And no, I don't know how to do any of those things.

Before I really begin I would like, first and foremost, to apologize to those of you who have arrived at this blog, this unutterably excellent blog, by mistake. My online statistics tell me that many of you were brought here while searching for information on receiving your PhD online (which I'm not sure is the best idea) or something of an equally shady nature.

Secondly, I would like to apologize for the recent and future lack of posts on this blog. Things hereabouts have been hectic to say the least. Also, I bought a new Nerf gun last week, so I've been pretty busy shooting the kids.

Our house sold, mostly. I say "mostly" because there is a stack of paperwork that needs to be signed before it's official. Those papers, God willing, will be signed on October 7. That's three weeks away. We've started packing and planning our redecorating attack (Betsy thinks we're gonna need new plates), but it isn't 100% OFFICIAL. So, our house is sold, mostly.

The house we're buying (mostly) is 43 years old. It sits on a half-acre wooded lot and even has its own creek. The back yard has a fence and tons of trees. There's a big driveway with a basketball hoop and lots of room for the kids to ride their bikes without having to go out into the street. It sits on a full basement and has a second set of stairs leading from the garage to the basement, for quick escapes, I guess. There are a few issues, but we're prepared to deal with them. All in all, the house has buckets of personality, which is not something we ever knew we wanted until we lived in a house with no personality.

I have some pretty big ideas about what I would like to do with our new house. I want to build a big tree house for the kids. I want to create a fancy covered area for a fire-pit (think of a lean-to with seats and a nice wooden floor and a brick-lined pit for the fire... a good place to sit in the rain with a pipe and two or three of your favorite Hobbits). I want to install a fountain-beverage dispenser in Betsy's craft room (that should be good for at least a year of nocturnal affection). And then I want to take a nap in the hammock I hope to string between two trees which have already been prepped for a hammock.

So, we've been pretty busy the last few weeks. And on top of it all, my computer has decided to live up to its price tag. I've been unenthusiastic about doing ANYthing on here because it's just too frustrating. Hopefully the problem will be resolved rather soon.

That's all.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

For Sale

We have decided to put our house on the market and have been busy making the necessary preparations. So, I've been a little distant, naturally, and unless you'd like to contact me with an offer to purchase our lovely home, I'll be seeing you sometime in the next several weeks.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

9,000 and counting...

My hit counter just crested the 9,000-views mark. That's pretty dang awesome. You know what's more awesome? 10,000. I'm gonna make kind of a big deal out of that, so you should get excited.

Exactly what kind of big deal has yet to be determined. Maybe I'll shave my beard. Maybe I'll run screaming naked through my neighborhood, my wife filming the whole thing. Maybe I'll take the van in for an oil-change (which I seriously need to remember to do soon).

So keep watching that counter, people! It's gonna be big and it's gonna be soon!

Also, no one won the contest, so I'm keeping the shirt.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

A too true story.

As I write this post, one-thousand (1,000) unruly children are destroying my house from the inside out. They're like cancer, except no one wants to kill them. Well...

ANYway, the contest is going GREAT! And by "GREAT!" I mean, of course, "NOT GREAT!" But there are still two more days to win a t-shirt. All you have to do is convince people to follow this blog and then to post a comment with your name. Easy-peasy.

Uh-oh. I just realized that I haven't had a legitimate post for several days. Everything I've posted recently has been about my blog or this contest or about how no one likes my blog or my contests. No wonder I don't have any new followers. I'll do better, and I'll do it right now.

The following is a true story. I have been forced to fabricate certain things to patch the holes in my memory, but I guarantee you won't notice.

I grew up in a small town called Grabill, Indiana. It's six blocks wide and you have to watch out for horse poop. Grabill's nearest neighbor is Leo-Cedarville, but back when this story takes place, Leo-Cedarville was two towns called Leo and Cedarville.
I was a volunteer with our church's youth group when I was about eighteen or nineteen. I was not the best role model, I can tell you that.
One night, the youth pastor's wife had a few girls from the youth group spend the night. They ordered pizza and did each other's hair and all of that crap. They also decided it would be fun to call my house (I was still living with my parents at the time) repeatedly. The responsible adults in the house were getting quite annoyed with me and suggested that I do something about it.
I gathered together a smattering of friends and youth group guys and we split up in two cars. Me and a fifteen-year old boy named Josh rode with my friend Brad in his van while the other four or five guys piled into my friend Joe's tiny Dodge Neon. Joe then proceeded to race up and down the street in front of the youth pastor's house, thus attracting the attention of all of the neighbors. Brad and I devised a plan, much argued by the more sensible Josh, to break into the youth pastor's house and steal all of the pizza. For this reason, we were dressed all in black.
To insure that Brad's van wouldn't be seen from the youth pastor's house, we parked on the opposite side of a nearby church (not the one which we attended), and to allow for a quick getaway, Brad backed in... right up to the church's front door.
Before the van was even in park we were blinded by flashing red and blue lights and deafened by a voice coming from a loud-speaker. The voice belonged to a very animated police officer who had just raced his squad car into the parking lot in front of us and who was super eager to show us his gun and had it pointed straight at us. We were instructed to show our hands and not to move. Poor Josh, seated in the back, had no idea how to show his hands without moving and I think he might have peed a little.
The police officer had been patrolling the area because, a few nights prior, another church down the road had been burglarized and here we were, all dressed in black, van backed up to the front door of a church... You understand how it looked.
After an awful lot of explaining (and denying that we knew the people in the white Dodge Neon that they had received several complaints about), the officer gave us a warning and sent us home.
Later, I had to explain to Josh's father what had happened. I think I would have rather been arrested.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

The results of the recount are in...

Oh, wait... Nope. Still at twenty-seven. Hmph!

Thanks for nothin',
      Matt Tears

My army groweth...

I'M BACK UP TO TWENTY-EIGHT FOLLOWERS! Ohhhh, man... This feels good.

Keep 'em comin', guys. There's a t-shirt in it for ya'.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Number twenty-eight, you will be missed... even though I don't know who you are.

SooooOOO? Whaddya think? Pretty good lookin' blog I got here, huh? I was gonna do some fancy artwork across the top and then design an original background to compliment the banner and then I was thinking of designing a unique font to give the 200lb Man a bit of extra flare... but that is a TON of work and just thinking about it was pretty exhausting so I just used a bunch of stuff preloaded onto Blogger's design template. Took me about eight minutes. I like it.

Someone didn't like it, though. I lost a follower today. Someone was so upset by the little space sparklies and the cool art-deco font that they just couldn't be associated with me any longer. Or maybe it's because yesterday I was a little less than supportive of the typical American's right to be a doofus. I guess we'll never know.

Whether due to political discord or lack of design appeal, the important thing is that I am down one (1) 200-pounder. That means there's an opening. So, here it is: Another contest.

You get me the most followers, I make you a t-shirt. It doesn't even have to be a 200lb Man t-shirt. I'll put whatever you want on it. All you have to do is get people to follow me and then post your name as a comment. At the end of a week, I'll do some tallying and whoever's name is posted the most often is the winner. Don't want a shirt? Me neither. Tell you what: Stickers. Stickers too "late-nineties local punk band merch" for you? Magnets. Don't like magnets? How about a t-shirt? I'll find something.

Now, go my children. Go and tell the world the moderately interesting news of the 200lb Man!

(NOTE: My wife claimed that the previous font looked like something a child would select. She then proceeded to demonstrate how it forced her to read like a robot. So, to avoid a messy divorce, I changed the font to this.)

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

It's a small world, which makes it that much easier to blow up.

I am a total stat junkie. You know the section of the newspaper where they print the Harper's research stuff? I love it. It's my favorite part of the newspaper... although, I haven't seen it in there for a while, so they may have stopped running that feature. Maybe I should write a letter...

Blogger has some awesome stats for those of us with our own blogs (stats which they occasionally change for no apparent reason, but whatever...) and one of my favorites is the "Audience" stat. It tells me how many page views come from each country, what operating system they use, what browser they use, and there's even a tiny, unlabeled map so you can see what planet you're on. The map isn't really all that helpful, to be honest.

Here's a rundown of the current top ten nations to view The 200lb Man (since Blogger started keeping track, sometime last summer, I think).

6,847          United States

208             Russia

178             Canada

174             Serbia

159             Netherlands

134             United Kingdom

98               Germany

87               Australia

62               Latvia

40               South Korea

Of course, the U.S. is at the top. Apart from being my home country, they'll typically do whatever they're told. "Hey, Americans! Pay tons and tons of money for gas! Hey, Americans! Bomb this country! Hey, Americans! Watch Twilight!" It actually works to my advantage, so I shouldn't complain.

I was surprised to see Russia in the number two spot. But then I remembered my eye-opening Dr. Seuss expose'. It's obvious to me that I've struck a chord with the KGB and am now under observation. Thanks for the page views, all the same.

Canada, at number three, is always welcome to the party. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to say about Canada that isn't either based on ridiculous stereotypes that I picked up from watching Strange Brew repeatedly when I was in high school or just plain fabricated.

And WAYYYY down in the number four spot is... Serbia. WTF, guys?! I spent sixteen days in your lovely country, being treated to the finest hospitality I have ever known, sharing my impeccable English with you, and trying not to scar my backside with your extremely abrasive toilet paper, and this is how you repay me? Number four? I'm gonna go cry a bit, now. Be right back.

The Netherlands (which I initially confused with the nether regions, sorry) is the fifth most frequent visitor to my blog. I'm sorry Netherlands. I wish I knew more about you. You're in Europe-ish, right? And your people are not, I'm fairly certain, known as "Nethers." Not as often as Americans are, anyway. Well, thanks for visiting.

Spots six through ten are filled by the U.K., Germany ("Sie haben meine Unterhosen gestohlen!"... Two years of German in high school and that's about as much as I can remember...), Australia, Latvia, and South Korea. Thanks, guys. Let's make a bit more of an effort, though, huh?

Thanks, from the bottom of my shallow, cheese-filled American heart, for visiting my blog. I really do appreciate it.

Thank you,

      Matt Beers

Impatience in matters of design.

I've decided that the current state of my blog is too embarrassing to continue. I'm going ahead with SOMEthing, I don't know what yet, but it will probably have very little to do with the votes already tabulated at the top of the page. Sorry. Feel free to redact your vote out of spite for my disregard for your opinion.

Effective immediately, I will be re-cluttering the blog, bit by bit, starting with Nogs of Bloat, which will likely get a name change, among other things.

Come back often to see the changes in the blog and maybe a few temporary surprises along the way (I'm thinking some embarrassing photos of my wife might surface... we'll just have to wait and see).

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

The 200lb Man is naked.

I have done this thing, this thing that I did, to motivate myself to do the other things I have not yet done. Allow me to explain.

A few days ago I said that I wanted to spice up the blog a bit. I might have eventually done so, too. But I couldn't just leave it to chance, so what I've done is strip the blog down to it's most basic parts. It's almost painful to look at, isn't it? Like a celebrity gone off the deep-end. (I'm talking to you... all celebrities.)

I can't just leave the poor thing naked and bland like this... can I? Maybe. I'll put up a poll at the top of the page. YOU can decide.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

"Some Things Are Weird" revisited

I love going through old boxes of memorabilia and junk drawers. I really do. I have several that I like to dig through every now and then. You always find something you forgot about.

The World Wide Inner-tube is the biggest junk drawer in the history of the world. Look what I stumbled across:

http://mattbeers.blogspot.com

My old blog! How great is that? I wonder if it still fits. Let's try on a post and see...

Worm's Eye View

Yes. I would say it's still quite relevant.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Taking control of my density, just like George McFly.

It's change for a time, people. And I mean it this change. (That started out as a typo and I turned it into a joke.)

I've been pretty bored with my blog lately, and, as this blog is about whatever I'm thinking about when I decide to write a post, that must mean I'm pretty boring. I'm not going to dig any deeper into that grave than I already have. Instead, I'll make some superficial changes and assume that the problem will fix itself.

Project 1: Jazz Up The Blog

Phase One: New Banner
Phase Two: Less Clutter
Phase Three: Topical Specificity
Phase Four: Use Words People Know
Phase Five: Another Contest
Phase Six: No More Contests
Phase Eight: Counting Lessons
Phase Nine: Think Of Something For Phase Ten
Phase Ten: TBA

So, I need a new banner. I have a few ideas I'm batting about, but if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to staple them to your face and I'll look them over the next time we meet. Or you could just e-mail them to me (the200lbman@hotmail.com).

Project 2: The Quest To Be Less Gross

I am, as you may have guessed, a smidgen overweight at around 215 lbs. The intraweb-net tells me that my ideal weight is between 114 and 150 lbs. My BMI, or Body Mass Index, which I think someone made up just so they could sell charts, is 35.8. It should be between 19 and 25.

I haven't weighed less than 150 lbs. since I was in junior high. So, I'm gonna ignore the "ideal weight" concept and shoot for "manageable weight." I'm thinking around 190. By then I hope to have developed some better life habits. I'll decided at that point if I need to set a lower goal for myself or if I just want to quit.

To document my progress I'm going to be starting another blog, a mini-blog, if you will, which I will update weekly. More on that later, like, when I actually get around to setting it up.

Fun things are just around the corner, people!

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

Is it better than the original? Everything I do is.

The funk has subsided, which is not to say that there is no more Parliament, but I am feeling very much better and far more ready to get up and do things.

The weather was rather lovely today, allowing for a walk and a bit of garage-cleaning, which always perks me up (I try to keep it a mess just in case I need a mood enhancer). Then I went to my regular Thursday night writing group/video game night (depends on if Evan is there or not) where we refilmed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I have twelve minutes of unedited footage that says we did a heck of a job. I've got a lot of editing and special effects to do, but I'll post it as soon as it's finished.

So, today was pretty alright.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

My Eeyore post.

I haven't been very imaginative lately. I just wrote about five-hundred words and then realized that it was stupid, so I deleted it, but I didn't want my effort to go unnoticed, so I wrote this. Seriously.

So, what have I been up to? How have I been spending my month off? I honestly don't know. Every day seems to blend in with the next. It's February.

I've recently become aware that I might be suffering from mild depression. I don't sleep well and I'm always tired. I am totally unmotivated and I only want comfort food. When faced with a list of chores, I'll inevitably choose the one that offers the most opportunities to lay on the couch.

The garage is a wreck, I'm completely ignoring certain obligations, I've allowed many relationships to fall apart, I'm not reading, I'm not writing, I'm not moving, I'm not sleeping, I'm eating, but mostly bacon, and I find myself making a big, noisy deal out of every little thing. So, I've got stuff I could be working on, but it seems like all I want to do is play Super Mario 64. It's pretty awesome.

So, there's my mid-break update. There may not be another update until March. To tide you over I have prepared nothing. Sorry. I thought I was gonna do something just then and then I backed out at the last minute.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

I'm petitioning to get all of February's "r"s the pronunciation they deserve.

I'm thinking about taking a break for the rest of February. It could just be a combination of the gray weather and the fact that I've had a cold for about two months, but I'm just not feeling it.

So, I think I'm going to spend the rest of this month writing short stories for submission to Ferocious Quarterly. I've also got some assignments to work on for a writing group. I've got a bunch of people with whom I need to touch base, some things to mail, Superbowls to watch, promises to keep, manuscripts to read and critique (politely this time, Eric, I promise), and a family who needs a little more intentional effort invested into them. So, I'm engaging the parking brake for the rest of the month.

I probably won't come to a complete halt. I may re-post some things that I think deserve extra attention or I might just post a link or a video. I'll do something.

I appreciate your patience as I make excuses and allow myself to get lazier.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

The 200lb Man, one year later...

One year ago today I began this blog. I didn't even have a name for it. It went through many changes in its first twenty-four hours of life. In fact, in the first three days alone I made nineteen posts. I was so young and naive. I believed that the world would flock to my musings like communists to a vaudevillian  mustache. I've learned much over these past twelve months, which is a lie, and I would like to thank all of you who have read this blog and have recommended it to their friends.

And now, a little video that has been prepared for your entertainment. When you've watched it, please visit my friends, as it was their willingness to make this video that convinced me that it wasn't a horrible idea.

Off the Record
Plan B
Two Bibliomaniacs




Thank you,
      Matt Beers

"I'm writing this note to tell you not to expect a note."

My mother always told me, "If you can't do something right, don't do anything at all." Or maybe it was, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," but that sounded like way too much not saying things for my taste. I liked the first one better. And let me tell you, it has not led me astray, my friends.

And this is why I'm not writing a blog post today.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

p.s. Tomorrow's forecast doesn't look much bloggier.

A parabola of hair.

I tried a couple of video blogs today, but I'm starting to side with Betsy. They're pretty stupid.

(If you're wondering, one of them is of me grocery shopping, alone, at Walmart, trying to talk to the camera without drawing too much attention to myself, and the other is me at the Taco Bell drive-thru. Not Oscar material.)

I shall now delve deep into the reaches of my hard-drive and search for a tasty morsel for you to nibble until tomorrow. Be right back...

 
This first one is from way back in the magical year 1981. Maybe '82. It doesn't matter. What matters is that wallpaper. It was pea-green and textured with felt and utterly fan-effing-tastic. That's me in the front rocking the blue suit. Flanking me are my grandparents, Mammaw and Pap. Behind me are my brother, David, and my sister, Michele. And in the back stands our cleaning lady, Bernice. She was caught stealing mustard and had her hands cut off at the neck.

This picture was taken in the spring of 1996. This is one of the best friends I ever had, Lisa. And I am NOT wearing a wig. And I do NOT have that jacket anymore. It's hard to say which I miss more, the hair or the jacket.

I really couldn't say what kind of plant is growing in the tray on the floor in front of us, but I'm pretty sure it's not pot. We weren't that cool.

This handsome young gent is the 165lb Man. He didn't have a blog. He had a mohawk, instead. This is around 2001 or so. This is the day of Joe and Lisa Benner's wedding. Joe and I became friends in the seventh grade and pretty much stuck together until we had wives, and, ultimately, something better to do.

 

And, finally, here I am, in the fall of 2009, wishing I had bigger corn.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

The prize revealed...

No, no, ladies and gentlemen but mostly ladies (this feels like a joke I've used before, but I'm going ahead with it anyway), there will be no video blog today, although there might be later. Today I bring you photographic evidence, not of Dr. Seuss's involvement in Chernobyl (that source turned out to be a dead end), but of my ability to follow through, eventually, when a prize is promised.

BEHOLD!

Oh, yes, 200-pounders, that is an official, hand-made, hand-delivered 200lb Man t-shirt. The only one in existence... probably. There may be a few flea-market knock-offs floating around. Buyer beware. If it doesn't smell slightly of Sharpie, it isn't the real deal.

This is my young neighbor, Will, whose mother won the infamous t-shirt giveaway. He looks good, doesn't he? Not sure whether that's due to the shirt or if it just comes naturally to him. For my own ego's sake, I'm gonna say it's the shirt.

Now that you've seen the shirt you're realizing what you missed out on. Maybe next time I have a contest I'll have more than four entrants.

Thank you,
      Matt Beers

2011 Video Blog (part 2)

Thank you,
      Matt Beers