they look amazing. so there, that's something personal.

on to the links. the simpons meet warhammer 40k. this is much funnier if you know anything about warhammer 40k. otherwise it's just a bit bizarro. what else? how about a rewrite of dave and hal's conversation from 2001? or something truly strange? finally, we have your very own holy name generator. odd, this.

so who am i?
Episkopos Father Poopslut
Minister Pale Donkey
Wunderkind Narcissist Hedgepig
Queen Rara avis Rosencrantz
Pope Meaning Sempiternal

i'm still not sure about poopslut.

and today we are profiling sarah daisy. captain splifford, to some. same person, really. she's a friend of mine who i met through shannon because the two of them work in the same building and they take smoke breaks at the same time. on occasion. they are also two of the most outgoing people i've ever met, so it seems inevitable that they would meet, start talking and become friendly in short order.

the thing about sarah is that she's everyone's best friend. there has been some discussion of bumper stickers and tee shirts for her. "vote sarah for your new best friend." "sarah happens." "say hi to sarah. she's keen!" and so forth.

she may be everyone's friend, but she's also my friend and she's also my second regular reader, so daisy gets to be near the top of the list.

gonna be a busy day today because we've got four hard drives going out the door and i've been put in charge of making sure this happens with no hitches. deep breath. but, it's only 8:20 in the am and nobody's here yet, so i have some goof-off time, which i'm going to take advantage of.

first. clean sheets. i like their stuff, but it's patchy and not as good (overall) as nerve. still, i liked this article that i read yesterday. it struck me just right, somehow.

second. buffy's funny. xylophone buggery!

i got two of my new underworld tee shirts last night and they look really good. i was happy with the way they came out. i have to pick up the other two and then go and get another one made for shannon. (they undercharged me for some of the shirts, too. that was nice to hear, especially since i didn't have to pay the difference.)

and speaking of shannon, she's the next person on my profile list. you all know her (or should) and we all love her. she is my lovely and talented girlfriend. she has a blog that she doesn't post to very often, but that's because she's a very busy person. but that's okay by me, really. i know (or think i know) what's going on in her head from day to day. otherwise, living with her would be a lot more difficult. at least i tend to think so.

sorry about not posting yesterday. we're rolling out some beta test hard drives on thursday, which means that actual free time is becoming more and more sparse as the days creep up on crunch time. i was also creating designs for yet more underworld t-shirts. i just paid for $100 worth of shirts! but they are going to look good!

i just put in an order for nothing but the girl, a book that was edited by susie bright. now, some people might call me a pervert because i pay so much attention to porn, but i have to say that i think i'm a connoisseur (or, i would be if i knew how to spell the damned word. thanks, ms word!). i actually think that erotic art has it's merits. it can be beautiful and it contains another aspect to it, which is something i can appreciate, being the prurient male that i am.

i have a new feature here that i want to put into my next few posts, so bear with me. i want to introduce some of the players that show up in this blog.

so i thought i'd start with my regular readers. eccles first. he doesn't actually have a blog (which is a shame, because the man is hysterical, what with the pithy comments and aubergine-tinted glasses and leather pants and all), but he is worth knowing. in my opinion, of course. he lives in cardiff and works in a patent office, laughing at the pathetic dreams of inventors all over wales. and the rest of the uk, too, i guess.

my acquantaince with eccles comes from the culture list, where we are both members in good standing. but i've never actually met him in the flesh, which isn't as odd as it should be. the internet does that a lot these days. however, shannon and i have tickets to london for the end of january, 2002 and we expect to meet him while we are there. if he can make it out from cardiff.

so that's eccles. say hi and be polite and he'll try not to fnarr too much at you. unless you ask him to.

oh, and i wanted to congratulate sarah. she got the 1500th page view for this blog. good on ya!

i read this great graphic novel called 2025 some time back. (maybe a month or two ago). it's a reimagination of 1984 by orwell, but it's updated as well. one of the things the author talks about in 2025 is the fact that this wonderful online world is infinitely editable. that means that every fact can be changed. it fucks with people, the story suggests, when there is no such thing as truth. or, at least, no such thing as a truth that can be verified.

that's very interesting, you say. but why do i care about this?

well, let me talk to you about people who edit their public words. personally, i think this is a mistake to do. i've only ever edited what i've written in this blog on one occasion - no, that's a lie. i edit all the time. i've only ever deleted things from this blog on one occasion. and even then, it wasn't much. i kept most of the original content because my words (however good they sounded then) should be kept intact. this blog is a record of who i am and where i've been. that means keeping the good with the bad. a fully-rounded portrait of my life over these past few months, extending on for as long as i feel like updating. which could be years, frankly.

kangal, for instance, keeps deleting things from the catacomb archives because he thinks it's fun to alter how the future will view him. that's great, but it also means that people will notice that there are holes. and there are. i really want to send him an email with the subject line "kangal you idiot" and just tear into him from there. but no. he's fragile, which means that criticism is not taken well. i know. i've been there. everything that is critical is mean. except that it's not always. it's in how you take it. but once you make it known that criticism is not going to be taken well (even well-meant criticism), it's open season. boom. sorry about that.

there are other instances where things have been deleted where they probably should have been left, but i'm going to go into that here. i have email now and i want to check it. but i just wanted to say...

well. shan is home now and i am happy about it. i really missed her. it was all about having someone there to talk to. the little things mean everything, really.

"so how was the reunion, matt?"
well, it was odd. these people have gone on and done things with their lives. bob dylan keeps coming back to me. some are mathematicians, some are carpenter's wives. i don't know where they're going. i don't know what they've done with their lives. except that they were architechts, surgical residents and director's wives. odd, that. i flash back to what they were in high school and try to reconcile that view with what they are (or what they say they are) now. that person is a surgical resident? that person is an architecht? what happened to the acting?

huh.

anyway. we're watching spinal tap on dvd right now, with the band's audio commentary turned on, which is almost funnier than the original film. those three are like stand up comics all on their own.

back from thanksgiving, which was a very nice holiday. (it usually is. my family dynamics may be screwed up, but that doesn't keep us from being able to enjoy our time together. i never understood people who were mean and nasty for the sake of being mean and nasty.)

anyway. i spent three days in conversation with my grandfather, which was a lot of fun. we talked about life, current events and writing, which is really what we like to talk about most. i really value his opinion because i look up to him. he's a flawed hero (as i indicated and came to terms with in the podium) but that doesn't keep him from being an individual who i genuinely like spending time with and talking to whereever and whenever possible. he said many times that he was sorry that we live six hours apart and i am, too. if we lived closer, i would spend more time with him, just on general principle.

one of the things i read was his novel mullah!, which is about domestic terrorism againt american embassy staff in tehran by a fanatical moslem cleric (a mullah). he tried to sell it once and was turned down, but he might be able to resell it in the current atmosphere. time will tell.

i liked the story, which was important to me. i respect the man, but there is a time when you have to sit down and read someone else's work and be critical. it is especially hard to do with someone you respect. i remember a friend of mine in college reading some of the stuff i'd written and being relieved that it was worth reading.

at any rate, i am home now and i have just spent the afternoon reading 350 emails that had accumulated from the culture list. over a dial up connection (ugh). my drive down from new york was uneventful, although there was fog on the new jersey turnpike, which meant that i had to keep a reasonable rate of speed for that whole stretch. and there was a tractor trailer on fire just outside of one of the rest stops, which was neat (in an "interesting things to look at while you're driving down a featureless strip of blacktop in the middle of the night" kind of way).

my tenth high school reunion is in two hours and i have yet to get dressed, but that simply awaits dinner. i'm nervous, though. eep.

and shannon comes home tonight. she should be walking in the door at about 10:30 and i doubt that i'll be out until the 1 am that the invitation mandates. so that's a yay!

yay!

so i made it up here. quickly, on the :37's.

11:37. i leave home.
12:37. far side of the harbor tunnel in baltimore.
1:37. far side of the delaware memorial bridge.
3:37. just about to the queens midtown tunnel (so sue me, i get lost in manhattan very easily).
5:03. i pull in to the driveway and say "thank god." except that i have to sleep in the same bedroom as my brother and he's snoring. stop laughing, shannon!

so that was my trip north. very fast, but somewhat enjoyable. oh. and i'm here and i'm alive. if anyone cares, that is.

someone is having a bad time. and, the thing is that i'm not pointing this out to be "cocky" or arrogant or even to be a pisser. i'm pointing this out because, well, because it sucks when your friends are not having a good time with life. and we all want to be supportive. i know i do.

the only thing i can say here (without overstepping the boundries that have been established, metaphors and all) is "give your friends a chance. explain yourself as clearly as possible. it may not solve the problem, but talking things through once might be a good start." or not.

but what do i know? (that's my mantra for the week.)

and shan, if you're reading, you're right. the ending of weapons of devotion (as it stands) is not enough. it is unacceptable. i hate it when you're right about my writing - especially when you're critical. but you're right. and you're not vicki. or i shouldn't let you take on that role. one of the two. anyway, my point is that i need to finish it properly. keep writing. keep what i've got and get back to the story at hand, with the material i've created still in there. i think i know how, too. i still don't know how to end the bloody thing, but that's something that will occur to me in time. i hope.

but i know where to start with the next section. that's better than nothing. everything is better than nothing.

so. life is quiet. i just spent two days at work, doing not much of anything in preperation for a trip up north for thanksgiving. tonight, when i get home, i'm going to grab some sleep and get up about midnight so i can drive to my grandparents house on the end of long island and be with my family. that should be fun. especially the new jersey turnpike bit. i've never driven my car for such a distance and i'm sort of spooked. sort of.

i watched tomb raider last night, which was okay. not spectacular, unless you count angelina jolie's breasts (there are two of them and i counted them a lot). still, it was something to do. i was bummed out until shannon called (which was a welcome surprise) 'cause then i got to talk to someone. i hate being home alone. that sucks.

and now my computer at work has some kind of major lag on it. i hate that, too. grrr...

so i got rich to go back into the list archives and find the original posts i put in about weapons of devotion. there were two (that i can recall) and what they said was very interesting.

first:

man gets out of prison and, on his first day out, interferes with a would-be assasin that's trying to kill a diplomat who likes to go slumming. this gets him involved with various intelligence and domestic security agencies, who want to lean on him for their own, petty, agendas.

he just wants to keep his nose clean and live a quiet life. he almost has everyone convinced to leave him alone when something bad happens near him.

i'd have to think more about the details before i could tell you what "bad" meant on the whole good/bad scale.

second:

crap. it's really quiet at work right now, which means that it's prime time for writing. and, wouldn't you know it, i've got a story sitting in the back of my mind, waiting patiently for me to muscle up and write it down.

well, it's sort of a story. i've got three characters, a beginning and sort of a title. well, not really a title. more of a quote that informs the book, if you know what i mean.

but anyway, here i am deciding whether to go ahead and follow these people in the hopes that something interesting and productive comes out. eh. i'll probably just start by writing down all the story ideas i have in the file by the window and go from there...

but i really wish i had a title. somehow, i think that would make it easier to start.

the title i settled on, obviously, was weapons of devotion. odd choice, but it worked. what freaks me out is how much the story differed from what i was thinking about.

the other odd thing that i keep coming back to is the fact that i'm more than a little dissatisfied with what i write. i guess that's natural, but still. what's very odd is that i was thinking about this in the context of not fish; duck. then i started noticing that some of my readers have been having difficulty getting all the way through the podium. which brought me to a comment that peter made about the podium way back when he read it and sent me comments. to wit:

A weakness of the book-although also potentially one of its great strengths-is that, until the end, nothing happens. At the beginning we're introduced to Marseilles, Samarkand, and the grandfather, and led to believe that we'll come to understand something important about their relationships. And then nothing happens. People get laid or stoned, they play music, they search for themselves, they have intellectual conversations. By about page 50 I was getting fairly irritated at this, but then came the Waiting for Godiva sequence, and I started to see the point-at least I thought I did. The long waiting for nothing is precisely what the reader of the book has to go through, because what the book is about is the inability of the narrator to satisfy the reader. A great idea, whether you meant it that way or not-but for it to work I think you need to do two things, either or both of which may alter the book far beyond your original concept.

needless to say, i didn't take the book beyond it's original concept, but i'm starting to see what he meant by the inherent dissatisfaction of the reader. i don't see it so much with the podium, but i'm severely dissatisfied with the way not fish; duck is going. and i can definately see where readers might be not so satisfied with the ending of weapons of devotion. maybe there's a theme there? something to look at, anyway.

but i have no idea how to overcome this problem in later books. that's going to weigh on me. more than it does right now, at any rate...

ah. the weekend. countless hours of lounging about, doing absolutely nothing. sounds like a good thing, don't it? wrong. countless hours means just that. countless hours. long hours. of nothing.

so i took shannon to the airport saturday morning. boo. be home soon. i want the great relief of having you to talk to.

then i came back home and took a nap. i knew i'd be up late watching the leonid meteor showers. i got up at one, but sarah was not s'posed to arrive until seven. so i had several of the aforementioned hours in which to do nothing. so i read a book. and some comics. and checked my email. and bought pringles. and did stuff. that was my saturday afternoon. productive? no. entertaining? not really. relaxing? yeah, sort of. in a "i'm not really doing anything or thinking about anything, which gives my brain a chance to rest" kind of way.

sarah came over and we played scrabble and listened to music and watched george carlin and eddie izzard and just had an enjoyable evening. thing is that we were waiting for john, her boyfriend to show up so we could go watch the leonids. he showed up about 4 am, by which point sarah and i were dragging big time. (sheer exhaustion, mostly. it can get tiring, just watching television and relaxing).

so we went and watched some meteors fall, which was impressive. except that the fog flooded in, obscuring the sky, which was no fun. still in all, it was a fun night. i think we irked the shit out of john, though. that's okay. he's a friend of mine and i respect him a lot, but he still needs to have someone irk the shit out of him every once in a while. he's just like that, really. thing is that i actively don't want to irk the shit out of shannon. but there's nothing there that she should be irked about, so that should be fine. (he said, hoping it was true...)

sarah's fun to hang out with, though. it's like having a sister. i never had a sister, so that's kind of interesting.

anyway. sunday is my federally mandated day of rest and i'm resting, dammit. i went to blockbuster and rented pitch black and saving private ryan on dvd. i can justify these rentals because i know shannon would never, ever, want to see either of them. so that's okay.

and i'm trying hard not to think about the rewrites i have to do for not fish; duck, which means (for those of you that have been playing along at home for some time now) that i'm probably going to just sit down one evening and write whole swathes of it out longhand. just to get it the hell out of my head. that really is the only reason i write anymore, you know - to get the story out of my head. to fix it, once and for all, in a form where i don't have to worry about it anymore. i hate having to think about the different ways i want to present a story. the different versions fighting in my mind for dominance. i don't like being a creator god for the stories and the words. i don't like having to decide who lives and who dies. who gave me that power?

oh. that's right. i did that. fuck.

boom. shazam. and i finished the novel. weapons of devotion is in the bank, baby! i'm very happy about this, obviously. of course, i still have to listen to reader feedback and go through and sand down the rough bits, but for right now, the next few days, i'm just happy that it's done. the story is told. i can relax. for a while.

you see, i still have to do the rewrites on not fish; duck. those are going to be tough to do, because of the way i want to tell the story. but now i have the chance to do it. i can go in and sit down and pay proper attention to one story at a time. the irony, of course, is that i was working on the main body of not fish; duck at this time last year. i remember sitting in this office, freezing my ass off, writing about obasi and louis as they walked around their lives. it was so cold that the air looked blue. i remember that distinctly. maybe this year won't be so bad. i'm hoping.

i've been making cds at my desk. the problem is that my cd burning applications are having difficulties. they keep crashing on me, which isn't very much fun at all. tuesday i created a james mix. i told shannon about it and she got upset because none of the "good" james songs were on it. so she wants me to make her a "rest of james" cd. hum. that's going to be a challenge. and i'm recreating an underworld cd that got screwed up the last time. long songs. but good. oh so good.

it's been long-known that santa and satan have the same set of letters. coincidence? i think not.

i've made a mission statement for work because it's (apparently) vitally important that the operations team has some kind of guiding principle. we've never needed one before and we've been just fine. but now? i dunno.

what else? the leonid meteor showers are this weekend. that should be fun. except that shan's going to los angeles for thanksgiving. poo. i don't want her to go. granted, i'm off to long island with my fably for turkey day, but that doesn't mean squat. i'm just sad to see her go so far away. not 'til saturday, though, so i have some time to get some qt with my qt. (that's a pun. thank you. you've been a great audience...)

but wait. there's more...

my yahoo mailbox has been acting up all morning, which is pissing me off. and then i took this test. i got the following result:

At this particular time you are feeling the results of extreme stress and you are seeking a "way out"...but you are pushing too hard.. Obviously you need peace, tranquillity and contentment. Your temperament is such that you are hoping ,unrealistically perhaps, that your desires will shortly be fulfilled (even if at this time you are not quite sure what those true aspirations may be!).

You enjoy taking part in anything that may constitute fun and excitement. You need to be stimulated and need to feel that "Life is worth living" and you are awaiting that stimulation and you don't particularly care where it comes from .!

In spite of all the opposition you are insisting that your goals are realistic...but circumstances are forcing you to compromise...You are not very happy with this situation...but there is little that you can do about it. You have very strict standards...and these you try to apply with everyone who enters your sphere of influence...

You are trying to prove yourself .. not only to yourself.. but also to everyone around you...There is much that you would like to say and do .. but the situation warrants self-restraint .. and that is the last thing that you have on your mind..It would seem that you have an unsatisfied need to ally yourself with others whose standards are as high as your own. You want to be different - to stand out from the crowd. This is subjecting you to considerable stress but you tend to stick to your attitudes despite lack of appreciation. Of course, you are finding the situation uncomfortable and would like nothing better but to break away from it. But you don't like the idea of compromise. Your main problem is that you are unable to resolve the situation because you continually postpone making the necessary decisions ... You feel that if you make the wrong choice this would lead to such opposition that you would not be able to command the esteem of others. It is essential that those around you are prepared to comply with your wishes and respect your opinions. Only when this compliance is established, will you feel at ease and secure.

You would like to be respected and valued for yourself and this can only be achieved from a close and harmonious relationship.

so my ten year high school reunion is in two weeks. they asked me for some answers to a stupid little questionairre. i thought i'd share.

Family? The nice, helpful ones are still alive. After all, I have a conscience.

Tell us what you’re doing these days. Dashing novelist and masked adventurer by twilight. Mild-mannered network and help-desk technician/documentation specialist during daylight hours. I’m usually asleep by midnight.

Hobbies or projects you’re involved in. At present, I’ve got the whole unpublished novelist thing going. On top of that, I’ve discovered that I’m a better boat painter than sign maker, I’m exploring copyright infringement on the edges of online erotic art and I’m acquiring a working knowledge of how to piss off a Goth DJ with very little actual effort. (Life moves quickly. You have to grab hold somewhere.)

What have you been doing for the past ten years? Things and stuff. Mostly.

What are you most proud of in your life? That I graduated from college, wrote several novels and have lived in Europe. So far, so good.

What are you looking forward to in the next few years? More things. Probably less stuff than before.

okay. so the site works now. (no link here. look in the sidebar.) and it looks marvelous. joe did a fantastic job. thanks, joe!

it was a good weekend, all things considered. i wrote most of a chapter and i'm that much closer to being done with weapons of devotion. almost, almost. it's turning out very strange but very good. so that's making me happy. as it should.

i made a mix cd of various james songs that make me happy. it was a pain in the ass, though. the application kept crashing on me. then i saved all the files to my hard drive so i could listen to them and move them around. good idea, right? wrong. it can't play the songs from my hard drive. that would be too easy. ugly fuckling. so i had to recreate the image after i'd moved the songs around into the order that i wanted them in. sigh...

and i have to a) go to the supermarket, b) ship a box to chicago, c) get stamps so i can mail my bills and d) get a haircut. all within the next few days. where will i get the time? where will i get the money? i despair... or i would, if life wasn't in such good shape right now.

i'm very excited. the dns settings finally made it around the world. there's nothing but a placeholder there for the time being, but i just had a long conversation with joe at the club last night. we may not agree about music, but we can have serious (and not-so-serious) conversations about every other aspect of life without a problem. but that's what friends are like - the same conversations and the same arguments, over and over again.

the upshot is that i disagree about kiss vis-a-vis the beatles, but he's going to do my website. or something to that effect. it should be fun.

i've been writing all weekend, which has been strange. it feels good to write. to get into the narrative and be able to crank out five or six hundred words (longhand) at a pop. to spend half an hour considering the phrasing of a particular image or conversational opening. but i'm lost in my head and i can feel myself not paying attention to anything around me. too hot? i wouldn't know. hungry? is that what it is?

i'm self-conscious of the fact that i am not aware of my surroundings. normally, that makes me shy, especially if i share a living space with someone else. it's hard to pace back and forth for an hour if someone else is in the room. even moreso when they're trying to not watch you be creative. but shannon's pretty good at being non-judgemental of my quirks and i really need that. it lets me relax. my conversations may not concern my entire consciousness, but i can still have them and not worry that i'm angering her because she doesn't have my full attention.

that's nice. i really appreciate that. i just wanted to say...

hey. check this out. you can become a bob ross instructor, too! cool.

and i'm writing up a storm today. several thousand words and almost no real work at all. awesome! only problem is that i'm worried that the sharp left that the story is taking might be a tad disappointing to some people. hopefully not, but it could happen. time will tell. and readers. they should be able to tell me, too.

and i've got a saturday appointment to get the fill-work done on my tattoo. rock on!

see? i wasn't nuts. that is so cool. isn't it? and i was the first to point it out. i'm such a geek. i'll stop now.

this is an interesting little bit of art from halcyon. it's very different from the kind of erotic art that i do, but it's just as compelling. more, even. i think he does some interesting stuff with the eyes, which is something that i probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise. i like his approach and, of course, i approve of his subject matter.

on a more serious note, there are odd currents afoot. they make life complicated in ways i wasn't sure that they would ever be again. (not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing - just that these things keep happening to me. outside of my control. so i say...) i'm not going to elaborate because, well... i'm just not. but halcyon has something interesting to say here. and there's an interesting editorial from nerve that comes from almost the same direction. don't ask about my life. it just keeps getting more unusual and that which does not kill us can only make us stranger.

oh. and 625,142 on spaced penguin. most of that was from one of the early levels, where i got something like 400,000 points from the single level. woo!

from the end of chapter 12 of weapons of devotion:

It was, upon infinite reflection, an insight that did not add to the comprehension of the story at all. Yet it approached the kind of meaning that an Ecstatic rave kid could tease from the lyrics of an Underworld song at 3 am - a dehydrated dervish caught up in the pulsating beat, hoping that the narrative is never brought up short.

And always disappointed.

Just like now.

good weekend. i took shannon out to bowie on saturday night. why bowie? what's in bowie? the answer: nothing. there is absotively nothing in bowie. it's an intersection of two major highways. but it also has a hotel that has whirlpool suites. we got one and we had fun. with far too much bubble bath. but it was a good weekend, and that's important.

some good star wars stuff for you today. first, we have a salon article about the phantom edit. then we have the new teaser trailer for episode ii. very nice. very slick. looking good. now, i just hope the storyline is effective.

oh yes. and happy guy fawkes day to the brits who read this blog! remember remember.

friday friday friday. what's on the plate for friday, you ask? well, i have just the things for your viewing enjoyment.

first up, we have a surrealist game, nicely translated into digital terms. kinda weird. kinda wiggy.

second, we have an odd story about drunken party games. nothing new here. not really, anyway.

and finally, we have crunchland, the premier place for strange dc people to hang out online.

ah. we were meant to go out to spooky ii at nocturnia last night, but we wimped out and decided to stay home instead. that was a much better plan, frankly. we ate pizza, went to maggie moo's for ice cream, took a bath and watched enterprise. you know, stuff you're supposed to do on a weeknight.

while i'm on the subject, can i just say that scott bakula is doing a very good job on enterprise? come to think of it, i don't think there are any standout characters on enterprise that i don't like.

amanda posted a new game to the list. this one is about trying to catch bugs with a spider character. it's not nearly as addictive as spaced penguin, though - which i still play from time to time.