Sunday, June 28, 2009

speaking of transformers...

i found this on cnn.com. it's not actually an article, it's a blog post. i searched all over and can't find the name of the author. it's interesting...or at least it was to me. i haven't actually seen transformers...don't know if i plan to or not. but anyway, i'll comment after the blog.

[note: puerile, according to dictionary.com, means childishly foolish; immature or trivial.]

the blog post:

"Upon his request, I took my nephew to see ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ last night. I had suggested ‘Up’, but to no avail.

I had the sneaking suspicion that Megan Fox in her Daisy Dukes was more of an incentive to see the film for my young teenage charge, than any giant robots doing battle, but so be it. And there she was: a slightly sweaty, underdressed, vapid stick figure of a girl- her only apparent function being to run away from danger in languid slow motion. As far as heroines go, Ellen Ripley she’s not.

But as puerile and obvious as the T and A was, it was nothing compared to the pornographic violence that assailed the audience.

And that’s really the word for it. Just as pornography takes the most base, animalistic approach to sex, and wraps it up in a tawdry package, here Michael Bay, the film’s director does the same with the mayhem. It’s one loud, howling, gratuitous action sequence after another. Ear-splitting explosions. Swirling, operatic destruction. Death, hollow, inconsequential and indecent.

There’s more. The filmmakers’ brand of humor has a runtish robot humping the aforementioned Ms. Fox’s leg, foregoing the difference between funny and stupid.

And comic relief descends into racism with a pair of robots (one with a gold tooth for chrissakes) wise-cracking in black slang. I thought the Transformers hailed from outer space, not a minstrel show. My mistake.

Even from a craft point of view, the film’s a mess and a cop-out. When the giant robots clash, it appears nothing more comprehensible than a thudding tangle of multi-colored pipe shavings. And easy enough for an effects artist these days to affect supposed realism by slapping digital greeblies (yes, I speak geek) onto every surface, far harder to render simple planes that would have had the creatures resembling what they transformed from- a truck, a car, a plane, etc.






I can hear fanboys’ admonitions for me to lighten up- it’s only a movie, right?

Wrong. This film was made by professionals- Steven Spielberg sadly has his name on it. For the many millions spent, why couldn’t it have been transcendent, or at least make the attempt? Because the filmmakers’ focus is not on the screen, but on our crotches, at least in the vicinity of where our wallets reside. Pornography makes a lot of money easily. This movie, resembling that low art, will unfortunately do the same."


whoever this guy is, he was right about the fanboys. tons of people commented on this post. most of them made uneducated comments about how they must have seen a different movie cause there wasn't any porn in transformers 2. people--he's not actually saying there's porn in the movie. pornographic violence. it's a real concept. i've heard professors talk about it before. the third definition for pornography from dictionary.com is "lurid or sensational material." how many filmmakers are guilty of the same thing? a. lot. just something to think about...

now, as promised, i'd like to take this opportunity to "preach against pornography." eh hem...allow me to step onto my soap box for a moment---pornography is a curse! it will ruin your life. it will obliterate your relationships. it will destroy you. will, not can. do not allow pornography to demolish everything you've spent years creating. stay away from it. run from it as you would a thief, because pornography will steal your soul and your life. and run fast...do not let it overtake you!---ok, stepping down now.

so anyway, i'm just trying to introduce a new concept to those who have never considered that something other than porn could be pornographic. hope it makes sense to you.

[note: i totally wrote "write" when i meant "right." this is NOT the kind of mistake i usually make. i must be WAY more tired than i realized, so if you notice anything else really odd, please excuse me :) ]

Friday, June 26, 2009

hasta la vista, baby

okay, okay, i've been posting a lot of articles lately. but today amidst all the silly michael jackson news (who was a creepy child molester in case you have forgotten) i found this article. it was originally published in real simple, a magazine that my mom gets but that i have no idea of the content. this article is not so long, and i really think they hit home with this idea. the author, a. o. scott, doesn't go into great detail about the symbolism of each point made, but if you really stop for a moment and think about each point, i think most of us will be able to apply them to our lives. it's also kind of amusing, so you just can't go wrong...right?10 things action movies teach us

(REAL SIMPLE) -- Every movie genre has special lessons to impart. Serious dramas offer sober reminders about how miserable people were in the olden days. A decent horror flick will teach you not to camp out in the woods with a group of rowdy, sex-crazed teenagers.

Romantic comedies helpfully illustrate that the guy (or the girl) who seems perfect is actually a narcissistic jerk, while the friend you took for granted is really your soul mate.

Action movies would seem to be the exception. They dominate the summer, when school is out, and specialize in car chases, explosions, and fights.

But they are also about heroism. And since we all want to think of ourselves as heroes, it doesn't hurt to ponder what it might take to be one. It's not easy. In fact, these lessons distilled from a decade of professional moviegoing are full of paradox and contradiction. Just like life.

1. Heroes don't always know that they're heroes. Sometimes a wise old Jedi or a magic owl shows up to inform you of your destiny. Sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and you have to do the right thing. But sooner or later you will be called, and your life will change forever.

2. Heroism is a lonely, thankless vocation. Poor Spidey. Poor Batman. Poor Harry Potter. Ultimately, each is alone with his powers and responsibilities, burdened with expectations and misunderstood by even his closest friends and allies. Yes, it's cool to be that special, but the chances to really enjoy it -- to turn invisible, to fly through the air, to hang upside down and kiss Kirsten Dunst -- are fleeting and few. The reward for being a hero is not fame or adulation but the quiet satisfaction of having done good.

3. When the going gets tough, the usual rules don't apply. Your editors, commanding officers, supervisors, and teachers and other authority figures will insist on routines and protocols. You will try to explain that flesh-eating zombies, a psychotic super-villain, a global conspiracy, or an extraterrestrial eco-catastrophe (I'm speaking metaphorically here, more or less) calls for extra-ordinary measures, and you'll most likely be punished for your insubordination. Until, that is, your bosses need rescuing. And then they will take credit for your bold, imaginative thinking.

4. It's always personal. The bad guys will find a way to get to your spouse, your lover, your children, your mother -- the people who matter to you most. And your professional motives will thus be doubled by the more intimate imperatives of rescue and revenge. Your job is never just your job, and you never do it for its own sake, but rather because it's connected, sometimes painfully, to everything else that's important to you. Not just money or (if you're lucky) health insurance, but meaning, passion, conviction -- maybe even truth and justice.

5. You can't trust anyone. Your boss is working for the bad guys. Your best friend harbors secret thoughts of revenge. Even your husband may be in league with the terrorists who are trying to kidnap you. The crew on that trans-atlantic flight Jodie Foster was taking with her young daughter in "Flightplan?" Not friendly at all! Be vigilant. Keep your ears open for whispers and your eyes open to hidden agendas.

6. There is always someone you can trust. Everyone else in the world may be out to get Jason Bourne, but there's Joan Allen in her office, whispering into the phone and staring down the malefactors as she tries to bring him home safely. Bruce Wayne has both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman to soothe his soul and mend his suits. And even if you lack such highly competent, Oscar-winning support, you can at least have a dog, a tagalong child, or an eager sidekick. The job may be lonely, but you don't have to do it alone.

7. There is always enough time. Just enough. Even when things are most hectic and dangerous, even when the red LED digits on the doomsday timer are zooming toward zero, there are a few moments, at least, for a meaningful kiss, if not for a full night of passion; or for a night of passion, if not for a full-fledged honeymoon. There's at least enough time to tuck your children into bed and tell them you love them, if not to have the heart- to-heart you've been hoping for; to sit down and open a beer, if not to drink the whole thing.

8. You should never get too comfortable. As soon as you've had that first sip or that deep kiss, or as soon as the kids are settled down, your cell phone will ring, the alarm will go off, the spaceship will land in your yard, or something will come crashing through the living-room window.

9. Everything will be OK in the end. The planet was very nearly destroyed and a lot of people may have died, but you will find your way back home, having done your job and quieted the demons. The point is not that all of those terrible things didn't matter, but rather that, even in the wake of mass destruction and near apocalypse, life will find a way of going on.

10. There is always a sequel. Wipe the soot off your face, embrace your family or the love interest who has been eluding you for the last two hours, sail off into the sun- set, or walk slowly up the front steps of your house. Wounds will heal. Time will pass. But within a year or two -- maybe even by this time next summer -- evil will rear its ugly head and stuff will start blowing up again. But you're prepared for that. You are a hero. Your work is never done.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

stealing

i stole this from court. but it made me laugh. very hard.

Monday, June 22, 2009

a little bit free

so i told someone i would post this article. it's a bit old, but whatever. i'd just post the link, cause this is LONG, but i can't seem to find the actual article online anymore. it's about a guy who decides to stop making his own decisions for two weeks. imagine what your life would be like if you let others make all your choices for you. it's by someone named t.m. shine and it was in the washington post back in december. enjoy!

Choosing Not To Choose

This social experiment had to begin with doughnuts. They have always been my downfall. Not because of the fat, floury contents or the mortality-threatening sugar count, but because I can never decide which dozen to order in the intense pressure of a crowded Dunkin' Donuts. I start to drown in a torrent of rushed decisions and false moves, with nothing to look forward to but inevitable dissatisfaction with the choices I've made; the act has always been a metaphor for my life.

At some point, it occurred to me that my problem wasn't really doughnuts.

It was making decisions.

These days, there are so many choices to labor through, from the most basic, such as paper or plastic at the grocery checkout counter, to the nearly suicide-inducing, such as the friends-and-family plan or unlimited texting. And don't even get me started on undercoating or extended warranties.

In these tough times, the abundance of life-changing decisions -- finances, health care, career moves -- can be overwhelming. But don't take it from me. Ask the guy who wrote the book "The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making." That would be Scott Plous, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University. "There's no question that we have more choices than ever before," Plous agreed. "And decisions are generally harder and more time-consuming when there are lots of alternatives."

Even Steve Jobs, whose technology allows us the misery of 18,000 music selections in our pockets, has to counteract so many choices by wearing the same outfit -- blue jeans, black turtleneck, New Balance sneakers -- every single day of his life. With every move you make, you're bombarded with predicaments from the banal to the extraordinary, and you obviously can't trust yourself to make the right decisions anymore -- look where that's gotten you.

I know I'm not alone in this. We're all feeling a little needy now that The Decider is about to caravan back down to Texas. Whom can we turn to? The new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. might have some more important things on his mind than our individual indecisiveness. Friends and family always have their own agendas; therapists are useless; and, since the economic meltdown, there is a three-month wait to get in to see a psychic in this town. So, who's left?

Strangers, of course. They're everywhere.

"Excuse me," I said to the woman behind me one morning in the queue at Dunkin' Donuts. "I'm currently asking strangers to make all my decisions. Would you mind picking out a dozen doughnuts for me?"

"I'll order two, but then you're on your own," she said.

"Never mind."

Everyone knows the first two doughnuts are the easy ones.

"I'll do it, but you'll have to tell me what you like," a gangly woman who had overheard the previous exchange said.

"Thanks, but that kind of defeats my purpose," I responded.

"As long as you're paying," a thick-armed guy shrugged at me just as it was his turn to order.

He attacked the chore with glee. His choices were a blur of glaze and frosting. He stopped only once, looked back at me and said, "Sprinkles, two sprinkles," and they fell into the box with the majesty of a fireworks grand finale.

It was a win-win, a successful random act of indecision (RAI). And I was striking a blow for science. "Your experiment will reveal how much pleasure in a dessert comes from it simply being a dessert, rather than a dessert that you would have chosen," Plous had observed. "In many cases, the difference in benefit between two choices is smaller than we'd guess."

And that's not even counting the pleasure of not having to be the one to make the tough decisions. I couldn't wait to get home and have someone in my family make a face about the two apple crumbs -- Why'd you pick the-e-e-se? -- so I could reply quite proudly, "I didn't."

Just Add Water

This may be the best idea I've ever had. For two weeks, I relinquished control over my decisions. I turned the reins over to perfect (well, I don't know about perfect) strangers.

Imagine the possibilities. You go shopping for sneakers and ask the person in the next aisle to pick out a pair for you, or you hop in a taxi and ask the driver to take you where he thinks you should go. Start small. At a restaurant, approach the couple eating at the next table -- "I hate to bother you, but I need to know what I want for dessert" -- and work your way up to bigger decisions: "Burial or cremation?"

You can't start smaller than Starbucks. I was bellying up to the barista, perspiring heavily from a bike ride, when I started to ask the woman beside me what I wanted to drink. She cut me off midway through my spiel about how I was asking strangers to make my decisions and social experiment and whatnot ... She didn't need any of that nonsense.

"Just have a water," she said, snatching a bottle from the front case and thrusting it at me.

She herself ordered something that took the barista 11 moves to make, but I was suddenly a model of simplicity: a sweaty man drinking cold water.

Already, my life was beginning to emerge from the fog. Left to stew in my own brew of insecurities, I'd still be tortured over caf, decaf or half-caf. And the encounter didn't seem odd. Thanks to television shows such as "The Office" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," awkwardness is now fashionable. Awkward is the new suave.

Moments later, I asked a gentleman at the newsstand if I should become a night shaver instead of a morning shaver. I always wanted to be a night shaver -- go to bed cleanly shaven and wake up with sexy stubble that would be alluring until at least noon and ...

"Absolutely not," the gentleman said.

I'm sure he's right.

Later in the day, when I asked a sandy-haired woman at Old Navy to pick out a shirt for me, she began to look me up and down as if I were trying to pass through a security checkpoint. I didn't mind the once-over, but the twice-over and the thrice-over were a bit annoying. Her eyes were darting and zooming in on my weaknesses. Zoom: Stain on shirt he's wearing -- sloppy guy. Zoom: Right ear noticeably bigger than left -- bad genes. Zoom: Scar on wrist -- possible suicide attempt.

I had to fight the urge to stop her and shout: The scar's just from punching a lamppost. It's not even going the right direction for a suicide attempt.

Zoom: Chicken legs. They're not really chicken legs. They're more like free-range chicken legs, which are a little more muscular than chicken legs because they're ... you know ... running free. But I stopped myself. I didn't want her decision muddied by all the same junk in my head that muddies my decisions.

Once committed, she was sincere and devoted to the cause. "I want you to have a crisper, cleaner look," she exclaimed.

When an actual employee of the store overheard part of our conversation and asked quizzically, "Sir, can I assist you?" my new helper quickly snapped back, "No, I've got this."

She did. She had this all the way. "And don't tuck it in," she said, as I headed for the checkout counter. "It's designed to be worn out."

I was still feeling crisp and clean when I stopped at the library. The mission: to give a stranger the chore of selecting a book for me.

"You sure? Picking out a book ... that's kind of an intimate decision," the chosen one said. She was sitting at a tiny table with a little boy and looking up at me as if I was one more irritation in an already long day. But once I said I was positive, she popped up as if she'd just adopted me, no questions asked.

"Follow me."

With the little boy in hand, she cut across the library with the supermarket stride of a mom who just realized she'd forgotten the Fruit Roll-Ups two aisles back. We were headed deep into the bowels -- past the large prints and the self-helps, beyond the reference books, even. Then she stopped short, pivoted, dropped a four-pound book in my hands and said, "Here."

I thanked her profusely, but I'm not sure it even registered. She just mentally checked me off her list and was on her way. The whole encounter -- in fact, the entire day -- was astonishing. By dusk, my new life's course had been set by an entire team of people whose names I didn't even know.

I'd accepted all advice without question, with one exception: While at the local cineplex, I asked the third woman in line what I should see, and she said, "Nights in Rodanthe." I just couldn't do it. I went home to watch "Bones" on TV.

At an ATM stop on the way home, I gave the gentleman waiting in the shadows behind me no preface, no social experiment bull, no need for a full body scan. I just asked -- "Should I get up early tomorrow or sleep in?" -- and he just knew.

"Sleep in."

Good decision. I needed the sleep, because I stayed up late reading "The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong." I got to Page 136 before closing my eyes on a brave new world.

Not Sweating the Big Stuff

If any one group of people was ever in need of a diversion it's the group waiting for the 12:15 p.m. to Newark.

At least that's what I thought when I arrived at the airport with an armful of decisions that needed making. In my hands were printouts of several health-care and financial options, as well as a brochure for night courses available at a nearby junior high school. With that kind of workload, I needed people both bored and contained.

I figured it would be awfully hard for a stranger sprawled out on industrial grade carpet, barefoot, using a pink duffel bag as a pillow and reading OK! magazine to tell me, "Sorry, I'm too busy right now."

It wasn't that hard. In fact, she didn't even stretch out the response that way. She just chirped, "Bizzy."

My next stratagem was to approach individuals who appeared friendly, which meant they were wearing sneakers. Well, people who wear sneakers are actually quite ornery.

Oddly, it's the Bluetooth type -- and, more specifically, individuals with two laptops -- who are the most gracious, endearing people on the planet and who are ideal for this type of social experiment.

"I don't do experiments, but let me see those papers," a two-laptop guy said, snatching the documents out of my hands.

I told him he didn't have to do it all, that I was going to spread the work around, but he ignored me. Then, without looking up, he handed the junior high brochure back to me and said, "Get somebody else for this."

I left him looking over the financial papers and found a guy four seats over who took two phone calls just during the 15 seconds it took me to explain my predicament.

"Okay, what have we got here?" he finally said as if he were used to people constantly sticking things under his nose to sign off on. When it came to making big decisions, he was on cruise control.

"Does the class have to be useful?" he asked. "There's stuff like 'How to Start a Home Business,' and then there's just junk like ... like calligraphy."

"Useless is good," I said.

Back in the next row, just as Two-Laptops started thumbing through the health-care and financial documents, a colleague of his showed up, and he was quite gregarious, so I thought for sure my man was going to get sidetracked. But Two-Laptops was homed in on my task, and the next thing I knew, the associate wanted in and had his hands on the health plans.

"I used to be in the insurance business," the associate said. That initially turned me off because I thought he might still have cronies in the business and try to sway me toward his old buddy Kenny who sells overpriced coverage to imbeciles. But then he added, "They're all scum," so I nodded my approval.

My approval. Listen to me. I had become extremely giddy, especially when I spotted Night-Course Guy using the Wall Street Journal as a makeshift desk as he circled items in the junior high brochure.

It was at that moment that I decided that when I do "Random Acts of Indecision" motivational talks -- around the Northeast and selected regions of the Midwest -- this will be the anecdote I wow my disciples with right before the lunch break buffet, which is going to be excellent.

While the boys were diligently working away on major decisions I didn't want any part of and there was a good 20 minutes till boarding, I had planned to leave them alone. Tell them I'd be over by Gate 34, sitting with the people waiting to go to Detroit.

But before I could stray, they started bombarding me with questions. With hands raised, they had me running back and forth between them like a schoolteacher monitoring a class.

"Do you already have coverage?"

"Yes, but I need to switch."

"So, it hasn't lapsed yet?"

"No."

"Are you going to be adding money to your 401(k)?"

"No, I don't plan on ever making any more money."

"Do you like watercolors?"

"No, I mean, yes!"

I kept thinking that all this unusual activity at the airport could attract the attention of Homeland Security agents, and possible Tasing.

"Are you the type that would seek out unconventional treatments and never give up?" Two-Laptops asked.

"No, no, I'm famous for giving up."

But, they didn't give up. Which is the beauty of RAI.

End result:

1. BlueCross BlueShield Limited Benefits Plan 71 -- hospital and surgical only.

2. Straight Vanguard money market account with annual yield of 0.09 percent.

3. One-stroke painting.

Okay, people, let's break for lunch.

Danger Signs

When I told my friend Laura about RAI and how much I was getting accomplished, thanks to leaving all my decisions to strangers, she posed an interesting question.

"What if you can't stop?"

That is a good question. And, in fact, I've decided there is no good reason to shut down this adventure after only two weeks. Random Acts of Indecision is not a social experiment. It's a lifestyle.

I was finishing up this story at a restaurant not far from my house, the first laptop loiterer this pizza place had probably ever seen. It was a glorious day. A day for calling in sick to work, buying 14 pounds of grapes from Whole Foods and stomping them into wine in your basement.

I was so giddy with indecision that I wanted to come up with decisions I didn't even have to make. Should I rotate the crops on my squash farm this year? What color ribbons should I put in my lapdog's hair after today's grooming? Should I start Terrell Owens on my fantasy football team this week?

I'm not usually one to look too far into the future, especially since several people have told me I don't have one, but nothing gives me more pleasure than to envision myself at a roof garden party in 2012 as a woman nudges her date while muttering, "Look, that's the guy who hasn't made a decision of his own since November '08."

I couldn't wait for some moment of great turmoil -- a bind, a dilemma, a predicament of major proportions -- with people coming at me from every side shouting, "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?!" so I could calmly respond, "It's not for me to decide."

Midway through this endeavor, I interrupted Maryland-based professional life coach Christy Helou's lunch to get her expert opinion on Random Acts of Indecision. "It's an interesting and intriguing experiment," she said over the phone. "Except for a little thing called the loss of control over one's life."

"Oh," I said. "I hadn't thought of that."

That sounds a lot like a disaster in the making, doesn't it? But it also sounds a little bit like being free.

As I wrote these words, I was eating a slice of pizza with toppings -- mushroom and sausage -- chosen by the frail man I had held the door open for five minutes before. I was wearing a crisp striped shirt picked out by a meticulous sandy-haired woman and, between sips of iced tea, glancing at Page 351 of a book that was enlightening me to the "Cho-WE Cho-WE" of the Carolina wren -- all the while patiently waiting for the next customer to come through the door to decide whether I wanted to use the eatery's rarely cleaned restroom or wait until I got home.

The burden of responsibility for my life has lifted. Evangelicals and alcoholics have their moments of being born again, and this is mine. The old adage "You have no one to blame but yourself" doesn't apply to me anymore. Next year, when things go wrong, I will have no one to blame but each and every one of you.

quints

so once upon a time in the olden days a woman had five babies AT THE SAME TIME. now these days this doesn't seem like much of a feat, seeing as people are having eight babies at the same time every other day. but this was way back in 1934, BEFORE fertility drugs. so it really was quite a phenomenon. if someone had five identical quintuplets now-a-days without fertility drugs it would still be pretty remarkable. but anyway, back in the day this was pretty much the equivalent of a freak-show. and the girls were treated as such. the government in canada put them on display at a nursery-amusement park known as "quintland." sounds totally freaky to me, but according to newsweek 6000 visitors came to watch the dionne kids play every single day. holy. cow. anyway, years pass. two die and so that leaves three. and i'm taking this from newsweek...but in 1997, when an american family, the mccaugheys, had septuplets the dionnes wrote them a letter. this is what it said:

"we hope your children recieve more respect than we did. their fate should be no different from that of other children. multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products. our lives have been ruined by the exploitation we suffered."

now...how many of you are thinking about jon and kate plus 8 right now? ha-i knew it. when i hear the word 'quints' i think of dolls. when i was a kid they had these doll sets...they came with five identical palm-sized dolls, called quints. they were all the rage one summer. we had several different sets of them. does anyone else remember these?

anyway, back to the letter. maybe you are thinking that jon and kate should stop exploiting their children. and maybe you are right. but "our lives have been ruined...?" GET REAL. no one can ruin your life. only you have the power to do something that extreme. stop throwing yourself a pity party and move on.

and come on people. quit worrying so much about jon and kate. you don't actually know them. your life will not be affected by their choices. and those kids are going to grow up, go to whatever college they want to because they are rich and famous, and they're going to create their own lives. yeah, their parent's messy public relationship will probably affect them in some way. but not neccesarily in a bad way. you don't know what they'll learn. in ten years you'll most likely barely remember who jon and kate and the eight even are. and don't pretend that you just care about the kids and what's best for them. if that were true you'd stop talking about them and you'd stop buying people magazine. for all we know jon and kate could truly be doing what's best for them. who are we to say?

yep. that's my story. "and i'm stickin' to it."

Saturday, June 20, 2009

my super awesome yesterday

yesterday i woke up at 7am. yuck. this was after three hours of sleep so i was pretty tired, but no matter how little sleep i get and how much more i enjoy sleeping in, there is something...optimistic about getting up early. so i got ready and i took my car to the shop because the air conditioning wasn't working and driving in a hot car is just horrible. horrible. the night before sarah and i had worked out a plan so that i would walk the four blocks to the trax station and ride to downtown salt lake to hang around and stuff. good plan. as i was leaving i almost put my flipflops on, but then thought, 'oh i'll only be walking a total of 14 blocks, all spaced out quite nicely.' so i wore flats. bad plan.

the trax station was not where the website said it would be. i walked around for awhile and called sarah who looked the address up again. and after walking around for an hour and getting stopped by the longest train in the world (seriously, 10 minutes passed and i still couldn't see the end of the train) i finally found the trax station. it's surrounded by industrial (and run-down) buildings and was not ON the roads it was supposed to be on, but back behind buildings that were on the said roads.

whatever. i got on trax and road downtown where i walked to gourmandise, ordered a blueberry biscuit, and started reading the news. gourmandise is a little bakery downtown that is wonderful. it has great desserts. GREAT. i have yet to eat actual food there but i'm sure it's good because it kept getting busier and busier as the day went on. also they have free wifi. so i read my daily news and started some blog posts and such. at 11:30 ben and sophie picked me up and ben dropped us off at an indian restaurant. i love indian food. i especially love nan. and sophie and i got to talk and try to decipher the barely audible head waiter's jokes.

we then walked back to sophies place. on the way we got to stop in this really cute store that sophie knew. i don't remember it's name... we also saw several antiques stores and hipsters hanging out along the sidewalks thinking about how much cooler they are then everyone else. quite the sightseeing tour.

then i walked back to the trax. once the train was moving i pulled out my newsweek. i don't want to talk to people on trains. i got my full of that in tokyo. but at the next stop patrick sat down across from me. apparently my newsweek wasn't a big enough hint for patrick. he started talking, asking me a million questions, and even though i buried my nose back into my newsweek after every question he kept going and soon i was pulled into this conversation with a total stranger on the southbound sandy trax. patrick moved to salt lake three and a half weeks ago in hopes of finding a job. he left behind his two, count that-two, 15-year-old daughters in chicago. and of course there are no jobs here, so he hasn't been able to find work. he also hasn't been able to find a "female" (his word, not mine) (obviously) because all the "females" he meets here are "effed up." they act totally interested one day and then are incredibly distant the next. and then they go back to being interested and patrick just can't understand them. it took all i had not to laugh at this because it is really hard to imagine that girls in chicago are any different from the girls he was describing. i'd always thought that most girls did just that. but anyway, i couldn't help but feel sorry for patrick. he seemed to be the typical down and out of work american, which sadly is so so common these days. after he got off the train i realized that i don't understand the economy at all. where did all the jobs go? and if people can't afford to pay workers anymore because they don't have the money then...where did all the money go?

anyway. walking from the trax station to the car place was incredibly painful. my feet had had it and i was sunburned and my old lady hip was hurting. but i got there. somehow. three hundred bucks to fix the air-conditioning, the headlight, and get an oil change. ugh. but when i got in the car-HEAVEN! the air blew cold! ice cold! so wonderful!

then i headed to provo. now typically this would have taken less than an hour. but for some reason there was "congestion" on the highway. it was so crazy busy we were going 15 miles an hour the whole way to provo. so i was late meeting laura and brandon and takako (kawasaki takako...she lived in chiba and shibuya and kumamoto in case any of you know her) at the mtc. we were going to volunteer at the trc, which is where you listen to missionaries give the lessons. it requires pretending, which i HATE, but i can do it because it's volunteering. so i got there forty minutes late and they hadn't started yet. which was weird. they didn't need japanese right away, so taka-chan and i listened to two missionaries from mexico who are learning english. they were so adorable and hard to understand. amazingly taka-chan (who is japanese) understood them much better than i did. and i wondered if i would be able to understand the missionaries learning japanese better than a japanese person. questionable. anyway, at the end we started talking to these elders and one of them is going to pocatello! which is where my sister is serving a mission. i told him all about her and i'm going to email her about him. elder merino.

then they asked us to stay for japanese. all four of us got to listen to ONE japanese elder give a lesson. he was originally called to italy, but he doesn't speak english almost at all. so he struggled for a week trying to learn italian through english. can you even imagine? so he got his mission call changed to hawaii and now he's learning english with a tutor that speaks japanese. he told us that he was so grateful for the opportunity to finally bear his testimony to people who could understand him. and it was great. and i felt so bad for him. how hard would it be to not be able to communicate with ANYONE. to have a companion that couldn't understand a word you said. muzukashii na.

then we went to strawberry days in pleasant grove. we ate strawberries and cream and rode a ride. it was a ride i'd been on a hundred times, but this one was SO much faster. i think all four of us laughed hysterically the entire time. it was really a fun night. a good mix of english and japanese and funnel cakes.

so that was my yesterday. i'm sure i forgot a million things. if you remember something you can just add a comment. i'm exhausted, sunburnt, and my feet are all cut up-but it really was a super awesome day.

Friday, June 19, 2009

down under

this video is great. and if you can take the full seven minutes you will see why i think so. if you don't have that kind of time, at least take one minute so you can see the kid's completely awesome haircut. trust me, it's worth it.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

the case for sleeping in...

...and being a night owl.

just found this in an article on msn at 3am:

Sleep an extra 20 minutes. There's no substitute for a solid night of Z's, but research suggests that rising as late as you can get away with—even if it's just 20 or 30 minutes later than you usually do—can make you more relaxed during the day. Our bodies naturally crank up the stress hormone cortisol in the a.m. so that we'll get up and moving, but postponing your wake-up time can lower those levels just enough to take the edge off. In a study at London's University of Westminster, earlier risers (who woke up as early as 5:22 a.m.) had higher cortisol levels during the first 45 minutes of their day and tended to be angrier at night than later risers (who got up as late as 10:30 a.m.), regardless of how much total sleep they got. While there's no optimal wake-up time, the researchers say, set the alarm for as late as your schedule will allow. For best results, try to go to bed and wake up at about the same times every day; this will keep your body clock running smoothly.

on deciding whom to marry

today i took my psychology of gender final. it was a group final so we only got one question wrong. i'd highly recommend the byu salt lake center during spring/summer. it's casual and a heckuva lot easier than anything i took in provo. just sayin.

today i also learned that it is NEtsui, not neTSUi. one of the women in my class is japanese and in the last month i have come to realize that my nihongo is getting really terrible. i need to do some serious refreshing.

anyway, i am going somewhere here. just be patient with me. so in my psych of gender class there were five students, all women, and all married except me. this meant that everytime i went to class i got lots of advice on what type of person to marry. note: i do not normally tell people how i actually feel about my getting married unless specifically asked. and no one in the class ever asked me. so tons of advice. these other four women-plus the teacher so five-were all incredibly different types of people and they come from very different walks of life. they had differing opinions on almost everything we discussed in class. and yet they always seemed to agree when giving me advice on whom to marry.

i'm not going to put all the advice on here nor can i even remember it all, but the most common piece of advice they gave me (meaning it came up the most number of times) was to marry someone who will cook for you. i find this quite interesting. of course i don't think that this advice is really as simple as it seems. cooking is obviously an outward expression of something much deeper. frankly i don't know any guy my age who wouldn't cook for a girl. but i think this is my classmates' very point. fifteen years down the road, when he goes to work each day and you stay home and do all the mom sort of stuff, will you still be married to someone who cooks for you?

and of course by 'cooks for you' i don't just mean cooks for you. and of course people change, so is there really any actual way to tell whether he'll still cook for you in so many years? maybe not. i don't really know. but the study of gender is really a study of motivation. that's really what psychology is after all. and i think the biggest lesson i learned from this class is to look more carefully at people's motivations. when you're dating, why does he cook for you? i can think of five reasons off the top of my head and if i took the time i'm sure i could think of a dozen more. i'm not going to tell you what i think is the right reason, although i'm sure some of you can figure that one out on your own. i'm just going to pass on my classmates' advice: marry someone who cooks for you. for the right reason.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

the secret

so the post i wrote for today has been delayed for various reasons that a few of you know about. so i thought i'd share an excerpt from an article taken several weeks ago from newsweek. the article was basically about how oprah is a nut and promotes crazy on her show. so anyway, they're talking about how oprah raved about 'the secret' and i thought it was an interesting take on the idea. so after a bit of copying and pasting, here ya go:
__________________________________________________________

This perpetual search for The Answer reached its apex a couple of years ago, when Oprah led the frenzy over The Secret. The video and accompanying book were a rehash of one of the oldest of self-help truisms--"think positive"--refreshed with a dusting of "science." The secret of The Secret was something called The Law of Attraction. As Oprah put it on the show, "It says that the energy, that the thoughts and feelings that you put out into the world, both good and bad, are exactly what is always coming back to you, so you have the life that you have created." Oprah and the teachers of The Secret, as they call themselves, did not mean this metaphorically. They explained that the universe and everything in it are made of vibrating energy, and by thinking positively we can actually "attract" the positive vibrations of the universe and bend them to our will. "You're a field of energy in a larger field of energy," one of The Secret's teachers said. "And like attracts like, and that's very, very scientific."
By harnessing this powerful science, they said, we can have anything we want--happiness, love, fabulous wealth. This was so inspiring to Oprah that she devoted three shows to the product and appeared on Larry Kind to talk it up more. She said it encapsulated everything she believes. "I've been talking about this for years on my show," she said. "I just never called it The Secret."
On one of the Secret shows, Oprah gave an example of the scientific power of the concept. She said that once, while she was hosting an episode about a man who could blow really big soap bubbles, she was thinking to herself, "Gee, that looks fun. I would like to blow some bubbles." When she returned to her office after the show, there, on her desk, was a silver Tiffany bubble blower. "So I call my assistant," Oprah told the audience. "I say, 'Did you just run out and get me some bubbles? 'Cause I got bubbles on my desk.' And she says, 'No, the bubbles were always there. I bought you bubbles for your birthday and you didn't notice them until today'."
There are many lessons that might be drawn from this anecdote. One is that if you give Oprah a thoughtful gift, she may not bother to notice it or thank you for it. This is not the lesson Oprah took away from her story. Because the way she sees it, her assistant hadn't really given her the gift at all. She gave it to herself. Using the power of The Secret, she said, "I had called in some bubbles."
_________________________________________________________

now, the idea that positive thinking brings good things into your life is not a new idea by any means. it's an idea that a lot of people believe, and one that i totally disagree with. i believe that thinking positively doesn't BRING good things to your life, but helps you see the things that are ALREADY in your life more positively. and when i look at the concept in this story about oprah, i can't help but think that to believe that positive thinking causes all the good things in your life is really quite a selfish way to think. i mean, oprah's believing that she made the bubbles appear totally discounts the kindness of the assistant's gift. and when you believe that everything good happens to you because of YOU, aren't you being rather self-centered? anyway, that's my thought on that. make of it what you will.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

mother soldiers

probably some of you have noticed that i've been posting on this blog a LOT more than before. i have many reasons for doing so, one of them being that several blogs that i normally follow have been posting less and less lately. i've also had the chance to catch up on the last several episodes of house. all this means that i have less to distract myself with when i really need distracting (usually around one in the morning). so next best thing to reading other's blogs is to write my own. so here i am.

i read a lot. a lot a lot. i make it a point to always be in the middle of some book. if i finish a book one day, i'll read the first few pages of my next one so i won't ever be in between books. i also read the news. thanks to a wonderful christmas gift from my older sister, i get and read time and newsweek every single week. it's great! they both only come once a week though, so on the other days i scour the news online. i go to at least msn and yahoo and cnn everyday to check out the major headlines. and sometimes the not so major headlines.

this is an article taken from cnn.com, who apparently took it from parenting.com. the author is being dumb and complaining that he doesn't get enough stuff for father's day, which is really lame. but he does make an interesting observation towards the end of this article. so here it is:

One Mother's Day, I bought my wife what she had wanted for years -- a weeping cherry tree -- and I threw in a bird bath, so that when the tree matures, our feathered friends can happily splash and drink under its loving protection.

For Father's Day, my wife gave me some boxer shorts and a tiny reading light, so I can flip through a book in bed without disturbing her.

My wife is the first to admit it: For her, and for many people, Father's Day is an afterthought, a holiday just a few steps above the one that celebrates the groundhog and that other one that promotes trees.

If Mom's Day and Dad's Day were in a prize fight, we all know which holiday would wind up lying in the corner of the ring, knocked-out teeth on the mat, dazed head stuck in a bucket.

I've been thinking about how our society recognizes parents because Father's Day is upon us again, but also because, a while ago, my worst nightmare happened: My wife had to have surgery.

I was an emotional wreck. For a while, it was truly touch and go. Life hung in the balance, and everything near and dear to me seemed in doubt. Why? Because while Susan recovered from her toe surgery, I had to take care of the kids.

Sure, for a couple workdays I was able to call in reinforcements (my mom and mother-in-law), but an entire weekend lay ahead in which I was to be the prime caregiver to Lorelei, who was just hitting 6 months, and Isabelle, our 3-year-old. Meanwhile, my wife was upstairs in our bed, on painkillers and armed with her cell phone so that I was always just a speed dial away from doing her bidding.

This would be a weekend in which I couldn't do only the fun stuff -- like playing blocks and watching cartoons -- with the girls. I was obviously going to have to feed both of them (three times a day!), and I would have to tackle Herculean tasks like giving baths, changing all of the diapers, putting them both to bed, and even giving medicine to Lorelei, who had an ear infection.

Over the decades, standards for fathers have risen. If this were 1897 or even 1974, I could have coasted through the weekend, serving potato chips and cold cereal to Isabelle, and I would have brought the girls to my wife's bed for her to do the changing of the diapers. I could have skipped the baths. I could have ignored the dishes in the sink and the cat litter without a barrage of criticism.

As long as I managed to avoid the house catching on fire, and the girls didn't come down with malaria, at the end of the weekend, my family and friends would have laughed heartily at my mishaps, like they used to do in the last couple seconds of those 1970s and 1980s one-hour dramas (you know, after somebody made a joke and the shot went into freeze frame). Then my family and friends would have declared that I had done my best, and nobody would have cared that the bar had been set so low that a chipmunk could have done as well.

But today's dads are different. We not only love our children, we're acutely aware that we have a responsibility to be the best parents we can be. When it counts, I think most fathers really give it their all -- which explains why the Saturday night of my Mr. Mom weekend, instead of ordering pizza, I served Isabelle a chicken casserole with pineapple as a side dish. Don't applaud -- the fruit came from a can, and the rest from a box with four steps.

Still, I have to admit, I felt proud as the weekend wore on. I grew more confident in my parenting skills and even gave both girls a bath -- at the same time -- not once, but two nights in a row! Just as I was ready to nominate myself for a Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar, a Grammy -- surely I deserved some award -- I had an epiphany that brought me back down a few pegs.

I was fixing a French dish I like to call poisson et pommes frites (um, fish sticks and fries), when I caught Anderson Cooper on CNN. He was in Baghdad, surrounded by American soldiers, saying he was exhausted and scared. Yet he warned the audience not to be too impressed with him. In a few days, he would fly home. The soldiers would remain at their posts.

Now, I'm not comparing our girls to Iraqi insurgents, but I do appreciate more than ever that mothers are usually the soldiers in the parenting battlefield. Even full-time working moms do more child-rearing than us dads, studies have repeatedly found. Fathers tend to play the part of the dashing news reporter, swooping into parenting duties just long enough to get our hands dirty. My wife deserves her weeping cherry tree. And like most moms, she is worthy of much more.

Yet I think we dads merit at least a little more than boxer shorts, soap-on-a-rope, and neckties. We don't get the good stuff because we're paying for the sins of our fathers, and our fathers' fathers. But these days, dads are changing diapers, warming bottles, and taking our kids to the park. We may not be where you want us yet, but we've evolved, and we're involved.

Just as much as the moms, we appreciate the cards, the praise, and being treated special on our day. So if any of you mothers now feel guilty enough to spring for a slightly nicer Father's Day gift -- say, a plasma TV with a 50-inch screen -- make sure it also has built-in speakers with surround-sound.

all righty, so that's the article. by someone named geoff williams. he gets so close to such a great idea, it's a shame he didn't go anywhere with it.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

why top gun is a stupid movie

since i didn't want a picture of tom cruise on my blog for any reason whatsoever i chose a picture of val kilmer as the ice man. this picture is from top gun, it's just not super recognizable. anyway, so one of my thirty before thirty goals was to watch top gun. this was because people are always talking about this movie or making references to it (i feel the need, the need for speed) and i, never having seen it, was always totally in the dark. so sarah netflixed it and we watched it. with all the talk i was always hearing about this film, i expected more. much much more. but it was HORRIBLE. what a terribly made movie. why, why, why is this movie so popular? even in relation to other movies back then, it's terrible. here are some of the reasons why:

this movie has the WORST music of any movie i've ever heard. how many times can you play 'take my breath away' in one movie? holy cow. i never thought that was a bad song before, but now i will cringe every time i hear it.

the editing in this film is horrendous. there were so many shots that were held out way too long and so many shots that flipped by so quickly you couldn't even see what was going on. some examples: the "romantic" scenes. the camera stays and stays even though the actors finished their lines two minutes ago. it's just awkward. and the flying scenes. half the time i had no idea who was who or what was going on at all. the shots would cut away before the actor has finished moving. just bad.

the romantic story line is AWFUL. he sings to her, she rejects him. he goes into the girls bathroom and basically tries to get her to have sex with him right there on the bathroom floor (gross). she rejects him. but then they see each other again and suddenly she is totally into him because he is a famous pilot. a friend later announces that tom cruise's character is totally in love with kelly mcgillis's character. and they've known each other what? like four days? it's an absolute joke. and oh my gosh quit playing that song!

the whole story line in general is garbage. it constantly amazes me what crap people will make into movies. as long as they have a major headliner then people will go see it, so really it's the actor's faults. all actors should be made to take a class on how to tell the difference between a good screenplay and a crappy screenplay. and for the love this one was terrible. the lines were laughable at best and the story just ridiculous. 'talk to me goose, talk to me.' and of course with no effort on the part of the main character to change whatsoever everything works out for him in the end. right. so realistic.

there are many more reasons that this is a bad movie. these are just the ones that really stick out to me.

the only redeeming factor in this movie is that val kilmer is in it, who i believe to be a decent actor. although this is probably his worst role. the scene where he apologizes to tom cruise about goose is just silly. he takes a sharp breath between every sentence and looks at the ceiling in such a ridiculous fashion i wondered how he ever got another acting job. and i think that scene is the best acting in the movie. really i do. (note: this scene is also an example of how crappy the directing was. but i could write a whole blog post about just that, so i'll just let it go with this: the directing was abysmal.)

i guess it could be argued that anthony edwards is also a decent actor, especially since we didn't realize who he was til the credits started rolling. but that's really debatable...

look-it's the guy from ER!

Love is...

merely madness. -William Shakespeare
an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses. - Thomas Robert Dewar
the beauty of the soul. -St. Augustine
the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. -Robert Heinlein
all we have, the only way that each can help the other. - Euripides
a better teacher than duty. -Albert Einstien
a friendship set to music. -E. Joseph Cossman
a serious mental disease. - Plato
a tyrant sparing none. - Pierre Corneille
a friendship caught on fire. -Northern Exp.
all you need. -Paul McCartney
being stupid together. -Paul Valery
like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties. -Jules Renard
an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. - Robert Frost
a conflict between reflexes and reflections. - Mangnu Hirschfield
a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. -Voltaire
a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables. - Sappho
shown in your deeds, not in your words. -Fr. Jerome Cummings
an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. -Erich Fromm
a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not. - Friedrich Nietzsche


it's amazing how many famous people have begun sentences with the same two words. there are many more where these came from, but these are my favorite.

can you guess which one is my most favorite?

Saturday, June 13, 2009

speaking of feminism...

a brief history of pixar films:

(note: i have no idea why there is so much space between some of the movies in this post. sorry.)

first there was toy story way back in 1995. i don't think i know anyone who didn't like this movie.















then in 1998 a bug's life came out. this began the pattern of dreamworks copying every character idea pixar has ever had.

















then there was toy story 2 (1999). not as good as the first. but not a bad movie by any means.










this was followed by monsters, inc. it came out in 2001 when i was in high school. my best friend and i skipped the last hour of school and went and saw the matinee. this movie is to this date my favorite pixar film. i think it's funnier than the rest and it also has a lot of emotion without being cheesy.




finding nemo was released in 2003. what i remember most distinctly about this movie is that everyone really hyped it up. and then when i saw it i was quite disappointed. it's a good movie and all, just not as great as i felt everyone made it out to be.

the incredibles came out a year later in 2004. this was the first and only pixar movie (thus far) to be rated pg instead of g. i believe the short film they made about jack jack and the babysitter to be one of the funniest things i've ever seen on screen. makes me laugh everytime.



while i was on my mission, in 2006, cars was released. cars is my second least favorite of all these movies. maybe it's because they were cars, but it just didn't have the heart that the rest of them seem to have.










a year later was ratatouille. personally, i think they did the best animation job yet on this movie. it's really incredible what they can do with computers. this also happens to be my second favorite of these movies.








then came wall e in 2008. this movie was touted to be their best one yet. i went and saw it in the theater and i know everyone loves it, but if i never see it again i really wouldn't mind one bit. it was boring and cheesy and way too political for a cartoon. yeah yeah i know, doesn't he just look so endearing? lame.



and now we find ourselves in 2009. (how can it be june already?) tonight i went and saw up, pixars latest film. and you know what? i just can't decide how i feel about this movie. it's well made, no question about that. the background song is still stuck in my head. carl's wife ellie appears, grows old, and dies within about five minutes of film time, and yet i was still so sad when she passed away. how many movie production companies could pull that off? and even i, who most of you know to be pretty heartless when it comes to stuff like this, was overwhelmed by the love carl had for his wife. it was really quite romantic. for one quick second the thought crossed my mind that growing old with someone might be nice.

but illogical thoughts never stay long in my mind. WARNING: [the next three sentences contain spoilers. if you haven't seen this movie, skip skip skip.] near the end of the movie carl opens the adventure book up for the last time and the feminist in me exploded out. of course a woman's adventure is taking care of a man. living her whole life just to love a guy. it's like beauty and the beast, with belle's idiotic 'i want adventure in the great wide somewhere.' right. and her adventure consists of falling in love with a big jerk while simultaneously filling little girl's heads with the ridiculous idea that they can change men if they just look past all the crap they do. it's infuriating really. but anyway, back to up. the ending of this movie was mediocre, and the whole talking dogs thing was annoying at best. but overall a pretty cute movie. lots of great pixar emotion. and let's face it, most of you will think it's quite romantic and won't care at all that ellie never got any real adventure. as for me, i'd see it again. but not until my feminist side calms down a bit. which might be awhile...

Friday, June 12, 2009

is she really that dumb?

From worstpreviews.com:

I hate to keep mentioning Megan Fox, but she refuses to keep her mouth shut. And her new comments are by far the most disturbing and unnecessary.

TotalFilm recently interviewed the actress and asked her how she would stop the villainous Megatron from demolishing the planet. Fox first said that she would "make a deal with him," adding: "and instead of the entire planet, can you just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America?"

I guess Fox is not too worried about losing acting gigs due to her comments. She previously stated that she will keep getting cast in movies and doesn't need to be a good actress, because Hollywood is superficial and she happens to be good-looking.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

feminism



"It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly."--Virginia Woolf

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

can you see it now?


the comic i mentioned in my last post. i thought i'd try posting it by itself to see what happened...and voila.

lookin' out my own eyes



my sister says i don't write enough about my life. which is to say the point to the title of my blog. you can't write about your life if you don't actually have one. basically my life consists of going to school, studying for school, driving to and from school, and every now and then hanging out with assorted friends. speaking of assorted friends, someone should make one of those facebook pictures where they have a bunch of small labeled pictures and you have to assign one of your friends to each picture. but the picture should be a box of chocolates. assorted chocolates. get it? yeah...anyway, i've been sick for the last two weeks. being sick in june is pretty much the lamest thing ever, except it has actually rained every single day this week, so i guess i'm not really missing too much. the forecast for the next ten days has it raining every single day. for the next ten days. (in case i didn't emphasize that fully) ugh. but you didn't want to know the weather forecast. unless you live in utah, but most of you don't. so the picture from above is the tokyo underground water system. stole it straight from stumble upon. how's that for random? so two things i've learned in my psychology of gender class this week: men fall in love more easily then women and men take break-ups harder than women. sociological fact. if you believe a bunch of silly sociological studies. maybe you do, maybe you don't. but it's fact nonetheless. also this week i lost the plastic piece that connects to my earphones. you know, the part that makes the headphone stay in your ear. anyway, i usually only use one earphone and i cover the other earphone with my thumb because even though you can't hear it sitting right next to it i worry it will wake the people in the next room. so i was holding it and then i put it down for literally one minute and when i picked it back up the plastic part had fallen off and was gone. i searched all around for it for ten minutes and nothing. disappeared into thin air. a totally illogical concept but still the truth. so because i've been sick i've been sucking on a lot of chocolate, chocolate of course being a natural cough suppressant. okay, okay, not of course. really no one ever believes me when i tell them this fact. but it's true. and it works quite well actually. lasts a lot longer than a cough drop. but i've had this cough for two weeks now, so needless to say i'm a bit chocolated out. well, to be honest, i'm totally chocolated out. if i never eat another piece of chocolate again it will be too soon. that is of course until next week. heres where i was going to put a fun calvin and hobbes cartoon:
it had to do with my life right now because it was about calvin giving a presentation and i've been giving a lot of presentations lately. i have another one on wednesday. but blogger won't let it post for some silly reason. oh bother.
yup. yup yup yup. so as you can see from this incredibly interesting blog post, my life is chock full of excitement. do you know what's annoying about being sick? it's not the symptoms. okay, they are really annoying. but what else is annoying is that whenever you mention that you're sick (or when you appear sick, as it can't be hidden) people ALWAYS ask if you have the swine flu in a half joking sort of way. do they really think that they are the first people to have thought of the oh-so-big of a stretch that exists from being sick to having the swine flu? no, i do not have the swine flu. please for the love stop asking me if i have the dumb swine flu. (to all of you reading this who have in fact asked me if i have the swine flu, i apologize...but not really though) anyways...i saw benjamin button again tonight. not better the second time around, which really should have been obvious as it was not great the first time around. to be fair the cgi was pretty amazing in this movie. but i just can't stand when movies feel the audience is too stupid to get the moral of the story so they must just go right out and say it. sometimes repeating it three times, because that's how dumb movie viewers are. whats especially annoying about this movie is that there are more than five morals of the story that they feel they must tell you. let's see what i can remember...'we're meant to lose the people we love. how else can we know how important they are to us'...'you can be mad at the way things turned out, you can swear, curse fate, but in the end you just have to let go'...'life is defined by opportunities...even the ones we miss'...and of course the main one that can best be summed up by miss elliot's "it's never too late to be what you might have been.' these are of course not direct quotes or anything like that. just what i pulled from memory. if i could pick a less obvious theme from the movie, which simply by being less obvious is also better, it would be this quote: "i'm always lookin' out my own eyes." this is, at least, the lesson i choose to take from this movie. the characters, even though they love each other desperately, cannot really understand each other. they can't truly comprehend what the other person is going through because their lives have been so outrageously different. and even though most people's lives are not quite as bizarre as ben button's, i think this idea transcends to all human relationships. you don't know what other people have experienced to make them feel or think the way they do about whatever it is they are thinking and feeling about. all we can do is love them anyway. no matter how hard we try to see the other person's point of view, we really can't, because we're always looking out our own eyes. i think this is one of the aspects that makes the atonement so special. when something crappy happens to us, other people can comfort us because they've had similar experiences. but pain is such an individual experience and process that we all go through quite separately from each other. Christ though, he really does know how we feel because He's felt our personal experience and our personal pain Himself, He's looked through our eyes. personally i think this makes Him love us more. the real challenge is letting this make us love Him more. that sentence is weird, but it's what i mean. wow, this post has become much longer than i anticipated. sorry all, just wanted to post a few comments on what i've been doing lately. my thoughts just get all muddled up with my actions. hope it's sufficient, court ;)