Archive for the 'Life' Category

The West Coast Tour

Published at June 27, 2009 in Friends and Life. 0 Comments
“Well I’ll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It’s a quest. It’s a quest for fun. I’m gonna have fun and you’re gonna have fun. We’re all gonna have so much fucking fun we’ll need plastic surgeory to remove our godamn smiles.“

I went on vacation. Webster and I were originally going to Sacromento to see Bobby Lau. Bobby Lau had to come back to the East Coast before Webster and I had a chance to visit, so we decided the best possible thing to do was go out there anyways. We would land in Vegas and drive up California, stopping at some great National Parks along the way. We knew some people out there ( San Diego, LA, San Fran ), and there was plenty to do out there. So the plan was to fly into Vegas, where coincidentally a friend of mine from work was also going to be attending “conferences” and doing “work”. Does anyone actually go to a conference in Vegas and expect to stay inside all day doing conference stuff? Oh yeah, trekkies… well, do normal people do this?

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon

So we flew out on a Tuesday night. You know the vacation started off right when at 330PM we were told we were going to miss our 830PM connecting flight in Ohio because of bad weather in Sri Lanka or some such nonsense. All the more reason why we need better air traffic control system in this country ( Story Here ). So we were rerouted to Minneapolis, naturally. Boston – Minne – Vegas, clearly the best possible route. We rolled into the rental car place at about midnight, and were out of there in a mere 1.5 hours. Screw you Thrifty via Dollar Rental! If you are going to be the only car rental place open, how about you hire more than 2 people to take orders? It was there we got our ride for the next 2 weeks, the sweetest, slickest, silverest PT Cruiser you ever did see. We debated getting something with a trunk for about 3 seconds, decided against it. 2 weeks later, that choice would haunt us.

Read on… it gets good.

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The Summer of Stickney

Published at May 7, 2009 in Friends and Life. 0 Comments
“Welcome everyone. I am your dam guide, Arnie. Now I’m about to take you through a fully funtional power plant, so please, no one wander off the dam tour and please take all the dam pictures you want. Now are there any dam questions?“

I know, it’s been a while. I’ve been busy. School, work, fun. But enough is enough. The People are dying to know what I have been doing. Yeah, I know you’re not. Just let me believe it. I need to believe it.

The weather is getting nicer, as it’s currently 60 degrees and raining out. But, nonetheless, plans for the latest Summer of Stickney are underway. This includes couch surfing, concert going, baseball gaming, road tripping, BBQs, parades, Euro tripping (??), along with all the usuals, Feast Party, beach going, bike riding!

Ive got a road trip planned, with details forthcoming. It will prove to be awesome, and Ive got charts and maps to prove it!

So check your emails, watch out for your voicemails, I might be heading your way soon!

Happy New Year!!

Published at January 2, 2009 in Geeky and Life. 0 Comments
“Polar bears are meant to be quite clever, very clever. They’re like the Einsteins of the bear community.“

This New Year started out with a bang! Myself and some associates, The Muirs, Scrub and Stew drove down to Newport with Erin and Mikey ( who had the common sense not to join us ) and dove into the Ocean with the Newport Polar Bears to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation. Man, what an experience. We did not start to take off our many layers of clothes until about 5 minutes before noon, Dip Time. The first thing you have to do is put your bare feet on the cold, wet sand. All feeling is lost in about 45 seconds. Running in place helps keep the blood flowing, and for once, my few addition percentage points of body fat actually helped me out. As the Muirs and Scrub probably have combined body fat % of -4.2. The dip consists of running into knee high water, throwing yourself into the ocean, and running back out of the water to your waiting piles of towels and pants, trying to dry yourself off before the water freezes to your body. All and all the experience was a great one, and I hope to repeat it next year.

I dont know if it was Justin’s sunglasses, Stew’s speedo or Ryan’s pink underwear, but the good people at WPRI decided to film our initial responses coming out of the 40 degree water, on a beautifully sunny 20 degree beach day. You’ll only see me in the background of this video, as my response of “Fucking cold!!” was “too real” for the fine people at WPRI Eyewitness News.



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The American Car

Published at November 22, 2008 in Life. 0 Comments
“Truth is, I make car parts for the American working man because I’m a hell of a salesman and he doesn’t know any better.“

So the economy is gone to hell. I didn’t do it. They did it. Probably one of the funniest skits I’ve ever seen Keenan on SNL do was a piece he did on Weekend Update where his only piece of advice to the financial sector was “Fix it”. He basically kept yelling it. Step 1: Fix. Step 2: It. Step 3: Fix it. Repeat steps 1-3 until it is fixed. I couldn’t agree more. The Fed wants to give out $700 billion of our money to help fix it. I am not an economist. But I suppose if the staff of every Senator and Representative decided that we needed to give out $700 billion, then go on ahead.

But recently, the “Big Three”, Ford, GM and Chrysler decided that they wanted a piece of this action because they too were failing as businesses. I guess they are trying to live up to the old adage, so goes GM, so goes the nation. These are private businesses who say they are so important to the economy of the country that if they go down, we all go down. I am not an economist. I am not in the auto manufacturing business. I dont even own a car. No one asked for my opinion, no one cares. Big Three: suck it. It’s not my fault you let Toyota, Honda, and Nissan steal the market away from you. While the Japanese were making smaller, economy sized cars with superior engines, you were selling us SUVs with the same old engines. Detriot’s auto industry is 100 years old. How could they have not saved enough cash to get through a catastrophe such as this? Do you mean to tell me that no one in Detroit saw what the Japanese were doing? As an American, I am almost ashamed. I think as a people we are pretty innovative. Why couldnt The Big Three say, “Hey look at what Toyota is doing. We need to do that. Do that!” Then maybe they’d be better off today. So now they want a handout. And I am not sure we should give it to them.

FYI – I did go through 3 Chevys in 10 years. My friends with Toyotas and Nissans… guess how many they had?

Mega Update 2: Son of Mega Update

Published at August 26, 2008 in Life. 1 Comment
“Laziness is counter-revolutionary“

It’s been 2 months. I am a son of a bitch, no offense Mom. What have I done recently? Well, I competed in the Summer Olympics in Beijing and won 8 gold medals, set 8 world records and pissed off swimmers from 5 different countries. No, wait, that was half man, half dolphin Micheal Phelps.

I went to 2 weddings, congrats to Kelley and Steve and Alfredo and Christine! Saw Richard Cheese in NYC, went to New Hampshire a few times, Rhode Island, had The Feast Party, saw some movies ( Dark Knights, Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Ne le Dis a Personne, Europa Europa, Elizabeth ) went to CT for the 4th of July and Cranston, went to the Casino a few times, went camping twice, once in a monsoon.

My good friend Jared is off in Europe right now, backpacking for 2 weeks through at least 9 different cities. He needs a vacation! He’s blogging it all on jaredmatfess.com

Ive got to fix my gallery up there. I use the ANIga gallery plugin, and during an update, something got disconnected. My database is still full, the pics are still there, but it doesnt work. I might have to dig deep for this one. I just ordered a new book, Head First AJAX. I guess this web2.0 thing is no fad, and I should start learning something if I am to keep my fu strong.

Ill try to post more as things develop, Ive got a few things cooking, Ill see what comes of them.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, my friend Shakir dancing with one of the Meow Mix DJs from Fredo’s wedding. A sight to be seen, truly.