Thank you Lord for our modern home,
though the sun it swelters as in Rome.
Our house is frigid, really cold,
like an Inuit’s dome of old.
While some may scold
“You’re wasting all that energy!”
They don’t live with four grumpy boys,
my wife,
and me.
Amen
MatthewK.com has been my website for a long time. I first registered the domain name on August 4, 1999. I guess you could say that it has spanned decades, centuries, even millennia. Back in Web 1.0 days I was reluctant to have my last name in the domain name. We were much more protective of our personally identifiable information then. Heck, my Compuserve email was a random string of numbers at cs.com.
That was then, this is now. I’ve decided to switch to Matt-Keough.com. This change will come soon. You may actually be reading this post at that name.
MatthewK.com is not going away entirely. Soon it will be the online home of a young gentleman who is a quite talented singer. I encourage you to check back after the switch. I’ve had a sneak preview and I think you will enjoy his music.
Here’s to new beginnings!
On Tuesday nights for the last couple of months my tweets have been filled with the #TopShot hashtag. Not only is Top Shot (Tuesday night 10 Eastern) my favorite show, there are several key players live tweeting while it airs most weeks.
The host, Colby Donaldson (@Colby_Donaldson), is very active on Twitter with behind the scene insights. He jokes with fans and answers questions and this is an excellent addition to the viewing experience. He was missed a couple of weeks ago as he was forbidden by the show’s brass from live tweeting. This was in response to his tweets the previous week asking fans to make some grassroots noise to convince The History Channel to renew the show. Hey History Channel! Renew Top Shot!!
Contestants have also been very active and interacting with viewers in Top Shot Season 4.
Terry Vaughn (@Terry_Empowers) added a British angle on the proceedings and brought a real enthusiasm and level-headed approach the the sometimes dysfunctional blue team. He seemed to enjoy the cannon most of all.
Gabby Franco (@GabbyFrancoTS4) was the first female contestant to wear a green shirt. This isn’t a fashion statement. For those unfamiliar with the show, team competitions pitting blue and red teams thins the field by eliminating contestants until the individual competition begin. The teams are then disbanded and contestants wear the coveted green shirt. Gabby was a fan favorite and after elimination continued to cheer on the remaining contestants.
Now for the business at hand. Tuesday’s program is the season finale and it has come down to Chris Cheng, Gregory Littlejohn, Augie Malekovich and Gary Shank. Who will it be? All four finalists have proven themselves to be very capable of winning the whole thing, and they got there with diverse styles.
Augie Malekovich is a strong shooter and keeps his cool under almost all conditions. He served in the United States Marine Corps and his military background has helped. He is not an active twitter use, but you can follow @malekovich to see what his wife Crystal has to say. I’d be happy to see Augie win because he is a father of four and seems like a real good guy and dad.
Gary Shank is kind of a sleeper candidate to win. He wasn’t involved in too much drama and is proficient in many types of weapons. His specialty is historic weapons. If a blunderbuss or trebuchet are involved he has to be your favorite. In all seriousness, he absolutely was flawless in the SWAT style elimination challenge which emulated what final challenges have been like in past seasons. I’d be OK with Gary winning because I was briefly in a Civil War reenactment group while in high school. It’s not easy being a history geek.
Chris Cheng (@TopShotChris) is an IT professional with no formal military or police training. He was a fan of earlier seasons of Top Shot, and became proficient with a diverse set of guns as an enthusiast. As you would expect from an IT guy, he brings an analytical approach to the game. This caused some friction with other contestants when team meetings determined who would go to elimination challenges. But those contestants are gone and he is in the final. I’ve had some interaction with Chris on Twitter and found him to be a real enthusiastic, nice guy. Because he is an underdog to a certain degree and I work in search engine marketing (kind of IT related), he is probably my favorite.
Which brings us to Gregory Littlejohn (@TopshotGregory). He is a Federal Police Officer and Air Force veteran. He is also one of the most derided contestants by fans online. He has gone to the elimination challenges more than anyone, but also has won enough Bass Pro Shops gift cards (by surviving the challenges) to outfit his outdoors activities in fine style.
He’s got a big personality that rubs some people the wrong way and brings out the critics. I really enjoy how he lets the criticism bounce right off of him on the show and in the twitterverse. He and I have had a couple of twitter exchanges, and his tweets reveal a very funny guy. The show has been edited to give him the role of “they guy who lets the pressure get to him.” This is one of the reasons I suspect he may take the grand prize. The producers know who won before they edit the season. It is better entertainment if there is a story arc that has a surprise ending. If you wanted to have a twist at the end you would edit Greg to look like a guy who would choke in the big game. But in the last few episodes he has shown real skill.
If you asked my who I think will win, my money would be on Littlejohn for that reason. Of course I could be wrong. In short (too late, I know) anyone could win and I’d be happy for any of the finalists.
Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to the Top Shot Facebook game and clear Level 12. Boom go the exploding targets!
UPDATE:
Thank you to everyone for your support over the past 3 months! It is such a rush to have won #TopShot Season 4!
— Top Shot Chris Cheng (@TopShotChris) May 2, 2012
When I first started this blog it was a nail-biting experience whenever I needed to upgrade versions or perform back end maintenance. I’d make certain all files were backed up, databases correct and I had my Wheaties. This was vital, because otherwise my words of wisdom and witty observations would be LOST FOREVER!
Eventually I realized that if my blog fell in the forest of cyberspace it wouldn’t make a sound because nobody would be there.
I performed an upgrade to WordPress 3.3.2 today and totally messed it up. No cursing, sweating or stress followed. I figured it would give me a fresh start. I eventually corrected the issues. Let me know if I missed anything if you happen to notice something amiss.
Ping me on Twitter @mattkeough
The Lucky Tree
Lucky me!
I’m a tree
full of leaves,
I block the sun.
Please feel free
to rest by me
when your chores are done.
copyright © Matt Keough 02/9/2012
All rights reserved
My workplace is very lively and we have fun activities in a nearly unbroken succession. The latest wackiness involves my pals delivering pictures of themselves in high school to a bulletin board. These photos are posted with no labels. We then guess who is who.
It is easy to spot the younger members of the team, of which there are many. Let’s admit that the rest of us have changed over time. Some of us have changed for the better, some for the worse.
I submitted my senior portrait. The consensus is that I look like a 70’s news anchor or a game show host. Not a game show host like Howie Mandel, more like John Davidson.
I’ve explained that young men did not wear their hair short in the 80’s. The only fellows that had their ears exposed in those days were convicts and service members. It was then that I had an epiphany. The reason so many 70’s and 80’s TV shows were easy to spot as cheesy was due to the guys all having contemporary hair styles.
Look at Happy Days, Fonzie had an almost pompadour, but it was feathered. Chachi TOTALLY looked like he stepped off the disco floor.
Look at the cops in TV shows of the era. They all had a massive head of hair. Their mustaches extended FAR beyond the corners of their lips. Don’t even get me started on the Village People.
Finally, look at STRIPES. Only John Candy and Sgt. Hulka had regulation haircuts. John Larroquette’s hair was just this site of Oscar Gamble.
So, here is my new law. If you are not committed enough to your character to get a haircut, you will be an object of ridicule when the current trend fades.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I’m writing this at 9 o’clock in the morning and I’m sure there is pregame programming on right now making predictions. I predict that the Giant will win and it will be a close contest. But I really wouldn’t care if the Patriots win.
Just for the record, I’ll state I correctly predicted the outcome of the Super Bowl. Too bad my squares didn’t cooperate.
— Matt Keough (@MattKeough) February 6, 2012
I am a Browns fan. I have no rooting interest. Some would say I should root against the 
Patriots because Bill Belichick was not well-loved when he was the Browns coach. I don’t live in the past when it comes to the Browns. As a matter of fact, I don’t live in the present. The only place a Browns fan can live is in the future. In the future the Browns will win the Super Bowl.
I will admit there is scant evidence that this will happen anytime soon. It does not matter. This is how we cope. If we were to dwell on the last decade or so of Browns performances, we would only become bitter and cynical.
So on this day of great excitement or disappointment for Patriots and Giants fans, do not despair. ONE DAY THE BROWNS WILL WIN THE SUPER BOWL!
Matt Keough is not an extremely common name, but it only takes one other guy sharing your name to make Google related search suggestions interesting. Don’t pretend you have not performed a vanity search of your name! When I type my name in Google, the top results all relate to the poor fellow who used to play MLB baseball.
You might think it odd that I refer to a guy who was formerly a professional baseball player as “poor guy”, but I would not trade my life for his. No way, no how. Although we might think it was good luck to marry a former Playboy bunny, they are now divorced. “Matt Keough Divorce” is a suggested search.
I’ve banged up my body via lack of athleticism and not minding which step of the ladder I was on. But I’ve never been drilled in the head by a ball hit off the bat of a MLB player, so another suggested search, “Matt Keough brain injury“, doesn’t apply to me either.
This humble blog does show up for “Matt Keough 2011“, which makes sense. I am Matt Keough and I did write at least a few posts in 2011.
I’m really glad nobody really cares about my “Matt Keough Stats“!
I feel fortunate that “Matt Keough arrested” is talking about the other guy as well. Behavior modification in later adulthood also gets credit for avoiding my true identity ranking well in Google for that one.
In short, while it may seem from the outside that the people in the spotlight are in a position to be envied, that really is not the case. I wish the more famous Matt Keough nothing but better days ahead. I also wish us both less dramatic suggested search topics from Google.
Bocephus got the boot. Not the cowboy boot, which I presume he already had, but the metaphorical boot out the door. I’m sure you are familiar with the story. Hank Williams Jr. had his performance on the Monday Night Football open axed because he compared President Obama to Hitler. This is a really stupid thing to do. Only he didn’t. Please watch the video. Fair warning- it is awkward.
Hank might not be the most well-spoke man, but he was not saying President Obama acts like Hitler, dresses like Hitler or is a vegetarian (like Hitler.) He was making a bad analogy. Any analogy that involves Hitler is a bad analogy, of course. It is unwise in every meaning of the word to evoke that kind of evil.
What amazes me, though, is the repetition by news sources that he compared Obama to Hitler. I guess the story was too good to check. I don’t think an honest person who watched the clip could conclude he was comparing the two men. You might just as accurately say he was comparing Boehner or Kasich to Hitler, if you applied the same (lack of) logic.
Also, while it irritates me the way the story was framed, it also irritates me that anyone would invoke the First Amendment to defend Williams. ESPN isn’t the government, and they can play pretty much any song they choose before Monday Night Football. It is not as though many people will see it anyway.