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The Times We Live In

Monday, September 27, 2010 | 0 Comment(s)

The headlines of the paper today are simply too good not to write about.  Let's get right to it.

The Hall-o-Famer:  Segway company owner rides scooter off cliff.

Now i know that a person dying isn't innately funny.  But, holy crap, i can't help myself from giggling each time i read a different version of this headline on different websites.  They say that all publicity is good publicity, but i think we may have finally found an exception to the rule.

 it happens to the best of em

GOB-mobile

The Straight-Out-of-an-80's-Movie:  Cop's daughter has sex; he fake-arrests boyfriend

I wish i coulda been there.  I wish i coulda seen it.  While on first read this seems like a HUGE over-reaction by an overprotective father, the more i think about it, the more i think that were i a police-officer (shiver) and put in the same position, i probably would have done the same thing.  I mean, why be a cop if not to abuse that power to scare the shit out of people.  Isn't that the whole point of the blinding forward facing spotlight they train on your rear-view mirror when they pull you over.  Some scrawny little Lothario comes to my house to put it to my (imaginary) daughter, and you bet your ass i'd think of something so penis-shrinking that it would take scientists and microscopes to get that turtle to peak out of its hole once again (no pun intended). Apparently sex is the new possession--you can get arrested, but you can't go to jail.

if he was a "Furry," his ass woulda been in jail

The "And you thought Newspaper's were dead"  From the Metro section of today's NYT:  "What he left behind:  A 1,905-page suicide note"

Once again, death isn't super funny.  Suicide especially.  But here's the thing--as a grad student i can say with some certainty that 1,900 is not a note.  It's a suicide novel.  An anonymous professor saw said headline and remarked, "After writing that much, what else IS there to do but kill yourself."  Said posthumous note (sent to friends and family by email) had 1,433 footnotes, a 20 page bibliography and more than 1,700 references to god.  An irony that is somewhat accentuated by the timing of his death atop the Harvard Memorial Church on Yom Kippur.   It's sad AND crazy.  and a little funny.  I hope there are tempur-pedic mattresses in hell.

 To end on a unquestionably fun note, some of my recent tweets (this is NOT to make you follow my twitter, it's because i assume only a few of you do).  Enjoy 140 characters of fun.

@mattitiyahu:  I want to get the billionaire song out of my head, so friggin bad.

@mattitiyahu: Are pegged jean shorts back in fashion? Subquestion: Are you fucking kidding me?


@mattitiyahu: (this one's for those of you on 4square:  I'm at Your Mom's House (Where you live, at Home Ave, Vaginaville). http://4sq.com/bJbJbJ3X

@mattitiyahu: When did women's jeans and spandex become the same thing.  (ed. note: the Sassy Curmudgeon aka. my friend Una has informed me that these are called: "Jeggings"

@mattitiyahu:  @sassycurmudgeon if i pull a pair of "jeggings" over their face, is it called strangulation, jeggulation, or does it fall under "mercy kill"

@mattitiyahu: I swear to god I can't tell which are the actors and which are reality tv personalities. #PeopleMagazineConfusesMe

@mattitiyahu:  I want to get the billionaire song out of my head, so friggin bad.  #it'sTHATbad

@mattitiyahu: I think that having a bank employee help me use the ATM would turn me into a full fledged killer.

@mattitiyahu:   I JUST figured out when "Scrubs" jumped the shark. It's when Zach Braff's character became Ally McBeal.

and last but not least (ed. note/ FYI: painkillers make you constipated)

@mattitiyahu french press vs. painkillers. french press won. the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. 

The Price of Atonement

Saturday, September 18, 2010 | 0 Comment(s)

Today is Yom Kippur.  The jewish day of repentance.  One asks for forgiveness for those they have offended throughout the past year.  But this is not a post about Yom Kippur.  Yom Kippur is the backdrop to this story.  It's important because on Yom Kippur, one way one shows their repentance is by fasting.  No food.  No drink.  Sundown to Sundown.  I have been observing this ritual.  You also around supposed to use electricity.  I am not observing that ritual.  So again, the important detail here is the active fasting.

This story is about a football game.  A unique one.  Today was UMass vs Michigan.  UMass is the school i have spent the past 4 years of life, and i realized today that i have exactly zero UMass articles of clothing.  Michigan is the school my parents and cousin went/goes to, and i have been weened, from birth, to love them.  I have countless Michigan articles of clothing including jersey, hat, and t-shirts. 

 is that kid in maroon-face?  is that offensive?

One would think, considering that i live in Amherst (home of UMass), that i would be abale to watch said game on television.  But NOOOOO.  You have to buy the Big Ten channel to watch the game.  This was disappointing.  Now, to give you an idea of my Michigan fan-dom, were they playing a different I-AA school, i would have just tracked the game on my computer.  Had it been a Big Ten rival, i would have gone to a bar.  My home university deserved the effort.

So that is how i found myself at Arizona Pizza Kitchen, post back surgery, standing alone, amongst a sea of packed in tables and booths, watching the game with a crowd-full of UMass faculty, staff, and students.  And while they are chugging beers and pounding wings -- i am fasting.  This is miserable.  For the record, I cheered openly for UMass (who put out a great effort).  I was not going to be the guy that goes to the UMass function to cheer for their opponent.  Especially while fasting.  

I left at halftime.  Mostly because I wasn't sure my back could handle standing another half, and also because i was having flashes of pouncing atop one of the booths and feeding on the students' pan pizzas like a lion thru a gazelle.  Tomato sauce running down my face like the bloody insides of that hoppy little goat . . . i think i made the right decision.

So now the countdown begins.  Hunger versus sundown.  Oh look, there's a rabbit in our backyard . . .

gotta run.

3 fer Wednesday

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 | 3 Comment(s)

*edit:  I originally titled this post "3 for Monday" only to look and see its technically 1:10am Wednesday.  I then started the post:  "3 thoughts to start the week."  You know you're a little out of it when you are TWO days off and considers tuesday evening the beginning of the week. end edit*


3 thoughts to get over the hump.


1.  Since i've had this whole back surgery thing (im on the road to recovery!), i've been unable to do simple things like "drive" or "take care of my basic needs." Because of this, i had to use my gf's deodorant the past two days.  What? Sue me?  Anyway, you want to know my honest opinion?  I don't mind smelling like pomegranate and lemon seed.  I mean, there are definitely worse things.   I picked up more of my own deodorant today, so apparently i'm not entirely comfortable with it.  Perhaps i'm uncomfortable how not uncomfortable i am with it.  deep stuff.
if you know that this is the "Obama girl," im impressed and saddened 

2.  It is only now that my back pain has relented, and i am no longer in the pain that necessitated using a cane, that i can appreciate that i looked pretty sweet with a cane.  I'm not saying that i hope to ever again have to use one, but i certainly am pleased that i can pull one off.  Rhyme or reason?  No thanks.



Come on, he was the only good thing about that movie!


3.  Riding in ambulances is overrated.  I remember a time, not 3 years ago, that i always wondered what it would be like to ride in the back of an ambulance.  Maybe im a crazy person (i'm definitely a crazy person), but am i the only person that sees something glamorous about an ambulance ride?  It's an oasis, folks.  A beautiful illusion.  The are only 3 ways to ride in the back of an ambulance:  as a person experiencing incredible pain or medical emergency, as a person worried shitless about a person experiencing incredible pain or another medical emergency, or as a medical professinal dealing with a person experiencing incredible pain or medical emergency and sometimes a person worried shitless about a person experiencing incredible pain or another medical emergency.  All three suck in there own special way.  Have i checked it off my bucket list?  Yes.  But here's the thing, you can always save this one for last.

The Guy in the Bed Next to Me

Friday, September 10, 2010 | 0 Comment(s)

I spent last Tuesday in the hospital.  When i went to bed around 10:30, I had a room to myself with a large reclining chair next to it.  Around midnight I awoke to see a man wheeled in on a bed next to me, sharing the two person room.  He turned his t.v. on softly, and i fell back asleep.

the friggin t.v. never turned off after that.

In the morning, the volume was raised to what i will call a medium volume.  This is a 8am.  Unfortunately, the way the tv came off the wall, it was turned so that the speakers faced the adjacent wall, and therefore, me.  He slept with it on at full volume.  Slept with it on full volume.  To me and my mother and later my gf, it became a water torture of sorts.  Just a constant noise, not allowing us one moment of silence.

And i understand that people get lonely, but also understand that he didn't turn the volume down when there were important phone calls or when doctors were visiting our room.  We had to ask him a number of times to turn it down.  Which he did.  And then he turned it back up.  And then he would nap.

I almost lost my cool.

And he was watching such crap from all over the map.  We are talking old reruns of Bonanza to Saved By the Bell.  At one point, he was even using the hospital phone to follow up on an infomercial he saw on the tv for a new blood sugar monitor it thought he could receive for free.  Pretty decent blog material, but at the time i just wanted a few moments of peace and quiet. 

In the end, i try and remember that when i left him, he was alone, with only his tv as company.