at a time not too long ago, in a place relatively close

I made a very important discovery today, one that might define my future, perhaps my eternity.
This website has opened a whole new world to me. And if ever my mythological wedding does occur, this page will be so important.


I am aware, also, that I have 2 second cousins once removed who, however firmly Mormon, would be naturals.

duh

Very important information

We all need to pray very, very hard that the sky clears up tomorrow, at least in the east so that we can see...wait for it...A COMET!!!
Comet Lulin is passing by us. It was discovered a couple of years ago. These pictures show the comet's tail just off of a distant spiral galaxy. This picture shows it even better. "The comet gains its green colour from poisonous cyanogen and diatomic carbon gases in its atmosphere." How cool's that?
Here are some pictures to help you find it.This makes me exceedingly excited.

Here's a helpful video:

Yet another HP6 post

My supervisor Karen let me in on this particular clip today. There's some new footage. I imagine by the time the movie comes out I will have posted the whole movie in bits and pieces. It looks like this movie is a bit truer to the book. Yay!


This is Harry Potter tag #25 on my blog. Man, oh man. Marie, you thought your U2 obsession was crazy on your blog.

It came from the Google Reader

My RSS feeds today were especially peachy.

Frau Magister wrote a wonderful post during today's madrugada. Those of you that read anything for any particular reason will enjoy what she's written. She's written some excellent entries before, this particular one is an opus magnum.

Conan is so darn funny sometimes.

Celebrating the day I was baptized.

Probably a better review than mine.

Double Frost.

Saving Dying Languages.

And a nice quote from Mark Twain popped up.
(Click on the thing to make it more clear. Don't know why it's being so stupid here.)It reminded me of something that I heard on the Doug Wright Show on KSL one day as I was driving into work, "When someone comes over to your side, he's a patriot. When he leaves your side and goes to the other, he's a traitor." It was a very good point. Maybe we're not as correct as we think we are.

A poll to accompany the last entry

It's been way too long since I last put a poll up. I'm repenting of my laziness and, in reference to my last post, am asking you all what your favorite U2 studio album of all time is.
Admittedly, I still can't decide.

Because it's been requested

Not that I'm a big music critic or anything, but a friend of mine wanted to know what I thought of the new U2 album No Line on the Horizon. I have another friend who loves U2 who probably would give a better review than me. Nevertheless, as per blog entry request, here I go:
The first couple of songs, No Line on the Horizon and Magnificent reminiscent of some of their late 80s, early 90s electric guitar driven songs but with later stylings thrown in. The chords and the rhythms aren't very interesting, the music's just sorta there (not doing justice to those good songs of yore).
In the next three songs, The Edge picks the notes on his electric and uses more lyrical chording. The songs are slower and sorta remind me of the style of One Step Closer from How to Dismantle or Stuck in a Moment. But along with the normal music, U2's decided to throw in random sound effects or weird rhythms. I kid you not, the background rhythms in Moment of Surrender sorta remind me of a mild Björk, the Hunter song, particularly.
But then we hit Get On Your Boots. It makes me think, what on Earth? The music is a lot like Love and Peace or Else. The video is whack. Violent creation is war is art is Duchamp is the patriotic Virgin Mary? It's like a bad scrapbook page.
Song 7-11 sorta rehash the previous songs with a little bit of variation and ... then what?


But what are they really getting at? Well the title No Line on the Horizon is an obvious jab at this. I'm not hating on them for being political because they have every right to be, as much as any of us do. And it's not like it's the first time that U2 has been all political. (etc. etc. etc.)
They've just been so much better at it before. They were trying way too hard with these lyrics and the sounds. Were they trying to do Jimi Hendrix? It'll always backfire when you try that hard.

But sometimes it was really good, and I'm going to remember those times:


So for a U2 album out of 10? Right now I'm giving it a 3. Maybe it'll grow on me. Meh.

Calvin's got it right (?)

Today's weather is so nice for a February day.
But still:

few marriages in Provo? no wonder

If this is the prevailing attitude in Provo, it's no wonder no one's getting married.


Found on FailBlog.org.

What was it really supposed to say? We can't figure it out.

Going above and beyond

Since I got all dictatorial in my last entry, and I'm sorta liking this power trip, what other semi-non-consequential items should I ban during my reign?

It's probably best that I'm not

Because if I were to become president or prime ministeress or something, I would get all dictatorial and on my first day would outlaw skinny jeans on guys.

Something stewing in my mind for months now

I know that this is just a subset of life in general and that I'm sure I'm guilty of something similar in a different realm of my life, perhaps at times in this realm, but I'm flat out sick of snarky political talking heads like Keith Olbermann, Rush Limbaugh, Dan Abrams, Ann Coulter, etc., etc. They take a valid idea, smother it with rude comments, their own ego and an either-agree-with-me-or-you-are-a-baby-hater attitude, and finally spew it over the airwaves. And then we listen and soak up whatever.

(okay, this whole idea could really be about other things in life, too)

I've thought about this for a long time, why it happens, what purpose it serves. I've come to at least a partial conclusion, it's the same thing that goes on in junior high. It's name calling and back biting and putting someone else down to (supposedly) elevate yourself. Instead of just saying, "Hey, these are the reasons why I'm worried about this and this, don't you think these ideas are better?" I hear from liberals (like I did a couple weekends ago), "Those idiotic conservative know-nothings want this country to fail and want to get (expletive) richer all the while." And then I hear from conservatives, "The liberal blankety blanks are out to destroy our (expletive) way of life."

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the juvenality. I'm sick of the name calling. I'm utterly sick of the lack of civil dialog--or dialog in civility.
We are not supposed to act this way.

There. I've said it. It's been broiling since, I don't know, April last?



As an added idea, I think part of the reason why this junior high pithiness happens is because we can't be sure of our politics. Wait!!! Before you freak out. I did not say idea/ideals. I said politics, meaning ideas/ideals in action. We have an idea, something that we really feel strongly about and then try to put it into action in this very imperfect world. Our uncertainty can lead us to be rude and childish, even if we really feel like we're totally, 100% so sure that we're like iron-clad right.
If our politics were perfect, why would we feel the need to improve this country? We've had democratic presidents with democratic congresses, republican presidents with republican congresses, whig presidents with whig congresses and federalist presidents with federalist congresses. Yet, we are not perfect.
No political party is perfect. No political idea is perfect.

But, then again, when did humility earn large shares of TV time?

My cousin on Ugly Betty

My cousin, Christian, is an actor. I found out a couple of days ago that he was on Ugly Betty during it's first season. I've never watched the show, but I wrangled up a copy so that I could show him off. He's listed as "Joel's friend." You'll see him in the background. He's the one with a blue shirt and blue tie.
Wendy says that laws dictate that I'm now famous b/c of this, and by the friendship rule default, she is now also famous. I'm not sure how legal this all is.
But here's the video:

New HP6 footage

I know, I'm crazy and somewhat obsessed. But there's some new footage mixed with the old in this trailer (Lavender macking Ron awkwardly shown below):

Triviopoly

So tonight at Aimee's game night we played Trivial Pursuit. Well, sorta played. We didn't have a board, so we used the Monopoly board, money, Chance & Community Chest cards, and the pieces (I was the iron!). It was by far the funnest Monopoly game I've ever played. If you get the answer correct, you get the Monopoly property space for free, otherwise you have to buy it. If you get the answer correct on a tax spot, you don't have to pay. We sorta made the rules up as we went along.

But really the best part of the whole night was this (paraphrased) question:

Which actor is afraid of antique furniture because he believes that he was attacked with furniture in a previous life?
Billy Bob Thornton

David christened this fear as ThisOldHouseaphobia.


**By the way, did you know that Bob Vila's a Cuban American? Just learned that searching for pictures.

Scriptures & a Tragedy! ...poll

Last winter I started going to Brock's institute classes, which was way too much fun. The Book of Mormon teacher mentioned something one day about a B.o.M. with all references to God underlined that she or a friend had done. So I started one but added to it: counted the number of references and marked the bottom of the page, bracketed quoted words of God & wrote down all of His titles in the back of the book. It was one of those little red pocket-sized ones. I loved it. I had finished it a few months back and it was perfect. Except I no longer have it. I lost it somewhere in Sacramento over the weekend when it took a dive out of my sweater pocket. I am not happy. (GRRRRRRRRR!!) I have, however, decided that if someone finds it and thus joins the church, I will be okay with this fact. Otherwise, I will not conform to my loss.

So I got a new little copy tonight, but this copy is blue and not red. I'm going to start over. Perhaps I just needed to do the exercise again. I'm fine with this, because it was fun the first time and felt a great sense of loss when I finished.

This leads me to my poll: What set of scriptures do you prefer?
Big quad
Small quad
Big triple & separate Bible
Small triple & separate Bible
Extra large scripture set

Leg Wrestling, Congressman, KSTU Fox "News"

Hah!

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Temporarily Permanent

Well after the adventures of a few weeks ago, I've been hopping around our new digs at the Advancement Building. I had no desk at first. Then I had one. Then they moved me. Then when I was in Sacramento over the weekend, I got moved downstairs. My new cubicle is actually nice and big. I'm trying to figure out what to do with all of the space. But my back is to the entryway and that's less than pleasant for me.

So I've decided that a bead curtain might be exactly what I need.
I became convinced, however, when I saw this particular version. How can I say no now?