The plural of "matrix" is "matrices."
That is pronounced "MAY-tress-SEEEES"
Which frankly sounds a lot like the word "mattresses," as pronounced by the Scots.
What does this mean for you, the internet public? It means that if you are a Scot, you are finding all this talk about Matrix this and Matrix that uncomfortably titillating. Yet despite your best meditative efforts you have not figured out why this is the case.
"Is it the hot Caucasians in snug vinyl?" you have asked yourself.
"No," you have answered.
"Well," you have responded, "What is it, then?"
Now you know. It is that once there was a Matrix, and then there was another Matrix, and now there are two Matrices, and that sounds to your filthy Scottish inner ear like "two mattresses," and that has your libido off to the races.
You Presbyterians really ought to try tickling yourselves once in a while. It will help you let off the steam and you will find yourself making fewer ribald remarks at work.
Also, it will tone your triceps.
Posted by Bret at 09:57 PM
These are real and not fake. They were written not to amuse you but to help you celebrate British Sandwich Week, which is currently underway.
While Britain may not have always had a strong reputation for its culinary heritage – the sandwich is fast showing the world otherwise.Not only is the sandwich British by origin but it is also one of the most versatile foods ever created and it is gaining an international following with sandwiches now selling in most parts of the world, including countries like Japan.
The American army are also looking at sandwiches as the best way to provide nourishing packed lunches for troops in the field, while many schools and hospitals are now viewing them as one of the best ways to provide a balanced meal to schoolchildren and patients.
British Sandwich Week is organized by the British Sandwich Association. Here are some of its aims:
-
To promote excellence and innovation in sandwich making.
To promote the consumption of sandwiches.
To provide a collective voice for all those involved in making, distributing and retailing sandwiches, and;
To represent the views of the industry.
The people of the BSA are not all hot air and press releases either. Every year they sponsor the Best Event In The Whole World.
Guess what it is called?
Wrong! It is even better than you thought!
Their show is called the Total Sandwich Show. Meat and cheese between two buns indeed.
See? I can totally run an old fashioned "web log" if I try.
Posted by Bret at 11:36 PM | Comments (1)
Kate and I share a car. It is a Rolls-Royce Phantom, and is green. On the hood it has a little chrome woman with wings. Kate thinks she is an angel. I think she looks like the Philadelphia Cream Cheese mascot. Who is, Kate points out, an angel. What we can both agree on is this: The leaping-cat hood ornament you get with a Jaguar is much better. But buying a Jaguar seemed vulgar and trailerparky so we resisted the temptation.
When we first got our car we talked a lot about the fabled history of Rolls-Royce. For a while it seemed every RR model had the word "silver" in its name. Silver Cloud. Silver Shadow. Silver Spur. Silver Spirit. Silver Ghost. Silver Seraph.
"Aha!" said Kate. "It is an angel."
"Is not," I said. "The name refers to the automobile at large and not merely its hood ornament."
"Shut up shut up shut up. You do realize we don't actually own a Rolls, right?"
"Huh?"
"Don't try to change the subject."
"OK."
"..."
"Seriously. I so don't understand what we're talking about right now."
"That's because you are a)dumb and b)not paying attention."
"Oh."
"..."
"Got any grapes?"
"F off."
Anyway. Rollses tend to be called Silver even when they are black or green or blue. Except for ours, which is green and is called "Phantom."
You probably did not know that Toronto used to have an indoor football team called the "Phantoms." You did not know this because indoor football is dumb and nobody went to the games. But even though your ignorance was blissful, mine was not, and the word "Phantom" troubled me. Our new car was smooth and elegant, but its name did not cut the relish.
So.
We gave it a name. One in keeping with the proud RR tradition of Silver this and Silver that.
Here is what we called it: The Silver Bum.
Oh, how we laughed about that. Haw!
...
This week our laughter turned to tears.
Yesterday the Silver Bum choked on its own vomit. Or maybe on its own stool. Digestion metaphors are appealing here, but in practice they are not as precise as one might wish. OK then. I will use real mechanical terms instead of metaphors.
Yesterday the Silver Bum's "catalytic" "converter" failed.
A "catalytic" "converter" takes unpleasant motor exhaust and turns it into pleasant motor exhaust. A "catalytic" "converter" protects the Air We Breathe. A "catalytic" "converter" is friend to you and me.
But the Silver Bum's "catalytic" "converter" failed yesterday. What did this mean in lay terms? It meant the Silver Bum was spewing uncorrected filth into Toronto's atmosphere. It meant children catching bronchitis and asthma and tuberculosis.
It meant (to speak metaphorically again) that the silk panties through which the Silver Bum typically passed its farts had grown encrusted and foul. It meant the Silver Bum had shat in its own drawers. And also in all our lungs.
Naturally I had to do something about it. So I did. I paid the RR mechanic to falsify the record of the Silver Bum's emissions test. He did not mind because he had gambling debts. He was grateful, really, because now he has until August before the goons kneecap him.
Today, Fate disapproved. I drove over a nail and got a flat tire.
But.
While I waited in the garage waiting room for a mechanic to plug the hole in the Silver Bum's tire, I put some coins in a vending machine to buy a soft drink. The vending machine gave me two soft drinks for the price of one. So clearly Fate had changed its mind. Fate approves of me once again.
What do you say to that? Nothing, because you are speechless! Boo-ya!
Do not cross me, internet public. You are dealing with powers beyond your estimation.
That is all.
Posted by Bret at 11:43 PM | Comments (5)Several weeks ago I appealed for your assistance. For you, the internet public, are friendly and sensible, and you never went in for being snarky & disinterested the way all your hipster pals did. You are reliable and eager to make this word a better place, and also you are extra eager to make it more entertaining. So when I asked you the following questions, two (2) of you took the time to respond. Speaking as someone who has seen the server logs here at this hot sandwich, I can say that the ratio of helpful participants to unhelpful lurkers is headcrushingly high. I can also say this:
Whee!
Here, for your reference, are the questions I asked you:
1. Have you never been mellow?2. Suppose I somehow found a way to actually get in touch with Christian Potenza. Should I be shy or should I actually get in touch and ask him all those questions we have been working on?
3. Sebaceous cysts: foodstuffs or condiments?
4. If you had personally come up with a wicked neat re-design of a popular sports team's distinctive "logo," or "crest," or "badge," would you post your new design on a public web server, or would you keep trying to get the president of the sports team to take your phone calls even though his secretary had repeatedly brushed you off in the past?
5. Relish?
Here are your responses:
1a. No.
1b. That's a confusing question. I always thought Olivia Newtron Bomb was either deep or grammatically foolish. Maybe she's both. The only way I can answer that is by telling you that I have been mellow. Though once in Amsterdam the mellowness turned very quickly to paranoia. If you know what I mean.
2a. Shy, until he shows a moment of weakness, or arrogance, and then hammer him with those other questions.
2b. Of course you should pester him! I mean, ask him all those questions. Your public has a right to know!
3a. Condiment.
3b. Depends on the main course.
4a. Post it on a public server.
4b. Get a lawyer first, copyright the design (if it doesn't cost you more than 5 bucks), do one of them fancy Photoshop watermarks, then publish that puppy! Your public has a right to see your handiwork since you've teased us so far.
5a. No thanks.
5b. Never.
Answer key:
1a: Lame answer. 0 pts.
1b: No I do not know what you mean. You mean drugs, right? Okay, I know what you mean. You are a drug head. 5 pts.
2a: That is a plan. 5 pts.
2b: True, but more encouragement would have been nice. 3 pts.
3a: Bold and true. 5pts.
3b: Indecisive and therefore incorrect. Sebaceous cysts are by their nature hot and juicy and crackly and saucy. Therefore they are condiments. Spread them on toast! And English muffins! Toasted or untoasted! Or on pork rinds if you are on Atkins and not allowed to eat bread! Although that will probably make you stink! 0pts.
4a: Brave but foolhardy. 1 pt.
4b: Excellent lawyering, but where is the courage? 3 pts.
5a: Wrong. 0 pts.
5b: Wrong. 0 pts.
Final tally: Contestant (a) scores 11 points, tying Contestant (b), who also scores 11 points. It is time for sudden death!
One of you, please die. Then the other can be declared the winner.
Alternative winner-selection method: Contestant (a) and Contestant (b) must both write short pieces of verse and mail them in to this hot sandwich. Here are the rules for the verse competition:
1. All entries must comply with the strongsmell.com poetry policy.
2. All entries must address the "Chutney" v. "Dill Bits" debate.
3. That is all.
4. Entries from the public at large are encouraged.
5. But the public at large will begin with an 11-point handicap.
6. Because the public at large did not frickin' participate in the previous round.
7. That is all.
If you are the sort of person who talks to people, you have spent much of the past week talking about two people. One is Aron Ralston. He is the young man who went hiking all by himself and didn't tell anybody where he was going and got stuck under a big rock and had to cut off his own arm to get free. The other you read about yesterday right here at this hot sandwich.
Fate is bringing their stories together.
Because they obviously share genes.
So there is a dark family secret we all must discover.
 |  | |
| Amateur surgeon Aron Ralston | Celebrity adulteress "Dar" Heatherington |
This hot sandwich has a large and cosmopolitan international audience. You, the internet public, are savvy and sophisticated. Well done, you sophisticates. You must be very pleased with yourselves. Pip pip and all that rot.
It is a good thing you have this hot sandwich, let me tell you. Because now that the threat of SARS is fading and another story is claiming the public mindspace, you will all need a primer on Lethbridge.
Lethbridge is a city in the Canadian province of Alberta. Last time I checked, some 60,000 to 90,000 souls called Lethbridge home. Lethbridge is also the home of Darlene "Dar" Heatherington. This is significant, because the story of "Dar" is now bigger than the story of SARS.
Hey, that almost rhymes! Wicked!
"Dar" is a municipal politician in Lethbridge. She serves on City Council there as an "Alderman." Lethbridge has not yet learned that it is OK to refer to people on City Council as "councillors." So even though "Dar" is a woman, she is still an "Alderman."
"Dar" is famous this week. This is because last week on a business trip to the USA city of Great Falls, Montana, she totally faked her own kidnapping. One moment she was touring Great Falls with a posse of Lethbridge Aldermen:
...and the next she was vanished without a trace. Days later she surfaced in the city of sin, Las Vegas, claiming to have been abducted and drugged and violated.
Then a day after that, when the Las Vegas police dept. smelled a rat, she admitted that, OK, she had not really been kidnapped after all but had instead just been roadtripping with a "friend." A friend who, the press happily pointed out, was a married man! And "Dar" was married too! And "Dar" and her "friend" totally had sexual intercourse on their roadtrip! Scandale!
...
If you are like me you are finding the whole matter quite exhausting and are looking for a little context.
This is where I come in. Many years ago, I personally lived in Lethbridge. I know the city intimately: its pulse, its heartbeat, its throbbings. And today I will reveal its secrets to you, the internet public.
(Before I get to that, if you would like to call "Dar" at home to wish her well, her phone number is posted on this web page.)
Now.
Secrets of Lethbridge:
1. You know that religious faith community that frowns on caffeine and wine but loves football and is kind of 50-50 about having lots of wives?
2. Lethbridge is mostly staffed by people who are members of that faith community.
3. And not just members but totally elders and bishops.
4. Women in Lethbridge still have Farrah Fawcett hair.
5. They have lots of babies.
6. They give their babies names like "Loma" and "JonBenet" and "Marmaduke."
7. If their babies are girls they enter them in beauty contests where they dress them up like small prostitutes and compete for such titles as "Little Miss Irrigation 2003."
8. Men in Lethbridge are Stand Up Guys.
9. They cut their hair very short up over their ears.
10. Their hobbies include watching sports and cheering for sports and sometimes playing a little touch football.
11. Once in elementary school they snuck a can of Coke and drank it.
12. But they've cleared matters up with the bishop and it's all water under the bridge now.
13. Or Coke under the bridge. Haw!
14. Maybe they still have some repenting to do.
Posted by Bret at 11:52 PM | Comments (8)Here is a guessing game for us all to play.
If you are driving a 1990 Honda Accord (colour: dark blue) through the clogged streets of a plague-sticken North American metropolis, and you stop for a red light, and the lane going the opposite direction is closed for construction, and in that lane a backhoe is shoveling wet earthy material into a dumptruck, and the backhoe operator is drunk because, heck, it's Thursday and why not be drunk at work on Thursday, and because he is drunk his touch on the controls is sloppier than it should be, and so instead of shoveling all the wet earthy material into the dumptruck he pours 10 or 15 litres onto the 1990 Honda Accord, and when you later try to wash it off you learn it is not earth at all but instead is wet concrete and holy cow this stuff isn't coming off crap crap crap crap, and so you get out the high pressure wand and totally blast it and whew it does come off after all, and then when you are out in the sun you realize the splatter pattern is totally etched right into the paint and the 1990 Honda Accord looks as if it has been burned and had a skin graft...
What do you tell the owner when you return it?
(Note to unscrupulous thugs: The owner reads his newspaper at arm's length with a hand over one eye but his distance vision is unimpeachable, so not telling is not really an option. Shame on you for thinking that.)
Posted by Bret at 08:27 PM | Comments (2)
Once upon a time I was sitting on my chesterfield watching TV. A TV commercial came on but I did not change the channel. It was a commercial for corn chips. In the TV commercial, a man was riding the bus and eating corn chips.
They were totally wicked good corn chips. They were so good that the man on the bus drifted off into a daydream about a loud fun house party, the sort of house party where wicked good corn chips would be served.
"It's the weekend!" said the host of the party. The partygoers all grinned and crunched their corn chips.
It was realistic as realistic can be, this vision of a house party. The man on the bus forgot he was on the bus altogether.
"Let's get naked!" he said.
Then he remembered that the party was only imaginary. He wondered if anyone had heard his suggestion about disrobing. He looked around. People were afraid to make eye contact because they were embarrassed for him. So the man knew he had indeed made the suggestion out loud, and furthermore he knew that he had pretty much lost the respect of the entire bus. People thought he was silly and unrestrained and vulgar.
"Heh," he said, hoping to inject a little levity into an awkward situation. Then a title card with a large photo of a bag of corn chips scrolled in. "Dig in, let loose," it said. Then the commercial ended.
Holy cow, I thought to myself. What a wicked great TV commercial. I hope they show it again right away.
I was in luck. They did show it again. And again and again and again. I was glad I had paid top dollar for the full deluxe cable TV package.
In the weeks that followed, I saw the man from the corn chips commercial in other commercials. He was in a commercial for lozenges, and in a commercial for beer, and also in a commercial for chocolate bars. He was totally getting to be a celebrity, except that I did not know what his name was and neither did any of the other members of the TV public. Who, I wondered, was that guy?
If you are a regular reader of this hot sandwich you know what happened next. I made some telephone calls to advertising agencies and artist-management places and asked some polite questions. Who, I asked, was the man in the corn chips commercial who wanted to get naked?
"His name," said one of the agents, "is Christian Potenza."
Next, I posted something about that on this hot sandwich, believing that you, the internet public, would be grateful for the information. You were, and many of you emailed questions, in the unlikely event C.P. agreed to participate in The Hot Sandwich Interview.
Then I forgot about the whole business and so did you.
Until.
Two weeks ago, a note from Christian Potenza himself arrived in my inbox. He had been searching the internet for references to his name. He had found a preponderance of such references here on this hot sandwich. Being friendly and accommodating, he wrote a letter offering to help.
So.
Yesterday I met Christian Potenza and his posse at a sidewalk café for The Hot Sandwich Interview. Here is a transcript.
Me: What do you like to drink?
Christian Potenza: Pickle brine.
Me: No way.
Christian Potenza: Yep.
Me: ...
Christian Potenza: I like pickles SO much. With garlic. And when the pickles are all gone I drink the juice.
Me: That must chap your throat.
Christian Potenza: No, it is disinfecting. That is useful when you are an actor.
Me: Why? Are actors' throats given to larger-than-normal populations of infectious organisms?
Christian Potenza: I like pickles SO much.
Me: ...
Christian Potenza: Right now I will drink an alcoholic apple cider with a side of Frangelico.
Me: ...
Christian Potenza: Frangelico is a hazelnut liqueur of the highest quality. Its distinctive nutty sweetness is the perfect complement to the cider's dry crisp finish.
Me: ...
Christian Potenza: (sips) Mmmmm.
Me: You totally just dribbled your liqueur all over your pants.
Christian Potenza: Did not.
Me: Did so.
Christian Potenza: Did not.
Me: Did so.
Christian Potenza: You are a geek.
Me: I have a frequently-updated web site. No offense, but duh.
Christian Potenza: ...
Me: Are you going to punch me in the nose?
Christian Potenza: Yes.
Me: Rats.
Christian Potenza: It will teach you a lesson.
Me: So, can I be in your posse?
Christian Potenza: No.
Posted by Bret at 12:36 AM | Comments (20)Hello again.
Last week at this time I promised I would shortly update you on several exciting matters. I failed at that, but for good reason. In the interweening period I moved this hot sandwich from its original home to a big new one, and I took to playing with something called a "content" "management" "system."
What does this mean for you, the internet public? It means you may now post comments right here on this hot sandwich. When I ask you an exciting question, you may now respond with lightning speed, before the urgency dissipates. That will make us all very happy.
Shall we try it now? Okay. Here is an exciting question.
Is it vulgar to offer your lover a lozenge, even if he or she has breath that smells like a hatchery?
Posted by Bret at 05:16 PM | Comments (4)