Marriage good, dating...bad?

So the bowl game that's on tonight is turning into a rather unbearable blow out. Because of this, I've been channel surfing. I stopped on the Mountain West Conf. TV Network and saw that they were doing a Cougar Diary recap the year show, so I watched for a bit. The story was about the cross country team and the NCAA championships, etc. etc. They were interviewing a couple team members and coaches discussing the runners and the season.
The head coach said that "one of the unique things about BYU and not at other schools is the number of married athletes." Not a shocker. He continued by explaining why this was so handy: "Married players tend to be more focused. They've settled down, they're not out..." --Now here I'm thinking he's gonna say something like partying, drinking, you know, the type of stuff that goes on at other schools that can cause problems, be detrimental to ones health. Nope. What does he say? "They've settled down, they're not out dating." DATING! DATING??!!!!
Woooooh!! Woooooooooooh!!! Beware the evils of dating! Hang out, wherever possible. But if hanging out doesn't work for you, just get married.

¡Feliz Navidad a todos!

Here's my Christmas present to all you Spanish speakers out there. Those you don't speak Spanish will be able to appreciate this as well.
Merry Christmas!!!

Happy Handbell Christmas!

I hit the jackpot while I was bumming around some Chilean blogs!
Hand Bell Hero!


This thing is way too much fun.

A coronary

A painful, sorrowful, Christmas-break-joy-destroying coronary!!
That's what BYU's trying to give us! Man alive, couldn't they have at least scored in the second half???!!! Anyway, I'm glad they won, albeit in the most heart-wrenching fashion they could possibly contrive: a blocked field goal with no time left on the clock. This kicker had nailed 2 field goals from beyond 50 yards and had a short chip in to win the game 19-17, but BYU got the blocked field goal: final score BYU 17 UCLA 16.
My heart rate is still high because of the game, like 15 bpm above normal, which is nothing compared to the 100 bpm at the end of that game.

So I've decided something: I should do push-ups and sit-ups during the game, might as well make good use of that elevated heart rate.

Oh, yeah, and to complicate manners, with 30-some-odd seconds left, UCLA got a huge gain on 3rd down which made the field goal a chip shot. This is when I almost started crying. It got worse though, because the ESPN channels WENT BLACK!!!!! Like the power cut out or something and I almost missed the end of the game. It was like the football gods were playing a mean, terrible, nasty trick on me, took me to the brink of death and then brought me back with a near myorcardial infarction, or perhaps spontaneous combustion.

When Cectpa Neeley left on her mission, she said that one of the blessings she hoped for was that the Indians would win the World Series. That didn't happen. Maybe an Ohio State NCAA championship, but that's not gonna happen against LSU. I think the sports gods have been saving up all of these good-deed blessings for BYU's bowl game.


Okay, that's a whole lot more than most of you care about.

Except for another video of the Sin City Miracle:

My sesquicentennialith entry is a sad one

Today is the saddest day of the year: the Winter Solstice: Dark and cold.
But on a happier note, tomorrow puts us firmly on the path to the happiest day of the year: the Summer Solstice: light and warm. Neither of these days, however is the perfect date.

So there's my 150th entry (a number which includes some test entries not shown).

Hope you enjoy your short December days, and Christmas too.

Blue man, no seriously

I don't mean these people. But there have been some weird people on CNN lately.




Glow-in-the-dark cats? Blue men? Honestly.

Creepy

The horrific analogies that could be made from this 100 Hour Board ?

I dedicate this entry to Bishop Taggart.


When I read this question/answer on the 100 Hour Board, my mind went flying thru all of the possible jokes that would be made in D4, C8, P4, P6, Sherwood, Moon House, B4,the Dawg Pound, and a whole slew of other fellow ward mates who enjoyed that "wild" talk from Bishop.

It seems as though board writer Claudio prefers his crock pots pleasantly plump, and is planning on having his for eternity.

Also, I'd like to make an exciting announcement:
I've found my microwave!! Nice bit of technology and some fun pizza perks, if you catch my drift.

And, at the risk of taking this too far, I strongly considered a Speed Cooking Grill Microhood Combo.

I'm obviously registered at Sears for all of the crock pot and microwave accessories that you think would help me while I prepare for this next step in my life.

Smaller-town Utah

Today I had to go to Payson to take in a voided check for my car insurance. Oh, yeah, Libby is resurrected!! Who knew I'd get her back?
Back to Payson, so I drove to the car insurance people. At the office the had some rather disturbing decorations. They had these large posters with roses in varying stages of life and beauty on them. Three of them all told, probably 3' by 4'. The first one said, 691 All State holders die every day. (2nd) Could today be (3rd) the day you die?
Someone fails Advertising 101!!!! It was so creepy and depressing.
But after that initial shock, my time at the insurance office was rather pleasant. A woman walked by and asked me if I wanted a Coke b/c she was going next store to get some. I had a drink in the car, so I was fine. "You sure?" "Yeah, thanks."
Then the woman helping me sent a fax to Utah's gov't car something or other so that I wouldn't get a $50 fine for not having had insurance on a car I wasn't driving. She typed out this whole memo thingie and helped me know exactly what I could do to get things right. Then we chatted about back in the day when gas was under a dollar, blah blah. It was just relaxed comfortable chatting, with nothing really pressing on us to stop. How is it that 25 minutes to the north in Provo this never happens?
Then I went to The Fork to run a couple more errands. The Fork's a funny place. The high school mascot is the Dons. That's fine, but it becomes especially problematic when it came to the feminine denomination, the Lady Dons, which in my mind is some twisted Spanish hermaphroditic nomenclature, but very funny. Some guy even ranted about this to the Daily Herald. But he suggested the Senoritas or the Donettes. Donettes!!!! What was he thinking? And I'd only go by the Senoritas if there's an ñ involved. I'm not gonna be a Sehn-or-ittuh. Oh, and why not the ¿Doñas? Of course then we'd be the Donnas.
Speaking of gender-bending, I went to The Fork's Macey's and saw some very funny greeting cards. You know the cheesy ones that are around here? Missionary work is a four-letter word: Love. Then there's a darling (wink wink) picture of a little kid with a name tag on with too-big clothes. The name tag of choice for these photos was äldste (Swedish for Elder). Well for the little fake sister missionary with too-large pearls, they also used the äldste name tag. Hmmmm. Oops.
And speaking of local newspapers, The Spanish Fork Press is also funny, funny, funny. My favorite part is the way they spell faux pas: fax pas, fau pax, fau pas, faux pa, fox pas. I think over the years I've seen all of those and probably more variations. The least common variation? faux pas
Who uses faux pas 4 times in one article anyway?


Oh, today Brock and I went to eat and he tried Suco de Caju for the first time and liked it! What American likes cashew juice on the first try?

my mom is the bomb and i'm unhinged

I got my mom addicted to the west wing. She might be more addicted to it than I am. I would like to post the following in honor of my mom--and my recent postings:


So I called my mom today and tried to blackmail her out of her old DVD player b/c Emily's dad's old one gave up the ghost. So she appeared at my apartment with a new DVD/VHS for me. "Merry Christmas," she said. My mom is so nice! Seriously!

So this morning I woke up at 10 and then fell back asleep and bolted awake at 10:57 after having a TERRIBLE nightmare. I have weird dreams, yes, very weird dreams. This one took place at Novell, even though it wasn't totally Novell. Anyway, I was there with Sarah Haynie and we needed to get to a different place at Novell (which was for some reason a huge campus type thingie), so we decided to take the shuttle van thing. We were in there with a man, his wife and their 17 or 18-year-old son. The driver was separate by a wall, well some sort of separating mechanism. He was driving fast and didn't slow down for the turn and we didn't make it and we caught air off of the curb. We slammed into the ground right before a ranch style home and none of the passengers were hurt, but the driver was seriously injured and was killed in the crash. Why none of us were injured is beyond me. But it was trippy.
Dreams are weird.
Anyway, I bolted awake from this dream and apologized to Emily because I was going to make us late. I was totally unhinged because of the nightmare and seriously was not totally mentally capable until sometime after church. Ask Em, I was wack for a long time.

I think I'm mainly back to normal. But I have weird dreams, always have.
I have this recurring nightmare about the planets. For some reason they are coming closer and closer to Earth. Jupiter is by far the most scary as it draws nearer, nearer and nearer. And even nearer. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. Even Pluto and Charon. While this is happening I'm trying to ignore the fact, but on the inside I'm so terrified that it's all I can do to not fall into the fetal position.
I hate this dream.

I have weird fears: Jupiter approaching, fish, escalators (overcome), ice skating.


What goofy fears to you have?

If you think I'm a nerd, you won't believe this

As per my previous posting, I'd like to point out that I'm very mild about my love for Star Trek compared to some people. I'd just like to point this out by using a couple of video clips:



I've only ever dressed up once as a Star Trek character, and that was for Halloween.
Qapla'!

Tagged (by Myra)

Myra tagged me a bit ago, so I figured I would finally do what she suggested.

#1--I have nightmares about fish, specifically flying fish. Not this type of flying fish, but normal fish that for some reason fly around in the air and attack me. Or at least they fly near me. But whatever is going on in the dream, it is terrifying and I hate those dreams.

#2--Speaking of weird dreams, last night I dreamt that I was hanging out with Madonna, who I often accidentally called Margaret, or I really believed that her name could be Margaret. Anyway we were reading something.

#3--I like listening in to conversations on the bus. But really I only like listening in on the conversations that are in different languages. I really don't understand a lot of what's going on. Today on the bus for some reason I was surrounded by French. In front of me was African French--which is crazy. I know that it was mostly French with some crazy accent, but a little bit of Spanish: c'était loco. The girls behind me were definitely not French, either. Talk about a weird bus ride. Lots of Spanish surrounding me is to be expected, but French?

#4--I really like to mix root beer with a little bit of Dr. Pepper. Yum. I do this often. So much so that when I'm eating out with my brother, he automatically gets me 2 parts root beer and 1 part Dr. Pepper.

#5--Back in '97 I rewrote the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene with a Klingon flare. My Humanities 101 teacher wanted us to rewrite this scene and do it creatively. I was able to do a lot of the scenes with words that I knew. There's also a mention of an opera in the scene and I just happened to know the name of a Klingon opera. Me=Nerd.

#6--I buy lots of drinks when I go to the store. It's sort of an addiction, I imagine. Heather once said that stores put things in the check-out aisles for people like me, a serial impulse buyer.

There you go, Myra. Hope you enjoyed my hodge-podge of stories

I'm so unbelievably stupid.

I'm embarrassed to be telling this story.
I was watching Jeopardy tonight and I was feeling good, one category was all about Romance languages. Ate that one up. Then came final Jeopardy: Word History. Snap! I was ready for this. Answer: This word meaning noxious liquid possibly derives from the name of a love goddess.
And there I sit, thinking, thinking... Ambrosia? No, can't be that. What's the root of poison? No, it's not that. Time's up. First contestant: What is poisonous? No. Second contestant: What is Ambrosia? No. Third contestant: What is venom?

I stared at the word; the first three letters VEN, just as the name VENus. I felt like the worlds dumbest person ever. I mean, who misses her own self on Jeopardy!!! The pain is only compounded by the fact that Venus, for some reason, was also a nickname of mine from 7th grade thru high school.

And, as a side note, yesterday when I was riding the bus to school, I sat across from Samwise Gamgee.

Another bus tale

I tend to sit in the back of rooms or buses. I also tend to sit in the corner of places. I don't like to be in front of people. Better said, I don't like like people looking at my back. And I don't like not knowing what's going on behind me. There's probably some diagnosable psychosis there.

Case in point, today on the bus I sat in the back corner and mostly talked on the phone to Newt.
But there's also another reason why I like sitting in the back of the bus. It's really funny to pull the little wire requesting a stop just as someone else has a hold of it to pull. It's always funny to see the reaction.

Maybe it's a little mean, but it's funny.

Or how about this?

Do you remember this clip at the end of Disney movies? Talk about a weird trip...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

This song has been stuck in my head for over 20 years. In fact, when people count, I end up finishing off the numbers in my head at 12 and singing. Emily has said a few numbers before and I've finished by singing up to 12 and then singing out the number 12 like this: tweh-eeh-eh-eeh-eeh-eh-elve! Then she'd look at me weird. Well now she knows the reason behind my madness:

an unintended hiatus

i just haven't blogged in a while. don't know why. (shoulder shrug)
on Monday at the service auction thingie that Sarah and Preston(?) organized, I won the ride in an airplane. that's a pretty cool thing to auction off, eh?
Cindy called me a little bit after i won to tell me that she's addicted to the West Wing. i'm fine with this. she blames me. again, i'm fine with this. but then i told her that i had won a ride in an airplane and she told me that i wasn't allowed to tell her when i would be in the air.

thanksgiving was great. we had a lot of fun at mom's. we watched ocean's 13, which scottie hadn't seen. (!!) ¡Viva Ciudad Juárez! i just love turkey and cranberry sauce.

oh, claire's in town, too. she's very exciting.

i'm sure other things have happened. but i'm really tired and can't remember.
but tomorrow's the BYU-UofU football game. go cougs!!
so there's this thing called the Deseret First Duel which i think is ASININE!!! it's a sponsored rivalry--sponsored!!--between the U and the Y. Deseret First Credit Union is behind this whole thing, it'll be a competition including 12 different sports. honestly, we already have a rivalry, do we need a sponsor? each team from the two schools wants to win, why is there this dumb, manufactured outlying competition that isn't really a competition. do you think the teams are going to work any harder just so the can win the not-at-all-coveted Deseret First Duel?
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Dumb.

a rundown of stuff

Today before we started class we discussed how we all want to see Enchanted just so we can see how funny it is when fairy tales clash with real life. We all decided (male student included) that this movie is a great idea.
This same male student knows Brian Hansen and he and I proceeded to do the Brian Hansen voice and discuss how we weren't sure when we met him if that really was his voice. "Uhhh, Sister Children...do you realize...that, uh...there's trouble, yes, trouble!....right here in River...City? Ribbit."
Tonight my friend said that people from Canada don't have accents, they just say some words differently. I laughed so hard I got the hiccups.
I was playing with her 2-year-old daughter and I put something in the hoodie on her shirt. Every once in a while she would catch a glimpse of the yellow plastic out of the corner of her eye and spin around like a puppy chasing after its tail. It was hysterical. Quickly she would spot something else and focus on that for a while, only to again see the yellow plastic and start spinning, over and over, around and around.

And here's a funny German present for you. The best is at the very end of the clip:

Overheard on the bus

This is what I heard on the bus this morning as a kid was talking on his cell loud and unashamedly:

-Get Chris.
-Get Chris.
-What does Chris do that I do?
-Get Chris.
-I wish I were blazed. Just get Chris.
-Is this Chris?
-Dude, are you buying or selling?
-Cali. Yeah.
-K. Call you later.

Gee. I wonder what was going on? I think he had a lot of guts for doing that in front of everyone. Pretty dumb.

**Addition, blazed means high on marijuana. I looked it up in a slang dictionary, which, if you're feeling adventurous and in the mood to see choice words, can look up yourself. Warned and forewarned.
oh, and the word "forewarned" when you warn someone, don't you usually advise them before something happens? isn't that the idea? then why forewarn. it seems a little redundant, ¿no?

Goings on at church

Worst pick-up line EVER: So, your grandpa died?

That one will get some mileage, I'm sure. What was he thinking?

All in all, though, I love my new ward. Church is what church is supposed to be: worship and learning. It's quite a novelty after our brief stint in the Old Mill ward.
Yay! for Sundays!
Now I'm going to go feed my post-church hunger pangs.


What are some of your favorite/anti-favorite pick-up lines?

Is your name virtue because you've been garnishing my thoughts. (Shout-out to Alex)

Favicon

This is what a favicon is. I've added one to my blog. It should be a nice little picture right up there by the address. Can you see it? It works best on Firefox, but it might be available on other web browsers, too.
Here's to hoping you can see it!!

Voting everywhere, y ¿¿calentura??

Before I write anything else, I just want to state that I really like eggplant.
That's what I got last night at Olive Garden.

I went to the Provo library yesterday to vote, where I always go to vote. But for some reason they weren't holding any voting there. Frustrating. So the nice lady in the Children's Library helped me and sent me off to Farrer Elementary to vote. My friend Rebeca had just past her thesis defense (Wahoo! since W.ford was on her committee), and she was in the library's parking lot waiting for me and then we were headed off to the Jardín de Olivas. Well, she indulged me and drove me to Farrer, where my name didn't appear on the list of possible voters. I'd been sent to the wrong place again. So the nice lady there helped me by sending me to the old UVSC building at BYU by Helaman Halls. On the way there Sonia called Rebeca trying to figure out where we were and why we were so late. This is when I learned the word "ciudadana" as Rebeca complained about being stuck with this "ciudadana responsable que quiere votar..." Finally I was able to vote, and I think for the first time as a citizen of Utah, the way that I've voted has followed the majority results. Yay! Vouchers killed! Provo results!
It was a weird trip to be part of a majority.

So I went to dinner with 2 argentinas, 1 chilena and 1 uruguya. What did I get from the night?
1st that "calentura" is not "hot flash."
2nd that none of them could remember how to say "hot flash."
3rd that my dad also doesn't know that word in Spanish: "How would I know? I've never had one."

Rebeca would like me to point out here that she doesn't know either because that's still a long way away for her and she has no need to know.

Don't worry, the internet didn't seem to know either.

Derek Redmond

Yesterday at church we were discussing finishing races--or life's race or something. We were talking about the Timothies and Titus, so there must be some sort of verse in there about races and the importance of finishing and not necessarily coming in first. I leaned over and told Em one of my favorite things that I ever watched, it's about Derek Redmond.
Back in 1992 he was one of the favorites for the gold medal for the 400 meters. About half way thru the semifinal race he grabbed his right thigh and then collapsed to the track: his hamstring had snapped. Some of the officials went over to him and workers started to bring a stretcher over, but when he realized that they wanted to take him off the track, he shrugged them off and started to walk to the finish line because he wanted to complete his race. You could see how much pain he was in as he limped down the track. Other officials tried to get him to quit, but he pushed them away. Then this man jumped from the stands and jogged over to him. Redmond tried to push him away, but then realized it was his father. When he leaned on his father for support, he broke down and started to cry. Another official tried to get Redmond to stop and get his dad off the track, but his dad, Jim, pushed him away and said, "I'm his father." Redmond got a standing ovation as he continued down the track and crossed the finish line, his father supporting him the whole way.
I still remember what Redmond said in the interview afterward, "I wasn't going to ------ well not finish the race." His dad said, "But whatever happens he had to finish, and I was there to help him finish. I intended to go over the line with him. We started his career together, I think we should finish it together."
I remember watching this the day it happened. It was my favorite moment from the Olympics that year, and very possibly the best thing I've ever seen in any Olympics I've watched. For years after the '92 Barcelona Games, I had this picture hanging on my wall to remind me to not give up.

SNL skit: i couldn't believe it

I know I just posted a couple of hours ago, but I couldn't go to bed without posting this, for fear I'd forget to:

Near-death experience and love stories

First, I am alive today because I saw the tail end of a news report about this.

I don't really like love stories, even (especially) if it's Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
However, if it's the French version, I'm d'ac. I learned about this musical from Stick. She actually saw it in Paris while she lived in France for a year.
I really like this song, "Les rois du monde" (Kings of the World).

This next clip has this flowy woman dressed in white. I think she goes by La Muette, but I don't really know. She doesn't say anything and the characters "can't see her." My guess is she's a nicer version of Death. But she's really funny and sort of annoying.


Not quite the fluffy costumes of the Jackson 5/70s Romeo and Juliet, but still pretty funny looking.

Carol Burnett can make everything better?

This weekend very well might be the worst of the year. Yes, we return to Mountain Standard Time. A full hour of my late afternoon/early evening is brutally ripped away. Since time is a rather arbitrary entity, anyway, can't we please just standardize to Daylight Savings and quit with all of these changing stuff. I love how we have about 3 extra weeks now of Daylight Savings due to the bill signed by President Bush in '05. Click on the link and look at the groups of people that supported and opposed this portion of the bill. Who knew that some of these groups would care?! And who knew that some of these groups would actually be groups?!

Today as I was walking up the stairs and one of them must have moved because I sprawled a bit and my milk jug cracked and started to spew milk at its side. It was pretty funny. I salvaged a large portion of my milk, but the stairs and the landings are pretty wet and white right now.

And here I post a clip from the Carol Burnett Show starring the Jackson 5. I do this in honor of Dear assumeundone who now has a nice, new, overdue toothbrush. It makes me oh, so happy.
The absolute best part of this video is the horrific outfits the Jacksons were forced to wear. They are inexplicable. The second-best part of this clip is the minor earthquake a little over 3 minutes into the scene.


Here's a great one that I can't embed.

Here's one that I can:


And one more:

students funnies

students say funny things, so i think i'm going to start posting more of their malapropisms and their funny language-learning mistakes.
Today we were learning comparative phrases (he's nicer than she is; she is better than them, etc.)
Just like in English, you can't say "more good" (mais bom), instead saying a different word like better (melhor). I told my students that they should NEVER say "mais bom" because it was ugly. So one student took the "more" ending -er and added it to "bom" that's said like [bõ]--a really nasal vowel [o]. So what did he say? "Ele é bom-er de seu amigo." It sounded really bad, especially with the nasalized vowel: ele é bõ-er de seu amigo.
My back was to my students, as I was writing on the whiteboard. I lost it and started to laugh. I felt bad but it was funny.
Lesson #1, do not add English word endings to foreign words.

Thus begins the Christmas Wish List

Did I ever drool over this.

All-Purpose Rabbits

We were talking about hobbies in one of my classes last week. One student was discussing what she used to do as a kid: "Quando eu era mais jovem, eu gostava de andar de coelho." For the huge majority of you out there that no speak the Portuguese, "When I was younger, I used to ride rabbits." cavalo, I believe, is the word she was looking for, horse.

When my dad was on a mission in central California, he was translating for this Spanish-speaking couple during sacrament meeting. During the meeting my father translated Lamb of God (Cordero de Dios) as Conejo de Dios (Rabbit of God). He knew that he had done something wrong when the couple started to shake with laughter.

The other mistake from today I'm pretty sure that I can't post on my blog because it'd get flagged. Oops.

This play goes on forever, I mean, honestly!

How did this team pull it off?

Addictions fomented

I have an addiction to politics and political banter shows. Emily likes very much to do crosswords, something that I've started to appreciate more. These two combined in a scene from the documentary Wordplay, a film crossword puzzles and the people that do them (trailer). You won't believe what the NYTimes pulled off for election day, '96:

I heart new toothbrushes

I just want to point out that today (well yesterday as of about 35 minutes) was a new toothbrush day. I got a 2 for $5 deal. Brushing with a new toothbrush was a comforting way to end a pretty junky day. The new toothbrush was greatly overdue according to my excessive standards.






**Notice goofy shower doors partially hidden by curtains. The shower is directly off of my bedroom. What on earth were they thinking??

The Unfortunate Names

Sometimes parents aren't thinking or worse, they think they're so clever. But whatever it is, sometimes children end up with terrible names. The famous culprits are often celebrities with nothing better to do.
Names like Montana Sierra Sioux, Together, AnA, Kar-rizma-Keyra, Whizdom, Jane't, Ramiyahsuitofi, Ahonesty Ny'Kirra Amirr, Bishop, Ezq, Diezel, Quawntavious Ra'shun De'mone, Jay'Leiah Twy-emirah-n'Ava, Qchristopher, C'Tha, Schlock, Junnet Ph.

But the best name of someone that I personally know is Dakota Lynn Starblanket Wolfchild

But what the message of this post really comes down to is the importance of the Utah Baby Namer. I suggest clicking on the Cream of the Crop for all of your baby naming needs. I'm sure that you'll find something in the list that will suit you just fine.

Ice Cream or Pie??

mmmmmm...mint chocolate chip

my favorite pie is pumpkin (this is what gretchen tells me) but i do love that blueberry and strawberry...

You Are Pumpkin Pie

You're the perfect combo of uniqueness and quality Those who like you are looking for something (someone!) special

What Kind of Pie Are You?

And in another shocking announcement...

Dumbledore and Charles are brothers! Yes, Dumblydore is the wizard prince.

I'm sorry, i'm just not d'ac with this whole Dumbledore mess.
I admit it, I'm bugged. Now, after the end of the series she reveals this? And it was obvious? I honestly didn't see it coming. And what's the purpose? I don't think it was necessary in the story, meaning I think book 7 worked just fine without this as a backdrop. Anyone else agree?

Can you imagine how this is gonna fan the fire of all of that extreme "religious" criticism???
Duh, the books aren't satanic, but I don't wanna see this debate on the news again. It makes everyone stupider.

I'm a sinner?

I found a picture of this protester. I think it was taken in NY (??). I had no idea I was in such ignominious company. Ahhh, sports, my great vice!

P2 the movie!!

This will mean so much to some of you and absolutely nothing to the rest.
There's a movie called P2! I kid you not. I died laughing when I saw the commercial. Not that I support the watching of this movie. But, WOW!!!!
I can totally understand why, as I lived there, below P4...

Knighted

Who knew this was how it was done??

Roxette's music is not "oldies"

No matter what the genre label might have said on iTunes, I put my foot down, well stamp it hard and declare "that, NO!, Roxette's music is far from Oldies!!!" Dadgummit!
The 80s are not Oldies. I mean, is this old?:

One reason why I like where I live

We live at the end of a cul-de-sac. And even though we live in Old Mill, it doesn't feel like it most times because we're so secluded. Every morning when I catch my bus and every time I come back from school, there are kids out playing. This morning there were two girls, about 4 and 2, playing make-believe, I think. One of them had on cowboy boots that were far from matching her cute outfit. Then as I was walking back after getting of the bus, a little girl who looked no more than 18 months teetered down the incline of a driveway. She was really short and had little pig tails sticking out of the side of her head. She was carefully holding on to a book, which seems like a delicate balance between actually being able to hold something and walk at the same time.
There are so many kids around that I have as of yet to really recognize them, because there are so many running around. It's great.

What American accent do you have?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The South
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Battle of Hastings

On this date in 1066 William the Conquerer gave it to the Brits and the English language was never the same: pig and pork, cow and beef, chief and chef, motive and motif, love and amour.
If it hadn't been for the invasion, all those romance languages would be so much harder for us to learn.
J'aime les français, tous les français, même les français que je n'aime pas!

Everybody wants to rule the world means getting a haircut

There was this two- or three-year period in my life when I was in elementary school where every single time I went to Susan's Hair Design on Spanish Fork's Main Street (which was about 4 times a year) to get either a hair cut or the twice-yearly perm, the song Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears would come on the radio. They listened to KISN 97.1 and that station never failed to play the song when I'd get my hair cut. Every time I'd go I'd think, "Nah, it won't come on this time. It's a fluke." But, nope, it always came on for like three years without fail. I told my mom about it and she thought I was crazy. But I'd report to her that in the 20 or 60 minutes that I was there, the song had come one. I think she thought it was weirder that I'd noticed or that I'd care to keep track.
Why did I write this? Because the song just came up on my iTunes and before I'd realized that it was playing I got this urge to get a hair cut and I smelled this crazy (nonexistent) whiff of hair permanent chemicals.



Oh, and just as an anecdote that possibly only I find funny/interesting: one of the phonetic books for my thesis makes clear that the [t] and [d] sounds in Portuguese are produced at the front teeth. What? Do we have back teeth?

Columbus Day** and gummy candy or "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" and gummy candy

Yesterday was Columbus Day. I think my favorite thing about Columbus Day is the Leif Land First shirt that Sarah wears.
I have a friend from the Portuguese program who wanted (wants??) to do his thesis about the theory that Columbus was actually Portuguese. Who knew that there'd been all of these theories swirling around that Columbus might not actually be the son of a Genoese weaver? I guess Columbus kept his past pretty well hidden, so theories have cropped up. The New York Times had and article about it. But even better they had a condensed chart of the theories. Pretty interesting, but, you know, Occam's Razor, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one," (the excessively long Wikipedia article). So what do you think is the simplest solution? Columbus never wrote in Italian, only Spanish, so... ???

Also, I've had a weird craving lately for a gummy candy. I can't quite put my finger on which kind I'm craving, so my dear blogger friends, do you mind helping me identify what on earth it is that I want? Merci, quoi.

But I am not in the market for gummy bacon, gummy steak, gummy road kill, gummy heart, gummy body parts, gummy hen and eggs, gummy thanksgiving meals, gummy cockroaches, gummy eyeballs, or Haribo bears.

But when diamonds aren't enough...

Wedding dresses and rings

Did you know that Target sells cheap wedding dresses? J.Crew has them too? Since I've never really looked at wedding dresses before, and have contemplated wearing a white lavalava instead of a dress, I had no idea the options that are out there. I wasn't doing this for any particular reason, but I hear that girls often like to look at wedding dresses.
Anyway, if you type in "Vanessa's wedding dress" on google images you get this.
But if you type in "Emily's wedding dress" you get this.
Em didn't find this particularly hysterical. I did.

And I can't believe that I'm admitting this to the blog world. But I've actually thought about what kind of ring I would want. I don't like gems at all. I never have. I really like bands and that's all that I'd want, something simple. So you know rose gold? I really like it with white gold. A whole lot actually. I want some type of band with the white and rose gold together, maybe have the two tones meet in the middle of the band, with colors something like this, only for girls.
Oh, man alive, this is getting too complicated for me. How about this? Simple.

Wait, someone explain to me why I blogged about this?

I feel like I've done something other than complain

Senator Hatch from Utah voted in favor of CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). I was very happy to see that. But Senator Bennett and Representative Cannon voted against the bill that was just vetoed by the President.
It made me frustrated because I think that making sure than children are insured is worth my tax dollars--even if it means that I pay higher taxes. So I complained to Emily and got all in a fuss over it.
Then I saw an article saying that Senator Hatch voted "Aye." So I emailed him a thank-you note. Then I decided to email Senator Bennett and Rep. Cannon asking them to vote in favor of further legislation that would give children better health care.
I feel like I've done something more than complain. I feel a lot better now that I've acted and not just shot off my mouth.

Trees are the answer

Then what's the question?




Oh, and I was watching a press conference for the Jena 6, and the prosecutor thanked some people for their support and then said that he owed them his undying gratification.
Eww and oops. Gratitude, buddy. Next time you're on national TV get your nouns right.

Becky's NASCAR Tattoo

I called Becky today to chit chat since she's still in the country because Spain still isn't in the mood to okay her visa for the teaching job that they hired her for. Ahhh, bureaucracy....
Anyway, she reassured me that she's been keeping busy helping her parents with the extension to their house. They've been putting up siding and they've had a protective cover up, it's plastic that's been okayed by NASCAR. What the??? Anyway, she was much pleased by this. We got on the subject of how 47% of NASCAR fans are women. Why? The drivers are supposedly hotties.
Somehow this whole conversation ballooned into her marrying a NASCAR driver. I said, mocking her, that she would look great with a racing tattoo on her arm. "Arm?" she protests. "I would get one on my butt, thank you!"
For all of you who had an idea of a pristine Becky, I hope that it's been dashed.

Oh, here are some links to some of my favorites: Star Wars, prophets, last supper, eyes, head mowing, hugging, star wars again, clay aiken, star wars 3, star wars 4, star wars 5, Boba Fett, Yoda, Yoda 2, Yoda 3, Yoda 4, Van Gogh??!!, and a scary grandma.

I must admit that I laughed

Should I be so horribly offended? I mean it's pathetic and it's not exactly following, to be honest, their covenants, but it's so stupid!!!
Mormons exposed, Men on a Mission, an elder calendar. I'll let you hunt out the video they made that's posted on YouTube.

Thought that might only be interesting to me

There's been an uproar lately because the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, is not only in New York, but got invited to Columbia University for a forum. He said some pretty far-out there things today about his country. He claims that Iran has no gays. He got a laugh for that one. But he was serious. ???!!! I really think the man's a wack job. But he's sorta smart in the way that he words things. This man would be a nonentity in a lot of ways, but he's standing up to a big country--or at least that's what it seems like.
People away from the U.S. see the protesters against him and he looks like he's standing up against this great nation. It only emboldens his supporters and makes some people in the middle ground lean toward Ahmadinejad.
Who knows, maybe the best way to treat a man like this, one who wants to wipe Israel off the map, denies the existence of the Holocaust or at least its extent (like 1 million is better than 6?!), claims that his uranium enriching is for peaceful purposes (except the type of enrichment is only for bombs [note the part about wiping Israel off the map]), now claims that it's for dangerous purposes, etc. etc. etc., anyway, maybe the best way to treat a man like this is to not protest, to not pay him any attention, to ignore his blabbering claims, to make him the mostly nonentity that he was, to treat him like a useless outcast that gets his country no where on the world's stage.

But I understand the desires to stand up to him as the Columbia University's president did today in the most unkind introduction of an invited speaker I've ever heard. I understand why the people outside at CU's campus would want to voice their opinion. It's a free country and free speech is so important. But now we've shown Ahmadinejad that we way take him seriously, even though everything he says shows that he's a total dotard.

I say laugh at him like he got laughed at today.

#100!!!!

Post the hundredth!!

And to celebrate, I thought I'd tell you all about how I got owned yesterday. I missed the bus that I normally take, so I waited 15 minutes to take the bus that would get me to class at about 9:03. I was going to be late, but the clocks at UVSC are always off. The bus was late so I got into class at about 9:10. Who was there waiting for me? My supervisor had picked yesterday as the day to stop into my class. Nice. I've been on time this semester--in the morning. I am notoriously terrible at mornings and morning classes. So of course the day that I'm really late is the day she shows.
But other than that, things went well. She said that she liked the classes and what not.
I was on time to class today.

Siblings

The rest of the family, compared...

This is a fun comparison shopping game...








Mom and Gpa and Gma Pittsley. It should be no shock that she looks more like her mom...


Dad and Gpa and Gma Swenson.


Wow! Now wasn't that fun? You should all give it a try. They've got a celebrity look-alike thingie going on too.

Who do I look like more? Clark or Cindy?

Someone's Suing God

I wasn't going to post for a bit after my really long post yesterday, but, seriously how can I let this one go? Someone is suing God. Here are some of the excerpts:

Chambers lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in Douglas County Court, seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats. The lawsuit admits God goes by all sorts of alias, names, titles and designations and it also recognizes the fact that the defendant is “Omnipresent”.
In the lawsuit Chambers says he’s tried to contact God numerous times, “Plaintiff, despite reasonable efforts to effectuate personal service upon Defendant (“Come out, come out, wherever you are”) has been unable to do so.”The suit also requests that the court given the “peculiar circumstances” of this case waive personal service. It says being Omniscient, the plaintiff assumes God will have actual knowledge of the action. The lawsuit...says God has caused, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.”
**Me interjecting**
Look at the beautiful alliteration in the previous sentence. I mean, WOW! Continuing:
The suit also says God has caused, “calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction.” Chambers asks for the court to grant him a summary judgment. He says as an alternative, he wants the judge to set a date for a hearing as “expeditiously” as possible and enter a permanent injunction enjoining God from engaging in the types of deleterious actions and the making of terroristic threats described in the lawsuit.

Here's where I found the article. Now, I acquiesce that the man was just trying to prove a point against what he sees as frivolous law suits. But, come on, honestly...

mongolian

Sarah-seems as though your Mongolian contact hasn't been as fun as mine.
Bepa-i said that i loved Mongolians, not that i knew any Mongolian. What on earth did you type me?

I can be such a pragmatist, an old pragmatist at that.

I've gone to our new ward 3 times now. I know it's still the beginning of the year and things haven't gotten settled down, but our ward's sorta weird. I'm still not sure what Sacrament meeting was about. I think it was supposed to be about the temple and the first speaker spoke about why she liked the temple (that was the topic she was given), but the other two speakers didn't really talk a lot about the temple (but they did say a lot that we've since texted back and forth to each other). The Sunday School lesson wasn't a lot better (I'm not sure at all what the topic was except for some anecdotes about a competitive friend from high school).
But Relief Society was a lot better, which restored my faith in the ward--sorta. At least I know that once a month when this girl teaches I'll learn something and enjoy RS. There's a funny story from the lesson that I'll tell in a sec.
The thing that bugs from the ward is that it's pretty fluffy, very much into the "you-need-to-just-feel-good" attitude. That's all well and good, if that's your flavor, go for it. But at church when we're supposed to be discussing doctrines? Honestly...I miss talking about the beautiful truths of the Gospel. I'm too much of a pragmatist: here's truth, let's discuss it and figure out how to apply it in our lives so that we become better people. Outlandish, I know. Hopefully things'll get better. (fingers crossed)

So when girl was teaching the lesson she was discussing about how she went to her home ward for 18 months instead of the single's ward in Detroit. She said that she became really, really good friends with the older women of the ward. We're all thinking the widows, right? Then she says, "I mean a lot older, like 40 or something." I died. Forty??? Problem: bishopric's wives. Hah!! One of their hands immediately shot into the air, "Excuse me??!!" She had a smile on her face and girl teaching was totally embarrassed and didn't mean what she had said and tried to smooth it over by saying, "Well, relatively." Smart. It was hilarious. A lot older. According to G&K's niece that's the downward end of middle aged, which begins at 29. G&K are so old!!

Oh, another age anecdote about people hating on their elders. On Monday we went to the combined FHE ward opening social. By we I mean me and cousin Brock and Twink (his sister not in the ward). Free pizza. Soon after Chance and his 2 buddies showed up. We were talking and Chance was teasing his friend about being old (because he's older than Chance). They were discussing for some reason turning 16. Chance to friend, "Yeah didn't you turn 16 in, what, '95?" Friend, indignant, "A-hole! It wasn't until '97." I responded under my breath for Twink and Brock, "I turned 16 in '95." They enjoyed that. Then Chance started teasing friend again about graduating forever ago in like '97. I responded again, quietly, "I graduated in '97."
People can be such haters. I mean, why do you gotta go being all agist, hating on your elders and all?

So with that, I leave you something funny to round out this rambling post. Hopefully this will help you to always take a good path in your life, fool.



Courtesy of MormonAdz at divinecomedy.net

Bibliophile

I'm such an addict. I have rules that I've laid out for myself. I'm not allowed to go to Circuit City, for example. I'm not allowed to go to book sales, either, or bookstores, for that matter. Bookstores are disastrous for my checking account. All I was going to get in Barcelona was 1 Harry Potter book and an English-Catalan dictionary. I left with I think 9 books.
Case in point, today I needed to get some ink for my fountain pens so I had to go to the bookstore. I'd already bought a cheap book by José Saramago, A NOITE, at the progressive book sale, so I figured I was safe. I'm weak, so weak. I walked by the foreign book section, you know, the one with grammar books and dictionaries. I started pawing at different languages: Italian, German, Indonesian, etc. I decided that today was a multiple book day. Maybe a French book? But I have tons of those and nothing was jumping out at me. I wandered to the Harry Potter section and saw that the foreign language selection has been dwindling. Very sad. Well it dwindled a little bit more when I bought book 3 in German. But I can't have a book in a language I don't know without a dictionary. And honestly, what good is reading in German if I don't understand the basic grammar of the language?
I'm gonna learn German--but later, after Catalan.
I am weak. Very, very weak.
Books.............

derelict

I do believe that I've been a derelict poster of late, I'm sorry about that. Moving has gotten me into a different rhythm in life and I need to figure things out.
Today I hung out with a bunch of Mongolians at my friend Tseegii's baby shower. Mongolians happen to be my favorite people. They are so much fun, so nice, so caring. Yes, I believe they trump the Brazilians. Since it was me and 6 Mongolians, this is what I heard all afternoon, "Tchilheisngai aitche disgusting chiidertai aimiichiikhai!" or "Tsichai typical Mormon chetykailha buklitsemai bii chamd hairtai. Scrapbooking chi bayerla bii bayertai." or "Baby lotion tsii chamai bubble bath chekha meghilai." I would understand the random English words, but never had any idea of what was really going on. But they were all smiling and laughing and I completely enjoyed myself. I love Mongolians.

In one of my classes we were discussing clothes and one of my students (they're all guys) was having a hard time remembering vocabulary and said the first thing in the book that his eyes caught a hold of: bikini. "Eu uso bikini." How can you not laugh? He wears a bikini? It was so funny.

Terror warning!: When we moved in to 331, I was rearranging the storage closet a bit, the closet doors that were stored in there, etc., there was an unopened wrapper from planned parenthood on the floor. I hadn't recognized what it was and picked up what I thought was some trash. Blech. We'd heard that there'd been some problems at our apartment, but we weren't expecting to find an unused condom. I'm sorry if any of you feel scandalized, I certainly did. Then I put it in Claire's (Em's friend's) makeup bag.
What kind of place did I move to?!?!?!?

Always look on the bright side of life!

This post has a theme song:


Tonight Scottie, Laurel, Cindy, Clark and I went to see Spamalot in SLC. It is one funny musical. I laughed uproariously (shocking) at many moments. What do the Knights Who Say "Ickyniaogishneioxoingn Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me aoioangoing" (the former Knights Who Say Ni!) ask for once the shrubbery is delivered? That King Arthur perform a Broadway musical, and what's worse? It has to be an Andrew Lloyd Webber (gasp!!).
Don't worry, the true moral of the story is to find the grail in all of us, ahhh, the grail, the great symbol of something.

Happy again

Okay, I know that not a lot of you (any??) are gonna care about this, but right now I'm watching a college football game on ESPN. Why am I telling you this? Because it's college football season again!!!!
Here are some pictures to show you why I'm so happy.

Honestly, when there's a play like this, how could you not be excited?:


I know that not too many of you are going to care about these links, but they're pretty awesome.
8-minute clip of the 2006 BYU-Utah game.
Another shot of Beck-to-Harline.
Great hits from the last 10 years, with stupid music.
2006 BYU season in review.
Punter Matt Payne tackles hard. (but he blew the field goal at the end...)

I am caught!

Well hello my bloggy friends! I'm still in the middle of moving because I keep doing other things in the middle of moving. I'm glad that I still have until Friday, but I'd rather just finish up by tomorrow night...We'll see, eh?
I've had all of these great ideas for a blog entry, but honestly cannot remember one of them. I'm gonna be really exciting when I'm settled into our new apartment--which I'm sure I will accidentally call P6 instead of 331 for like 2 months or something.

Oh, so you know (maybe) how I ran into my cousin in Lisbon? Well, I ran into him at UVSC where he's taking a Portuguese class right after one that I teach. That's not quite as exciting, I know. But today as David and I were moving a desk to his apartment (he also lives at Old Mill), I hear my name shouted out and I look over and it's my same cousin. So Chance is in my ward, along with Brock. Go figure. I keep running into these people. They were supposed to live at Parkway Crossing (or something like that), but the apartments were filthy in every imaginable definition of that word... Nasty. I love how I run into family everywhere, whether in Europe or my new ward. Honestly.

I thought I'd post some quizzy things that I did recently. So maybe they're not too shocking. But I chuckled.

B.A. meetings anyone?

72%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?



70% Geek

Cha-cha-cha-changes

(Turn the face and strain)

I moved some stuff today to my new apartment. Doesn't that sound weird: my new apartment. I've lived at Pinegar for 5 years, you know. After Em and I were done moving stuff into 331 and giving tons of things to DI, we met Claire and Bradi (a girl) for dinner. I ate too much and had way too much Mr. Pibb. I pretty sure that I passed thru about 30 minutes of the closest thing to a hangover I'll ever feel. Seeing as my condition was less than exemplary, Em and Claire dropped me off at Pinegar.
I walked into P6, noting that Gretchen's car--the yellow bug (Black Cat)--wasn't in the parking lot. Walking into P6 I could feel that it was different. The apartment became very empty when Stick departed for Cedar. Now that the Newt's at her place the apartment doesn't feel like my home any more. Newt and Stick aren't very sentimental people, especially outwardly, and I pretend that I'm not. But I'll admit flat out right now that I miss P6. I'm here right now, but it's not P6 anymore. (This should make it easier to move, eh?) Oh my, this has now become a sob story. Sorry about that.
The time that I've spent here has been wonderful. I've lived at places that have been apartments, but P6 was my home and a place to come to where I felt safe. I'm going to miss this.
There's a lot of change going on now in my life, with my master's program coming to a close, teaching at UVSC, Cindy moving to Virginia, not having P6 as a home and not having the SF home. Life right now is weird. My goal is to come out alive, eh?

So, to quote the lyrics to Changes by quite possibly the creepiest musician of the 70s, David Bowie (Labyrinth, anyone?):
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes