Hot Pepper Review Part 2 (Video)

Here is the second part of my Hot Pepper Review, with much hotter peppers than the first one! We still haven't managed to get a hold of  reaper, but I still have hope that we may be able to soon. Anyway, enjoy watching me squirm.

Hot Pepper Review (Video)

Here it is you guys! Here is my hot pepper review video! I hope you guys enjoy it, because I feel like it's pretty fun (plus I endured a fair amount of pain to make it). Also, I'm pretty excited about the fact that I finally got to try a ghost pepper, since that was something that I had on my bucket list. I still want to eat a reaper though.

Monday Seems Like a Good Day for Random Updates

I just wanted to let you guys know about some things that have been going on.

1- Tomorrow (barring any unforeseen complications) I will be posting Part One of my Pepper Review video. So far, we still only have two parts, but I'm hoping to get ahold of a Carolina Reaper so I can do a third part.

2- That weird orange shit is still on my ankle, and I think it actually looks a little more disgusting today. It seems to have mostly stopped burning, but it has moved on to itching, which is only slightly better. Also, I still have not a single clue what it is or where it came from.

3- On a more pleasant note, I think whatever the fuck was wrong with my rib has finally healed. I am now able to do my entire workout without intense pain. So I guess there's that.

4- You know how I said the other day that my sister was going to take some new pictures for me? Well, I had this idea that I wanted to do one or two pictures dressed as Typhoid Mary (The Marvel character, not the woman who gave people typhoid fever). I just assumed that my sister would think it was stupid, but it turns out she's totally into it and now we are going to do a whole Typhoid Mary  shoot. I'm pretty excited about it. On a related note, does anyone have a katana I can borrow?

Typhoid Mary ^

What Is That!?

My dad and I did some more work on the camper today. It turns out that it's not quite as bad off as we thought. It looks like all of the water in my "exercise room" actually came from the water heater which, when we took it out today, we found had obviously been frozen and busted. We initially thought that the roof had been leaking, which would have meant a lot more work and money, but it seems that is not the case. So yay! 

Unfortunately, I also seem to have been exposed to some sort of flesh eating substance. I was working, and I felt this stinging sensation inside my boot. I assumed it was some sort of bug biting or stinging me, but I was in the middle of something and it wasn't terribly painful, so I just ignored it. It just kept stinging though, so finally I stopped and took my boot off to check it out. I found absolutely nothing. I thought "Well that's weird" put my boot back on and kept working. It just kept fucking stinging though! So I took my boot and my sock off. When I looked at my ankle, I had this weird orange (and I mean orange!) mark, that was still burning even though there was obviously no bug. I have no idea what this shit is, but I now have two orange marks which are still burning even now! What is this? How did I possibly get some sort of corrosive substance inside my boot? And why is it so orange? 

It actually got less orange throughout the day. It was much brighter than this when it first happened.

Coming Soon to a Computer Screen Near You

I just thought I would give you guys a heads up on some things that I have planned for this blog in the near future.

1- Starting next week I will be posting a series of videos (which, by the way, are much better quality than my regular videos because my sister helped me with them) of me "reviewing" a selection of ridiculously hot peppers. The will include a ghost pepper, and at least two that are hotter than the ghost pepper. So yeah, hopefully you guys will get some amusement from my pain.

2- I think I can now say with confidence that my new body weight exercises are working! I'm pretty pleased with the results I've been getting, especially since I was half afraid I was going to end up losing the results I had gotten from my workout with the sandbags. Because of this, I wanted to get some new pictures taken, and my sister has agreed to take them for me. You guys probably don't care about this, but I'm kind of looking forward to them. I think I might get kind of ridiculous with them this time, do some crazy shit.

3- Okay, so I have this idea.......I can't decide if I'm actually going to go through with it or not. I feel like it could be fun, or it could just be really fucking embarrassing. I think I've mentioned a few times how I've always wanted to try acting, but never really had the opportunity? Well, at this point I think I can safely say that's never going to happen. I still think it would be fun though. So I had this idea that I might make some fake audition videos for parts that I would want to play. I don't know though...........maybe.....maybe......

Peach ghost pepper ^

Demolition

I think I told you guys that my dad and I have been working on the camper every weekend. This week, we started working on the pump, but it turned out that we didn't have all the stuff we needed, so we ended up working a little on the interior instead.

We tore out that weird table/bed thing that was in the "kitchen" and some of the stuff in the bedroom. Then, today, I finished taking out the rest of what was in the bedroom. I definitely have a hell of a lot more room than I did. Unfortunately it also turns out that there was a lot more damage in the bedroom than we realized. Along with the rotten floor, it turns out that a good portion of the walls and ceiling are rotten as well. Awesome.

Also, why is it that whenever I do demolition, I end up destroying myself as much as the thing I was trying to demolish?

Updates

I have three updates for you guys- One, boring one, semi-interesting one, and one super exciting one!

The boring one is that I am taking this rib fiasco as a sign from The Powers that I should stop with the fucking sandbags, and go back to doing body weight exercises. I have my new sit-up contraption, which is even more difficult than I had expected. So that should be okay. Now I've been searching frantically for various leg exercises that will work as well as squats with the fifty pound bag. I found a few that feel like they are working pretty well, but I'm still probably going to be spazzing out about it months.

Speaking of my rib, it turns out that, at least according to the chiropractor that I work for, it is not cracked. Well, actually he said "it isn't broken" which I already knew, (I'm fairly certain I would have realized if it was actually broken) but I assume he would have told me if it was cracked too. Unfortunately, that doesn't really do me much good since it's obviously still fucked up. It does seem to be getting slightly better though, so I guess that's good. That was the semi-interesting update, by the way.

Now for the super exciting update! They finally released the official Deadpool trailer (Loud squealing noise) and it is amazing!

No stupid rib is going to stop me!

Perhaps I Should Fear After All

You know how I have been putting carolina reapers in my food lately? And that they weren't as hot as I expceted? Well, I think I may have been mistaken. I ate them in my food everday for several weeks, and really liked the flavor. Then, a few days ago, I noticed that I had this big wound on the inside of my mouth. It was like I had bitten my lip three or four times right next to each other. I kept wondering how I had done it; I thought maybe I had been chewing on my lips in my sleep or something. Then I noticed that it burned like hell when I ate the teff with the reapers in it, and thought "Hmmmm....I wonder....." So I did a little experiment. I tried chewing the teff exclusively on the other side of my mouth (because, apparently, I chew much more on the right than on the left?) and by the next day, it was kind sore and raw on that side. Then I started thinking that, if they were doing that to the inside of my mouth, what the fuck were they doing to the rest of my body? Scalding me from the inside out? Liquefying my organs? Who knows. So yeah.....no more reapers for a while (alas!). It's been, I think, five days and my mouth is almost entirely back to normal. So that's good I guess.

If I had sontinued eating then, I think there is a chance that I would have ended up like one of the vampires from True Blood. 

Does This Sound Like an Old Ship to You?

Sooooo....... I think there is a cance I may have a cracked rib. I don't know, I mean I've never had one before, so I'm not sure what it feels like. But it hurts when I breathe, and it hurts a lot when I move in certain ways. At first, I thought "There's no way that's what it is!" because I though for sure that if I had done something to crack one of my ribs I would remember it. Then, today, when I tried to do sit-ups with my 100 pound sandbag I realized what may have happened. See, when I layed back with the thing on my chest I was suddenly in an intense ammount of pain. Since I'm a dumbass, I went ahead and tried to do the sit-ups anyway. I found that I just physically couldn't. Then I started to realize that there is a chance that I have been slowly crushing myself to death for the past month or so. In retrospect, perhaps putting a hundred punds of weight directly on my ribcaged and then sitting up and then letting it smash me into the floor fifty time in a row every day was not the best idea.

Anyway, my dad and I were supposed to finsh my pump-house today, but that didn't happen because I had an emergency project that had to be done riht away. Since I couldn't use my sand bag (and I was obviously not going to let intense pain stop me from doing my workout) I had to find some other method for working my abs that would be as effective without the possibilty of ending up with a punctured lung. So we had to build a something that would allow me to hang upside down, and do sit-ups that way. I still don't think there's any chance that we would have gotten the pumphouse finished (it ended up being much more complicated than we had anticipated) but we certainly would have gotten a lot more done than we did. Oh well, at least I can do sit-ups without possibly dying. So that's something.

Claire- What does a cracked rib sound like?

Matt- ......an old ship.

Look What I Got!

Yesterday, my dad and I went to Home Depot to get some stuff for my camper. We got a hot water tank, and some plumbing stuff (not terribly exciting) but I also got something that I am pretty excited about. Try not to laugh, okay? I bought some of those weird puzzle-piece foam tiles, like they put down in classrooms for small children. Here's my reason, I have been thinking forever about putting some kind of mats down in my exercise room and I thought that, since we have to replace the floor in there anyway, I might as well go ahead and do it the way I want to. I've been working out on various rugs my whole life, and it's just awful! They slide, they don't provide nearly enough cushioning, and (here's my favorite part) they give me fucking rug-burn on my shoulder blades and tailbone when I do sit-ups! Now, for the first time in my life, I might actually be able to do my workout without slightly injuring myself every time.

And I don't even give a shit if it looks like I'm living in a kindergarten classroom.

Ganglion Cyst Smash (Video)

That weird-ass lump on my hand came back, so I got my sister to smash it for me again. And this time you guy get to watch. You're welcome.

Scarlet Fever

I just thought that I would show you guys exactly what I did to my arm yesterday. In case you can't tell, it basically looks like road rash. I kind of wish it was road rash; then it would at least indicate that I had done something halfway interesting. Instead it just indicates that I'm a dumbass, and my life is stupid. I mean seriously! I've practiced that punch every day for the past several weeks, and not once did I kick through the wall or scrape my arm on the ceiling but, naturally, since I was trying to film it yesterday everything that could possibly go wrong did.

By the way, the post title is a reference to the Supernatural episode "Yellow Fever" in which Dean caught ghost sickness which caused him to develop spontaneous road rash, and be afraid of everything. Since I'm not really afraid of anything, but am pissed off all the time, I decided to go with "scarlet fever" (because yellow=afraid, red=angry)...... too convoluted?

Daredevil Punch (Video)

I finally filmed myself trying to do the punch from Daredevil, that I was practicing when I fucked up my hand. I'm still not that great at it, but I think I would do a hell of a lot better if I had a higher ceiling. I was trying to do the best I could for the camera, and that didn't work out especially well. First my foot went through the wall, which I'm sure my dad is going to love. I mean, that wall was in pretty bad shape to begin with, but still. Then I scraped my whole forearm on the ceiling, awesome. Anyway this is after that, when I was being a little more careful, which is part of the reason it looks kind lame. 

I Just Couldn't Wait

You know how I said that my dad and I were planting some Carolina Reapers? Well, they are officially planted, but they haven't come up yet. It was driving me crazy wondering what they tasted like, so I broke down and ordered some dried ones online.

I'm not sure if there will be a major difference between fresh ones and dried ones but, I must say, they weren't as hot as I expected (by the way, I still fully intend to eat a fresh one on camera when we get some). The flavor is quite good though, almost berry-like. Anyway, I just ate a little piece of one to see how hot it was, then I put a whole one in my rice-cooker with my teff. When I tasted the finished teff, I thought "Hmm, should have used two."

Also, I just realized something kind of funny (at least to me). The reaper is the new hottest pepper, replacing the ghost pepper because, just like in Supernatural, reaper trumps ghost. 

Vegan Super Power; Not Getting Tired

Last night was my last class until August. The New Instructor is leaving for the summer, and apparently they couldn't find anyone to cover the Friday class. I guess I'm just going to have to find some other way to get out my aggression for the next month and a half.

Anyway, it was a good note to end on. It was the most intense class we've had for a while. There were two other guys there, plus the Instructor, and we kept alternating partners so I got a chance to work with him a little on each thing we did. All of the students, myself included, always sort of take it easy on each other, but he doesn't really (I mean, I'm sure he does, but not as much as the rest of us). So I always feel like I get a much better workout with him than with the other students.

We worked on blocking punches for a little while and then spent the rest of the class on kicks. We kept a really fast pace the whole time, so we got a lot more work in than we usually do. At the end, the Instructor joked that he was going to make me keep working because I was the only one who didn't look totally worn out. I was still real fucking sweaty though. I think I get much more of a self-esteem boost from stuff like that than I probably should.

I got some pretty nice bruises too, on both hips from holding pads for kicks and this ^ really weird one on my wrist because I'm a dumbass and left my bracelet on under my gloves while blocking punches.

Consequences (Video)

I, once again, didn't really have much to do for my video this week. So I just thought I might as well showed you guys what I did to my hand the other day, when I knocked it on the ceiling trying to do the Daredevil punch. It doesn't look nearly as gross on film as it does in real life though.

Luck or .......Something Else?

Yesterday, a client was telling me about all of the times he had been in the emergency room. I'm really not sure how we ended up talking about that, but it was a rather interesting conversation. After he had gone through this whole list of different injuries and whatnot, I said that I had never been in the emergency room (in fact, I've never been in the hospital at all). He said "You're really lucky." and I was like "Yeah, I guess I am." but the truth is, I think luck had very little to do with it. I'm fairly certain the fact that I have never been in the hospital is due to a combination of taking excellent care of my health and extreme stubbornness.

As I have mentioned, many times, I don't get sick nearly as often (or nearly as badly) as other people. I also think that, on the rare occasions (or the more frequent occasions from back before I was so concerned with being healthy) that I have been much more calm about it than a lot of people. When I was young, I used to get sore throats a lot, and the doctor wanted me to get my tonsils taken out but my parents and I decided against it, and it worked out just fine. There was also the time, back when I was at WVU, when I had a sinus infection for like months and my mom swears that, at one point, it looked like one of my eyes was bulging out of the socket. Again, it eventually went away. I mean it seems to me that in most cases, people get sick, then they get better, why bother with the hospital?

There have been times in my life though, when the sane thing to do probably would have been to go to the emergency room. I know there are plenty of times when I probably should have gotten stitches. There was that time, when I was a kid, that I stepped on a rusty thumb tack and a couple of days later my foot got all red, and swollen, and hot, and I had red stripes running up my leg. There was the time I drove my car off a bridge; I wasn't actually very injured (aside from the air-bag burn all over my face), but I just feel like most people probably would have gotten checked out anyway. There was the time, not so long ago, when I punched a door and got that huge, bulbous, fluid-filled knot on my hand. It turned out to be fine, but at the time I thought I might have permanently ruined it. Not to mention the big, weird, knobby thing that's always on my hand.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not so much "lucky" as I am an exceptionally healthy dumb-ass. Plus........

Don't Fear the (Carolina) Reaper

Have you guys heard about the Carolina Reaper? If you haven't, It is the new hottest pepper in the world. Ever since I first heard about them, I've been dying to try one. Unfortunately, you can't exactly just buy them, so my dad and I recently ordered some seeds so we can grow them ourselves. The people we bought them from (and who originally developed them in the first place) are the same ones who make the official iZombie hot sauce, which I also really want to try! Anyway, assuming we can actually get them to grow, I'm definitely going to film myself eating one for my video blog. Eating the Jolokia (the former hottest pepper) was on my bucket list, so I think this will take it's place. Anyone want to try one with me, so we can embarrass ourselves on the internet together?

Sorry Lowell, the Jolokia is not the hottest anymore! Also, the company that sells the Reaper isn't called Beelzebub's Bum, but it is called Pucker Butt Pepper Company, which is almost as absurd.

Cruel and Unusual

I ran out of time to write yesterday, so I'm doing my Muay Thai class recap today. 

It was me, the New Instructor, his Girlfriend, and a New Guy who was there for the first time. We went over punches again, since the New Guy needed to know that before he could really do much of anything else. We all took turns holding the pads for each other, so I got a chance to work with the New Guy and the Girlfriend. They both seem pretty cool, which is nice. I felt really bad for the New Guy though, because it turns out that he is left handed, which means that all of his punches are backward for the rest of us (his 1, 3, and 5, are our 2, 4, and 6, and vice versa). Trying to keep track of which punch is which is confusing as shit anyway, I still get them wrong sometimes and I've been there for-fucking-ever. So him having to hold pads and call out punches for us just seemed like too much to ask on his first day. Plus I know I fucked up several times when I was holding for him, and I'm guessing the Girlfriend probably did too. I just feel like, unless his brain is a hell of a lot more organized than mine, the poor guy is going to be totally confused for a long time. 

Also, I didn't get any good injuries at class, but I did manage to knock the skin off my knuckles during my workout yesterday. I've been practicing the patented patented Matt Murdock jump-up-and-kick-off-the-wall-spinning-punch, and yesterday I miscalculated and punched the textured ceiling in my workout room.  

I feel like I'm getting better at this, but I'll have to film it to see what it really looks like. If it looks decent, I'll let you guys see it too. 

Well This Is Awesome

I seem to have become spontaneously crippled. Yesterday morning, when I fed Riley and Tuni, the barn door wouldn't shut properly. I fought with it forever. I tried to chip away any ice I could find that might be impeding the door. Nothing worked. So, finally, I just gave up and shut the door as much as I could and then kicked it until it shut well enough to latch. Apparently when I did that I also broke my fucking foot. Here's the goofy part though; it only kind of hurt a little at the time. It was mostly fine all day. Then last night it started hurting worse, and worse, and worse. By the time I went to bed I was half convinced that it was actually broken. I guess it wasn't because this morning it was better, not good, but better. Now it hurts just enough to be super inconvenient.

So am I just going to hobble around looking like a fool all day?