Post 231

I was listening to a radio station that played "Nights in White Satin" and "Stairway to Heaven" in the same set. Shockingly, those weren't the only two songs they played.

This post is a waste of space....

Post 224

"Stoned wallabies make crop circles" might sound like a headline from The Onion, but it's actually from BBC news.

Check it out.

Post 222 (apologetically misordered)

So, I'd like to tell you I'm going to blog more faithfully these days, and I'd like to believe that myself, but we'll see what happens, I guess.

Just a little bit of poignant randomness to ripple your day:

Post 223

Why haven't I posted in so long? Well....

Post 221

It's snowing today here in Provo. Snow on April 6th! A friend texted me this morning to wish me a happy white Christmas. Hahahaha. White Christmas indeed! THAT, my friends, is good, clean, down-to-earth funny, right there. What a kidder.

My apologies to anyone who isn't a Mormon and doesn't get the joke.

Post 217

I love substantives. They are an awesome.

Post 216

If I've said it once, I've said it once: tautology is tautology.

And that's that!

Post 215

It is a foolish man who amidst the storms of life runs outside to shout at the thunder and flail in the wind. A wiser man knows to hunker down and wait for fairer weather to come.

Post 214

And so it was the courage was the only casualty that day, for a speedy retreat hath many a happy marriage made. That a man may courageously die for a cause is true, but that a living coward may prove of more use to a society than a dead hero is just is true.

Post 211

I have a plot to overthrow the entire world using only the power of rhetoric.

It has prose and cons....

Post 210

Hahaha. I love literalism! And I love the 80s. If you love these things also, you will love this video:

Post 209

Awesome headlines in the Chicago Tribune in the early 1900s:

Girls sold by gypsies; whole town up in arms

BALLOT OR THE BALLET? HERE'S A NEW ARGUMENT FOR WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE.

DANCES 3 DAYS; CAN'T STOP, Girl Whose Feet Won't Keep Still Drugged to Save Her Life. MANIA PUZZLES DOCTORS. Only Thing Like Philadelphia Case Is Tarantula Madness.

FATHER LOST FOR 34 YEARS; FOUND ONLY TO BE ARRESTED

'BASEBALL BABY' BORN IN PARK AS CUBS TROUNCE PIRATES

PASTOR TURNS MATCHMAKER Men with Proper Credentials May Meet Young Women Tonight.

CREATES FICTION, ALL RIGHT, BUT IT'S BY WORD OF MOUTH. Proposed Double Wedding Called Off When One Bride-Elect Finds "Story Writer" Fiance Is a Barber.

BURGLARS HALT THEIR WORK TO GIVE MAN HIS MEDICINE

LET A PHYSICIAN FIT YOUR CORSET Latest Straight Front and Easy, Well 'Made Waist Adds Health, Says Doctor. MAKE WOMEN BEAUTIFUL

Post 207

I learned recently that, just as English fairy tales often begin with "Once upon a time" and end with "And they lived happily ever after," Hungarian fairy tales often begin with, "Once where there was and wasn't" and end with "And they are still alive if they haven't died yet."

Which do you suppose makes less sense?

Also, right after "Once where there was and wasn't," many tales include a completely irrelevant bit of information. The one I read started with "Once where there was or wasn't, the Lord of Dobrogi loved red apples"--and then he wasn't even the main character: he was the bad guy and didn't show up until a few paragraphs later.

Interesting stuff, these folk tales.

Post 205

So, I was just at the BYU homepage and saw an announcement that there will be a devotional tomorrow (there's one most every Tuesday). The topic: happiness; the speaker: this guy



Seriously, dude--if you're gonna be talking about happiness, maybe you should smile a bit!

Post 204

Sometimes, dogs chase their tails; most times, their tails chase them.

Post 203

So, my phone has audio recording capabilities, which I used to use to record the ideas for songs I would get when I was a janitor and my mind had nothing better to do than make up songs. I thought of that today, so I listened to all those recordings as I walked home from school. Audio File 0701081933-00(9/26) surprised me because it wasn't a song: it was me talking.

I do not remember making this recording. I do not know what circumstances I recorded it under. I checked the file information and learned that I made the recording on July 1, 2008 at 7:33pm, so I looked up my journal entry for that day and found this paragraph (and several others, but this is the relevant one):

It's been a long day. Left Tehachapi shortly after 9am, got to Burbank around 1pm, boarded the plane a little before 2pm, landed between 4:30 and 5pm, drove Grandma to Brigham City so she could get a ride from Leroy home, got back to Provo a little after 9pm.

I am grateful now for this little paragraph of excessive detail: it tells me that Audio File 0701081933-00(9/26) was made while I was driving from Brigham City to Provo (because I doubt I made it while my grandmother was riding with me).

So here is a piece of my mind while driving the last leg of an 11-hour journey:

What could possibly be inside of Box K? It's 168 inches by 157 inches by 115 inches, and it weighs 11,300 pounds. It's a cardboard box on a truck. It's fragile, and it needs to be kept dry; you're not allowed to forklift it--how do you move 11,300 pounds without a forklift? How do you get it on a truck--a crane? Doesn't seem any more delicate than a forklift. Strange. Anyway. That's it.

Any guesses as to what was in Box K? I assume all this information was written on the cardboard box. What could possible be so big and so fragile and not water proof?

You are now free to speculate.

Post 202

So, I'm taking this Latin class, yeah? And it's, like, crazy intense, ya know? I mean, I've had three or four weeks of learning Latin, and I just translated the first 25 verses of St. John from the Vulgate into English as a homework assignment. Now my head is threatening to explode, but I feel pretty good about myself--even if my translation is a little... well... amateur, for lack of a better word.

Here it is:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in the presence of God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning in the presence of God. All by him was made, and without him nothing was made, because it was made; in him was life, and life was the light of man, and light in darkness shines, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent by God, whose name was John; this man comes in testimony, so that testimony testifies of the light, so that all believe through the light. He wasn’t that light, but that testimony testifies of the light.

He was the true light, which illuminates all men, came into the world. He was in the world, and the world by him was made, and the world did not know him. He came in his own, and they did not receive him.

As many however were accepting him, he gave to them power to become the sons of God, this, who believe in his name, who were born not by reason of blood nor by reason of the will of man, but by reason of God.

And the Word was made flesh and he lived in us; and we saw the glory of him, glory as it were of the Only Child from the Father, full of gratitude and of truth.

John’s testimony testifies from himself and proclaiming said: “This man was, of whom I said: He who came after me, before me was made, since he was before me.”

And from his plentitude we accept us all, and gratitude in return for gratitude; since the law through Jesus Christ was made. No one ever saw God; the only child of God, who is in the bowl of the Father, himself described.

And this is the testimony of John, when they sent to him Jews from Jerusalem priests and Levites, so that they interrogated him: “Who are you?” And was confessed and he did not deny; and was confessed: “I am not the Christ.” And they interrogated him: “Who therefore? Are you Elias?” And he said: “I am not.” “Are you a prophet?” And he responded: “No.” They said therefore to him: “Who is? So that this response alone, which they sent us. What do you say about you yourself?” He says:

“I the voice of a cry in the desert:
‘Turn toward the way of the Lord,’

as said the prophet Isaiah.” And they who were the envoy, were from the Pharisees; and they interrogated him and said to him: “Why therefore do you baptize, if you are not the Christ neither Elias neither a prophet?”

Post 201

Okay, here's a fun game: I'll give you a picture; you come up with a caption. I just happen to have the best picture in the whole wide world; let's see how well you can caption it. Ready? Go ahead and scroll down a bit.
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Post 199

You know what we all need? Something to make us a little more self-conscious about the way we look. Don't you agree? Go Wikipedia body proportions for a good time.

Post 198

Howdy. I'm alive. There are a lot of things I could write about (since last writing, I've seen Strangers on a Train, Throw Momma from the Train, Snow Falling on Cedars, Stay, X-MEN Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, and Taken, read Jane Eyre, The Prestige, and The Old Man and the Sea, acquired Billy Joel's Piano Man, Streetlife Serenade, and Fantasies and Delusions, discovered Mika, started learning Latin, given stand-up comedy a second try, been put in my Elders' Quorum Presidency, and started a new job), but I just gotta tell you real quick about this great new game I've learned.

So you all know the Kevin Bacon game, right? Well, this game is--well, it's totally unrelated I guess. One of the first days at my new job, I went into the little room where I work at a computer for ten hours a week and found that both of the computers in that room were in use: two of my coworkers were doing something with Wikipedia that was apparently giving them great joy.

The game is that you choose two apparently unrelated things (they used Bill Gates and Drāno) and, starting at the Wikipedia page for one, you find your way to the other by using links. All links on the page are fair game (if you can broaden by category, you'll do well) except, I assume, for the ones on the left hand bar (I think clicking on the main page or What Links Here might be considered cheating). They were playing strictly by speed, but when I asked them about efficiency, they both started clicking their back buttons and discovered that the loser (who had only been a couple of seconds late) had actually made it in fewer links.

This game is really impractical as a competition outside of, say, a computer lab, but I was just playing by myself and found it passingly amusing. It really makes me wonder whether you can make an impossible pairing. I just connected glasses to Jakob the Liar and then Billy Joel to the number 68.

It's a fun game. You should try it. You know you wanna.