• Click here to see the reason why I am hooked on A&E's Intervention (pun intended). Naked meth whore's journals are eerily reminiscent of a former coworker of mine who was rumored to be on the pipe. She used to sketch magical spirals and write "NO" repeatedly in her notebooks during board meetings.
• Michael Jackson may be losing the Happy Pedophile Ranch due to some back taxes.
• The Colorado Avalanche made some big moves before the trading deadline netting them Peter Forsberg, Adam Foote and Ruslan Salei. In other 1999 news, American Beauty wins the Oscar for Best Picture and folks are starting to get serious about this Y2K thing.

Labels: colorado, drugs, hockey, link goodness, pop culture, sports

John Buccigross on why March is the greatest time of the year for hockey. I enjoy the tale of his six year old son getting his first goal and a humorous anecdote regarding one of my favorite hockey personality's Shjon Podein. Excerpt:

So, I'm in my rookie year in Edmonton and it's my birthday. We had just come home from one of our infamous 15 to 20 day road trips and my family is there to celebrate. So, the family and I go out to have dinner and drinks. We're just relaxing when one of my brothers gives me a four foot high inflatable Tyrannosaurus rex for a birthday present. My other brother gives me a sombrero. We get back to the hotel and get Mom back in her room. As we're leaving Mom's room, my brothers jump me and rip my suit off in the hotel hallway, leaving me with just my boxers, a sombrero and my four foot high inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex. So I'm wandering the hallways of the hotel trying to find my room. We'd been on the road for 15 to 20 days, it's late, and I can't remember my room number. I stick my room key in a number of doors, hoping to find the right one. All of a sudden, I look up and there is one of Canada's finest security guards.

I go, "Hey, what's going on!"

The security guard says, "We've had a complaint that some guy is walking down the hall in his boxers, wearing a sombrero, with a bottle of Bud in one hand and an inflatable dinosaur in the other making too much noise."

I looked at him and said, "You've got the wrong guy, brutha."

Labels: hockey, sports

The Avs are playing with verve and poetry and there can be only one explanation; the magic Christmas sweatshirt. Since the future wife gave it to me for Jesus's birthday, the Avs have gone 8-2 and are now in first place in the Northwest division.

You also may have heard about the other Denver professional sports franchise. If they beat the Steelers this Sunday, they head to Detroit for their seventh Super Bowl bid in franchise history. Take care of business, DBroncs. Daddy wants to see another Lombardi trophy in case at Invesco Field At Mile High.

An Open Letter to the NFL: Who's idea was it to have Detroit host the Super Bowl? Whoever it was, you should fire them. Was Miami or San Diego closed that weekend? If I am going to risk getting shot outside a stadium during the big game, I expect to feel a warm ocean breeze on my face as I hold my intestines in my hands and writhe in agony while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Also, as you are probably aware, the Roman Empire collapsed almost two thousand years ago. We use these things called numbers now. Look into it.

Labels: hockey, sports, wife

NC State runs a classy program. All I know is that if that Mexi-Cam business were pulled at Invesco Field At Mile High during a Denver Broncos home game, the stadium would probably be burnt to the ground.

A funny anecdote regarding the kissing cam: A few years ago I was in attendance at the Pepsi Center when the Colorado Avalanche took on the St. Louis Blues. In the second period, Joe Sakic fires a slap-shot that shatters the non-shatterproof glass behind the goalie. This causes a long delay in the game as the Pepsi Center crews work on cleaning the glass off the ice and installing a new panel. The Jumbo Tron begins entertaining the crowd with video clips, hockey highlights and the kissing cam. The segment drags on longer than normal due to the delay, and finally, it casts a parting shot of the St. Louis Blues bench; more specifically Keith Tkachuk and Barret Jackman. The players, engaged in a conversation, look up to see themselves on the Jumbo Tron kissing cam, smile and then lean into each other and kiss. For that brief moment in time, I actually liked Keith Tkachuk.

Labels: colorado, denver, hate, hockey, sports, tomfoolery

• David Copperfield is going to impregnate a girl with magic. "Presto! You are knocked up! Now you will have wait nine months and see if the trick worked." This does not sound like a magic tick to me. It sounds like the modus operandi of a guy I went to high school with.
• The Jenga Sears Tower.
• A little league hockey coach implements the ring of death. Hijinks ensue.

Labels: hockey, pop culture, sports, tomfoolery

• The Philadelphia Flyers Have a Time Machine: Installment Five. I would also like to add the obligatory "Fuck the Flyers" for any hockey fans (Jake, Gary) who may harbor the delusion that I cheer for that asshole organization that took Foppa away.
• Pierce Brosnan requests that James Bond sex scenes be more explicit. I think he sums it up best: "What Bond needs is a good, palpable killing sequence and a good sex scene." I can get behind that, Mr. Brosnan.
• Jason Sehorn should be beaten with a sock full of quarters. Seriously. Marc Bulger over Tom Brady? The only thing that guy ever did right was landing this.

Labels: hockey, jake, link goodness, perez, pop culture, sports

The NHL unveiled a new logo for the upcoming season. Notice how the text direction was merely flipped from the old logo and the orange was replaced with cool, metallic and unnecessary grayish-blue gradients. I could not be happier that professional hockey is back (the future wife is even more ecstatic as she will not have to endure any more NHL Classic games on Altitude) but I have only two words for the new logo: very pussy.

Labels: hockey, sports

Much like a keg of PBR in a university fraternity house or Paris Hilton on an aircraft carrier full of cocaine, I am tapped. I just do not have it today ("it" referring to the creative magic that makes me money and causes the ladies undergarments to moisten). While searching for inspiration that was non-porn related, I found a video of the best hockey fight I have ever witnessed. Then Jake sends over Jam On It by Newcleus. Any moment now I expect Turbo to bust out the storage room and do the electric worm past my cubicle. Things are starting to look up.

Labels: fighting, hockey, jake, music, pop culture, tomfoolery

Christmas came and went like my first college girlfriend; happy and magical in the beginning but quickly degenerating into a miserable coma-like limbo where my emotions froze and my body metabolized alcohol with the efficiency of a Nazi general. I made out with holiday gifts like two groping teenagers in a PG-13 movie. Aside from a pile of clothing and art supplies, I received high-ticket items from my lady (digital camera) and the parents (barbeque grill) and a most excellent scotch sampler from Jake (as I type this I am enjoying a nice glass of Oban). Posts in the next few weeks will be scant as I knock out a freelance gig, sexify the MB for 2005, snowshoe, play in a hockey tournament, polish off a scotch sampler and generally enjoy my time off from work. Peace on earth and all that shit. And fuck you, tsunamis.

Labels: drinking, hockey, jake, wife, xmas

In the midst of the NHL lockout, the Altitude Sports Network (carrier of Colorado Avalanche) has resorted to showing classic NHL games. Last night I watched Patrick Roy face a career high number of shots in a 2-2 tie versus the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1997. I think I have hit rock bottom. Next, I may be seen on an episode of Cops running down the street wearing nothing but a throwback Colorado Rockies jersey, drunk off Canadian Mist whiskey, fresh from smacking my lady around screaming, "It was not Claude's fault! Draper was skating with his fucking head down!"

Labels: colorado, hockey, wife

My lady and I went to see Miracle yesterday. Movies rarely move me, as most of them have about as much substance as a steaming pile of elephant dung and before yesterday I could count only three instances in twenty eight years of popular cinema viewing where I was touched emotionally:

1. The Empire Strikes Back. After battling Darth Vader in an epic Jedi light saber duel, the handless Luke Skywalker scales the flimsy scaffolding of a weather station high atop Bespin while Vader questions the brash youngster (equipped only with his bad haircut now) about his family tree. Luke learns that Vader is his father. Ridden with denial and hurt, Skywalker jumps from the scaffolding into the abyss of the gas colony.
   
2. Planet of the Apes (Original). Chuck Heston is riding down the beach on his trusty stead with hot piece of mute ass Nova clinging to his back after the apes have freed him. He comes upon an ancient sculpture and stops. He dismounts the horse, falls to his knees, grasps at the wet sand, looks up to the sky and damns all of humanity. Camera pans out to reveal the ancient sculpture is in fact the Statue of Liberty.
3. Deer Hunter. Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken and a game of Russian roulette. "Didi Mow!"
   

Now Miracle has officially made my list. After standing on his head for the 1980 Olympic medal round and defeating a Soviet team that had won the gold medal for twenty straight years, net minder Jimmy Craig skates to center ice looking for his father in the crowd after he wins the gold medal. "Where is my Dad?!" "He is right there, Jimmy." Fuckin' A.

Labels: hockey, movies, pop culture, wife

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

Friday. I work until three in the afternoon until I notice that myself, Neal and Brandon seem to be the only people left in the office. I give myself the rest of the day off. At home, I order Chinese food, drain four Newcastles and paint the fucking walls. My sort of lady calls me on her way home from the final Bronco Pre-Season game. Talk gets serious.* We hang out anyway, agreeing to avoid relationship conversation for the evening.

Saturday. My sort of lady wakes up early because she has stuff to do. I leave her house and walk home and we agree to meet up later as I need her to help me purchase new bedding and towels. She is the shopping queen and I hate shopping (read: I am willing to pay $80 for a set of sheets at one store as opposed to shopping at many stores and finding the same sheets for $40.) I paint the fucking walls. In between painting the fucking walls, my sort of lady takes me to numerous linens and bedding stores. I purchase new linens and bedding. My sort of lady and I head downtown to meet friends for birthday drinks. We consume numerous whiskeys, vodka tonics and eat $9 steaks. The birthday girl informs us she wants to go to the Diamond Cabaret. We comply with her request where my sort of lady and I consume many beers and I smoke a $10 cigar that tastes like filthy assholes. We stuff dollar bills into stripper's panties.

Sunday. My sort of lady wakes up early again. After she leaves and I spend twenty minutes staring out my bedroom window at the rain as I told the boys I play hockey with that I would meet them for practice at an outdoor rink at nine o'clock. I roll over and go back to bed. My brother-in-law picks me up and we proceed to our fantasy football draft. I have been competing in the same fantasy football league for ten years. Every year, we sit in the same basement, tell the same jokes, drink assorted Coors products and draft fourth string NFL players thinking we got a "sleeper." I get home and paint the fucking walls half drunk.

Monday. I sleep in. I work out. I buy groceries. I eat a pork chop for dinner. My sort of lady and I rent a movie. Talk gets serious* again. We laugh at ourselves and go to bed.

* My sort of lady and I are currently "hanging out." The relationship dynamic has progressed into something neither one of us expected. I like my sort of lady. My sort of lady likes me. I am interested in pursuing things further. Taking risks, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, is something I am willing to do. I figure it is best to try it and realize it does not work, then not try it at all. Relationship situations are like combat; you either get out of your foxhole alive and return home the conquering hero grateful for every day thereafter or you wind up getting shredded by machine gun bullets, laying on a field of battle with your intestines in your hands being comforted by a fat soldier named Murph telling him things like "I am so cold" and "I wanna go home now" before you die. Thankfully, my sort of lady does not use war analogies like me to describe her feelings.

Labels: bro-in-law, denver, drinking, feelings, hockey, l-i-v-i-n, sports, strippers, weekend that was, wife

This weekend I played hours of GTA Vice City, got drunk wearing a super Afro wig and participated in my semi-final playoff hockey game against the Husson Boys, Mike and Mark. Our team battled hard, but due to some late penalties, we came up short of the victory. Mike and I used to play alongside each other during the early days of the Slashing Hyena Hockey Club. The Hyenas are currently embroiled in internal strife as four players are leaving to test the free agent market. I was recruited once again by the organization to play, but I am under contract with my new club for several more seasons. Besides that, the Hyenas did not offer shit for a signing bonus.

Fucking Mormons. The next time you want to kill your pregnant wife be smart and file a life insurance claim, stage a car accident and collect your check. Or, being of the Mormon faith, just take another wife that is a sociopath porno addict so you have something in common.

Pro-Lifers will do anything for attention. If you have an objection to the procedure, than do not have one. It is wise to keep abortion legal. Currently the procedure can be performed in the sterile and safe environment of a hospital as opposed to on a urine soaked mattress in some trash-ridden alley by a voodoo motherfucker with a coat hanger. It is not anybody's place to tell any woman what she can and cannot do with her uterus. Except for me.

Labels: hockey, mormons, weekend that was

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

An insane amount of freelance work is keeping me quite busy as of late. So busy in fact, that I went into debt to buy a new computer. A Power Mac G4. Go ahead. I will wait while you clean your shorts. I love it and the freshly connected broadband Internet access (you should see how amazing porn looks on this monitor). I am anticipating a good return on the investment. Does anybody want me to design a website for them?

Nels and Kerry's wedding went off without a hitch. Many spirits were imbibed, there was more dancing than an MC Hammer video and good times were had by all. I performed my best man duties with dignity and ease and avoided a candelabra incident during the ceremony thanks to my cat like reflexes. The minister unknowingly bumped a candelabra that would have sent the quaint chapel up in flames if it had not been caught. I did this without anyone in the congregation noticing a damn thing, moving swift and silently like a ninja on a rooftop.

My hockey league's regular season ended last Sunday. I was second in points on the team with 8 goals, 12 assists and 9 penalty minutes. We ended up in fifth place and are battling the fourth seeded Fighting Trout this Sunday. The Slashing Hyenas are in prime position to take it all the way to the house. My dreams of hoisting the Bladium Cup over my head and drinking in the sweet nectars of victory as I skate around the former airplane hangar in my jock strap to a cheering crowd of seven people will hopefully come to fruition.

Labels: hockey, nels, technology, wedding