I have done so much math

This stuff beats any kind of therapy. By the way here is a problem for anybody who reads this and also likes math. I am pretty sure this is nobody, but here it is:

Find x (the length of the shared leg).

It appears simple, but I have yet to solve it. I mean, wait a minute I think I just solved it and I think it is impossible. Ignore this problem.

D:

Dang wow I have really got my sad on right now. I woke up this morning and was just like "daaaaang I am sad right now." I really don't know why, but I also really doubt this will last the whole day. Usually that does not happen, so at least I have that going for me. I guess I will go set about figuring out why I am not happy.

Also I feel way too hot and way too cold at the same time. All I really know is that I feel like I am about to break.

He's promised to build us a world of our own

I am really getting into Of Montreal still. Oh man. It's like, I really did not like them when I listened at first, but their music just won't stop growing on me.

Anyway, I am going to work out in a half hour, hopefully with Matthew Alexander Steele. After that, I'll be working on a paper, and then maybe doing other work. I wanted to go to Rackham today, but then I remembered all the other things I have to do. Sigh.

Anyway, not much else to say I'm afraid. Actually I'm really not in the mood to write here. I will stop.

OMG POLKA DOTS

I decided that since most of the stuff in my blog is not important, I should have a layout that says to viewers, "this is not important." Also let's admit it, the old theme was pretty ugly. Not that this one is gorgeous or anything, but at least it is delightful.

Maintenant je viens de finir mon examen de français. Dans le matin, j'ai eu des examens de grammaire, et je viens de finir une lecture. Les examens qui étaient pendant le matin n'étaient pas trop difficile, mais la lecture était très, très, très difficile pour moi. Après, j'ai parlé à mes camarades de classe, et ils sont d'accord. Donc, je ne suis pas trop inquiet.

Aussi, Nora m'a dit «il y a une site web pour trouver un correspondant français (et autre langues),» et j'ai lui demandé l'adresse de cette site web. Après je finis écrire, je vais prendre un account là, et j'apprendrai beaucoup et je m'amuserai.

Back to English, earlier today I learned how to use all of the thousands of databases here at the U of M for finding such as books and articles. Pretty great. I am writing a paper on friendship.

Oh hey!

I'm not depressed anymore, I just noticed. I have a rekindled desire to take over the world and to get into the dang business school. Keep on rocking, Matt LaChance.

Who has 7 kg of gummies!

Me! (I do!)

My health (DID YOU KNOW! ¶3)

My cold is in the healing stages now. I guess I never said here that I finally inherited Nora's cold last Tuesday. It got to the kind of bad stages (not real bad—about as bad as the common cold ever gets) on Thursday/Friday, and still sort of sucked yesterday. Now it is back in my throat and my sniffles are much less there. I hate sniffles, which is why I didn't like the last few days. Sore throats however, I have no problem with them.

Sore throats! This is a message to you! Bring it on!

Also, did you know that you should never flush tissue paper down the toilet? Or any paper that is not toilet paper, for that matter. Toilet paper is specially designed to dissolve in water, and other papers are not. If too much non-toilet paper goes down the toilet (like at my house), it could make a clog (like at my house) and you have to hire this expensive plumber guy to send this snake down your pipe all the way to the road (like at my house) to remove the clog.

Because there was a clog, the drain in the garage was overflowing. Now our garage is pretty shitty. My dad has a bunch of shit to clean up everywhere. Seriously, crap is everywhere in my garage. If my dad and I walked in, he would say, "Shit, son!" and I would say, "That's right pa!"

The hell I am back

I was without internet for the past few days because I was at home and there was not any internet there. I like not having the internet because it forces me to go have real fun. For example, instead of playing on the internet, I played taboo with my family, and instead of posting to my blog, I called Nora and talked about it. You know, to a person, and not to a blog.

As far as what happens, I'm really not in the mood to recap, and I doubt I will be. I hung out with Simon for the first time in like a billion years. A year. A couple months. But still, it was pretty cool to hang out with Simon, and right afterwards I found a penny (haha Simon you will never get your hands on this penny).

A while after, Nora called and we talked for two hours.

Before I stop writing, Gynelle, I need to give you a CD and I also need to talk to you. Not urgently, but definitely one-on-one.

In retrospect, I guess my only regret is that I did not have a Kraftwork Thänksgiving.

Ahhh.

Nobody can quite challenge my beliefs like my family can. Man am I grateful; I've been getting pretty full of myself lately, and it's about time somebody put me in my place. Man sorry this is all vague. Basically, I shared some of my views on a couple political things, and my parents completely went to town on it. It didn't really convince me of anything as much as it reminded me that I am only 19, and do not have a bunch of experience of life yet, and am therefore pretty naïve. Nobody else really does that for me. Usually people just kind of agree with me or don't say if they think otherwise, or if they do, we have a very friendly acceptance of the fact that we disagree.

With my family, I say something and everybody just completely points out how every part of everything I said was completely wrong and all the reasons why. I mean, it is kind of a blow at first, but seriously, it is very cool. It is like people are actually listening to what I say, instead of just agreeing with it.

Anyway I am very tired right now, because it is the time of day where everybody in my house is tired and going to bed. It's not like college where everybody is finally getting awake. Good night.

I want to have fun

But there is nobody around anymore.

Today:

Thanksgiving started just now. I guess. I am waiting for Matt Steele to knock on my door and we will go work out. After that, I will eat a delicious dinner in the cafeteria, and then I will work a delicious shift in the cafeteria. Then I will watch a delicious choir concert with Nora in it, and then I will go eat something disgusting with my disgusting friends at a disgusting restaurant called Disgusting. I have no classes tomorrow, and no commitments until 6:30 in the afternoon. Nora is leaving sometime in the late morning, so probably I will stay up later than I have ever stayed up before.

Also one of the hottest gossip points right now seems to be that I am eating turducken for Thanksgiving. A lot of people have a lot of strong opinions about this, which is hilarious.

Anyway, I'm going to be honest, I'm mostly looking forward to replacing sleep with Nora. But all the stuff between now and then will be cool too. Earlier today I found out that I did worse than I thought on my math exam. Not really, but I did get tripped up in a couple places that I was very confident with (i.e. walked right into the trap that was laid for me).

I am still mainly depressed, but that is wearing off I think. Yeah, it is wearing off.

I'm tired.

Matt

Clean-shaven and BEAUTIFUL!

I just saw Michigan Pops and I am going to try to join next semester. The concert will be on the first of April, so mark your calendars everybody. Also Paul might join, which would be awesome, because he is awesome, and I am awesome, and if we were both in pops, it would be awesome. Awesome.

Well

I just finished presenting Buddhism to a bunch of High School students. I really have no idea how it went, because they did not say very much and just kind of left at the end. I mean, half of them seemed to like it anyway, and the other half probably just didn't want to be there in general. Anyway, I have another meeting on Buddhism in 45 minutes, so I am going to go to that.

GRLPHHLPGGLGPPHGH!

Also, today I am going home to eat tasty delicious food with my family and with Nora, who will be meeting my parents for the first time. Wish her luck!

Actually I am sorely tempted to make an entry about me being all worried about whether or not my parents will like her, just to worry her on the chance that she reads this. But that would be kind of a mean thing to do, and, I mean, I am not worried.

When I wrote "I am" just now, I wanted to write "I'm," but was too lazy to type an apostrophe, and so changed it to "I am." I just thought you would like to know that.

Heh

I was just looking at this thing on weight-training, saying how I should eat and such. I basically already follow all of the desired options already. That would explain why I am so healthy all of the time. It is kind of cool to read all the stuff though.

Also, my day was just made by a dumb asshole. I am grateful for dumb assholes, because, well, they make my day a lot.

So I was walking earlier, and I was wearing my nice Russian hat. This guy rolled down his window, shouted "Hey Commie! Russia's that-a-way!" and proceeded to point in a southwesterly direction. I find this funny because (a) I am not at all a communist, (b) I am not at all Russian, (c) Russia is not a Communist country, and (d) no matter how far you go southwest, you will not get to Russia. Basically, he was wrong.

Oh right

Blagoblags are supposed to be about how I am feeling, and I forgot to say that I am feeling mildly depressed. This is too bad, because mild depressions last a while (whereas major ones tend to last a couple hours for me). I've had it for the last couple days, and it kind of sucks a little. I mean, it's no trouble to bottle it up, but it is still something of a pain to deal with.

As for why I am depressed, I'm mostly coming off of the high I've been on for the past few months, rather than any specific cause. I guess I'm feeling kind of useless and unliked. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I feel like, while I have a drive, it finally hit me how long it is going to take to accomplish anything significant, and I pretty much always feel unliked. I guess many people do, but it is a pain anyway.

So that is my emotional shit for now. As far as ground rules for trying to comfort me, don't. Seriously, other people have way more need than I have, and I hate being comforted. I will solve this on my own, like I always do.

Have a lovely weekend!
Matt

So.

I got four hours of sleep last night (just woke up). Yet, because I woke up in the middle of a sleep cycle, I do not feel tired. I mean, I will before the day's out, so I'll have to take a couple of long naps, but that's cool. But anyway, my point is, never sleep with an alarm clock. An alarm clock is a thing that sucks.

Coming quite recommended by me

There are few feelings quite as satisfying as working the hell out of my abs and then eating a gigantic burrito. I feel full and sore in the same place, and it is completely just wonderful. I mean, sore abs are pretty cool-feeling on their own. Man I am going to have very great abs just because I really love working them out. Most muscles just kind of hurt when they are sore, but this is pretty different.

Also my muscles are already noticeably bigger after the couple weeks I've been working out. I can't lift much heavier weights yet, but they just feel bigger. I think my body is trying to tell me that what I am doing is wonderful and it is rewarding me by making me sexier. I really hope that this is exactly what is happening. Also I ran on a treadmill for the first time in a long time. I ran a little more than four miles in 30 minutes, and had a stitch the whole way. One day, I will figure out how to not have a stitch, because je les déteste beaucoup.

Aussi, je viens de finir parler au baratin en français avec d'autres étudiants. Donc, je pense encore en français. Mais je l'aime parce qu'il m'amuse. Ciao!

I am feeling all grpluugphh

I need to get my girl to give me a massage because I am sore as all hell. That is all.

Est-ce que j'veux me raser?

Non. Je n'veux pas me raser.

Facebook picture

I put up a new facebook picture, you should check it out. Now that you have seen it, I will tell you the story. Basically, in the cafeteria today, I spent two hours straight peeling turkey with Caleb for tomorrow's dinner (which any and all East Quadranglers who read this should eat at, by the way). Someone had a camera, and we vented our frustration:

New schedule

It looks like my solid block of classes Monday-Thursday from 9-2 has shifted to 10-3. Also on Tuesdays I will have Economics at 8:30. Anyway, I am thinking of picking up a breakfast shift at work every day except Tuesday (it goes from 7:15~9:30). That way I have to get up early every morning and basically get some work done, and also that makes 9 hours of work per week that I just have on top of other shifts that I take (I'm thinking Tuesday and Thursday dinner, Saturday and maybe Friday lunch).

Also I am going to start going to the IMSB instead of the CCRB because the IMSB is better-equiped and many times less crowded. And I will start going in the afternoons. And I will be going with my pal Matthew Alexander Steele. This way, I will actually go more than 1 time per week because I am not needing to get up early and I am going with a person. I am going to be able to continue that next year.

Also afternoons make sense, because they are a slow time for my brain. Whereas mornings are better for creativity and stuff.

Matt OUT.

Expected but interesting

One of the ways I have changed now that I have a girlfriend is in my attitude towards people in general. There used to always be that undertone of "what if I we fell in love" or whatever, basically with every girl, and a few guys. Now it is completely not there at all, and I don't even consider anything beyond friends with anybody.

I mean, a lot of my innocence is basic willpower, but in this case, I don't have to even try. I just don't have "indecent" thoughts about anyone anymore. At all. It's not so much a good or bad thing as just kind of a relief. It is like there is a bunch of pressure off. When a girl asks me out, I can just say "I'm already taken" and be done. I don't have to say no "because I don't like you" to her, which is hella not a fun thing to do.

I just feel way more stable now, and it is many kinds of awesome. It's like, now I actually have the attitude of "I don't care what anybody thinks of me," rather than making myself have that attitude and ignoring my actual attitude of caring. The only problem with a relationship is, as Nora put it, it's like picking up a 6-credit class. (You know, time-wise.)

In other news, it is apparently "geography awareness week." What the hell. I guess it is good that I am aware of geography.

My first [purposely] cryptic blagoblag entry!!

Man after what just happened just now, I am going to sleep so damn well.

Going to bed right now is so cool

!

Taking a "me" weekend

I think I have had too much fun for the past couple week, and I am ready to be anti-social at least for the weekend. I am planning on getting maybe a week ahead in my classes, and also maybe read some Gödel, Escher, Bach. I might take on a new shift in the cafeteria as well, I don't know.

I'm thinking I will take the bus out to Staples to buy some nice brown envelopes. I hope they have them. I have always looked at brown envelopes as superior to white envelopes. They have far more personality, and are not see-through. (I know that you can get white non-see-through envelopes, but they are ugly as lord.)

Right now, I am going to do some mathematics. When I finish the homework that is due tomorrow, I am going to get a start on the homework due in a week. I was caught up like this at the beginning of term, and I would like to be here again.

Also I need to figure out a way to not stay up really late every weeknight with Nora. Maybe we can hang out during the day sometime? I dunno. This is destroying my beautiful sleeping schedule. Then again, I would always rather be hanging out with Nora than sleeping. I guess this is just one of those things where I have to not do what I want to do and instead do what I should do.

Yeah, that's a good call I think. I'll just do the right thing instead of the coolest thing. Now that I have written that here in my blagoblag, let's see if I can actually do it. I will keep you posted.

Aussi, je voudrais écrire un paragraph en français. Je ne sais pas pourquoi. C'est possible qu'il est parce-que je viens de finir mes devoirs de français. Et hier nuit, mon rêve était en français. C'était la première fois pour moi, donc maintenant je suis excité. Je pense que les personnes qui lisent mon blagoblag ne me comprennent pas quand j'écris en français, mais je vais commencer écrire en français plus souvent, parce que je l'aime. D'accord.

Anyway, I am going to start my weekend now. Time for hell of studying. Ohhhhhh ouaaaaaaaai!

Self Esteem vs. Ego

I think that there is an important difference between self-esteem and ego. For example, I have a relatively small ego and a very healthy amount of self-esteem. I am thinking that these two are inversely proportional, and that by denying things to your ego, you help your self-esteem.

One of the best things you can do if you have self-esteem problems is to help other people and make sure they never know it was you. Like when you see a bike that has fallen over, pick it up so that it is neat, and then continue on your way. The biker will not even know there was a problem in the first place, but you helped them out anyway. This does WONDERS for self-esteem, but absolutely nothing for your ego.

See, my ego wants the biker to know I helped him. And if I do see the biker and tell him, I will feel really good for a second, and then it goes away leaving me feeling dirty. This is good for my ego, and bad for my self-esteem.

So yeah, deny your ego stuff like that, and you will feel damn good about yourself.

Paper mail

I am now in realmail correspondence with Nick Davenport. It is pretty awesome.

Somewhat annoying

It is somewhat annoying to spend several days on a problem, conclude that it is impossible, finally use the internet, and see that I am correct and it is impossible. I have spent the past few days trying to construct a magic cube. A magic cube is a three dimensional model of something like this:

8	1	6
3	5	7
4	9	2

Notice that every row, column, and diagonal adds up to 15. Also note that every number from 1 to 9 is used once and only once. This is called a magic square, and I spent a part of my childhood being fascinated by them. I think the largest magic square I ever created was a 15x15 one. Everything added up to 1,695.

Anyway, a week ago it occurred to me that magic cubes should exist. So I set to work trying to come up with a 3x3x3 magic cube. Today, I began using intelligence instead of guesswork. I actually used an augmented matrix, and figured out that the centre entry in every single square absolutely had to be 14. This would mean 7 entries that were 14, which is flat-out against the rules. However, I had actually used math to prove it, so I felt there was no reason to work more at the problem. So I looked on the internet, and it turns out the smallest possible magic cube is 5x5x5.

I guess it is good that I was right, but still. I don't want to be right, I just want a magic cube that is 3x3x3. I mean, 5x5x5 is ridiculous and not as impressive. One reason I did not show you my 15x15 square is because it is not impressive. You waste too much time doing addition to appreciate the beauty of any one much larger than 3. I mean, look at this 5x5 one:

17	24	1	8	15
23	5	7	14	16
4	6	13	20	22
10	12	19	21	3
11	18	25	2	9

It is cool maybe, but only after squinting at it for a while. It really is too bad that there can't be a 3x3x3 magic cube. What a shame.

My first French entry

Je viens de faire mes devoirs français. C'était très ennuyeux parce que mon professeur de français a dit «les activités sont pour jeudi,» mais sur dimanche, elle a écrit un lettre électronique qui a dit «les activités sont pour demain.» Donc maintenant je suis fatigué et j'ai un mal humeur.

I proved Euler's formula

I am proud of me. I just decided that I felt like actually proving Euler's formula, to see if I could do it. After a couple hours, I figured it out. I did have to take out the old Calculus book to remind myself what a Taylor expansion was.

If you take the Taylor series of sinx, you get x - x^3/3! + x^5/5! - ...
If you take the Taylor series of cosx, you get 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! - ...
If you take the Taylor series of e^ix, you get 1 + ix - x^2/2! - ix^3/3! + x^4/4! + ix^5/5! - ...
Therefore, e^ix = cosx + isinx. If you substitute π for x, you get cosπ + isinπ. cosπ is -1, and sinπ (and therefore isinπ) is 0.
Therefore, e^iπ = -1 which can be changed to the more fun version:

e^iπ + 1 = 0

Cooking advice from me

Look, you don't have to use a whole bunch of spices when you cook a meal. In fact, unless you know what you are doing, you shouldn't use much spices. Spices are something you have to get good at with experience, and there are only two ways to do that. One is the apprenticeship method, where you cook with someone who already knows what they are doing, and figure it out. The other is with recipes that tell you specific spices. After making a million recipes, you will have a good idea of what spice goes with what food, and you will be able to take a recipe and say, "I bet this would be better with this spice."

Cooking is like any art, in that you first learn the boring rules, and then you start having fun. It is like a big science experiment where the product is something delicious. This brings me to my main point. The idea of food is that it is delicious. So do not be pretentious with food. If you like red wine with fish, drink red wine with fish. If you like your fillet mignon with ketchup, use ketchup. And when you are the one preparing the meal, keep in mind that different people like different kinds of food. Let people eat what they want to eat.

Back to spices, when cooking, do keep in mind that there is a reason that salt and pepper are on every table on the planet. It is because they are the two best spices. For some reason, many people seem to think that they are not spices, and think of them as inferior to, say, cilantro. These people are wrong. Salt and pepper are superior to cilantro, basil, oregano, turmeric, and any other spice you can throw my way. Not to say less of other spices, but they are not as versatile at all. You can put salt in almost anything. Even cookies use salt.

Pepper is less versatile than salt, but still a great crutch if you aren't sure of the best spices. Just throw in some pepper and people will think that the food you made tastes good. The idea is that salt brings out the actual flavour of the food and makes it "tastier," while pepper gives the spiced feel to food, making it "spicier." Use these two wonderful spices in everything you make, and you will be a god among chefs.

Not to say you shouldn't use other spices. I'm just saying to not underestimate the power of the top two. When you first start cooking, it is exciting to see all the millions of spices you can use, so by all means, use them. However, you will inevitably realise that your food is tastier if you just use salt. Totally use a bunch of salts and figure out which ones taste good. Sometimes, you will taste some of your food and think to yourself, "something is missing." 99.9% of the time, you should add salt, but sometimes you need something different.

To summarise, use salt and pepper a lot, don't use other spices if you don't know what you are doing, and always make non-pretentious food that has a delicious taste that you love.

My day today

Lots of mixed feelings today. I started off at work, where I spent four hours alone peeling carrots and onions. 35 kilograms of carrots and 50 kilos of onions. By the time this was over, my attitude toward everyone was "the hell you leave me alone". Unfortunately, I was placed as a server, which is probably the most social customer-service-oriented job they have. I mean, I did a good job, but I was so not in the mood. Also I noted that hummus was being served in mass quantities (foreshadowing). When I finally did get to go and do the job I signed up for (dishing), I was really happy. I did so much of loading the machine, and then running to the other side and catching the clean stuff (this is my favourite thing to do in the dishroom).

So, to continue the story, the cafeteria closes at 6:00 on Saturdays, and we start pulling the food at 6:15. Today, as usual, a mass of people came in at 5:55, except this mass was much larger than usual. We didn't pull until 6:30 because people kept getting food. People weren't gone until 7:00, except for the one guy that stayed until fucking 7:15. THE CAFETERIA HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR 75 MINUTES ASSHOLE. I WANT TO GO HOME. I WANT YOU TO GO HOME. GO HOME.

Also there was SO MUCH HUMMUS in the dishroom. I didn't get off work until 7:30. Whose fault was all this? The hummus.

After that I went to go eat dinner with Nora's family at the Gandy Dancer. When she said it was at the Gandy Dancer, I was all "SHIT". Anyway, her family is, I mean, it is a family and they have fun. I don't really get first-impressions of people at all, so, I mean, I don't have a lot to say. I mean, I had fun, and I could totally spend more time with her family. I guess that is good.

Wait, I definitely do get first-impressions of people. But no I don't. I guess that is another thing that changed since the monastery that I didn't notice until just now. I don't really judge people much anymore. I used to be pretty judgemental. Now I guess I am not. That is very cool. By the way Gynelle, I am tired and I do not want to go to your party. Good night.

Does this make me definitely horrible?

I hear the sounds of planes, and see them in the sky, with advertisements trailing behind them. All I can think of is how wonderful it would be if two or three of them collided in the air.

My eyes glaze over as I picture the smoking mass of two planes falling toward the Earth, landing on the spectators of the football game who, packed like cattle, are unable to escape their demise.

HOW IS MATT VOTING IN THE ELECTION!!

Probably wherever I say N/A I am going to vote for a democrat. I usually find that this is a good idea.

Governor
Jennifer Granholm
Secretary of State
N/A
Attorney General
N/A
US Senator
Debbie Stabenow
US Representative
John Dingell
—
State Senator
Liz Brater
State Representative
Rebekah Warren
Board of Education
N/A
N/A
UM Regent
N/A
N/A
MSU Trustee
N/A
N/A
WSU Governor
N/A
N/A
—
County Commissioner
Conan Smith
Mayor
Tom Wall
Council-member
Ronald Suarez
—
WCC Trustee
Diana McKnight Morton
Richard J. Landeau
WCC Partial Trustee
Mike Marotta
—
Proposal 1
No
Proposal 2
No
Proposal 3
No
Proposal 4
Yes
Proposal 5
Yes
—
Proposal A
Yes
Proposal B
Yes

Also this Thanksgiving we will eat Turducken. If you don't know what Turducken is, think of it as the epitome of "for every animal you don't eat, I will eat three."

OH SHIT SHIT SHIT

PAPER PAPER PAPER

How to know you really like a person

Man, I am writing a paper that I really need to finish. Yet I find myself really hoping that Nora will happen to visit. If she does, I will tell her that I need to finish this paper and she needs to leave. But even knowing that, I just want to see her for the couple seconds that would entail. As Dr. Sockolopolus would say, "LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL!"

Anyway, as if in response to my just finishing this paragraph, Nora just got here, and proposed the wonderful solution of studying together. Bye.

Haircut

I cut my hair just now, and I think it looks pretty all right. If I had a digital camera I would show you a picture, but I don't have a camera. I will not show you a picture.

French

I am doing hell of wonderful work in my French class. Basically I am doing "excellent" in everything except oral conversation. In conversation, I am subsatisfactory for fluency, and only satisfactory for accuracy, pronunciation, and comprehending conversation. Also I am not quite excellent with the fluidity of my writing. The actual comments are quite positive, and basically say "wow Matt you are doing great except that you never talk; talk more."

In short, nothing I don't know, but it's nice to know that my teachers agree with me on how I am doing in the class. It shows that I am right.

Also I did really fucking well on the reading comprehension (24.5/25). Heh, I am doing so much better now that I am actually putting some effort into it. In my writing class I am getting A's on everything, and in math, well, I hate that class because it is so easy.

I got a phone call from a church today, and apparently I am going to give a talk to some high schoolers about Buddhism. This should prove fun. I do enjoy doing this. I guess I need to start thinking about the kinds of things to say. I find that the best talks start off with basic debunking and fun facts, then some interesting stuff that is unexplained, and then a long period for questions. Thanks to part one, people have learned basic stuff. Thanks to part two, people have things to ask during part three. Thanks to that, people get warmed up and have an easier time asking questions they actually want the answers to.

I hate it when it's like, "so any questions?" and nobody has any, because the entire thing has been explained. Whereas, if you cleverly lay down some questions in the talk, listeners have something to go on. I will let you know how this works. You never know, I may well be laying down the foundation for how all great talks will be organised.

I just gave a bunch of my music lower more accurate ratings. I now have 551 songs that have 3 stars (awesome) or higher (4=outstanding, 5=favourite ever). I have 105 4-stars and 5 5 stars. Now I have a better base to build on for future ratings. Earlier, I knew this was my rating system, but I would still rate stuff one or two stars too high just because 2 stars would seem too low, even though it means "very good song." One day I will go through my 508 2-star songs and sort out the ones that should be one star, but that is a task for another day. (I will actually have to listen to them, because I don't know most of them by title like I do with the 3+ stars).

GOODBYE! MATT!