Let me define…What The Heck? Ok, now that we’ve got that cleared up, check out this site. Ridiculous. Whilst you’re at it, check out this site as well. Anyway, I am about to embark on my third night in a row of 7+ hours of sleep. Aren’t you proud? I thought you would be. Oh, in other news, Nathanael is officially the next Orangehaus Records artist. He decided for sure tonight. I’m not sure when he’ll be actually signing, but I don’t anticipate that it would be too long from now. Heck, we might even start recording over break. Well, I’m going to get at that sleepy-sleepy. I leave you with this challenge:

Comment on this post so I can know more than the usual 2-4 people are reading my blog regularly. This post could even be a guestbook of sorts.

There, I said it.

Goodnight.

Well, Thanksgiving break is over. Fantastic food, superb sleeping, stupendous shopping, and, of course, fun family fellowship made up my time at home–oh, and one rehearsal and two church services. Anyway, holy shnikes it rained today. After a class in the music building, a couple of fine freshmen females were wanting to traverse back to their distant dormitory. One, who is a friend of mine, asked me if I had my car conveniently anywhere near, to which I responded that I didn’t. But I went on saying that I was heading to my car anyway (which isn’t a lie) to retrieve my keyboard and transport it up three flights of Fair Commons steps to my room. I then offered to make a delightful detour through campus and transport them to their desired destination, safe from the terrible torrent. My friend said she felt like a cruel criminal by taking advantage of me, and the other said multiple times (and I quote), “I love boys.” I felt loved and special. I say all this not to boast about a good deed done, but to say that I haven’t felt so chivalrous in quite a while, maybe ever. Needless to say, though, I’m still single. But things might be looking up. We’ll see…

Matt

I just wanted everyone to know I got my iPod. Hooray. I’ll be having to buy a firewire cable (USB 1.1…not so hot) and a case for it, but otherwise it’s great.

Heck yes!!!

CLICK HERE

Yes, that is my iPod.

Ok, everyone…remember the days in elementary school when you’d watch a slideshow which was accompanied by a sound recording on tape? What’s the part that everyone remembers about it? That’s right, the beep, that annoying noise which happened between every explanation, indicating that the projector operator should continue on to the next slide. Well, we’re going to try this technique here, except when you hear (see in this case) the beep, click it. Herrrr we go!

Slide 1 (Background): For the past year, I’ve been trying to get a free iPod from freeipods.com. In that time, I’ve seen them go from offering the 20 GB black-and-white-display iPod to the 20 GB color-display iPod to finally the 30 GB video iPod. When the video iPod was announced, I quite honestly probably coveted and lusted and likely broke a few more of the Ten Commandments and the seven deadly sins. Needless to say, I wanted one. A few weeks back, I finally acquired my final referral. It told me to check back in 5-7 days to see if my account was approved (they recheck each referral). Of course I checked back almost every day. A few days later, the ETA had changed to 7-10 days. I was a little disheartened, but I figured I’d waited a year, so what’s another few days? Well, I’m pretty sure it ended up being much longer than 10 days, but maybe it just felt longer. I logged on not too long ago (like an hour), and found this:

BEEP!

Slide 2: I was pretty stoked (to reference a colloquialism from an earlier era). So I continued on into this journey. Next I got to select my prize.

BEEP!

Slide 3: Thank goodness I wasn’t wanting an iPod nano…4-6 weeks??? Anyway…I continued on. I entered the address to which I wanted my video iPod to come. Of course this is my school address. Why would I want it to be sent home? Actually, now that I think about it, I’d better get it before Christmas break, or I’ll be upset.

BEEP!

Slide 4: There was a “discrepancy” with the way I formatted the address, so I got this screen:

BEEP!

Slide 5: Upon fixing the problem, I was successful in submitting my address. All that’s left is to click “Finalize.” Here we go!

BEEP!

Slide 6: It’s done! I hope I don’t have to wait forever.

BEEP!

Oh, I get a free t-shirt too. I hope it fits, and I hope it’s at least somewhat cool so I can wear it with pride whilst I listen to music and watch videos on my iPod! Thanks to everyone that helped out in this process. For those whom I bribed, let me know if you still want the cash.

Thank you for your attention, children. Class dismissed.

BEEP!

So here’s what you’d call a hodge-podge of topics in one post, a potpourri if you will. Let’s get it started!

First off, here’s a song I wrote for songwriting class. It’s called “All My Days (Surrender to You).” It was supposed to be a worship song suitable for corporate worship. Well, it turned out to be a great worship song, but better for a soloist. Oh well. The lyrics please…

VERSE 1
O faithful One, of Whom I sing
This simple song to You I bring
Accept my praise; be magnified
In You I will be satisfied

CHORUS
I sing to the One and Only
You alone are pure and holy
My sole Desire, I give you praise
I surrender to You all my days

VERSE 2
O worthy One, what can I do
To glorify and honor You?
Words can’t express how You love me
Only Your blood on Calvary

BRIDGE
I am unworthy
But You made a way for me
You run my direction
Despite my imperfection

I might record it someday so you can hear it and not just read the words.

Topic #2: I put a song up on my MySpace page. It was a project for my recording tech class. Here’s the link: myspace.com/mattulrich

Thirdly, I almost died tonite. Well, not really, but I thought I might. There was supposed to be a huge storm of “historic proportions” coming through, but we got lucky. There wasn’t much of anything.

Next, I must comment on this blog. As much as I love Wordpress, there’s no community like there is with Xanga. I don’t think I’ll be switching, but I do have a Xanga so I can keep tabs on my friends. I might redesign this blog so it has a little more relaxed look (like Xanga). We’ll see what I feel like and what kind of time I have. That probably will have to wait until Christmas break at the earliest.

On the topic of webdesign, I am still waiting on graphics from my friend Dane Benton to design the SGA website. So when I finally get that stuff, that website will be going up. Also, I am the official designer of artist websites for Orangehaus Records, or at least that’s the way I understand that part of my position. I also was resonsible for designing and getting out the first electronic issue of the Orangehaus SPIN, our newsletter. You can read it here. So yay…pat me on the back. Gosh, that sounded conceited. Sorry. I guess I’m just keeping you informed of what I’ve been up to.

Another fun thing about my life is that I’ve been reading through Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller. Every Tuesday morning at the slightly ungodly hour of 7am, Doug Irving (my adopt-a-parent at my Anderson church) and I have breakfast at Panera. We talk about life and the book and pray with each other. So far it’s been a rewarding time. I feel like I’ve learned and grown a lot through this time with Doug. I’ve also discovered I love Panera’s dark and vibrant coffee. You should try it sometime.

Hm…what else? Oh, I’ve been working a bit on helping a friend named Jeff Owen design his cd cover. He seemed to like one of my ideas should the colors be modified, so we’ll see. By the way, in addition to doing his own singer/songwriter thing, he plays bass for Joy Williams. Two of my other friends (sort of…one’s more of an acquaintance, and the other is somewhere in-between) also play for Joy. Dylan Williams plays lead guitar, and Darren Rayl plays drums. The latter two have played for Jon McLaughlin in the past, and I believe Dylan still does when Jon wants a guitar player.

Next topic: my “free” iPod. Well, it technically will be free, assuming I get it. Any money I’ve paid hasn’t been directly for the iPod. It’s more because I wasn’t careful when picking an offer to complete and because I bribed a few people to do offers. Anyway, having gotten my 5 referrals, it is now currently in the verification stage wherein the company makes sure all my referrals are legitimate. It says to wait 7-10 days (I’m pretty sure it said 5-7 when I first requested verification), but I feel like it’s been that long or longer. So I continue to wait… I’ll keep you updated.

Finally, I have some great new friends this semester. Among these are Kalyn Yocum, Megan McDaniel, Mindy Parsons, Chelsea Travis, Joe Balbaugh, Glen Lovitt, Antoine Brown (who, in combination with me, makes up “Mantoine”), Nate Heironimous, Phil Larson, and many others. The first few are new to AU, and the others have been here, but I’ve just gotten to know them a lot better this semester. Still no woman for me, though.

Thus ends what I believe to be my longest post ever. I am out.

Verbosely yours,
Matt

So I wish I had a digital camera. If I did, I could put cool pictures up here for you to see. But I can’t. Also, Facebook has sweet photo album capabilities now, so it would be amazing to share my photos with the world (well, at least my facebook friends). Heck, my MySpace friends would love it too. But I can’t do anything about that. THEREFORE…I say you should click the PayPal Donate button (down the page on the left side) and send me some lovin’ in the form of money. This would directly benefit you because you could then enjoy numerous pictures I’d post with the digital camera you funded. Ok, that is all for now. I will be checking my PayPal account in the next few days.

Oh by the way, you can check out the few photos I do have in my Facebook photo album (because I scanned hard copies years ago). Click here. I have a few more to put up, but for some reason, my superdrive on my Powerbook isn’t working, so I can’t get them off the cd. You can donate money for a new drive or–even better–a new iMac by clicking the same button.

Peace.

Matt

I know it’s not good to be jealous, but I am. You see, I went with some cool friends to a Jon McLaughlin show tonight at the Living Room in Muncie. It was pretty darn good, with Micah Dalton and Jeff Owen opening. But I digress. I’m jealous because Jon stole all the talent. Well, I mainly refer to songwriting talent. I suppose that if I practiced hard enough, I could play as well as he does in concert, but he’s a natural songwriter, which I am not. On top of his songwriting talent, he’s got a great on-stage personality, holding his audiences captive. Tonite, a lot of the audience was talking during the opening acts, but Jon’s appearance grabbed them. Anyway, long story short…every time I see him play, I find it easy to wish that I was him, but since I’m not, I’m just happy with learning something new from him by watching him perform.