Long time friends of the MB, Mark and Sara, ruined their lives over the weekend. It was a lovely affair that went down at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and included Apache Wedding blessings, drinking and revelry, an R2D2 cake and a slideshow of two fine-looking youngsters in love. I understand your reasoning for putting us at the Smashing Pumpkins table, Mark, but were we at least considered for The Clash table? I must know. Congratulations (again) from the wife and I. Enjoy England/Scotland/Ireland. Also, something for you to consider.

Labels: /mark, colorado, wedding, weekend that was, wife

Other stuff that fuels binge drinking in the West besides boredom:

• Soul-crushing employers.
• Fantasy football drafts.
• Buying in a seller's market and selling in a buyer's market.
• A donated garage refrigerator reserved exclusively for meat, alcohol and assorted citrus fruits that can be chopped up and put in alcohol.
• Five weeks of vacation time that needs be used up by January 1, 2007.
• Mark Husson's sparse blog posting schedule.
• Your mom.

Labels: /mark, link goodness

In a few short hours, I will be on a plane headed for Chicago and the 2005 HOW Design Conference. Once the conference concludes, the future wife and I will be hanging around the Windy City for a few days. We will be back in Denver next Thursday only to leave for Oregon the following Saturday to visit with our in-laws for the week. Posting will be minimal to none on the MB during this time. If you start going through withdrawals consider Jake, Boing Boing, /mark or Fleshbot your methadone. Especially Fleshbot. They have dirty pictures and stuff.

Labels: /mark, denver, how design, jake, travels

Last night after my hockey game (a 10-3 victory in which I tallied 2 assists and Mark was denied on a sick Temu Selanne-esque backhand chance) my sort of lady made a scrumptious dinner of Mediterranean chicken, fresh vegetables and wild rice. After we ate, we retired to the sofa and watched the Chicago Cubs win their first post-season series in 95 years. I enjoyed most aspects of the game except for the constant camera coverage of Kerry Wood's wife sitting in the stands. After almost every pitch Kerry threw, Fox would cut to her crying and clutching her delicate little hands in front of her face. By the seventh inning, I had enough:

Me: (camera pans to Kerry Wood's wife) Here we fucking go again. I am sick of seeing that bitch.
My Sort Of Lady: I know, Matty.
Matt: We do not need to see the gold-digging gutter trash Kerry married every time he strikes a guy out.
My Sort Of Lady: I agree. They probably would not put the camera on her if she were ugly.
Me: True. But how many professional athletes wives are ugly? Aside from Kurt Warner. His wife looks like hammered shit.
My Sort Of Lady: Good point.
Me: Look at all those player's wives. They are like those high school cheerleaders that lettered only in cheerleading.
My Sort Of Lady: I do not think I could ever be a professional athletes wife.
Me: Me either. My tits are not big enough.

Labels: /mark, hockey, sports, wife

Friday. It is my birthday so I take the day off. I wake up, make some scrambled eggs and bacon and watch Clash of the Titans on the digital cable. My sort of lady and I play nine holes of golf. My sort of lady gives me clothes and candles that smell like pumpkin musk. We crack a Michelob Ultra and toast to my 28th year. After killing three Michelob Ultras each, My sort of lady and I realize that Michelob Ultras go down very smooth. My sort of lady departs to get ready for birthday festivities at Old Chicago. Kaye, Aaron and Johnny Ballgame stop by to check out the town home improvements. We leave for the pub where I drink the night away with family and friends, consuming only two shots (thanks to Monica and an old high school friend Rachel). For the first time in three years of birthday celebrations, I do not wind up face down in some skeezy parking lot in downtown Denver dry heaving on a tree.

Saturday. My sort of lady and I drive to Redstone (20 miles outside of Glenwood Springs) to attend the wedding of a childhood friend she has not talked to in six months. I soon find out why my sort of lady does not talk to aforementioned friend (the term bourgeois princess comes to mind.) Together, we know a total of three people at the wedding. We sit at our table and drink ourselves half blind. I begin to spin yarns to the gullible and uppity wedding guests. My best story begins when someone at the table asks me, "How long have you and your wife been together?" I reply "Six long years," and then proceed to tell them how we met on the frozen sea ice of Antarctica where we were both studying botany and the psychoactive effects of blue-green algae on the human brain. I am sure to include my harrowing smack addiction and how my wife supported me through the dark times when I brought home filthy drug addicts to fuck and spike the vein with in our basement. I conclude the story with, "I am going to get a drink, anybody want one?" (I told you I am good at weddings.) My sort of lady and I dance. On the drive back to Denver, my sort of lady falls asleep somewhere near Glenwood Springs. She wakes up when I nudge her pulling into our town home complex. She stretches and proclaims, "That drive was so short." I drove three hours in solitude.

Sunday. My sort of lady and I go for an early morning run as a pre-emptive strike against the assault our digestive tracts will face during the birthday celebration at my parents house. We arrive at my folks shortly after one in the afternoon and are presented with heaping plates of food. On the menu is stuffed shells (shell pasta filled with ricotta cheese and covered in homemade spaghetti sauce) and peach pie. My sisters get me candles that smell like vanilla musk, a candle holder (I begin to think the women in my life called forth a candle conspiracy for my 28th year) and a gift certificate to Old Navy. My parents float me duckets and two books: Ortho's Home Improvement Encyclopedia and Techniques of the Great Masters of Art. We then head back to my sort of lady's house and I fix her screen door and hang some mirrors on her walls. I play in a late hockey game and receive my first ever game misconduct penalty (Mark recounts the event here). Much like Claude Lemieux after boarding Kris Draper in 1996 and destroying his face, I stand by the hit.

Labels: /mark, birthday, chili dog, colorado, drinking, hockey, johnny ballgame, kaye, mons, the fairways, weekend that was, wife

It is late and Mark and I have been communicating since 9 o'clock post meridian via instant messenger about this silly blog. After tonight I realize that my coding abilities are as horrific as Michael Jackson's face. Regardless of my technical ignorance this site is now blogging like a motherfucker. Please notice that commenting is now also available. This welcomes you to open your cry hole and interject some worthless opinion that only nine people will eventually read. Props to Mark and Jake for helping this graphic designer stumble into the future. You boys are the gravy on my mashed potatoes.

Labels: /mark, jake, technology

The feud between Mark and I has officially ended; settled like men with switchblade knives. My crew and I rumbled Mark and his boys in the parking lot of a run down tavern in Aurora. Granted, my gang may have been outclassed and out danced, they are, after all, just a motley bunch of ex-con drug addicts; but when you are in a knife fight, what counts is whom you cut and how deep you cut them.

The fight went something like this: Mark insisted that we hold hands instead of the traditional binding of the wrists with a bandanna (or as us choreographed fighting gangsters call it a "doo rag"). Our collective crews encircled us, making sure that our rumble would end in a bloodbath if anyone tried to escape. Somewhere in the distance, heavy guitar riffs were played as we circled around each other like vultures over a fresh kill. Mark struck first, slicing off my right nipple and sticking me in the pancreas. I countered stabbing him in the kidneys, head, neck and chest area. When the dust settled, Mark was on the ground bleeding and I stood over him, arms raised in victory. We then proceeded to limp into the bar and did Jagermeister shots until we threw up.

From this day on, I will always admire the tenacity and heart of young Mark. He fought like a cornered pit bull with its nuts cut off. My respect for him will be carried out until my dying day.

If you want to learn how to knife fight, click here. There is also a book written specifically about knife fighting.

Labels: /mark, knife fighting

After taking most of the summer off like the Colorado Rockies, I have come back to the world wide web, more cut, more shredded than Rocky Balboa did to face Clubber Lang for the second time in Rocky III. In case your Ray Charles and have not noticed the super sexy site overhaul, The MB has a new look that is bound to make you question fundamental web designing truths. I hope you enjoy it.

In my absence, I have been ridiculed and ostracized due to my flight to free agency in my roller hockey league (Read all about it here). A young punk named Mark thought it was wise to open his ballwasher and question my actions. Not only are you unaware of the situation as to why I left the Slashing Hyena Organization, Mark, your claims are unwarranted and untrue (especially the part about me being a star athlete). Keep in mind, my friend, that if I had not the left the club, there would not be an open spot on the roster for you to fill; so stick that in your pipe and smoke it. That being said, I intend to destroy you and eat your face when we meet out there on the rink. Then, in the manner of a true Hockey player, I will get you drunk on cheap beer when the smoke has cleared and you are re putting your arms back in their sockets.

Speaking of eating people, read this, and tell me how absolutely insane it is. Seriously. Tell me.

Labels: /mark, hockey, l-i-v-i-n, summer

My hockey team, the Slashing Hyenas, skated to a 3-2 victory on Sunday and first ever playoff win. I had a goal and assist in the effort. We now advance to the semifinals, and are just a breath away from the championship.

The NHL Playoffs will begin in just a few short hours. My beloved Colorado Avalanche will be playing the LA Kings in round one. The Kings and their fans are worthless sacks of shit that should be dipped in hot oil and crucified upside down. If you are a hockey fan, you know that King fans boo former hometown defensive specialist Rob Blake every time he touches the puck. Last year King fans threatened his wife and children sitting in the stands during the Avs-Kings series. No doubt these slimy fucks will behave in the same manner through out this clash. Did Rob Blake leave LA on bad terms you ask? No. Rob Blake's only crime was being traded to the Avalanche. Fucking California. I hope you fall off into the ocean so you can quit stealing our water.

Do me a favor and e-mail my young friend Mark and tell him to stop listening to Vanilla Ice. Vanilla Ice is not good enough to suck the sweat off of a donkey's balls. Even with a Jimmy Pop Ali (Bloodhound Gang) cameo, his new album is still miserable. Aside from Vanilla making a mockery of music in general, he got his ass kicked by Todd "Willis" Bridges on national television. Mark you are better than this. I do not care how you got the album, whether you purchased it, stole it or ripped it off some mp3 pirate website; get rid of it right now. Remember, I am only doing this because I love you.

Labels: /mark, colorado, hockey, sports