The only thing

You need to know is this site will soon become the getmatthew.com website.

Across the Shields

Where the Wild Things Are meets one of my favorite rock bands in America right now.

Ringbearer T-Shirt design

I have been so busy lately with non-creative work it seems like. I just finished this T-Shirt design for Iowa's own Ringbearer. Our former tour flames. I need to crank a bunch more designs for My America so maybe more tk?

Overheard on the R2

Right. No. It’s soda. And I don’t give little children soda. It has nitrates in it. No. Okay here we go.
30th street station, next stop.
You are really going to get a dose of the old… [something]
No. The only reason why is you drank that whole Mickey D’s milk and I know your bladder is like [something]. And I just don’t want it to go kapow. I’ll take those chips from you. Stop it. Dude, I swear. I can’t wait until we get home. This is what I have had to deal with all day. Remember all this that you are doing to me. Because you are in for a special treat when you get home. It’s called jalapeño spiced butt. I’m counting every time you kick me. You are going to be grounded all day. Dude I need [something], by tomorrow. Just because of that little boy. You think people want their clothes all over where you are putting your feet. You sit up there with that hat and be quiet. I have just realized how devastating you have become. Sit up, son. This is what you do to me in public. At home you are a different child. Sit up and put this in your lap. Back in my day, parents used to be able to hit their children in public, but now someone like me would go to jail for that. I can’t believe the change in my little boy. I’m embarrassed. Do you know what that means? Boy, if I would’ve known you were going to act like this today, I would’ve never came down here. What? You wish you had some sleep? Turn around and sit down. Turn around and SIT DOWN. No, I’ve had enough of you today. Turn around and sit down. People know here that you don’t get disciplined and that’s why you act like this.
[Train stops somewhere after 30th street station before University City] This is engineer to the conductor for the third time.
[Train resumes. Conversation between man who looks like to be about 50 with a 20 year old beard, long grey hair and glasses and his 6 year old son stops.]
Tickets please.
[Conversation four seats in front of me begins again, much to my delight.]
Out of all the years of me coming down here. This is the first time you coming here has ever been this way. The whole way here and the whole way there you have been disrespecting. Since you moved to that neighborhood. I saw that boy and how he disrespected his mother and you have been around him too much. I promise you, when we get home you are going to wish you had a different family. 5 years of you knowing me dude, you have never acted like that. You are grounded for the day. You are never going to act like that for the day. I hope I never run into any of these people ever again. No tv, no treats.
[Boy begins to cry loudly. Everyone in the car can here.]
Please let me play, I just want to play.
You’ve got 8 minutes to convince me, like I told you. I know. Relax. I told you, we’ll talk about it.
I can’t play.
Is your belly okay?
No.
Darby.
The whole thing is how you act here from now.
Just a few more stops now.
Do you have half a quarter? What? You don’t? Sit up on that seat right there again. Come on this is hard, you are hurting my heart.
I want to play.
Babe stop, you’re hurting my heart. You shouldn’t be a follower you should be a leader. Like you were. A cool dude.
Sharon Hill, next.
I could only do this [something].
You did the better than I could.
Look. Look. Well, look. It’s a wolf!
Folcroft is next.
[At this point the man makes a gesture with his hand towards his face which brings the back of his hand into view over the seats and I notice he has some really insane looking prison tattoo. And then I realize he reminds me a lot of Charles Manson.
Dude, what? We almost missed our stop.
[They get off at the last second at Glenolden and walk away. I notice he has a lot more than one tattoo on both of his hands. His tattooed hand holds the little boy’s while his other holds a shopping bag from The Children’s Place.]
Norwood. Norwood.
[I’ll be in Wilmington by 4:12 hopefully.]
Prospect Park. Prospect Park.

ChaCha for real

I first heard about ChaCha about a month or so back when I was in Texas. A guy in a band we were on tour with happened to mention a friend of his who would just answer text messages about random things and make about .10 cents per question. I thought this guy was kidding. It instantly made me think of those hilarious commercials I kept seeing for KGB with the dude from Gilmore Girls running through people’s yards telling you recipes for Daiquiris. “Just text 542-542 if you need me!” So my next thought was: so people actually answer these questions? Independent contracting? That’s wild. Well ChaCha is the same thing but better (my employee loyalty may have already kicked in or maybe it’s that they just pay better than KGB.) So this whole thing sounds easy right? Sounds awesome? Well I thought so. And the best thing is I keep telling people about it and no one knows what the fuck I am talking about. I would have figured by now everyone would have been blowing this place up, but apparently they haven’t been hiring so frequently as of late. So here is the story of how I lucked out and got to tell people what the score of the Liverpool match was for about $1.50 an hour.

I remember looking it up online and seeing that signing up didn't seem that difficult so I thought I might give it a shot, but figured I would wait to try it when I wasn't roaming around the country in a van with a broken laptop. This way I could actually dedicate some time to it. Well here I am, I have been home for some three weeks and I finally decided to give it a shot. After about two and a half hours of "training" and taking about three quizzes to prove my worth, and further, waiting about two days for my results, I was hired. Today was my first day working for these people whom I will never meet and I have to say I have enjoyed it so far. The training videos were pretty annoying, but I will have to say they tried pretty hard to make it entertaining. Some colorful use of language by some über-geeks probably had something to do with that. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but it was funny. So about two or three hours later I have made about $4.00 and change while watching baseball and drinking beer. I set up direct deposit. I get to answer some of the most hilarious questions ever (more on this later) and I get to stop whenever I feel consumed by the overwhelming stupidity of the masses. Unfortunately, I know there will be some frustration that will come along with this, so for now, I hold my breath. You have to make your first cool hundo before they start paying you. My goal is to do that before the 15th so I can make some extra bills, but that’s kind of hard when I have to ignore questions while I write this post. I would say ChaCha should give me a bonus for giving them a good review, but ChaCha is essentially run by me and single-mothers and people on house arrest who need drug money. So needless to say, they aren’t reading my blog (hopefully because there is more on this too). So without further adieu, here are my favorite questions from my first day of work being a ChaCha guide.

1. Where is the Shift key?
2. What’s the difference?
3. Are the Dodgers going to win the World Series? (Probably the most hilarious one.)
4. Are you a robot?
5. Will the Phillies win tonight? (This one is always easy, especially when they are down by 7 runs going into the 7th inning― they always do.)

And to whoever asked me who played Artemis at the Langey College production of the Ant and the Grasshopper in Oakland: First of all, maybe your fat fingers inhibited you from typing the actual name of the college LANEY and the fable that is known as the ANTS and the Grasshopper and second of all, Why? Are you crushing on Artemis? Well I didn’t tell you who it was because I couldn’t find out with the terrible information you provided. Luckily ChaCha has empowered me with a button called “Clarify” where I click and pass the question onto the next unsuspecting housewife sipping on a Daiquiri who may or may not pull her hair out after you “clarify” your question. Good luck you fuck. And good luck to me answering some more questions about the Brewer game.

The man with the Colt 45 says 'shut up!'

I can't write a review about this movie. I don't know why. I don't even know why it's good really. It just is. But here I am sitting here trying to describe what I really do like about this movie and I still am not sure. It might be Danny Boyle, it might not be. It might be be Dev Patel, it probably isn't though. It could be that sick scene where the guy dies in the tub full of rupees, but I am pretty sure that's not it either. What I think it really comes down to is that place called India. You know, where half of our country's doctors and Dunkin' Donuts managers come from? Yeah, well it's also where that really over-hyped movie called Slumdog Millioniare takes place.

It's not very often you can see a movie that fails so terribly in about every important aspect of film making but the setting becomes its saving grace. If this movie was another Asian import you know it would suck. How many Japanese and Korean "inspirations" (remakes) have been shit out stateside in the last five years? Or how many many sequels/prequels to the Grudge or the Ring are there now? You know it. People are tired of it. The people want some Bollywood to mix shit up. Let's just hope there isn't a sequel with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The slums of Mumbai make the most poverty-stricken trailer parks in America look like the Taj Mahal. And the dude who wrote the screenplay knew that. I heard this guy just straight up chilled in a mud hut for weeks adapting this from the famous Indian novel Q&A. So this shit is hook, line, and sinker for any American viewer. The first 20 minutes of this movie rule so hard. Immediately you get sucked into the deplorable squalor that is the Mumbai slums. Kids diving in shit. Bathing in black water. An entire city that looks like a patchwork quilt of tin roofs from bird's eye view. It makes any American watching realize how the characters' environment is nothing any of us are used to seeing—even in movies. It's mesmerizing. Good thing, because aside from that this movie is almost like bathing in shit.

This movie could contain the most contrived love story to ever grace the screen that wasn't released by Disney, but still this movie kicks ass. The characters suck and are beyond predictable (or maybe they aren't predictable but who would know because they are about as underveloped as your 8-year-old cousin). The music is okay if you like hearing two remixes of "Paper Planes" back to back followed by three more M.I.A. tracks (aka NOT). But I'm not complaining. I'll probably be watching it again and singing it's praises for a couple weeks at least. They say this is the first movie of the Obama generation. I'll buy that. It's probably better than Benjamin Button (which probably will win the Oscar for best picture instead of this).

I am a little late in seeing this but I figured with the Oscar nominations being released, why not? Go see it. Even if for the coreographed dance during the credits. Look out for the entire cast appearing on the new season of America's Best Dance Crew.

Something to blog about

I was actually trying to set up a new account on blogger when it told me that I already had account from 2005 that I could claim. Too bad I was a tool up until yesterday so its heartbreaking to read all the ancient stuff I wrote. I am also trying to test out this whole sending an email to a certain address and I can post pictures and all that from my phone.

The pictures are... the dark Rolling Stone hallway on MLKD and this pretty girl sitting on her most beautiful behind doing her hair.