May 2003 Archives

In honor of the 100th I Fought the Law blog post, I'm posting selected excerpts from my long-forgotten proto-blog, the Matt H. Report (weekly newsletter of the Matt H. Club, a New Frontier in Megalomania). In keeping with MHC tradition, this post is very long and will likely go unread. Enjoy!

VOL. 1, ISS. 2. 04/15/99

3. FUZZY WUZZY WAS HER NAME
... Taken aback, the young woman said that she was, in fact, of the Greek persuasion, and demanded to know how Matt knew. When Matt explained his sweater hypothesis, the girl snittily informed him that the sweater in fact belonged to her non-Greek younger sister. Matt then called the girl a filthy liar, at which point she moved further down the table and started crying.

Here's a conundrum: why do they even bother making different kinds of cats? They all act the same way. They all act like cats.

VOL. 1, ISS. 3. 04/23/99

PEANUT BUTTER AND NAPALM
...Tossing the sandwich aside she dashed out of the lecture hall, rapelled down the side of the building, and ran toward the Campanile where she was immediately mauled by a guy in a bear suit! A bear suit! He had just finished this long sad speech and then there was a guy in a bear suit! OH MY GOD THAT'S FUNNY! Peanut butter kills, kids. Peanut butter kills.

VOL. 1, ISS. 4. 04/30/99

I'm looking to you, Kaufman, and you, Crabtree, and, to a lesser extent, you, Fornaca. Pull this off and you'll get a fancy surprize. (Ha! Howbout that! I just increased my productivity! Now, instead of typing out "surprise prize," I can shorten it to "Surprize!" Yeah! ...)

VOL. 1, ISS. 5 05/07/99

I've posted this edition here in its entirety. It contains "The Prank Call: An Epic Poem," the single most polarizing thing I've ever written. Click if you dare.

VOL. 1, ISS. 6 05/14/99

ALF: (Sifting through the jigsaw puzzle pieces.) It's broken.
WILLIE: I know. You're supposed to put it together.
ALF: Why? I didn't break it.

VOL. 1, ISS. 8

R = (1.5 eggs)/[(1.5 hens)*(1.5 days)]
R = 2/3 eggs/(hen*day)
X(# of hens) = [(6 eggs)/(6 days)]/R
X = 1 egg/day * [(hen*day)/(2/3 eggs)]
X = 1/(2/3) hens
X = 3/2 hens

VOL. 1, ISS. 9 06/04/99

A BRAND NEW CONUNDRUM FOR A BRAND NEW WOOD LOUSE
Thinning hair, thickening plots. Thick and thin are similar-sounding counterparts as adjectives, so why don't they transform into verbs in the same way? Why does the plot thicken instead of thick? Why don't men complain of thinnening hair? Think of how much easier life would be for people with lisps if the superfluous "en" were removed from "thickening." At present, if a lisping person says, "thickening," you have no way of knowing whether they mean "thickening" or "sickening."...

VOL. 1, ISS. 11. 06/18/99

PUT DOWN THE RAZOR
...Straight from the 50s, this quaint establishment featured two senile barbers who were so enamored with the technological advance of the electric razor that they make every attempt to use actual scissors as little as possible. And, as if that weren't attractive enough, Matt's barbery experience was colored by several pearls of wisdom and nonsensical conversations between the proprietors. For example:

"I always wanted to go on a horse. They say the best way to go is for someone to walk through a door and shoot you in the back. What could be better than that?"

"There are two programs called 'Cops'."
"It's the same program, just different episodes."
"Oh."

...

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 08/28/99

SPEAKING OF BERKELEY...
...Whoops! Can't drive down this street! There's a giant stone barrier in the intersection! Forget about driving down Parker! There's an ever-watchful firebreathing Gryphon guarding the path! Uh, oh! This street has a giant boulder rolling across it! And check out those restless natives throwing rocks and spears! ... Is this what it's like in Norway?

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3 09/18/99

WELCOME TO NARNIA
...No longer placated with mere socks, this thing is eating towels! ... Only by destroying this towel can Matt sever his ties with his twisted past and concentrate on his new neutralverted, busybody, sexless life in Berkeley. Wow. Towels.

V.2 I.5 10/02/99

BRINGING UP THE REAR
Matt got a new chair today. It's one of those up-down moving chairs that let you pretend you're on a space ship. ... In addition to instructions like "Step 4. Slide chair back with Seat back support between chair seat and seat plate making sure it locks into the steel reinforcement.first followed by lock washer(L) .and Place washer (K) on Adjustment knob (M) and insert through seat plate into Seat back support. Tighten.", the crate o' chair bits also included a smaller rectangular box containing the little gas thingy that lets the chair go up and down and a telescope looking thing to cover up the gas thingy. The side of this box contains, in giant red letters, "SCREW PACK IN IT". I don't think any of us can hope to know what this means, but in any case, Matt has a new place to put his bottom.

And he certainly has. Thanks, Cementhorizon, for putting up with 100 of these things.

I'm sorry to announce that I have once again lost the National Organization for Women's Love Your Body Day poster contest. The winner is a shameless advertismenet for airlines, massage therapists, supermarkets, oil companies (hooray!), ski resorts, amusement parks, canoe excursion companies, upscale restaurants, and long distance companies. I guess NOW knows which side its bread is buttered on. Way to sell out, girls.

In the process of scanning the poster archive I discovered that there's a city called Boron, California, which is part of the Bakersfield, California metro area. I'll be sure and check it out this summer. After all, they have old buildings and shit.

First off, I'd like to give a plug, a Julie Plug, as it were, to Z's Jewelry, where many a beaded jewelry can be ordered. Check it out, I command you.

I've also made some minor tweaks and additions to the Links page and the sprawling Acknowledgments section. If you feel that you've been unfairly excluded from the acknowledgments it's probably because I couldn't think of anything clever to say about you.

Finally, I feel like a jerk. I actually had to go out and buy cat repellant today. To me it felt like buying hot girl repellant or donut repellant. But, I suppose if donuts and hot girls were taking dumps underneath my window I'd have to take similar action. My apologies to Jethro, the ninja cat, who will have to find somewhere else to do his business. But hopefully the offensive fumes from the cat spray will have some hallucinogenic properties, and you'll be able to stalk even more imaginary creatures on land, sea and air. Good luck with that, you aloof, turding bastard.

On a lighter note, one of the brands of animal repellant at the pet store was "See Spot GO!", which amused me slightly.

Allen has demonstrated his magical powers once again by bringing this wonderful image back from his galavantings in Mexico, which doesn't mean anything to you without that you've seen this item from the ingenious yet tragically unread teen issue of the Squelch. Note the controversial spelling of the repeated initial word.

The back of the photo contained further evidence of Allen's unapproachable charm. I realize that it may be inappropriate to post a personal correspondence such as this on the Internet for all to see, but postcards are considered fair game, at least for postal workers. So consider yourselves honorary postmen.

And while I'm filling up Cementhorizon with uninteresting images, I'll take the opportunity to announce that, regardless of how my Spring semester grades come out, I accomplished this on the bus ride home from my last final, and no one can take that glory away from me.

I must apologize. When I conceived this thing I had no idea that the imagery would be so disturbing. But once I drew that first set of man-breasts I realized that I had begat something truly unholy. But I also realized there was no turning back.

But in lighter news, I'm pretty sure this is the first strip I've drawn that has four breasts in each frame, which I like to think of as a personal accomplishment.

I'm working at Occidental Petroleum this summer, and before finalizing their offer they subjected me to a drug test. Although I passed with flying colors (mostly yellow), I thought that this would be a funny alternate universe, where the drug test is analyzed differently and I'm from Spain. If anyone knows of a good place to buy a cowboy hat, please let me know.

Also, today at lunch there weren't any spoons by the microwave, and since I didn't want to jackass all the way over to the student restaurant place to get a fork I ended up using two drinking straws as chopsticks, remembering my man Allen pulling a similar stunt a while back at Spats. Allen is like MacGyver that way.

Four days to freedom.

Achtung: This entry contains spoilers for Traffic, The Godfather, and Left Behind: The Movie. But since I'm sure you've seen the first two and have no interest in seeing the third, please read on. If you dare.

Seeking solace from all things intellectual, I rented the screen adaptation of Left Behind last night, hoping that an evangelical action movie would lull my brain to quiet sleep. A few things...

First off, the prosthelytizing in the movie was plenty overt, but it was scattered enough not to be overpowering. Basically, there were entire scenes devoted to talking about faith and whatnot, but the rest of the scenes were devoted entirely to action, political intrigue, murder, and computer-generated exploding airplanes. So that was a nice touch.

Secondly, none of the main characters start believing in God until they're presented with empirical evidence that the Book of Revelations is coming true. For a few, the sudden disappearance of millions of people is enough, but for Kirk "Mike Siever" Cameron, only when he sees the Sectretary General of the U.N. saying things that the Bible says the Antichrist is going to say does he go into the restroom and start believing in God (with a nice underscore of contemporary Christian rock). So that pretty much throws the whole "faith" thing right the fuck out the fucking window.

Finally, the movie taught me that I can now spot a car bomb from a mile away. Basically, any time the main character and a secondary character are going to go for a ride in the car, and the main character for some reason keeps his distance momentarily while the secondary character goes in and starts the car, the car is going to get blowed up. See The Godfather ("Appolonia, NOOOOOO!!!!!!"), Traffic ("Hey! Hey, Ray! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! RAAAAAAAAYY!!!!!!!!!"), and, now, Left Behind. Although Kirk Cameron doesn't give us any verbal cues that one of the two Black characters in the movie is about to be disintegrated, it's pretty clear that there's no other good reason for the old lady to be asking Kirk Cameron for a dollar while the Black guy starts the car.

Welcome to another awkward limp down memory lane.

This is my Redlands High School drama class, which had lots of hot girls.

That's me on the right. Nailed to the wall, I tell you. What you can't see is that my shirt has two giant skulls growing out of each other on it. Moments after this picture taken there was a dreadful fracas atween myself and one of the assistant principles, which ultimately resulted in an angry letter (from me to him) and a nice little chat outside my Spanish class. Good times.