Well THAT was a good time

Made another blog!

2011-12-29T22:42:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

A late Merry Christmas to you all. Things have been a barrel of monkeys here. CoolWife got me some awesome presents and we got to spend the day with family and even go to Church, which seems like an appropriate Christmas activity. I might have, however, slept through most of church. My excuse is just that it was so peaceful and nice (and warm) in there. We spent the afternoon with CoolWife's fam and the evening with my sister Jenny and her family. They fed us an amazing three-course meal of butternut squash soup, pork tenderloin with potatoes, and an elaborate chocolate tasting for dessert. We then played Blokus and Sequence; both great games. We also had a Google Hangout with just about all my family, which was a party. We should do that more often. We may need to establish some etiquette, but I think it's a great way to get all caught up together. I feel very blessed to have such a great family where everyone gets along.

In other (very unrelated) news, I've decided to start a second blog called Mike Likes Games (mikelikesgames.blogspot.com). It's going to be very video games-centric, so if that's your thing, or the thing of someone you know, feel free to go over and check it out. I'll still post here when I feel like it, but I've been wanting to write more about my classes (in making video games) and gaming, and this didn't quite feel like the right spot.

And a Happy New Year to you!

Brains

2011-12-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

I think we're all aware that brains generally look like this.

However, I'm pretty sure that today mine are in a state closer to the following.

You may be skeptical. I'm sure everyone reading this knows enough about brains that if a person's brains were to resemble scrambled eggs with beef, peas, and carrots on rice they probably wouldn't be able to live, much less write a blog post about it. Be advised that I'm averaging about two typos per word as I type this.

I have plenty of evidence on my side to back up my theory, but little time to recount them all. So I'll just leave you with the fact that it took me about five minutes to add up the hours on my time card (which only totaled 37 hours, so it's not like there was anything hard there) and the following little tidbit.

I keep thinking to the tune of "Cat Scratch Fever" and another song with I can't remember anymore even though I last did it about 15 minutes ago.For example: "Check--ing--books--in! Dun dun dun duuuuun!" or "I--feel--hun--gry! Dun dun dun duuuuun!". My favorite so far is definitely "Nope--Chuck--Tes--Ta!! Dun dun dun DUUUUUN!".

Back to School - Fall 2011 Edition

2011-08-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been another first week of school.

I don't really feel the need to establish that The University of Utah and BYU are very different places. I think most people already know that. But I'm still going to go over some of the more interesting things that have happened. I think this might just come out in a list form, because there's just too much.

Highlights:
I've gone to Salt Lake City every day this week and have only put 6 miles on my car thanks to public transportation. Yeeeeeah!

Before-mentioned public transportation is free! (It was $90 a year at BYU, which paid for itself very quickly, but they don't offer it anymore.)

I'm registered for four classes and all of them seem like they'll be good. One of them is literally called "Intro to Video Games." Ha! The professor's degree is in English, however, so there will be much writing of papers (about video games).

The art class I need for my program had a few more sections opened up, so I was able to get into that!

The scheduling on my program is pretty strict, so I have a lot of the same people in my classes. Most of them seem really nice, and I've already made a few buddies.

I've made a pretty sweet website for my programming class, which is where we post all our assignments. Check it for updates! I'll be putting a Paypal donation button on there soon, feel free to give!

The campus here is much bigger and has lots of green areas between the buildings. You almost never see a dense crowd, even by the student building where they keep all the food.

There are a lot of cool looking restaurants on and just off campus. There's more than just Taco Bell and Scoreboard.

The library here is very cool. The whole bottom floor is mostly study areas and a cafe.

They totally have Starcraft 2 on the lab computers here. Woo!

Lowlights:
I spend three to four hours on the bus/train every day. Yuck. This is sort of convenient for reading, but most of my reading assignments are online, which means I need to read it all on my little iPod screen (I ain't truckin' my laptop here and back every day). This is would be a lot easier if I had iPad. Wink. Wink. Wink.....

Apparently, Aubrey's sister Martina is the only Mormon girl that attends this school, because all the other ones either just don't value clothing or have lots of tattoos. (This isn't really as prevalent as I make it sound. But it is swift and obvious change from BYU and American Fork. When we saw Martina on Tuesday, she made the same comment.)

I ended up having to drop the "Gender & Social Change" class I was enrolled in. I was actually pretty excited about that class, but it turns out the professor liked to swear a lot and he warned us right out of the gate that he's going to be using racy (or in his words "definitely not PG") material to get concepts across. So....that was the end of that.

Funny story about that gender class: I got to the classroom pretty early because I didn't have anything else going on. But by the time that there were only about five minutes until the bell (actually, they don't do bells here, but you know what I mean) the entire classroom had filled up with only women. I didn't remember if the professor was a guy or a girl so I started to worry what it might be like to be the only man (particularly a married, Mormon, one) in a gender class. Fortunately, a few guys came in just before class started. I let out an audible sigh of relief and the 6 or so girl closest to me all started laughing. I was getting pretty nervous!

I'm taking Calculus....again....

Still haven't been able to find a job. Hopefully when I do find one it'll work with my school schedule.

Well, I think that's about everything. It's been a pretty crazy week. More updates soon.

Oh I went I went a fishin'...

2011-08-07T23:51:00.000-07:00

...On a hot summer day. I went fishing outside of Alaska for the first time a couple Saturdays ago. I have mixed feelings about the event overall (spoiler: I got sunburned all to crap, again) but it was a lot of fun. Actually, we did more than just fish. We also rode horses.

This is Milo showing obvious signs of inattention.

Apparently it's a "horse thing" that they need to be retaught to be good little obedient horses on their first ride every year after the long winter break. Unfortunately, winter lasted until August with the horses that we were riding. It was a pretty short trip once Aubrey found out about this. Also, I'm pretty sure Milo was so excited that he forgot to eat breakfast, because he would keep stopping to eat at whatever plants were around. At one point he pulled up an entire plant that was about two feet tall and was carrying it around with us.He then stopped in the middle of the road while we were crossing it and stopped responding to any and all commands/nudges. We didn't get hit by any cars though, as the car that came speeding around the corner saw us in time to slow down and stop.

My first Utah catch. I named him "Butch" (not really).

But anyway, after I almost died thanks to a horse (which, based on my past experience means I'm maintaining an average of 66% for my life to be seriously threatened any time I get on a horse) we went fishing. We were up in the Uintas, so we went to this giant reservoir named "Starvation" of all things. Rumor has it there's some serious fishes up there, but we sure didn't see any. I don't want to overstate the obvious, but fishing for widdle fishes is a lot different than fishing for salmon. The biggest difference between salmon and these little perch was that I couldn't ever really tell if they were hooked or not. Many, many times I would see my bobber bobbing around, I'd give it a yank, it would continue to move around...yank...still moving...and I'd reel it in only to find that most of my bait was gone. Two of those many times, this very same thing would happen but a very tiny fish happened to be on the end of my line, looking confused. Silly fish, not even enough sense to fight it (or enough weight to be noticeable, which would have been nice).

But we did have a great time. We've certainly got a little bit of the fishing bug. we wanted to go again this past weekend of it didn't work out. We'll definitely get back out there before school starts.

Aubrey's grandpa Larry. A mountain man if there ever was one.

Aubrey's dad and grandma Patsy.

Note: The presence of cowboy hats in some pictures does not mean that Aubrey or I ever wore cowboy hats. I feel like this needs to be stated somewhere.

Official Annoucement

2011-08-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

You know how I post about a major life change about every six months? I didn't want to let the tradition die, so today we'll be discussing my transfer from BYU to the University of Utah.

When I decided to go into Computer Science, it was because I wanted to go into video game programming. It's just an added bonus that there are about a thousand tech companies that need programmers in this area. So I figured if things didn't work out, I could always just go for one of those other "less awesome" jobs.

Shortly thereafter, I found out about the University of Utah had its own Computer Science program with a game-making emphasis. Oooooh. Then I found out it was ranked #2 in the nation for such undergrad programs. Hmmm..... However, I was hesitant to make such a big change. Having already made one university transfer, I knew that bad things happened to your hard-earned generals and such. When I started my first couple computer classes, I really liked them! But there was a problem: someone put a flyer for the U's game program up in the computer building near the labs. So every time I walked to the lab (which was most days) I saw the flyer.

For a while (like three days), this was okay. Then the thoughts about how I'd rather be there started creeping in. After a few weeks, the longing started. When the semester was close to the end, I started to stop and read that dumb poster from top to bottom once a day and wish I was going there instead. Coupled with my job getting weird and becoming very tired of BYU and Provo in general, I decided to get brave.

Due to the fact that I have a very, very wonderful, sweet, and accommodating wife, she was actually very supportive. We made up an outline and thought about it for a few weeks. Then we took the plunge and I applied to the University of Utah. It took a couple weeks to get the kinks worked out, but I'm all ready to go for the fall. I'm actually excited for school to start. Can you believe that? I know it'll be tough, but I'm very motivated to make things work with school this time. I've even managed to make a few industry contacts (all of which are active Mormons, so there goes that stereotype) that have been very helpful.

To finish off, CoolWife and I decided we should go check out the campus and figure out where my classes are. Here's a couple pictures of me looking like a freshman at the U last week.

The campus is big. Really big. I'll need to get a map of my own eventually.

But hey, one of my classes had a dinosaur on the name plate! How cool is that?

Here's Aubrey with the full-sized version of the dino skull. She was even more excited than I was.

Not that I needed convincing...

2011-07-12T00:39:00.001-07:00

Now that my readership is to an all-time low, I've decided to write again.

A lot has changed in the last few months, but we can discuss that later. Today I want to talk about a little town called Fairbanks. The Fairbanks in Alaska. The Fairbanks that I've never had any desire to visit.

CoolWife and I are in Alaska right now. We've had a wonderful time traveling, seeing the sights, eating tasty foods, and hanging out with my parents (photos probably to come). But we sure didn't go to Fairbanks, and one little conversation pretty much sealed the deal for me that I shouldn't bother for the rest of my life.

While we were visiting Denali National Park, Aubrey and I were checking out some gift shops near our hotel. (Also near the hotel: The Salmon Bake. Go there.) One of the shops had something to do with a Fairbanks Bowl Company, which sells overpriced wooden bowls and hires insane people to work at their stores.

"Wait!", you say? "What's this talk of insane people?", you ask? Keep reading.

First I'll set the scene. The store has shelves that go to the ceiling along the walls, and a few rows of waist-high shelves through the middle of the shop. The shop itself is only about 30ft by 60ft or so. We walk in, and after seeing the price tag on the first item by the door I've decided that there's no way I was going to buy something there. But CoolWife likes to look in shops, so we began making our way slowly through the winding rows of merchandise.

After about 30 seconds, the girl manning (or girling) the store comes out from her counter and tells us that everything in the shop was made in Fairbanks, and if we went there, we could see it ourselves. My face must have betrayed my thoughts ("Fairbanks? No frikkin' way.") because she called me out on having frowned when she talked about Fairbanks. I told her that we weren't planning on going to Fairbanks.

Sales Girl: Why wouldn't you go to Fairbanks?
Me: Well, I've never really had the desire.
SG: Are you from around here?
Me: I'm from Anchorage, well, Eagle River actually.
SG: THAT'S why. You've just never been and you don't know what good things are there. First, there's Chena Hot Springs, there's not so many people as there are in Anchorage, and it's pretty much a jumping off point for the wilderness if that's your thing (this last part about "my thing" was said condescendingly).
Me: Hmmmm....

Firstly, the hot springs aren't in Fairbanks, they're another 55 miles north of Fairbanks. If the #1 attraction for your town is another hour out of the way, you might want to restructure your argument. Secondly, I prefer to live in urban areas, and lastly, which city in Alaska isn't a jumping off point to the wilderness? At this point I felt pretty validated about not having been to Fairbanks.

She must have sensed my good feelings, because she sure didn't stop there.

Sales Girl: Yeah, it's not like Eagle River, you can just go off by yourself in the woods and no one will bother you. And if you get lost and die out there...Eh, you're biodegradable.
Me, not altogether sure I heard that last part right: Oh really? So no one will come looking for you?
Sales Girl: Oh no, we'll just leave you out there to die.

This is the point where I got really nervous and figured we should probably get out of there soon. I decided to go for a "diffuse the situation" tactic instead of just running for the door. Also, CoolWife is still with me but not saying anything at all to help me out; she's just enjoying the show.

Me: Oh...well...I lived with a few guys from Fairbanks in college (three, to be exact), they were all really cool guys. They only had good things to say about the place.
Clearly Insane Sales Girl: Where was this?
Me: Idaho.
SG: Yeah, you don't really count has a true Fairbanks Person until you've left Fairbanks and come back. So their opinion probably didn't count.
Me: Oh? Well...they liked it....
SG: Also, winters in Fairbanks are way worse than Idaho or Anchorage. If it's too cold for your car to start, that's just your car's fault.
Me: (Now moving towards the door) Well, I guess you can't plug in every car to make sure they start (I was referring to engine bloc heaters, I just assumed she would know what I meant there).
SG: Also, going to Anchorage counts as leaving Fairbanks.
Me: Right.... Well, bye!
SG: Be sure to visit our store in Fairbanks when you go! If you go....

(Now outside)

Me: Holy crap!
CoolWife: WOW!!! That was amazing! Sorry I didn't have your back in there, but that was hilarious!

At this point, I feel like I should stick up for Idaho a little bit. Rexburg is actually very much like Fairbanks. It's small, really far away from anything worthwhile, and the winter does suck pretty hard. However, those aren't exactly the selling points. Fairbanks appears to embrace those traits. So if you're looking for cold and miserable nine months out of every twelve in a place where your friends and neighbors really will leave you out in the wilderness to die, Fairbanks is your place!

Also, if you ever find yourself in need of a good lawyer that won't cannibalize their own argument, don't ask around at Fairbanks Bowl Company.

50th Post, Woo!

2011-03-20T20:26:00.001-07:00

For my grand 50th post, I have only the following to say:

There has been mention that this blog is dead/offline. That is incorrect. I just haven't been posting on it. Also, why hasn't anyone said anything about the triathlon I posted about on Facebook? I'm serious!

- CoolBoy

It was a Christmas Miracle!

2010-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where the phase, "Christmas Miracle" came from, but I've always enjoyed it. So much so, that I often use the phrase when it isn't Christmastime at all and just use whatever holiday is nearest Halloween Miracle, Easter Miracle, Veteran's Day Miracle, you get the idea). Sometimes this degenerates all the way down to just a "Wednesday Miracle." But hey, I know I feel like I miracle on some Wednesdays.

Anyhow, as most people already know, I've had a recent Christmas miracle: My car was found!!! Not only was it found, it was right in a BYU parking lot! Right by where I normally park! With plenty of gas and all my stuff still in it, and hardly any extra miles on it... and nothing wrong with it at all....

I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't just leave it there. I remember distinctly that I didn't drive that day because Coolwife and were going on a date in P-Towne that evening and didn't want to end up with two cars. I was starting to get really worried that I was turning into Tyler Durdan, but then I noticed that the electronic door locks make really strange noises on the driver's side now. So that makes be feel a little more justified.

And just because it's a good story, I'll briefly tell how I found it again. I was riding the bus to school (as usual) and when we were a few blocks away from campus I get a phone call. The call was from BYU traffic saying that the lot my car was parked in had closed and I needed to move it. I responded that my car had been reported stolen about a month and a half earlier, so that was news to me. The lady then got kind of freaked out, and gave the phone to someone else, who I told the same thing, and I was told to come to the BYU police office. After a little waiting, I drove up to the lot with a BYU copper and it was just fine! I drove it away! Woopie!

An Ideal Halloween

2010-11-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe next year.

I was considering writing about the "Ideal Halloween" and noting the irony that I wrote all about Thanksgiving getting passed over for Christmas when Halloween was getting even more eclipsed by both. I never did get around to it. The thing about Halloween though, is that it doesn't just lay around and feel bad about itself. It gets back at you. Hard.

Things had been going well enough, we went to a party on the 23rd. We dressed up as Napoleon and Deb from Napoleon Dynamite and made a sweet spider cake named Rufus.

This past Friday I rode the bus to school as usual, but this time Aubrey came and picked me up from school afterward so we could go on a date. We went to Tucano's with a 1/2-off coupon. Yeah suckahs. That was almost 100% amazing (I quite nearly puked after eating. Turns out you can eat too much of that bacon-wrapped fillet minon). And then we went to Boarders for a couple hours and got a Christmas present for one of the small children we're related to. All in all, a great night. We got home pretty late though, so we didn't go get my car. (We've done this a couple times before. Not a big deal.)

In Utah and, I suspect, many other places the 30th was the (in this case, very rainy) night for Trick-or-Treating. We spent most of the day at Aubrey's parents jarring tomatoes. Aubrey loves tomatoes and will not tolerate canned ones. So every fall she needs to find a source of jarred tomatoes from someone in her family. This year it fell to her to jar her own for the first time. This took approximately 6 hours and we didn't even finish. After she took a short nap, we ordered some pizza, went home, turned off all the lights so Trick-or-Treaters would think we weren't home, and watched a scary movie (Psycho, which was awesome).

Sunday morning-Halloween proper-we got up and went back to Aubrey's parents to finish those freaking tomatoes. We ended up with 32ish quart jars, which was a bit more than Aubrey anticipated, but it doesn't look like we'll be running out any time soon. At about 1, we finally went back to the Park and Ride to get my car. Which was not there. There were 5 or 6 other cars there. But not ours.

After some digging around, we've come to the conclusion that it was stolen. We've filed a report and everything, and now we're playing the waiting game. One could question the wisdom behind leaving a car out in an unsupervised parking lot for a period of 54 hours. But the real lesson here is this: If you piss off Halloween, it'll mess you up.

That's right, I slighted Halloween and then Halloween stole my car. Normally I might put up a fight to something like this, but at this point I'm ready to just come to a compromise with Halloween. From this point on, I'll always make sure to write about Halloweens before Thanksgivings or Christmas, and in return Halloween won't royally screw me over.

Deal.

It's been (possibly) an entire week since it was stolen now. Therefore, it could be pretty much anywhere in the continental United States. So in case you've got any spare time, feel free to check classifieds all over the country for a silver 2003 Subaru Forester with about 130K miles, possibly Alaska plates, and a big dent on the left rear bumper and light. Not just Craigslist, mind you, but local papers as well. Get back to me if you spot anything. Thanks.

Note to They-Who-Took-My-Car: Being that you have all of my personal information from my insurance card, you might have even found this blog. If you did, two things: (1) Feel free to return the car to the lot you removed it from. (2) I expect a full tank of gas. Seriously, it's the least you could do.

Ideal Thanksgiving

2010-10-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

Things have been getting spicy up in the CoolBoy clan about the holidays. By "The Holidays" I mean Christmas and Thanksgiving. Not trying to exclude anyone here, just making the distinction. And I'm sure people who don't celebrate both/either holiday can relate to family being complicated and weird holiday fantasies, which is what this post is about. To clarify, this post is not about how my Dad can't just make his own blog to entertain himself with so he doesn't periodically (and arbitrarily) decide he's the internet police and harass people about not posting enough. It would be rude of me to call someone out like that. (Also: Dude. If you want someone to blog consistently, they have to be paid for it. Take that however you want.)

Anyway, looks like my parents will be here for Christmas this year and will be staying with Aubrey and I! We're quite honored to have them staying at our apartment. We're going to have our own little tree and everything so it will be nice and festive. I think Aubrey might even quilt up a tree skirt as well as sew up some curtains for the 2nd bedroom because she's awesome like that. There's also a pretty good chance they'll be sleeping in our bed while we take on an inflatable mattress for the week. Unless of course they want to buy us a house for Christmas. This would solve the bed issue. Until then, we're cool with just changing the sheets for them. Aubrey would sleep on the floor if I would let her. She says it feels good on her back or something. I don't buy it.

I hope our place won't be too small for them. I'm pretty sure we've already warned them that the bathroom door doesn't lock. Not that it matters, since the toilet is back crammed in behind a little wall by the dryer and intruders would only be able to see your knees (note to self: investigate potential of using dryer door as footrest while going to the bathroom).

True to form, my parents are coming for one reason: Grandbabies. You read it here first, my parents will do anything if it means quality time with their spawn's spawn (except move nearby). This is all fine by me, but there have been a few ruffled feathers about the logistics of everything. This is also fine by me. If grandparents are here to visit grandchildren, and grandchildren are visited, that makes the trip (by definition) a success.

This just about brings me to the point of this post. Amid so much kerfuffle about Christmas, Thanksgiving was getting skipped over. Aubrey asked me two night ago what the ideal Thanksgiving would be. I then saw a vision. It was awesome. Fortunately it was dark and she couldn't see the far-off look in my eye at the time. I'll tell you what I saw.

1) Aubrey and I.
2) My family (meaning my parents, their children, children-in-law, and grandchildren)
3) Aubrey's family (meaning her parents, siblings, and grandparents who want to come)
4) Barack Obama and his family (meaning his wife and daughters).
5) A Turducken
6) Everyone listed above eating the Turducken and having a grand time together.

I already know what you're going to ask: What's a Turducken? Turd? Really? A turd for Thanksgiving? A Turducken is not a turd. It is a chicken stuffed into the cavity of a duck stuffed into the cavity of a turkey. I've always really wanted to try one of these. I think they're kind of expensive though, so we might also invite Alton Brown to make sure we cook it right. We would also have another whole turkey or two and a turkey breast for those white meat people. We're talking like 26+ people here, so I hope this will be enough so that everyone gets as much as they want and still have plenty for leftover turkey+brie+cranberry sauce sandwiches on fancy bread on Friday.

Each family unit should bring sides and stuff (I'm providing the birds, as well as funeral potatoes, and a can of cranberry sauce for decoration. Someone else will have to bring the sauce to eat). Brie and fancy bread is a must. Piemakers should make pies. Green salads are preferred over other salads, but a nice noodle one without olives would probably be nice. No salads with marshmallows will be allowed. Something else made of potatoes sounds appropriate. You get the picture. I will tell the Obamas ahead of time that while bringing us some nice wine with their other contributions would be very kind, we would prefer that they brought the white house bowling alley. Or a ton of Izze Juices. It's up to them.

This is the point in writing when I realize that everything in my ideal Thanksgiving is family and food-related. I suppose there will be some activities of some sort. Ideally, I won't be in charge of them, or have to participate if I don't want to. I'll have Cortney check on movies coming out that weekend. Is it cool if I just send the Obama's invite to the white house? Who's done this before? Also, should I tell Barack about the bathroom door on the phone when he RSVP's or just let him know when they get here?

24 0213

2010-07-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I cut ahead a little bit. Writing was just bogging me down. But we'll have an update here.

First, the biggest surprise.

Bridezilla: WOW. I didn't see that coming at all. It's one of the two things I didn't. but dang, I never took her for that crazy. The following is a transcript of my IM conversation with Aubrey as I watched (we were talking about a 24/Twilight Mashup, since Bella's parents in the movie are both in 24.

4:46 PM Aubrey: yeah! he's not a vampire! but, if he was, I bet he'd just smash the vultori and be done with it.
me: Holy crap
It would have all been over in 1 book
4:47 PM Especially if the only person getting in his way was Bella's lame sauce dad
Dead vampires everywhere
4:48 PM Aubrey: snap. take that meyer. we could make an awesome youtube video for that if we were that type of people.
me: That's true
4:49 PM 24's over now too. We could probably get little Kiefer himself
Aubrey: oh really? what makes you say that?
4:50 PM me: Well, depending on what he thinks about Twilight, he might be down.
4:51 PM Aubrey: that's true. of course, he might be a big fan.
me: Well, if he's got a sense of humor...
4:52 PM Aubrey: hahaha. true. heck, if stephanie meyers is a fan of 24...
we could get her too!
OR she'll write another book where he becomes a vampire.
me: maybzWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAHH!H!!!!!!
4:53 PM PLOT TWIST!!!
I didn't see it coming either
Aubrey: Wow. I guess not: All caps, elongated vowels, and multiple punctuation marks: you are impressed!
4:54 PM me: dang i love this show
It got me good just there

Aaaaaaaah. I do indeed love it. Except for Kim.

Jin, aka Agent Baker: Haha! More LOST! That was the one other thing.

Sherry: She's a giant B. Didn't need creepy sound effects to see that coming a mile away.

Palmer: Authorizing torture. Didn't see that coming. But I guess that's the beefing-up that Roger wanted.

Roger: Called it.

Kim: I still hate her. I hope Crazy Mountain Man just kills her instead of trying to repopulate LA. That would do us both a huge favor. Bet you wish you wore a bra now, don't you? (Dumb ho.)

The leader guy at the Mosque who did some PR for Islam: Props to you!

Kate: Way to step up.

Rogue Commando with the Nuke: I called you too. But I thought it would be at the end of episode 12, rather than 13, so you got me there!

Jack: Keep screamin'. Keep shootin'. I love ya bro.

24 0206

2010-07-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, time for some more 24. I think this time I'll only pause to comment during the "previously on 24" time, "commercial breaks," and the 4-square thingys at the end. That way it won't take so long (and it might be easier for readers to follow). Also, time posts are grouped by scene.
I think that the Arab ambassador guys were good. Also, the helicopter going down was fake. The fiance is totally bad. Also, Kim sucks. I'd stay away from Nina, Jack. Vampires man...that's scary crap.

2:30 Nina got a pardon! Good for her! Jack's gonna get himself in twouble again.

3:18 Holy unnecessary "WHOOOOOOOOSH!" when Pres. Palmer got out of car. Sheesh.
4:18 HA! It's her! Pres. Palmer's crazy freaking ex wife! I knew it! And why does she keep making eyes at the secretary lady?
5:35 Whatever man, whatever That lady could have to say. I wouldn't listen to her for 5 seconds. No way on the 5 minutes.

6:20 Man, fiance stinks. just kill him now Tony. It'll save people so much time.
7:10 Suck on that, SUCKAH!!!

7:30 Calling it: the media leak is Roger's fault. They're going to blame it on the weirdo from before. But it's going to be Roger.

9:00 George. You're making a mistake. It's easy to tell.
9:18 This is where Jack covers the camera and tries to kill Nina (They stop him though).
10:50 HA!!! Jack's screaming at someone! He needs a new hobby.
11:40 And now he's killing people. Seriously. Learn some new tricks. (Also, called that too.)
12:30 Yeah, it starts out as a "oh yeah, I was just freaking her out" until he actually DOES try to kill her before too long. And then he says stuff like, "Don't let anyone in the room for 5 minutes." Sigh.

[Commercial Break]
OK, we know a few things here: Jack's going to try and kill Nina in a few hours, Pres. Palmer needs to watch out for Cheryl, and Kim's a moron. More on those later (I'm guessing).
[/Commercial Break]

13:55 Bridezilla's still here. I forgot all about her. Darn.
15:00 I can't tell what I hate more: Bridezilla or her tied-up shirt.

15:30 Remind me to say more about that Doctor and Megan's Dad later.
16:20 She made that crap about cell phones up.
16:30 Daddy's other daughter is a vampire now. She'll bite you if you're bad!

17:19 Woo hoo!! Jack's getting answers!
18:20 Well, one answer, anyway.

19:00 HA! It was Roger. That was easy.
19:30 Also, since when as the military gotten anything done in less than an hour?
20:00 Also, he's bluffing.

20:30 Here it comes. Charlie's stealing his only surviving non-vampire child. Now his worst fear for names of grandchildren will just be things like Julio and Altagracia. None of the Resnesmee crap.
22:00 McGill is such a bad name. Good try though, Kim.
22:40 News flash little girl, rule #1 of survival in this show is "Only trust a Bauer when you're far away from them."

[Commercial Break]
Uuuugh, would it have killed them to dye Kim's eyebrows as well? I hate that in tv shows/movies. Also, it came to my attention that Megan's Dad is Charlie on the Twilight movies, meaning that both of Bella's parents are in here. And they're both crazy people. Plus that guy from LOST. This is getting out of hand. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure when we watched Roger tell that military guy something from behind the glass, he didn't tell him what Pres. Palmer wanted him too. It was probably something like "Just make it look like you're not evacuating anymore, but keep doing weird crap so I can further embarrass the Pres." You'll see.
[/Commercial Break]

24:30 No he won't hurt you. He'll sic the vampires on you! Blood everywhere!!
25:50 I wonder if McGill here had any idea that his girlfriend was nuts before this episode. Also, how is any of this relevant to the main plot?

27:00 She's so mousy.
28:00 Yeah dude, don't tell her anything.
28:40 Bad move.
29:15 Guess who saw that coming? ME!!! Also, her prime suspect is That red-haired lady. That must have been what those glares were about.

[Commercial Break]
Yes Palmer, it is one of her manipulations. Also, I'm getting tired of typing. I'm going to save it for something significant.
[/Commercial Break]

32:00 Dear Fiance's Dad: Way to yell at Sister for no reason about stereotypes, because government officials frequently show up at weddings as a result of racial profiling. Classy.

36:30 It's about time Nina started getting freaking and mean. Sheesh.

[Commercial Break]
[/Commercial Break]

38:45 Woah! He broke! I didn't see that coming.
39:20 It was the Dad.
YEEEEEEEEEAHH!!!!!!!!! I got it! Of course, now that it's out, I can only assume the Dad's a patsy. You can only rock that scowly beard and those eyebrows for so long.

40:30 Holy crap! McGill just rocked that guy!! Way to go, man!

43:00 Ha! Jack drugged him. Nina's in trouble.

Just a few things

2010-07-06T11:52:00.001-07:00

I forgot my headphones at home again. Work will now feel about 3 times longer. It also means I can't keep going on my 24 binge. That's okay though, I'm sure I'll get to it before long.

Also exciting for today:

With all the dead time at work I'm finally getting around to backing up the media stuff on my laptop so I can install Windows 7. I hope it's as much as an improvement as people say it is.
There's people coming over today to drop off a couch we're holding on to for my old roommate while he's out of town. They better be nice to Aubrey or bad things will become of them.
We've been trying to buy a portable dishwasher from some dude we're calling Dan the Dishwasher Man all weekend. He's a slippery fellow and we're hoping that today will be the magical day that we can pick it up and not have to wash any more dishes by hand. If we get it, it'll be the first time I've lived with a mechanical dishwasher in 5 years. Wish us luck!

24 0205

2010-07-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

I'm still kind of undecided on the format here, but I think I'll just write in my running commentary. Times are run time, not "24" time. That'd be way too complicated.

00:23 Eric. That's Jerkface's name.

00:45 If the beard isn't good enough for you, just think about how he kinda looks like Christian Shepard. He wasn't all that great either (The smoke monster version, anyway).

01:14 That doctor lady is full of crap. Am I grossly misinformed, or is it common for new nannies who bring the child to the hospital to be the source of prolonged abuse? It will take the police all of about 15 seconds to "sort that out." Kim doesn't need to worry.

01:19 Jack Freaking Bauer happened, that's what!

02:27 Oop! Just saw "as Nina Meyers" in the credits. I was right!

03:00 Yeah, send Tony. That Groom's no good.

03:50 I don't remember who Chappel is.

05:00 Lynn. That's Red Hair Lady. Wasn't that Samwise's name too?

5:40 Yeah, because running away looks good. Also, that guy's a weirdo.

7:18 Bull crap. I'm calling it.

930: so wait, Nina's been in jail? When was it she ordered the bombing? I don't get it.

1010: and yeah, Jack's totally going to kill her. Wait, he does that in a different season. He does it somewhere.

1110: She's only getting like part of it. Then people are going to freaking out. You'll see.

1224: Dang, they got me. Now she's gonna die though, right?

1300: There we go.

1400: That beard is awful. What else is this guy in? Holy Crap! It IS Christian Shepard from LOST. HE'S BAD! He's totally going to be bad! Just look those eyes and tell me he's good.

1430: Yay Tony!

1500: Yeah, and you picked this day just so you would have an excuse to fly in more terrorists. That's awesome!

1620: Yeah, that's the look of "Oh crap! They're already on to me! Good thing I've already got a story that's going to check out perfectly but someone's going to have a hunch and figure me out eventually!"

1750 Are they ever going to tell us which "Their Country" is? I'm guessing not.

1850: Yeah, don't give it to them. They'll only give you the crappy files or something

2020 And given your camera angles, we have no reason to trust you either, bub (Roger).

2120 Kim, just freaking do what you're told. Please. Once?

2245 Ha. Jack's funny.

2300: Yeah, give Nina a helmet. Jack's gonna thump her widdle head. It's only a matter of time.

2335. I was hoping for a smile out of her. That would make her awesomely bad.

2430: I didn't see the split screen there at first. I thought they were just waaaaay too close for a second there.

2456: The terms are: I'm going to write my name on the walls with your blood once my daughter and her vampire friends get here.

2510 Or she just wants immunity. Whatever.

2627 Hey hey hey! Just like David Wallace! Except Wallace is a patriot.

2710 "It in was a chain email. We must know some of the same people."

2810 "I've got a bomb to blow up in 6 hours. You'll notice that corresponds perfect with the 12-hour mark in the season when crisis #1 always ends and crisis #2 has to start. You'll see!"

2820 Have we figured out what Lynn's job title is yet?

2850 And now Jack's going to find a way to get to Nina. Don't talk to him Michelle. You'll just catch The Crazy along with him.

3140 This is Palmer we're talking about here, Jack. He's doing the right thing.
Wait, Palmer, you just said "eventually we'll make it right." That's like a death sentence in Kiefer's mind. You'll have to clean that one up eventually. See? Look at that snarl!

3200 who the crap is that guy? Oh geez, a Kim boyfriend. That can't been a good sign. What kind of name is McGill? Are you kidding me?

3320 It's official: I kind of love Mason. Too bad he's gonna die and stuff.

3410 Yeah Michelle...don't trust Keifer's purrrrrrrr. He's just gonna kill people in the end.

3520 Bridezilla isn't being nearly as bridezilla-y as she could be. But I do really hate her shirt. Why tie it up like that? That's not classy. It's pretty gross.

3645 "Don't mind my other family in Australia." Claire doesn't count.

3700 Oh, there's the Bridezilla. You'll notice Christian didn't bother to tell her that he did a background check too. Sissy.

3830 Yeah, there you go Kim. Screwing things up. Nice job.

4000: Couch buddies!

4135 It would be Fox News. Being that this show is on Fox.

4310 HA! Camera glare. She's practicing her feral stare for when Bella turns her too.

Watching Old TV

2010-07-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Netflix streaming and not a lot going on at work, I've found myself starting up Season 2 of 24. I've also started watching Veronica Mars with Aubrey, and I think we're going to do LOST (I've seen all of it, she only saw season 1 back in high school) at some point too. Sidenote to Netflix: Hurry up on that iPhone app, and it better be free, I'm not going to pay you twice (and don't worry, I definitely won't get Hulu Plus, I won't pay for commercials).

So I figure while I'm watching all this old TV, I ought to be keeping a record somehow.

Anyway, here begins 24: Day 2 (2002).

Some background:
Four years ago I saw season 1, half of 3 (I think), half of 4, and all of 5. Then last year I followed the first half of 7. I'm far from a 24 noob, but there's just a lot I haven't seen and even more that I probably don't remember. But If I actually keep this up, I probably won't watch season 6 anyhow because Wayne is the president. Wayne is stupid. Also stupid: When they killed off Edgar. WTH?

So far I've seen the first 4 episodes, which started at a blessed 8 AM instead of Midnight like the 1st season. That just makes more sense. Here's a plot update and some character forecasts:

Plot: Thanks to torturing some Korean guys torturing another Korean guy, and then forwarding the only words excluded from subtitles to some white guys in another room, who then made a phone call to another guy who was on the boat with The Man in Oregon, we know that LA is going to be nuked "today" by a middle eastern terrorist group. Finding a resolution to a crisis that only lasts one day is obviously the work of one Jack Bauer, so they starting trying to get a hold of him.

Jack, meanwhile, is still on hard times emotionally from his wife dieing in the last season. We know this because he's scraggly and because when he give a gun a meaningful look we get a "wooosh" sound effect. He gets on board eventually and starts killing people almost immediately. He goes undercover with a rather lame anarchist group (featuring both Squareface from The Rock and the nappy bad cop from Date Night) and helps them blow up CTU. (The daughter from Rosanne almost dies in the explosion. That's weird.) He tried to tell The Man ahead of time to worn them but he only gets to talk to Red Hairy Lady and Jerkface stops her from telling The Man in time. At the end of the 4th episode, we find out that the planner of the CTU bombing was given the order, date, and info by some lady that we're supposed to recognize (We can tell that before we even see the photos). I think it's Nina from the first season. I'm kinda rusty.

Character profiles:

The Presidency

Pres. Palmer: The Man. The solution to every problem ever. The epitome of what Obama wishes he could be. He's just got that voice. And those good hands.
Lady with the red hair: The President's....secretary? I'm not sure what her job is, but whenever Jack tries to call Palmer, he has to talk to her instead. Very lame. I've got the feeling she's bad.
Jerkface with the annoying, constantly purposeful tone: Also in the Pres's staff. Keeps trying to undermine the Pres and was just "removed" from his job. Don't worry, he'll be back.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to money down now that Palmer's crazy freaking wife will show up to cause trouble too. She's like that.

CTU people

The office decor: Better than Season 1's but way uglier than Season 4 and on. Good thing they blew it up.
George Mason: Seems nice enough. He's gonna die "Perhaps within a day" so I guess we can count on him in case we need any Butch Cassidies or Sundance Kids. (Speaking of which, remember the time Samwise Gamgee did one of those? That was crazy.)
Tony before he died twice and shaved his head: Seems fine. Needs a haircut.
That Michelle lady before Tony marries her: Not really a big deal yet.
Daughter from Rosanne: Just hurry up and kill her off so we can get Chloe instead.
Jack: Jack can do two things. He can yell at people and he can kill people, but not usually in that order.

Hitherto irrelevant Wedding people

Bride to be: Annoying.
The sister: Also annoying.
The Groom (and cousin just flown in): Totally a terrorist.
The Dad: Terrorist. Ge with me on this one, good guys don't have bears like that. (Or he's an old Gordon Freeman, which is ridiculous.)

Oh, and Kim Bauer's here too and nannies for some weirdo abusive family. Not sure how that ties in yet. I'd be ok if they just cut her out altogether. And the Dakota Fanning knock off, cut her out too.

So that's what we have leading up to episode 5 (Noon to 1PM)

Getting your facts straight.

2010-04-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, just a quick post here, but I'm going to drop a bombshell: Not everything people say on Facebook is true.

I know! Who would have thought that!? For example, a fellow I know from my mission is very torn up about the Health care Bill. He often posts derisive little snippets about it. Today's offering:

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. -Thomas Jefferson

Yes, well, that's nice I guess. I don't like to argue with TJ, he knew his stuff. However, I won't lie, Imma bit of skeptic so I Googled it. What came back was a page from what calls itself "The Jefferson Encyclopedia" which stated,

"if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." - Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802^[1]
Note: This passage has often been mis-quoted as, "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Ford and L&B have also slightly mis-transcribed the original text as, "If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

So after 10 seconds of effort we now have the truth. Or at least, what TJ actually said, citations and all. And what started out as a statement about the American People preventing government subsidies in general is actually a statement about the government itself preventing waste. The two are still pretty close, and Mission Buddy could probably use the real statement to argue his point, but I don't think it would nearly as easy. Crazy.

That is all.

Postgraduate

2010-03-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

Observant readers might have noticed my earlier note about my intention to go into the Food Science industry. Or at the very least, I've changed my major to Food Science. Following such, I've received the question, "What is that?" or something like it from many people. Wikipedia says:

Food science is a study concerned with all technical aspects of food, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering, and ending with its cooking and consumption. It is considered one of the life sciences, and is usually considered distinct from the field of nutrition.

I'll add that it's basically Organic Chemistry with a food orientation. More specifically, the preservation, development, and enhancement of foods (making it so people will want to eat it). This branches out pretty wide, including those who want to make food more transportable/sustainable for those or need it, and those who want to make a food as delicious as possible as to make lots of money of it. I would want to be more of that first group. But either way, as the Western Diet gets worse and people start to freak out about it more, people will (ironically) look to food producers for answers. This means that the industry will continue to grow.

This leads me to my next point: There is currently a 100% job placement rate among food science graduates at all universities (excepting those who go on to graduate studies or professional programs) with high demand for more. Those with a Bachelors degree make at least $50k/yr to start plus benefits. Those with a Masters are around $70k/yr, and PhD's are about $90k/yr. And that's just to start. Did you catch that, Mom? No one will be starving to death.

So while all that is nice, what do I plan to do with it? I'm not too sure at the moment, to tell the truth. I know it sounds fascinating and that I'd rather be part of the "Good Guys" than The Man. But I simply don't know enough about it yet to make a decision. I'll working on some career research and talking to the professors over the summer while things are low-key. Hopefully I'll have an answer for that soon.

Now that I've gotten all that out there, I've received some suggestions of other careers I might pursue. I'll list and address them here.

Doctor/PA: You know, I'm really not sure about this one. I like the idea, but I'm just not sure. Either way, Food Science is a great major for pre-Meds and if I do really well, I'm going to apply for Med School anyhow. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm not making it my focus anymore.

Finance: While being a high-roller businessman seems pretty glamorous, I'm pretty glad to have given it up. This doesn't seem very attractive anymore.

Join Air Force and become a lawyer: I'm not really sure how this one came up. But I'm thinking no.

Become Large Animal Veterinarian, move to Oregon and start practice with my brother. We'll call it "H****** & H******" or maybe even "Kick @$$ Vets." There would probably be a show on Animal Planet about us. Of those listed, this one sounds the most promising as an alternative. High demand, good pay, lots of time outdoors. Not to mention all the time with cute, fuzzy farm animals! I only just recently discovered that horses get all furry in the wintertime! How cool is that? They're like giant puppies!!!

Almost-Broken Promise

2010-03-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Firstly,
Happy Birthday Aubrey! I love you!

Secondly,
I once made a promise that I wouldn't get a Blu ray player until Space Jam comes out on BR because that movie's awesome. I've kept that up so far, But something happened. The completely awesome Fantastic Mr. Fox happened.

Aubrey and I decided that we definitely wanted to buy work of genius. I figured the DVD would be like $16. That's how much new DVD's are on the release day, right? Wrong, they wanted $18 for this one. But I spied that the Blu Ray was $25! I thought those things were like $40. They certainly used to be...you know....a year and a half ago. I guess things change. But back to the point, the BR includes not JUST the BR, but also the DVD, and 3rd disc so you can make copies on your PC and iPod. Cuss Yeah!! So after we went and got tasty Thai food last night after school (thanks, Mom!) we went and picked it up. It's even better when you watch it at home because you can talk about the cool stuff (and, you know, pause it when you need to). Also, I never realized Dumbledore was the voice of Bean. That's freaky.

Also, Nemesis, you're the only person I know with a BR player, so if you wanted to borrow that disc, you totally can.

P.S.* Just as a note: No, we didn't buy a BR player. We just bought the disc.

So yes, I went on dates, then I got engaged, then…

2010-03-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

…Yes, I did get married. For anyone that might not have had a chance to ask me how it is, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else: It’s great. Two thumbs up!

That was over two months ago now. Life is sort of calming down now. Actually, that’s a lie; it’s pretty wild and crazy all the time. Those people that told me I’d have more free time after I got married were full of it. My brother Dave was the only one who gave it to me straight. Last month Aubrey and I were hometeaching* and someone asked us “what we do for fun” and neither of us had anything to say. After a few seconds I managed to say, “Sit on the couch for a minute?” But then I realized this might also include the things I’d like to do for fun, such as riding my bike and snowshoeing.

As for the things that have been keeping me busy, it’s just the same ol’ stuff.

- We’re still in the process of getting our apartment into “Home Mode,” but we’ve made good strides. If you look at just right angle from the couch, its looks perfect. (Photo forthcoming)

- School is still going. Side note: Don’t get married during school. I know I did it. I don’t regret it. I like being married very much. But coming home to homework when all you want to go home too is your wife totally sucks. A nice, no-homework post-marriage period would have been awesome.

o Another note there: I changed my major a while ago to Food Science. I’m actually really excited about it, but I’m not sure which Food Science-type career I want to pursue at this point. I know I have a very strong desire to stick it to "the Man" of the food industry, but I'm not sure in what way.

- We just got our taxes done: BBBLLLLAAARG! That’s all on that one

- Aubrey’s job is sort of in jeopardy. Not because she isn’t good (She’s the best little teacher in the world! That’s a fact), but because she only got a one-year contract and her school administration are kind of pussy-footing around on what they’re doing next year. So we're crossing our fingers on that one too.

But summer's coming soon. Praise the heavens...

Horse.com: Revisited

2009-12-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

I'm sure no one remembers that one time when I blogged about getting worked by Horse.com.

But either way, redemption came yesterday. I was busy planning my post-marriage vacation on Orbitz (note: You get some pretty redonkulous deals on hotels on that site, just saying) and I was dissatisfied. Sure, going to San Francisco was going to be cool, but there's was a Promo Code Box next to my subtotal that was just screaming to be filled. I was a bit weary of that box. I've lost some of my deal-scavenging mojo because of that stupid horse tape and I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into that all over again. However, I was feeling a bit daring:

Step one: new tab
Step two: Google "Orbitz Promo Code"
Step three: click first option, Couponloco.com
Step four: Find something that looks relevant to 2 round-trip flights and 4 nights in a hotel.
Step five: Copy, Paste, Enter
Step Six: $50 off my honeymoon.

Bam baby. Fifty free bucks, just for me! The mojo's back! Put that in your trailer and tow it, Horse.com!!!

But Aubrey dear, I've already bought you diamonds this week

2009-10-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

I totally said that last night in a very snooty voice. It was said at the Salt Lake Capital Theater shortly before the performance of Macbeth that we attended (boring, it was an opera and they took a lot of liberty with the story). They had some blingy stuff out at the merch table (or whatever you would call those tables) for the rich folk to buy. Best part was that I actually had bought her diamonds that week. Why did I do that? Because I'm totally marrying her in January and the ring (which I had custom made) is finally done.

All of you are probably saying "So wait, didn't post for the last two months because you've been too busy falling in love and getting engaged? Oh, that's okay then." and you'd be totally right. I'm glad we're on the same page and that you're okay with it. Some things are just more important than broadcasting myself onto the internet.

So anyway, yes. I'm getting married. You may be invited. We'll have to discuss it. Who am I marrying? None other than Aubrey (as noted in the title, that's her on the right!), the very same Aubrey that attended Food Inc. with me a couple months ago. After the movie and such we had a great chat and things pretty much picked up from there. Now you might be asking "Hold on, you're already engaged and two months ago was only like you're thrid or fourth date?" to which I say, "Actually, we got engaged about a month ago, I just never told you, suckahs!" That's just how it worked out, and I couldn't be happier. Aubrey would like me to add that we've known each other for over a year, which is supposed to make it look like we spent more time together before we decided to get hitched. Don't let it fool you though, we hadn't so much as had a conversation until I asked her out in May (but then a bike accident got in the way).

Other updates: I'm switching back to pre-med in school because that's what I actually want to do (wish me luck). Turns out being engaged isn't conducive to good grades, but I'm working on that. My brother and his wife had their first child this week, which makes me the uncle of four now. AFI (one of my favorite bands) put out a new album this week, and it's actually pretty dang good. Cafe World is the best Facebook game ever, totally killing the farm games. If you feel like you deserve a wedding invite (or at least an announcement) and we haven't talked about it yet, you should probably mention it now.

Domesticity...

2009-08-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

...is a word that once appeared in an essay I turned in for an assignment in 7th grade English. I was not the author of said essay, I stole it off the internet. That was back in the good old days before Google when you could get away with something like that.

Turns out my teacher, Mrs. Perry, was extremely impressed by the usage of that word and asked me where I learned it. I told her that I'd heard my Dad say it before. That was a lie. A lie that was both large, and unwise. She then (appearently still impressed) mentioned it to my mom, who asked when--EVER-- did my Dad use the term "Domesticity" and how I had been around to hear it. I was pretty much caught then, although I never really admitted it until now. Fortunately, I don't think anyone ever spilled the beans to Mrs. Perry. And I NEVER copied anything off the internet again...I don't think....

However! It should be noted that every so often I make an attempt at domesticity in a literal sense. Some months ago I encountered a book called Hello, Cupcake! that has domesticity all over it. I decided to take a stab at one of the cupcakey creations inside it for a family picnic thingy that we had last weekend.

Meet Old Swampy the Crocodile:
Oh yeah, now who's domestic and awesome and stuff? I screwed him up in a few ways, but did my best to fix him. I didn't have the book/picture anymore when I made him, so I was winging it for the most part.
I'm not sure who was more excited, the kids or my mom, but it went down pretty dang well. I haven't eaten any of the cupcakes yet though (and probably won't ever). Whenever I undertake a large baking project I never eat any of the finished result. I get tired of it or something.

So there you have it: a confession and an accomplishment. Greatest post ever, right? Tell all your friends!

I fought the law...

2009-08-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

...And we called it a draw.

Long story made short: just because your tail lights are out it doesn't mean the bulbs blew it. Sometimes it's just your fuse. But hey, you got new lights out of it in the meantime, didn't you? Also, the courthouse cops are much cooler than the traffic ones. I think working at midnight has something to do it (or just the jealousy of my car which is still very, very sexy The courthouse cop even complimented me on her).

On a sidenote: The Corn Refiners Association has started a PR campaign to try and defend High Fructose Corn Syrup. The general idea is not to refute any of the accusations, but to say rather arbitrary things like "It's made from corn! And it's fine in moderation!".

But! My favorite part is that a bunch of nerds got together to make informative spoofs of the commercials. Both can be found together here on my sister's post, Speaking of Corn. (I might add that I showed her these, she just posted them first so I'm leaching).

On a note even farther to the side: The comments on each of vids are pretty interesting. Specifically, there was one for the spoof version that read "[Dang]! He just blasted that [girl] with information!" that made me laugh for quite some time.

Free Chocolate Day

2009-08-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

is today.

Go here to get free chocolate mailed right to your house from Mars Candy Company!

Hey world

2009-08-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been neglectful in posting, but I've having way too much in the real world to post. Not to mention my boss officially outlawed blogs at work a couple weeks ago...so prime blogging time got cut off there.

However, things have been great the past couple weeks. Which is a refreshing contrast to all the getting sick and getting injured and stuff from earlier in the summer. I think I've finally managed to pick a major (Exercise Science) with the aspiration of going to grad school to become a Physician's Assistant. This is the first time I've ever thought of grad school as something other than "Ugh, that sounds like it'll suck". I actually can't wait to hurry up and get done with my undergrad and do cool stuff.

Furthermore, I've been going on lots of dates. And not any of those weak sauce "hanging out" dates that people seem to do all the time (I'm looking at you, Brett), but actual going and doing stuff dates. Just last night I had Japanese food for the first time and went to a bunch of local landmarks until midnight. Granted, I totally got to work late this morning, but there's no need to dwell on that (my bosses have an irrational love for me, they won't fire me, sweet huh!?).

Additionally, my sister had her third little baby last week and he's definitely a precious thing. And a total man, but that's another story. I posted a pretty sweet announcement on her blog, but it's a private blog so I'll direct you to another sister's blog for pics.

Additionally, I finally went to the local farmer's market on Saturday. I met a friend of mine from work there and checked the place out. There was mostly a crapload of crafty crafts but also some good looking food and, most importantly, some local organic produce. I'm proud to say that I got the two most perfect cantalope I've ever had for $1.50 each. Seriously. Perfect catalopes, people. Why isn't stuff like this in the news? I also got some stuff for Pico de Gallo, corn, a zuchini that was bigger than my new newphew (for only a buck!) and some rather delicious limeade. Not a bad morning. I came back later with my Mom and we got a couple loaves of cool bread and bunch of black berries with which she made some great jam. So yeah, we're officially locally grown elitist buyers now.

So that's what I've been up to lately. To end off, I'd definitely recommend a new blog I found called Bent Objects and this video on YouTube:

Obama's Health Care Plan is The Matrix

2009-07-25T02:24:00.000-07:00

This thing made me laugh for a long time.

New Banner for a New Cause!

2009-07-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

As is definitely noticeable, I have a new banner! It's pretty self-explanatory, so I'm going to leave you to figure how what its all about (and click on it!)

So our little party did go see Food Inc. last night in the cool little theatre. I'm not a pro on documentaries, so I dont have a lot to say on how well done it was, but I thought it was great. Everyone should go see it. And every one of those people should take another person who hasn't ever heard of it, as I get the feeling that most of the people that will actually notice and see the film as it is are already converted. Check here for screening times and places. Sorry Alaska, you don't get anything.

All the things I liked from The Omnivore's Dilemma had a presence in the movie, as well as a few other things.

- The American food industry as we know it is pretty much Fast Food. No emphasis is ever placed on quality or nutrition, only quantity and low cost. In the production of food products (and it really does become a product instead of food, food is way more personal than this stuff)
- Workers are given shoddy pay in dangerous environments. However, the specific job of each person is so simplified that any one is instantly replaceable should they have an issue.
- Workers (b). Chicken companies like Tyson hire illegal immigrants that work for insanely cheap and then pay the police to only arrest 15 of them every day. So in effect they produce our food for us for years before getting sent home with nothing.
- Forcing livestock to conform to industrialized forms of production is causing new forms of bacteria that can totally kill us in a matter of days. Switching cows to grass for their last 5 days of life would eliminate 80% of the possibility of E. Coli in beef. Instead of that, the beef gets a lovely chlorine bath. Yay.

The last freebie is this one: 70% of hamburger meat in the USA contains ammonia-laced filler to kill the potential E. Coli. Instead of feeding cows grass, that green stuff they've eaten for 2,000 in the fields, to avoid a problem, we're causing a problem and then trying to solve it by injecting chemicals into it. Think about that when you're next hamburger.

And this doesn't even go into the nasty conditions of the animals, the destitute farmers that sell to the meatpacking/distributors, or that FDA is totally in the pocket of these abusive food companies, many of which used to work or run them before getting a government position.

However, you can do something about it! And I don't mean to become a vegan, because that would be terribly boring. But what you CAN do is buy as much food as you can outside this structure. You can buy food from local farms or at farmer's markets. You can eat that processed junk and eat more real food. You can vote for transparency in the system. All those good things!

If you're like me and have no idea how to get local food, you can check out Localharvest.org and see what's available in your area. It'll be more expensive, but that's the whole point. Better food now for a better life later.

Here's the first 3 and a half minutes from the movie. Excuse the creepy music.

Oops...

2009-07-22T08:42:00.001-07:00

So turns out I haven't posted anything in a week. I would have you believe that's because I've been too busy doing awesome things and haven't had time to write. That's partially true, I suppose, but not really.

However, tonight I'm going to this place:to see this movie.
Of which one of the main contributors is Michael Pollan, who also wrote:
Which is an amazing book that I love. I keep meaning to write a review about it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll be attending with Miss Nemesis (sister and fellow food snob), GH (who's probably getting dragged more than anything else, poor guy), and Aubrey (who is my date, I'm hoping this doesn't scare her away).

Anyway, for those who dont know anything about Michael Pollan, a great place to start would be an episode of Fresh Air which was given in October 2008 when his book, In Defense of Food, had just come out. I take this moment to say that I LOVE Fresh Air and Terry Gross. It would be the most-awesome-thing-ever to be interviewed by her. It's definitely one of my goals in life to meet her. Anyway, he was on her show once and I'd consider the interview a very good place to start if you want to start your journey as a more-aware food consumer.

Interview (podcast or whatever you want) is here.

P.S. The theatre we're going to used to look like this before it got demolished and redone. How sweet is this thing!? I wish they hadn't changed it.

Finally got a gig

2009-07-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

I finally got another photography gig yesterday. Little known fact about CoolBoy: I'm a photographer's assistant. This means I set up lights and do other management of equipment-type things that will usually bring the term "Pack Mule" to my mind. We had a photo shoot for ESPN magazine yesterday, which is awesome in itself. But even more awesome: I didn't have to go to my normal job, got paid about 2.5x what I would normally make in a day's work (but in just a few hours), and got to shake the hand of someone that's shaken the hand of Michael Jordan. Free breakfast and ice cream were also involved, you can't beat that.

We shot Mark Eaton, formerly of the Utah Jazz. He was a monster. Which is to say, he's 21 inches taller that me. I actually has to reach upward to shake his hand. What a beast. The shoot took place at one of the restaurants he owns in Salt Lake City. This one is called Tuscany and if I ever need to impress a girl, that's definitely where I'm going to take her. The place was awesome. It's designed to look like a house in Italy and has vines and stuff crawling up the walls and out of the ceiling. A guy could score some serious points there.

In other news, according to my little map on the sidebar. There's a person from Lodz, Poland that has consistently been reading this blog. To the Polish man (or preferably, woman) I say: That's so COOL! Please keep reading! And tell all your other European friends about me too! And you know, maybe leave a comment sometime.

Remembering the Remembering

2009-07-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

May it rest in peace...and never be heard of again. Unless you're Larry King. This is one dead horse I don't think he'll ever stop kicking.

MPS #5: Jeff Ludes

2009-07-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure if I wanted to have Jeff Ludes on the blog this week. But then I looked at his blog and saw something awesome that pretty much made the decision for me. I wasn't able to find too much on him in a biographical sense, but he DID go to Art Center College of Design from '98 to '02. So I guess that's something. But anyway-have you ever wanted to know how to make your Honda or Nissan look cool? Jeff Ludes is your man. Using amazing action shots and probably a good 40 hours a week on CS4, he's managed to produce shockingly good shots of cars. Featured on many billboard and advertisements,
I won't lie, this next one makes me want to get an Infinity. That and move to a place that has such pretty leaves during the fall to match it.

Okay, now for what I'm actually excited about. Some of you might have noticed my last post, which chronicled my epic battle with a Wild Alaskan Stallion of an automobile (she's still great, by the way). Some people apparently read into it a bit weird, causing a very short but intense discussion in the comments. But then Jeff had the following posted on his blog:

The laughter could not be contained. I guess it's a common theme.

A Legend is Born

2009-07-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

So there I was, deep within the Alaska wilderness. My hunt had been going so long, I wasn't even sure what I was looking for anymore. The food had run out 3 days earlier and all those berries were finally starting to slow me down. Fortunately I was able to take that bear down the day before for some protein and shelter. 300 miles from civilization with only the caribou to keep me company, I began to wonder if I should just give it up.

Then I saw something. I wasn't sure at first what it was...the majesty and shine of The Beast in the Midnight Sun was too brilliant for mere mortals to behold. Then she turned away from me and ambled on, carrying herself as light as a magpie in the breeze. Through squinting eyes I saw...

[This link is giving me a hard time, you'll just have to click and see]

I knew this was what I had been searching for all these weeks. In was our destiny to become one. I tracked her for 6 more days without even thinking of food nor water. She became my obsession, my very cause for life, and I at last headed her off. I knew she was toying with me-- but she was learn to respect me when I became her master.

A battle ensued. She took several dings on the doors and many a kick to the bumper before submission came. But come it did and I did mount her for the first time. Only to find that she was almost out of gas. Awesome. Not to mention she has a manual transmission. Double bad. But we were one.

Which isn't to say she isn't in need of a little training. There's some kinks we're working out with that whole "moving while in first gear" thing. But just wait my friend, our bond will become a thing of legend. Those who speak of it will only do so in fear, whispering in the dark and behind closed doors.

Photo taken by Ed McCulloch

Year One

2009-07-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

But not the movie. As of today I've officially been back from my mission to the Dominican Republic for one full year. I am neither engaged nor married, which I'm a bit proud of (but I will admit I'm tired of living with a bunch of dudes).

Let's take a look of how far I've got in the past year:

Dependence of Parents
Days spent living with my parents: 21
Money regularly accepted from parents: I think only when I get sick...
Times gotten sick: like 5

Finances
Jobs: 3
Current wage: Less than I made when I was 16
Monthly bills to pay: 4 (soon to be 3, faster internet isn't worth it)
Student loans: None. Thanks Dad, you're The Man
Cars in my name: 1

Professional life/Fame
Paying photography gigs: 3, soon to be 4
Copyright offices I work in: 1
Irony that I work in a copyright office: Great
Copyright Infringement investigations preformed: 1
Irony that I have conducted an infringement investigation: Endless
Times been a voiceover: 1
Times mentioned in Wikipedia: 1
Times I've wished I could be on Fresh Air and meet Teri Gross: Many

Culinary Achievement
Chocolate Icing recipes perfected: 1
Times I've cooked for my roommates: 10ish
Times I've gotten Brett to say "Mmm!": 1
Times made chocolate covered pretzels: 2
Times I made chocolate Andes cookies for the people I home teach only to find that one of my roommates took big bites out of them, causing me to completely lose my temper: 1
How funny that was for lookers-on: 9 out of 10

Education
Degree Programs accepted into: None - curse you, mono
GPA: Like 3.5 - again, mono is the devil
Years of college remaining: At least 3

Living situation
Roommates married off: 1 - and thank goodness, he was kinda weird
Black Sleep-talking roommates: 1
White wiggles-feet-while-sleeping roommates: 1
White only-sleeps-when-the-sun-is-up roommates: 1
Arguments about the A/C daily: at least one
How much this bothers me: None
Washers, Dryers, and Dishwashers in my apt: None
How much this bothers me: A bit
Foosball tables in apartment:1
How much this bothers me: A lot
Whispered, whimpering, conversations Brett has had on the phone with his girlfriend while I'm trying to sleep this week alone: 2
How much this bothers me: Less than the Foosball table, but it's still pretty odd.

Political Involvement:
Presidential Elections survived: 1
Times wished Sarah Palin would just go home and do her job again: Any time I hear her name
Worth of BYU student elections: -$Whatever the budget is

Literary Accomplishment
Fiction Books read: 6.5 (sorry Golden Compass...I got bored)
# of those about Zombies: 1
# of books I've read due to obligation of honor and conscience and not being a dirty liar-pants: 3
Nonfiction books read: 6
Papers written for class: 3
Blog posts written: 21
Blog posts written while at work: 21
Books checked out from library without reading them: 5 (I promise I'll read The 13th Tale one of these days...)

Relationships
Dates been on: several, but not as many as I'd like
Girls never called back: 2...oops
Women with hurt feelings: 1 (totally not my fault)
# dates with blondes ever: 0, I'm really not sure why this is
Relationships been in: 2
# of those that were totally weird and probably shouldn't have happened in the first place: 1
# of those girls that are now on missions: 1
# of those girls that is in my ward and everyone still thinks we're going out anyway (yet she gets asked out and hit on by guys in the ward...backstabbers): 1
# of times that girl stepped on a cupcake and made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants while laying on the sidewalk:1

Ethan & Savannah
Times I've babysat los sobrinos: a lot, in fact, I might be sitting on them tonight...I don't remember....
Times I've kissed their butts like their aunts do: None
Times I've wiped their butts: Too many
Times been made a total sucker by sobrinos: Too many to count
Times punched Savvy in the mouth on accident: 1
Planned dates with Savvy once I can drive my car: 1

Travel:
Concerts attended out of state: 1
Times almost bought ticket to China: 1
Times almost bought ticket to Hawaii: 1
Times almost bought ticket to Alaska: 1
Times almost drove to Texas: 1

Missionary Work
Times I've called/written old investigators: 0
Times volunteered at the MTC: 0
Times meant to volunteer at the MTC: at least 200, I even get the emails every week and it's like a free guilt fest every time
Times reviewed a few mission letters: 2
Days thought about mission at least once in past year: 365
Mission friends married: Kind of a lot, like 15+, several of which got home after I did
Mission friends that I see regularly: 0, but I have had lunch with Wilkins a couple times

Random
Extremely sexy bicycles owned: 1
Accidents on said bike: 1
Drugs done: 3 - Prednisone (A+), Lortab (B- takes forever to kick in), Percocet (D-)
Pron looked at in the shadows while no one was around: None
Times missed church:1
Times wanted to leave during Priesthood because it's so boring: probably around 25
Shows that I've become addicted to and spent hours watching: 4 - House M.D., The Office, Lost, Arrested Development
Hours spent playing video games instead of reading or exercising or cooking or going on a date: None of your business
Completely random and inconsistent chastity talks received from sisters: 1

How much I enjoyed it: Immensely
Number of time I'd be willing to repeat it: None

Sidebar Music

2009-07-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

I have music on my sidebar. I'm not sure anyone's noticed because it isn't the annoying kind that just starts playing as soon as you get to the page and restarts every time you do something. It's a good little system though, made possible by working the system of your friends at Lala. I try to put things that I've found recently, but sometimes I just put weird stuff that I still like (which is how Kenny G got on there, that man can play).

Here's how it works.

We see three boxes just like these:

Each has its own Play button and won't play until clicked on (you're welcome). Lala has it set up so that you can listen to each song only once. If you try to listen to it again (or if it's just being stupid, which it often is) you'll get something like this:
meaning that you can only listen to 30 seconds of the song instead of the whole thing. Fortunately, this is easily remedied. All you have to do is go into the Privacy setting of your browser and delete any cookies you might have from Lala's domain. Refresh the page, and you should be good to go. If you don't know how to clear your cookies, Google "clear cookies [the name of your browser]", that should lead to you something that'll help you figure it out.

Happy Listening!

MPS #4: Aneta Kowalczyk

2009-07-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

I realize that it's Tuesday, but I'm not going to let that bother me.

This week is going to Aneta Kowalczyk, a photographer from Poland of all places. She started out as a model and didn't get behind the lens until 2006. It's taken less than three years for her to get her photos on the covers of fashion magazines. Not too shabby.
Granted this is going a bit out of my normal range. Aneta does mainly fashion and beauty magazines and I've never really been into those (if you can imagine that). But that aside, her work is dazzling. Sharp contrasts, interesting composition, and freakishly moody models are the common theme.
Her most famous shot has a bit more skin that I want to post on here and I don't have the heart to put a black box on it, so you'll have to do a bit of additional research if you want to see it. Actually, all you would have to do is visit her website. There's nothing you wouldn't see in a PG-13 movie, but more than I want people at BYU to see over my shoulder.

Also, I think it appropriate to mention that it was reported to me that today is National Chocolate Day. I don't actually think this is true because the Daily Universe is completely useless. But I bought a Toblerone for the occasion anyway, because in all seriousness, what day should not be a chocolate day?

Happy Independence Day!

2009-07-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Ah, the 4th of July, a holiday that will forever remind me of my time as a Mormon missionary in the Dominican Republic. I officially became a missionary on July 5th (Three years yesterday!) but went to Utah to go to the Missionary Training Center on the 4th. So that 4th as well as the following pair of 4ths were all spent as a missionary away from my family.

How about a little recount of my past four 4ths?

Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
Half of this day was spent on an airplane (which is among my least favorite ways to pass the time) and the rest at a friend of mine's family reunion. I hadn't met any of those people before, nor have I seen any of them since. It took place in a place called Payson reached its pinnacle with the "Col-de-Sac of Fire!" extravaganza. It consisted of what I'm guessing was $2000 worth of Wal-Mart firecrackers that didn't leave the ground, but were still kinda neat.

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007
In my mission, Wednesdays are days known as Preparation Day to missionaries. It's the day that missionaries do things like go shopping, email the family, play sports, and (in my case) take a few naps. This particular P-day fell on the 4th, so I decided that I was going to grill up some steak for my companion Elder Aquino, a Dominican who had never had steak before. It was amazing, but turns out the reason he had been feeling so bad the past several days was because he had Dengue Fever. So the rest of the day and every day until Monday were spent at the hospital or the Mission President's house.

At one point that evening I asked President Thomas if he needed anything done and he told me that I could wash the mission van. Washing that nappy van was one of the greatest experiences of my mission. It was incredibly soothing. I think the only thing that could have beat it was mowing the lawn. I also spent some time talking to Prez about future career ideas, he had a lot to say about it. Good times.

Friday, July 4th, 2008 (leap year threw the day off)
This was 6 days before I went home. I was burned out. Like...meat that fell into the fire and comes back looking like a hockey puck burned out. I don't recall most of that day, but I do remember that I did a baptismal interview that had been very poorly planned by some guys in my district so Elder Williams and I ended up getting home very late. However, in the interest of being festive, we made a stop at my favorite hot dog place from the year before. And I'm sure that night before bed we spent some time listening to Williams' Kenny G cd. So Good.

Saturday, July 5th, 2009
Highlights:
Getting to sleep in
Missing the parade
Having tasty food and hanging out with my family
Whipping up a replacement black bean and corn salsa super-fast
GH letting me light the firecrackers he bought
Contributing to Savvy's coin collection so she could get her first-ever Cotton Candy
Kicking trash at a card game I hadn't played since I was 10
Seeing fireworks for the first time in 3 years

Lowlights:
Missing the Hot Air Balloon festival
Nemesis forgetting the awesome bean and corn salsa she spent all morning on at home.
Accidently elbowing Savvy in the mouth, hard causing her to bite her tongue really hard, shriek horribly, and bleed a lot. Turns out I jump when I get a wet willy.
The Stadium of Fire fireworks that we saw from the park were actually pretty weak

It's amazing how not-alike these four days are. Hopefully I can keep it up!

How to be an Overwhelming Butthead

2009-07-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to Laurs.

There are many simple, apparently painless ways to do this to harass your co-workers. Let's list a few.

1. Identify something your co-worker doesn't do very well. Point it out every time they do it wrong. Repetition is key.
2. Think of something bad that's happened to them recently, talk about it often.
3. Think of/Make up ways that they handled the aforementioned event poorly. Comment often.
4. Find out one of their goals, something that they've been working on for a while and are proud of, like a competition. Then, have someone else do it for you and take the award to work. Double points if this person comes to work and presents it to you in your co-worker's presence. Yay for gloating!
5. If your co-worker struggles with an assignment, instead of providing constructive criticism, just criticize.
6. Think up menial tasks you don't want to do yourself. Impose them upon your co-worker.
7. Make slights on the type of art and or/music your co-worker enjoys.
8. If something nice does happen to your co-worker, be sure to belittle it.
9. If your co-worker is sick (and male), spray their workstation down with a feminine hygiene product to "disinfect" it. Extra points if you can manage a spray onto the phone between calls.

Last but most importantly:

10. Giggle incessantly when you do any of the above things. The more girlier, the better.

Something Awesome

2009-07-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've made two discoveries, both of which are due to my wonderful sister Jenny.

The first is The Simple Dollar, or more specifically, 100 Things to do during a Money-Free Weekend. A list of 100 things to do that don't cost anything, and most of them are actually interesting. How cool is that?

One of these 100 things was a link to this: MIT's OpenCourseWare

It's MIT courses. For free! Courses are listed by department (look along the left side of the page) with everything you need to take the course all by yourself. Classes include a syllabus, lecture notes in PDF (sometime even on mp3s or videos), assignments, and exams.

I'm taking a course on java in the winter as a pre-req to get into the Information Systems program at BYU. Being that my programming experience is limited to that one time I got really bored with my TI-83+ in my Freshman math class when I was 14, I'm kinda worried about it and wanted to learn a bit about it before I take the course. Get this: All the course info for the equivilant course at MIT this past winter is right here. Yeah Suckahs! That's what I'm talking about!

So yeah, if you've ever wanted to take a class on something but didn't want to pay or have to follow the regiment, I've done all the looking for you. Happy learning!

MPS #3: Elliott Erwitt

2009-06-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Last week was the processed stuff so I guess today is the organic stuff. And not the Industrialized Organic either (why yes, I am reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, why do you ask?). This week is going to Elliott Erwitt.
Born in Paris in 1928 and raised in California and New York, Elliot started his photography career in photojournalism and advertising in 1950. He got good. Really good. His portrait portfolio includes shots of people like Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Che Guevara.
Apart from spectacular darkroom B&W photography (that is to say, pre-Photoshop) his work oftentimes caries with it a strong since of irony. This shines out especially in one pic that features a studio full of nude painters painting a clothed woman (which won't make it on here, as it has several boobs in it).

And turns out he loves dogs too.

Not to be left in the dust, now a days he does a lot of color photography as well. But the "old" stuff is definitely what stands out. If you have the strong desire to make some of these photos your own, signed prints of all these shots are available starting at $4,000 (um...yeah...I'll take two?). Additionally, he has several books for sale, including Snaps, Personal Exposures, and several others.

Hmm, who knew?

2009-06-26T09:21:00.001-07:00

I finished Freakonomics last week and keep forgetting to write about it. I guess the time has finally come.

Firstly, I think the title is a bit misleading. It's more like "The hidden side of the few weird things that the authors thought were interesting...leading to a very random book". That and the use of (and the romanticism put into) the word "Rogue" made me think "Maverick". Also, it should be noted that Steven Levitt is the economist, and Stephen Dubner is the New York Times writer that helped him write a whole book.

But gripes aside, it is very interesting. Using statistical analysis and (in some cases rather liberal use of) econometrics, Levitt asks and answers some pretty weird questions. What caused the drop in crime in the 90's when it looked like it would only get worse? Legalized Abortion. Instead of having babies, the woman in situtations that would put their children at high-risk for crime had abortions instead. Why are most drug dealers poor? Because the standard crack scene is really a giant multi-level marketing scheme, so all the normal, grunt dealers have a common supplier and have to cough up a ton of overhead (and therefore still live with their mothers).

The book ends with two studies on parenting. The first being about parental techniques that help children "to succeed" and the second on the effects of what parents name their children. In the first study they concluded that "techniques" (like reading to your children daily) didn't really matter. What mattered most was what kind of people the parents were. If they were honest, educated, and successful themselves, their children would most likely follow suit. Things like reading to your children, going to museums, or whether or not you spank your children didn't seem to matter.

I took the slightest bit of issue with that conclusion. The study was on techniques that seemed to help children get good standardized test scores. That means very little to me. While the integrity and traits of a parent do matter a great deal, I think the time/activities children spend/do with their parents matters as well. Wholesome activities as a family could help a child be successful economically and socially after their formal education ends. It could be on a trip to the museum that a child discovers something that they eventually turn into a career. Or time spent reading or hiking or doing some other healthy habit as a family could continue throughout a child's life that never would otherwise. So this is a section of a the book where I think they were a little misleading. Good elementary school test scores do not equal success in life.

The section after that was pretty neat though. They broke down the top California baby names into several Top 10 lists by race, gender, income and decade to look for trends. There was some cool stuff in there too. Higher income families were more likely to have the traditional spelling for names while low-income families were more likely to spell a name differently (or just wrong). Furthermore, what were high-income names one year would become the new low-income names 20 years later. Crazy stuff.

What a bunch of Rogues [Mavericks].

The time I was really tired at work...

2009-06-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

Warning, this is a gross post.

If there's a word above all others that grosses me out more than any other, this word is "placenta". Sick. Just saying it is nasty. And then when you see one in all its nasty veiny nastiness there's just no redeeming qualities. It's like that Dave Barry essay about his son's birth:

Nonetheless, the baby came out all right, or at least all right
for newborn babies, which is actually pretty awful unless
you're a big fan of slime. I thought I had held up well for
the whole thing when the doctor, who up to then had behaved
like a perfectly rational person, said, "Would you like to see
the placenta?". Now, let's face it. That's like asking, "Would
you like me to pour hot tar into your nostrils?". Nobody would
like to see a placenta. If anything, it would be a form of
punishment.

Jury: We find the defendant guilty of stealing from
the old and crippled.
Judge: I sentence the defendant to look at three pla-
centas.

But without waiting for an answer, the doctor held up the
placenta, not unlike the way you might hold up a bowling
trophy

Yes. So the Miracle of Life and cute babies and all that aside. It's a pretty gross affair.

But, if there's anything I like as much as I dislike that word, it's teasing my co-worker. From here out we'll call her Lars (I know that's a guy's name, but just go with me on this one).

Today, during a discussion of black widow spiders in bags of grapes at Costco, someone mentioned finding weevils in a banana. Lars then insists that "weevil" is the grossest word in the language. I disagree, and continued to reason why The P-Word is more gross. Especially when you consider that some people eat them.

Which got me to thinking. How do people go about eating them? I'm sure they can't taste like much on their own. Just like skin [read: lips] or something, so they would have to do something to spice things up. We brainstormed for a bit (Larz was eating some diced pears at the time and took her leave) and I then went into the Wilds of the Internets to see what I could find. And find I did.

Recipes that can use The P-Word as the main source of protein:

Stew
Sausage Pizza
Cocktails (with V-8 juice, double sick)
Lasagna
Roast
Meaty Spaghetti Sauce

None of these sound appealing to me in the slightest. In fact, I don't think I want to eat any of those things, P-Word or not, for quite some time. I'm just glad it's a short list. I figure you can only try out one recipe per pregnancy, leaving precious little time for culinary experimentation.

Also, Wow

2009-06-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

MPS #2: Marcus Sauer

2009-06-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, the second edition of the Monday Photography Special goes to Marcus Sauer (and no, that isn't him).

Apparently based in Germany, he's traveled all over the world taking pictures of things and places. He's had a lot of stuff in advertisements (particularly cars), all of which is pretty dazzling (which means heavily processed). But a lot of post work isn't necessarily a bad thing. Most of his cool stuff is on his website and can't be copied w/out permission, so everything here is linked through an online stock photography company (Eurostock.us) and most of those are just landscapes. But they're still very neat.

Those are some crazy-cool skies.

Working on a new look

2009-06-19T09:54:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to decide on a look for this bliggity-blag. The Google templates are all kind of weak, so I'll be exploring some others for a few days I think. Please excuse any eyesores that might pop up.

In which REI knows me way, way too well

2009-06-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, the peeps at REI had a meeting:

President and CEO Sally Jewell: Okay, so Coolboy's been into the cycling thing for a few weeks now. He's been out several times, had a minor accident, hit 30mph...

Vice President of Merchandising Angela Owens: He's such a stud!

Sally: ...and is going to for his first 20-mile ride tomorrow, weather permitting. He'll be in the market for some more gear about now. Maybe another pair of shorts and a couple more jerseys. What do we got?

Vice President of E-Commerce and Web Strategy Brad Brown: He always goes for sales though, that doesn't do us any good. He usually stops around $40. We want a good $50 out of him this time.

Sally: Hmm... what could be throw at him?

Then the skinny guy intern in the back is all like: What about this little number?

Hoe. Lee. Crap.
Sold.

I'm still trying to come up with a good excuse to justify the money, as it was a bit pricey. No shipping charge? First day with no bandages since the accident? It'll help the guys in my apartment accept my new habit of spandex shorts? My Quarter Birthday? I'm open to suggestions.

You cannot trust a southerner

2009-06-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

I realize that might seem a little out of date, but apparently they just want to steal your money.

It all began with a friend telling me that on horse.com, you can buy that awesome medical tape that only sticks to itself really cheap (and upon my own investigation, lots of colors). I was pretty excited about this. I've been using ton of the stuff since my accident and it's very expensive. I recently got a great deal on some at my university Student Health Center, so I didn't need any more. But it was a great thing to know (Plus shipping was like $5).

I then made an alarming discovery:
Not even kidding. They carry wonders such as these:
Doesn't that little tie just make you want to vomit? It just seems to strange to have formal wear for your domesticated rodent. I don't get it.

Anyway, back to the point. I decided to at least give Horse.com a shot. As with all my online purchases, I searched deep into the Wilds of the Internets (come back to this link when you get a chance) for coupon codes that thoughtful people have posted online for the use of all. If I could score free shipping, I'd go for another roll or two of tape in crazy colors. And I did! However... you had to sign up and stuff at Horse.com before you could apply the coupon to your basket (REI does this too, it's annoying). I've been around the coupons-on-the-internet block before, so I knew that it probably wouldn't work anyway but I still wanted to give it a shot.

So I did the only right thing to do this situation: put in all jibberish for the information. It looked like this:
M H
5616 jiosdfioo
provo, UT 84606
USA
907.912.5856

That's right: my address is 5616 jiosdfioo. Maybe I should have put some letters in the phone number for good measure, but whatever. Then it wanted a CC number. A little exasperated, I got my card out and typed the number in, and clicked OK, expecting page to review my order (and finally see if that coupon worked). What I got was this:

Thank You for ordering from Horse.com! This message is an automated response to confirm we have received your order in our system.

Your order will be sent to the warehouse soon so you still have time to edit your order. You will receive an email confirmation letting you know that your order has been sent to processing and is completed.

Until then you can edit your order by clicking here: [there was a link provided here]

You can expect to receive your order of in-stock items by Economy Shipping in 7-10 business days*.
* - (not including Saturday or Sunday)

Um. Not good. And the free shipping did NOT work. Double suck. That's okay though, right? I can just cancel it. I clicked the link and changed my shopping cart to empty. I then saw the "cancel order" button, which I clicked as well, receiving a confirmation that it was canceled. And just for good measure, I changed all my billing and shipping information in my profile to hyphens.

About 5 minutes later, I got this email:

Greetings from Countrysupply.com.
Your order has been sent to the warehouse today, 6/17/2009 5:16:23 PM to be shipped.
These are the items that we are now packing to be shipped:...

Excuse me? It was time to work the White Male in me and get things done. I responded to the email informing them that I had canceled that order and would appreciate it if they didn't ship anything, especially since the address was gibberish. I then called the number provided and was informed by a woman with a deep southern twang (that's right: The Confederates, or the KKK at the very least did this to me) that they didn't have my order anywhere in the system (good sign), but I should called back later.

This morning, I awoke to find this message in my inbox:

Dear Michael,

Unfortunately, the order has shipped this morning. You must have canceled the order after it had came through to our website. Once the package returns, the credit card will be refunded. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
[Customer Service Agent]

What!? Really? Who did they send it TO? hyphen street? 5616 jiosdfioo? That doesn't even make sense! Nor does it resemble my CC's billing address in any way. However, I do currently have a charge on my account for it (thanks for nothing Wells Fargo, as usual). Did anyone ever look at the address? Or is "Jiosdfioo" just one of those things The Mormons talk about over there in Utah while the men sacrifice the babies and the women hide their horns under those poofy hair styles. A perfectly normal Utah address, thank you very much.

Play with fire; you get burned. That's what I learned from this experience. My emails with them are ongoing, but don't need mention here. SOMEONE really needs to work on the efficiency of their website. And someone else needs to stop playing with things that don't belong to him i.e. internet coupons.

P.S. The the case of someone getting offended that I immediately drew the connection of a southern accent to the Confederacy and the KKK, I was joking. While it is possible that she's a racist and supports slavery and segregation, it isn't likely and I know that. You do not need to explain how wrong I am or how offended you are to me. My entire family is from the south, it's entirely my privilege to make fun of them if I like. Count to 10 slowly and then comment.

P.P.S. As for the poofy Utah hair comment, I'm not retracting it. I'm totally right. Why else would women have hair like that? It isn't attractive and it looks like a pain to do. Must be utility that keeps it in vogue.

Something Bad Happened...

2009-06-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

...and I'm still not over it.

I love this guy:

Problem though, is that he's also Dr. Cockroach PhD

Jasper on 101 Dalmatians
Whiney Mr. Palmer
And whoever the crap this guy is supposed to be

You might ask, "So wait, an actor has played more than one character? And you're complaining?". Yes, yes I am. Because whenever I see my boy House in any other role, I get really confused. And that right there is my problem in the first place. He isn't Hugh Laurie, he's Gregory House, so any time I see him with his normal accent or in another role I think "Woah woah wait, who the heck is that guy?" But nothing could have ever prepared me for what I saw this weekend:

And then I suffered a case of sudden-onset epilepsy and slithered off my couch in tremors.

A comb over. No, not that. Anything but that! Fine! Put him in a family movie. Make him all cheery and helpful and fatherly. Heck, you can even put Geena Davis in there too if you like. But then you go and make him all smiley and sweater vesty and give him a comb over. Do you hate me tv? Do you? Seems like it (But I must add, Geena Davis' red hair is pretty hot). How am I supposed to enjoy one of my favorite shows if every time I watch it I think about Mr. Fredrick Little? It just isn't fair. Fox really should get some kind of insurance against this kind of thing. Maybe some more marketing to help me forget about it. But, the damage is done. Does anyone have the number of a good therapist?

P.S. After two weeks I was finally able to make a fist with my right hand again, which was celebrated with a 13-mile bike ride. No one even got hurt.

Monday Photography Special #1: Nick Brandt

2009-06-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

I'm torn between having an actual "weekly photographer" feature or just posting up cool stuff whenever I find it. The former would be nice because it would keep me on a regiment. So I'd wouldn't ever go on a photography binge on here. But if things ever get slow, I will have to spend time looking for a good one. I like the sound of that. But then again, why get into a commitment without needing to?

Either way, today's post features one Nike Brant (Also, none of the photos link to his website. It's his own fault).

Is website features two portfolios, both of which were shot in Africa. All his work is black and white with vivid contrast. Furthermore, they all convey a sense of majesty and age. He was made famous by his book On This Earth published in 2005, with another coming out this September.

For a nifty little collage, many of his photos are featured in the music video for Sufjan Steven's "Come Thou Fount of every Blessing". Check it:

Ease his Pain...

2009-06-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made two discoveries.

First: Kroger brand triple antibacterial ointment burns uncomfortably. So if you were to put liberal amounts on it all over your fingers and arm (which have previously had their skin removed) under your bandages to try and head of the forming infections, you would find yourself in some serious discomfort. This could be more noiticible if you were to do so right before going to sleep so you don't have anything to distract you. In fact, at this point you could find yourself in some serious pain. Then in your desperation you might take the last of your Loratab, with the sad knowledge that it takes a good 90 minutes to kick in. Now you need something to do for the next two hours.

Second discovery: Steve Martin's The Pleasure of my Company of your iPod will prove the perfect distraction.
Again read by Martin himself (so neat), TPomC is a narrative from the point of view of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a young bachelor who's OCD has inhibited him from most of life's norms. His great obsession is "symmetry", with which he has limited himself to crossing the street where two scooped-out driveways are perfectly across from one another (no curbs...ever) and his clothing must never have a single wrinkle. Granted, he is a mathematical genius, but staying within his self-inflicted limitations are much more important than having a job.

His pitiful attempts at romance, daily trips to the local Rite-Aid, being a murder suspect, submissions to the "Most Average American" essay contest, and road trip to Texas are all hilarious and feel very real. However, at no point did I ever feel like at I was laughing at Daniel. By the end I was cheering him on, willing him accept the reality that he wasn't as independent and self-sufficient as he supposed and that he does need other people. As the book came to a close I felt a strong connection to Daniel. I loved the ending. It was happy and (more importantly for my taste) made sense.

It's a short read, with few characters and one of the least consequential plots of any novel I've ever read. But that's all it needs. Nothing is extraneous. Also interesting is Daniel's nonexistent relationship with his Father, which is mirrored in Martin's relationship with his own father. He even places a memorable instance of abuse from his own childhood as the one memory of that Daniel shares with about his Father.

Anyway, it was a good read. CoolBoy recommends it.

Turns out Steve Martin is Awesome

2009-06-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

I know everyone already knows that. But I'm referring to his literary offerings and not the things he has done on stage or screen.

I've listened to two of his audio books in the past month and while I liked one a bit more than the other I must mention a certain little thing first. He reads them HIMSELF! How cool is that? What can give a book on cd more legitimacy than when the author does it? Especially since one of them is a memoir. It gives the books a very personal touch, as if Steve's taking the time to sit down in the next chair over and read his book to you himself. So neat.

The first book in question is Born Standing Up, a memoir from his time in standup comedy until he made the conversion to movies. He recounts his relationship with his family (which was always very distant for his first few decades), when he got his first taste of standup working at Disneyland at age 6, and when he first got on stage himself a few years later at Knott’s Berry Farm. He also goes into trying to survive on an act that, when he started, was not even close to being in style and that in the end he was glad to give it up because it was too stressful and, being that he was one-man show on tour for over a decade, very lonely. Once he finally started getting popular, he was terrified at the premiere of the then-new Saturday Night Live, as he thought it would ruin his act and make him mainstream, but it was there that he met people (and continued to meet people) with which he formed strong bonds. I especially liked his description of the 50's and 60's from an entertainment industry standpoint- at one point he was dating the daughter of a suspected communist film director during The Red Scare.

Another little gift is that on the audio book, each chapter has a frantic little banjo solo that Martin wrote and played himself. What more could you need? He even released a banjo album this past month. I haven't heard it yet but I'm sure it will be, at the very least, interesting.

Oh yeah, I went to Colorado once

2009-06-11T07:53:00.001-07:00

I went on a small adventure to Colorado this past weekend. Much more of an adventure that I thought it was going to be too. The purpose was to see this band:

And you know what? We did!

We saw them from the second row of this place:

And it was AMAZING! Turns out there's a magical place in the Rockies will mountains and trees and streams with crazy huge red rocks sticking up out of the ground all over the place. And it also turns out that they do a lot of rock concerts there. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Red Rocks Amphitheater. My roommate B---- is a hardcore fan of the band (he's from the same town as them) so he was willing to 1) not only make the drive, but 2) sit in line for 4 hours so we could go get lunch and still get great seats. Props to you good buddy! It was a really good concert, I even enjoyed the songs I didn't know. The venue was beautiful, the town was beautiful, and I'm sure the 6,000 white chicks that were there would have been beautiful too if they hadn't been wasted (or at least pretending to be) and spilling their $7 cups of beer into each others hair and cleavage.

So that was day #1.

On day two I woke up in Colorado Springs, in the home of a family I had never before met (Friends of B---- from his LDS mission there). Turns out they were really nice and even made us breakfast! Of course, we didn't eat it until about 1 P.M., but it was still very good. We then spent the rest of the day visiting the Olympic Training Center, going to small town called Manitu where we found treasures such as the one shown at right (No, that is not my arm). The whole place reminded me a lot of Seward, AK but without the ocean. From Hippie Towne went went over to a park called The Garden of the Gods and hopped around a bit on the rocks there.

There was a small bit of debate over what to do next, but more importantly than that: this is when my cell phone decided to break. Precious little thing. It's doing okay now, but if anyone stumbles across a free iPhone or Blackberry, I'm your man.

Day #3 wasn't that great for me. My arm had been giving some trouble and I didn't sleep well. Also, the wonderful family that let us stay for two nights has a cat. A cat that I pet until it purred like a chainsaw and then I itched my eye. Did I mention I'm allergic to cats? Nice one. So church was sort of a non-event for me. We then went by the USAF Academy and checked out the chapel there. Turns out they have rooms for 4 denominations: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and even Buddhist! The Buddhist one was the coolest. I'd have gone in and hung out if I could.

That was the end of the vacation, we then spent 7 hours in the car or something. It was great...ish.

This is what my apartment should look like

In which the CoolBoy did something uncool

2009-06-10T09:33:00.001-07:00

For my first real post, I think I'll put something down about my recent bike indecent which occurred on June 1st.

Firstly, my bike (I'm still working on a name, but Black Beauty has potential) looks like this:

(Thanks to rscycle.com for the pic)

Isn't she hot? She's also a fixed-gear, meaning that the pedals and the rear wheel always move together. No coasting. I've installed a rear brake (which is sort of against the "track bike rules", but whatever) for safety reasons, but I mostly just push/pull against the pedals backwards to slow down and stop.

Anyway, I was at about mile 3 on a ride down the P-Towne River Trail going about 20mph around a bend, when a young girl of about 10 came out from behind the trees on my side of the path. Most unfortunately, her 2 sisters, brother, and parents were all on the left side of the path behind her presenting me with the following choice:

1) Hit little girl with bike - This would probably kill her (not to mention untold damage to Black Beauty).
2) Go off the trail to the right, into the very narrow space along the concrete barrier that separated us from the road - In a word, this would probably suck.

So I did the chivalrous thing and chose #2. After several feet of rubbing my arm and leg on the wall, it became apparent to me the BB was about to go over. Being that I would fall onto a row of those lovely, processed, garden-type rocks with the gleaming razor-edges I decided to grab onto the wall instead, leaving BB to flip over on her own. I then announced I was alright (her Dad sounded very worried and apologetic), surveyed the damage (scrapes and minimal blood), and jumped back on for another 8 miles.

I then got home and took an actual look at the situation. It wasn't good. Long story short, my good friend R--- had to come over and clean me up because it hurt too much to do it myself. Not to mention we don't even have band-aids in my apartment. And I was tired of going to the doctor after the whole Mono+Strep episode of April '09.

End result

And a couple days of staying home and playing video games later (I consider injury and illness a good enough reasons to play video games) I got another couple shots of it.

And

Things are actually going pretty well now though. My arm's almost healed up and the burn on my leg hasn't ever really been a problem. The my ring finger suffered a setback with an infection that had to be removed, but other than that everything's okay. That and bandages are really expensive. So lame. But I'm finally going back to work, so that's also a plus.

The First Post

2009-06-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

Good Morning family and friends!

As you know, this is my 2nd attempt that blogging. However, I think this one/'s going to go over much better than did the first. I intend to use this mostly for keeping people up to date, discussing about books and movies and tv, and generally posting things I think are interesting without having to do massive email forwards (which are The Devil). Plus, it's about time CoolBoy went blue when commenting on other blogs. Black just has a feeling of illegitimacy. Like how Rochester was putting the moves on Jane although he still totally had a crazy wife locked in the attic. Negative props to him.

But mostly, it's just the library worker (Liberrian) thing to do.

Enjoy (or dont).
- CoolBoy