Vote in the new poll! ------------------->

Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny

One of the more important things that I've found lately

I stumbled onto this tonight. I really think it might be one of my most momentous finds in a long time:


TR2N is going to be in 3D. oh my oh my oh my.
Sorry the quality of the clip is bad.
Viva Comic Con.


user, user, user...


and for good measure:




YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
NO NO NO NO

the Sirius link

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I really like the winter night sky, its stars and constellations.
Sirius is the brightest object in our sky that does not come from our solar system. (First the Sun, then the Moon, then Venus, then Jupiter)
The Egyptian name of Sirius, the Dog Star, or main star of Canis Major, was KLB. (Vowels were not noted at the time like the are today.) KLB was Egyptian for dog. At the time, the appearance of Sirius in the sky was the way that the Egyptians knew that the Nile was going to flood. This was the way those living along the river survived, the Nile flood essentially making the land fertile. Obviously this was an important marker to the Egyptians. They used an important name that would recall a few things to them. KLB was a play on words because it also meant, and was probably said like, Kolob. It was as if it were a reminder to them, the star's appearance meant temporal life. Thus it was a symbol of eternal life.

Even though later this meaning and idea was lost, the initial reason why KLB was used is linked to the facsimiles in Abraham and the time he spent hanging out with the Egyptians and teaching them. That topic will be for another post. And it is darn cool.


As a side note, the Nile no longer floods. Crazy, I know. But it's not like it wasn't to be expected.


And for an etymological side note in Semitic: Qalb in Arabic means heart or home of God. In Hebrew, Qereb (Qarab) means center or nearest part (to the soul), etc.

No graduation?

I was just in the BYU bookstore looking for a greeting card: Happy Graduation. They didn't have one slot marked for said cards, nor did they have any just hanging around. Anybody else find this disconcerting?

and now for something completely different

a student emailed this to me. how could I not share?

an addendum to Sauron's eye/new planet picture thingie

ESPN.com can be useful in so many ways. I just found this picture in an article from ESPN that helps us find the planet (referenced in an earlier blog post) around Formalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis. This is pretty cool:
For a better view, click here.

Isn't that simply amazing? Wow. I love the stars.

Speaking of stars, you know my favorite part about Winter? The stars in the night sky. Aren't the winter stars beautiful?I love Orion, it's such a great constellation. And the star Sirius in the bottom left corner of the picture is great. I think I'm going to post sometime soon about Sirius and the Egyptians, and the Mormon connection. If I forget, remind me. It's pretty schwank.

my Christmas wish list proves just how nerdy I am

Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, what my wish list was. It took me a while to think of anything. After I'd told mom what I wanted, I yet again realized how uber nerdy I am:
John Adams Bio
Team of Rivals
History of American Political Thought
Toothbrushes, yes, plural.

And there's an item that's perpetually on my general wish list, and that someday I'll convince myself to finally buy: Ken Burns' Baseball. Oh, and this, too.

What else should I want? I can't think of anything. Especially when some of my most favorite items are free.

New Trailer

This is the new HP6 US trailer that they're releasing with Twilight this next weekend.
I would like to point out that this next weekend was supposed to be the date of HP6's release.
The new trailer makes the movie look great. We'll see. I'm thinking about protesting the pushing back of the release and not going to see the movie until it's been out for a bit, so that their opening weekend numbers aren't as good.

Oh, click here for bigger versions.

would you want to live on this planet?

So according to CNN, "Astronomers capture first images of new planets."
This is the picture that they have right now on CNN's homepage:

Which of course inevitably reminds us of:
Would you want to live on this new planet?
Eesh

never give up! never surrender!

This is the last post for today, I promise.
In Relief Society today we were talking about the 2nd Coming & Millennium (I imagine a lot of you out there were, too). A girl quoted this movie, saying "Never give up! Never surrender!" I seriously had to bite my lip, concentrate hard on being reverent, and deny myself a belly laugh. I love that she quoted this scene:

salmon

2 nights ago I had a dream about a mad craving for salmon. I got a fillet in my dream and commenced eating it. I woke up right after that and thought it was a rather weird thing for me to want so desperately.
But I couldn't shake it, so I had a grilled salmon fillet yesterday. It was great.


Who am I? What have I done with myself?

ologies

I just stole this from both Emily and Anna-Lisa [ænəlísə]

*FOODOLOGY*
What is your salad dressing of choice? chunky blue (bleu?) cheese
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? i really don't think i have one. i like lots of different places and different styles of food. that churrascaria in Foz do Iguaçu had some great food.
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? beans and rice, beans and rice.
What are your pizza toppings of choice? pepperoni and pineapple (sometimes with sausage for fun)
What do you like to put on your toast? scottie and mom made this tasty strawberry freezer jam a few weeks ago that's just great

*TECHNOLOGY*
What is your wallpaper on your computer? a picture of Grand Canyon West
How many televisions are in your house? 3, but only 2 are used.
What color cell phone do you have? navy blue. but i need a new one. i'm sick of it sending random texts.

*BIOLOGY*
Are you right-handed or left-handed? right
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? 4 wisdom teeth. bone spur. the alien. (okay, that last one was bad.)
What is the last heavy item you lifted? not the foggiest. do pushups count?
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? yep. wallyball, once. softball once or twice. probably other times, too.

*BULLCRAPOLOGY*
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? nope.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Lorgh L'kor (click here), or maybe Eviess Ariennye (click here), Sweva Laspa (click here), maybe someday my last name?
Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? right now, maybe. when i'm financially a bit more stable? not on your life.

*DUMBOLOGY*
How many pairs of flip flops do you own? 4 or 5. maybe more.
Last time you had a run-in with the cops? a run-in? never. but i got a speeding ticket over the summer.
What do you want to be when you grow up? mom. teacher. political wonk. youth sports coach.
Last person you talked to? scottie
Last person you hugged? mom

FAVORITOLOGY*
Season? hot days of summer
Holiday? i like the 4th of July and the 24th b/c of the BBQing. i like christmas.
Day of the week? i don't know if i have one. saturday for sports. weekdays b/c of teaching. sunday b/c of church and family dinners.
Month? july for weather. october for baseball. march for basketball.

*CURRENTOLOGY*
Missing someone? sure am.
Mood? pretty great :D
Listening to? football game. (in general, harry potter books)
Watching? football game. (in general, too)
Worrying about? i'm trying to figure out if i'm worried about anything. oh, probably nothing, then, huh?

*RANDOMOLOGY*
First place you went this morning? out of the house? church
What can you not wait to do? eat the homemade pizza downstairs.
What's the last movie you saw? we watched Pirates 1 last night.
Do you smile often? yes, with belly laughter.

99

So I'm subscribed to 99 blogs.
Who wants to be #100?

Song in the head

Some of you probably know that I often have a soundtrack to my dreams. I wake up a lot of times with a song in my head. But yesterday's was weird: I'm Henry the 8th, I am.
I really wonder what I was dreaming about.

the GOP regrouping at homebase

I can't believe that I'm about to write this entry.

The GOP needs to regroup and needs to do it fast. Among the leadership of the party down many, many republicans that I've talked to, there seems to be a lack of continuity of idea. The party needs to gather around strong leaders that represent the best of the GOP, leaders who have a vision of the future.
Man alive, am I going to write this? The GOP needs to rally around Mitt Romney (and people just like him). The reason why is that his basic political beliefs are exactly the core ideals of what the GOP has had as its backbone for the last I don't know how many decades.

The political stances of the bulk of the members of American political parties tend to clump together in a moderate middle. By that I mean a moderate position within the party's ideology. The bell curve below shows the Republican party circa 1998. The party was fairly united on many core Republican issues. Because of this unity, the ideology of the Republican party looked a lot like a good bell curve:
There are obviously some going to be some people who are more the right or the middle of the party. But the majority will be found in the middle.

People in the W. Bush administration (note, not necessarily the President) pushed a political stance that was much farther to the Right than the so-called "base" of the party.
i.e.
It was a very sly movement on their part, and not totally perceptible, but it happened.
Because of this movement, it made the Democratic party look farther Left than it really was:
The Dems actually were much more of a standard deviation bell curve this whole time. If anything they were leaning toward the middle because it gave them more political clout and helped them to keep their Congressional seats. But it looked skewed because of the Administration's movement.


But what happened to the Republicans? Well, eventually this movement to the Right became obvious and very unsettling to many member of the GOP. In an effort to reestablish the middle ground, people started to look for political positions and ideas to help fix the problems in America. Because there was no longer a firm foundation in the middle, the GOP started to look like this:
There were calls for this and that from all over the spectrum of political opinion. Do you remember hearing anything during the GOP primaries/caucuses and national campaign that carried a solid theme that had actual planning and information behind it? Rarely was there a constant ideology. Senator McCain was trying to rally a disparate Republican party that had no unity in their ideas. This unfortunately made his campaign struggle in their message to the American people as a whole because they didn't know how to calm down the party.

So what's to be done? The GOP needs to examine the basic difficulties in America today, then look at its core ideology and come up with unified front of ideas. These plans must be worked on and then explained to every senator and congressman, who must then clearly explain the ideas to their constituents.

We'll see if this happens. The GOP needs a plan for America, yes. But first they must rein in all of the outlying ideas and move the party back to its center. We'll see if the RNC can do this. We'll know by February.

44

That number has always been a cool one in our family, anyway.
But I especially like it tonight.

Thanks for everyone who GChatted me congrats, left a comment or texted me. It's as if I won myself. It made me smile.
Laurel and I broke out the fake Mormon Champagne and had a jolly good time.

When I saw McCain's speech, I ached for him though. I really wish that he had gotten the GOP nomination in '00. He would've won easily, I think, that year. I would've voted for him then, too, I'm guessing. Oh, how these last 8 years would've been different.

But my craziness of the day? Yes, I wrote in my mom's name under County Commission - Seat C
I usually don't vote for someone who's running uncontested, but this time I pulled a trick.

But I'm pretty overwhelmingly excited as all get out. Yep, stoked.
Whoop!
It's a new thing for me, voting for a winner.

Another possibility ------------->

For those of you who aren't hyped about voting for different candidates or sundry issues, you can vote for your favorite muppet in the poll I created for a friend in a similar predicament.

**Sorry that I forgot Miss Piggy. Totally spaced that one.

My Blues and Reds

First things first: I wanna have a big party tomorrow, all blued and redded up. What should I do?
Also, I'm going early tomorrow morning to vote. I haven't voted yet because I get all cheesy romantic about voting on Tuesday and wearing around my sticker. I really should just get over it.

This is my guess for tomorrow (maybe Wednesday?)

States that I think will go Blue for Obama
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Maine (1 electoral could go Red)
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Vermont
Virgina
Washington (state)
Washington D.C.
Wisconsin
The total for Blue? 338

States that I think will go Red for McCain
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska (1 electoral could go Blue)
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
West Virginia
Wyoming
The total for Red? 200

My crazy prediction? Utah could be at only 59% for McCain! This percentage would be seismic.

Anyway, here's the map:

States that I'm not really sure about: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio

This is why I like him so much: College football playoffs


As soon as I find Senator McCain's, I'll upload it. It was pretty funny.
Found it:

the founding brethren

I almost always accidentally refer to the Founding Fathers and "The Brethren." I've done it before. It's very embarrassing.

Anyway, I can't remember who I promised the comparison of basic political platforms to. So if I promised it to you, will you let me know. I should really write these things down. And if I haven't promised it to you, and you want it, let me know.

Anyone else annoyed about Falling Back? I'm a big fan of making Daylight Savings the standard. Time to start counting down to the 2nd Sunday in March. I love sunsets occurring after 9pm.
You know, I was really happy when the dates were changed to extend Daylight Savings during the year. But I really miss President Monson's reminders during April Conference.

BYU and Colorado State played a game today that was more reminiscent of the crazy scores from the Wacky WAC. Seriously, where'd the Cougars defense go? 45-42?

I don't know how much this will help the Senator's presidential campaign, but it's pretty darn funny:


And one more: