Warning: All opinions expressed henceforth belong to Matt "Smoot" Bowyer, and do not in any way, shape, or form reflect the opinions of Fortunecity, Left of Nowhere, or probably anyone.
 

  I just want to mention this right off the bat. I had the strangest day on Tuesday. At least the first half of it was.

  I went to school, all happy because it's *da da da dum* the last day of school in this millenium! Yeah, I know. Sounds stupid, but hey, our physics teacher let us all stay with him the entire day and go caroling from classroom to classroom. We also had a band concert, so I had to wear half a tux for part of the day.

  After the concert I went to change in one of the small practice room, because it beat the hell out of changing in the middle of the band room. I moved the stand over in front of the door for privacy.

  A few minutes later, Mike Myao  knocked on the door to get his stuff. I let him in and noticed I hadn't changed yet. He grabbed his stuff and was about to leave when he looked at me, and then looked really confused. Then he asked me something.

  "Dude, why is there blood coming out of your forehead?"

  Needless to say, I was a bit confused. I was hurried to the clinic, hsaw a mirror, and got a good look at this nasty gash on my forehead,. It wasn't so much as large as it was ugly, with blood seeping out and the skin turning all purple and junk.

  By now you guys must be loving the descriptions, eh?

  They asked me what happened, how my head had knocked itself open, and the most annoying thing about it all is this: I can't remember. I must've knocked something other than blood out of my head, but there's about two minutes missing in my brain.

  To make a long boring story a short and boring story, I went to the doctor's and got checked for a concussion. Good news! I didn't knock any of my brain out. No severe head trauma or anything like that.

  The bad news, though. Everyone who knows me mildly well knows that I have a pretty intense phobia of needles, a phobia that's seemingly always getting exploited by certain people who shall remain nameless. *coughSpadecough* First, they gave me a tetanus shot in my left shoulder, that burned. 

  Then, since they just weren't done yet, I got two shots of novocaine.

  In the forehead.

  Ow.

  I hate knocking myself out.

  Just because I love you guys, I'm adding something a bit different to this random, bizarre concoction of a column.

  Matt Bowyer's Random Questions and Pet Peeves of the Day₍₁₎₍₂₎:

  Pet Peeves: 

     1) Physical Exertion -- like walking, exercising, or breathing.
     2) Old Ladies Who Bug You To Go To Their Church -- you know who they are. They knock on your door at ungodly hours of the morning and hand out pamphlets. I'm all for being strong in your religion, but don't do it on my front porch at nine a.m.
     3) Differing Sexual Peaks in Men and Women -- I mean, really! Girls are ready to go at about twenty-five or thirty. Guys are ready at age eighteen. Is it any wonder we get a bad rep?
     4) Passing Out -- Wow, it's annoying. One second you're fine, next second someone's asking you why there's blood running down your face.
     5) America Online -- Any company which gladly lets beaucoups of stupid people take up my time and spam my email is off the Christmas card list.
     6) Political Correctness --  See below.
     7) Cafeteria Lunch Ladies -- They take your food, yell at you, and charge you far too much for too little food. That and they're all old and gruntled.
     8) Senior Thesis -- There is no more evil thing. It takes up all of your time, is far too much of your grade, and rarely is about something that's worth that much of your time.
     9) Hanukkah Goblins -- According to my friend Billy, they're what knocked me out and busted my head open. Damn "p.c." goblins. (see below)
     10) Kid Rock -- `Nuff said.
     11) Immature teenyboppers who get in your way and get offended when you shove past them. -- The single most annoying group at my school. They're usually small, but wear coats large enough to take up the entire hallway when there's more than three of them. And they expect you to apologize when you squeeze past them. Not bloody likely.

  Questions:

     1) Who here needs more sex?

  So far, the results for the Question of the Day are:
       95 do need more sex
       8 do not need more sex
       3 did not answer one way or the other
       2 looked at me really funny and moved away
 

   Want to throw in your two cents? Mail me.
 
 

(1) - Some Pet Peeves may be attributed to Jason Faulkenberry and Dan Hawkins.
(2) - Yes, "of the day" is a misnomer. But "of the Undetermined Amount of Time" sounded bad.

  Speaking of pet peeves, I've come to a conclusion.

  Political correctness sucks.

  I'm still in concert band, for some reason, anyway, and we're preparing for our annual Christmas concert. Usually, we play some classic holiday favorites as "O Holy Night", "Christmas Festival", and "Greensleeves", all beautiful tunes.

  Not this year... no sirree.

  This year, we've junked almost all of our Christian heritage songs for Santa Claus stuff, like "Up on the Housetop". Granted, we are playing "Sleigh Ride" (think of the Gap commercial with "Ice Ice Baby". It's the other song.), but they don't cancel out. Add that we're playing two songs that have nothing whatsoever to do with the holidays, and you get a bored group of seniors playing baby music.

  So why is this taking place? One of the latest attempts by the administration of Robert E. Lee High to be "politically correct". Another attempt would be our Senior Christmas Play, which is now I suppose the winter play. This year, we're being treated to a riveting performance of "Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins". I hope it's better than its name implies. Of course, it'd almost have to be.

  On another note to do with school, I finally got around to taking my SATs, those wretched satanic things that determine whether you live on the street or get a job. I procrastinate far too much, which is why I've only just gotten around to taking them, just in time to get into college. Now if I had any clue whatsoever of where I was going or what I was going to major in.... if indecision was a course, I'd ace it.

  Right now, I'm considering Mary Washington College, Virginia Tech, Ithaca and NYU both up in that far away state, and maybe Oberlin, which is somewhere in Ohio, but don't quote me on that. I'd love to write for a living, which is my primary goal, but actually supporting myself is up there too. Therefore, I think writing's out.

  Well, application fever gets to start up once I get my scores back. Whee. (Note: Scores were only a 1250. I'm a perfectionist, all right?!)

  What's easily thirteen times more fun than SATs? Movie time!

  Even though you really shouldn't need me to tell you this, The Matrix absolutely rocks. Lawrence Fishburne plays his part wonderfully, being the stoic, hardcore believer Morpheus. Carrie-Anne Moss, who plays Trinity, has the distinction of being the hottest action girl I've seen in a long, long time. I dunno, it's something about leather and a bad-ass girl toting guns around, and doing just as good a job of it as the lead man, that turns me on.

  Ah, yes. Good ol' Keanu.

  I'll be nice. Keanu Reeves' acting in this movie is far better than, say, the laughable Much Ado About Nothing. In The Matrix, Keanu played Neo, a computer hacker who discovered that something wasn't right with the world he was living in, and for me to tell you anymore would spoil all the fun. So go rent it on DVD or VHS and watch the frickin' movie.

  The trench coat is worth the price of renting. It's perfect. Flat-out gorgeous. I want one more than you can believe.

  Along with being a great special effect bonanza, the plot of The Matrix was outstanding, but as I watched it, the story reminded me of something. A role-playing game made by White Wolf, Inc., to be exact, one that I've just recently been thrown head-first into.

  Mage: The Ascension, only the most wonderful, funderful game ever to be offered to the millions and millions of rabid gamers that are breeding (okay, or not) like rabbits all over the country. Mage lets you define your character as much as you want, suggesting  Orders to belong to, but not requiring it. And, being a White Wolf game, features other supernatural entites just dying to throw you into a wall.

  The most redeeming value of Mage is the Magic system, or "magick" in that book. Unlike games like D&D or video game RPGs and the like, Mage allows you to make your own magick, provided you have the spheres (Prime, Time, Mind, Spirit, Forces, Entropy, Correspondence, etc.) to create whatever effect you're shooting for.

  The basic storyline goes like this: The Technocracy is trying to control the world by removing all elements of chaos from the static reality that they've formed with their computers and other technology. The Traditional mages, the ones that players are encouraged at first to play, are trying to harmonize the world by freeing it of the Technocracy's influence and letting it grow as it wants. Kinda like the whole battle in The Matrix, methinks... between that one rebelling group and then the whole main supercomputer.

  In the words of Dana Carvey playing Johnnie Cochran: "Can't be a coincidence."

  Music in movies like The Matrix plays a big role in setting the tone for whichever scene is playing, and The Matrix's soundtrack did a great job for that. The Saint, though, which starred Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue, had, IMO, an even better score accompanying it. Since I'm so lovable, here's the track listing:

  1. The Saint Theme - Orbital
  2. 6 Underground (Nellee Hooper Edit) - Sneaker Pimps
  3. Oil 1 - Moby
  4. Atom Bomb - Fluke 
  5. Roses Fade (Mojo Mix) - Luscious Jackson
  6. Setting Sun (Instrumental) - The Chemical Brothers
  7. Pearl's Girl - Underworld
  8. Out Of My Mind - Duran Duran
  9. Da Funk - Daft Punk
  10. Dead Man Walking - David Bowie
  11. Polaroid Millennium - Superior
  12. A Dream Within A Dream - Dreadzone
  13. In The Absence Of Sun - Duncan Sheik
  14. Before Today - Everything But The Girl

  Half of these groups I had never heard of before, like Dreadzone, Orbital, and Superior. Duran Duran I knew, of course, along with Daft Punk, David Bowie, Duncan Sheik, The Chemical Brothers, and Everything But The Girl. I bought the album on Johannes' recommendation, expecting it to be pretty good.

  Boy, did I ever have another thing coming.

  "Out of My Mind" is one of the best songs I've heard in a long, long time, time, David Bowie is always awesome, and techno has forged a small little corner of my heart. So, in my little annoying manner, I recommend this CD. Two Thumbs Up and all that. Go buy it from CDNow or something.

  I feel so dirty...

  A few of you read that up there and stopped to wonder "Who's Johannes?" Well, even if you weren't wondering, I'm going to tell you.

  Jo-Jo (insert funny title here, like "The Idiot Circus Boy") is my chief partner-in-crime, and the guy I hitch rides home with from school every day. He's vintage Euro-trash, Austrian-born and a charismatic guy despite himself.

  Plus, he's got a theme song: Morrissey's "The Boy Racer". Why is it his theme song, you ask? (Shut up, you did so ask.) "He's got too many girlfriends, he thinks he owns this city, he overspeeds, and he never gets pulled over..."

  He listens, too, and lets us corrupt him into spending lots of money on CDs that I like and Warhammer, a miniature-using game that can run you into the multiple hundreds of dollars pretty frickin' fast. He can be a bit gullible. But that's why we love 'im.

  A few Sundays ago, Johannes and I joined a group of our friends to play the most wonderful game known to man, one that surpasses any "real" sport that the rest of you kiddies would place as the best.

  Ultimate Frisbee.

  There truly is no game greater than this. Take rugby, change normal rugby players to crazed teenagers, put a Frisbee in place of the ball, and let all hell break loose. In the last game alone, we  had numerous flying tackles, Johannes trying to jump over Brian Barbre and not quite making it, Chris jumping down a hill he could've sworn wasn't there a minute ago, and Brian (or "B-squared", as he's called now) coming up with nicknames for as many people as he could. We had Noah-D, Dan-O, Yo-Yo, Easy-E, and more...

  Speaking of nicknames, one of my online friends and beta-reader, Phrykyh, has taken to calling me Slick. I like that. It should happen more often.

  I've talked to Johannes and some of my online friends like Phrykyh about college applications a lot recently, and got the same advice from all of them, essentially: GET SCHOLARSHIPS. So I did what any sensible person would do in a half decent high school. I went to our guidance office to look up some scholarships, so I can get into college and not be in debt until I'm pushing up daises.

  But as I flipped through the mass of scholarships in the blue folder on the "Scholarship Desk", I discovered something.

  Our Guidance department is about as helpful as a guy who can't swim in the Navy SEALs.

  (Note that I have absolutely no knowledge of the military, save that the Navy somehow deals with more water than the rest of the groups. Just take it at face value.)

  All the scholarships in there ere either for certain schools, Rhodes Scholars, or African-American females from poverty-stricken families. Well, let me explain. 

  You see, I am the Anti-Minority. First off, I'm white, just like 88.4% of the United States. (Estimated figure) Second of all, I'm a guy, which immediately takes me out of the running for about a third of the scholarships offered. Third off, I'm straight. Can you believe there are scholarships for homosexuals specifically? That's just.. odd. Fourth of all, I come from your basic, ordinary, normal middle class family, not a family with their backs against the wall.

  As the Anti-Minority, I'm instantly not eligible for a large percentage of scholarships, over half, in fact. I have to compete with the rest of the Anti-Minorites all over this country for the right to have a few precious dollars hacked off my cost of college.

  Well, I can always sell my soul to the machine and join the armed services.

  I found all this scholarship stuff out during French class, a class I've started to really enjoy not being in. I mean, I'm never going to have to speak another language, unless my plane crashes over some remote uncivilized section of France and I have to live with a poor, devastated family and support myself on cantaloupes and 400 hundred kinds of cheeses for the rest of my life.

  But it used to be all right. Well, better than it is right now. I used to sit with Spade as my partner, her co-conspirator Wendy behind me, and "Bil-bott." to the back and left. Three of us, namely Spade, Bil-bott., and myself, were "The Flip Mode Squad" for any games we played in there when we ended up being a team. not that we won or anything, but... (We spent one entire session of Vocab Jeopardy wondering just how far in the hole we could get.)

  But now, I don't have that fun-loving group to fall back on. They're all on the other side of the room, since we switched partners. Who am I around now? A crackhead of an asshole in front of me, a quiet, withdrawn, non-participating 15-year-old as my partner, and two of those annoying little teenyboppers behind me that talk incessantly about boyfriends.

  Gah.

  French sucks.

  On a brighter note, Will Hedberg stuffed himself inside a box in French the other day to try and hide from the teacher. It was a mistake. We spent about the first ten minutes of class kicking box and making fun of him. I hit the box with a desk, Zan just wailed on it. Will was fine, amazingly.

  Clark, one of my friends, wrote his Quote Of The Day about that: "If one finds themself stuck in a box, chances are one will also find themselves being kicked and made fun of."

  Just another sample of how my friends make me look tame...

  My friends aren't half as insane as one of my teachers, though. Mr. Blackmer, my physics teacher, to be exact.

  First of all, he's a super genius. He went to the University of Virginia at the tender age of 15 and majored in physics, not an easy subject by any means. Second of all, he can tell you how to do almost anything, from how to make someone's head explode with a tuning fork to step-by-step procedures on how to break a man's arm in less than three moves.

  Thirdly and lastly, he has enough equipment in his room to make anything. I am so not joking. If we put our minds to it, there are potentially enough projectile launching and explosive devices in there for us to overrun Staunton, at least until the cops would come out and shoot us.

  As insane as the man is, and believe me, he's pretty insane, he's also easily the coolest teacher in my school. He let me and one of my friends, Angus, stay up there in his room to work on an English project for most of the day, right up until our English class. He left for lunch during his planning period, and then stopped and said, "Wait, you're not supposed to be in here while I'm gone. If anyone asks, tell them you're my lab assistants for the day and look busy."

  Is that not cool?

  While we're on the subject of insanity and violence, I watched a movie that seemed to fit that bill rather well this summer. Fight Club, which starred Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. I went to see it on the basis that there would be fights, and lots of them, and that Brad Pitt probably would get his ass kicked at some point.

  I was pleasantly surprised.

  Yeah, there are lots of fights. And Brad Pitt does get knocked around some. (Whoo!) But Fight Club also, surprisingly, has a plot. And a good one. Telling you about it would spoil the entire time, but I can at least say that the previews for it, which are just Pitt knocking someone around and Norton doing the same, and that one line that's ingrained in all of our minds ("First rule of Fight Club: You don't talk about Fight Club!"), do not even begin to explain the movie. And it's witty. Believe me, it's wonderful.

  And the ending had me slack-jawed for days. I saw it with Will and a few others, and every time I passed Will in the halls for a week we'd say, "Dude, that movie's still weirding me out." More often than not, we'd get into a big discussion about it again More often than not, it'd be in the middle of the hall, and with hand gestures and pantomimes. The teenyboppers would give us weird looks, but as I've pointed out, I really don't like them anyway. They didn't earn a Pet Peeve of the Day for no reason.

  The reason I remembered to write about Fight Club was the fact that I read the new Daily Grumble on Thor Antrim's page, Thor's Homepage of Recalcitrancy, which, incidentally, is back online, and the man himself has returned! So go check it out, and tell him I sent you. Not that he has any idea who I am or anything, but hey. He's a funny SOB.

  This column was more intertwined than an episode of Upright Citizens Brigade. Scary, neh?

  Well, folks, that's it. I'm finally done talking. Now if only I had said something... 

  Really. That's it. There's nothing else. Go home, or go feed your cat. Or go out on a date. Some of you surely know what those are. For all I care, go out and wreck your car into a tree. Just not any of my trees, I like them. I don't go and hug them every morning, but they do get reassuring pats on the trunk occasionally.

  Now that I've alienated the rest of you, I can stop...

  Go out into the world, and don't worry about me, sitting here all lonely... I've done what I need to do... You go on, really... I'll be all right... You've come so *choke* so far... *sob* My baby's all grown up an' savin' China....
 
 

-Matt "Smoot" Bowyer is the semi-regular columnist and archivist for Left of Nowhere, a card-carrying member of the Staunton district of Fight Club, and he's fully prepared for Y2K, with his can of peas, 12-pack of Dr. Pepper, and a water hose to drench all the drunks who try to rape his house and pillage his cat.
 
 

Hey, here's an idea. Email me and tell me what you thought. C'mon, it'll be fun. Really.