rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

a few gems:

about 11 am, on the GW parkway, I saw a newer red pickup truck with an airbrushed gate. it was a picture of the Virgin Mary, a church, and the truck itself. somebody had a picture of their truck airbrushed on their truck. next to Jesus’ mom.

at about 12:30, I was on 70 northwest of Hagerstown, and I saw a car with a shitty-looking Looney Tunes tasmanian devil saying “back off!” on the spare-tire cover. the lady driving it was doing 55 mph in the lefthand lane.

1:30. Breezewood. somebody wrote “trust Jesus” on the wall next to the pisser at the Texaco I stopped at.

5:30. I hit traffic immediately getting on 71 south from the Columbus beltway. not because there was anything holding up the southbound traffic, but because my stupid fucking fellow travelers were looking at the jack-knifed truck in the northbound lane. the traffic on that side backed up about 3 miles. seriously, I reset the counter and checked.

if your girl steps up, I’m smacking the ho.

what a weekend.
drove out thursday. left Bloomington at like 11 am. mostly cause I’m a lazy piece of shit, and partly cause – well, I’ve got no good reason.
dad had said that route 22 east from Cincinnati was a nice, pretty drive. not much traffic and not many stoplights. only a few towns.
that was a fucking mistake with a capital F. I’ve already seen plenty of midwest countryside (I live in Indiana, a state synonymous with “boring and empty” to our betters on the east and west coasts) and I hit about a million god damned lights. I was an hour south of Columbus at 5 pm.
I got in late, like 11:30. sucked, man.

friday, me and Mar drove past Tony Snow’s house. he literally lives a block from the house where I grew up and about half a mile from where I’m currently sitting. gives you an idea of the neighborhood. he’s a journalist. makes me want to join the profession. it also makes me want to break my thumbs with a hammer.
kicked it with Mar and Mike on friday night. drove around DC, as always. my brother got pissed when we drove through the gay bar district only to find its been completely demolished to make room for condos and an overpriced professional baseball stadium. they had been situated in this abandoned warehouse district in SW, on the far side of the Anacostia, where no one went. there was nothing down there except parks and old industry, and in the middle of this were four or five clubs. all gay. interesting little corner of town; no advertising, but they were always bumping. now, they’re gone. making way for the Nationals.
we ended up eating sandos in Georgetown and laughing at the article about the failed Christian rock star-turned pro life activist in the City Paper. best part:

God, Whittington says, was still not answering his prayers—what he really wanted was to be a Christian-rock star. The signs he was getting, though, were different. “I was still trying to find what I was supposed to do,” he says. “I would pray about it and want the answer to be a band, or music, or whatever, and I would get this mailing from a pro-life group. And then I’d pray some more the next day, and then I’d hear a radio program that had some pro-life guy on it. And then the next day, I’d look up and see a bumper sticker on a car. It finally got to the point where I was like, This is totally ridiculous.”

yesterday, a family friend got married. it was nice. dancing, drinking and the like.
the person who got married, Jamie, is the first daughter of my dad’s marine buddy, Bear. they met back in the late 60s in basic training, and have been friends ever since. I’ve known Bear and his family forever; Jamie used to babysit me about 20 years ago.
every time some large function like this goes down, they all get back together. the marine buddies, I mean. that means dad, Bear, this dude Jim who lives in Milwaukee and Amo (pronounced ay-moe) who used to fly the Mr. Peanut hot air balloon. oh, what different paths they’ve taken.
they were up all night last night at the wedding reception. they had the actual ceremony just around the corner, so the whole party ends up back at the bride’s parents’ house. I’ve never seen so many drunk 50-year-olds.
afterwards, my dad and the marines ended up back in his living room, drinking Tecate and talking geo-political politics …
which is funny, cause that sounds smart and dignified, which it wasn’t, so let me rephrase: dad and a couple of buddies were drinking cheap beer and debating the civility the local resistance would show if a foreign power were to ever invade the United States.
no, that’s still to dignified. how about: “point v. counterpoint – Islam ain’t no religion of peace.” I went to sleep at 3 am.

today, saw Mar off. she flew back to Chicago, and she flies to Minneapolis thursday. going back to the boy scout camp; this summer she’s leading canoe trips. five to ten day long canoe trips. she’ll be able to beat both my and Mike’s ass consecutively by August.
kicked it with Mike and Virginia for a while. screwed around with the baby. while we were sitting there, Anna’s on Va’s lap, she let out one of the most wicked farts I’ve ever heard out of anyone. she’s what, ten or twelve pounds? how in the fuck did she produce that?
they left to go to a Memorial Day BBQ out in the suburbs, and I kicked it and watched “Mean Girls.” I didn’t know this, but Rachel McAdams is about 30 in that movie. that’s fucked up, man.
I had my car and nowhere pressing to be, so I drove around for a little bit when I left. DC’s an interesting city if you look. it’s also nearly impossible to navigate; the streets mesh as if you laid three grids down on top of one another at 45 degree angles, and scattered traffic circles and stoplights throughout. I don’t get it.
I saw this latino guy getting carried into an apartment building by who I’m assuming were concerned parties. guy was lit. it was 6:30 in the afternoon.
saw a homeless man sittting against a chain-link fence. I’m not trying to be overly poetice here, but the homeless often sit or carry themselves as if they’ve got lead weights on their backs. like they’re crushed.
eventually, I crossed the 14th St bridge and left. I know the bridges if I don’t know anything else. I’ll figure my way around sooner or later.

came back, stopped by Power Video, and got a german film called “Downfall.” about the last days in the Fuhrerbunker. what a nice lullaby. worth watching, if you’re into that sort of thing. little bloody, but nothing more than the usual war film.

I’m driving back tuesday. before that, I’m going to bed. probably twice, but definitely once. right now.

edit: I’m seeing that there’s a new feature on the blog that takes keywords and directs you to some website where you can spend money on shit you don’t need. if I can’t figure out how to get rid of that, I’m moving blogs. what bullshit.

instead of the below, I picked up the new Raconteurs, “broken boy soldiers.”
also got “electro-shock blues” by Eels.

shaved my head today.
this is the reasoning behind it. it’s pretty simple, really. whenever I get my hair cut at a barber, I never know what to ask for. so I just ask for “a regular men’s haircut.” and I never like what I get. so, in light of that, I shave most of my hair off. I know what I’ll look like after that, and it doesn’t bother me.
or, I could just ask for a different hair cut. but fuck that, man. I have clippers.

oh, and saw “the Da Vinci Code” last night. wasn’t really impressed. after watching that movie, I have no desire to read the book. being popular doesn’t make it well-written fiction. I mean, fuck. look at Stephen King’s entire career.

and now, Josh is standing next to me with a bowl.
“are you posting on your blog?”
“yeah.”
“lemme write something.”
“no.”
“come on!”
“no!”
“why not? I wanna say something.”
“well, I’m gonna put this little exchange on there. how’s that?”
“that sucks.”

what a week.
but you know what? it’s in the past. me and the professor reached an understanding. I’m graduating after all.

so. what album should Matt buy tomorrow?

Metallica, “master of puppets”
Alice in Chains, “dirt” or “unplugged”
Gnarls Barkley “st. elsewhere”
Don Henley’s greatest hits

this is a vote. I’ll give a few days, or hours, then I’ll just buy something. but hey, don’t you want to be part of something? feedback; that’s what I want.

this is kind of a catchall, as I’ve been horrible about writing recently. isn’t in any particular order.

so I graduated yesterday.
thus ends college?

my family came out in force. dad and Debbie stayed in Columbus, which is like 40 minutes east of here. Mike flew out and slept on the couch. mom and grandma and Uncle Bill came down from Valparaiso for the day. we all went out and had dinner afterwards, and no one talked any shit or wept (openly).
it was civil; I wouldn’t leave them all alone in a bare room for too long a time, but it went relatively well.
that’s the first time they all acted, you know, decent. only took, what, 12 years?
about the graduation itself: Michael Uslan, the producer of the Batman movies, was our commencement speaker. which was more or less a novelty, but I probably would have said that about anyone they had trotted out on stage. I suppose I’m for tradition, but there’s something to be said about the fact that anyone could have put on a cap and gown and sat with the students. seriously, I just found a bunch of graduates and walked in with them. anyone could have.

I don’t feel any different. I’ve got nothing to do tomorrow, so I’m going to have to find a job – a real one – so I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time.

“Mr. Nanny” is on TBS right now. I can see it out of the corner of my eye. “Mr. Nanny” is kind of like the magnum opus of Hulk Hogan’s acting career, so it’s fitting they only show it early monday morning.
Hulk fucking Hogan, man. Thunderlips. I’d pay good money to see him beat Stallone’s ass.

I lost my wallet this weekend, too.
somewhere between the beer, grandma, pot and posing for photos, I lost my fucking wallet.
there wasn’t really anything in it; a driver’s license, debit card, maybe six bucks. getting a new ID will be a motherfucker.
this is what I need:
US Birth Certifificate with authenticating stamp or seal containing the applicant’s (me) date of birth, place of birth, and parents’ names issued by a county department or county board of health from the applicant’s state of birth, or a state department or state board of health from the applicant’s state of birth.
or a US passport.
or US military identification.
I don’t have any of those on hand.
I’ll also need secondary identification, which includes:
basically anything with my fucking name on it.

thanks for making it easy for me, Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

thank god for cut and paste.

Zacarias Moussaoui will have just one more chance to taunt the United States on Thursday, when a federal judge formally sentences the al Qaeda terrorist to spend the rest of his natural life alone in a tiny prison cell.

Once in prison, Moussaoui will have little opportunity for taunting — he’ll be in lockdown for 23 hours of every day, with one hour of recreation daily. He’ll spend that one hour alone, also.

the coverage of him has always been a little off, in the way that the US flag graphic in the corner of every Fox News broadcast has always been “a little off.” but anyway…

yeah, fucker, who’s laughing now? score one for CNN and its latent subjectivity. you’re just like the rest of them; fair and balanced.

why does some lunatic with delusions of grandeur bother some people? the motherfucker, who didn’t technically kill anybody, is going to be spending the rest of his natural life in one of the most psychologically brutal places on earth – that being the supermax federal prison in Colorado – where you can count on one hand the number of people he’ll speak to. ever. again.
imagine that.

this is probably bullshit, but it still made me laugh. so I’m pitching in. click on the link, and give back to the world.

or maybe he’s just the most visible one.
alright, gas is about 3 dollars a gallon. and I’m in a fucking plain state. that means anyone in a major metropolitan area is seeing something like, what, 3.15? maybe more?
it costs me 15 dollars to get to just-below-half on my tank. in my 4-cylander Saturn.
I drive the fucking thing constantly because of my job.

so it really pisses me off that Congress can’t think of anything better to do than give us a 100 dollar rebate for our troubles.

“There is no silver bullet – that’s obvious to most people now,” said Bill Frist last week. then he and his homeboys pushedthe 100 dollar rebate as a nationwide one-time relief measure.
that would buy me three tanks.
thankfully, the idea of giving e’erybody in the whole wide country a hunnerd dollars fell through, because that’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of. 100 dollars. that’s nothing at all, so fuck you, Bill Frist, and fuck your silver bullet, because I know you’re not sweating gas prices at all.
I can’t stand hearing politicans opine for the little man. obviously, they don’t fucking care. if they did, things wouldn’t be like this.

so the paper’s done with.
I came and went with little fanfare. just left when my shift was over. supposedly, I got voted best reviewer by my peers at the end of the year party, but I slept through it friday (allnighter floored me at about 10:30 am, and I set my alarm for midnight instead of noon).
nobody told me. which was fitting. me and the IDS crew were never the best of friends.

actually, though, I ran into my main man Warner, my editor for the Weekend, at a bar last night. he was lit, and apparently, doesn’t like the IDS as much as I don’t. so we’re going to get together and watch “the Road Warrior.” nice.

now I’m sitting here, fucking around on the new laptop; it’s no longer necessary to be on campus to update a blog or check my email. oh, happy day!

next weekend, relatives are rolling hard into town. Mike flies in friday night; dad and debbie drive in. mom’s coming down with grandma, Aunt Olga and Sandy and Uncle Bill saturday. I gotta find a restaurant to dump us all in for dinner. I’m going to make moms and pops to a picture with me, together. it’s going to be fantastically awkward. can’t wait.

saw “Silent Hill” with Phil.
I didn’t get to write the review of it, but I didn’t request it, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten it if I did. this guy Chris Wisner played all the video games and was pumped out to see it.
he gave it a B+. which wasn’t fair. because it should have been a D.
I had no, fucking, idea what was going on for about 90% of the movie. it doesn’t explain anything. and when it finally does, it still doesn’t make much sense.
lots of blood, lots of mutilation, etc. but when the final of shot of the film is a totally meaningless fadeout on a fucking bush, you know there’s something wrong.
“Silent Hill” is about religious fanatics who maim a girl they think is a witch in a coal town, and when she doesn’t die, I’m pretty sure the devil comes and makes her evil incarnate and starts a massive coal fire so everybody dies. I think.
either way, it’s horribly written, unintentionally funny, and poorly acted. and if I were to write a review, the title would be “an insult to coal miners everywhere.”
do not go see “Silent Hill.” if you’re really looking for something to do, I can come over and kick you in the genitals, and that’ll give you plenty to think about and save you the price of admission at the same time.

man, this computer is nice. I’m sitting at home in the living room watching a basketball game and typing on my computer at the same time. so classy.

NFL draft was this weekend.
I don’t pretend to know exactly what was going on, and I’m not going to go with the same old tired shit; I don’t fucking care if Reggie Bush was drafted second. Houston apparently doesn’t need a running back, and all of the analysts (who are either failed football players or weaklings who opted to live out their dreams by commenting on jocks) can get fucked. I hope Reggie Bush blows out his fucking knee in the first two years. he’ll still make more money than I ever will, and all he has to do is play fucking football.
anyway, the Bears drafted odd.
traded down to get nickel back? then a DB/PR/KR/WR prospect? what the fuck?
then, in the coup de grace, Dusty Dvoracek. that guy is my main man. Oklahoma nose tackle, got kicked off his college team cause he’s an alcoholic who beat the shit out of a friend after too much sauce.
I gotta get that jersey.

alright, gotta bounce. Alisha and her mom are here to watch TV. I’m not kidding.