so, in order to keep

in

so, in order to keep things interesting at work, a co-worker and i have decided to start a little running chess tournament. he found a lovely magnetic chessboard in his attic or something, and brought it in. so, we set the board up, printed out a webpage about chess notation, and we're off!found a program to create chess diagrams, so i'll try and keep the blog updated with the progress of the game.. also, i'll leave a link if anyone wants to help me with my next move.

Matt (white) v Pat(black) Game # 1 Matt    Pat 1. e4    e5 2. Nf3    f6 3. d4    Nc6 4. d5    Nce7 5. Nc3    h5 6. Bc4    g5 7. O-O    g4 8. Nh4    a5 9. f4

Position after 9. f4

Help me out!

godlike

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on the walk from the bus stop this morning, i decided to treat myself to a "venti skim no whip hot chocolate" from starbucks. i don't like coffee, but i do enjoy the hot chocolate from time to time. i had a song running through my head all morning, and i'm looking for it on limewire as we speak; "godlike" from kmfdm. there's this badass riff from "angel of death", by slayer in it, (although it's actually played by someone in kmfdm) and the same riff is also used for "she watch channel zero" by public enemy. all three are totally badass.

what a night. got to

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what a night. got to bed around midnight.at 2 a.m. i wake up to the sound of my cat puking all over my bedroom carpet. *sigh* up, clean carpet, wash hands, back to sleep. at 4 a.m. the phone rings. of course it's downstairs, so i run down to get it... shows up as "private caller" on caller id, and i don't pick it up in time. no voicemail, and i didn't even get to scream at the person for calling the WRONG NUMBER at 4 a.m. *sigh* at 5 i wake up to the sound of my cat heaving downstairs... heave, heave, heave, SPLAT! this time, at least, it was on the wood floor, so a relatively easy clean up. wash hands, back to sleep. alarm goes off in another hour or so.... time to face a new lovely day. *double sigh*

on the ride out of town

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on the ride out of town today, i was at a light when i looked back and saw another person on a bike behind me... it was a messenger, a girl. she said "hi", and then the light turned green and we were off. as we rode, i asked her about her job, and how she learned to ride in traffic. she was greasy and cute; with a nosering and a little engineer's cap instead of a helmet. she had been a messenger for about 7 months, and obviously loved her job. she told me that "it sounds silly, but you just feel, like, one with your bike, you know? you just learn to sort of move and groove." i asked her about the travis culley book, which apparently is like a bible to her and her ilk. as we got near the end of the strip, she told me that she had to turn off there because, (as she lowered her voice) "i drive to work. don't tell anyone." she turned off and i continued on my way... struggling up the hillclimb on liberty. as i was coming down the other side and getting into bloomfield, she pulled up even with me in her car. her passenger-side window was down, and she smiled and said "hey." i felt so cool; validated.

so, my hosting provider has

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so, my hosting provider has been having problems all morning, so i can't post updates, but i can still put them into blogger for now. last weekend was a trip to hawk's nest. i finished a V6 that i've been working on since last year. it starts on two sidepulls, and a *big* move to a right-hand slot, then you have to sort of scramble your way up a slabby finish, which involves hiking your foot up really high with not very good handholds. anyway, it felt super good to get it. that's my 2nd "hard" boulder problem that i've done, so i guess that means i'm getting stronger. i sort of drifted away from bouldering at the start of the year; it was all sport climbing. i'm enjoying getting back into the bouldering... it feels a lot purer to be able to just walk up to a rock, with only a pad and shoes, and kronk. besides, i can do things that are a lot harder when i'm bouldering, since the problems are usually so short.

we ran into jason and rachel while we were at hawk's nest. they just had a baby about two weeks ago.  

hound ears this weekend.... woooo!

the exile follies show

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the exile follies show last night was fantastic! made it over to the club around 6:20 (friggin' traffic!), and the Special Lady Friend and i got a table right in front of the stage... almost too in front. our friend leslie from Up the Sandbox snagged the table next to us, and was probably even more geeked out than we were. she opened for kristin last time she was in town, which i unfortunately missed because i was out climbing in colorado.

BillyO was setting up the schwag table, so i ambled over to say hi and give him the little shirt thing. he was as warm and friendly as always; recognized me from previous shows, and talked about how great kristin's pregnancy is going. her due date is early december, but he thinks that it'll actually probably happen around thanksgiving.

john doe was up first, and came out and played a really good set. i hadn't heard his music before, but lots of melancholy songs, with funny lyrics about fluffy tigers trying to kill him. he played maybe 5-6 songs, and then invited kristin up on stage to join him. they only did two songs before he left:
white girl (one of his)
trouble (one of cat stevens)

kristin and john chatted a little bit back and forth... he commented on the trippy stage set (see pictures below), and he said he must be high or something.

kristin: unless you smell burnt toast.
john: why? what does that mean?
kristin: it means you're schizophrenic...unless you're actually burning toast.

then kristin was left solo. she looks great for being 6-ish months pregnant. the Special Lady Friend commented that she's carrying very high and round, and looks fantastic.
she sat down and got ready to start, but couldn't find her setlist. crisis! oh, wait... it was on the floor in front of the stage (i had already copied everything off of it). matt to the rescue! here you go! setlist (or "security blanket", as she called it) in hand, she started playing.
here is her setlist:
your dirty answer
37 hours
gazebo tree
tar kissers
spain
cuckoo
hook in her head (?!?!)

a few songs into her set, this total cock-knob (who came in too late to get a seat, so he just sat on the floor right in front of the stage and kristin) lights up a cigarette. i was actually sort of suprised that they hadn't made an announcement about it being a non-smoking show, as kristin has done in the past when she was pregnant. the ashtrays were out on the tables and everything... maybe it was the club's refusal. anyway, i caught the fucknugget's attention and motioned for him to put it out. blank stare. i moved my hands over my stomach like *i* was pregnant, pointed to kristin, and made a "grinding-out-in-the-ashtray" motion, figuring he couldn't possibly be that stupid. oh, but he was. i didn't want to disturb the people around us during the song any more than i already had, so i just sat back. at the end of her song, kristin asked him as nicely as she could if he would mind not smoking right in front of her! it was her baby, not her, that was the prima donna, she said. ha!

at the end of her solo set, she called out grant lee phillips. they did a few songs together:
panic pure
your ghost
heavenly (jeff buckley!!!)

after "your ghost", grant commented that he was worried about screwing up and putting plurals where there shouldn't be, or leaving them off where they should.. "you were driving circle around me". kristin then commented that people on her website were getting on grant's case for screwing that up at an earlier show. but he was really good! we're not lunatics, i swear!

i couldn't quite make it through the jeff buckley song; i had to pee so bad that i got up and ran to the bathroom and peed for a good minute and a half, solid.

grant did his solo set, and he was fantastic! really strong, great voice, and completely hilarious! he called john doe back out, and then only did one song before they started calling for "little sister" to come back on stage and join them.

the chemistry between the three of them was amazing. they were picking on kristin because this tour was supposed to be only for tv stars. then john commented that this tour was getting like "hee-haw", complete with "two guys in denim shirts and a pregnant white girl".

they started out with a verse or two from a merle haggard song... they were going to have a "hagg-off"; trade verses back and forth, but only really did one.
all 3 again remarked about the psychadelic background, and john was lamenting that he had left this amazing record of johnny cash reciting the intro to star trek. grant then busted out a perfect johnny cash impression, complete with musical background... "space, the final frontier.... i fell into a burning ring of saturn..", etc. i think i actually soiled myself.
here's a setlist from all 3:
the merle haggard song
the funny-as-fuck johnny cash song
see how we are
sugar mountain
when the levee breaks

afterwords, the SLF and i got a chance to chat with grant a little bit; he was a very nice and funny guy, very low key. we each bought his two cds, and he asked if he could sign them. i found that funny for some reason. hope he'll come back to pgh next time he's on tour. also saw BillyO again; he said that everyone loved the "onesie".

here's some pictures:

full list of pictures here.
thanks again to kristin and BillyO for visting us once again!

Discuss pittsburgh exile follies show

wow. that dave is such

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wow.that dave is such a fancy-ass, he made a blog for the co-op!

went out at lunch and found the greatest present for kristin. since she's "in a family way", and is expecting sometime in the near future, i wanted to get her something for the baby. went to the heinz company store, and found a cute little shirt thing with the snaps at the crotch with a ketchup bottle on it.

currently on the headphones: -the complete stone roses

aaah, what a morning. ran

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aaah, what a morning.ran into dave on the bus... you can go read his update on how we annoyed everyone around us.

then, i bumped into my coworker as i was walking from the bus stop. we were intently involved in conversation, her a little ahead of me, and when we got to the building, i attempted to squeeze into the same revolving door segment as her. oops. it was even funnier when you consider that it was the 2nd time i had done that, with her.

kristin hersh coming tonight... i'm gonna pewp; i'm so excited. got my camera with me, and going to the club right after work to stake out a good table. if those idjits from the luna show are there i'm gonna kill them.

all sorts of good climbing

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all sorts of good climbing news.--got an email yesterday from joe at new england bouldering; my iron palm is on the way. --when i got home from work today, i had a fancy new pair of five.ten zlippers waiting for me... i guess my letter from a few weeks ago did the trick. i was sorta hoping there would also be an apology letter... "please accept our deepest apologies for selling such a shoddy product; allow us to shower you with free gifts." etc. --campusing tonight was great. i was able to pull 1-4-7-10-13, starting with either hand. i think i might almost be ready for hound ears by next week.

so, as part of my

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so, as part of my training for hound ears, i'm trying to lose maybe 5 pounds between now and weekend-after-next. let me just give you a little rundown of the snacks that i found waiting in the programmer's pod this morning. a 3lb bag of the most fantastic trail mix, ever. cashews, almonds, real m&ms... i could go on. a 40oz barrel of pretzel sticks. a 12.5oz box of goldfish. half of a 14oz bag of pretzel nuggets. a 20oz bag of assorted "fun size" chocolate bars; milky way, 3 musketeers, twix, snickers, and milky way "midnight". a small ziploc bag of wasabi peanuts.

i'll be lucky if i'm not 5 pounds heavier by next saturday.

From: Jim Horton To: matt

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From: Jim HortonTo: matt Subject: Congratulations! You're in Hound Ears

ok, so i'm in! after thinking that i had sent my registration in too late, i was notified at the end of the week that i got my stuff in under the wire, and i'll be going to hound ears. there's a limit of 275 people, and when i mailed my check for $45 in, there was already like 220 people signed up, so i figured there was no way my stuff would get there in time. stranger still, is that my former neighbors and current climbing partners sent their stuff in even later, and they also made it.

so, the plan is to hit the gym, hard. there's two weeks left to train, and i'm hoping to be able to hit the gym 4 times a week, maybe 3-4 hours. of course, my skin will never last that long on plastic, so i went all crazy today and ordered a few bottles of iron palm. that should help me train a bit harder, and more importantly help me be able to climb for 8 hours on all that lovely southern sandstone.

so, when i sat down

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so, when i sat down at my desk this morning, i had no email waiting for me. this is not a bad thing.

for the past few months, i (as well as all of my programming compatriots) have been copied on all email that went to webmaster@bradycommunications.com. because "webmaster@" is such a known and common email (as well as being listed in a lot of the sites we've done, therefore being scraped by automatic email harvesters), i would receive a ludacrisp amount of spam every day. the rationale for putting all of us programming nerds on the webmaster list was for super-extra-special redundancy, i think. say, for example, something came in from network solutions, a domain name expiring or something of the sort. the problem was that because so many of the webmaster emails were viruses, we couldn't open up any of the emails anyway...

now there's a new sheriff in town. well, a new cto, actually. i pointed out to him yesterday via email what a huge drain in productivity it was to have all these webmaster emails, because no matter how i set up my outlook rules, i couldn't stop it from beeping and showing the little mail icon whenever i got a new email, webmaster or otherwise. so, i'd have to stop what i was doing, bring outlook up (because it might actually be an email for me, ha ha ha ha), and then sigh heavily and minimize outlook again. he's quite a rational sort, so he took all of us off webmaster. so yesterday afternoon and all day today was lovely, uninterrupted bliss.

i will miss some of the fun subject lines we used to get from the porn/spam/etc., tho.

"A powful new tool!" "Look, my japanese girlfriend." "Rip her apart with your monster cock!"

*sigh*.. good times.

the luna show last night

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the luna show last night was fantastic. they sounded wonderful... and watching them was great. they all looked so casual and effortless. there was this large group of idjits standing right next to us, tho. they were jumping around like idiots at a punk show. they were in need of a serious beatdown. right before i left work yesterday, i got a little package, delivered by messenger. it was another 5 or 6 winning pepsi caps! i was a bit puzzled about it until dave revealed that it was him (i should have guessed). here's how our email exchange went after that:

me: please don't tell me you had your company pay to messenger them over to me.

dave: the "company" doesn't pay for anything. they bill it all back to the client (in this case, [client name withheld]). [different client name withheld] has paid to fed-ex a 14" cock to about 34 different states. ahhh. corporate america.

in other news, i'm really starting to get the hang of biking into work. it's been feeling easier on my legs (and my lungs), and i'm less convinced that i'm going to get splattered all over someone's hood. but the best part is that it has served to expand my heretofore thought limitless disdain for all humanity, and especially the kind that drives cars.

aaaah, i love inspiring people

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aaaah, i love inspiring people to blog. speaking of inspiring... i'm in a bit of a rut, musically, at work. i'm an indie rawk sort of soul, but i find myself more and more listening to hard techno/industrial/whatever while i'm programming. maybe because it's blood-pumping music, without needing me to really listen. crystal method is perfect... it's the same song over and over, and my mind is free to concentrate on the task at hand.

currently on/in queue: chemical brothers - brothers gonna work it out crystal method - trip like i do tool - stinkfist tenacious d - whole album