Hello from Kentucky.

Click the picture for a better view.  These are the mountains that I grew up in.

Back to the old house . . . for a while.

The picture above is of Megan Epperson at an overlook in Cumberland Kentucky.  If she would have taken one more single step forward, or if she had slipped, Megan Epperson wouldn't be a name that refers to a girl that is currently alive, it would refer to a dead body that is probably part of a bear's diet.

-Matt

It's time . . .

. . . to go into LiveJournal mode for a while.

-Matt

Personal And The Pizzas @ The Old Miami in Detroit, MI.

    The other day I went to see Personal And The Pizzas, a punk band from New Jersey.  They played with two other bands who just so happen to suck very bad like.  This was my first time to The Old Miami and I think it has won the position of #1 sweetest bar that I've been to yet in Detroit.  They have an awesome jukebox that doesn't cost TOO much, dudes hanging out and playing records instead of a radio, walls covered with Vietnam memorabilia, a back yard area that rules to a ridiculous extent, and they host some awesome bands regularly.  My only complaint is that Maker's Mark costs $7 a drink.  That's not TOO bad since I only occasionally have one single drink, but it's not fair to the bourbon drinkers of planet earth.
    ANYWAYS!  The Old Miami rules and Personal And The Pizzas rules.  Check out these two videos I shot while I was there!

Personal And The Pizzas - Brass Knuckles

Personal And The Pizzas - Never Find Me

Enjoy!

I love all of you.

-Matt

Friends come, and then they go . . . back home.

    As always, I had trouble sleeping.  With the time being around 4 AM, sitting at my aunt's house while she visits her dying sister in Kentucky (my other aunt) taking care of her trio of babies that just so happen to be chihuahuas, not much productivity can come from a person.  Frustrated with not being able to slow my brain from racing in every direction all at once, I hop on my bike and go to Dunkin' Donuts.
    I spent roughly two hours sitting at Dunkin' Donuts dipping bagels into my decaffeinated coffee (blasphemous, I know).  The first half of my two hour stint there was spent renaming wireless networks to stupid stuff that I wont publicize on here out of stupid paranoia.  The latter half of the two hour period was spent making this:

    The song is by a band called "The Whoopass Girls," and the track is titled "Old Red."  They're just some midwestern kids making sloppy, care-free music.  It's real, raw, and truthful.  Check 'em out.  If you're into them, check out the other from 'em that's along the same lines under the band names "Henry Bemis Is A Super Hero," "The Loneliest Cowgirls," "Screaming And Dreaming," and . . . I feel like I'm forgetting one of them . . .

    I miss all of my friends.

    Personal and the Pizza's tonight at The Old Miami in Detroit.  Probably going solo, oh well, it will be a good time.  I wish that teleportation devices existed so all of my friends from Kentucky and around the world could tag along.


-Matt

The sky looks pissed.

That's lightning going on in the clouds.  Probably the scariest looking clouds I've ever seen in my life.  I don't think I've ever seen clouds roll so quickly, especially while lighting up as if they were preparing to release a horseman or two.

Rarrr.

I am into things.

    Going through a single semi-recent folder of photos I've edited, I discovered a few things that I'm into as of late, they are as follows:

PLAYING WITH TOY LENSES.

PLAYYYYYING WITH TOY LENSES.

READING GREAT BOOKS.

MAKING STENCILS.

LIVING IN A SCARY LOOKING HOUSE WHEN IT STORMS.

GETTING POSSESSED BY THE SPIRIT OF PATRICK SWAYZE. 

FEEDING DINOSAURS LIQUOR.

GETTING MAIL.

RIDING BIKES (WITH PEOPLE).

LOOKING AT SPACE IN MY BACK YARD.

TEACHING PEOPLE SPELLS.

-Matt

Pick Any Number From One Through Nineteen.

Click the picture if you want to be able to see each individual print.

NUMBERS ALREADY CHOSEN:  ‎3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19


    Alright, this is long overdue.  Twenty-one things have fallen off of my wall since the last time I sent any postcards sailing.  Now that takes a long time to happen, well, a month or two, but taking into consideration the frequency at which I was updating my blog at before, this is nothing short of ridiculous.
    Oh well, the nineteen pieces pictured above remain homeless and they're up for adoption.  How do you get one?  Well, you have a few routes.  All of the routes that you have to choose from have one thing in common, and that's you picking a number, any number, from one through nineteen.  You can tell me the number that you have chosen by commenting on this post (preferred route!), you can e-mail it to me at mattimeoo@gmail.com, you can call and tell me or leave it in a voicemail, you can text it to me, you can instant message it to me, you can send it in a message on any platform you have me on, you can mail me a letter, or you could always come over and just tell it to me the old-fashioned way.
    What happened to the missing two?  Well, I mailed them out already.  A picture of some Indian transvestites to Mr. Shane Terry and a picture of a homeless kid as an inspirational adolescent anti-role model to the new to planet Earth baby child of Sasha Ousley and Jared McKinney, little tiny Misha McKinney.

SUMMARY:
Pick any number from 1 through 19.  Each number will correspond with a print that I've labeled with one of the numbers on the back.  I take your number, find the print that the number matches, and I mail it to you.  It's that simple.  Go!


-Matt

I got a new lens . . .

. . . and it makes things look old.

Old, as in taken a long time ago with a toy pinhole camera but not really taken with that but taken with a new expensive DSLR camera with an old pinhole toy camera lens attached to it.  

This is the very first picture I have ever taken with the lens:

Waiting on the bus.

    I got the lens around 10 minutes prior to me walking out the door to go to work.  Naturally, I was really excited and eager to try it out.  I opened the package, attached the lens, put my camera in my bag, and departed on my long trek to work. At the bus stop, I pulled the camera out while I waited for the bus to pull up and took a picture of the first thing I saw:  my bike propped against the bus stop sign.  And there you have it.

    Right now it's 6:27 AM and I think it might be time for me to rest a bit.  Look for more pictures from this new lens of mine, I'm sure I'm gonna be wearing it out the next couple days!  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention what it is!  It's a Holga Lens for Canon DSLR cameras, so far it's fun, and it's really cheap.  It's this right here: Holga Lens Kit For Canon DSLR (775121)

Goodnight, goodnight.


-Matt

Why god, why.

In the famous words of Shane Terry, why?

 Why are fireworks always named the dumbest shit ever?  Why do they always have the most awesome pictures on them?

RIDE THE SKY.

MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL.  FEATURING JUMPING MEN AND WOMEN OF ALL RACES.  ALSO A GUEST APPEARANCE BY BON JOVI SHREDDING THE NIGHT AWAY FOR YOUR ROCKIN' PLEASURE.

Why can't I buy a really awesome 15 pound cast iron tea kettle that appears to be hand crafted for ballers only from Meijer's for $30? I buy this thing, open it up, and in the instructions it says that I cannot boil anything in it, I can only POUR ALREADY BOILING water into it.  A tea kettle that cannot boil water, no sense made.  I am out $30, but I'm probably going to have to return it, I kind of hate this thing.

"TEA KETTLE"

Why did Red "Just Cause," Zinnia stick it out to the bitter end and win the flower battle by default and out of sheer perseverance?  That's right.  RJCZ has bloomed.  After all the hell that RJCZ endured, one single sprout managed to bloom.  He stands a good foot and a half tall, red as the blood he was born to shed.  So why did he win?  Just cause . . .

VICTOR.

And why is there such a sweet vortex in my basement?

VORTEX.  Light painting is fun, if you have a camera that can keep its shutter open for decent amounts of time, try it out sometime.

    

-Matt

Hello, firework day.

    It's the fourth of July.  I just woke up.  I worked really late last night.  My armpits stink.  I'm about to take a shower.  I have no plans for today.  I'm home alone for over a week.  I think I'll go outside and ride around all day with my camera and maybe try to find illegal fireworks.  I had a dream that I got my mom's car towed and I was at fault, I didn't realize it was a dream until I was googling my old college's impound lot.

    Today might turn out fun.  Things have a way of happening to me, or I have a way of luring them in subconsciously.  Regardless I think I'll have a couple pictures or a video to show after it all.

    To tide you over, here's two videos that I shot the other day at the Nobunny show at PJ's Lager House in Detroit.  Best show in a long time.

Nobunny - You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll:



and . . .

Nobunny - I Am A Girlfriend:




Enjoy.

Love 'yuns.


-Matt

The twenty-four day hiatus: halted, adjourned, aborted, hiatED.

    It has been twenty-four solid days since my last blog post.  In that 3.428571428571429 week span, quite a few things have happened.  Some of those things were good and some were very, very, very bad.  Positive things in my life never outweigh the negatives and the negative things never beat out the positives.  I ride through life at a neutral norm, and my norm is pure optimism, otherwise I would have killed myself a long time ago.  It's the only way to live if you ask me.  Say fuck it, keep the "things are going to be really rad," perspective reigning with an iron fist in your brains, and keep on truckin'.  Thinking like an optimistic robot is key.
    Moving forward.  Lately, I've been working a lot.  My schedule is dumb, it really isn't a schedule, but more like a random summoning of me that I have to obey.  It's usually like Thursday: 4PM - 4AM Friday: 4PM - 4AM Saturday: 11 AM - 4 AM Sunday 12:30 PM - 4 AM.  It's pretty ridiculous, especially considering I don't have a car now.  Yes, my car is gone forever.  The jolly Christmas themed Cavalier rides no more.  Long story short, I broke down in downtown Detroit, came back the next day to get my car and it's gone.  I call up state and city police and all of the towing services they work with over the course of about 5 days.  No one knows anything about my car so the cops eventually tell me "Sounds like your car was stolen."  So I reported it stolen.  That's the end of that.  I lost a lot of sentimental stuff in that car, along with about ~$200.  Oh well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I started writing this entry the other day but was interrupted in the middle of it.  I think I'll just post it as it is and let it be.  I don't want to finish it while I'm in another train of thought.  We'll let this be the "hello again," portion.  I'll let this be the entry that rekindles a steady stream of new entries.  I hope all is well.

-Matt

Sub-Par-"Update," Or Maybe Not Even.

My new laptop got its first decoration to commemorate and acknowledge the existence of the Linux operating system on it.  It's Tux the penguin.

    Haven't updated the past bit, I'm working on the guide to walk people through cracking WEP protected wireless networks (their own, of course, anything else would be illegal) for total dumb dummies that don't know anything.  In other words, I'm making a tutorial that could enable an elderly woman who is an avid pants-shitter to break the security on WEP protected networks, thus giving her access to the network that the WEP encryption was supposed to be protecting.  Look forward to it!  It's coming soon.  It's looking Monday-Tuesdayish due to my super packed ultra long work-weekend. 

P.S.  I went geocaching the other day and it was really fun.  I'm sure I'll write more about it sometime.  Try it.

Geocaching!  It's fun.  Do it.  Papers whitewashed with photoshop to protect the cool people who signed in on the log we found.

-Matt

I went to Elizabeth Park yesterday . . .

CLICK THE PICTURE FOR A BIGGER SIZE. This is what you'll see as one collective frame if you sit on a bench in Elizabeth Park and fall backwards slowly, letting your head flop backward when your back rests flat.  Top part of the frame: Grosse Ile islan, bottom part of the frame: Elizabeth Park.

    . . . and then that rain cloud in the distance got closer and closer until it eventually came to be right over top of me.  It didn't just bring itself, it brought lightning, hail, tons of rain, and a double rainbow.  Needless to say, it ended my bike riding endeavor around the park.  Super skinny tires on wet pavement usually don't mix very well and I don't want to kill my bike with water just yet.  Maybe next time.
    As for right now, I'm about to ride down to my Aunt Mary's place of work so she can cut my hair.  My hair is getting to this level . . .

    . . . and I don't like my hair getting to that level.
    Wish me luck on not getting hit by cars, stabbed, shot, burned alive, drowned, tortured, robbed, etc. by street hooligans.



-Matt

New friends are good, cool, fun, rad. Ride bikes.

Click the picture for a bigger/better version.

    I'm beginning to be thankful for the people I've tried to lure out to ride bikes with me that have shut me down, backed out, or ignored the offer.  Without all of you baby weaklings that are scared of the world outside of the safety of your home and cradle of your mother's arms, I wouldn't have prowled the mean streets of the Motor City by my lonesome and met all kinds of random super cool people that owned the streets with me, setting fire to the ground that our tires touched.
    It was an interesting day.  Started off with Kristina, she's on the left.  We killed the streets for a few hours, ate some Thai food, then we ran into this guy on the right, Jacob.  He's cool too.  We rode bikes forever, randomly went geocaching, succeeded, left notes, signed logs, took presents, left presents, continued!  We went to his place, the 21st floor of the Millender Tower in downtown where the above picture was taken.  From this balcony, we screamed at a guy below complimenting his cool bike.  Across 21 stories of screams via strained and stressed vocal chords, we arranged to meet up at the building entrance in 10 minutes.  He joined the posse.  NEW FRIEND ACQUIRED! 
 

Four people, one day, all strangers, now friends.  We rolled around until sunset and life was good.  

    I hope that the next time I try to snag some people to come out with me that they oblige and we all have a really awesome time and loathe the moment that we all have to call it a night. Detroit is winning me over more and more each day. Things are great.
    I've been working doubles everyday the past three days, I'm exhausted physically and mentally and I desperately need sleep.  I think I'll indulge in some of that right . . . . . . . . . now.


-Matt

Honest Abe, that buzta ain't be dead.

I'm a' honest man
I'm a' honest lover
Stand by my word
Don't know no other 

 

    I've been riding one of  my new bikes around Taylor all morning, the lovely blue mid-80's Fuji that I'm loving.  I'm riding around, hoping that the 50% chance of precipitation doesn't strike like a cobra and destroy me, my bike, my camera, and my laptop.  Maybe a dumb move, probably a brave one, nevertheless I'm going up against it full force, no hesitation.  The Fuji is one of the five beauties that I acquired yesterday by trading my BMX bike off to a man from Romeo Michigan.  Was it an even trade?  I feel as though it was, but honestly I don't really care if it was or not, I'm loving these bikes and I'm sure whoever rides them with me in the future will too.  Here's an awful shot of the bike I took to show one of my friends.  I'm sure better pictures that involve my bikes are in store for the future, but for the moment, I'm sure that this one shall suffice:

RAD.

    Yep, that's it.  Nice, right?  Right.  Anyways, getting back on topic, I am the living embodiment of Abraham Lincoln in his prime of honesty.  Why?  Because of this:

HONESTY.

    I stopped by Starbucks to grab some tea and get online for a bit, so of course I'm going to put my money on a card first since it gets you free refills and other stuff like that.  I walk up to the counter, give the lady my card, hand her a $10 and say "I wanna put $10 on my card."  She says "Alright," and finishes the job.  I get my tea and have a seat.

    I open my laptop, get online, and check my balance to see how close I am to moving up in rank to get cooler stuff (1 purchase, for the record).  I notice that I have $17.93 as a remaining balance and I previously had a balance of nothing, zero dollars, zero cents and I had just given the woman a $10.  So instead of having $7.93 left, I had an additional $10.  A mistake, obviously.  She gave me $20 in credit instead of the $10 I had paid for.  Normally this would be a cool situation for a bad guy, but I'm a good guy.  I inform the lady, and to help her out even further, I go ahead and give her the other $10 since I'm sure that I'll end up drinking it up at some point in time anyways.  Honesty at its finest.

    I ended up landing a free cup of tea for it all, not $10 worth of tea, more around $0.53 worth of tea, but oh well.  It felt good and it was a nice gesture.  Detroit isn't full of assholes, thieves, murderers, and junkies.  I'm proof, so come and visit.  Detroit is cool.

-Matt

R.I.P. Awesome BMX Bicycle Of Mine. 2009-2011. I will miss you . . .

R.I.P. 2009 - 2011.

    Beloved BMX bicycle of mine that I have cherished for years, today . . . we part ways.  

    Today, BMX riding dies once and for all in my life.  It's a sad, strange, and hard thing for me to admit, but it's true.  I don't believe that I will ever again be into BMX.  I've had one too many stitches and surgeries thanks to BMX.  I love(d) it while it lasted (since I can recall breathing) but I can't really risk smashing myself to death anymore.  One reason is due to lack of insurance, so if I get hurt, I'm done for.  And two, I'd like to focus more on getting in good overall shape.  Hence this bike being traded for some truly awesome road bikes that I plan to ride to death.
    That's right, today, a new era in my bike life begins.  I'm trading my beastly BMX bike off to FIVE road bikes!  EXCITING.  A Kabuki, a Fuji, a Schwinn Voyager, a Windsor, and a Concord Pro 2.  All awesome bikes.  Armed with these, I'm hoping to have some super bike rides with friends reminiscent of "Whitesburg Bike Punx," but of course minus the original cast and crew of perfection.
    We'll see what happens.  I'm hoping for the best.  I'm excited, I'm happy, but I'm also a little sad seeing my bike leave along with a lifelong thus far era of my life.  Here's to it.


-Matt

Forty-One Degrees Fahrenheit? Five Degrees Celsius? Plus Five?

    Here in Metro-Detroit, it's 41° F.  Why?  A day ago it was in the eighties.  Michigan is a strange place, the weather here confuses me.  I like it though, it doesn't seem as though it can make up its mind now or any time in the near future.  Obviously nobody knows it and it does what it wants.
    What's going on today?  Well, my plants are killing it.  They're growing awesomely underneath this really sweet 4" plant light that I bought the other day.  I have so many things growing in this big seed starter tray that I got from Meijer's for liek $2.  In the tray right now there are Marigolds, Zinnias (the Just Cause krew), Heavenly Blue Morning Glory's, Moonflowers (interplanetary shit), Sun Flowers, Nasturtiums, Basil, Dill, and Parsley.  I'm pretty excited about my Basil Boyz, they look so . . . meaty, and they're just babies right now.  Check them out:

The Holy Basil Boyz, related to The Beaver Boys, fueled by white wine and shrimp.

    Life lately has been relatively boring, mainly due to the lack of skrilla being acquired to blow to fund things such as going places, buying things, and doing stuff which is mainly due to lack of work which is totally due to the boat that I work on not going on many cruises yet which prevents me from working which causes this whole shit cyclone cycle of nothing.  That will all come to a close soon and I'll be complaining about working too much.  I suppose I'm doomed to never be satisfied with life, maybe I should just go eat worms or die.
    On a more pleasant note, away from the topic of dying and eating worms and dissatisfaction with life, I made a pretty sweet little package for my super cool friend Dale Mackey (click the name for her equally super cool blog) down South in ole Knoxville, Tennessee.  I thought it turned out pretty good:

Presents!  On the way to Knoxville in the morning. 

    Ok this sucks, Starbucks is closing so it's time for me to cut it short and leave.  Typos and all of that will have to be corrected later, but who cares.  I'm posting this, the internet at my house is practically non-existent.


-Matt

Looks like Blogspot kinda blew it . . .

    . . . and deleted EVERYONE's last post.  It was down for what, over 24 hours I think?  That sucked.  So I suppose I'll attempt to recreate my last post, but in a condensed form.

    I went downtown the other day and rode my bike for hours and hours.  It was awesome to finally have weather worthy enough to ride a bike around without a jacket on.  My super white flesh even burned a little bit, it's kind of sad how white I am.   Here's the only picture I took, click it for a bigger version:

Super panoramic!  If you click it, it'll show you a bigger version.  The REAL version is about 50+ times bigger than this, literally.

I don't have any brains left.

And:

  I had no idea until just then . . .
My mind is blown. 

And if you didn't know:

According to this crazy ridiculous Christian TV show, The Beach Boys wouldn't exist without the demonic forces of satan. In that case thank god for satan and his demonic forces for creating The Beach Boys and The Ramones.

It's crazy that this stuff was actually allowed on TV, and it's even sadder that a lot of people actually bought into it.

-Matt

Looks Like Rain.

It looks like rain up here in Metro-Detroit.

 

Here's some more old archive footage I found, edited, and put a song I liked to it. I couldn't find this song on YouTube, so I figured that I would make an awesome contribution to the world by using it. So yeah, enjoy it!  06-20-2010

    I'm guessing it looks like rain down there in Kentucky as well based on reports I'm getting from friends.  Looks like rain down there, looks like rain up here.  Might as well listen to "Brighter - Looks Like Rain" since well, it looks like rain outside and this song rules to an immeasurable extent.  If you like it, I can hook you up with/point you in the right direction for tons more stuff like this and more stuff by this band, just say so in a comment or something!  It can be pretty hard to dig up sometimes, but I know where it's hiding at.

Enjoy!

-Matt