The three things that make me maddest.

There are three things that make me furious beyond belief.  I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE these three things!  The earliest of which angered me in the fourth grade, and I am honestly still seething.  I will list them in the next three paragraphs. My friend Haley Corwin is involved in one of them.  She’s the only person who could possibly feel as strongly as me about this.  I will start with the least of my enemies.

#3: The Inkheart Movie.

We watched the Inkheart movie last night.  August 19th.  2009.  I will never forget that night.  I’ve read all three books in the series, and really liked them.  Not the movie.  Can you spell terrible?  I sure can.  I can also spell, “This-movie-would-be-terrible-even-to-someone-who-didn’t-read-the-book.”  The budget apparently couldn’t allow a Mo or Meggie who could read out loud particularly well, an Elinor who was built like a wardrobe, or a Capricorn who wasn’t bald and didn’t look permanently jolly.  They had time to freakin’ put strange word ruins on the people who were read imperfectly out of the book by Darius (who was certainly un-owlish looking), but they couldn’t include the escape from the sheds?  They added a stable full of creatures from books, they gave Capricorn a castle, and added the Wizard of Oz tornado, but couldn’t seem to include when Meggie discovered her power, which actually happened?!?  This movie made me so mad because it was 2 hours of unnecessary and confusing add-ons, and they took out a huge amount of important events.  Plus it was really corny.

`                                                                                           #2: The Charlie Bone book.

It was the summer between the 3rd and 4th grade.  There was some read-ten-books-and-get-a-prize thing going on.  Nobody told me it was another book.  But, I digress.  One book my mom got me was…. *hissing voice* CHARLIE BONE. Supposedly, if you liked Harry Potter, you would like Charlie Bone.  What they forgot to mention was if you liked Harry Potter, and were looking for a complete copy right violation that wasn’t even good, THEN you’d like Charlie Bone.  I hate Charlie Bone.  His Dad was some quidditch-er, piano, prodigy, and Charlie was too.  I believe he had a scar.  Some mysterious guy had 3 bright red, yellow, and orange cats, kind of like a pheonix.

My Aunt Mindy wrote an unpublished book while she was working (she always finished really quickly), as a sort of personnel project.  I want her to get it published and become a famous author.  Then, she can contact J.K. Rowling, and she can sue the probably copy-righted pants off of the Charlie Bone writer.

#3: The Eragon Movie

I love the Eragon series.  I really do.  It embodies everything I love: magic, mythical creatures, and *giggle* elves, specifically Arya.  But the movie….  A-b-s-o-l-u-t-e  heartbreak.  When we found out that the our favorite book, Eragon, was being made into a movie, my friend Haley Corwin and I were SO EXCITED.  How could something so pure and good like Eragon possibly be corrupted by some film maker?  Weelll, apparently, Mr. Dream-crushing director had a part time job as a butcher, because that movie was hacked!  What the profanity was that guy thinking?!?

First of all, what happened to the Urgals?  They are a key component to the books.  They made the Ra’zac into freakin’ insect swarms, with little to no resemblence of their true forms.  Not only that, but they commited the unforgiveable evil of killing not one but both of them off, even though technically this was the first book.

Another atrocity that was commited is they cut Solembum the werecat.  And Angela the herbalist, who saved both Arya and Eragon’s life.  You might be thinking, “Get over it.  They have to cut some things.”  Yes, I know that.  But they cut Tronjheim, City of The Dwarves.  GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That means they also cut Isidar Mithrin, the Star Rose!  Gosh, that movie made me mad.  They had to time to put the Shade, Durza, on a huge smoke bat, but they couldn’t kill Brom the right way.

After the movie, neither Haley or I could talk.  I didn’t want to launch into an enraged monologue and insult Haley, and since she wasn’t talking either, I figured the damage was already done.  But she actually felt the same way.  The monologue was launched.

*Sigh*  Oh well.  Point is, don’t ever come to my house to engage in a pro-Charlie Bone discussion.  I will destroy you personally.

Why I always feel guilty when baby sitting my Aunt’s kids.

I’m at an age now where I can watch children without the threat of accidentally burning the house down.  I’m also a bit of a homebody, so there’s no threat of any secret parties, an added bonus for my employers.  For now, my main and for the most part only client is my Aunt Mindy.  She has two kids, Avery and Jack.  Or, if you’ve been reading Mindy’s blog, the bike spoke rider and the punishment.  The first time I baby sat, ever, I discovered some of the perks.  For one, the freezer is your oyster, and the contents within, the pearl.  It rocks when there is an Xbox, and when Avery (thank God) knows how to set it up.  Finally, the very expensive jewel in the crown of baby sitting: bedtime!!!

Bedtime is really like the end-of-shift for baby sitters.  You can play the Xbox uninterrupted, and don’t need to worry about the questioning looks you receive when you back out of the freezer, ice cream filled bowl in hand.  Some dishonest baby sitters might smudge the bedtime an hour or two, sending the kids to bed early.  I would never dream of doing something so devious as that, even when the 6 year old wants another round of Chutes & Ladders, and Mr. 2 year old realized with sobbing horror that mom is gone.  Okay, maybe once or twice bedtime was smudged a little for the young one, but never for Avery!

I might be a little lazy when I baby sit.  Avery is mostly gone, playing with our cousin Sophie or some neighborhood friend.  When she is home, she helps me a ton with Jack, and entertains herself.  When she wants me to play with her, she isn’t creepy or bossy.  She just quietly plays along.  Jack is a little more difficult.  Most toys will only hold him for so long.  He likes his storybooks read multiple times, but that isn’t bad, because I like reading and he’ll just point out random pages, never the whole book.  I know that he isn’t entertained anymore because he will start walking around the house saying, “Momma?”  The smoke before the fire, I suppose.  Most of the time, I play with them outside and bring out board games.  Sometimes though, I’m surprised that I’m not putting Jack in the bath tub, so I don’t have to change any diapers.

The first time I baby sat, I had my first little bout of guilt.  For one, their garage freezer was STUFFED with ice cream bars, and I had, like, um, 3?  I, uh, can’t remember, especially since Aunt Mindy and my mom will be reading this.  None of the ice cream cost them a penny, though.  My Grandpa was helping tear down a gas station, and saved a huge garbage bag of the bars for us.  I was guilty because I only let the kids have one or two, while I periodically snuck out to the garage to snark one down when they thought I was in the bathroom.  I also found their chocolate covered macadamia nuts in the pantry.  I was weak.  When the kids were in bed, I burned with shame as I ate my who-knows-what-number ice cream bar.  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, though.

Aunt Mindy swore up and down that Jack would not poop.  Except Jack didn’t get the memo.  It wasn’t pretty. I still felt kind of bad, though.  Until Avery had a night terror.  A night terror is like a mix between sleep walking and a nightmare.  You wake up, but you don’t wake up from the nightmare.  It’s like your mind is blanking out what your eyes are seeing and replaces it with the nightmare.  I was just sitting at the table, probably eating an ice cream bar, when I heard honest-to-God shrieking. At first I thought Jack had woken up and the baby monitor made him sound louder than he really was.  I held fast to that theory until I went to turn the monitor down.  Not only was it silent, I’m not even sure I had the other one on.  I ran into Avery’s room to see her with her eyes wide open, staring at some point on the ceiling, pointing steadily yet shakily at it.  I ran to her bed, eyes half turned to the ceiling.  I couldn’t get her to respond, but I eventually got her to sit up. When she wouldn’t talk or even notice me, I grew concerned.  The senseless mumbling didn’t help.  I carried her to the living room couch, which was kind of difficult since I was making a cross with my fingers and watching the ceiling at the same time.  When Aunt Mindy got home, I sort of babbled what happened in some high-octave scared voice.  It probably sounded like I thought Avery had seen a demon while at the same time I was losing my mind.  I might of cracked if she hadn’t come home only about ten minutes later.  The moral of this story is, your aunt will pay you a bit more than necessary if her daughter scared you into buying holy water off of the Internet.

Matt Selby, on: Why It’s So Hard To Look Tough Walking My Dog.

Dog walking is one of the great American past time.  For the people who have dogs, I guess.  I love walking my dog.  We live near a dog park, so I walk him often.  Luckily, no one really goes there, so except for the homeless and occasional making out teenagers, it’s pretty quiet.  I hate running into people there who have dogs, though.  For one thing, my dog is sure he’s the toughest canine on the Earth.  Apparently, he thinks he’s a werewolf. He isn’t.  He’s a shitzu-poodle. With big foofie ears and a little pom-pom tail.  His hair is long, curly, and black, and his back legs skip on every third step.  What he considers a threatening bark, I call a deepish yip.  I hate running into people with dogs because he turns into Mr. Short and Aggressive.  Until the other dog responds.  Then he suddenly feels rather curious, and the area behind me holds a lot of interest for him.

The most embarrassing time to walk him is after he goes to the groomer.  If the words, “He looks like a girl” rang true before, why, they’re gospel now.  He loses all of the shaggy-ness that might have hinted towards him being male.  The groomer (who we call “The Pretty Lady”) shaves his sides, fluffs his ears, fluffs his tail, too, and wa la, you have an effectively ladyfied poodle!

It really wouldn’t be as bad if he really was female.  I see someone, say a girl I know from class, and the dialogue goes something like this:

Girl: “Ah, you’re dog is so cute!”

Me: “Oh, thanks.”

Girl: “What kind of dog is it?”

Me: “Shitzuh-poodle.”

(This is where the awkward part starts.)

Girl: “What’s her name?”

Me: *shuffling uncomfortably* “Well, you see, his name is Clark. He’s a boy.”

At that point, they give me a look that means, “Sicko.”  In some cases, the person I’m talking to is particularly “thick,” and they just can’t get it is that Clark’s a boy.  If they’re older, I just let it slide.  Otherwise, I just lift Clark up with his legs in the air.  That’s what you would call a “quick fix.”

We got Clark in the first place as a guard dog.  I’m afraid though that if you have the words, “shitzu” or “poodle” in your name, you just aren’t cut out for guard work.  When I was in the fourth grade, my mom read an article about how robbers were funelled towards houses without dogs because otherwise, the owners of houses with dogs would call the police when their dogs woke them up.  So mom was stricken with the paranoia that every time a dog barked, some villain drew closer to our house.  She didn’t want a big dog, though.  The dog she was looking for would have to be smaller, a good lap dog, friendly and nice to its family, vicious and heartless to suspicious people, and very intelligent.  (Poodles are one of the smartest dogs.)  Well, I guess that Clark and Lewis missed the memo on that last one.

My mom found out about him in the newspaper.  After a few weeks, when Clark was finally old enough to be away from his mother, we would get him.  (My aunt Mindy would also get a dog.  Mom spread the paranoia to her, along with the article.)  For names, Mom wanted to name them after famous people.  My class was doing a unit on Lewis and Clark, then explorers, now my dog and his brother’s namesake.

Finally, we got Clark.  He proved to be the least threatening, friendliest, dumbest little dog I’ve personally ever met.  He will do this thing that we call “heebies,” which involves him either grabbing a sock or one of his toys and running around our table, through my dad’s office, around our living room, and stopping behind our coffe table.  Until one of us takes a step in his direction.  Then he’s back on his heebies route.  His only vicious barks are towards friends and family, and only because he’s so excited to see them.  Once, some over-condident salesman actually stepped into our house uninvited.  Our guard responded to that by actually putting his head in the guy’s hand.  In his credit though, at night, he sleeps on the stairs if someone isn’t home.  He actually waits for them.  Other times though, he just patrols until someone goes to bed.  That signals the end of his shift.

Even though Clark’s looks really girly, and he’s too prissy to sleep on the ground without a pillow, he’s a really great dog.  He’s a super lovyn little guy.  I would trade dumb and affectionate for smart and aggressive anyday.

Allow me to clarify my nerdiness.

If you’ve read my first post and you’re of average intelligence, you will have realized I consider myself “nerdy.”  And in a way, I really am.  (But there’s hope for me.  No true nerd would start any sentence with “and” or “but.”  Or use as many quotation marks.)  But my nerdy is not the stereotypical nerdy kid reading their dictionary and math book.  And nerdy is NOT geeky.  Geeky is bringing a doctor’s note to P.E. to avoid running the mile, and going into the library during lunch break to use the computers. Geeky is also buying cheat books at the book fair, and talking fanatically about World of Warfare.  (If you noticed that I seem kind of disliking of geeks, it’s because even nerds need something to despise, social-pyramid wise.)  I’m not sure what this next thing is, but I also do NOT make paper booklets in class and draw swords in it. “This is the sword of the Cursed Warlock, neeyuh neeyuh neeyuh!” You might think I’m kidding, but I have had contact with a kid who did that.

I am nerdy because I am what I consider a “prodigy” at math.  Not quite Einstein, but at least better than my mom.  I love to read, and tend to do nothing but, if I like the book. I finished the 7th Harry Potter in 2 and a half days, if that’s anything for you to judge by.  I like to use words like “maelstrom,” “malevolence,” and “permeate.”  My favorite word is debacle. All of these things should have cast me into the socially chaotic pit of nerd long ago.  The only things that saved me were my sense of humor, height, and slight athleticism from running- oh, sorry, now it’s swimming.

While on the topic of nerdiness, I should explain my blog’s title. It’s ironic I am so condescending because the common belief is the nerdy kids should just quietly lay down in front of those above them.  I, however, am openly scornful of the “jocks,” per se, and the popular.  That is my way of combating the belief of nerdy obedience.  I can guarantee you, I am doing no big kid’s homework for him.

There are a few who are actually pretty nice people, such as my friend Maddy. The same Maddy, in fact, who commented on my first post.  There are also several guys who are pretty cool, despite our social differences.  The thing about these people that I think is cool is they aren’t snobby and out-of-reach to people.  They just try to be friendly, but the thing that gives them big points in my book is they don’t support their friends’ attitudes towards others.

Well, I’m going to log off now. I’m tired of my mom’s snide comments on my typing skills, and I want to go outside. Bye!

I’m Going to Talk About How Much I Hate Running This Week, Okay?

Well, I woke up this morning and used the very brightest of my decision-making brain cells: I was going to go on a 3 mile run. To some of my audience, the much more morning surly of you, you were likely thinking, “Wow, drunk at 7:10 in the morning.” To you runners out there, the thought was likely, “Good for him! 3 miles is a decent amount of mileage. Now, I hope he stretched properly and ate something a half hour before to give him energy.”

Now, the run started out okay. As of late, my left shoulder has been hurting, which feels like I’m clenching my shoulder with several large bricks on my back.  I felt on top of the world, but since the Earth is rounded and moves, I suppose it makes sense that my comfort level began to slide. I began to feel light-chested, like I couldn’t breathe. Before that, I was hovering around an 8:30 pace. I declined to a 9 minute. At mile 2.85, I tried to speed up, but by 2.92, it was either stop or vomit. Wisely, I stopped. After gagging.  I was, needless to say, shamed.  My options were walk it off quickly OR throw myself into Thurston road.  I decided to walk it off. After the initial stomach heaving subsided, I ran the final 0.o5. At that point the traffic was gone, so I walked home.

I know that one run shouldn’t discourage me so much, but my Monday run was terrible, too.  It was really humid, and I don’t usually run as late as I did. I actually puked that time.  I run often, so the fact I nearly puked twice was discouraging.  Bad runs happen, but I decided that my problem is yogurt.  I always eat that before a run, but maybe that just isn’t working anymore.  Well, maybe running just needs to retire from my life for a while. I need to go now.  Swim team tryouts are at 1:30.  I figure that if running doesn’t work out, I should have a back-up.

Welcome to my Blog! For that, your ultimate dream will come true: meeting me!

Hello there, Internet world! It is I, Matt Selby, next Internet sensation! Right now, this is my very first entry onto my new blog site, and I have a little less than 1 reader. A “little less”  equalling 1. But I suppose all Internet sensations started out from humble beginnings. In my case, a relatively unknown boy even within my small community in a world of 4.5 billion people, where a pretty decent amount have computers with access to the Internet. My competition is daunting, what with all the blogs out there, none of which come close to the splendor of mine. It’s humbling.

At the moment, I’m shooting out typed words at a pace of “beginner,” or 6 words a minute. Obviously, I’m new to this. It took me 36 minutes just to come up with an address, and a significant amount of minutes to get the title. Which I haven’t yet figured out how to change. Don’t worry, I’ll get my computer-savvy dad to figure it out. In case you were wondering what the title is, it’s “The Blog of an Ironically Condescending Nerdy Kid, by Matt Selby.” Good, huh?

At the moment, my mother and sister are at a play, and I’m suddenly feeling very 19th century Englishy, if that’s a descriptive word. It’s called Oklahoma, and is about some Southern Belle who cain’t- er, can’t, get her true feelings across to her love, or something garbage-disposal worthy like that. Honestly though, it’s a movie, and it is okay. They will be gone until 10:00 p.m., so I’m at home with my dad (the computer-savvy one, except that info wasn’t necessary, since I don’t have 2), my loud and oddly square-headed brother, Bryan, and his friend, Hunter, who we fondly refer to as Charlie Blonde. They really aren’t that annoying, as long as they have access to YOUTube, LEGOS, and transformers toys. I’m getting kind of tired of blogging now, so goodbye for today.