Matt: Hey there!

So...

Here I am. Writing my first blog entry in years and knowing that I've instantly got a bigger and more interactive audience than I ever could possibly have when I was using my profile page on Planet Out as a 'blog'. It's sort of exciting and deflating at once. Yes, after the summer of innocence, 2001, I was using an internet dating site as my 'blog'. Justin, am I right in thinking that's where we met? Planet out. Does it still exist?

*goes and checks*

The present incarnation of Planet Out looks to be a content wormhole to gay.com. I think I remember them merging or something like a year ago. Odd. So that was before Blogging really took off. We just wrote what we felt about, 'livejournal' had only barely begun. It became an obsession and really helped me hash out a lot of feelings I had after a certain giant horrible incident took place in the southern part of Manhattan that September. Then it became a way to deter idiots from hitting on me: "oh, you haven't read my whole profile? Fuck off:)." Then I got a national tour (I was an actor at that point), and quickly forgot all about it. I briefly wrote an actual blog a couple years later when I was particularly angry about the war in Iraq, bits of which you can still find if you search for my name on google (if you're really interested, it's called 'T is for Tiger', but I'm not going to link it because some of the writing is crap...). I am what I am. I generally answer the question ‘how are you’ with ‘awesome, I’m awesome,’ and I mean that without sarcasm. I like to have the most awesome time available, and this experiment in interacting with you all this week is going to be AWESOME, so let’s get to it!

As promised, here are some bits from the internet that I'm particularly impressed with today:

Lolcat: I think I make this face a lot.

Internet Video: This makes me cry, and if you haven't seen it before, it'll probably make your morning (Ps: sorry about sending you a link which makes you see Katie Couric's dumb face)

Music/video: This band is quickly becoming one of my favorites for morning wakeup time. It's like The Shins only with more camp. What do you think?

And now, a bit of a rant:
What the hell with "Balloon Family"? Seriously. Okay, perhaps it's because I'm an activist and was directly involved, but, like, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Washington, D.C. less a week ago to ask for equal rights and got only minutes of coverage on any channel. Fine. That happens; it wasn't really about coverage--more about the people getting inspired about taking control of their lives. But still, only days later we get this crazy/Reality Wannabe family staging stupid bullshit and it's all anyone can talk about. I mean, even me. I don't watch television, but here I am basically livid about these dumb fuckers. What do you think? Do you think it should be national news? I feel like felony charges aren't good enough. I feel like a public gag order should be placed on national news about these people to cut them off from what they want and is clearly an unhealthy obsession: attention.

Secondary rant: I haven't read it yet, but the idea of Bono (the frontman of U2, for those of you younger than 25) writing an op-ed for the New York Times about "rebranding America" sounds like complete and utter drivel. Skimming it I see name dropping and sound bites without content. Discuss.