Earthen Vessels

Some Things That Bear Mention

2006-04-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

Life is going along pretty smoothly, all things considered. It figures that around the time I finally adjust to my schedule, it's coming to a close. I have one more actual class session (this Thursday), and then it's time for finals after dead week. Fortunately, I should be able to get in lots of reading and study time in the next couple of Thursdays, since I'm also trying to get ready for a Team Standard Pro Tour Qualifier on the 6th of May.

Basically, I've been sick twice in the last week and consequently playing a lot of Kingdom Hearts, which is much better when your character sucks at magic. It's strange how compelling this game is, since it's a liberal serving of most of Disney's animated characters and some of Square's more recognizable faces from Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and X. The combat is ho-hum, though occasionally intense. Since I'm a fighter, it mostly consists of me targeting a guy and pressing X repeatedly until he's dead. Then repeat. Of course, most people don't play Action/RPGs for the combat (Grandia 2 being the exception), and the story/setting is what keeps it going. Great stuff, and I'm glad I gave it a second chance. Maybe it just seems easier now that I've beaten Ninja Gaiden and Metroid Prime on Hard.

This weekend was the Dissension pre-release, and it was the most fun one yet. I didn't open much good stuff, but I had a blast all day, and the new way of running the flights made everything go much smoother. Good times.

I was a little...off...last week. I don't know how else to describe it, really. Amanda kept asking me to talk about what was wrong, and I really didn't know what to say. I just felt angry and depressed, but there really was no good reason to feel that way. Maybe I was predicting that I would be sick this week. Who knows?

I had a rather disconcerting dream the other night. In fact, there are two dreams I have had in the last week that really bothered and stuck with me, which is highly unusual. I typically have very action-adventure and horror movie style dreams, wherein I am fighting against something or running, jumping, and flying in various ways. These were very different, which is why I recall them more, I suupose. The first one involved a sort of live-action battle game, taking place on an open field. There were several young children involved, and I think I was supposed to be watching them - it must have been a school group or something. Unfortunately, the weapons turned out to be real (actually, I think they changed in mid-dream as things often do) and one of the kids got hurt, and I consequently got yelled at a lot. The other dream was so literal, I thought it was actually happening. I was in a new class at seminary, and I couldn't stop laughing, so the teacher kept deducting points from my grade. I remember being really scared that I was going to fail, but I couldn't keep from giggling. Very weird.

Non-academic goals for this week: Going to see Silent Hill, actually making Top 8 at FNM, and getting together with my team to talk some stategery. Next Time: Hitting the Books, or How Judo Helped Me Study.

Boring Title

2006-04-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well, that hard work with the paper payed off - I was one of "very few" (prof's words) people in the class to get a 14/15, which was the highest grade as no one earned a 15. Nice! I also earned an 85 on my Intro to Theology midterm, mostly on the back of some dubious vocabulary terms. Oh well. That just means I need to do a little better for my final, as hopefully I'll pull off my paper grade again. Speaking of papers, I have two to write for next Thursday, which is a bit of a bummer. There's only three sessions of class left, which is very surprising. It feels like I just started a couple weeks ago! I'm looking forward to the end of the semester, since I won't have this ridiculous schedule again until fall, and even then it won't be as bad.

Amanda and I took some time to talk about our classes in quite a bit of depth last night, as there is a fair amount of interesting overlap between them. I'm very fortunate to have such an intelligent and eloquent woman as my wife. Sometimes I forget that, since we hardly want to talk most of the time when we get time together. It's usually been spent watching a movie or walking through some interesting location rather than focusing on each other or school. It was refreshing.

Not too much more to report. Easter weekend will be pretty busy, and I'm going to be spending most of my Sunday this week studying and writing my papers. But at least I'll get them done early. ;)

I am from the Nation of Procrasti

2006-03-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the part where I give The Setup, which concerns a paper I wrote recently (today in fact*) for my congregational leadership class. Basically, it relates to a marvelous book I have (mostly) read called Procrastination. It's one thing to have a problem so nebulous you can honestly say you don't know what to do about it, it's another entirely to have it smack you in the face in such a way as to disallow any possibility of denying the problem and its sources. Here's my (slightly modified) paper, since most of what I want to say I've already said there.

Procrastination has long been one of the most dominating and fear-inducing problems in my life. I have spent countless hours under the dread of knowing there is important work to be done, but somehow being unable to motivate myself to do it. In my experience, I often felt like the problem was not worth dealing with, in partbecause it happened so naturally, but also in no small part because I almost always wound up completing my tasks or outlasting the need to complete them. This drew me towards choosing Procrastination, by Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen. The selection of this particular book was my attempt to confront and conquer the way in which I postponed doing things until the last possible opportunity. As I read further in the book, I came to several major realizations regarding not only my procrastination behaviors, but other important insights into my personality and time-management skills as well. The book is divided into two main sections: the reasons behind procrastination and methods to combat procrastination. Each of these sections offered me insight into why I put things off and how I can better manage my time and my life.

Based on their observation, research, and interviews with procrastinators, the authors suggest three main driving forces or focal points for procrastination. Essentially, these are fear-based motivations used as subdivisions of the reasons why people procrastinate. There are those who are motivated by performance (either success or failure), those who are motivated by the need for autonomy, and those who are motivated by relational needs (either attachment or separation). One of the reasons why this book has been so helpful is that it allows me to see aspects of myself as they relate not only to procrastination, but other parts of my life as well. The first motivator spoke volumes to me concerning my procrastinatory habits. Those whose procrastination is motivated by performance are often driven by a deep seated perfectionism, which is something I never would have suspected from myself. I always viewed myself as fairly relaxed, but I came to realize it was frequently out of a fear of failure that I had trouble beginning or continuing with elective projects. As the authors demonstrate is often the case with performance-based procrastinators, I often have an unrealistic all-or-nothing attitude when it comes to optional projects or things I might be giving a try. I used to write fiction, poetry, music, and games for fun. I rarely do this anymore because I have begun to feel that my efforts are never going to meet my lofty expectations of them, and consequently I rarely begin and almost never complete such a project anymore. Yuen and Burka assert that procrastinators of this type equate performance as being equal to their concept of self-worth. In other words, they are putting their value as a person on trial each time they participate in something they feel can have a monitored level of performance, whether this is the case or not. This was a particularly staggering concept for me to grasp, as it has been resoundingly true yet beyond my notice for most of my life. It was uncanny how accurately the “fear of failure” motivations corresponded with my own personal experiences, and I noted this for later examination.

After the level of personal insight in the pervious chapter, the next two motivators were rather different from anything in my experience. In describing the material in those chapters to a friend, I likened it to a group counseling session. I had my turn to receive personal, in-depth information, but I had to wait for more relevant information while others had a chance to discuss their own problems. Consequently, I have less of a personal level of commentary regarding the other two motivators. The second motivator is fear of losing the battle for autonomy. Essentially, the procrastinator sees people as intruding on his or her personal freedom, and thus delays action on things as a means of asserting independence from those people. In a way, procrastinators of this type also judge their self-worth by performance, but the authors suggest that in this case, the performance is the ability to maintain autonomy. The third type of motivator is fear of separation or fear of attachment. Individuals who fall into this category use procrastination as a means of maintaining their personal boundaries, either putting things off in order to spend time with people or putting things off to avoid people instead. Though the information here was useful to the extent that I may be prepared to help other procrastinators whose motivations differ from my own, the information on these motivators were not as relevant to me as the first.

The next chapter of the book dealt with locating the source of one’s procrastination, especially from a family context. Yuen and Burka identify five different themes that they have seen in talking with procrastinators about their family relationships. These themes correspond to the previous three chapters: pressuring, doubting (success and failure), controlling (autonomy), clinging, and distancing (separation and attachment). In reading these various themes, it became clear to me that the pressuring theme was the most dominant in my past, followed somewhat distantly by the doubting theme. My family always had high expectations of me which were based on previous performance, and I learned that I needed to always do better than I had before in order to satisfy them (and myself). When I did not perform up to those expectations, it would cast doubt on my abilities, making me less likely to perform in the future and increasing my own unrealistic expectations regarding my level of performance. As I was confronted with these realizations, I became better prepared to confront and conquer my procrastination, which was the focus of the second half of the book.

The first section here was designed to encourage reflection on the causes of procrastination. By examining specific incidents in the past, the authors aim to help the reader identify the causes and consequences of the procrastination. This section also included an examination of areas, style, and excuses for procrastinating intended to encourage further insight into the exact method by which the reader procrastinates. Concluding the chapter is a section briefly discussing the most effective approach to the remainder of the book; in other words, a discussion of the best way to go about using the forthcoming methods to combat the nemesis of procrastination.

The next three chapters were organized to cover these aforementioned different approaches. After reading through them, I elected to try out two combined methods to help fight my own procrastination. The biggest help was a surprising technique called the “un-schedule.” Instead of creating a schedule or calendar that contains the things I should be doing, I start with an inventory of what I am already doing. Once I began to fill in the list, I really began to realize just how I spend my time and where my priorities are. This made it so much easier to consider planing my time in advance, because I knew when it would be easiest to do various activities I would normally postpone, as well as encourage me that I actually have a lot more time than it usually seems.

The book ended with three chapters closely concerned with how procrastinating affects personal lifestyle. There was information on dealing with stress, using others for accountability, and dealing with other people who are procrastinators. The most useful portion here was the chapter on stress, which was very useful to help me recognize when I begin to stress about a project or activity, which helped me be more aware of things I might try to put off.

Procrastination was an excellent choice for me at this time in my life. The book offered several insights into the reasons why I so frequently avoid doing seemingly menial or simple activities, and has given me great hope for fighting these behaviors in the future. When the time comes for me to be in a position of congregational leadership, the last thing I want to worry about is putting off the important projects because I am afraid of failure. Going into doing God’s work knowing that I will not, in fact cannot, be perfect in everything I do frees me to focus on the work itself. Especially when I am in a situation where other people rely on me to get things done, I cannot afford to continue to delay essential activities. Confronting this issue and using the techniques in this book has helped me begin to establish better habits now that I can use to help me in the work of ministry that I will be undertaking in the years to come.

*WARNING!! A Huge Battleship Irony is approaching fast!

Total Domination

2006-03-01T07:24:00.000-08:00

The last couple weeks have been pretty crazy, since my sister (allisonhoffmann.blogspot.com) has arrived back in the States with her nutty British boyfriend, Dom. So there's been a lot of family visiting and a lot less time for doing schoolwork. Thankfully I mananged to get my paper done for last week just fine, but I am a little behind on my reading. That's ok - Amanda is going out of town this weekend, so I will probably have some time to get some serious reading done without her around as a distraction. And I mean that in a very nice way. Anyway, Dom's a really nice guy even though he talks funny. Any person who makes Bangers and Mash (sounds like a great name for a band) as well as he does has to be worth keeping around. Plus he's great with kids. Nice job, Al. I might get more insight when I meet my sister for coffee on Sunday. But tonight is shrimp, spetzle and pork loin + karaoke at my mom's place. God help us all.

I also had a very long and involved dream last night concerning werewolves and covert military operations. I did a little bit of running and jumping over the heavily-booby-trapped front yard of a mysterious mansion complex while avoiding the guards and the similarly mysterious young woman (rogue agent?) that was trailing me. During the course of the dream, I contracted lycanthropy, talked back to a beligerent superior officer, and successfully hid in plain site thanks to my ninja-like stealth abilities. Seriously, if I ever find a way to record my dreams, I'd make a mint selling this to stuff to Hollywood.

I'm heading into FNM #3 in a row after back to back wins, but the good players will be back in Plano, so I'm not getting my hopes up too much. Well, I can hardly complain about the goodies I've gotten in the last few weeks. I'm having some friends over on Saturday, too so that should be a lot of fun. When I've got the whole weekend to budget, it's not hard to manage my time the way I like.

Of course, I do still have laundry and reading to do. A grad student's work is never done.

A Whole New Ball Game

2006-02-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

I think I'm going to have to start going about this differently. I just don't take the time to write something, and then by the time I decide to blog again, I've got WAY too much to talk about. Well, I think I'm just going to have to make the effort to do this daily. And to do it for me. To have something inanimate to talk to that doesn't care really what I'm saying. It's a sounding board for my own sanity in a way that no one else can really replace (sorry folks). To those two people (conservative estimate) who read this, thanks for reading, but you've been part of the problem. Sort of. Let me explain before the gloves come off...

See, this blog was supposed to be for me the whole time. It's not meant to be like my sister's, which was sort of like a mass e-mail. It's really just meant to be a way for me to tackle the random detritous that accumulates in my thought processes from day to day. A verbal sort of housecleaning. I should be able to do short stories, poetry, gaming, God; anything I bloody well want to do here. It's my space after. (not myspace; I have an account, but one blog's enough for me for right now).

Maybe if I do a word of the day, I can entice myself to be more regular about updating this stupid thing. I mean, I really do like it. I enjoy getting things off my chest, and I LOVE writing. It's one of the few things I consider myself to excel at, and I really don't do it nearly as often as I should, unless one counts message boards, which I don't. So maybe I'll get some ficiton or something going here. I just need to stop worrying about being unoriginal or filling people in on my life and just WRITE.

I'm not trying to discourage my friends and family (or, God help you, a fellow e-blogger who clicked "random blog") from coming here and reading this. Far from it. I'm simply chaging the format, shaking things up, doing it for myself.

Now that I've got that out of the way, where do I go from here? I've got a lot on my plate right now. I mean, there's the usual topic of the physical activities that I could go into, but that's the sort of small talk that I wind up repeating over and over again to people who don't care or care too much to hear such drivel. Time is like a recording of my life - I mean, there's a record of what I have physically done imprinted on the strands of time. That cannot be changed. Yesterday I worked out while watching The Two Towers, then took my wife to Denny's and gave her her Valentine's Day present a week early. The recording of time could tell you that. But what it doesn't tell you is that I was really depressed while I walked the dog. I tried to find a song to sing that was a cry to God for help, but I came up empty to I just tried to pray. Time won't tell you that I think Aragorn's an idiot for not picking Eowyn of Rohan. Nor will it express the excitement I felt when I purchased the first two direct-to-video Ju-on movies on ebay for five bucks.

Time records none of what matters, which is why I feel like this form of communication, even if it's to a monitor is much more important. It captures the emotinoal aspects of me; of who I am and what I want to do. I will not be constrained by the "here was my day" paradigm any more. If someone cares enough about what I did in and of itself, that person will find a way to ask me. Otherwise, a mere description of events is not enough to warrant such a waste of time as that.

I will say that I'm bloody sore from working out, since I have lacked the motivation to do so for more than a few minutes. Amanda has inspired me in new ways, however, with her amazing dedication to her new workout program. I guess I feel challenged. If she can be upbeat and happy about kicking her own butt to lose weight, then I can do the same thing to get in shape. It did put me in a better mood last night, so that's definitely a good thing.

I'm a little tapped out after all this expository explanation, so I think I'll just let this be enough for right now. I might jot down a little more later today, but for now, I think this is plenty. Hopefully, this is a new beginning for us all.

I Am a Very Brite Student

2006-01-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

Now that I've had two days of class, I feel like I can begin to make accurate statements concerning my seminary education. The first statement is, "Finally," and the second is, "Sweet." I'm extremely happy at TCU; I know this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. It's a long day, to be sure, but I've had a high energy level and have been handling the rest of my week just fine. James Avery was a good warm-up.

I don't have a whole lot else to report as far as specifics go, so I'll leave it at this for right now. Hopefully I'll get to commit more to e-paper soon.

In spite of everything else going on, I am oddly enough finding myself actually excited about Valentine's Day this year.

Survey Says

2006-01-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

I should have gotten over these sorts of things in college, but honestly, every time I do one I learn something about myself. I wish I had more energy to talk about day one of TCU orientation today, but I'm sooooo tired. Anyway, here's the goods.

*TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey*
Name:	Matt
Birthday:	6-16-78
Birthplace:	Orange, CA, USA
Current Location:	In front of my computer...
Eye Color:	Blue-green
Hair Color:	Light brown
Height:	6'3"
Right Handed or Left Handed:	Right
Your Heritage:	German, Polish, English
The Shoes You Wore Today:	Van knock-offs
Your Weakness:	Games
Your Fears:	Being wrong or useless
Your Perfect Pizza:	Pineapple and ham
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	Exercise more
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	I don't use IMs...
Thoughts First Waking Up:	Snooze button
Your Best Physical Feature:	Eyes and singing voice, if that counts
Your Bedtime:	12pm-1am
Your Most Missed Memory:	If I miss it, how is it a memory?
Pepsi or Coke:	Coke Zero or Diet Black Cherry Vanilla
MacDonalds or Burger King:	That would be McDonalds. With one "a."
Single or Group Dates:	Single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	If it's cold, I'll drink it
Chocolate or Vanilla:	Chocoloate. I am secretly a chocoholic.
Cappuccino or Coffee:	COOFFFEEEE!!!!
Do you Smoke:	Nope. Occasional cigar
Do you Swear:	For humor or extreme frustration only.
Do you Sing:	Yes. Very well, if I maay say so.
Do you Shower Daily:	No.
Have you Been in Love:	Yes, and I still am.
Do you want to go to College:	I've been once, and I'm going back. I'm certifiable.
Do you want to get Married:	I am married. And it's WAAAY better than people make you think.
Do you belive in yourself:	Yeah, though not as much as I should.
Do you get Motion Sickness:	Nope.
Do you think you are Attractive:	Yeah, but I have a hard time seeing myself that way.
Are you a Health Freak:	Hardly.
Do you get along with your Parents:	Yes, I do. They are divorced, but both very cool . Good step-parents, too.
Do you like Thunderstorms:	Love em.
Do you play an Instrument:	Guitar and a tiny bit of piano.
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	Yes. I like beer, but I'm really more of a wine drinker.
In the past month have you Smoked:	About a quarter of a cigar on New Year's Eve.
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	Not unless you count prescription cold medicine. I was flying HIGH, man.
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	Yes, with my wife.
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	No. I honestly can't remember the last time I went to the mall.
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	That's a lot of Oreos. So, no.
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	Actually, yes. I love sushi. Salmon and eel, particularly.
In the past month have you been on Stage:	Nope.
In the past month have you been Dumped:	No, thank goodness. That's called divorce.
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	Not bloody likely. It's January. Of course, it was 78 degrees outside today, but still.
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	No. That would be wrong.
Ever been Drunk:	More times than I should have been, that's for certain.
Ever been called a Tease:	Nope.
Ever been Beaten up:	Several times in middle and high school.
Ever Shoplifted:	Once or twice. Something I regret deeply.
How do you want to Die:	However it pleases God to take me.
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	I'm going to seminary, but I still don't know exactly.
What country would you most like to Visit:	Ireland or Scotland.
*In a Boy/Girl..*
Favourite Eye Color:	Blue
Favourite Hair Color:	Red/brown
Short or Long Hair:	Long
Height:	medium
Weight:	Heh, heh...curvy
Best Clothing Style:	Snappy dresser
Number of Drugs I have taken:	0
Number of CDs I own:	200
Number of Piercings:	3
Number of Tattoos:	0
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	Way too many to count. But I learned good lessons and left them behind.
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

I Have an Opinion...for Once

2005-12-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

When I was young, I was inundated with the message of tolerance and acceptance of people who are different. Basically, I have been afraid to have an opinion about anything remotely controversial for fear that I would be less well-liked or even attacked.

As I reflect on the changes that have overcome me since adulthood (and prepare to enter seminary in a few weeks), I have come to realize that I do have valid opinions. I can't let others with dissenting viewpoints bully me into not standing up for what I believe. It's gotten to the point where I am constantly afraid of stepping on toes, and that's unfair to me, to my opinions, and even to God.

When I don't take a stand to tell someone how I truly feel regarding homosexuality, abortion, censorship, entertainment, or my faith in Jesus Christ, I am lying to God and myself. Lying is never ok. But I do it all the time instead of facing up to the consequences of my actions. Whether that means hurting someone's feelings or admitting I have a problem and need help, I owe it to my Creator to be more truthful with Him and His creatures.

It's somewhat liberating to realize that I actually care enough about some things to feel strongly about them, and to be angry when they are attacked or misrepresented. I'm tired of apologizing for being wrong or close-minded just because I have an unpopular or unusual opinion.

I hope and pray that God will grant me the strength to stand behind my convictions as they are tested repeatedly over the next several years at school.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Oh.

2005-12-19T15:24:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was great, but that's mostly because I like food. Thankfully, (hah!) Amanda and Sue are both terrific cooks. I was pretty spoiled, and the leftovers lasted for at least a couple weeks. Heck, there's still about ten pounds of frozen turkey in the icebox.

I'm finally officially accepted to TCU, and Amanda is way ahead of me on paperwork for her upcoming tenure at UTD. I'm just waiting on loan info, but I guess I should register for classes next. The timing for this is pretty tight, so I don't know exactly what sort of schedule I'll be having in the spring. More on that as it develops.

Going a month between posts isn't so good for my sanity, but neither is all the work I'm doing. James Avery is a blast, and even in the wake of 9 hour shifts, I'm still having a lot of fun. It goes pretty quick becase of how many people we've been getting in. I had just under 42 hours on my last check, and that's for two weeks. Still, it's been good for me, and I think it also makes good practice for next semester.

I've beaten Siren, Summoner, and Wind Waker is next. I won't get to play Magic until Guildpact. That's all for gaming news, because there's not much time for that.

Christmas is fast approaching, and I'm sad because I won't be singing this year. I haven't been to church in three weeks, which is ridiculous for a future minister. Sunday is about the only day I can sleep in, and the last couple weeks I've been scheduled to come in at 11:00 (an hour before opening) so the 8:30 service is the only one I could make it to. Well, I think I should still be able to make it to the candlelight service, but even that remains to be seem. I'm also getting more and more nervous about Amanda's "big" present. I think she'll like it, but we're both tough for the other to shop for, so who knows. I guess I will in a couple days.

Lastly, I have discovered Relient K, and they are rapidly becoming one of my favorite bands. They are a Christian punk-pop band, and they have catchy tunes and clever lyrics. Here's my current favorite. It's sort of becoming my theme song. I'm out of here for now. Merry Christmas to everyone, and may the coming of our Lord remind everyone of how much God loves us all.

Getting into You
Relient K
Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...But Three Do

When I made up my mind
And my heart along with that
To live not for myself
But yet for God, somebody said,
"Do you know what you are getting yourself into?"

When I finally ironed out
All of my priorities
And asked God to remove the doubt
That makes me so unsure of these
Things I ask myself, I ask myself,
"Do you know what you are getting yourself into?"

[Chorus]
I'm getting into you
Because you got to me, in a way words can't describe
I'm getting into you
Because I've got to be
You're essential to survive
I'm going to love you with my life

When he looked at me and said,"I kind of view you as a son"
And for a second our eyes met
And I met that with a question:
"Do you know what you are getting yourself into?"

[Chorus]

I've been a liar and I'll never amount to
The kind of person you deserve to worship you
You say you will not dwell on what I did but rather what I do
You say, "I love you and that's what you are getting yourself into"

[Chorus]

He said, "I love you and that's what you are getting yourself into"

OMGICBIWASHWW*

2005-11-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

There's a distinct tiredness in the air, and it's emenating from yours truly. Even though I got plenty of sleep last night, I'm still exhausted. Why? Because I have taken a second job for the holidays. I'm working part-time at James Avery in addition to my regular job, and it's already starting to take its toll only a week into things. Not that I'm complaining; far from it, actually. I really like working there. The people are great, the job is fun (especially on Saturday when there's a steady stream of customers), and it will pick up closer to the holidays, which is a good thing. I'm doing a lot of inventory and learning right now, so slow weeknights are fine because then I can learn to solder or organize jewelry (which I've proven quite good at), or reach tall things. Did I mention I'm the only man working at this store? That's a little daunting, but not as much as being one of like four people on staff who don't have teenaged kids or older. So there's not much to talk about having in common, but most people have been curious enough about why I'm working for James Avery that it's provided fuel enough for the meager conversation opportunities that I've had so far.

This post is taking longer to write, but not because I'm having trouble thinking. My fingers are near-frozen from this cold front that came in to remind us that yes, it is in fact November. Cosmo sleeps with us a portion of almost every night, but the little guy was desperate to get under the covers this morning at about 5:00, presumably because he was so cold. After I got up to let him into the bedroom, he just snuggled up to my side and kept using his nose to put my hand on his head. It would slide off, and he'd just scoop it right back on top of his head again. I fell back asleep with my arm across his neck. He's so funny.

Also, with all this extra work, I haven't been able to properly finish Siren. I don't think I've mentioned it before, so I'm going to now - those with a low tolerance for rants about gaming might want to avoid this paragraph, but (as I tend to try to do) I'll attempt to make it relevant for all. Siren is a survival-horror** style of game based heavily on Japanese mythology and (unsurprisingly) taking place in Japan. It's pretty cool as these games go, and quite scary, but there are two major flaws; one in the gameplay, the other in the presentation. The gameplay flaw is that each of the 32 levels must be played a minimum of 2 times in order to complete the game. This is not good planning. Basically, there's a gimmick where the first time you finish a level, you are given a single objective (get to point A, find this item, etc.), and the second time, there's an additional objective, often more difficult than the first. On top of that, most levels require that you do something special in another level before you're even given the second mission objective. The game will hint at what you're supposed to do, but it's really, really vague. It bogs down an otherwise tense experience and replaces it with frustration. I've been using the walkthrough for most of the game because of this, and I hate using walkthroughs unless I have to. The presentation flaw is that it was dubbed for the PAL version (the European release) before it came to the States, and the kept the same British voice actors. So here we are, in a small Japanese village, with heavy British accents. Unnacceptable, especially since they are not even good actors. Oh well - the game's still fun to play (once you know what you're doing). I'm just ready to be done, but I want to know how the story ends.

Amanda and I started reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe together on Sunday. It's a lot of fun, and we should finish it by the weekend. She's reading the first three books for her book club's next book, since they're so short. I'm also very much looking forward to seeing Harry Potter this weekend.

That's about all for now. I move offices next week, so I'll pretty much have to do this from home from now on. Busy, busy, busy. 'Till next time!

*oh my goodness I can't believe I'm working a sixty hour work week.
**i.e. "Here's a couple of shoddy weapons and some bullets. Have fun staving off the legions of the Undead!" Resident Evil is the quintessential example.

Halfway There

2005-11-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Just a handful of random updates. I completed my interview at TCU (which was really more of a Q&A session) and now my application is officially complete. It will be reviewed by the board on November 28, so I still have another month and a half or so until I find out whether I'm accepted. Not a lot of time, really.

I got the job at James Avery, and I start my training this Sunday. I'm pretty excited about this, since I'm cooped up in a little office with a frustrating office mate all day long. This should get me interacting with people again - a nice warm-up for school. Of course, I've been teaching Sunday school this month - with little kids. It's been a challenge (mostly because of how early in the morning I had to get up), but it was very rewarding. I think I might teach again in December or January, but I need a month to sleep an extra hour on Sunday morning.

The weekend before last was States, and it wound up being really fun. I took 15th place out of 155, and after my four other tournaments are finished processing, I'll be ranked over 1800 in Constructed, which is really exciting. The whole experience was very good for me. I went in with a positive attitude, played my best, and feel that I did a terrific job, especially considering I was playing a deck I designed, built, and tested myself. I've got FNM coming up on Friday, but with my new job it might be the last one I play for a while.

Halloween is come and gone, and I'm always a little sad. I do so like the spookiness. Our party went very well, and my costume turned out great. I'll get some pictures up here sometime. I did happen to win the costume contest at work, which was cool. Amanda and I went out to eat to celebrate Halloween with the giftcard I won for the contest.

I'm sure there's more, but I've got to get back to number crunching again. Note to self - update more often.

FINALLY!

2005-10-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

My application to TCU is at last complete, and there's only one step left - the interview. I'm not sure exactly when I'll try to work this in, but I have to do it pretty soon. I heard back from James Avery a couple weeks ago, and they interviewed me. I think it went pretty well, and I'm hoping that they ring me up again soon. There's been some other interesting developments, too. Amanda finally finished crocheting my scarf for my Halloween costume, and I'm pretty excited about it. For those curious, all I'll say is that I'll have a lightning bolt on my forehead. Taking a cue from Amanda, Allison (my sister), and Mike Friedman, I decided to learn a new skill - not crocheting, but knitting. I've managed to knit a bit of yarn into a horrible looking small patch of yarn. I'm getting better at it, though, I it's really a lot of fun.

In other exicting news, I have decided for the first time ever to go to State Championships for Magic. It's in Austin this year, so I've arranged to stay with some friends. I'm pretty excited, but also very nervous. There's a lot of testing and practicing to do, and the crazy thing is that the format is so wide open, it's ridiculous. Ravnica becomes legal for sanctioned play two days before States happens, so there's no actual hard data as to what decks will cut the mustard. Exciting, but terrifying at the same time.

Well, at least I have a whole lot of big things to look forward to - especially the soonest: my cotton (2nd) anniversary on October 11! I really am the luckiest guy in the world to be blessed with such an awesome wife, so I hope that we are able to do something cool to celebrate. All we have planned for sure is to take the morning off from work and sleep in. Sounds good to me!

Katrina and Rita

2005-09-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping that the hurricane keeps getting smaller. It's a class 3 as I'm writing this, and I just hope that it causes as little damage as possible. It's a scary time, but I'm heartened by all the people that have pooled their resources to help out. And I have (as Amanda would say) an inappropriate one-fingered gesture for all the nutjobs that say New Orleans had it coming. I'm saddened by the fact that it's very likely someone I served there last year at the homeless shelter died during the storm. It's hitting a lot closer to home now, with Katrina victims moving (some permanently) to Texas and Rita closing in. I have a lot of family and friends that live further south, and I am praying that they are all going to be safe and sound when the storm hits. It's times like this that people should learn to turn to God, and I think that's a big part of why natural disasters figure into the way the world works.

Getting Out of the Boat

2005-09-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is a little late in coming. Things have been a little stressful for me lately, though I've been having trouble pinpointing exactly why. I have been praying a lot for the Katrina victims, especially after singing the poingant (and long) Memorial at all three services last Sunday. I've also really been enjoying the Bible study Melissa has been leading, which is If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg. The study is about the story of Christ calling Peter to get out of the boat and walk on water, and how that relates to getting out of our comfort zones and following Jesus. It's interesting because for just about the first time I can remember, I had a very meaningful change of heart and mind regarding the meaning of a piece of scripture. Melissa often has us reading scripture aloud, but usually it's just several passages confirming what we've already talked about. This time, we read scriptures that revealed the character and nature of Peter the disciple (whom Jesus is calling out of the boat to follow Him). In that story, Peter calls to Jesus and says, "If it's you, Lord, command me and I will come." I always took this as a way of Peter putting the responsibility of his call onto God, rather than just having faith to follow Christ first and ask questions later. But in the other verses we read, Peter repeatedly acts impulsively and is rebuked by Christ for doing so. But when he's in the boat, Peter has the foresight to ask Christ to call him so that he knows that it's Christ that he's following (several other disciples thought Jesus was a ghost). This is something that never really occurred to me about that passage, and its meaning became very different when we looked at the other scriptures about Peter. It was a humbling and powerful experience.

In other news, the Ravnica Pre-Release is coming up soon. The promo card is awesome, and I'm planning on making a whole day of it with Christian, Blake, and some other guys from the Madness boards whom I have not yet met. Master Splinter's Dojo will pwnz0R(ize j00! Ahem. Sorry. Ken is coming into town to play this weekend, so that will be cool - we haven't seen him in ages. Thinking of which, I'm really excited about Sue and Ken (Amanda's folks) coming for Thanksgiving, but I hope we can go visit them in the interim. I'm thinking there's a Renfest weekend to be had between now and the end of November, so hopefully that will pan out. There's probably more stuff I'm not thinking about right now that I want to say, but the beauty of a blog is that I can always enter it in later!

Food for Thought

2005-08-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

Now realize that most Christians believe and teach that God works the same way. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Minor Change

2005-08-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for any minor inconvenience this may cause, but I'm activating the visual word recognition option to prevent further spamming of my comments list. Anyone else with a Blogger weblog can do the same thing in Settings\Comments. I know Allison's gotten spam on her blog before, too.

The most exciting thing is happening tonight - Amanda's joining me for choir! And we're going to be singing the national anthem at a baseball game up in Frisco Saturday night, so that's exciting, too. Yay, music!

Anyone who's willing, please pray for all the people caught in the hurricane, too. We have some family who lost homes (Amanda's stepdad's people) in the storm, so any prayers of support are greatly appreciated.

Resolved

2005-08-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty good as of late. I've been really getting a chance to not only work hard at the office (and in the clinic), but to get in good prayer time (with a journal and accountability partner, no less), finish two models (a Dauntless and a B-Wing), play some random guitar, have loads of fun playing Fable with Amanda, hang out with new Micah people, read Mark Twain, get some new movies, watch a Japanese horror film, and play Doom 3. In otherwords, in the last week and a half, I've really been enjoying life more. God just opens my eyes from time to time, and I always appreciate those opportunities.

Amanda is going to her Women of Faith conference tomorrow and Saturday, so prayers of safety and learning for her. And I'm going to attempt to teach my mom Magic tomorrow, so prayers of patience for both of us!

Living Up

2005-08-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

As I was reasonably certain it would be, choir tour this year was amazing. I was pretty sure it wouldn't quite have the same affect on me this year as last year, and I was partially correct. Most of the meaningful things this year were the relationships I worked on and the people I got to talk to and share with. Deep, meaningful conversations about Harry Potter, the merits of the electoral college, chocolate, and loving like God intended us to. We had a very eclectic group of people (Tim Morrison the choir director kept referring to us as a motley group), and that really contributed to the amazing amount of cool conversations and goofy games that we played. We sang for an Alzheimer's unit, a summer camp, a children's home, a church, a homeless shelter and a day school. The reactions from the different groups were quite amazing, and I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to experience them. We also had plenty of time for prayer and devotionals, as well as some free time to play. I am starting to enjoy being outdoors, summer, and water a lot more. We had about a half day at Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, which was great. It was a little crowded, but the company I was with made up for that. They have a newer section of the park which I hadn't been to before. In it, there is a ride like the Lazy River, but it has a wave generator like a wave pool, so there's huge breakers that go charging around a big circular river channel. It was a lot of fun to try and stay in your tube while surging around the waves. The actual ocean was a little disappointing after the waves from that ride, but we still managed to have fun. There were a few sunburns (I got a minor one, but it feels kind of nice) and a couple jellyfish stings, but otherwise we made out fine. I think I like the beach a lot more than I remember, and I should make an effort to go more often, since it's not horribly far away. Everything came together pretty well last night in the home performance, so I feel like it was a success both spiritually and musically. Of course, I'm home sick as I write this, so there was just a small casualty. I should be back in the saddle tomorrow, though. Now it's time for breakfast and more sleeping. God bless all you wonderful people in my life. Until next time - ciao!

Neverwhere

2005-08-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

In all my yammering yesterday, I forgot to mention something really cool I found recently. I picked up a copy of the Neverwhere boxed set on DVD. Neverwhere (written by Neil Gaiman) is one of my favorite books, and I had no idea it had been adapted to a BBC mini-series. Turns out, it hadn't been. The series actually came first, and the book was adapted from that. Crazy. If anyone ever manages to find it, it's really, really good.

I also finally picked up Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, my favorite feature-length anime. It wasa breathtaking to watch on DVD. Another timeless Miyazaki classic that cannot be missed.

Matt, Interrupted

2005-08-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my life feels like the poster child for disorganized. Everything all willy-nilly, and no matter how hard I try to keep things in order, I just can't do a very good job of it. I have been pretty decent about keeping to the goals on my list, but I have been doing only so-so with lots of other things. Like updating this blog regularly and keeping in touch with friends and family.

I think I am going to start making a list of people and having Blogspot send them notifications when I update the blog. That's sort of cheating, like mass-mailing your friends all at once or the yearly Christmas letter family update, but it's better than nothing. I'd love to get conversations going off responses or whatever, but I guess more than anything I just need to realize I have this thing to get words off my chest and occasionally commit them to "paper."

I'm going to spare everyone the boring updates of gaming and entertainment in my life, as they really don't matter too much and I'm about as tired of writing them as most people probably are of reading them. Much of my time of late has been spent in preparation for choir tour, so that's the thing that has been receiving the majority of my attention and energy. Amanda has been great, going out of her way to participate in a study with work for some extra cash to cover choir tour and perhaps a trip to the new IKEA.

Ok, now I'm really frustrated. I got halfway through this, and had a lot of good insight, when I went to change an option that doesn't even affect Internet Explorer and it brought up a dialogue box. This box said that something was trying to navigate me away from this page and I would lose unsaved data if I didn't press cancel. So I press cancel, and it reloads the page. Last time I checked, cancel meant "don't do this," but apparently Microsoft believes otherwise. I had saved the first part of the article, but I lost the last half, so some of this is going to be crappy because I'm rewriting it. I hate doing things over again (ran into that trouble this weekend), and I usually get very frustrated, so pardon me if the tone suddenly gets a lot more sullen.

So...choir tour. I'm looking forward to it, but I keep thinking that I should have accomplished more over the last year. It's really hard for me to remain motivated for very long, and I think that wanting to work for God should be the biggest motivation of all. I guess I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not exactly sure what. Perhaps I just need a shakabuku experience like choir tour to get me moving again. I guess I'm really not ever very motivated about anything. My emotions are a funny animal; sometimes I get very intense over stupid things, and often I have a hard time expressing emotion even when I feel very strongly.

I was thinking about this last night a bit, too. I was wondering how things are going to be with the other guys on tour. Most of the guys who are going I don't know very well, so I'll have to make friends and conversation. This is difficult for a lot of guys, but I think especially for me. I like to talk about my hobbies, sure. I love Magic, and I love video games, but I also like to talk about more abstract things like (surprise) religion. There's more though - I like to talk about how the media affects children and audiences in general, I like to talk about free speech, censorship, levels of appropriateness in media, and whose rights "count" for more. I like to talk about semantics and linguistics, etymology and mythology. The trouble is, not a lot of other people, let alone guys about my age are into these things. I know I shouldn't judge before I get a chance to know them, but I've always been different enough to know that I think about things in a different way than most people (that was the worst sentence ever). I'm just worried that I won't go out of my shell, or that other guys on the trip won't go out of theirs. God willing, we'll all have some time to step out of our safety zone later this week. I have a hard time no automatically excluding myself from my peers, and I hope to work towards rectifying that on this trip.

Ok, enough for now. Here's to working towards my goals - may I accomplish everything I set out to do with God's help and strength.

Best. Site. Ever.

2005-07-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

www.wikipedia.com

Call Me Hatter

2005-07-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

I've been a little out of sorts this weekend. Ok, very out of sorts. Things will be going great, and then I'll have this day where just a few little things will add up and either set me off or at the least put me in a really sour mood. Last week was incredibly busy, both at work and at home (I actually have a decent reason for not having posted my blog). I had something happening every night - ice cream social for choir tour, Bible study (with me playing worship music), a contemporary worship service, meeting with a friend, and dinner out with some of Amanda's friends. Then Saturday, I feel like I wasted the whole day because I was trying (and failing miserably) to have a good time playing Emperor Magic with my friends. Too many frustrations, and I think I ruined it for most of them, too. I don't know how I can enjoy something so much yet seem to be completely dead-set on causing no one to ever play with me again. I'm considering quitting Magic, or at least selling off all my cards. I could still play Limited and online, but I'd have one less thing that's causing huge stress and getting in the way of more important things, like God and my wife. Also it'd free up a lot of closet space. Just food for thought, but I'll be giving it lots of prayer time.

Speaking of prayer time, I'm setting a bunch of goals for myself starting today. My life feels like it's in disarray a lot, so I'm going to try to get it back in control. I still haven't gotten the Xbox fixed, and that has resulted in poor exercise for me*. I've done pilates once and gone on one long bike ride, but other than that, the land of healthy Matt lifestyle is somewhat barren. I know that most of you who know me think, "That skinny guy does not need to exercise," but you'd be wrong. I don't build muscle very well (at least on my upper body), which is why my arms are so thin. But my metabolism has been slowing down in the last 4 years with my predominantly sedentary lifestyle. I sit at a desk for 8 hours, then go home and sit around for 8 more. Of course I'm out of shape - I don't really do anything active, unless you count grocery shopping**. Also my mysterious Stomach Ailment has been bothering me a lot more as of late, and I'm preparing to go on choir tour in August, which is of course going to Padre. So there's always the "beach body" reasoning, too. You know how much everyone likes to look at scrawny pale white guys with pot bellies. Anyway, on top of exercise, I'm going to start working on my TCU applications today, and also make some conscious eating decisions, too. So I've got a bit of a full plate. Here's the goal list:

1. I will spend at least 20 minutes reading my Bible every day. Doesn't matter what, I'll just gonna open it up and read something I haven't read before.

2. I will eat three meals every day, and limit my snacking to one light afternoon snack. I should probably get some more licorice Altoids.

3. Until it's complete, I will spend at least one hour every day working on my TCU paperwork and essay. I will also make sure I get my reference letters to my reference people.

4. I will not drink any alcoholic beverages until after choir tour at the earliest.

5. I will not drink any caffeinated beverage after noon, and I will limit my coffee intake to two cups.

6. I will exercise every day, attempting the 20 minute pilates routine with arm exercises afterwards. If a muscle group is too sore, I will find a different set of exercises to do.

7. I will continue to drink at least 64 ounces of water daily.

8. I will be in bed before midnight on a workday and two on a weekend. I will not sleep later than 7:45 on a workday or 9:00 on a weekend. I will take a brief 30-35 minute nap if necessary rather than sleep in too late.

I would like to ask everyone who knows and/or cares about me to please help keep me accountable for these things. I will hold myself accountable to God, but I need people help, too. Thanks in advance to everyone. I'll see ya'll later this week with some random Top 10 Lists.

*I have a really cool exercise program on my Xbox called Yourself Fitness. I used it regularly before the machine broke, and I can't wait to get back on it.

**I hate grocery shopping, so I try to get it done as quickly as possible. It's like the 100 meter dash but while pushing a cart full of produce.

Waddling Through the Weekend

2005-07-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Amanda and I took in our first film at Plano's relatively new Angelica theater complex over on Legacy and the Tollway. It's an art-house type theater that plays special release movies and independent films. We went to see March of the Penguins, which is basically a documentary about a year in the life of the Emperor Penguin. It is without a doubt the best documentary I have ever seen; I was enthralled every moment of it. It's very moving, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, always interesting and beautiful. Morgan Freeman is the narrator, and throughout the entire film, all you see are penguins (and two mean old predators) but no humans until the outtakes reel that plays over the end credits. Recommended to all nature lovers.

I don't have all that much that's incredibly interesting to share. The rest of the weekend was terrific, as weekends tend to be. There was housework and video games on Saturday, followed by Lighthouse service at church and a terrific birthday party for my friend Sam. Then brunch with Dad and Karleen at Mimi's, a trip to Sprouts*, and a loooong nap. Tasty stir-fry dinner ensued, with mad Scrabble action** while watching Britcoms. I love my life, and I love my wife. Good times.

*Sprouts is my new favorite store. It's like Whole Foods but with good prices and a smaller store focused on bulk items and produce. Really cool.

**Amanda beat me pretty soundly, closing an early 80 point lead to win 303 to 280. After playing Xiphoid.

Wait...I have a BLOG!?

2005-07-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

Aha! So that's what this thing is! I'm so lousy at keeping up with stuff like this, but I'm going to make a better effort until it becomes a near-daily activity.

I finally applied to Brite Divinity School at TCU in Ft. Worth yesterday. Hopefully I'll get some better financial aid from them that I received from Perkins. I just haven't been all that impressed with SMU; they've made enough mistakes to make me question the quality of education I'd be getting at that school. If I do wind up at TCU, I'd probably have to stay there a couple nights a week to keep commuting costs lower. We'll have to wait and see, but I'm pretty excited I've gotten the ball of continuing education rolling again.

Weekend before last I saw more new movies (i.e. not at the dollar theater) than I have seen in the past seven months. Batman Begins is terrific - if you're remotely interested in it go see it immediately. Land of the Dead is interesting and enjoyable, but only recommended to those with a strong stomach. It's easily the goriest movie I've ever seen, but amidst the gratuitous violence it does have some interesting characters (including several of the zombies!) and the typical Romero-style cultural commentary. Personally, I still like Shaun of the Dead the best as far as zombie movies go.

Last weekend was hectic, but a lot of fun. Lots of colorful explosions in the air, and I got to see my mom again for the first time since she got back to the States after visiting my sister in Australia. Amanda is still addicted to Animal Crossing, but it's starting to taper off a little bit. There's going to be plenty more to see in the fall, though.

My current addiction is to something rather old-school - Final Fantasy. I mean the first one, though it's been redone a little. FFI&II, Dawn of Souls on the GBA. It sure brings back the memories. Final Fantasy is largely responsible for my interest in RPGs and the fantasy genre in general. A lot of kids started off with classics like the Narnia books or Lord of the Rings, but of course, I have to get started by a Japanese video game. Explains a lot, really.

Doldrummer Boy

2005-06-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly sure why, but I am feeling very down today. I have decided not to play at Regionals this Saturday, since it would be nothing but a waste of time and money. Also, I know I have little chance to win, so there's really not much point in trying if I can't afford the cards that will help me win. I think I'll just stick to Limited for a while - at least till the ridiculously overpowered Mirrodin Block rotates out in October.

There's really not much else to say right now. At least I only have a couple more hours of work left. Then I get to go home and do the dishes. Joy.

I'm sure tomorrow will be better.

Grab a cup of coffee first

2005-06-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Well it's only been 10 days since my last blog. I'm so awesome it hurts. There's been a pretty decent chunk of stuff going on, not the least of which includes one of the nicer birthdays I've had in a while. I think the trick is to aim low, and anything good that happens will exceed your expectations. I anticipated that this entry will be loooong, but looking at my calendar I realize that only one weekend has elapsed during my absence from the blog. As regular readers (all two of you) know, I sort of measure things in terms of the weekend, so while it feels like there's a lot I missed, that's not particularly the case. [Of course, it turns out to be huge... - written later]

I taught Bible study at Micah last week on forgiveness, but I tried to take a different angle with it. Most Christians realize that God forgives us for our sins, but sometimes we forget that we are also called to forgive others. I think it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to give it, and I also think it's very hard to give it when it has not been asked for. Suffice it to say, we had a pretty good discussion on all this, in spite of the fact that it was the Sunday school lesson from 2 days before. Oh well.

I tried playing Magic at a new store last Friday, and my friend Blake was the only guy I knew there. So of course, who do I get paired against first round? Oh yeah, Blake. That's fine, I lost to him, but went undefeated to make it to top 4. So wanna guess who I play in Top 4? Yeah, that would be Blake again. Apparently I've developed the habit of traveling long distances to lose to people who come over to my house on a weekly basis (this has happened before at a PTQ, except it was Christian who beat me both times).

Amanda's friend Amy had a great party at her place on Saturday - more or less an early birthday party for me. There was much fun having - but especially during the playing of Karaoke Revolution. Man, I need to get the second and third volumes.

Sunday, my dad-family (minus my Australia-bound sister) celebrated my father's birthday, my birthday, and Father's Day. There was great seafood dinner, a video chat with my sister, cards, presents and fun. But I just have to brag a little about the present I gave to my dad - I built a model airplane of the Corsair F4U-1D, his favorite plane. It was cool because I sort of stumbled across it, and I have just recently taken up model building again (I used to do it a lot in middle school and high school). I daresay it looked better than the picture on the box!

Well, another birthday has come and gone. It was a pretty good one, and I had lots of interesting things happen. Highlights include lunch with Amanda, shopping at GameStop, Whole Foods and Ross, Solo Grande Chai, free video games, scary movies, and Shu-Hsien stopping by with a wonderful surprise present. The neatest thing though was a little adventure I had while walking the dog with Shu right before he headed home. I noticed a little fuzzy thing in a parking space - a baby bird about the size of a hamster. It was all fuzzy and ugly in a cute sort of way. I scooped it up to make sure it was safe, and it seemed to be unhurt. I carried it back to the apartment, where Shu left and Amanda came to see what was the matter. I showed her the bird, and she grabbed a step stool so we could try to get it back in its nest. We went back to where I found it, and looking at the underside of the parking overhang, we could see two little baby birds sticking their heads out of the nest. Ok, the nest had been found. Now came the tough part of actually getting the little guy back into a nest that's about 9 feet off the ground with a 10 inch step stool. I handed the bird to Amanda and monkey climbed up the support beam to where I could hold myself up but still have both hands free. Amanda handed the bird carefully back to me and I gently slid him back into the nest. I could hear him making happy little chirping sounds, and I had to fight back tears of joy as I climbed back down to the ground.

Mission Accomplished. Who could have guessed that one of the most wonderful and memorable presents I have ever been given on my birthday was actually a present that I myself gave?

Better Late Than Latte

2005-06-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

Because of a short week and a work schedule that had me in the clinic for several hours last week, I didn't get much of a chance to post to my blog. I don't see this as a major setback, since I think there's about three people who read this with any degree of regularity. Still, in spite of having missed the opportunity to talk about yet another amazing weekend, I will press on. Like Lee Nails.

So Memorial Day Weekend was pretty cool, even though it involved riding in a vehicle most of the time. Amanda and I drove to Conroe to see her mom, and that was our base of operations for the next three days. Saturday we drove out to Houston to see Sharon and her new husband Tom. Tom is from Belgium, and proved to be a really great guy.
[aside] What do you call someone from Belgium? Belgish? Belgese? I have no idea.[/aside]
Since Sharon has long been one of my closest female friends, I'm very happy for her. Their apartment is very cute, and they seem to get along pretty well. The biggest thing is that Tom has only been living in the States for 8 months, since they met overseas. He's still trying to figure out this crazy country of ours. We went to Outback for steaks (and lobster) (and Fosters). After dinner, we met up with Amanda's best friend Michelle, and had a great time hanging out on the patio of the Houston Sherlock's while Amanda got us cheap drinks from the bartender. It was pretty cool. Then more driving back to Conroe, then even more back to Plano (stopping on Sunday for fajitas with my mom and stepdad).

That whole weekend (and last week, and this last weekend) was permeated by the overhanging essence of a thing so diabolical and menacing, it could only have come from Nintendo. Yes, I dare to speak (though only in hushed tones) of the thing called Animal Crossing. Those of you who have themselves been snared or had friends fall into its clutches know of the horror I speak.

Suffice it to say, Animal Crossing is the most ridiculously inventive video game of this console generation. I can't possibly describe what you do in it without sounding like a raving lunatic - you do chores, go fishing, go shopping, and other mundane activities in a little village populated with various anthropomorphic animals. That's really about it. The genius is that it's got a real-time clock, meaning that when it's Father's Day in real life, it's Father's Day in the game and so on. Things in your town change daily, and weekly, and seasonally. It's brilliant - you just want to play for a little while each day to to see what's going on. Enough about that for now.

One last thing - I am now 13-0-1 for matches in Sealed Deck Magic. This is a very good thing - if I get my rating high enough, I start getting free byes at Grand Prix events. So yay for Matt.

And finally, I heard on the radio this morning that magician and jokester Penn Gillette had a new baby girl over the weekend. He named her Moxie Crimefighter Gillette.

Wax Tadpoles

2005-05-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

So as I sit here, trying to make my mind think about what I'm planning to teach for my Bible study, all I can think of is the terrific weekend I just had. They just keep getting better and better, and I don't know what's going to happen when I finally have a lousy weekend. I started off going completely undefeated at the Sealed tourney on Friday, then had a great (though extremely hot) day at the zoo with Amanda and a bunch of my co-workers. Amanda and I did some shopping, had some pool time, and watched a movie; just like last week, Saturday night felt like Sunday night. I'm not used to this - usually we just freak out because we can't figure out what to do with our evening.

I've been feeling a little run-down as of late, and I'm not exactly sure why. I think it's just too hard for my brain to concentrate on more than a couple things at a time, and there's been lots of neat (and sometimes scary) things to think about. I'm still adjusting to being an adult - I don't like having what's acceptable to me being dictated by people who don't understand my interests and tastes.

I might add that, though a month old at this point THIS LINK contains the funniest bit of Engrish that I've seen in a long time. It reminds me of the dog Menji form Excel Saga, but I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe two people who read this will actually understand the reference. ::sighs:: Watch some anime, folks.

Now I just have to come up with something good for this evening that has to do with grace and current events.

"God? It's Matt. Yeah, I need a favor."

fin

Great Weekends Are T3ch

2005-05-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

So this is just about the best weekend I've had in a while. I got to play Magic on Friday (splitting in the finals after going 6-1). Seven packs plus a $15 foil card for $5 is pretty good, I reckon. Then I got to playtest for Regionals on Saturday morning and enjoy a phenomenal brisket that Amanda cooked. Saturday evening involved a relaxing jaunt to REI and felt like a Sunday - it's great to realize that there's still a day left in your weekend. Sunday we had homemade smoothies and played some Super Mario Sunshine before taking a hike through Plano's wildlife preserve (yeah, I didn't know we had one either). The gorgeous weather was certainly a boon as well - it's just a shame we didn't know that dogs were welcome, too. Sunday evening was comprised of more excellent home-cooking at Dad and Karleen's, then a glass of wine at home watching Britcoms until bedtime.

I need more weekends that feel like weekends.

Triskaidekaphobia

2005-05-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not only very pleased that today is Friday, but that I've actually managed to make it through this excrutiatingly dragged-out week. I've been an emotional wreck, and I am still trying to get things squared away for school in the fall. I'm not sure what is going to happen yet, but I just need to have faith that everything will turn out ok. I'll finish things up this weekend, and then wait for the financial aid news.

FNM (Friday Night Magic) is tonight, so I'll get to play my first tournament with the deck I built a month ago. I realized in the interim a big part of why I like to play Magic and video games so much. Early in life, I realized I loved problem solving and puzzles. I thouroughly enjoy working out a solution to a given problem, and this was especially reinforced through PACE (the gifted/talented program in Plano). Magic and the video games I enjoy most have this aspect of problem solving. I get such a rush when I manage to see the correct play, or figure out a neat trick. The sense of accomplishment is pretty intense, even if it's derived from something as asanine as a card game. This may not seem like much, but it's a pretty big revelation for me - not that it really makes that much of a difference. It just nice to have random insight into myself sometimes.

I'm now reading the third Billy Chaka novel, and I just found out that Isaac Adamson has a fourth one out called Kinki Lullaby (the first three being Tokyo Suckerpunch, Hokkaido Popsicle, and Dreaming Pachinko). This is seriously the most ridiculously fun book series I have ever read. If you have the slightest interest in comedic detective fiction, cheesy martial arts movies, or Japan, you owe it to yourself to read this series. After I'm done with the next two, I'm gonna take a quick break with the master of contemporary horror fiction Bentley Little, and then maybe try to finish the Lord of the Rings. Of course, the Half-Blood Prince is coming out soon, so that's gonna tie up a good month and a half of reading time. I mean, if Rowlings keeps with the trend of making each book bigger, this thing's going to make Dostoyevsky look like a Reader's Digest abridgement. And I'm still not excited about Episode 3. Maybe I'll just rent it.

When in Cyberspace...

2005-05-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

...do like all the hip kids are doing these days and make a blog. Maybe now I can actually make some vague semblance of attempting to keep in touch with the entirely too many (not really) people that come into and out of my life. Plus it gives me something to do in the afternoons when I'm not functioning at full mental capacity.

More to come...