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| Summer School |
Ah, yes, teaching summer school. Cramming a whole semester into two weeks. Ahh. Just seems like America, eh?
It’s good money though. I have the kids working hard, with a set list of things to accomplish. And I just sit back and help when they need it. The only hard part is the grading, especially the worksheets. Takes forever to grade those.
However, to keep me sane at home, I have found several awesome browser-based internet games that are sort of like Age of Empires.
Evony at http://mjb0123.evony.com/
Travian at http://www.travian.us/
EV Online (a space game!) at http://www.supremestrategy.com/
I love turn-based games. I actually played a bit of postal games where you mailed in your moves. Did one about gangs—can’t remember the name—and plenty of postal chess. The cool thing with these games is that you can update your city and it works while you are away. You only have to login every once in a while, if you want.
Friends from NOME! The Wehdes came by to visit us for the week. The were in Minnesota anyway visiting family and since Morgan has really kept up with the two girls by IM and email, they came down to visit.
And I am going to do volleyball again. Head Varsity coach for Midland High School. I must be nuts. No, I’m kidding, it will be a great time. Actually, probably a better time than Nome considering the away travel in Alaska every weekend. I will only have two Saturdays here. That’s what I think was so long about the Nome season is that it was almost seven days a week every week.
There’s a schedule! http://www.highschoolsports.net/defaultcal.cfm?ct=s&schoolid=IL613752657&spt=18&lvl=1&division=2 |
posted by Matt Butcher @ 3:42 PM   |
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| Wednesday, July 01, 2009 |
| Found Rare Hitchcock |
Found it!
http://www.archive.org/details/Suspicion_1_01_Four_O_clock
I have been looking for this off and on for years. In my quest to watch all Hitchcock-directed movies and TV shows, I finally found a copy of this TV episode. It is from a show called Suspicion from 1960, an episode entitled "Four O'Clock."
It is now in Public Domain and available for download at the Internet Archive. They also have a few more of his films.
Now I just need to keep working on finding some of his really early and really rare stuff to watch. |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 9:57 AM |
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| Wednesday, June 24, 2009 |
| Moving yet again |
We are so excited for the move this weekend.
No, not to another state! We are moving about 45 miles north of Normal, to one of the three towns in my school district, Lacon.
Just very excited to be in a house, finally. And I will not have that long commute anymore.
I will even be coaching volleyball again in the fall because I will be close and in-district.
Excited about the move, yet hate moving. Friday will be the tough day and then it is all settling in from there. |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 11:29 PM |
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| Monday, June 22, 2009 |
| Which one? Kindle or Reader? |
I just don't know which one to get. Which do I save for? I really really want one of these babies.
It's because I know there are all sorts of free books out there. Legitimately free. Places like Gutenberg and Munseys (formerly Blackmask) have all the copyright-expired books and texts out there. I'd never have to buy a book again!
So I need to figure out a way to save about $350 and not dip into our budget...How? |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 9:58 AM |
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| Thursday, June 18, 2009 |
| They don't have a clue |
You know what pisses me off?
Tonight, the SciFi Channel is playing two James Bond movies, Tomorrow Never Dies and Live and Let Die.
These are good movies. I love James Bond. Not only do I watch the movies but I read the novels (the new non-Fleming ones too). But putting these on SciFi?
There is so much good science fiction out there that they never play. Old Doctor Who, Space:1999, old Lost in Space...flipping any old science fiction, any new science fiction. And, hey, REAL science fiction, not those strange monster-attack movies they make that I just never want to see.
SciFi, Dammit! |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 10:31 PM |
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| Save Arecibo |
Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope and the source for the SETI@home data that your computer analyzes, faces massive budget cuts that will END its ability to continue the search for life beyond Earth. The decision to ensure full funding currently rests upon votes in Congress on Senate Bill S.2862 and House Resolution H.R. 3737. These bills desperately need more support.
Please take a moment to help us SAVE ARECIBO. Clicking the link below will direct you to a web page that allows you to print out letters prepared for your Senators and Congressional Representative urging them to support Arecibo. Printing and mailing the letters is really easy, too! You will also have the chance to add a few personal thoughts, if you wish, to let your Senators and Representative know why this funding is important to you! And if you're really feeling passionate about saving Arecibo, please use these letters as the basis for letters you write yourself, urging your congressmen and women to vote to save Arecibo. Because our representatives in Congress rarely give much attention to all the email they receive, printing out and MAILING these letters via standard U.S.Postal mail remains our best option for contacting them and our best hope forsaving Arecibo (The second best option is to call your representatives). Your stamps on these letters could help us get the millions of dollars needed to save Arecibo. Our search cannot continue without the necessary support. Your work, as SETI@home participants, represents an indispensable resource for conducting the search. Now, we need your help to ensure that our other most valuable resource- our eyes and ears to the cosmos - can continue to probe the universe as we seek to answer the question: Is there anybody out there?
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/arecibo_letter.php
Thank you for your help,
The SETI@home Team |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 7:53 AM |
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| Wednesday, June 17, 2009 |
| Bases Loaded |
  BASES LOADED on the original Nintendo! I spent hours upon hours playing this game.  Look at it, though. It is so bad compared to modern day standards. Yet it was phenomenal when compared with what we were used to with Atari and Intellivision baseball games. I remember on the Intellivision game there were no fly-outs and my dad and I could routinely make a 9-3 play (right-fielder to first base) for the out. I played my seasons with the team called Jersey. This game was not licensed by the MLB. The best hitter was "the godly" Paste, who at .467 and 60 home runs was "good for at least one homer a game (provided you can get the lumber on the ball)" (GameFAQs.com). Also there was one pitcher who I figured out some kind of in-game cheat without any codes. The pitcher was Hall and somehow I figured out there was one pitch--up-and-in switch quick to low-and-out--that I could throw every single time and get the batter to swing and miss. I routinely got 27 straight strikeouts. As a kid, I thought that if the game allowed it, considering it wasn't really a cheat code, that I could do it. Hall didn't even need to rest. This was on the original Nintendo remember, where you had to use these long drawn out codes to save the game. Hall played every game. Eventually, it got boring on the defense side of the ball. I only liked hitting. There was no post-season, either, just making it to the post-season, and then that was it. I think I only played one season of 80 games and then was bored with it. It was one of those games that I mastered and didn't mean to. You used to be able to do that. Master a game at the highest level and it became boring. I believe I had the first 18-or-so boards of Intellivision's Burgertime memorized. I also remember some original Nintendo basketball game, also not licensed by the NBA, that I used to have to beat by 100 points, something like 110-10, in order to make it a challenge for me. Eventually, I felt stupid playing a game I was whooping on by 100 points. So I probably should have changed my team on Bases Loaded so as not to be tempted by using Hall to pitch. But I did it a couple of times and whenever I would get into trouble I would put Hall in as the ultimate Save pitcher. I mean, I simply could not miss with that guy. Amazingly, I still think of Bases Loaded. Doing a season was cool, just like doing my Franchise with my Gamecube Madden 2007. It is the year 2017 in my Madden right now. |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 9:56 AM |
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| Thursday, June 11, 2009 |
| One of the earliest pictures |
Family friends since the beginning. The Baltas and the Butchers. The rumor is that my mom was playing her radio too loud (would've been disco, by the way) and Linda came to tell her to turn it down. They have been the closest of friends ever since. Casey and I are only a month apart. This photo was taken at Brookfield Zoo. |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 11:07 AM |
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| Hembeck |
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| posted by Matt Butcher @ 11:06 AM |
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| Summer vacation |
| Nothing doing. Doing nothing. Haven't even been online for six months. It has been refreshing. |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 10:55 AM |
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| Friday, January 16, 2009 |
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http://www.alongstoryshort.net/TheLogicoftheTimeTravel.html
My story, "The Logic of the Time Travel," was officially accepted for publishing at the E-Zine A Long Story Short.
"Dear Matt, Your story, The Logic of the Time Travel, was accepted for our January issue. I sent you an email from writingfriend@yahoo.com It probably went to your junk folder. The magazine will come out around the 7th."
Did I originally have that second "the" in the title? |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 11:50 AM |
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| Thursday, January 15, 2009 |
| Be seeing you, Mr. McGoohan |
Patrick McGoohan has passed away.
This man changed my way of thinking--of thinking being good for the soul. Of asking questions and probably not getting answers, but the questions are what are important.
McGoohan played Number Six in my all-time favorite TV show The Prisoner from the BBC of the late 60s. He is the mastermind creator behind that television masterpiece. I just got the 10-disc DVD box set for Christmas just this past month. Rumor has it, he was also set to be the first James Bond, before Sean Connery, but he didn't like the womanizing aspect of the character. He also played the king in Braveheart. The Prisoner impacted my life at just the right time. I was still in high school. I had been watching and recording Doctor Who (the old one, way back when) on the PBS channel out of Chicago, WTTW. It was on at like 11 pm on Sunday nights and they were putting it on hiatus--something about money, you know PBS stations. They decided to try the then-twenty-year old show The Prisoner at Doctor Who's time slot. The previews, with that big white weather balloon, intrigued me enough to keep my VCR going. I was hopeful for a new show. I still have those exact VHS tapes. I fell in love with the show. You have to remember the time period of the late 80s and the fall of communism and that I knew what an "Iron Curtain" was. I was reading/would read/had read (can't remember) Orwell's prophetic 1984. This is still one of the reasons that I choose to do that book with my seniors as the last thing they read in high school--sort of prepare them for the real world and its questions out there. I will still watch The Prisoner for the rest of my life. I have seen the episodes dozens of times and each time they appear fresh, especially the really mind-blowing ones. If I had ever met Mr. McGoohan, I would not have asked stupid questions. I would not have asked about the "order of episodes" or "what does it all mean?" This is the show that got me--the comic-book me, the sci-fi me, the continuity-of-fictional-universes me--to realize how deep an allegory could go. As Number Six said in the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben": "It means what it is." That still takes a deep understanding, especially in the final episode and the unmasking of Number One. I I had ever met Mr. McGoohan, I would simply have said, "Thank you." I would have told him that he had broadened my mind, like Shakespeare and Tennyson. I think he would have appreciated that. Be seeing you, Mr. McGoohan. |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 11:13 AM |
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| TWO Snow Days! |
Yes! A lot of snow and a deep freeze hit Illinois. School was cancelled yesterday and I woke up to the pleasant thought of a second day off because of the temperatures not getting above zero today.
Woo hoo! TWO days!
I say, take 'em off now because it is easier to make these days up in May. I don't mind working till May 25th or so. Remember that one year I worked in Bremerton until June 22nd? And moved to Nome that summer and started school up again around August 15th? So late May is nothing! |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 8:52 AM |
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| Friday, December 26, 2008 |
| Xmas 2008 |
    Ahhh, it is so nice to be a family man at Christmas. Watching the girls open their stuff...Amy waking up at 3:30 am when Madison got up...We started opening presents before 6 am. I don't know how Amy held her off that long. My beautiful girls had a lovely Christmas. (And I finally got The Prisoner DVD set--woo hoo!) |
| posted by Matt Butcher @ 8:28 AM |
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| Random thoughts about all that I can muster. As William Shatner once said, "Get a life!" |
| The Butcher Shop |
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Name: Matt Butcher
Home: Normal, IL, United States
About Me: An English teacher with a zest for life. Family. Comic books. Stuff.
See my complete profileSubscribe
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"This above all: To thine own self be true." --Shakespeare
"If it don't kill you, it only makes you stronger" --Nietzsche by way of Bruce Willis
"I am not a number, I am a free man!"
--Number Six
"For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar."
--Tennyson
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
--Shelley
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love."
--Turkish Proverb
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
--Tennyson
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Quote of the Day
When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.
Victor Hugo
(1802-1885) |
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