WIMotW: Edict 1

Filed under When I'm Master of the World**


I have decided that WIMotW, I will set the penalty for SUV and truck drivers who drive with reckless abandon during blizzards and on icy roads will be...

One year of driving the three-wheeled blue car from Mr. Bean.



**Not to be confused with Master of the Universe.
Did you see Courtney Cox? hahahaha

Mutilated Spanish (BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!)

Subheading: A Google translation doth not sense make.

My mom surprised me with a tool set for Christmas. I was very excited. We got to break out the tool set last night to fix a tuning peg on a guitar. w00t

But the best part might be the horrific Spanish translations. Here we go!

"A CASA INSTRUMENTO DE PROYECTO SE PUSO" Or very literally, "At home instrument of project itself put" **Note, the literal translation is exactly what a Spanish speaker would understand, too. (se puso from the verb ponerse)

 "CHOFER DE TRINQUETE" or, Chauffeur of ratchets. Them are some special ratchets.

 "(6) ABRAZADERAS DE PRIMAVERA" or Clamps of Springtime
And my personal favorite "(8) LLAVES DE MALEFICIO METRICAS" or, literally, Metric Wrenches of Hexing. MWAHAHAHAHAH.

Don't mess with my tool set.

Statement of Porpoise

I've now written five different introductory paragraphs over the last few hours for my Statement of Purpose. I recognize that I have about 29 to go before I'm supposed to feel good about the thing. What I'd really like to put in there is:

Hello, I think very highly of your department. You offer classes that will be extremely excellent for my scholastic development. All I want to do academically with my life is teach others about Spanish and Portuguese linguistics and show them how much fun research can be. Please, can't we come to an understanding that I'll be good for you and you'll be good for me?

I know that won't go over like gangbusters during their meetings, but it is what it is.

Grandparents

Hi. I was just sitting here at my computer thinking about how blessed I've been to know so many of my grandparents, all four grandparents and five great-grandparents. I've thought about it on and off for years and it's a remarkable blessing in my life.
I wish that I'd had the presence of mind as a young teenager to talk more to my great grandparents, but such is life.

Anyway, I was just thinking about it, and realized that it's one of the greatest blessings that I've ever received.

 

(And a great uncle and aunt to boot!)

Metrodome's Collapse

So it's snowed like bonkers in the upper Midwest. They got hit with just under two feet in the Twin Cities.
There was supposed to be a football game between the Vikings and the Giants, but the Giants were stuck in Kansas City b/c of the storm. The game schedule at noon on Sunday got pushed to Monday night. Now the game has been moved from the Twin Cities to Detroit. Here's why:

Compact

Few things confuse me more than the hatred toward immigrants. I am not, however, surprised by it, because anger toward immigrants and moronic anti-immigrant laws have been passed on and off almost since the get-go of our nation. They were always passed out of fear and ignorance (and, again, hatred).

About a month ago civic (like former governors) and religious leaders in Utah came together to create the Utah Compact which, especially in this current political climate, seems to be a solitary shining beacon of sanity. An opinion piece in the NY Times gave a shout-out to the compact yesterday. You can sign the compact. The LDS Church came out in support of the principles of the compact, as well.

Hopefully this will lead to reason around here. We need some reason and compassion on this topic.

Word Verification

I just did a word verification to post a comment on a friend's blog. The word was "gropic."
Honestly?

Embarrassing Punctuation Mistake

Subtitled GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONS! 

This hangs on the outside wall of my high school, I saw it when I went in to vote earlier in the month:

"Here, We Learn For Life"
When we separate "here" with a comma, we mean "Take this." "Here, this is yours." When we are actually speaking about a place, "The dog is here," a comma should never appear. "Here, is the dog" is no bueno.
My high school is guilty of excessive use of punctuation for emphasis. This. Is. So. Common. But it's common on Facebook and Twitter. It's rather unfortunate that my high school's motto employs incorrect punctuation. Unfortunately I wasn't surprised in the slightest.

Apparently CNN doesn't like the Biebs

I just saw this headline on CNN and I have to admit that I fully agree, ew, how disgusting.

Electric Slide.

It'd be better if the vest were argyle.

Skipping ahead to 4:35 should do the trick.



BAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Shout out to Laurel for finding it.

Wheel of What The Fortune

How on earth did she do this?

The dangers of mixing sunglasses and a beard

I saw this on msnbc.com today and thought, Why do they have a picture of him next to that headline?

And by "him," I of course meant Joaquin Phoenix:

It took me a second to realize that it actually wasn't Joaquin the nut job, but a bona fide, murderous nut job.
Oh, the dangers of mixing a scraggly beard and sunglasses...

Excellent Email Received

Just thought I'd share the excellent email that I received this morning from a student whose emailed had been hijacked:

All-
I believe my email account was hijacked and sent a mass email to everyone in my contact list. Please do not open any attachments from recent emails from me. I'll leave the decision to purchase Viagra from a Canadian pharmacy to you.




Funny handling of annoying situation: FTW!!

The Name Made Me Do It!

There's a funny anecdote coming from Tuesday night's game between the Rangers and the Yankees.
A nutty fan tried to attack Alex Rodriguez because of some to-do with Cameron Diaz. This story alone is pretty funny. But it gets better: the dude's name is Grim LeRogue*.
I mean, either his parents wanted to make sure he was a bratty troublemaker, or it's the name he assumed to perform evil.

*And, to complete the Harry Potter trifecta: Rogue is the French translation for Snape.

Walt Disney and You

I know that I've posted this before, but I simply think it's something that we should watch often to reconnect with our childhood.

Proving your point with the title

So I saw this paper recently. This is the title, I kid you not: Cannibis in the life's of many
I mean, talk about proving cannibis' negative effects in one fell swoop.

So far my favorite sentence is "In the end I chose an article that is looking for the effects that cannabis has in the body and mind."

I think I liked it so much because it reminded me of Star Trek 6 when Uhura and the crew are frantically trying to tell some Klingons over the comm that they're going to Rura Penthe and that they're really a Klingon ship from the home world. They totally botch the language, just like the paper title and the sentence copied above.

So, to translate what's in the video clip:
In Klingon we hear (What ship is that? Over...)
Uhura finally responds in Klingon with a stuttering: (We art thy freighter... URSVA six...weeks out of Kronos... Over...)
Then they hear: (Whither are you bound? Over...)
Finally they respond with: (We art delivering food... things ...  and...supplies to Rura Penthe... over...)

I think I like most things that remind me of Star Trek.
And who knew Klingon was so Shakespearean? I mean, "Whiter are you bound"?? Chancellor Gorkon knew, that's who. And doesn't Gorkon sound just like the Master Control Program from Tron? Well, he should.

Thought I'd share

There's been a whole lotta hullabaloo after conference, which I'm sure you all know about. I've got some strong opinions on some of the issues. Maybe I'll post about those later. I dunno yet.

But there is one thing that I'd like to share. You may have seen it posted already on facebook, but just in case you hadn't, here you go.

To solidify the notion, I present:

Welcome to the shirt that I just got from woot. If you couldn't stand as a witness of my nerdiness before...
Oh, how I love it and all it's uber nerdiness.
I mean, we've got FrankenVader, Ackbar's trap, Riker's resignation to Troi getting drunk, and a triumphant Picard sticking it to his torturer.
Hello, Halloween.

I should probably blog about _______, yet I post about ________

Hi. If you didn't hear my cousin, Brock, and me shouting with reckless abandon about the announcement of the temple for Lisbon, Portugal, I'm surprised. Yay! for temple announcements at conference.
There were some great, memorable moments this Conference Saturday ("You may wonder what this has to do with flying an airplane"). I'm excited to find out what Priesthood Session was about.


So, maybe it's weird to end the post with this particular video, but I've been looking for it for a while. According to this video, Jack Daniels is the long lost twin brother of Vladimir Lenin. So creepy.

A personal best

Now, I know I'm odd and remember weird things. I also know that my brain keeps track of bizarre things.
I just wanted to post that I topped my personal best of three sneezes in one second by four in one.

Chock this up for TMI, but I was quite proud of myself for having survived.

Also, I was going to post a video or two of slow-motion sneezes, but I thought the better of it.
Instead I'm posting this video just because I am.

Daddy Strikes a Loving Blow for Galactic Domination

And, hot dang, what a find. *Kudos to Ben for the find and FB share.

500! This deserves a nerd admission

Hello, 500th Entry, let's do something exciting for you. And what can be more exciting that telling the blogosphere that I got to meet my favorite historian?! Yes, I am a nerd; I have a favorite historian. But, when you got it, flaunt it. Thus I'm going to share the story quick.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian who loves baseball. She was in Baseball by Ken Burns, which is where I first heard of her back when I was 15. I thought she was awesome. Come to find out she writes great history, too.

She gave a lecture yesterday at UVU and I went an hour early so that I could get a good seat. Then she signed books:

Like the uber nerd that I am, I told her that she was my favorite historian, that I first heard of her in the Baseball doc. We talked for like 10 seconds about the Red Sox winning the World Series and about the 10th Inning premiering this month.

I was on cloud 9.

Missionary Beatles Equation

The Missionary Mall has a new ad campaign with a lovely poster. I know what they're getting at, but I wonder if they stopped to think about the significance of the equation.
Cue blurry picture taken while at stop light:

"We're more popular than the Beatles!"

So according to this reference this is situation according to Missionary Mall:
Missionary Mall  > The Beatles
And as was misunderstood in that John Lennon scandal:
The Beatles > Jesus
Thus,
Missionary Mall > Jesus

I'm fairly certain they weren't shooting for this.

Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall

There's this really wonderful thing called The Moving Wall. It's a really amazing thing, especially considering the fact that not everyone gets to go to D.C. to see the original wall.
It was in Spanish Fork over the weekend and I went on on Sunday night.
I wish that I'd had a better camera to take pictures of what happened while I was there. A vet was standing by the wall next to a group of names from his company that all died on the same day. He held a picture of his company in his hands and told stories. At first it was just his family, children and grandkids. Then people started gathering. By the end, I'd wager there were 50 more of us around, listening to his stories and looking at the wall.

It was wonderful to listen to him. And hard to know that he went thru what he went thru. And I was really glad that he was willing to tell his story.

The edge of the group of people

The end of the list

MORE COWBELL!!!

There's a fever going around.

Thank you, Andy, for the heads up.

And don't forget to vote in the poll!

Lyrical Elements

Awesome.

Hawt

I unintentionally made things very awkward in my class yesterday. We were talking about how Portuguese has a nifty trick at describing people in certain semantic situations. So I did a literal translation of a bit of it:
"My mom is with heat."
Yipes. Awkward.
So I correct it with what Portuguese speakers mean:
"My mom is hot."


Oh man.

Fail Door

Construction at our office in DE just finished up. This time was much better than last time. But they've struggled with their doors. One was put in backwards, so they had to knock it out and do a switcharoo. One wall wasn't long enough to touch the door frame of another door. etc. etc.

But the ABSOLUTE BEST door blunder is shown in the following video my coworker and I took:

Two unexpected sights today

Today I drove out of our subdivision and saw two guys that looked to be around my age, perhaps a bit younger. They were on a patch of lawn maybe 14' x 14'. One of them had a golf club resting just short of a golf ball and the other stood stoically 8 feet away awaiting the smack.
What on earth?
Perhaps the dumbest thing about this was their truck was only 4 feet behind the guy waiting to be smacked.

Other unexpected sighting was the hair of the new associate dean of our college at UVU. It was salt and pepper on the sides with a nice faux hawk on top. I don't think I've ever seen that particular mixture before.

That's it, just thought I'd share.

That is the place, BYU football, rumble on

With the possibility of BYU becoming an independent in football, I couldn't help but laugh when I thought of the historical, eschatological and LDS cultural implications when I saw the picture used on SI.com.
Bronco Mendenhall, AKA Brigham Young, points (back?) to independence, while we've been in the right place for a number of years, it is enough. It appears we must drive on and make our mark in THE WEST again, blazing trails as a football independent.**

**I know that I should apologize for the shameful, groan-inducing post and for my egregious cheesiness, but I'm just going to own it.


Also, if music videos still had dancing like this, I think I might actually watch MTV or VH1.

Shouldn't be too shocked

One shouldn't be shocked when called out for racism when these comments have been typed:

"I don't have anything against Mexicans, its just that their place is in Mexico as an American's place is in America." 
"If you don't limit immigration, you will end up with minority ghettos that will be a drag on society as a whole. Look all over California and you will see Mexican barrios filled with people with Reconquista fantasies..."

People are stunning sometimes.

Mesmerize

So when we say we're mesmerized, what exactly do we mean?

Ewww.

Perseids and Distance with a Tea Kettle to Boot

I was out in the driveway looking at the night sky because the Perseids are hitting their apex of activity.
I looked to the south at Sagittarius, the intergalactic tea kettle, and noticed that it was dumping its wares onto Payson. Right then three shooting stars passed thru its handle, one a lovely shade of green.

I started thinking about when we're looking at the sky we're looking at a dozen years to hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years of history. When we look at the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest one to ours, we're looking at light that's reaching us 2.2 million years after it started its journey. The light that bounced off of Jupiter did so about 32 minutes before it reaches our eyes. We look at it thinking we're seeing the present, but we're not. Thirty-two minutes almost seems conceivable, but 2.2 million years boggles my mind--and that's the closest galaxy.

During the night, we're in the present and at the same time we are 32 minutes or 2,700 years or 5 million years in the past.

I think it's brilliant.



And with the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, we're talking billions of years and light that we don't even perceive without one of the most powerful telescopes on the job.

On to Georgia!

I've shared this song before, but it's much more apropos right now, as we head off to Georgia this next week. Julie Rae and Brian are moving so that he can do his PhD program. So it won't be so much a train as a caravan of a Penske moving truck and two cars. And it won't be so much midnight as the middle of the day so that we can enjoy the scenery. But it will be Georgia, so it's close enough:

It's been a while since I Hodge Podged

I haven't done a hodge podge entry for a while. Wait, I haven't overtly called an entry "hodge podge" for a while. That's probably a truer statement.

Brian replaced Julie Rae's broken car radio tonight and added an iPod connector. If you look at the bottom right of the picture, you'll see Christmas lights. We had to use those instead of a flashlight because we couldn't find one.

This list of almost-happeneds is somewhat astounding in certain spots. Number 1 is one of the world's great ironies.

Motorized couch!

And here's a video that made me laugh pretty hard. Seriously, the Baltimore Orioles security just let him run around and around and around. They're not even the ones who got him to stop in the end.



And that may not have been the craziest thing to happen during the game. Holy cow, he threw a nutty.

Nearly Rearended

Since there's a lot of construction on I-15 right now, traffic is mostly stop and slow with a few speedy moments. Anyway, traffic way ahead was obviously slowing, so I did, too. I'd almost completed my stop and I checked my rear view mirror as I'm wont in traffic, just in case there's a problem. The huge Dodge truck behind didn't catch on in time and swerved into the shoulder and barely avoided my car's tail end.

Will anyone be surprised by the fact that the guy was on his cell phone? Hang up your blasted phone, man!


I tell you what, though, I am EXTREMELY glad that this happened on the stretch of the freeway where there still was a shoulder to the road, and not a quarter of a mile down, where the shoulder is blocked.

Thesis writing analysis

I decided to analyze my thesis chapters like I did my blog in my last post.

I wrote the Introduction like Edgar Allan Poe.
The Lit Review got David Foster Wallace.
Methodology got H. P. Lovecraft, and I think the title of his Best of is extremely apropos.
The Results also got David Foster Wallace.
The Conclusion also² got David Foster Wallace.

And the preliminary bits?
Abstract: H. P. Lovecraft.
Acknowledgments: Ian Fleming. I'm trying to decide if it's more James Bond-esque, or his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I write like...

So there's this website* that purportedly analyzes your writing and tells you who you write like:
http://iwl.me/
So I dropped in various bits of my blog, this entry and that. I tried it over and over and over. So who do I most commonly write like? Stephen King. arg. Who do I most commonly write like #2? Dan Brown. pathetic.

This makes me so sad.
I did get one James Joyce, though. There is hope.


I wonder about my thesis? I'll have to try an excerpt later on.

*Someone posted about this on Facebook, and I can't remember who. But whoever you are, credit where credit is mysteriously due.

I mean, I love baseball, but honestly

HE TOUCHED ME! I HAVE TO CALL MY MOM!
{HYSTERIA TREMORS HYSTERIA TREMORS HYSTERIA}

rational side

Julie Rae sent this to me and I really appreciated the read, so I'm sharing it.
It's especially timely right now in Utah after what's happened this week.

I could be a sober Norm

You know that TV show Cheers and the barfly, Norm Peterson, the erstwhile accountant and corporate executioner? I've thought for the last few years that I could follow in some of his footsteps. I'm not going to take up drinking, but I have thought about dropping any other profession and becoming a painter.
Anyway, that's all. I like painting houses.

Yet another HP post

Hi. This is yet another Harry Potter post. A new trailer was released and I noticed something a bit bizarre in it. There had been some previously released trailers, like the one at the MTV movie awards, or the one that was added to the 6th movie's bluray. But the one that's been released within the last 36 or so hours is missing something that had been previously shown. (small, medium or large)
In the first couple of trailers, you'll notice Hermione's hands are bloody because she's been fixing Ron, who was splinched (or whatever it's called) at the shoulder:

But, in the new trailer you'll notice that her hands are now free of blood. I think it's just weird. What's wrong with the blood? I mean, Ron was bleeding and she was healing him. Whatever:

The obvious reaction should be, "Wow, Vanessa, you have watched these way too many times."

Article: Eye Roll

As seen online on a news page. Apparently one of the steps to feel sexy is by dyeing the Heavens a deep shade of red.
{eye roll}

Final Post of the Day: President Hinckley hits 100

Today is President Hinckley's 100th birthday. I miss him.
About half-way through this dedicatory speech is one of my favorite moments ever.
I'm so excited to hear him give devotionals at Millennial University.

Pondering *the* moments that I've watched

{The following is a sports indulgence. But at least there are short video clips!}

After watching and thinking about and reliving Donovan's goal today, I started thinking about the moments when my favorite team pulled off the amazing.
The 1986 baseball season was the first time that I paid attention to any sport. I was seven and completely enamored with the Mets. I picked a great year to love them.
I still remember when this happened and how I felt:

I had a poster of the ball going between Buckner's legs and Mookie Wilson about to round first on my wall for about 6 years.

I branched out from baseball, loved the Redskins who won the 1988 Super Bowl, and fell in love with the Utah Jazz.
In 1997, Stockton made the most important 3-pointer in the history of the Jazz, sending them to the Finals:


I was on my mission for One Last Miracle for Lavell, but this play still might have beaten that out:

(I absolutely hate that this rivalry is going to die. It was by far one of the best in the nation.)

Donovan's goal today joins the list:

USA Wins!

I sobbed. I flat-out sobbed when Donovan scored that goal. After everything that happened to the US side...   I have to admit that my faith had wavered at the end.

But then this happened:

US wins the match and their group.
I am elated.

Off the Schneid

For all of you who were terribly worried about this:

I'm now off the schneid after picking Spain to win by 2 goals. Now my entry looks like this:

Vanilly the Loser

Yesterday my mom was trying to say, "Vanessa is silly." But instead it just came out as Vanilly. This is almost as good as the time "Vanessa is sexy" became Vanexy.

Vanilly is nice, though, don't you think? And since the dog's name is Millie, I was just thinking...

Anyway, I am a loser. I'm not having some crisis of self esteem, ESPN is telling me so. You'll find my entry for ESPN's Streak for the Ca$h there at the bottom of the screenshot (swensova).
The losing streak would've stopped at 8 or 9, but the stupid, know-nothing, whistle-happy Coulibaly ref from the US-Slovenia match took away the US's well-deserved win.
{I'm inserting an updated screenshot after I missed again this morning. You can see the initial screen shot below. The situation is getting dire.}


{Here's the initial screenshot when I wasn't so bad.} 

RSL streak

When your headline says "RSL Still Streaking," it is probably not a good idea to post a picture of a guy without a shirt on. It leaves to much open for debate about your soccer team's, errrrr, capabilities on the pitch.

I would totally go to this sing-a-long

I guess they do one of these at the Hollywood Bowl.
And I would dress up. It's not like I haven't dressed up for something like this before:



Look at the cell phones!!

Christian Crayon Color Compendium

This blog post was requested by Emily. Oh, and inspired by the picture below.

Here are some possible color options. I recognize that my Mormonity influenced some of the names.

Please add your ideas in the comments area. A box of 64 crayons would be ideal. You can use this link to find inspiration. I'll add your colors to our list. Kim already said that she wanted in as an investor.
(if you're in Google Reader, you may need to click on the blog post link to see the colors properly, and too see any additions, apparently)

Outer Blackness
Templar Taupe
Cardinal
Celestial Cerulean
Pharisaical Fuchsia 
Telestial Teal
Primary 1 2 3 (a Red, Yellow and Blue swirl)
Premortal Purple (shout-out: EM!)
Lydia's Purple (although the Acts 16:14 reference might be too weird)
Choice Chamoisee
Accountable Azure
Dove White

**
Virgin Violet
Temptation Apple
Olive Tree
Manna
Wine
Apocryphal Apricot
Ecclesiastical Ecru
Terrestrial Tan
Irreantum Blue
Methuselah Grey
Fine-Twined Linen
Burning Bush
Goliath Green
Hellishly Hot Pink
Money Changer's Gold
Galilee Green
Scatter Sunshine
Iron Rod
Noah's Ark Auburn
Zarahemla Zaffre
Purity Puce
Spiritual Sangria
Trinity Tangerine
Garden of Eden
Senum Silver
Brass Plate
Righteous Red
Choral
Zion Canyon Coquelicot
Jello Jade
Bishop's Byzantium
Paradise Peridot
Urim and Thummim Umber
Moroni Maroon
Lust (I'm stealing this from someone else in the Ether, though)
Relief Society Rose
Laser Lemon Liahona
Virtuous Vermilion
Milk and Honey
Tabernacle Turquoise
Amen Amethyst
Deseret Dandelion
Rahab Drab
Desert Sands #40 (Although I do love "Desert Wanderings")
Waters of Mormon Blue
Sunbeam Yellow
Rectitude Rainbow
Miracle Mauve

The Almost Woot Off Prank

I very very almostly bought the item below during the Woot Off to send to this friend. Although, in the end, it's probably best that I didn't. I still don't think it's time that the World know the truth.

And Taiwan is still not free from the Mainland's shadow...

A small thing that means a lot

A family friend, Anne Jex, came over to drop off a bridal shower invite right as I was leaving tonight. As I tried to start my car, it just wouldn't turn all the way over. This stressed me out as I'm leaving for the 5K in Laramie tomorrow morning, and someone else's arrival depends on me.
After a stressful 10 minutes, Anne makes a suggestion about the battery and what can be done. Low and behold her idea was exactly what my car's problem was.
Macey is raaaring to go.

Anne just happened to come by right as I was leaving. I'm counting this coincidence as a small miracle.

Resolving Concerns

On the mission, the concern that I think I resolved the poorest was the "Why do bad things happen to good people?" one.
I mean, I know the intellectual reasons and can explain things and stuff. But really, it doesn't get rid of the sinking feeling and the sorrow. And I hate seeing people near me suffer.
Maybe that's just it, though, there is nothing except the fact that pain happens. We feel it deeply, feel it with those around use, learn, grow, suffer together and continue on.

I still hate it, though.

The all-encompassing happiness dream

It's an established fact that my dreams can be crazy (and awesome). Last night's was what I'm going to call the All-encompassing Happiness Dream.
I'll give a brief rundown of what made an appearance:

1. I was back on the mission, but I didn't always have to wear a skirt and I could be alone sometimes.
2. I could fly--in fact I was all over the loop-de-loops.
3. I was surrounded by high school and grad school friends.
4. Cousins were also there.
5. Angela Weech had found a great sushi spot and so I went to meet her and Shelton. We stuffed ourselves with traditional sushi and fusion sushi. There was also this great sushi dessert that involved honey. Huh.
6. Brazil.

After pondering on it, I've decided this was actually a dream about Paradise and the Spirit World.

Zombiessssssss!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I think they're serious, I really do.

HAAAHHHAHHHHHAAAAAAAHHHHHAHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH


Oh! wait wait wait, I looked at the "You may also be interested in these classes"

Gold Prospecting

Let's Get Metaphysical

Ghostbusters

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH oh man, I love this website.

A new European map

I laughed right out loud at various points reading this article. Oh, cartographical humor, how I've missed you:
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16003661


And here's a video to complete l'ensemble cartographique:

The Nexus of Knowledge for the Day

AKA, This led to that which led to yonder thing which brings us to this thingie here
subsubtitled things that might only interest me

I think I might do this more as a chronological rundown of the Nexus of Knowledge that Scottie and I learned in the last 10 minutes:

1-I'm reading book 5 of Harry Potter in Italian (shout-out: Wendy!) right now. There's a spot in chapter two where "April Fool's!" is written. In Italian it's written as Pesce d'aprile! I'd looked it up in my French (poisson d'avril!) and Portuguese (primeiro de abril!) books as this phrase is a linguistic essential.

2-So we searched on Word Reference in Spanish: Día de los Inocentes!, which is what is written in my HP5 ebook in Spanish.

3-I tell Scottie that Día de los Inocentes is actually on December 28th and that I think that it probably comes from the slaughter of the innocents by a wussy Herod who wanted to keep his throne. So we Wikipedia-ed it. Low and behold.

4-Scottie and I become curious about the roots of April Fool's Day. Hello Wikipedia again. Chaucer: HEEEE-EEEYYY.

5-A part of the Wikipedia article mentions the Feast of Fools which was held on December 28th (shout-out to #3!).

6-Suddenly 2 songs from the somewhat skanky French musical Notre Dame de Paris pop (phonetic pun intended) into my head: Le Pape des Fous & La Fête des Fous. These songs link to this part of the Feast of Fools Wikipedia article.

7-I start singing the lyrics to both songs which makes Scottie look at me like I'm slightly crazy. All the while I'm learning about the intrinsic relation that the Feast of Fools has around the Cathedral Notre Dame. I explain this Nexus of Knowledge to Scottie.

8-Scottie says that the Nexus of Knowledge always does come back to French Musicals.


addenda to today's Nexus of Knowledge:
9-It seems to me that Día de los Inocentes was yet another religious holiday that the Catholic church imposed over a pagan holiday to try to draw attention away from the ultra-fun reveling.

10-The mythological history behind Saturnalia "tomfoolery" and "buffoonery," the Titans & the Roman gods makes so much more sense to me as I just finished the Percy Jackson series.




ça, c'est fini, quoi!

as {bwahahahah} seen on my FB today

So-and-So hates to be across the globe from (fiancée), I'd rather have her close to me like she's standing on my toes. :-\

His sister comments:
Dude, you're only twenty minutes away from her. Suck it up a little! LOL



BWAHAHAHAHAHAH. Young, sappy engaged love. HAHAHAHAHAHAH.

BYU mag {oops}

Anna-Lisa gets the credit for this, since she was the one who noticed it.
The BYU mag that they force on send to the graduates had something rather shocking that I'm sure they didn't intend to post. There was this sorta lit mag that BYU Academy starting producing in 1897 called White and Blue that the library has been digitizing. I'm sure in the article they posted this excerpt from the old mag because one of the articles was about a new honor code in 1912.
They really should have looked at the other article on the right titled:
PROFESSOR RASMUSSEN ON EUGENICS
Subtitled:
SOME FUNDAMENTALS UNDERLYING EUGENICS

Holy cow. What on earth?!

Anyway, I know that you're all dying to read the whole ghastly thing. So I'll post the PDF download links here to the four pages that contain the article.
Enjoy his matter of fact discussion of how cells and their goop work and how this information is used as a way to bolster the science of Eu(blech)genics.

Red Rock Adventure

A couple of weekends ago Andy, David, Kathy (who had joined us for the afternoon) went to Red Rock Canyon just outside of Vegas. Here's their pitiful website.
The four of us clambered up somewhat steep rocks (at least for a novice like me), in a small canyon off the normal path. It was really quiet, minus the hippie guy entertaining his lady and daughter with some sort of wood flute. But after we passed them by, all we heard was wind, bees and birds.
I realized that I had this goofy grin on my face for a large part of the time because I was having so much fun.
All I had was my camera phone, but the pictures are mostly ok.
This is the entrance to the part of the canyon where we hiked:
There were lots of exciting small, exciting arches as well as some random holes in the rock:
I was hoping this picture would show better how steep the first bit of scrambling was, mostly because I want people to think we're cool. You'll just have to trust me.
We hit one sorta plateau area in the canyon and stopped to talk for a while. The black on the rock is called desert varnish, which I learned that day from Andy. You can see a bit of my goofy grin:
I think the next picture shows how cool the rock was that we were scrambling up:
I told Kathy to pose and smile and this is what we got:
David also obliged me:
There was this really cool part where we had to lean up against the rock with our back and use our feet as a counter pressure so that we could sidle our way down the slot canyon.
This is Kathy trying to figure out how to use my camera phone. Andy said it was a perfect fac3book profile picture. If only Stick had a FB profile...
Here's Andy sticking his head thru an arch in the rock:
And here we are, sigh..., having to leave:

All in all it was completely excellent and I want to do it again soon.