Matthew Alan Thyer's Blog, page 17

What the What

It’s bath time and I was using this parental free time to check up on what’s going in with our new Ompahloompah and Chief. Just and observation, but apppentlyently I’m not allowed to customize my news feed ‘s range of input.

Breitbart is to news as drain field effluent is to to a healthy, nutritious snake. Like so manyothers, I too would very much appreciate the ability to exclude fake, biased, and bigoted source s from my feed.

Google, just so you understand, this is the kind of bullshit de...

Shoutout to My Homies at Backcountry

BC’s main office in SLC

As many of you are aware my favorite pair of running shoes are on their that thread of life. I have only one pair of Brooks Running’s fabulous PureGrit 2s left in serviceable condition and apparently I’m pounding through them. Okay, guess that means it’s time to find some new shoes.

I’ve tried pretty much everything that Brooks makes these days and have come away feeling profoundly underwhelmed. They’ve apparently decided that they only want to make motion-controlledtr...

Atlatl Teaser

by Zane Kinney

The eminently talented Zane Kinney has handed over cover work for the next episode of Up Slope, but I’m going to tease you all with it for a while because I’m not yet through copy edits on the manuscript.

Muh ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!

He’s also handed me a couple of pencil sketches which I daresay may sate your building anticipation. I get to meter these out.

The Atlatl making a Jupiter shot.

IOTD

Secret Plans

I just answered the leader of my local writing group with this current description of mystate of being. “Shocked, rudderless, angry, and feeling very solitary.” Up until I met with a physician yesterday I thought I might be coming down with a case of cancer, now that seems less likely, but yeah, still riding on my raw nerves.

And there are the election results, or should I say, then there is the expected Electoral College results. Mixed into that all the ridiculous and regressive ideas that h...

Writing Dystopian While Living In One

Admittedly we’re not there yet, but given the US’s recent Presidential and Congressional results a dystopian future may very well be in our future. I’d point to prescient articles like this one in The Guardian.

“There are plenty who believe that if Trump went ahead and actually implemented his programme, he would create a different country: closed, xenophobic and at odds with some of the founding principles – religious equality or freedom of speech – that have defined the United States since...

Admittedly we’re not there yet, but given the US’s recent...

Admittedly we’re not there yet, but given the US’s recent Presidential and Congressional results a dystopian future may very well be in our future. I’d point to prescient articles like this one in The Guardian.

“There are plenty who believe that if Trump went ahead and actually implemented his programme, he would create a different country: closed, xenophobic and at odds with some of the founding principles – religious equality or freedom of speech – that have defined the United States since...

Tomorrow is Veterans Day

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, and right now I’m feeling raw. Six years of service to my country as a soldier, six more before that working thefront lines of public lands and somehow its become pointless. All that sacrifice. While the rest of you were out there getting college degrees, I was up reading over radio intercepts from DPRK, trying to puzzle together what the fuck those assholes might be about.

I gave my oath to defend the Constitution and this land ultimately because I grew up with a st...

Dear America,

My disappointment in you has reached a phenomenal apex. Truly, I don’t know how it’s possible to feel so much of this low down dirty frustration, but you’ve gone and made it possible. I guess Americans are innovators, and so many of you just engineered and optimized a new kind of international bad mood.

I’ve spent a good deal of time this morning casting about in search of solace. I guess I’ve found some. Here, let me itemize these places of grace.

I am consoled to live in a democracy, one t...

Sisyphus and Social Media

By all accounts building a kingdom is no small task. If this is what you intend, you’ve got to start with a vision, some resources, some talent (not entirely yours unless you happen to be a demigod), and top all of this off with an unwavering obsession. Mind you these are just the prerequisites.

Sisyphus, the founder of ancient Ephyra, discovered along the way he’d also need endless patience, both with himself and with the world as a whole, because his kingdom and the Gods would punish him f...