My name is Matthew A. Josephson, and I was born August 2, 1978. I am a graduate of the illustrious University of California, at Berkeley. My major was American Studies, a self-designed, interdisciplinary major; and my area of concentration was the sociology of sport; more on that later. I am Jewish, and my views remain consistent with those of the reform branch. Growing up, my synagogue was Temple Akiba in Culver City, and I also went to the Berkeley Hillel on occasion. My favorite color is the deep, dark purple this paragraph is written in. Other various favorites of mine include cheetahs, baseball, The Princess Bride, and Walrusman (Ponda Baba). For those of you who are a little on the slow side, they are, respectively: my favorite animal, sport, movie/book and Star Wars character.

To further identify me, I will begin the story of my life, sparing no long or arduous details. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, the greatest city on earth. While the hospital I was born in (Cedars-Sinai) straddles the Beverly Hills border, the "Beverly Hills" mentality -- which I associate with Stanfurd and my private school experience -- does not fit me. I did, in fact, actually live in Los Angeles, not some measly suburb that likes associating itself with L.A. For anyone more curious than that, I grew up near where the 405 and 10 freeways meet. Now I am once again just outside of Beverly Hills, roughly one-half block away. My lifelong obsessions have been baseball, purple and cheetahs. I attended many different schools; in order: The Mirman School, Westwood Elementary, Brentwood Science Magnet, Gaspar de Portola Highly Gifted Magnet Middle School, Palms Gifted Magnet Middle School, Alexander Hamilton High School and the University of California.

The beautiful lady you see on the picture page is my now wife, Paula. She and I have been dating since May, 1996 and married since December, 2001. Although we went to different high schools, and universities in opposite sides of California (she went to USC and now goes to UCLA Medical School), we have been able to "make it work." I love her very much and I know she feels the same for me and we are best friends. But enough gushy stuff that you (the reader) really could care less about. She is one of those insane people who has never gotten a "B" in her life and thinks that "A-" is the end of the world. Despite, and perhaps because of, this I still love her.

My most all-encompassing obsession is with baseball. I have been a Dodger fan since I was a fetus and my favorite player status has changed from Mike Marshall (the first baseman/outfielder, not the pitcher) to Eric Karros. Another team that I sort of like is the Orioles, but not nearly as much. Other teams I have better than neutral feelings for include, in no particular order, the Marlins, A's, Diamondbacks, Devil Rays, Cardinals and Brewers. My favorite players are the aforementioned Karros, Matt Luke, Matt Mantei, Mike Mussina (even though he went to Stanfurd), Rikkert Faneyte, Ray Lankford, Todd Dunwoody, Mark Kotsay, Aaron Sele and Ryan McGuire.

Baseball is certainly hurting itself by trying to imitate the inferior sports like basketball and, dare-I-say-it, football. I see a few Dodger games a year, and I even caught the A's a couple times while I was in NorCal.

I also like other sports... basketball, hockey, soccer, etc. I love the Kings and wish they'd get Lonnie Loach back. Loach is by far the coolest man ever to play the game. I am also a fan of Luc Robitaille, Jocelyn Thibault, Adam Deadmarsh and Mike Peca. I also like the Lakers. My favorites are Anthony Peeler, Rodney Rogers, Michael Stewart, Mitchell Butler and Khalid Reeves.

Right about now, you may be wondering, "What about football?" OK, so you're not, I really don't care. Well, football sucks. It's a bunch of big, sexually-repressed, unthinking men pushing each other while one or two men actually "makes progress." It is by far the most overrated thing in this world (with the possible exception of Derek Jeter). For a far more detailed critique, read my thesis on why football represents everything that is bad. Ok, so that is not the academic slant I took, but I did analyze the shift from a "baseball society" to a "football society," which, I believe, is not productive.

Running with the off-chance that you are actually wondering what I did in school, my major is as stated above, American Studies. What this major allows is for students to choose the area in which they would like to concentrate -- mine being the sports enterprise. In response to that pressing question on the tip of your tongue, my study measures the ramifications of societal influences on sport and vice versa. For instance, we analyze the Latrell Sprewell incident from the top-down (the factors that caused such an incident to happen), inside-out (society's role and the role of the sport institution) and outside-in (how a similar incident could be avoided). I have taken classes in these areas with leading experts in these fields -- Dr. Harry Edwards and Dr. Brenda J. Bredemeier. Both of these professors have meant a great deal to my studies. I graduated in December, 1999, after just 3 1/2 years.

I love Cal sports, I even buy season tickets to football games, because the ambience is great. Where else could you find 50,000 people getting together and harassing elitist, minority-hating, scumsucking, Chelsea-loving, soul-selling, Hilfiger-wearing, boring-campus-having, Cal/Harvard-wannabeing punks from Stanfurd? Nowhere! Writing for The Daily Californian in women's field hockey, tennis and soccer has given me quite an appreciation for these sports and their athletes. Go Bears! My junior year, I covered the baseball team, led by USA national team members Xavier Nady and Mike Tonis. Among the highlights of my writing career occurred when Matt Luke of the Dodgers called me for an interview for a story I was writing. The Bears have won several national championships throughout my stay, most recently in men's crew and rugby, and our basketball team won the NIT. I also wrote for the Berkeley Daily Planet, a community newspaper.

I also like to play some computer games, such as Acrophobia (look for me in the "Rainbow Room" as Nolij or some other guise). Nolij is the phonetic spelling of "knowledge," which was my nickname in high school. Acro is by far the most addicting thing known to man, and I don't know why the government doesn't regulate it for our public safety. It is an internet game in which contestants from around the world meet to invent acronyms given a topic and a set of letters. The best acronyms receive the most votes (in theory) and that player will win. Other games I play on my computer include Blocktionary, NHL Hockey '97, Pretty Good Solitaire (especially La Belle Lucie), Extreme Pinball and Worms.

While Acro is the root of most of my online friendships, it is the people themselves that keep my line busy for so many hours in the day. I am one of the team leaders for =Poetry in Motion=, although I haven't played regularly in years. The best tool for keeping in contact with all these wonderful people I know from all around the world is ICQ, although e-mail and AOL Instant Messenger are also very convenient.

My family is also extremely important to me. Not only my mother and father and brother, but my cousins and aunts and uncles as well. My father is a lawyer and my mother is an elementary school teacher. My "little" brother Jonathan is five years younger than me and is about 6'3". he currently attends my old high school and plays basketball and volleyball there. My cousins are my oldest friends and the people I know will be a big part of my life forever. Since my dad is one of ten brothers and sisters and my mom is one of six, I have a ton of first cousins. In age order they are: Mari (and Seth), David, Brian, Ellen, Daniel, Justin, (myself), Edana, Leanna, (Jonathan), Kendy, Jaren, Kylie, Taylor, Samara, Abrielle, Carissa and Mataya. I also have first cousins once-removed: Eliana, Mikaylah and Jonah. I also have cousins who married into the family: Kim (and Randy and their children Klaressa and Zachary), Heather (and John and their children Tyler and Emma), Chris, Matt, Micah and Liora. On my mom's side are cousins Jason, David, Jeremy, Nicole, Hillary, Danny, Wade, Jenna and Hannah. Not to mention my honorary cousin, my confidant and oldest chum, Brett, who is, incidentally, ten days younger than I.

I collect all sorts of sports memorabilia, from the trading cards and Starting Lineups of the players mentioned above, to small plastic figurines of all sorts of characters playing baseball. I have well over 1500 Eric Karros items, including over 300 different ones. I also have figurines of everyone from Bob's Big Boy to Mickey Mouse to a Snork to an IHOP Pancake all playing baseball. I collect autographs (preferably received in person) and have the signatures of people from Billy Bean to Mickey Mantle and everywhere in between. Among my most prized autographs is one from Mike Marshall, written "to a super buddy." I also have autographed pictures of myself with Ozzie Smith, Reggie Jackson and Cory Snyder.

Now the question comes up, "Do you do anything besides sports?" Alas, I do. I love movies... The Princess Bride being by far the best. I can recite any line off the top of my head. Try me. I have downloaded as much of the movie in .wav files as is available on the internet. Among my favorite lines are: "You're very smart, shut up" and "Anybody wanna peanut?" The movie is so great because it works on so many levels... comedy, romance, fantasy, drama, suspense, it goes on and on. As the grandfather says in the movie, it contains "fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..." As amazing as the film adaptation is, I have to say I like William Goldman's book even better.

In fact, I do like other movies. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Animalympics, the Star Wars Trilogy and The Rock all come to mind. I regularly quote from these movies as well. As I mentioned before, I am a big fan of Walrusman, but Greedo, Amanaman, Bib Fortuna, Boba Fett and Admiral Ackbar are all great too. C3PO is way too whiny. Animalympics is by far the best movie you've never seen. A cartoon parody of many sports personalities and the Olympics in general, it features such memorable characters as Ono Nono and the Calamari brothers.

My musical tastes are quite diverse. My MP3 collection features everything from rap to metal to opera to rock to reggae and so on. My favorite songs are "Storybook Love" from The Princess Bride soundtrack by Willy Deville and "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie. If you say anything about Vanilla Ice, I will seriously harm you. Other favorite songs of mine include "Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm" by the Crash Test Dummies, "Wildside" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch and "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba. My favorite bands include Queen, Credence Clearwater Revival, Barenaked Ladies, Live (pre-Secret Samadhi), Fastball and Eve 6. Another band that is absolutely awesome is Splender. I highly recommend them to anyone who likes music that doesn't suck.

More to come...