That Time of Year

by Matt | Dec 10, 2012 | Personal

Well, it’s December. I have a real love-hate relationship with December. I love cold weather, I’m still a New Englander at heart and there’s just something about the chill, seeing your breath outside, the wind, the quiet, the gray skies. It’s peaceful. Winter also means skiing, which was a huge part of my life for a long time, even though I don’t get to go very often, it’s still something I think of fondly.

December also brings my birthday, and Christmas, and depression. I don’t think I have what we’re now calling “Seasonal Affective Disorder”, at least I’ve never been diagnosed with it officially. I just don’t really get into the season, and I don’t really like my birthday in general.

I’ve never really had a “good” birthday. When I was younger it was tough to have birthday parties because my birthday is so close to Christmas (just a couple days). My parents also usually took my younger brother to hockey camps in Decemeber. So, I was alone for a good number of birthdays. I’m not blaming them, we always celebrated when they got back, but on the actual day of, I was usually by myself.

There were a couple times I managed to cobble together some sort of event. I can remember once or twice having Chip, Chris and Josh over for some videos games, those were good times, but I think that was about it. The biggie was my 18th birthday. I had to work that night and when I got home everyone was gone, there was a note on the counter and a $20 bill. The note read “Happy Birthday, get yourself some pizza, we’ll be back on Saturday”, or something similar. That was pretty much the final straw. From that point on, I just didn’t really enjoy my birthday.

My wife has been really good about making sure we always do something for my birthday now, even if it’s just going out to eat. She’s knows I’m kinda down this time of year and always tries to cheer me up.

This year we tried getting people together for a “End of the World” party, since my birthday and the end of the world seem to be lined up nice and fittingly. No dice. Everyone is out of town or traveling. I had really wanted to go big this year. Big party, food, booze, the whole 9 yards. Oh well.

Christmas is a whole other “thing” that I won’t get into, but let’s just say that I’m not really looking forward to it. This almost perfectly sums it up. Sigh. At least there’s eggnog.

At least I have my family, my friends, my health. There’s a lot to be thankful for. I usually remember that in the end, but don’t mind me if I get a little “bah humbug” between now and then.

Sarcasm

by Matt | Nov 7, 2012 | Personal

The revolution will not be televised due to our blackout policy. Because the revolution is taking place in your market, you will be unable to watch the revolution. Instead of the revolution, the classic Billy Bob Thornton/John Cusack film, Pushing Tin, will be televised. If you’d like to see the revolution, it is advised that you purchase tickets and attend the revolution. The revolution is not sold out. In fact, season tickets are still available.

The revolution will not be televised, but may we suggest purchasing access to Revolutions.tv. This will allow you to watch the revolution on your PC, tablet, or mobile device.

The revolution will not be televised, but it will be available for streaming on Hulu.com seven days after the revolution takes place.

The revolution will not be televised, but I know this weird Korean website where you can watch it. There are subtitles I don’t understand, and the quality isn’t great, but it’s still the revolution.

The revolution will not be televised, but if you have a cable subscription, you can log in to WatchRevolutions.com and use their authenticator to watch the revolution. Just provide your username and password, and you will have access to the revolution live, plus alternate angles, commentary, and the ability to share your login with up two more IP addresses.

The revolution will not be televised because of a dispute between the revolution and DIRECTV. If you’d like to see the revolution, please call DIRECTV and demand that they put the revolution back on the air. In the meantime, my buddy Carl has Dish Network. I don’t know if they’re televising the revolution or not, but it’s worth a shot.

The revolution will not be televised, but I guess if you really need to see it, you could download a torrent. Just be careful, because if we get another letter from Time Warner, they’re going to cut off our internet.

The revolution will not be televised, but for $7.99 a month, you can subscribe and stream as many revolutions as you want. You’ll end up spending the whole weekend watching revolutions. They’re so addictive. Or, have the revolution sent to your home on DVD. Return the revolution when you are done, and you can get a new one in 2-3 business days.

The revolution will not be televised, but I heard there’s a way to watch it through an Xbox 360. My roommate is playing Left 4 Dead 2 right now, so we can’t use it. When he’s done though, we’re totally going to watch the revolution.

The revolution will not be televised, but it will be live tweeted by various celebrities. This is not the same as watching the revolution, but we understand that millennials prefer this method more.

The revolution will not be televised, but you can read the recaps the next day on various websites. Critics will assign a letter grade to the revolution, and commenters will debate as to whether or not that letter grade is accurate, especially considering the revolution as just one part in a larger, serialized context.

The revolution will not be televised, but… ugh… what the hell is a Roku?

The revolution will not be televised, but it will be available for purchase for $5 through Louis C.K.’s website. The revolution will be DRM-free, but please don’t send it around to all of your friends. Real people made this revolution… ya know?

Originally from McSweeney’s

October

by Matt | Oct 17, 2012 | Personal

The fall has always been a traditionally busy time for me. Weddings and photo shoots ramp back up now that the weather is turning cooler here in Texas. My day job switches into Q4/End of Year hurry-up mode, when all the business development folks lose their minds and want all sorts of crazy things (graphics, brochures, etc) to try and close a deal. Church picks up it’s “social activities”, again because the weather is turning nicer. Everything from politics, to baseball, to holiday shopping, everything just seems to get busier.

So, rest assured, not posting daily is a product of my own over-scheduling, and not some lack of literary ambition. As I implied, I’ve been busy.

The last two weekends I’ve been on photoshoots. First is was the Susan G Komen “Race for the Cure” marathon, which was unlike anything I had ever seen. 30,000 people, on a street, moving like cattle, and me standing on a guard rail, in the median, trying to get some photos. It was insane. It didn’t help we arrived down there at 5am, the butt-crack of dawn. Just this last weekend, I was helping on a corporate “employee day” shoot at the zoo. Massive crowds that day too, but that was more manageable. There was face painting, animal exhibits, snow cones, all sorts of goodies. We were just there to cover the event. The next two weekends are similar. Basically, I don’t have a free Saturday for all of October. Busy is good right?

During the week its the usual 9-5, but we’ve been particularly busy with re-branding one of our identities. It basically involves coming up with a new logo, and then replacing it on every scrap of paper we’ve ever put out, which is insane. Everything from the websites to individual business cards needs to get updated.

When I do have a chance to take a break, I’ve been sinking my time into the awesome sauce that is XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It’s a new take on the classic X-COM, one of the original brilliant turn-based games. The new game is absolutely fantastic and if you’re a fan of the genre (Chip, Jason), you’re going to want to check it out. I was also surprised how well it runs on a variety of systems as well. It runs just as well on my MacBook, running Bootcamp as it does at home on my gaming rig.

Lest we forget about baseball cards for a moment, I did manage to complete my base set for Topps Update. It was only 8 cards, so that’s now exactly a spectacular accomplishment. However, I am missing several of the Red Sox inserts and the minis. If anyone runs across those, please let me now, I’d love to work out a trade. I also picked up several gold, blue and black bordered refractors from Topps Chrome, all for a buck a pop, from the same seller. I’ll show off the rainbow at some point. I also got the cards from a group break Ryan was having, and Sam’s group break cards are on their way. I’m sure I’ll do some scanning in the near future.

Several people have asked me what I think about the Red Sox and their current news. It’s all surprisingly simple to sum up. Valentine was a mistake to hire in the first place, so I’m certainly not crying that he’s gone. I’m certainly not in the camp of “he’s a terrible manager, he sucked”, but he wasn’t right for the Red Sox last year, he just wasn’t. He was the temporary solution because the list of other available coaches was fairly limited. He was a stop-gap. I never perceived him as anything different. I’m not going to hold it against him, I don’t think he did anything agregiously wrong. He was just the wrong manager at the wrong time. It never felt right.

Also, Papi wants $25mil, GIVE IT TO HIM. Let him retire with a “B” on his hat, retire his number, end of story. This shouldn’t even be a discussion. You know why?

• 2 World Series rings
• 8-time All-Star
• 5-time Silver Slugger
• Red Sox single-season home-run leader
• First player in Sox history to hit 40+ home runs in three consecutive seasons
• 85+ extra-base hits for four consecutive years (passing Lou Gehrig)
• MLB’s all time DH home run leader
• MLB’s all time DH RBI leader

Also, 25mil is LESS than we spent to have Lackey sitting on the bench this year. So, yeah, there’s some perspective. He’s arguably the best pure DH in the game, and he’s asking for less than we paid several worthless bums who, career wise, are just mediocre. Just start writing the check. End of discussion.

Anyway, that’s about it for stuff going on around here. It’s back to the grind for me, working 29 out of the 31 days this month. Hopefully that will lead to some extra cash on hand. I’ve got an anniversary coming up, and we were planning on visiting New England for the holidays. Maybe there will be a couple ducats left over for some cards too. Take it easy everybody.

Matt out.