a cold day in phoenix.

Flagged Down

2009-08-08T16:23:00.014-06:00

Filed under: Ben rates stuff that most people don't think about.

Today's topic is state flags. They're like armpits: we all have them, and most of them stink. Anyone who knows anything about vexillology or just plain graphic design knows that the whole state-seal-on-blue-bedsheet thing is supra-lame. My reference today will be NAVA's study on the state and provincial flags of North America. Looking, however, upon this study, it becomes clear that there are easy fixes for the abominations that are the flags of many of our states. Link to all state flags here. Suggestions for all 50 below:

Alabama: Dear Alabama, your flag is already taken historically by Ireland (the old Irish contribution to the Union Jack was the red diagonal part). You can use a red St. Andrew's cross on a white field, but you should put it in the canton and put something else in the fly. If you want to highlight your stint in the Confederacy, you could pull a Georgia and put the "bars" (of "stars and bars") in the fly, red, white, red. Or you could put a state symbol in there (not the seal!) like a yellowhammer or a stock car or something.

Alaska: Rock on.

Arizona: Please also rock on.

Arkansas: Ditch the "ARKANSAS" on your flag--it's distinctive enough as is.

California: I don't like the "California Republic" on the flag, but I think it has to stay for historical reasons.

Colorado: Continue to rock.

Connecticut: I expected better of you. For one of the original thirteen, you really have an unoriginal flag. Ditch the seal, draw a thin stripe of white down the middle horizontally (to represent the historical Western Reserve and the nickname "the Land of Steady Habits"), then deface it with three purple stars in place of the grapes on the state seal, representing your three original colonies, and to draw a connection to good ol' Washington.

Delaware: Ditch the date and the seal, and place one white star in the middle of the diamond of buff, for "The First State"

Florida: You are essentially Alabama/Ireland with the state seal in the middle. Replace the seal with a gold disc for "The Sunshine State".

Georgia: You will pass, this time. That thing in the canton is messed up though.

Hawai'i: Hang loose. Good job.

Idaho: Fail. I would suggest a tricolor of blue, white, and green, to show solidarity with the Pac NW, and seven stars, four on top, three on bottom to indicate the 43rd State. I'm suggesting a violation of the three-colors rule by making the stars the colors of precious gems.

Illinois: Keep the white, ditch the scenery. You can keep the eagle if you want, but he should only be holding the shield. Perhaps you should adopt the powder-blue stripes of the Chicago flag, and ditch the eagle entirely, keeping only the US shield.

Indiana: Ditch the "INDIANA".

Iowa: Ditch the "IOWA", drop the eagle to the middle.

Kansas: I would use the sunflower as the main motif, and make the flag green with a vertical stripe of white, with white stars across the green parts of the top, symbolic of the motto "ad astra per aspera".

Kentucky: I would do bluegrass green and white, 15 stripes total, vertical, for "the Bluegrass State" and the 15th admitted to the union.

Louisiana: Why, why, WHY do you not use the Fleur-de-lis in your flag? Do something like a cross between Quebec and the Dominican Republic: a white Saint George's cross through a field of alternating blue and red, with either a fleur-de-lis in the middle, or a number of them in the cross.

Maine: Go back to the 1901 flag.

Maryland: Please continue to rock.

Massachusetts: Make the whole flag that purple color, move the white star to the canton, and move the weird arm thingy to the center. Ditch everything else.

Michigan: Tricolor-style, but both sides the same color, a la Peru or Nicaragua--I suggest blue, but green works as well. A gray, yes, gray bar horizontally down the center, representing the chrome of the auto industry and the Mackinac Bridge.

Minnesota: Adopt the North Star Flag.

Mississippi: I'm not even going to touch that. The Confederate Battle Flag is a very loaded symbol, and I'm going to steer clear of commentary upon it.

Missouri: Pretty similar to Paraguay. I would ditch the seal in favor of just one symbol of the state, perhaps a dogwood blossom.

Montana: Utter fail. I would capitalize on "Big Sky" and do a horizontal quatre-couleurs a la Mauritius, but blue (for big sky), yellow (for gold), brown (which I'm also going to suggest on the Dakotas' flags--I think it's an accurate way to highlight the relationship residents of the northern Rockies area have with the land), and white (for silver).

Nebraska: Replace the seal with a cornstalk. Problem solved.

Nevada: You're only pretending not to fail. Replace the wreathy stuff with seventeen white stars in a circle around the big one for the 17 counties of the Silver State. I would have it so the top point of each of these stars points outward. You can keep the "Battle Born" if you must.

New Hampshire: I would just have it half blue, half gray (for "the Granite State"), divided diagonally from the bottom-hoist to the top-fly. You could put "LIVE FREE OR DIE" on it, if you wanted.

New Jersey: Buff with three Jersey blue stars stacked close vertically in the center, representing the three plows in the seal and the 3rd state in the Union.

New Mexico: However you say "rock on" in the Zia language.

New York: I would keep the dimensions, and make it a blue field with a white wedge extending from the bottom center to the two top edges, with just the eagle surmounting a globe as the device. "EXCELSIOR" can be kept, if it must.

North Carolina: Your flag barely passed.

North Dakota: Horizontal tricolor--blue, white, brown.

Ohio: You overdid it, which I love.

Oklahoma: Ditch "OKLAHOMA". We should be able to tell what your flag represents without having to read. Since we can't, highlight the Osage artifact with a white or yellow lozenge in the middle.

Oregon: Why does your flag have two sides? There's not enough vexillological content for one. Use the flag of Cascadia's color scheme, and choose a something to put in the middle. I suggest an O shape with a state symbol inside. If you want, you can invert the Cascadia scheme so as not to look like a separatist.

Pennsylvania: I'd do a blue field with red and white stripes, vertical, on both sides, with the red stripe outward, and a gold keystone in the center.

Rhode Island: I would ditch the banner with "HOPE" and change the anchor and stars to a deeper gold color or, preferably, red.

South Carolina: Rock on, Southern-style.

South Dakota: I would do a blue field with a brown stripe at the bottom, in the blue field an image of Mount Rushmore.

Tennessee: Yeehaw.

Texas: I choose not to mess with this one.

Utah: Seriously, with all the symbology that is rampant in this state, I'm sorely disappointed. I would do a multi-color field like my suggestion for Louisiana, cut by two arches, facing opposite directions, and crossing in the middle. The upward-facing one looks like a U for Utah and represents the canyons. The downward-facing one represents a beehive or the arches the southern desert is famous for. The recent license places have used a tan color and sky blue a lot, so I would suggest all of the sections other than the three in the top-center be tan, and the top-center ones sky blue.

Vermont: Go back to the Vermont Republic flag, and straighten the stars. You might reverse the colors of the canton so as not to be as hard on the eyes.

Virginia: This is the toughest of the redesigns--it's hard to imagine how to make a flag that represents the most storied state in the union, the Mother of Presidents. I suggest a 13-stripe red/white horizontal (a la the "Don't Tread on Me" naval jack), but with the top stripe blue with eight white stars, representing the eight presidents to hail from VA (with the option to add more if another Virginian is elected president).

Washington: Vertical tricolor, white, green, blue, with a gold profile of George Washington in the center.

West Virginia: It'd be awesome if WVU just gave up their logo. It's kitschy-fabulous. But otherwise, you would want something that focuses on its loyalty. I would say horizontal tricolor, blue, red, white, with a white stripe on the hoist side. The white L that's made by this pattern is representative of West Virginia's loyalty to the union (and to peace) and the state's two panhandles.

Wisconsin: I would do this: a red field, crossed in the center with a blue bar surrounded by two thin white stripes. Blue bar studded with 30 white stars (for the 30th state). The red flag is representative of Wisconsin's name "it runs red", referring to the Wisconsin River's color, and the design is vaguely reminiscent some Asian flags (esp. Thailand), emphasizing the importance of the state's Asian population.

Wyoming: Keep everything, lose the seal in the buffalo's eye.

As you can see, there are some trends in my suggestions (and the existing flags)--certain colors (green for the Pac NW, purple for New England, brown for the Northern Rockies) can tie regions together.

The Cultural Butter Battle

2009-07-30T20:49:00.007-06:00

" 'I'll blow you,' he yelled, 'into pork and wee beans!
I'll butter-side-up you to small smithereens!'"
-Dr. Seuss, The Butter Battle Book

I was delighted to find that Crystal had brought a stack of the children's classics home for our baby today, including The Butter Battle Book. At first, my delight was in that somehow, some way, we might be able to instill in our child's pre-two-month-old brain and understanding of the idiocy that was the Cold War, but upon reading of the heartache of the Yooks and the Zooks, I was much more delighted and scared to realize how applicable the story is to our own society. Indeed, the post-superpower world is not brought to an eternal struggle of Western society vs. radical Islam, but Donkey vs. Elephant. The monopole is becoming bi-polar again, and the butter-side is still the big concern.

The weapons are vast and powerful, but all psychological and political, whether they be the 9/12 project, or, say, the entire career of Nancy Pelosi. Is it any wonder the names of some of these Weapons of Mass Obstruction? All the media psyops and political maneuvering is leading to a possibly dangerous end, and I think that there are some who think this is a viable path for America. This is absolutely ridiculous. Were the Culture Wars to become the Clan Wars, debates on marriage and taxes would become fights over farming implements and water rations.

Think about it--are any of these issues worth moving into Thunderdome for?

Now, I'm not here to offer a magic solution, but I would think that the average American has enough intelligence to find moderate candidates for public office and vote for them. This is moderate--that means, if you're a standard Republican, they're a little to the left of you. If you're a classic Democrat, they're to your right a bit. If enough people voted not for the person that would push their party away from center, but toward it, we might still have a country for a while.

Blogcitos

2009-07-26T09:51:00.002-06:00

From the Wikipedia page on Soyuz TMA-11: "Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, speculated that the ballistic reentry was connected to a Russian nautical superstition that having more women than men on a craft was unlucky. "This isn't discrimination," he stated when challenged on the point. "I'm just saying that when a majority [of the crew] is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behaviour or something else occurs." Perminov said he would try to ensure that the number of women would not exceed the number of men in the future."

From the Arizona Republic: "About one week after being placed on paid leave, Ruhland sparked a criminal investigation against Denney, who he claimed assaulted him by hitting him in the crotch with a water bottle at police headquarters five months prior."

From the back cover of Inventory: "In a culture that worships the disposable, lazy lists obligatorily put together by self-serving editorial staffs at the likes of Barely Information Magazine, The A.V. Club has decided to embrace what it parodies until it meets itself just outside of heaven and shakes its own hand while flipping itself, and you and me, off. Kudos A.V. Club!" (David Cross)

From a link I saw on from a friend on Twitter: http://www.safes.com/

Went to Pro's Ranch Market #7 (Mesa) this week. Holy amazing. It's like being in Mexico. If you live in Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, or Albuquerque, or are passing through any of these areas, I very highly suggest the in-store taqueria. The best tacos and quesadillas I've ever had anywhere.

The Worst Bar Graph in the World

2009-04-13T21:42:00.001-06:00

Please take a minute out of whatever you're doing to make fun of this bar graph.

[Graph from Slate and HHS]

This bar graph was posted by Timothy Noah of slate on Friday morning--it is horribly, fundamentally flawed, as any student of basic statistics can tell you. Yet Mr. Noah is so convinced of the power of the graph that he bases an entire two long, impassioned pages of text on it. He urges you to stop what you're doing and look at it.

For those who cannot tell just by looking at the graph what's wrong with it, I'll enumerate the atrocities: 1) the title is not clear--it doesn't explain whether this is a percentage (and if so, what is the sample size?), a per capita dollar amount, or a gross dollar amount being portrayed. 2) the y-axis is completely bare. There is no label (what is being measured?!) and there is, more importantly, no scale. 3) the x-axis is actually the most confusing. It is labeled "2008" while the title claims that it is measuring 1999-2008. Is this just 2008, or is this a composite?

It claims to be from the HHS, and it does appear on the healthreform.gov website. The site itself claims as a source the Kaiser Family Foundation. I could find this exact graph nowhere--in fact, the KFF site seems to be full of well-done, well-organized charts, graphs, and data. I even started looking for the data from which the graph was made, and I only think I found it (Additional Presentation Slides, page 3). This chart makes so much more sense, I can't quite tell if it's the same data.

Nonetheless, independent of your stance on healthcare, this chart should definitely give you pause.

The Unknowable Facts, Part I

2009-03-10T13:28:00.006-06:00

Why "informed voter" is an oxymoron.

It seems to me that the economic situation is a perfect example of an issue that's been on my mind since the elections. In one debate, McCain took Obama to task for claiming to be concerned for Afghanistan but not having visited Waziristan. It really didn't make sense to me, and even when I looked up said stan on wikipedia, I still didn't know whether it was such an important point. The issue was confusing, and I wasn't sure what to believe. Iraq has been like this the whole time--some claim Bush did it for the oil, some to finish his father's business, some because he really believed in those WMDs.

The economic situation is worse. Now we have something that we can't explain, that's happening for reasons we can't explain, with solutions we're not sure about. I've had the same argument with my friend Keith that economists have had on Slate, and I'm sure these same discussions (with bigger words) have on in university faculties across the nation and beyond.

We'll never know about most of these things. I don't know that any amount of retrospect or declassification can really inform us about these issues, and as such, I don't think any of us have claim to the vaunted citizens' title "Informed Voter".

Complicating this matter is the influence of the pundits. The discussions of complicated matters in public forums tends toward the sensational and allows us either a despair at a hopelessly broken political system, to which our only recourse is laughter, or worse, a despair at a political system broken, but not hopelessly if certain of the pundit's opinions were implemented. In essence, commentary on the news is confusing the situation further.

I know this seems like the middle of an essay, and that's probably because it is. Next part will deal with the function of rhetoric in politics and what we can do to make decisions as citizens.

Of Chuck and Psych

2009-03-04T07:47:00.008-07:00

This may be the last season of television.

The '00s will likely be remembered, media-wise, as an age of experimentation and adventure. Superhero movies have multiplied alongside popular thinking films (Stranger than Fiction's ilk). Young adults' tales have been brought to the mainstream. On TV, reality was the name of the game for a while, and once the networks sorted out that genre's place in the market, complex, arcing series of the 24 and Lost generation took over. Comedies fought back from the sidelines by indulging in the "Tenenbaum effect"--documentary-style was the new gimmick (The Office, Arrested Development). USA Networks' Monk broke ground, and an unlikely show on cable in an unlikely slot became wildly popular. The show's appeal was simple--character-driven dramedy, based on Tony Shalhoub's maddening character. The combination of a police procedural and a paranoid, obviously early-00's comedy was easy to pick up on, and clues to the barebones backstory were frequent and obvious. It was lighthearted and fun, but had a good draw and some suspense. It was critically acclaimed and got great ratings (after a while).

USA's follow up, Psych, was much along the same lines. Shooting for a younger demographic, it blends the interracial buddy-tale aspect of Scrubs, the crime-plus-jokes of Monk, and a very basic romantic tension its predecessor lacked. Shawn Spencer's antics are also pop-culture reference-laden, like many other shows that have hit it big (Arrested Development again).

NBC, the basic-channel with the most innovation today, made its own magic with Chuck, the tale of lovable nerd Chuck Bartowski and his adventures in modern espionage. Again, it's got a lot of action and suspense, sprinkled with laughs (kind of the opposite dynamic as Psych), and a lot more of a romantic subplot (it's clear that he and his stock CIA girl contact, Sarah, are interested in each other).

All of these shows feature a tiny core ensemble (though Chuck's cast is much larger, few of the peripheral characters get more than a couple lines an episode), and all adhere to one philosophy: it's all about the people. The generation that gave us emo and Facebook is not likely to be won by gimmicks. This tactic is working, with one problem: the format is inherently unstable.

Sharks, by their nature, wish to be jumped, but modern sharks more than ever. It's not that attention spans are waning, necessarily, it's that these narratives are not built to withstand more than five seasons, max. Psych is already starting to fade, showing a poor last half of its third season. Chuck maintains a tenuous grasp of a large viewership, but conflict there, too, wants to be resolved. Shows like The Simpsons and Knight Rider have had little in the way of an overarching plot to resolve, and so can go on forever. The modern-day killer show, though, requires at least something that's begging for resolution.

For every hit, there is a flop. Or seven. The people who are giving us these hits need more space to create, and more competition in the creation process, so networks need to give these creators smaller orders and more warning that "we only want this thing for four or five years", so that they can get on with their lives unless they nail something together that can span a longer frame.

DVD and online streaming will make television more and more dynamic, and so we need something we can just watch. Obsess about a little (but we've got a blogroll, a facebook profile, and a twitter feed to read, so don't step), but mostly just watch, whether that's a season at a time, or one ep a week.

If someone doesn't act soon, there really won't be any more television to speak of, and the reality shows and cliffhanger shows will take over, leaving Television a land full of specialized zombie viewers. (This is bad for networks; overall viewership goes down.)

Man's Search for Downtown

2009-03-01T10:24:00.007-07:00

In which my wife and I find that Phoenix is the schizo town that can't figure out where it wants the cool people to go, and we get ready for Spring Training.

Matthew Polly, in a Slate article describing the beauty of St. Petersburg, Russia, chalks a lot of the city's soul up to its decades of oppressions. He says, "Democracies, while far more pleasant, leave behind places like Phoenix." Sad, but true. I'd like to back my newly-adopted city up, though, with this thought--the Valley of the Sun has about 160 years of catching up to do.

My wife and I were struck by the awesomeness that is San Diego's Balboa Park while on a short vacation there in January. On our return, we thought, "Surely the country's fifth-largest city and fourteenth-largest metropolitan area must have a place where all the cool kids go. You know, where people play music on the street corner for money, and there are overpriced hot dogs." Perhaps I added the hot dogs myself. We're still kind of on the search, but we think we've got it nailed down. Here were our steps:

1. Actual downtown Phoenix/Copper Square. This was sorely disappointing. Copper Square is not really a destination. The science museum area is fun, and there are some people around, but all the attractions are things you have to pay mad cheddar for (the sports arenas, sci museum, other museum-type dealies). There was a monster-truck rally downtown, and a man selling bottled-water on the street, so that was kinda close.

2. Encanto Park. This is apparently one of the "Phoenix Points of Pride", which means that it's something the government pays bank to upkeep. It was alright. It pretty much just looked like a city park, though, with a mini-amusement park in the middle. We did not go to the middle, as we were not looking for mini-amusements. They did, however, have paddle boats.

3. Papago Park. This is the home of "Hole-in-the-Rock", a geological formation of rock with a hole in it. We hiked up to the top of the rock, and saw the hole. It was ten whole minutes of awesome. Then we saw a rabbit and a roadrunner and some old people having a party. Not really much to speak of, but there's a lot more of this park we didn't see.

4. Mill Avenue District. This is pretty much what we were looking for. The main drag of Tempe (home to ASU) has a bunch of hippies and artists, buskers and bums. It's got the funny-looking stores etc. It's not really well developed yet, but it's headed in the right direction.

There isn't really a central meeting point in the city, but instead of there being no city center, there appears to be multiple. Enlightened, but slightly disheartened by this information, we're going to get what we can out of life here by going to Spring Training, which apparently draws quite the crowd. Awesome.

Reimagining and First New Post

2009-02-28T08:32:00.003-07:00

So, it's taken me over seven months to figure out what I'm going to do with my blog. Those of you who have checked this thing realize that it's done little or nothing in recent months, and many of you have probably removed this blog from your feed readers et c. The problem lay in that my personal life updates have been subsumed by my family blog, which is semi-private (unsearchable on google), and all the minutiae have been faithfully posted on facebook and twitter. I've started another blog, to which I will link you all at an appropriate time, that deals with a primary political concern: the relationship between rhetoric, the unknowable facts, and the partisan divide.

Which leaves this blog: I've decided I'm going to update it primarily with:

Musings (in which I discuss a trend, how it's impacted me, and open up for comments)
Reviews (in which I say what I think about things)
Rants/Raves (in which I sternly warn the readership to avoid something or highly recommend it--this is by the way of commercial products and enterprises)

There you are! Hopefully there will be a continued infusion of smart things, the funny, and the bizarre sensibility that was part of the blog previously.

First Post

This is a Musing about cyber-stalking. Cyber-stalking is cyber-bullying a grownup. It doesn't have to actually involve stalking in the historical sense of seeking contact with a person, it just means that you get involved in their life in a way that is undesirable to that person.

I have a friend, who I'll call Will. He's not an avid facebooker, but he likes to post occasional status updates and has a number of friends. He wrote a letter to his university's newspaper in which he, like many authors of letters to editors, denounced a practice and proposed a hypothetical and hyperbole-laden solution. (The issue at hand was obedience to the school's dress code.) Because his solution was taken literally by some who read the article, a facebook group appeared demanding that he apologize for his words, perceived as sexist by those who did not see their irony. The group's leader appears to have made a facebook account specifically for the purpose of creating the group-- he didn't have a profile picture or very many friends. Members of the group engaged in what appeared to be slander and descended to fairly serious depths, some going so far as to imply that Will was a rapist. Some of his friends joined the group to battle the accusations, but in the end, this only fueled the flames.

I was unaware of the group's existence when my wife and I received friend requests from two suspicious characters, both women we didn't know. Both of their profiles were faces on white backgrounds, and looked familiar, as if they could have been B-list actresses of some sort. I advised my wife (though this was unnecessary) not to add them, as I had read an article about social-networking fraud, and though we were unlikely to be dupes in such a scheme, it made sense to stay away from them. It turns out they were members of this group, and were some of the most vitriolic participants in it. They had attempted to add all of Will's friends--perhaps in order to turn them from him. His wall, however was full of "These people are horrible. Why would they do this?" and the like.

Turns out Will had apologized to the group in its early hours of existence, but they wanted more, it seems. They would not stop until their goal--whatever that may have been--was met. Like terrorists, these people did awful things with terribly unclear motives. Eventually the group was removed (partially due to many of Will's friends reporting their ToS violations), but the questions regarding their actions remain.

If you are the victim of similar attacks, please inform the providers of the medium through which you are attacked. That is, if you are called, contact your carrier. If you are contacted over the web, talk to the website management. In the case of facebook, etc, you can get friends to report the offenders and/or groups. Do this; it'll help your case.

You might also want to inform your local police. They can't do much, but they'll at least have a paper trail if things get out of hand; it'll also afford you a little peace of mind.

Do any of you have experiences or opinions you want to share? Please comment.

One little thing.

2008-11-27T10:27:00.002-07:00

So, I know many of you know this, but if you don't, I'll let you know I have a little thing with fantasy sports. Specifically, fantasy deathmatches. As in, if it hadn't been concurrent with my marrying my dream girl, the highlight of my summer would have been when Mega Man killed the Joker. That serves him right. Anyhow, I guess they don't have to be death-matches, because how do you kill Jupiter's moon, Io, or multimillion-dollar search industry giant Google? Welp, y'all should check it out, 'cause I said so and 'cause it's fun.

Link!

Robot Veteran's Day Parade!

2008-11-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Though military drones exist, they don't count because they don't go on their own.

In the spirit of posting our essays, here's the robot slaves one Oly was talking about. Circa 2007.

The State of the Universe in the Context of Robot Slaves,
or: Where's my electronic manservant?
or: You are not my mother! You are a Snort!

Ever since mankind has been able to get its puny mind around the idea of advancing technology, the authors of Amazing Stores!-type fiction have been predicting that our doom by eugenics or electronics was just around the millenial bend. Most of these scenarios occur before 2012, when the Mayan calendar ends, by which time many expected humanity to undergo a catastrophe of eschatological proportion*, eventually submitting to robot rule.

I am sad to say this isn't even vaguely a possibility, not even in the advanced-sounding year 2007. The most menacing thing we've got out today is the Tamanoi Vinegar Robot by Japanese tech corp Buildup, followed shortly by a toddler sized green thing that likes the taste of human flesh. The scariest thing about the state of robot slaves is the fact that they all look just like what we imagined them to be, only they don't do jack. They're not even good slaves, for the most part, from the ASIMO, which appears to by the animate version of the MTV astronaut (remember the 80's? Neither do I.) to those commercially accessible toys that appear to boast only the virtue that they look like primates or dogs. The only decent servants out there are Roomba and his kin, who though fairly effective at being robots as well as slaves, have the downside of looking like mutant frisbees, and not being menacing (read: cool) in any way.

Don't even get me started on artificial intelligence (or even text-to-speech). While an undergrad in linguistics, I worked for a state-of-the-cart research group doing the language tech thing, and I'll tell you that most of my time was spent behind the keyboard and mouse manipulating an authoring tool that was to Visual Basic as Duplos are to Legos. I managed to make a little agent that would tell me the weather forecast in a creepy voice, but with load time and all the possibility for mishearing on the speech rec side, it was still easier just to bookmark the website I used as a source. Alas, in this modern world, you don't even need a weatherbot to know which way the wind blows.

My solution to the problem is simple. Roombas and Scoobas should be used as the basis for further robot slaves. It appears they've got the software. All that's missing is to beef up the servos and stack Darth Shoyu on top of it, for a truly rockin robotic vacuuming experience. Heck, you could give the dude a broom, hotglue him to a Scooba, and have a most wicked counterpart to the Jetsons' Rosie. I further suggest the mashup of those dogbots and the tasting machine as the creepiest robobaby ever. At least then the inevitable revolution wouldn't be an uprising of cybernetic trilobites.¤

* It is interesting to note that the Mayan glyph for "apocalypse" appears to be a stylized rendition of Gort.

Eureka!

2008-09-13T16:22:00.005-06:00

"If you wanna be a martyr, try harder!"
-Braid, "The New Nathan Detroits"

Forward!

This one time, I found a job. I am now officially hired by Avant Assessment LLC, a language testing firm based in Eugene, Oregon. I'm telecommuting in my position, in which I make language tests. Fun, eh? It's a good job, it seems, and I'll be updating you all on cool things I learn from being a language test guru (only things that I can say without violating my job's policies, of course, guys at Avant, I know you're reading :)
Happily, I have a job and I can officially provide for my family and stuff, and it looks like it's going to awesome. Unfortunately, it means that my sad-story blogposts about the job-search are over. Also, I have an Arizona driver license now, which doesn't expire until 2045. Awesome.

Working on Working

2008-08-28T16:11:00.002-06:00

"I try and I try and I try and I try and I try..."
-Pavement

The Bread Lines

So, while you were gone (I mean, while I was gone), I met the woman of my dreams, we got married, and moved to Phoenix. Awesome. The blog will now be co-opted for a diary of my job search, for the enlightenment of those of you interested in the plight of the U.S. Economy, the aftermath of a massive housing market crash, or the dearth left in the wake of urban sprawl gone awry.

A little background. While I was away, I also got a master's degree, in Linguistics. Now, I know that's not incredibly marketable, but my plan was to get an adjunct position for now and maybe go back for a PhD. Now we're in Phoenix, which has one major university and really no others. ASU doesn't have any openings for Ling fac right now, so I'm trying to enter the workforce at entry level. I've been at it hard for about a month now, and no dice at all. My name's in three employment agencies, one that really looks legit, and today I'm going to work into a fourth one I think. I'm also working on getting my substitute teaching certificate and dropping my name into the Subfinder at three schools, hopefully working toward the goal of an official certificate and a high-school English gig.

Today's adventure is Aerotek, apparently a large staffing agency. I'm calling them right now. Which means I'm going to have to stop listening to the Brobecks for a little while. Aerotek bounced me around for awhile aften I told them I had tech experience, and I ended up stuck in a voicemail I can't get out of. I left a detailed message with my phone number, but there was a strange crackling that made me doubt this thing would ever get picked up. I may call them again, but I wonder if the Phoenix office is competent to handle the case. I may not have given them a fair shot yet. I've already submitted to two jobs on their Thingamajob site. And one more on Monster. I've been networking on LinkedIn, and I don't know if that's doing any good either. More updates as this progresses.

Have a Art

2008-05-04T10:22:00.002-06:00

And an Opinion!

Talking to a friend recently in the apartment, I came to the realization that a lot of people don't express themselves very often or very forcefully. There's a lot of hiding and a lot of covering up around here, and though I don't necessarily believe conformity is always bad (it's what keeps society together, really), there's a lot of unnecessary self-oppression out there.

Over-suppression of personal attributes leads to a lot of bad things: be it rage, self-righteousness, depression, overall boringness, or the oppression of others, it's not a good thing. I realized that many of the people I know who experience this problem don't engage their creative processes frequently. Getting your art on is a step toward breaking out into a wider world of free self-expression, enhancing the lives of, well, pretty much everyone.

You may say that you are bad at writing, music, and the visual arts, but note that many other forms exist: perhaps gastronomy or sculpture or photography is more your bag. Also note that simply performing music, while relaxing and certainly a skill, is not really a creative endeavor. Writing music is the creative side of this pursuit.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but just a thought if you find yourself trapped in your own head, or feel like a slave of The Man, get your art on, and you'll probably feel better. Make it a habit, and you'll find that your social abilities will also increase.

Secondly, if you really feel trapped, perhaps you're also suppressing your opinions. We often don't express our opinions on things because we're afraid of being stepped on, or we're just terrified of conflict. If you can just separate your self-worth from the acceptance of your opinion as the incontrovertible truth, you can go far toward actually creating opinions and, well, having a personality to call your own. Maybe this is what people call "finding yourself", but I much prefer "making yourself". In your discussions, you'll find a lot of people disagree with your newly formed opinions. In fact, you may find your opinions changing. Wow. That's a good thing. Also, you may find that your opinions affect the way others view the world. Human interaction--isn't it awesome?

Bite Me, Dave.

2008-04-22T14:55:00.004-06:00

Click the image to read it.

Laws of Mass Action #1

2008-04-13T07:12:00.004-06:00

Scope

So, I've been reading Boing Boing, which can be dangerous, but I've found that Cory Doctorow's new favorite philosophical/cultural chewtoy, Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, posits some really interesting principles that seem to be largely ignored by even those who are pioneering the mass action phenomenon. An introduction: Shirky's idea is that the internet, by making communication in groups easier, is opening up a new society in which things done en masse can also be done instantly. People of my age and younger tend to use Facebook to do that, but that's not entirely relevant.

This is what I've seen: our group (people who are familiar with the internet from childhood but haven't grown up with social networking or other instant mass-action-capable tools) will be the people that set the norms for engaging in mass action. Unfortunately, like all norms, these will partially be made up of good rules of thumb, but they will be primarily composed of "what everyone's doing". I think it would be for everyone's good if "what everyone's doing" were smart.

Today's comment: Scope.

I've found that a lot of people are making a lot of events with a lot of people. That's cool and all, but to use an example:

On facebook, Hopalong found an event for a bonfire at the same place our year-end bonfire is going to be. We invited 450-500 people (uninviting many of those who declined), and we have around 45 confirmed. Their event, a week and a half earlier, invited roughly 4000 people with an aggressive invite-your-friends campaign, and had a little under 500 confirmed. The park at which these bonfires are being held has maybe enough parking space for 80. Maybe. I wonder how that turned out and whether the local law enforcement officials got involved in any way.

Even some of our own parties have suffered from overcrowding in the winter months when activity can't spill out onto the balcony. Other times, no one's shown up.

I propose the following:

Know your limits. Though you may have infinite advertising power now, you don't have infinite resources.
Invite your friends. I know you know a lot more people on [your preferred social networking tool] than you know in real life, but try to keep invitations down to people you really want to come to the activity if there's limited space/resources.
Potluck it up. Sometimes people just need to bring things.
Say it twice. If your problem is not getting enough people, have contact with them other than the original invitation, maybe even in person.
Invite at the right time. If you invite too early, people will forget, and won't want to commit. If you invite too late, people won't know until too late. For bigger deals, give it 1.5-2.5 weeks in advance, for less important matters, 3-10 days is great.

The Peanut Butter and Jelly Solution

2008-04-11T14:59:00.002-06:00

I made you like 17 PB&Js!
-me

Something from Nothing

So, Hopalong and Crowdsurfer may have struck social gold the other day whilst pretending to be a couple, but "only when [Crowdsurfer] has a PBJ in [her] hand". I wasn't there when this joke started, but I caught on, and of course took it to its logical extreme: how do you maintain a relationship with a girl who's only your girlfriend when she's got a sandwich in her hand? I guess you've got to make a lot of sandwiches. Sure, it's not a big deal while you both have to go to school or whatnot, because you're probably not communicating anyway, but what about everything else? You can't be expected to keep churning out the Smuckers-laden hits all day every day, can you?

I thought about this a little more, and realized we're all in this boat anyway. Instead of PBJ, we've got attention. That ever difficult matter of showing people we like them. Some people it seems, feel bad that others are making food for them, even though holding a PBJ is the prerequisite for the relationship. Others gobble the suckers, seemingly emotionally hollow-legged. The sandwich makers range from the grudging, to the sloppy, to the impoverished and harried. I myself am an eager chef, often approaching would-be sandwich holders with my platter bowing with PBJ goodness, only to find a) this scares the crap out of them or b) they're allergic.

Well, that's the whole awful metaphor! Hope you like it!

How to Get Free Music

2008-04-03T16:57:00.002-06:00

I know I need to post today--so in lieu of interesting personal observation, a list of places you should go if you have the need for free music files that are also legal.

Label sites are replete with samples. That is, if they're the least bit independent. Don't plan on anything but streaming (if that) from Warner or anyone, but Sub Pop, Jade Tree, Asthmatic Kitty, Barsuk and the like almost always have something for free.

Downloads from C|Net. The search interface sucks, but they have some things from bigger names (and a lot from much smaller). Also PureVolume.

Stereogum. Especially the tribute albums to R.E.M.'s "Automatic for the People" and Radiohead's "OK Computer" (note: you can't actually download the OKX ones anymore, sad), but they have all kinds of crap up all the freaking time. You can also get songs from Pitchfork, but that means you have to read Pitchfork.

You can get cool videos from Blogotheque; the later ones are downloadable.

In Which I Attempt to Generate the Hits

2008-03-31T11:48:00.002-06:00

This is an article I posted on my, Sam's and Jon's issues and culture blog, the weoarld wide worb. You should check it out.

In which Ben identifies the Awesome trend and derives the Equations of Radness.

Turns out you have to have a dictionary of 80's cartoon shows to communicate in our society. Totally ok with me--I watched Voltron 5 like any good American. It's just the tip of the iceberg in what I'm calling "Awesome Culture": the state of the art in social obfuscation in which the cheesy, obscure, and overblown are deified for the lack of truly inspiring messages. Or perhaps in spite of them. Allow me to digress (in this case, that request is like an H2 towering over your Camry with the blinker on being interpreted "Please let me into this lane."):

Iain Banks posited the eventual existence (well, actually, the current existence) of The Culture, an amalgam of minds, artificial and human, that exist in an anarchic and essentially hedonistic society where having fun is infinitely more important than being useful. Think of a cross between Star Trek's Federation and a frat party, and you've pretty much got it. Also think the Internet and you've still pretty much got it. Though we are definitely in state of economic scarcity, informationally we have a massive glut. Results? No, really, the results of having everything from Avogadro's number to DuckTales at our fingertips? DuckTales. And lots of it. It seems that the more we are allowed to look into the abyss, the more the abyss looks back into us and says, "By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!"

Note the following: Mystery Science Theater. Here's a precursor--Crow and Servo taking truly awesomely bad movies to task with verbal barbs. The beginnings of our Awesomeness, the show introduced a rising generation to rubbery monsters and bad dialogue. Awesome. All kinds of abominations are covered by this umbrella: Snakes on a Plane, a rekindled love for monster movies, and the general retro-desire we've come to accept as all-pervasive. And so, because I love you so much, Equations for these Radnesses:

Equation 1: Is this movie crap or adorable crap?

R = Monsters x Bad Dialogue x Kitsch x Oldness*

Note that Oldness is a value between 0 and 1. Anything 1969 and older is a 1.

Equation 2: How obscure is the right obscure?

R = Robots x Anthropomorphic Animals x Quotable Battlecries

Note that Voltron 5 is the highest possible score.

Equation 3: Can I use this word?

R = Have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used it?

Butterflies

2008-03-28T11:11:00.002-06:00

"And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls." Alma 37:7

"One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings could change the course of weather forever." -Edward Lorenz

The Lord of Strange Attractors

This is something I've thought about a lot already--it's kind of become part of my own system of beliefs, kind of like what my dad thinks about the dinosaurs. It is this: Faith in God requires that one believe that He acts for the benefit of mankind, i.e. that He intervenes (in some way; as will be shown hereafter, the clockmaker thing doesn't really have the effect that Deists would like to believe). A belief in His power doesn't necessary imply that one knows exactly what that power is or how it works, and for every visitation and fire raining down there are millions of things He does by inspiring people to act. Sometimes, though, God does things that simply are too difficult to explain by one identifiable inspired human action, and really have to have been triggered by a complex set of initial conditions. Those of you familiar with chaos theory will recognize that complex initial conditions are responsible for seemingly random circumstances later--chaos, in that sense, is not random at all. It is mathematically predictable, but complex beyond computing capability, in many cases.

And so are we. Nearly infinitely complex, our lives appear to be a random amalgamation of events, sometimes untouchably beautiful, others profanely unfortunate. None of it is so random that it cannot be corrected, bettered, and repaired by the Lord God who notices sparrows when they fall. True, our lives are never going to be a perfect Julia set because of our own free will, but there do not exist situations where a tiny stitch in time (whether or not that's in a quantum mechanical sense) cannot resolve our own idiocies.

Unfortunately for our lazier natures, the purpose of this life is not to create a flawless fractal, but to learn and grow. Learning and growth are painful, boring, frustrating, and heartbreaking. When it's all said and done, however, the Lord will defend both His faithful and those who do not quite come back (in different ways). For those who trust Him, even if they go astray, we can expect nigh-magical occurrences (though not always) to save us in the day of our darkness. Ironically, I get background for this from the miracles of Jesus, and M. Night Shyamalan's thriller Signs, which carry the theme of "small things are powerful in the hands of God", both in the loaves and fishes, and in the imperative to "swing away".

Also from my own life. This past month (abt 25 Feb-25 Mar) has been rough. I could recite my vernal list of maladies, but I'll refrain in text what I proclaim out loud. In all of these situations, however, answers and solutions were found in the midst of the problem, often with items, people, and situations preexisting but overlooked, and frequently with unexpected (occasionally undesired) but beautiful results. Please, have faith.

So I broke that promise of snark. I'm sure it'll come back.

In the Bread Lines

2008-03-19T14:16:00.004-06:00

"and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars"
-cummings

Trading Karma for Publicity

As the subtitle mentions, this is going to be a somewhat less modest post, such being traded for a reasonably bully pulpit in which to express something I think is pretty important, and that could really change the way you interact with your community.

I was never really interested in helping the poor and disabled directly. I have always felt uncomfortable around transients, mental patients, and the otherwise downtrodden. Turns out God didn't like that. In 2003, my calling involved working closely with patients at Utah State Hospital for a couple of hours (really more like an hour, but work with me here) a week. It was...well, uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong: sometimes it was awesome, but more often it was awkward. That went on until '04, and most of the people with issues of that nature that I dealt with after that were probably just neighbors in my apartment complex. Then I went home in early '06 and worked for the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services for a little while. The Food Stamps crowd was a little more lively than the USH group, and I was actually still terribly uncomfortable. I got a job after I came back to Provo with Chrysalis, which does human services for people with mental disabilities, and I'll admit it: I haven't really had much contact with them since I got the job. All I do is fix the computers. I don't know how to relate, it seems.

Then n invited me to the Food and Care Coalition's fundraiser, and I won a door prize. And so when the sign-up to volunteer sheet came along this last week, I signed it. And I went. As the chef was giving out the instructions, I felt the desire to be out there serving rather than in the kitchen. (Turns out I was not actually assigned to serve, so that's sad). Interesting. Anyhow, the service was good, and the touching moment of the evening was the man that said as he turned in his plate: "Every day I'm alive teaches me to trust the Lord, and every day that I have a job teaches me to trust myself. Not that I'd ever forget the Lord God." Wise words from a guy whose life involves a lot more difficult things than his starter being busted, getting a little flu or some bizarre coughing, or not being quite up to speed on his masters thesis.

If this was too maudlin for you, don't worry: I'll be back to snarky posts again soon.

I think you should all volunteer some time, and if you don't live here, find someplace in your own community.

Deity-Kaiju Showdown!

2008-03-12T10:23:00.002-06:00

So, I was reading the Doctrine and Covenants this morning, and as is traditional, I had previously made notes in its exceptional margins. I always find it interesting to see what I wrote about certain passages, but for Section 27, verse 15 I found I had written:

God vs. Godzilla
16Oct05

I don't know what this is supposed to mean. Ideas?

Fin

2008-03-11T14:13:00.001-06:00

So, that's the end of the Block Poems. Thanks for bearing with me.

What did y'all think?

Block 24

2008-03-08T16:24:00.004-07:00

Wild Rose Country

Just give me your hand and let's jump out the window.

Singing "Australia" while racing toward the 49th Parallel,
The Skyway Fire and destruction behind me,
Burning gold grain and freedom before me.
The scorched fields get a frozen rain, autumn being missed
or stolen.

I may have seen the red flowers, flat-petaled,
In no way roses, bowing themselves down on roadsides.
I may have slept, dreamed, and been awakened from those dreams
by a ghost-wind, cold and capable,
and set myself on fire.

Block 23

2008-03-08T16:21:00.001-07:00

The Censorship of Block 22

Never let anyone change your mind:
any letters deleted will come back to find you,
any love lost will come and haunt you,
and your pen will break on this ancient page.

Block 14a in lieu of Block 22

2008-03-08T16:19:00.002-07:00

Tarragon

As sugar blending into a glass,
I blended into you.
Sadly, you turned and turned,
and drained me out.

Writing Poetry After a Long Time of Not Writing Poetry

2008-03-07T17:50:00.004-07:00

(block 21)

Like a woman musician on the morning magazine,
I'll cross my legs like I never have, wear my hair up,
Lilt like a fairy and speak like a specter,
Silence my fears
and put on weird airs.

Block 20

2008-03-07T17:48:00.006-07:00

Ten Is Not Many

The question is whether a "tablet"
is something you take or something you write on.
I came down, saw the melted earrings,
broke these two over the knee,
swallowed them,
and called back in the morning.

Block 19

2008-03-07T17:48:00.005-07:00

My Morning Jacket Is Yellow

Calling this an "urge" assigns too much consciousness to it:
I just wake up and start stinging things.

Block 18

2008-03-07T17:43:00.004-07:00

you are now connected to mountaintop removal

The stars will die, the trees will die
and you and I will die:
It is foolish to think that this cannot.
As foolish, in fact, as when you reached for comfort--
I squeezed your hand and all the death came out.

Block 17

2008-03-07T17:42:00.002-07:00

Primacy

I'll be back here, garbling orders,
and being sure I can split the signal;
I'm not sure why being indivisible
makes you so important.

Block 16

2008-03-07T17:41:00.002-07:00

Foursquare

On a pretty printed page:
"a trinity and me".

Block 15

2008-03-07T17:35:00.001-07:00

I will not go down into the frozen banks of the Missouri

Putting my hand to the plow,
and looking back,
I burn, and my ashes
turn into salt.

Block 14c

2008-03-07T17:33:00.004-07:00

Tabula

The windshield blades turn and turn and turn.
The first time: everything goes fuzzy with the smeared mud,
The second time: things are clear,
The third time: one streak freezes and will not be washed.

Block 13

2008-03-07T17:33:00.002-07:00

Lucky Penny

When you hold a coin in your palm,
it gets warm very fast--
sometimes just enough to be revolting,
sometimes more. I wonder,
if you could just keep holding on,
Could it overheat? Could it melt?

Block 12

2008-03-06T23:39:00.003-07:00

No Bears Are Out Tonight

Night opened like a tax envelope,
The plastic window slides away
and a dull hell is underneath.
No dogs bark, no cars park
(blinding every early sleeper with their highbeams).
Alarms go loudly off--
No kids are playing "No Bears Are Out Tonight"
and ice is growing.

Block 11

2008-03-06T11:45:00.001-07:00

Mother and Child

Trailing a terrible two--
Your hand worn by a terrible tooth.

Block 10

2008-03-06T11:43:00.004-07:00

Like an uneasy couple lying on the frozen Charles

I found your hand!
Time that passed passed on wings of lead
Worlds that died died of famine and drought
And I am uncomfortably cold.

Block 9

2008-03-06T11:43:00.002-07:00

Sweet Tooth

You cut me off. My table was
left bare and my jaw biting--
all cakes were turned over;
all bread was too short.

Block 8

2008-03-06T11:38:00.003-07:00

Balalaika

Stand there. Let your heart come out. Let the winter come.
Stand there. Let the love dissolve. Let the waves resign.
Let the breath convene. Stand there. Let your scarf come out.
Let the buildings fall. Let the problems solve. Let your fingers move.
Stand there. Let the coins come in. Let the dinner boil.
Let the young ones flee. Let the cake go flat. Let your breath retreat.

Block 7

2008-03-05T23:00:00.003-07:00

Completion

I sealed the window.
Air, cold, ice, snow, fire, hell, wind, and rain
have been stopped and I have sat
and wished for everything to end.

It hasn't; I opened the door and walked into it.

Block 6

2008-03-05T22:49:00.002-07:00

Standing where it ought not*

Prying eyes: beams sent out from the black.
"Windows to the soul,"
lasers of spirit stealing in,
breaking off the top and taking everything,
not even leaving the darkness.

*Note: Block 6 is my 300th post.

Block 5

2008-03-05T18:55:00.002-07:00

is alive

Take and shake the words that come out
like the parts of a normal man
and think. In this place "remember"
is the opposite of "dismember".
Then hit it with lightning.

Block 4

2008-03-05T18:52:00.003-07:00

The Lieutenancy

Shout me to the end of your rank!
Take all knives from kitchen blocks,
and take all growls from angered and disheveled men--
Sublimate them! Subjugate them!
Transpose them and transfigure!
From raw fuel make peace;
From earth make heaven.

Block 3

2008-03-05T18:49:00.003-07:00

Steelies

In the library, the pages turn like the clicks of marbles on hard floors,
A million disappointments firing; an execution squad of disappointment.

I look around to see the laughing players,
and with an iron glance I take your cat-eyes.

Block 2

2008-03-05T18:47:00.003-07:00

Magic Eye

I crossed myself, and walked up close
and then I stayed my eye and walked away,
I watched the blues and whites and yellows separate
and saw your image in a vase of flowers.

Block 1

2008-03-05T18:46:00.002-07:00

Being stopped again, there is time to see
if all around withstand a passing glance--
if fourteen hundred eyes can look as one
or only watch as thirteen ninety-nine.

You're not gonna like this...

2008-03-05T18:40:00.002-07:00

By that, I mean I've decided to publish my "Block Poems"--snippets of poetic energy I've been writing to pass the time while a big, real work is brewing. In fact, the Block Poems may have taken the place of aiming for a real poetic work. But here you go. 24 mini-poems. Think of it as WarioWare for the soul.

Exclusive

2008-02-21T00:14:00.001-07:00

NotSomeoneElse has been pursuing an interview with the mysterious guy that sits in the Periodicals section with his chair facing outward. Why does he do it? Is he a weirdo or some other type freak? What is he listening to? What is he typing? Inquiring minds have to know.

NotSomeoneElse: What are you doing here?
LibraryGuy: Writing my freaking masters' thesis. Go away.
NSE: Is there any reason you face the atrium instead of leaving the chair in the original and intended position?
LG: Natural light. Also, I like people watching. It dulls the abject torture of writing page after page of condensed tedium.
NSE: I see. Is there any reason you chose the Periodicals section? We hear it's great for picking up chicks...
LG: I actually chose it because, as I'm writing a thesis, I need...um...Periodicals. Yep. Good old linguistics journals. Easier to pick up than chicks, even.
NSE: I see...how has your social life been affected by this?
LG: I have lost the capacity to love.
NSE: Interesting. What's your thesis about?
LG: [Stab stab stab]

Short Notes

2008-02-14T09:51:00.002-07:00

Not really V-Day related, but I was thinking the following:

So, marijuana users tend to light up at 4:20, and April 20th is kind of an extra special day for those wacky potheads. So, if Pi Day is March 14th, and we eat pie to celebrate, why don't we all just eat pie every day at 3:14? I think it's a good idea.
Can you imagine the life of Galactus, Eater of Worlds? They can't taste good. Except for the Taco World. Mmm, that Taco World.
Hopalong and I disassembled his laptop recently. Note: there's cool stuff in there, but you can't just solder your power connecting unit (which I will here call your "Autobot Matrix of Leadership") back on and expect it to work.

Why Dating Sucks in Provo

2008-02-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

I’m sure you’re all sick of this topic. Everyone’s got a visceral opinion on the matter, from “man up” to “[members of opposite gender here] suck”. I’m actually going to attempt to explain it for reals.

It’s 7:58 pm on a Friday night and I’m in an open access lab in the student center. I was just upstairs for the Speed Dating activity that I’d humbled myself enough to go to, but they were full. Way full. Overfull. Over way full. They did not plan for the kind of numbers that were showing up. They didn’t even plan for half that. Why? The answer to this is one of the reasons that dating sucks in Provo: everyone thinks it’s fine. Sure, marriage rates are going down, and everyone knows this, but there’s a common consensus that it’s because more women are going for more education, women and men are waiting to get more settled before marriage and going on Studies Abroad and missions before deciding to take the plunge. On top of that, there’s an idea that more and more just don’t want to get married, or don’t want to before graduation. This turnout is proof negative: (lots and lots) people at least want to meet eligible members of the opposite gender (and you can’t tell me that a Provonian doesn’t know this can lead to the “big M-word in the big T-place”).

Why aren’t they meeting these people already? I can identify two reasons: systemic stagnancy in the BYU social supernetwork and raised expectations of dating partners. The first is paramount; the second more minor than it seems.

BYU is divided into several units in which socialization can take place: congregational wards which meet weekly and encompass usually small geographic locations and their parent stakes which meet infrequently and are comprised of about a thousand students, classes, majors, and other groups (clubs, teams, service and academic organizations). The default location for socialization is the ward, which is made up of about 80-180 students, all in various stages of unweddedness. These wards are not connected to each other, for the most part. Socialization, then, takes place within these groups at activities that for the most part occur weekly (“ward prayer” on Sunday evenings being primary) or more, and normal social networks form within these wards. Those left outside of the ward group of networks usually either attach to other networks in clubs or other groups, or do not socialize. Most people are part of two or three social networks, but their primary social network is usually one based in the ward. People who do not spend enough time in a ward social network may be considered “antisocial” or worse: “less-active” by ward members who may spend time trying to integrate the offender or even ostracize him/her.

Dating in the ward occurs in one of two ways: people in the same social network begin a relationship, or people begin a relationship, and one or the other becomes a primary member of the other’s network and relegates his/her primary network to the backburner. As relationships progress, the importance of even the primary network is minimized in preparation for the intensity of the marital relationship. When relationships are terminated previous to marriage, social network membership is realigned. This is one type of “drama”, and is generally unpleasant for both parties as boundary lines are drawn in an unspoken way. Another type of drama occurs during selection, when (usually a male) chooses a prospective dating partner. Jealousies by others or reluctance by the target party cause another type of “drama” as every dating choice limits the next in the artificial small town of the ward. Note that either type of drama can occur in any network, not limited to wards.

Unfortunately, if enough dating options are explored, a male may experience a blackout of opportunities (it may be that some males do not see more than a handful of options in the female ward populace, which as was mentioned before, is in various stages of unweddedness). Conversely, a female may be passed over by males who otherwise could have dated them because of drama and other network constraints (competition from other males, “dibs”, etc.).

In these cases, the other networks need to be explored, but failing that, Provo has little to offer. Meeting people, despite what Radiohead might say, is not easy. Few mixers are thrown because of the inherent awkwardness of the ritual, and the fact that the current opinion is that they are unnecessary. This leaves the onus of meeting people up to brave men who approach women at non-mixer parties, in libraries, cafeterias, and in classes, and to women who “set themselves up” by clearing their social area of potential competition and flirting on occasions where it might not be called for. These activities are often condemned as “desperate”, but are performed by a number of otherwise socially adept and attractive individuals (as well as some real creeps).

This is not enough. There is not a sufficient interface of social networks in this area where “everyone’s connected”, as proven by the Speed Dating turnout. This new generation, the border of which I am reluctantly forced to cross, is marked by intense division and myriad subsections. To bridge these “intra-generation gaps”, a wider social dragnet is needed. Though the “marketplace phenomenon”—in which people reject dating partners on the possibility that “something better might come along” is real, it could be overcome if those so concerned were aware of just what those possibilities and probabilities are.

I suggest we stop throwing closed-invitation parties, and use social-networking tools like Facebook and, slightly more labor-intensive tools such as the cellular telephone to order up a more inclusive social scene. These parties and activities do not need to be themed or activity-heavy—in fact, the less reason everyone has to ignore strangers, the better. Though this may be scary, I can stand by my experience tonight and affirm that if you build (and advertise) it, they will come.

Here's a Post!

2007-12-06T23:52:00.000-07:00

My ordered list of tracks from Sufjan Steven's 2006 release Songs for Christmas, all 42 (the irony of that number is not wasted on me), from 42 (worst) to 1 (best). Some commentary on top ten.

42. Jingle Bells (from Peace)
41. Once in Royal David's City (from Peace)
40. The Friendly Beasts (from Ding! Dong!)
39. The Little Drummer Boy (from Joy)
38. Lo! How a Rose E'er Blooming (from Peace)
37. The First Noel (from Joy)
36. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (from Ding! Dong!)
35. Away in a Manger (from Joy)
34. Angels We Have Heard on High (from Hark)
33. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! (from Hark)
32. Once in Royal David's City (from Hark)
31. I Saw Three Ships (from Hark)
30. Holy, Holy, Etc. (from Noel)
29. Silent Night (from Noel)
28. Amazing Grace (from Noel)
27. Put the Lights on the Tree (from Hark)
26. It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad! (from Noel)
25. Christmas In July (from Peace)
24. Holy, Holy, Holy (from Peace)
23. Joy to the World (from Joy)
22. Only At Christmas Time (from Hark)
21. We Three Kings (from Ding! Dong!)
20. Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella (from Hark)
19. Get Behind Me, Santa! (from Peace)
18. We're Going to the Country! (from Noel)
17. Come on! Let's Boogie to the Elf Dance! (from Ding! Dong!)
16. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (from Peace)
15. The Winter Solstice (from Peace)
14. O Holy Night (from Ding! Dong!)
13. Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time! (from Joy)
12. Lo How A Rose E'er Blooming (from Noel)
11. Ding! Dong! (from Ding! Dong!)
10. The Incarnation (from Joy): This is just a great sound. The only pure instrumental to crack the top ten, this sounds like a fifth of distilled Christmas.
9. That Was the Worst Christmas Ever! (from Ding! Dong!): A wonderful sad piece that brings Yule Angst together with Christian hope.
8. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (from Hark): Just a great rendition of a favorite hymn, and well-placed on this Christmas album.
7. What Child Is This Anyway? (from Hark): The first version of this song that fully explores its inherent gravitas. A remarkable interpretation.
6. Star of Wonder (from Peace): A long, long original piece that adds the "Illinoise" sensibility to the minor-key-carol category.
5. Jupiter Winter (from Peace): This original advent carol explores the relationship between paganism and Christmas. And it's cool.
4. Did I Make You Cry on Christmas? (Well You Deserved It!) (from Joy): Really, just hilarious. A dysfunctional Christmas song that includes the line: "I'm writing poems about you / and they're not very nice."
3. All the King's Horns (from Ding! Dong!): The closest Sufjan comes to penning an original classic carol, this song is Amazing.
2. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (from Noel): By far the best rendition of this hymn performed in the history of this world.
1. Sister Winter (from Peace): Holy crap. This song is incredible. You should listen to it. A lot.

More Than Three Shaped

2007-10-27T18:06:00.000-06:00

First Story: Mom's Dream
So, my mother was sleeping the other day, and dreaming that there were burglars at the door. In the furious logic of sleep, Mom realized that the robbers wouldn't try to force entry if they thought there was a mean dog on the other side of the door. So she attempted to bark. Unfortunately, as she opened her mouth, the only sound that would escape was "yip" of the small, annoying, highly-kickable dog variety. She attempted to make a real barking sound, and was again disappointed to find herself growling instead. But instead of a real, solid, angry growl, she could only manage, "gr. gr. gr." That's punchline number one. Punchline number two: when Dad woke up, he asked, "Were you...growling last night? 'Cause it sounded like, 'gr. gr. gr.'" Punchline number three: Mom has apnea and wears a CPAP. So I'm sure that was amazing.

Second Story: You Know My Name
So, I was at the 1x7th Ward's Tri-Ward Hallowe'en Dance Thingy, and I was dressed as James Bond. That didn't require a lot of imagination, but I did have a plastic gun, and watch smugly from the sidelines as people did their groove thing. I danced the one slow dance they played in two hours, and left as the costume contest was occurring. I'd had enough, and they didn't seem to be playing the slow songs. As I was leaving, I heard them call for the Bonds that were in the room. The real James Bond wouldn't stand for that and neither would I. I got into my Astin-Martin-Oldsmobile and sped off along the country road, ignoring that I was on the right side of the street and that it smelled of livestock out there.

Third Story: This isn't as much of a story, but just a statement that I love the ABC show Pushing Daisies. Amazing.

From Something to Somewhere

2007-10-12T21:07:00.000-06:00

"Goody for me! My favorite part!"
-Pinback, "Blue Harvest"

A Review of Autumn of the Seraphs

The new Pinback album takes the general principle of "blow their socks off in the first three tracks" and runs with it. I'm not sure if that was even a general principle, but if it wasn't, it should have been and it is now. "From Nothing to Nowhere", "Barnes" and "Good to Sea" are killer, high-energy tracks with heaps of the Pinback trademark vocals. (I'll refrain from trying to describe them, except with the music-business buzzword "ethereal", qualified with "forceful". Ethereally forceful. Or forcefully ethereal.) "Nothing" veers slightly from the Pinback structure we know and love, entering into the pop realm with one foot. "Good to Sea" is apparently the iTunes winner, and it's definitely a highly-polished exemplar of the bass groove and layered indie vocals we love from these boys.

We chill out with "How We Breathe", which has a few instrumentations we're not used to, but is otherwise pretty reminiscent of the subtly building complexities of "Bbtone" from Blue Screen Life. Which means it's cool and by the end you'll wonder where you started. "Walters" is similar in tone, slow, but slightly less mind-blowing (though with a cool hard-rock ending).

Then they hit the freaking road. "Subbing for Eden", "Devil You Know" and "Blue Harvest" are catchy as pink-eye in a daycare center. I urge you all to embrace these songs. They are awesome. I will wet myself when I hear them in concert next week.

I get the feeling that "Torch" is way interesting if you participate in the consumption of certain illicit substances, but is pretty weird sober. Still cool, but trippy indeed. "Bouquet" is a little less exciting than the rest of the songs, and "Off by 50" sees Zach and Rob experiment with a poppier, vaguely nu-metal sound but still not take their collective foot all the way off the indie bag.

The album is definitely a logical progression from "Summer in Abaddon", and they continue to be weird, which is why I, personally ever listened to them in the first place. (My first exposure to this band was when I walked in unannounced to my dear friend John's apartment and he was listening to this music that appeared to be the handiwork of alien angels, as played on astro-electric Mars harps. That was Blue Screen Life). If music that follows the rules is boring to you, but you're not entirely into chaos, this is the band for you. Like chaos, but not. And cooler.

It gets like a gajillion stars from me. I'm seeing them in concert on the 20th. Excited.

(I Wanna Live Forever!)

2007-09-18T20:28:00.000-06:00

"Let Samwise and Hobbit-chick be an example to you all."
-Hopalong

Fame!

So, due to the efforts of skybluepink, apparently I'm vaguely popular in the Hundred and Exty-Seventh ward, which is different. I haven't been popular for a long time, and it's kind of nice. It's also freaking terrifying, because I don't want to make a wrong step and have the 1x7th coming down on me like a pack of Hygiene Wolves, leaving a broken social scene shell of a man. I also don't know what to do with it. I've been too long feeling like I have to beg for dates, and now I have the opposite issue--if indeed it is as it appears, plenty of people around would be totally okay with it, deciding what to do with whom is now the issue of the day.

Notes:

I have a Moleskine now. Please call me a poseur when you see me in the halls.
I am so so destitute. Wow. It's bad.
I have remembered my dreams for the last three nights now. The first involved people playing VR games for fun, then being decapitated! Possibly! The second involved being late to the Devotional (which ironically I didn't get to listen to anyway), and doors closing and people running about. Also smooching someone. The third involved my car being stolen and my place of work being relocated to a very bad part of town. Also involved were the streets of Salt Lake City in the company car, and smooching someone else.
We will call the first person "the Majorette" and the second "the Queen of Clubs".
I don't know why I dreamt I smoocht them.
I mean, they're both cute girls and all, but, seriously.
I'm analyzing the Canadata and that's a lot more boring than I expected.

Canada, Day 6: The Quickening

2007-08-23T21:35:00.000-06:00

So, it's time to go home. I really don't think that there's going to be any more taking down speech, any time for the rest of it. I'm bushed and tired, and I came up here to do something, and I'm pretty sure it's done. I can't think of any way to do the remainder, and I'm pretty sure it'd just be annoying for all involved if I did. There will be no second wind. I've learned a lot and done a lot, and now it's time to go. I'm hoping Wendy doesn't lynch me for not having enough of the right kind of respondent, but at this point a first attempt at field study is just that. All by myself, in a strange place without guidance. What does anyone expect?

Well, this is what they're getting.

This has been Canada.

Canada, Day 5: Canadian Bacon

2007-08-22T16:15:00.000-06:00

"There's not much to see, but what you hear makes up for it."
-Cardstonian

So, it's starting to feel normal to be here. Which probably means it's about time to go home. No more homesickness, and I'm getting used to everything that I thought was so cool: Wunderbars, Canadian Oreos, kilometres, maple-leaf flags, diphthongal raising, and international border culture. Yes, four days, 46 interviews, and 350 minutes of speech recordings later, I'm almost done.

I went down a middle-of-nowhere country road today. It was pretty awesome.

Host Dad made bacon and eggs for breakfast today, and it was in line with the trend I've noticed thus far: Canadian food is better than American food.

Canada, Day 4: Loonie Tunes

2007-08-21T14:12:00.000-06:00

Today was pretty good as far as interviews go...I've passed the halfway mark and I'm leaving that far behind. The issue recently has been my monetary problems. Apparently, Wells
Fargo doesn't like it when you go to Canada without telling them.

That's Canadian money up there. In a twist of fate, after paying for Oreos (oh, Canadian Oreos) with a blue 5-dollar bill I received accidentally in the change: an American quarter. Ha.

Canada, Day 3: The Sickness

2007-08-20T19:34:00.000-06:00

Today is the day the honeymoon ends. It's the day that I realize that, in fact, I am a prisoner of Cardston, Alberta, Canada until I'm done with at least 50 interviews. This is the day that the clear blue sky and cold wind remind me of Denver spring (not fall, ironically) and I realize that my cellphone is not going to ring until I'm back in Great Falls, Montana, USA. It's the day I realize that skipping Singles' Ward FHE isn't even my luxury, and that the work is spread before me like the rolling hills of golden-burned Canadian grain.

My Canadian mom made amazing rolls, and they reminded me of my real mom's rolls. I spoke to a man in a high-lying, poorer part of town, and it reminded me of the mission. I slept in Canada-brother's room (he's away all week), and the wind reminded me of Grandma's house. There's still the threat of what the rental car guys are going to do to me.

I hope I'm not like this tomorrow. Missing Pirates might do me in.

Postscript: I'm up to 20 interviews, and I'm truckin' right along. I still haven't done the door-approach method yet. Also, I was afraid that the rental car people might have frozen my account, but turns out Fargo was having technical problems. Looks like I don't have to throw my ATM card in the wood-chipper after all. Overall outlook: better now.

Canada, Day 2: Sunday Game Night (Catchphrase)

2007-08-19T22:12:00.000-06:00

"I ungoogled it."
-my Canada host dad

So, I've been continuing the interview process, and I can't help but think I'm just screwing everything up all the time. I guess I'll figure that out as I go. It's hard to be completely responsible for every tiny little thing you do and say. There's so much dumb you can do without even trying.

Thank God for the family I'm staying with. I mean that literally. They've saved me money and sanity, and are rad on so many levels.

I still love this little town. Unabashedly. Unequivocally. Invariably. It's quirky and small and Canadian and full of life. You could write stories about this place. It smells like distant wildfire (because there is a wildfire in Skyway, Montana right now), and open air. So much open air--as if a million Japanese oxygen bars exploded at once, but none of them were scented, just air-flavored.

The Cardston Temple is a spectacular centerpiece for this placid scene. It stands afire in the night after having spent all day blending into the smoky cast of the Skyway Fire discharge, and is just dang mysterious. I love it. Maybe I'll have to come up and live in Lethbridge (I can't imagine how one would live in Cardston as a single without family) one day. Tomorrow: I start door contacting for interviews.

Canada, Day 1

2007-08-18T21:55:00.000-06:00

I'll forgo a lot of my experiences driving for hours on end to get to Canada, and cut to the chase: I went crazy. This was my first time renting a car, and my first time crossing a border by land, and my first time crossing a border by myself, and I got a chip in the windshield and dinged the back of the rental. I'm screwed.

But the essentials are taken care of. I'm here in Cardston, and it is a pretty place, and the people are nice. I'm kind of shocked such a place actually exists...I mean, I've always felt some sort of creepy lurking horror in other Mormon towns (except Provo--it's an out-in-the-open darkness), that this place doesn't seem to have. Maybe that's the gift of security that comes from living in a country that doesn't have a big red X on it. I don't know.

My first order of business was just that. I really had to go. I was bursting at the seams by the time I crossed the border, and Cardston was still 58 km away (that's hard to take when you got to go), and I stopped at a random farmhouse and asked to use the restroom. The guy was good about it.

I got in later than expected, and so I missed my contact. But his family was nice. I bought a Wunderbar with a U.S. $20 at the ExtraFoods, and the cute cashier got the register stuck, but I got money back eventually (some people were not happy about the length of this transaction). The dad of the contact family was exceptionally nice to me, and got me into his mother's house while she's gone for the weekend.

I haven't done any interviews yet, but I'm going to set up a number of them tomorrow; I've already got a guy with a "Mormon drawl" set up. Yay!

So, Canada...

2007-08-16T13:43:00.000-06:00

Oh. Right. Canada.

So, I go to Cardston, AB, Canada soon to do my field study. I'm kind of terrified, but this is the kind of adventure that's right up my alley, actually. I plan to post of my adventures every day for the ten days of the trip, starting tomorrow. Actually, tomorrow, I'll probably be sleeping in a motel in Montana, so probably not tomorrow.

Essays?

2007-08-15T11:30:00.000-06:00

Yes, I guess I liked commentating on pop culture enough last time to keep doing it.

Uneasy Heiress
How a random chick named Joanne became the vessel of the Western epic

In 1933, Edward Lean left Oxford, effectively disbanding the Inklings, a group dedicated to the audience of unfinished literary work. Two friends who had been engaged in a similar activity, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, took the name for their own use, and in time, finished certain of these literary endeavors in progress. As far as fiction is concerned, the two produced the best known fantasy universes in the English-speaking world (in their time): Middle-Earth and Narnia. The stories set in these universes were remarkably similar (at least if comparing the Lord of the Rings cycle with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe): an unspeakable evil has come upon the land, and only an unassuming, seemingly weak person (or persons) can end it. Aided by a tremendously powerful mentor and a small group of friends, the hero obtains the knowledge and tools necessary for the task at hand, overcoming personal weakness and incalculable odds to defeat this evil, but only after witnessing the self-sacrifice of the mentor.

It might be mentioned that Tolkien was a devout Catholic and Lewis was an Anglican.

Tolkien's work vastly outstripped Lewis's as far as popularity was concerned; New York subways in the 1960s and 70s were littered with "Frodo Lives!" and "Gandalf for President", but all in all, both impacted modern fantasy incalculably. In fact, it seems that "high fantasy" returns time and time again to The Lord of the Rings as a benchmark, whether it be to set itself apart or to return to its paradigmatic state.

Fast-forward quickly to 1977: A dark-horse of a blockbuster ravages the late spring box offices. Star Wars, by relative newcomer George Lucas, features the same epic formula as issued by the former Inklings (many would claim both that Lucas drew too heavily on Tolkien or else on Wagner's Niebelungenlied, a claim leveled against Tolkien in his time). The story's skeleton is essentially the same as Lewis's and Tolkien's, it's true; the issue really becomes the same as that of the individuality of those jazz songs based on Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm".

Star Wars took on a life even more self-sustaining than that of the popularity of Lord of the Rings. The immediacy of the cinema combined with the American turmoil of the post-Vietnam Cold War Age made this a choice escape for millions. Lucas attempted to continue to profit off of the endeavor in the late nineties and early 2000s by producing prequels defining the fall from grace of the original series's most visible antagonist, Darth Vader. The public consumed these Episodes, but did not embrace them with the same fervor: they did not tell the right story. (Or rather, they took too long to explain too little of the story.)

Making a small jump backward, we find a 1997 YA release from Doubleday by Joanne Rowling (pushed by the publisher to adopt a gender-neutral pseudonym, she uses her initial J. and adds "K." for her grandmother Kathleen Rowling) outlining a Bedknobs-and-Broomsticks style wizard subculture, a downtrodden orphan boy who is inducted into it, and the prophecy concerning his apparent election as the Chosen One to deliver them from this decade's unspeakable evil, intolerance in the form of Voldemort, a semi-undead wizard seeking resurrection (Sauron, anybody?).

And we liked it! We really liked it! Little boy with wand makes good! The monsters Harry Potter faces tend to be kind of weak (present basilisks excepted), but the real dragons turn out to be his relationships with others. Yes, indeed, dear reader, our hero must manage to live in an actual society while gaining the strength, ability, and knowledge to destroy the Dark Lord. And to Rowling's Scholastic-friendly style (read: facile and sometimes overbearing), there is the complement of her innate ability to create real characters. Gone are the masked faces of Tolkien, the religious analogs of Lewis, and the caricatures of Lucas (sort of), and in are real kids really growing up.

I gave up after Book 4 for awhile. I was upset at the length, weak style, and general lack of development in the volume, and was not excited for number 5's behemoth size if it were to be more of the same. Thankfully, about halfway through, JKR gets back to it, and we're off to the dark-wizard-zapping races. And, though damaging to my "I'm-above-pop-culture" snobbery, I finished the series and appreciated it.

Megatron and Modest Mouse

2007-07-09T10:17:00.000-06:00

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."
-Optimus Prime

Morality in Pop Culture (Do and Don't)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a rant.

The baby names post turned out to be less interesting than expected, mostly because my brother and sister-in-law named the thing already. So, I'll sort of take Sparky/Guillermo's suggestion and write about Wolf Parade. But more than that, I'm going to talk about indie rock a little, but really really I'm going to talk about Transformers.

There was something amiss with Michael Bay's Transformers. I'm not the only one that noticed, and it stemmed even further than just the fact that the characters were absolutely weak, that GMC paid for the thing, or that there were too many plotlines. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it; the spectacle alone was definitely of equal or greater value than the discounted $5.50 I paid. The problem was big, and it wasn't just that the plot contained holes bigger than those Mr. LaBeouf himself dug as a lad. No, in fact, all these things, including Megan Fox's bit as a Sluticon (that transforms from an unlikeable whore to an insufferable wench), were to be expected from the folding chair of Mr. "Fast Cars, Hot Chicks, Loud Explosions" Bay. What he missed in the film that gave it that strange aftertaste was this: moral bearing.

Forget the sexual undertones for a moment (if in fact, "under-" can be applied to them), and focus on the following: the Autobots. And the Decepticons. They are ostensibly Good (capital G) and Evil (which doesn't need a capital, but has it anyway), but in the film, the MacGuffin takes the place of an actual fight based on moral ground. The Autobots want the Allspark to stop the Decepticons from misusing it. The Decepticons want to rebuild their home over top of the humans. Though this is implied, Optimus Prime's only occasional verbal affirmations of "we're doing this because it's right, and because we value life" are corroded by the low hum of the rest of our childhood robotic heroes' indifference. In fact, there is little to no interaction between man and machine (except Bumblebee, who was so much better as the junker Camaro, and even better than that as a Beetle in the cartoon), a staple of the series, and an important underpinning if you want to establish just cause, instead of "just 'cause", which seemed to be the order of the day.

And this is it: melodrama has always included a moral showdown. Good in pure form, against evil: sadistic, selfish, and unmingled. And good wins. And it's a relief. When good is grayed, the results are less satisfying. Sure it's cool to watch the effects, but there's got to be a payoff.

What the crap does this have to do with Wolf Parade, you ask? Almost nothing. However, I've often been accosted by people who inhabit the moral high ground (they are often armed with stones, for some reason. Funny.) that tell me they like country music because of its "message". With this recent rant on morality, you would think I'm backed into a corner here. Not so. I don't believe that music with an inherently negative message is good, but I see no value in the message of a supposedly abstract art form being preachy or homey, when there are superior artistic attributes to be examined. I'm not looking for an anthem, but for aesthetics. Hence, in significantly more complex lyrics and musical patterns, I'm an indie kid. (Although there's plenty of good outside this huge tiny subgenre.)

Funny Stuff

2007-06-27T09:55:00.000-06:00

While you're all waiting for my groundbreaking post on baby names (which I'm sure you are), here are funny things you should know about.

Sub Pop's Wolf Parade Bio Page

The Policies of Loathing (from an online game)

Alt Text on Wired

There are swears on some of these. That is all.

Well, no ifs or ands at least...

2007-06-15T17:07:00.000-06:00

"Yep, that's definitely a butt!"
-an associate, triumphantly.

Ars Gratia Artis

So, from work, the following:

When I went to do some normal maintenance, I found that one of our branch offices was abuzz about a certain stack of papers found by the copier. The were xerographs of primarily the human butt. This was humorous on a number of levels. One: they were just left there by the copier. Two: there were also a couple of copies of a face. Three: I'm pretty sure they know who it was. Four: her (yes, her!) boss is probably just going to embarrass her. That's a winning plan.

Lessons learned--

If you're going to copy your backside, have a distribution target. It's really funny for everyone to find your cache of bumography, but it's even funnier if you put it in a case file, or in all the department mailboxes (one butt per employee).
Plan ahead. One of the reasons they knew who did it was that it occurred after hours. Don't let yourself get caught like that--sit on the copies for a while. (Strange mental image though it be.)
Only copy the butt. There's no reason to copy anything else. Copying the face is very dumb (and leads to everyone wondering whether you did that before or after the rear).
Sanitize afterwards.

That's all I've got for you today.

Line Upon Line

2007-06-12T19:08:00.000-06:00

"Dyslexics of the world, untie!"
-from a T-shirt

War of the Words

So, I've found out that I have the magic power to find words in text that aren't actually there. If I knew Hebrew, I bet I could decipher the Bible Code itself, although it might be a message about squirrels or perhaps "Drink more Ovaltine". This is how it works:

Persistence of vision is something. It's difficult to really explain because psychologists don't agree entirely on its mechanism, but suffice it to say that something in the mind keeps images present for longer than they actually exist or are in the field of vision. Now I, like many of you, read things kind of in one gulp; I scan from the beginning of a phrase to the end before any of it is completely processed. I also tend to wander around the page in sort of a literary ADD, catching keywords and phrases before I actually begin reading in earnest. Because of persistence, occasionally letters from one line merge with letters from another. If the letters align right and there's a real word spelled by the jumble, it sticks in my head in sort of a subliminal message.

Sometimes this is humorously appropriate, like finding "poison" in a prospect's facebook wall posts (which didn't actually happen, but many things like it have happened; I just can't remember them). Sometimes, like yesterday, it's much less appropriate. Uffish's gmail status was "full and happy", and Extendo-Claw-Hand's real name was right under, yielding none other than the f-bomb.

Somehow

2007-05-25T18:57:00.000-06:00

Well, I haven't really blogged in a while, and I don't really have any good excuses. I think it's just how things have been working. I still have plans to put out a small snippet of fiction as a near-future post, and I could definitely talk about things that have happened in my life recently, but here's something I've found, something small to fill space while I continue to fill the blogwaves with silence:

It seems that the Lord (again, faith has been really interesting for me recently) continues to make things happen for me in a way that disallows me to doubt, but nothing really really huge. It's like a check-in of sorts.
Silence is really useful sometimes.
I'm still alive and well, somehow.

What I Did Over My Easter Vacation

2007-04-09T23:12:00.000-06:00

I wrote a poem. I generally try to hide these sorts of things, but I really had to share:

Easter Sunday in the Shadow of the Hill

"Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

There was no need for wandering trumpets
nor iconic creatures today--
all the men wore suit, tie, and galling sock
and all the women wore v-necks and undershirts.
We were all terrified in our seats,
not that our risen Lord might come,
but that, today, we might not be seen,
and therefore disappear.

And so we sat, wondering how to beam
and put these brothers backwards,
in the end, the first coming last,
notwithstanding the last might not come first.

Talking, and at long, long last, we moved
from transparent to translucent in the room,
ate bread and some liquid and sang a hymn,
then discussed among ourselves, confused,
as something whispered distantly and, strangely,
a rock bled.

There was no use for wandering trumpets,
and no symbolic thing could die
that could wake us from our horror, but finally
we were all mollified in our seats,
seeing that we notice ourselves in the eyes of others,
distracting us so that we disappear.

A Review

2007-04-04T17:41:00.000-06:00

Of My Experience Overhearing My Roommate Watching Alanis Morrisette's Version of "My Humps"

At first, I thought it was Shakira, slow alto vocals accompanied by piano, with lyrics that were vaguely provocative. Then as it progressed I didn't really know who it was. The Doctor told me it was Alanis Morrisette doing "My Humps" by Fergie. [Editor's Note: I don't know how to spell Morrisette, and I always thought "My Humps" was by the Black-Eyed Peas. During this post, I refuse to find these things out. Morrisette could be with two esses, and Fergie could be a member of Black-Eyed Peas, but I refuse to care.]

It started to morph as our favorite jagged little pill started to extol the superior sexual attractiveness of various of her bodily features, but also turned up the pipes. She started to get a little MacLachlan-esque, but finally settled on a 10,000 Maniacs sort of thing. In the end, I said that it sounded like Natalie Merchant with Tourette's. But, I take it back. It sounds like Natalie Merchant might have on prom night.

As the final chorus progresses, chills passed through me as I heard a haunting, dramatic, "What'cha gonna do with all that junk / all that junk up in your trunk?" followed by a mirthful realization that enough was enough. Note that the Doctor could see the video, and I couldn't...I suggest that, as soon as convenient, you get your roommate to look up the video and listen to it from the other side of the room.

Align

2007-03-27T12:41:00.000-06:00

"John Malkovich Has Been Been" -from a McSweeney's list of "Favorite Movie Titles, Un-gerunded".

Character Map

I haven't posted in a really long time. I'm sorry.

Last night, I viewed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with the Indie Movie group, and I came away from it believing I was Joel Barish (not enough, mind you, to try to get back with any exes). The Tuesday before that I believed I was Donnie Darko. (Those of you who know of my living Jeremiad on car thermostats will appreciate that there's an Artifact in small hex bolt heads.) I've been Andrew Largeman and (from non-Movie-Night films), Jim Lovell, Ulysses Everett McGill, Harold Crick, and others.

I think that's what really gets me into a piece--being able to instantly apply it. While I'm watching, reading, listening. Maybe that's a byproduct of the Instant Generation, but I really like works that apply to themselves in realtime. Metafiction, yes, but not necessarily. O Brother, Where Art Thou? invites us into a surreal version of the Odyssey set in Depression-era Mississippi, but also asks us to review our own knowledge of the Greek classic (there's the Cyclops! there are the Sirens!) as a gateway to a good story. The Coens admit that they themselves only had a cursory knowledge of Homer's epic before putting the film into production. Donnie Darko asks us, in a strange way, "Isn't this world ending right now?" Even such a straightforward film as Apollo 13 invites us to review the nature of history, when the older generations begin to question how well they know what's going on (especially in light of what they remember), and the younger of us begin to wonder only why we're so engrossed by a story that we have already been told the ending to. I mean, it's real, right? So why are we still sweating profusely?

So, that's it. I like it when art gets meta- with me. I like it when there's another box inside the box of aesthetic experience.

Remedial Post #2: A Poem

2007-03-07T16:13:00.001-07:00

Whoops

There was raised earth where I stood and spoke
to the braves, and in one misstep,
came tumbling, shouting something awful
and accidentally declaring war.

A Man, a Plan, a Canal

2007-03-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

"It's the wrong words that make you prick up your ears
when later alone..."
-Spoon, Stay, Don't Go

Remedial Post 1: Ear-Candling

So, with the suggestion of Mom and the glowing review of Dyger, I decided to try ear candling, figuring that it combined two of my favorite things: aural hygiene and burning crap. The specific crap you need for ear candling is in the form of two ear-candles, which are not, as I previously supposed, made of earwax, but instead are two cloth cones coated in paraffin, with convenient holes, large on the one end for smoke and stuff to come out of, and small on one end to ram into the tender workings of the human auriculum. Furthermore, the instructions start with "make a hole in a pie tin." Love it.

With my pie tin, matches, and waxy cones in hand, I kneel on a chair in the vanity area so I can get a good look. Lighting up for the first time is an exhilarating experience, and I soon realize the pie tin is really only there for moral support, and wonder how Stephie ever managed to do it without burninating the entirety of Parkborough H.O.A. (For those who don't know, Stephie has amazingly big hair.) As the flames ascend, I begin to feel a sensation that I believe lets me know it's working. That sensation is acute hotness on the ear canal wall. Eventually, I have to end the candle's life before it gets inside of me and grills my gray matter. I flush it.

The left ear goes a lot better. I get it in there good, and I'm hearing suctioning sounds right off, so I let it go for a while, then I try to move it to the right ear again. That only fans the exceptional flame, and I don't get much quality time in the right canal before the fire alarm goes off, and I'm struggling to put the fire out in the sink. I finally get everything out, cut off the top of the candle and throw it all in the toilet, when I realize all of the drug-related humor of the activity.

Moral: friends don't let friends light up.

It Has the Soul of a Woman

2007-02-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

"Girls throw rocks at my head."
-J. Paulsen

And Therefore Hates Me

Today I was trying to make a very, very broken computer work. I had the thing log the booting process but I couldn't find the logfile (if this is technobabble to you, insert: I was looking for a file, and couldn't find it). In a fit of hopeful troubleshooting, I typed:

type bootstat.dat

And the response it gave me was as follows:

♀

I soon realized what the problem was. This computer was a girl computer.

Simple Gifts

2007-02-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

"What a piece of junk!"
'She'll make .5 past lightspeed.'
-Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, Star Wars

Matt's Falcon

Here's another amazing tale of my life. This one's at college, and involves the RG (dirty old RG!), and Rockstarroommate, and a 3-d puzzle of the Millenium Falcon.

Prologue:
Rockstarroommate once won a small teddy bear with a heart that plays "Für Elise" at the Nickelcade. I was never sure what he was going to do with it.

I was sitting in the ol' CCXV of Roman Gardens one evening, when a young man in the ward, heretofore called LittleStream, came to the door. Not expecting more visits after the delivery of my paltry ward mail notes, I was even more astonished at the appearance of a large-ish completed 3-d puzzle of the Millenium Falcon.

"Is [Rockstarroommate] here?"
'No, sorry, he's away with family--he won't be back until later tonight or tomorrow.'
"Can I put this in his room?"
'Sure.'
"Tell him [LittleStream] gave this to him."
'Can do.'

The next morning, I found the Falcon on his desk. The next evening, I found it on my bed. The next afternoon, he found it on his bed (I did that). This cycle continued until Rockstarroommate confronted me about it. "Ben, why do you keep putting your Millenium Falcon on my bed?"
'Oh, sorry. That's yours. [LittleStream] dropped it off for you. I thought you knew.'
"That's odd."
'What?'
"Did he say why?"
'Not particularly. I thought you'd talked about it.'
"Not really."

Turns out, Rockstarroommate had offered but two words of comment in re: Han Solo's faithful chariot: "Hey, cool". I guess that meant "I want it" to LittleStream and so, because he's a generous and thoughtful young man, he cluttered our room for weeks with this behemoth of paper and foam. Rockstarroommate was nonplussed. There wasn't a simple way to solve the problem. Do you throw it away, and hope that LittleStream doesn't do the same thing your grandma does every time she gives you something that no-one with any use of their eyes would ever wear in a civilized society in daytime or with the lights on? (That is, come over unannounced and expect to see said gift.) Or do you keep it, probably disassembled? Or do you give it back, as if he had lent it to you to marvel at its wonder?

He trashed it.

But LittleStream found a teddy bear on his bed. With a heart. That plays "Für Elise".

The Bread Story

2007-02-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

"I don't care what mama don't allow,
I'm going to play my music anyhow."
-Traditional

In Full Glory

Many of you have heard this story. I hope the written narrative adds to the experience.

When I was much younger—in the 7th grade—I was homeschooled for about half a year. I was kind of an experiment for my mother; as the oldest, she was seeing if her frustration with the broken U.S. public school system was justification for putting herself through the possibly greater frustration of having a school-aged child at home all the time. I was a pill sometimes, but I was alone, and it seems that I was fairly manageable.

One morning I was ill, and hit the cupboards for a breakfasty item. I couldn't really fathom having a whole meal on my reeling stomach, and so I grabbed a piece of your average white bread, and took a bite out of the top right corner. I realized very quickly that this did not bode well and so I stood there, bread in hand, for a moment until I decided it needed to go back. I couldn't just throw it away. Being the health-conscious person I am, I decided that you can't just put bread back in the bag after you bit a corner off of it. So I did the responsible thing—I cut the corner off. Then I put it back in the bag.

I went about what little actual studying I did in a day, and was shocked to find that my mom wanted to speak to me about something. You know, Speak to Me About Something. It turns out she didn't appreciate me putting gently-used bread back into the bag. I reminded her that I had cut the corner off. This did not seem to matter. I could sense a little tension rising in the conversation, of the Cold War sort. She made an argument, which generally consisted of, in not so many words, "Eat this bread." I made a counterargument, which was generally a more philosophical rendition of "No." This iterated for a few turns with rising intensity until, in a moment that Kat adeptly referred to as my mother's "Bay of Pigs", she who birthed me shouted in a loud voice (the ability to project comes from my mom's side): "Then you will never eat bread in this house again!"

My seventh-grade mind was reeling. I'd disagreed with my mother before, but never was I so certain that not only was my mother just a human being, fallible like the rest of us, but that, at the moment, she might just be significantly more insane than the rest of us. She did eventually regain composure and, if I'm not mistaken, not only rescinded the bread moratorium, but any and all punishments associated with bread non-consumption. Unequivocal pardon is generally the only way to save face in these situations, and she knew it. A good time, in retrospect, was had by all, and no karmic retribution faced either of us for it, except perhaps that Mom did a brief stint on the Atkins later in life.

The Overmind

2007-01-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

"Allow me to say something foul."
-L'Afro

Rides Again

Last night, at L'Afro's, the Overmind (me, L'Afro, Uffish, and Flops) rode again, meaning that we all hung out in L'Afro's and realized that school and dating are not nearly as important as being clinically insane. H was along (L'Afro--is there anything you call H online?) and contributed meaningfully to our enjoyment--the only other singular Overmind adjunct to do so previously was probably The Doctor, but I can't think of any other adjuncts at all.

It was amazing again. It was like being home++. When I got home, I told The Doctor I wasn't interested in pursuing the same course of Power Dating that my ward seems to be involved in. Because when it all comes down to it, hanging out with the Overmind is more fun than dating has ever been.

If anyone wants to prove me wrong, I'd like to see it.

Also, I'm back. Again. Crap. This semester sucks.

Of Lying, Mental Nicknames, and Straw Theft

2007-01-21T05:48:00.000-07:00

"Name's Igor. Igor Stravinsky."
-Fletch

This Is What You Get

So, I haven't posted in a long time, and it seems I've woken without much more recourse to sleep for the morning, so you're going to get craziness. And lots of it. I was working previously on a post that was going to act as precursor to the semester's activities, but no post is certainly a better barometer of it--I'm sadly not going to be able to post nearly as much as semesters past.

I was just thinking on Friday about untruth. Ask me to do something I consider dishonest, and I will do nothing for you about it. But leave me up to my own devices and you'll certainly get a lie or two. I think that's a little odd. Apparently, I'm pretty good at it too, as shown by my Balderdash game at TheFreakingMan's house--at one point, I got nine out of something like 12 playing to vote for my crap.

And there's another thing: do you (in the blogworld) have nicknames for people who don't have nicknames? It's always a little odd, but here's a little ling (betcha miss that). I've noticed a few types of nicknames:

true nicknames: these names were given by others and are known by the referent and another social group. My own "flippin" was one of these.

handles: names chosen by the referent themselves, known by another social group. All of the Board writers who blog have these. Often also referred to as 'nyms.

pseudonyms: a subset of 'nym, this is a name chosen by the referent, but not known to a larger group.

And then there's these other ones, names that we come up with for other people that they don't know about. It's pretty common, but I find it odd that other than "codename", there isn't much that even touches that open semantic space in English. Go figure.

Raspberry is one of those. She doesn't even realize that she's got this name, but there you go. There was the whole bit about breakfast, and me trying to get her to steal a crazy straw, but this has gone on long enough. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm back.

In the Time of War

2007-01-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

"God is not 'Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, [B, A, B, A, Select, Start]'."
-Jonah B.

Wii Were Soldiers

I think the best kind of arguments in the socio-econo-political world are those where you don't have to cite sources, 'cause you don't need stats. This is one of those: my view of the Console War and what it means in the larger worlds of Technological Advance and The [vaunted] Culture War. A little primer from my viewpoint:

Nintendo came out in like '83 or '84, but for me, Nintendo really came out in '88, in the San Joaquin Valley. It wasn't Japanese, or a natural advance on the Atari (I knew of the Atari, and had even played it, but it quickly faded into non-memory). It was American as apple pie and baseball--Italian plumbers killing vicious tortoises and mushrooms, and a Germanic folk-hero stabbing spiders in the eye. You don't get much more American than that. Then Sega came on the scene. Mach-speed porcupines etc. were also very culturally applicable. The Nintendo, however, was what I was best adapted for. This didn't mean I discounted Sega people as outsiders. Just different. Like Giants fans.

Fast forward a few console generations, and add a little brother. The Playstation 2 vs. The GameCube. The Xbox was not in my household. I had lost a little chunk of my soul to Final Fantasy X on the PS2, and Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube was a family favorite. This hotly-contested gaming war, however, was not just a choice of which button to press today--it was bigger than that. PS2 people, GameCube people, and Xbox people seemed to be different breeds, and this was apparent even in college.

Which brings us to today. Three consoles: the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii. I'm not going to go into specs or killer apps or anything techy like that--I'm going to let you know: I'm still with Nintendo. And I'm still with the A's, for that matter. People shooting people over the PS3, and the fact that it's freaking expensive and comes with the DVD's version of Betamax--the Blu-ray-- make it not even an option for me. The fact that the only thing the 360 seems to be good for is Gears of War, a terrifying theatre of blood and carnage, and the fact that it's produced by Microsoft, a subsidiary of hell, throw it out too. What does the Wii have? Cool remote stuff. Tennis, Bowling, and breathing life into the tired Legend of Zelda series (though an original storyline might help for the next installment, too). The audaciously misspelled Nunchuk. Party games. Stuff for non-gamers. The public is the future, kids.

So, when am I going to buy a Wii? Never. But I support it, and if you're looking at a 6th-gen console, I advise it. I'll just root for it from here. Like I do for warm weather, capitalism, and the Oakland A's.

Origin

2007-01-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

"All I want for Christmas is Evil."
-Dad

How My Dad Met My Mom

It turns out my dad was kind of a player in college. I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate, but from some of the stories I've heard, it's about right. So, anyhow, Dad was dating this chick named Trish the Dish, who lived in the Plaza (please pronounce this [plæzə]). She was a little posesiva, and so they broke up 'cause he was creeped out. Then he was dating some girl named Karen or Carol or something, and it was kind of assumed that they were going to be going to the football game together the next week, when the aforementioned mentioned that she had a friend with box seats who'd invited her, and she was going to bag. Dad was upset, and so he was certain to get a girl to go with him to the game. He tried everyone he could think of, and the day of the game arrived. He went back to Trish's apartment at the Plaza, expecting either Trish or my mom's sister (he didn't know my mom yet) to go with him. Trish wasn't even there, but my mom had just gotten off a day date and was okay with going with Dad last minute to a football game.

What's wrong with this picture: millions of things, but you can see what's going on here. Mostly my Dad did a lot of things I wouldn't have done, and thus I exist. Hmmm...

The Captain Is Out To Lunch

2007-01-03T01:03:00.000-07:00

"Happy New Year. Kill me now."
-Stephie, in re: the fact that she had just eaten a lot of junk and was tired.

"You are a drunk and a grump. You hate everything. Hating things makes you happy. Being happy makes you miserable. Being miserable makes you hate things. You don't mind telling anyone and everyone what you think about everyone and everything. Your masterpiece is Love is a Dog from Hell, but you don't care."
-OKCupid's description of Charles Bukowski, who apparently I resemble, after tweaking some answers 'cause I came out "Maya Angelou" the first time. Oh, how I hate Maya Angelou.

And the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

This isn't really a full post, I don't think. There's just too much to blog about--I want to post a lot of different things, and I'm also trying to write a short story (the last time I tried to write while I was doing nothing in Provo, I got pretty good results, and I hope I can do it again). The following, however, are likely posts for the upcoming:

Why I care so much about the Console War, even though I'm not an avid gamer.
"Installments" vs. "Sequels" and why installments are better.
A review of Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie, as well as more music stuff most people won't care about.
The Bread Story, even though most of you have heard it.
Perhaps even some fiction.

Be prepared. Be very prepared. (I guess that would be the Boy Scout motto if it were based on The Fly rather than The Jungle Book).

Ring Out the Old...

2006-12-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

"I hate that song. It's [gribbly]."
-Mom, regarding Ring Out, Wild Bells, last word unintelligible.

So, that's all she wrote for the ol' '06. I can't say I'm sad to see the old *man go. It's been a *heck of a ride, and most of it not really worth repeating. After leaving at the end of 2005 to try to seek my fortune in the wider world, I ended up not only back in Provo, but about two blocks away from the Miller, and a lot worse for the wear. Lessons were learned, but let's not lie to each other--sometimes you wish you didn't have to learn things the hard way. Sometimes you wish that you didn't have to learn anything at all.

This year needs to be better. Like *a lot better. Like, having a decent time of it better. Like, blowing stuff up, going at high speeds down steep inclines and having a happy relationship better. So, there's your Happy New Year's wish. It's a little complicated. Take the following list:

1. Blowing stuff up.
2. Going down steep inclines at high speeds.
3. Being in a happy relationship.
4. Getting decent grades/a decent job.
5. Having frequent * good times.
6. Making good on a resolution.
7. Reading a good book.
8. Finishing a project you didn't have to start.
9. Wasting important time doing something that has no actual use.

If you have missed out on something on this list this year, I wish you that thing for this year. And that's all for 2006, kids.

[Editor's Note: All asterisks are successful attempts at not swearing at all--one of my New Year's Resolutions.]

In Time

2006-12-29T00:50:00.000-07:00

"So I'll try
for the highest
score."
-Hey Mercedes, The Switch

So, I've done everything I'm gonna do for the new look-n-feel of the ol' blog. I like it. The sprinklerhead is part of a photo called "Special Spot", copyright yours truly 2006. The moon I lassoed from an unidentified source, and the stars are actually all parts of the sprinkler pic. It's not perfect, and maybe I'll fine tune it a bit more, but I like it way better than the dang harbor. I don't have any affinity for lighthouses or pastel blue joy. So now here you are in the dark with a sprinklerhead. Welcome.

Taking Things to Heart

2006-12-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

"The Atlantic was born today, and I'll tell you how:
The clouds above opened up, and let it out."
-Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism

Movement

I believe it was Papa Ernest who said, "Never mistake motion for action." And so here you are, in the construction zone of my blog: Version 2.0, starting in 2007. Watch for loose I-beams.

2006 Christmas Message

2006-12-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

"Gloria in excelsis Deo."
-attr. to heavenly hosts

12 Gifts (Part 12) : The Gift of Hope

Last year's thought was really well written and heartfelt, I thought. Not to blow my own horn. But this year, I'm not as clear of mind for the day in which the Christmas message is required. I wrote a poem earlier this month, and I think it does say it.

December

The red leaves from these branches
have fallen in rivers and have been absorbed
in streams and grates, and in all old highways,
having dissolved and been returned to man;
The skies have opened up great gouts of snow,
each part imperfect to the close eye,
but holy and complete with so many others
piled on old fields and banks and parking lots
that have been so prepared. It is this time
that is covered--a readied world, veiled and waiting
for its darkest hour. It has flailed against the cold,
but waits now for life; everything else is dead.

And there it is: a tolling noise, so often and so well
thought to be a bell's sound, an indication
that winter has been ratified, that apart from song and star
we are gifted with this white snow and clear ice,
that the lesson from the disappearance of the sun is taught,
and a charge that, when the season is dismissed,
we might remember this: the birth of Hope
among the dead.

Merry Christmas, all. If you've had some trouble emulating the Child of Bethlehem and Man of Galilee, fear not. If you, like me, have had difficulty figuring out the answer to the dogmatically posited "What would He do?", don't hate yourself, and don't give up. Christ gives us hope because He is Hope, and we can all turn to Him. I hope we do.

Where I Wanted to Go

2006-12-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

"Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."
Andrew Largeman, Garden State

12 Gifts (Part 11) : The Gift of Home

So, I've been home for a couple of days now. It's been good, as opposed to previously, when I've wondered how I'm going to survive a number of days in the old abode. I think this might be due to a couple of factors. One being that I spent all Winter Semester here last year. That was odd, but I got used to it. Another is that I've learned to recognize my family for what they really are: a bunch of people who don't care how I act. That's pretty amazing, and considering my brothers are often more inappropriate that I am, I think it's turned out pretty good thus far.

With all the snow in Denver, I haven't been able to cruise around in Mad Max (the family Saturn, also known as Whitey) as much as I wanted to. I've had almost no contact with the YSA. I just sit around in the house, and sometimes chat with people or check my facebook (see last post, though--it might have to go here soon). My youngest brother's getting bigger and my sis is about to go on a mission. My just-younger brother's growing facial hair again. Mom and Dad are crazier than I remember.

That's what family is: a group of people who doesn't care if you make fun of the ward choir (if you're quiet about it), even though your dad is in it. A group who you can watch crappy History channel specials with. A group you don't always agree with, or get along with, but for whom you're grateful, even when they make you angry.

I even have a little home in Provo. Some of those people are almost (and in some cases, exactly) as close as my brothers, sister, and parents. These people also don't care if I make fun of the ward choir, and sometimes make me angry, and I'm really grateful for them, too.

One day, when the right girl comes along, and we take the proper precautions to insure against destroying each other through eternity, I'll start one of my own (hopefully this is more than just wishful thinking), and we'll be loving and caring and slightly obnoxious. And we'll let the kids be who they are. If she ever reads this, I'm grateful for her, too. Whoever the heck she is.

Strength, Reserve, Control

2006-12-23T10:35:00.001-07:00

"Way to breathe, No-Breath!"
-Nelson Muntz

12 Gifts (Part 10) : The Gift of Soul

It seems that the more we connect with each other, the more we need to change the way we communicate. The more we seem to communicate with each other, the more chances we have for misunderstanding. The more misunderstandings we have, the more anger we have, the more problems we have, the less of the Christmas spirit, the less happiness, the less of a chance for a decent world we have.

It's easy to rely on the cell phone, email, the txt msg, etc. to do all of our communication, and it's easy to compartmentalize our speech. Most of us have grown up doing that without the electronic segment of our discourse. We speak differently to our teachers than to our friends, and differently to a store clerk than to our parents. The problem with this kind of compartmentalization is that in the world of "faceless" communication, we often move away from treating people in another car on the freeway as actual human beings, or we manage to ignore other people on the phone (or worse, ignore people in "meatspace" while focusing on a call), or we get so tightly locked together, there's no room to breathe when we need it (wow, facebook).

I wrote a little blurb on "having a soul" over a year ago. I'd like to reaffirm that, and suggest that we all try to find new ways to treat others well--whether by the abbr.d lng of txt msgs or the reviewed and edited flowing prose of emails. There isn't an existing set of social laws to govern that. But the old principles apply in new ways, to befriend others, to let people cross the street when they're in the crosswalk, to try to forgive and be forgiven.

I am grateful for relationships that have furthered and developed in real life, and through the other media, because I've been able to have a soul and meet people who also have a soul. I'm also grateful to realize what things I need to repair, and to have a few counterexamples, to know what kind of things we all need to consider.

The Eight-Hour Death

2006-12-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Sleep delays my life--
Where does time go?"
-R.E.M., Get Up

12 Gifts (Part 9) : The Gift of Sleep

I finally got to really sleep today--it was a nap at about 4:30. Ah, the joys of rest. I mean it. For one who's had some serious problems with sleepytime in his life, the end of the semester has been a long time coming, and I'm going to for sure get some serious Zs.

Interesting thing about sleep--if you really look at it right, it's an amazing thing; a chance to rest every day. In the right dosis, you can get all sorts of stuff done in the rest of your day (usually that comes out to sixteen hours of awake time). With the wrong amount, or poor quality, an eighteen hour day can be about as productive as ten hours of good wakeness. (I'm making these numbers up, but it's about right as per my experience.) Yet we continue to deprive ourselves.

I'm really grateful that at least until school starts again, I'm okay to sleep for a long time. And write. And play Smash Bros. with Joel.

"Let There Be Hair"

2006-12-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
'Tis the East, and Juliet is the sun."
-you know who

12 Gifts (Part 8) : The Gift of Beauty

Well, um, how do I do this without being creepy and/or weird? I guess it all started when Uffish and I were discussing hotness. There was an important issue brought up, I guess, in that we're all different in appearance and how we all have different criteria to judge with. That means that, for the most part, Genuine's platitude of "there's someone for everyone" is pretty much true. It also means that those of us who pay attention see a lot of pretty dang attractive people.

Sadly, this is often abused by people who either want to turn a buck at the expense of a few souls, or people who want to turn heads independent of the cost. Kids, don't let that sort of thing consume you. It's not good, and that sort of a pit is the kind of place that will just keep pulling at you as hard as it can. Wisdom. It's good.

But speaking of attractiveness, it's been a pretty good year for it. No pun intended. From various adventures in the realm of dating, to the simple joys of having the girls from the Hot Apartment show up randomly, to all sorts of good things, not the least of which came in the form of Brunch today. Not that I'm being purely physical. Many, many of these people are made beautiful (from just hot) by the stature of their souls. Which has made me really happy.

King

2006-12-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

"I could use a little fuel myself, and we could all use a little change."
-Smash Mouth, All-Star

12 Gifts (Part 7) : The Gift of Change

So, when everything goes to pot, you should re-evaluate your life. Sometimes, when you re-evaluate your life, you need to change something. Sometimes that means moving in with The Doctor and Hopalong and Dyger and I-Mac. Sometimes that means frantically trying to sell your contract. Sometimes it means putting your hand in the Lord's hand and trusting that He means business and that you heard Him right.

Sometimes your friends will come to you and tell you they want to change. Some of those people might be telling you they aren't a good friend, but they, in fact, were one of the very few people around for the aftermath of your breakup. Some of those people might be stepping to a threshold of new spiritual understanding--one that staggers your own mind, in that you've also needed to stop hiding behind some sarcasm.

To God, who allows and encites me to change, and to my friends who listen to His prompts in their lives, helping me to see what I need to fix, thank you.

Genius in a Bottle

2006-12-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

"The best things come to those who wait."
-Platitude commandeered by Heinz for ketchup commercials.

12 Gifts (Part 6) : The Gift of Patience

So, as an added strangeness to the experiences of this semester, I've found that I have quite a bit more patience for certain things than I usually do. Patience is a hard thing for me because I'm so wicked mean to myself when it comes to Proficiency. Proficiency is a big deal to me, and anything I do that lends itself to showing a lack of it (or, even worse, a Weakness or an Inability) is really painful. But I think that my confidence has gone up a bit, and it's a little easier to just let the Lord do His thing with my life.

Patience is really difficult--it means that you have to wait for things. Sometimes, that means you have to do things you don't want to in order to let what you want happen. It also means you have to not do things you want to do, sometimes so that others won't know that you want to do those things. I'm really grateful, despite the pain, that I've gained some patience. I think it'll come in handy.

Happy B!

2006-12-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

"No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue."

12 Gifts (Part 5) : The Gift of Beta

Well, I finally got the Beta. Hooray! I know this is kind of a lame thing to celebrate during the season, but for a blogfiend like myself, it's pretty awesome.

I plan on using the labels extensively--and I've got a lot of stuff to label.

I'm kind of sad that this is such a short post in regard to a 12-gift, and even sort of sorry that the Beta made it as a 12-gift, but I've learned to appreciate the little things this year.

The Smallest of Packages

2006-12-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

"Our father yelled, throwing our gifts on the woodstove, woodstove."
-Sufjan Stevens, That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!

12 Gifts (Part 4) : The Gift of Gifts

I don't know where the tradition of giving stuff away started, but I like it. I like giving stuff I bought away. I like giving stuff I already had away. I like getting stuff. Yesterday was my birthday, and I was happy to get a gift card from my parents. Now, I'd like you all to know that my parents are getting stranger and stranger as the years go by. By strange, I mean: pushing the bounds of conventional social behavior. Generally, a gift card is considered the lowest form of gifting (as in: "I give up; you're impossible to shop for."), but a MasterCard gift card? Wow. "You're so difficult to shop for, I don't even know which store you'd want to go to." But it's amazing. I could buy anything with my present. Though there is the waiting for it part. I don't particularly like that. Either way, there's way more money on this thing than I need for my birthday, but I'm severely grateful. So grateful I bought The Crane Wife.

Punk-Rock Princess bought me grape Kool-Aid. L'Afro gave me the beanie, and brought herself and a somewhat displaced looking R. Poste to the shindig at Schoolmarm's house. M-Lite and Genuine Draft made cake, and brought it over. Schoolmarm made cake. The Doctor, and BC and Dyger let me hang out in their ward (which will soon be my ward). Uffish eTwibbled me. And many more. Thanks, guys, for making the ol' b-day awesome, and glucose-intensive.

American Audacity

2006-12-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

"For thou hast girded me with strength to battle: them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me."

-2 Sam. 22:40

12 Gifts (Part 3) : The Gift of Courage

Probably as part of having dated Miss K, I now have many fewer inhibitions regarding approaching the opposite gender. This managed to play itself out in somewhat recent times at the accounting firm across from where my office used to be. There's a girl that works there that I wanted to take out, but I didn't really know how to approach her. The moving day came, and it went down in a humorous manner.

I went in to get the mailing label for a package I had to send back to Qwest (there is a lot of anger regarding Qwest) and Kristina had finally located the letter with the label. I hemmed and also sort of hawed, having thought over the need to ask her out several times previously. I finished my Guess-I-Won't-See-You-Around-Anymore speech and then went straight to, "You aren't seeing anyone, are you?" A gutsy move. Like someone in the real world might make. "No," she paused, "But hold on, I have to take this." In a particularly awkward moment, the phone lit up, indicating an incoming call. I had to wait until she'd determined that the call was a false alarm, which was probably an eternity. The business was actually completed, and I actually did end up with numbers in the phone, and we did actually end up going out.

I'm not afraid of sitting in an open seat in the library next to a girl anymore, either. It's kinda nice.

As a Trend, As a Friend

2006-12-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts."
-Counting Crows, "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"

12 Gifts (Part 2) : The Gift of Memory

Originally, this was going to be about the Gift of Courage, but I changed that to be Gift 3, so that this could go down on 7 Dec. Memory is a powerful thing, and so strange. For example: My mom tells a story of how, when I was 3, I found some scissors and cut the telephone cord while she was in the middle of a conversation, and then ran around the house screaming "Dont spank me!" After a while, either I started to remember the actual event, or I incorporated the story into my memory, and now it is my own.

Memories of specific people are all I have in some cases. Though I don't have a daily reminder, for example of what JHVO looks like or sounds like (and as he's been in Portugal for over a year now, most of the things I see aren't immediate triggers), whenever he comes up, or I get a letter, I'm instantly reminded of my friend. Memory takes over because of a line that Flops might quote, or a thing that the Doctor might do, and John is "there in spirit"--a phrase which I believe means that the combined memories of all involved have made it, for all intents, that an entity is present.

That entity might not be who you remember, though. A memory of a person once drove me to somewhat noble and insane (and quixotic, gotta add quixotic) deeds, though, when the time came when I really reacquainted myself with her, she was very different than I remembered. Partially because she'd changed. Partially because my memories of her were incomplete. It's her birthday today, and I'm sure our memories of each other continue to morph. I hope she remembers the good things.

So, kids, memory. It's a good gift. Sometimes we think that the clearer one's memory, the better. I've found that the best memory is a human memory, and sometimes that means we can forget.

The Floodgates

2006-12-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

"If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is air in the conversation."
-Big Dan, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

12 Gifts (Part 1) : The Gift of Gab

Well, here we go again. There will not be more nor less than twelve posts, including this one, until Christmas rolls around. For those of you who were here last year, welcome back, and for those who are new to this, a hearty original welcome to 12 Gifts, a special series of blogposts in which I give thanks for gifts (generally that are unconventional in some way) I've noticed during the lifetime/past year.

I have a gift, and I guess it's bragging, but I got to use it at The Doctor and Dyger's house in re: the latter's history 202 paper. The question was simple enough, and I pretty much spouted off a 5-paragrapher right then and there (don't worry--this was not in attempt to cheat, and Dyger's way too moral for that anyhow--he wrote his own). This gift has gotten me out of many many diplomatic binds in my day, and allowed me to pass through high-school nigh unto comatose.

At my prof's house on Sunday, a bunch of Linguistics kids and their SOs were all having dinner and wow. There was a mega-conversation. Plan to speak about 3 seconds before it gets quiet again. Eruption talkers--no listeners. It was intense. But it was very funny.

I tend to seek out friends with a similar (or complementary) gift. By complementary, I mean those who can get right to the point without wasting time. It's a good thing to have. Anyhow, this one was pretty weak--I'll have more and better where that came from.

Why I'm So Unhappy

2006-11-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

"I AM NOT A LOSER!"
-Russ Duritz (Bruce Willis), The Kid

I'm Thinking "Inside the Box"

"The Box"--800 to 300 N, University Ave. to 900 E

If you're still one of those deluded single Mormons that believes that Provo is Mecca, above is your Kaaba. The Box, as I call it, is the area with the smallest-area non-dormitory single stake (BYU 3rd) in the world. (This is unverified, but I will eat my hat if I'm wrong.) Three other small-area student single stakes are fully contained in this area, and parts of four more are within its bounds. Quite likely, there are more single LDS people in this 45-city-block area than there are in any metropolitan area outside of Utah, Idaho, and Arizona (to give you an idea, the DMA has eight singles wards/branches, which is roughly 1/7 the single LDS population of The Box, assuming that the four partially contained stakes equal about two stakes, and each of the Denver units has a little more than 100 members). The area is outlined in red. The green arrow is where I live. Still very heavily populated with single LDS people, but just outside The Box. The green lines are where I've focused my search for a new house.

Is this the solution? Is it that I haven't had enough people around me to find the right one, or is it that the right one isn't around because I'm surrounded by the wrong environment? Are the vaunted graduates of Tree Streets the answer, or perhaps the aptly named Old Mill?

Who knows?

I'd like to.

Adventures Across the 8th Dimension

2006-11-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

"I think I might man prepare this option."
-the Doctor's journal

Words

So, I found this site--basically a wood chipper for text, and so I inserted parts of a novel I've just started writing and posts from my blog, and got the following:

His reverie is interrupted by some social communist who insisted that today he took his mind.

A great schism is a good amount of my complex.

Of course, the Doctor and some hugging.

His reverie is interrupted by the bubblosity of her roommate.

Girls in his mind, which had appropriate elements of this blog.

Cats and the existence of the house.

Very soon, he wanted alone time for an audience.

I agreed that I had perfected the ol' sucker.

Happy Pirates lives on--practice this week at the door.

I was meeting people in there.

And from four posts of the entity formerly known as "The Overmind":

Traverse the beatings were bludgeoning my kindred, a forest of our release, but one of my religious beliefs, and has a good loogie, your uvula.

Do not spit against the speed limit over ice, wind, and into a lifestyle completely different than I am.

It's just made it from Edward Scissorhands.
Or Heather.

Third, take a new universe.

The allure of you who stated that substance out!

Obligatory

2006-11-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

"The human resource clerk
has two cigarrettes, then back to work,
She eats right, it hurts."
-Spoon, Lines in the Suit

"Some flowers, they never bloom,
and some flowers just bloom dead."
-The Wallflowers

The Jim and Pam Post

Once again, please may the Blogger demiurges smile down upon me and grant me Beta. Then I could tag this under: Boys and Girls Together, Stuff that Makes Me Angry, Grasty, and Reviews. Those would all be tags. Just imagine it. Also, ask me if you don't know what grasty means.

Many of you know of my love/hate relationship with the U.S. version of The Office. I really actually hate Steve Carell. That's my issue, and I found that out a few weeks ago. In fact, the things I laugh at are generally Michael-less, and tend to lean heavily on the Jim-Dwight, Jim-Pam, Stanley-everyone, Kelly-Ryan, and Kevin-himself dynamics. Now, there's a lot of Andy-Dwight, Andy-Jim, and Andy-Karen stuff, but in general, I prefer the cutting sarcasm and deadpan over the shamelessly embarrassing. The Jim-Pam dynamic is particularly interesting/frustrating vis-a-vis their obvious romantic attraction. My take:

"Unfortunately, he works here."

In Office Olympics, it becomes incredibly obvious that a) Pam likes Jim better than she likes Roy, and b) Pam and Jim energize each other and become an infectiously playful team. They commiserate over the meaninglessness of their work (see "Pam Pong" in the episode), and really seem to enjoy each other's company because of real similarity/compatibility/friendship.

"I would save the receptionist first."

In Booze Cruise, Pam and Roy get engaged for real. After three years of not knowing when the relationship would finally progress, the embattled Pam finally is given some hope that this thing will officially go one way or the other. It's obvious (though Jim is dating the sought-after Katy) that the news destroys Jim, who has secretly and not-so-secretly been pining away for his friend. It gets so far into Jim's psyche that he immediately dumps Katy.

"The rules of Jinx are unflinchingly rigid."

In Drug Testing, we see even more of this dynamic, when Jim (who Pam thinks is hilarious--severely so, by the look of the first interview) gets the misfortune of being Jinxed by Pam when the vending machine is out of Coke. Jim is determined to carry it out as far as he can, copping a cry in one of Michael's horrifying staff meetings so as not to have to speak. In the deleted scenes, he even refuses to answer his phone, despite that it's Brenda, his most recent quasi-interest.

"Where do I stand on Pam?!"

In The Merger, last week's episode, Pam, having broken off her engagement with Roy (for a while now), and awaiting the return of Jim from the Stamford branch closure, is shocked in some ways to hear that he's seeing someone. It's more a shock to the audience, because we haven't seen anything other than one-way sparks in the Karen situation. In fact, he seems to be rejecting her advances in most cases. The question arose at Sunshine's place: the cool girl or the hot girl? And despite that many of the women were pro-Karen (strange), all of the menfolk that spoke, including me, said that Pam was still the better option. Was she?

The Land of Milk and Honey

2006-11-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

"'Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face/stars to fill my dream/I am a traveler of both time and space/to be where I have been.'"
'Kashmir?'
"What? What did I say?"
-Linus, quoting Led Zeppelin, and Danny, Ocean's 12

Finding fereste (The Search--Part 1)

BYU 111th (Spring 04-Fall 05)

I didn't know that this ward would end up creating a need in my life. But it did. The "Hospital Ward" was full of people that needed me--people who didn't just say "hey" when I came over. They shouted warm welcomes, or occasionally greeted me with a hushed, "You're just in time." I miss it a lot. I miss having meaning in my life, and people who were not afraid to admit they needed help. I miss being seen as someone qualified to give that help (in many cases).

Granted, that wasn't exactly the best time of my life in re: the womenfolk (and indeed that was a huge cause of the Winter Exodus last year), but at least I had something going for me. Recent events made me rethink my life, and I've been on a search since then. A search to find a ward that suits me. Not the "land of milk and honeys" as was purported in olden times, but a ward that is both a little more mature (agewise) and a little more accepting, and a little more openly social. I don't ask for much, I just ask to not be left alone.

This series (and if Blogger would finally give me the dang beta, I'd tag it) is regarding my search for an ecclesiastical Shangri-La, and the highs and lows of such a quest. (Next in the series, but maybe not next post: the BYU 138th Ward [a close call].)

Is There a Third Option?

2006-11-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

"I'll show you around this alphabet town."
-Elliott Smith

Flue

(Editor's: Thanks to Kat for another timewaster questionnaire.)

TRUE OR FALSE

Appearance:
I'm short: false
I have scars: true (and Kat said it all)
I tan easily: true
I burn easily: false
I wish my hair was a different color: false
I have friends who have never seen my natural hair color: false
I wear glasses or contacts: true
I'm legally blind without them: false
I have 5 or more piercings: false
I have/had piercing in places besides my ears: false (this is getting silly)

Relationships:
I miss someone right now: the 5th Amendment is a wonderful thing.
I've gotten divorced: false
I've had a crush on a teacher: true
I've hugged a stranger: true
I like my bubble: false

Embarrassment:
I've laughed so hard I've cried: true
I've glued my hand to something: true
I've laughed till some kind of beverage came out of my nose: true
I've had my pants rip/drop in public: very true, and an amazing story
I was born with a disease/impairment: true/true (awkwardness/awkwardness)
I've sat in a doctor's office with a friend: true
I've sat in a hospital waiting room with a complete stranger for no reason: true*
I've had my wisdom teeth removed: true
I've had a serious surgery: false
I've had chicken pox: true

Experiences:
I've gotten lost in a city: true
I've seen a shooting star: true
I've wished on a shooting star: false
I've gone out in public in my pajamas: true
I've pushed all the buttons on an elevator: true
I've been to a casino: true, but I was very small
I've been skydiving: false
I've played spin the bottle: true, but, uh...
I've drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour: That would kill me.
I've been in a car crash: ftrue. Crap.
I've caught a snowflake on my tongue: true
I've sat on a roof top at night: true
I've played chicken: false
I've played a prank on someone: true
I've ridden in a taxi: true
I've seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show: false
I've eaten Sushi: a California roll doesn't count

Random:
I own something from Hot Topic: false
I own something I got on E-Bay: false
I own something from Abercrombie: well, via the thrift store
I own something from American Eagle: false
I own something from Anchor Blue: false

More Random:
I've stolen a tray from a fast food restaurant: false
I watch the news: occasionally
I curse regularly: No, I curse very irregularly.
I sing in the shower: true
I'm a morning person: "Mourning"? True
I have listened to more than 30 CD's in a day: I'm not really sure.
I've worn pajamas to school: true (including bathrobe, to a religion class)
I know how to shoot a gun: false
I laugh at my own jokes: true
I am really ticklish: false
I play video games: true
I'm good at remembering names: I know all of yours. (=very yes)

*I added this one.