Wednesday, February 27, 2008

More Important; Clean Hands or a Clean Concience


I must confess the only reason I was my hands after I leave the bathroom is because I want to be nice to everyone else. Frankly, I shower daily and my nether regions are most likely cleaner than my hands so logically I should wash my hands before I take a wizz rather than the other way around.

Before I leave the bathroom I tell myself, "if you want to be a good citizen wash your hands". Basically I'm trying to tell you if you see me slide morally, lets say I have an about face and start becoming a jerk I guarantee that post bathroom hand washing will be the first thing to go.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A Deadly Combination

Hammers, a man on a mission, no stud-finder, and impatience have proven to be a fatal combination for the wall next to my entry. I decided to hang a hook for my bike to make space in my apartment. After getting my bike cleaned and tuned, and having bought the necessary hardware to proceed I set out on my ill-fated errand.

Fueling the fires of my frustration I spent a frenzied half hour looking for my illusive stud-finder, mistake one. Being the stubborn and resourceful man that I am I turned to the internet for guidance, mistake two. Upon discovering that coat hangers in the wall don't find studs but instead remove insulation; no magnets are strong enough to find a nail; lines in the wall aren't studs but mirages designed to entice you into making a myriad of one inch miniature windows to your neighbor's apartment; I committed errors three, four, and five.

The final mistake, hanging a bike on a hook that isn't screwed into a stud. What have we learned? Ladies, stud-finders are more than toys. Gentlemen, consult your neighbor before you make windows to their apartment.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Vulcan Mind Trap


Last evening I sat down with my wife and her family to watch a slide show of her trip to L.A. and the many pictures from the wax museum. Among the displays of mortuaresque figures was one of Star Wars. My wife, the devious woman that she is, was standing there doing Spock's vulcan V salute.

Shock and horror washed over me and my years of Star Trek: Next Generation upbringing took over, "Do you know what you are doing Lexi?". As soon as the words left my mouth I realized I had fallen into her Vulcan mind trap. She knew because I have given her the Star Trek, Star Wars lecture one to many times. Really, it is a double edged sword, or light Saber depending on your upbringing, to inform everyone that the vulcan V is for Star Trek and not Star Wars or pretend like you are a normal person, keep silent, and avoid ridicule.

As a true Sci-Fi fan you can't stand idly by and let such errors go uncorrected. As a 30-year-old man that has moved past fantasies of being Deanna Troi's Jonathen Frakes or ever creating a Holodeck to act out my cyber-noir fantasies with my red headed Beverely Crusher such old habits die hard. Everyone laughing at my seemingly uncontrolled trekie outburst I flashed back to Junior High and the day I realized that just because My family liked Star Trek didn't really make it cool.

Let this be a lesson to all no body cares about the correct pronunciation of Data, the fact that Deanna Troi is only half human, or Wesley Crusher's rank. Just keep your mouth shut and save it for the convention.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Church Sign Website

I found this funny website about crummy church signs this picture is borrowed from a post on February 20th. Go check out the site you will crack up.


Crummy Church Signs

also check out this list of funny blogs I found on

Humor-Blogs.com

Thursday, February 21, 2008

When You're a Scout You're a Scout All The Way



Utah's local NPR station had a short story about the bills being debated in our Utah legislature, one of them relating to gangs. I'm going to have to paraphrase but I heard this gem of a sound bite from a local representative, (make sure to read it with a churchy Bishop voice in your head) "The problem with this bill is the ambiguous definition of gangs. For instance in my district a boy scout pack could be labeled a gang, they hang out together in large groups, they wear the same uniform..." I busted up laughing and missed the rest of the quote but you get the idea.

I had a mental picture in my head of a half dozen 12 year olds with neckerchiefs and shorts strolling through the middle of the street in quintin-tarantino-slow-mo, knocking over garbage cans. Maybe they would tag the Webelo sign on the side of the stake center or spray the scout oath on a suburban style 3 car garage in elaborate bubble letters with Run Around Lou playing in the background.

Maybe these musings will motivate me to enlist my 13 year old brother-in-law's friend to throw together a video and play the representative's quote in the background.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Dangerous Lives of Sparrows


On my way to school I saw a bird wriggling on the ground from a distance. Upon further examination it became apparent that there were two birds and one was fighting for its life. While the poor little sparrow was on its back being pecked to death I wondered what could a sparrow do to another sparrow to deserve being pecked to death on a cold Utah morning.

Twenty minutes later while waiting for a parking spot some punk Toyota stole my parking spot and it came to me, the angry sparrow probably had his nest parking spot stolen and was making the other punk sparrow pay the price.

Imagining my Toyota Camry a huge sparrow and the other punk Toyota a bird on its back fighting a loosing battle I no longer felt bad for the sparrow or angry about the unscrupulous parker.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Hast La Vista Service


Maybe some of you have been watching the Terminator for TV debacle known as the Sarah Conner Chronicals. I don't think anyone could replace the Governator so I have tuned out and like the TV show borrowed a title and premise; the machines are taking over!!!!

Lately I have spent many hours on the phone sorting out some problem or another with my cell phone, credit card, or cable. Inevitably the first part of my journey to the brink of insanity starts with a machine trying to answer my questions.

"Just say the name of the department you would like to speak with and I will connect you", says the creepy non-region-specific-40-year-old-women-computer voice.

OK I'll give it a shot and answer, "billing".

"Did you say sales? If this is the department you want just say yes."

"What!!, NO!!"

"I'm sorry I'm having trouble understanding you please say yes or no."

"Ahhhhhh! NO, NO, NO, NO!"

"I'm sorry I still can't understand you did you say, 'please continue to ask me questions and never let me talk to a real person until you hang-up' Little Man?"

"No, no, no, no!" Did the non-region-specific-40-year-old-woman-computer-voice just call me a little man?

"Alright I will connect you to our sales department right now."

It is at this point I've learned that screaming in gibberish in the phone is the quickest route to a real person, my conversation usually goes like this.

"Bob Blahlaw's law blog, rikitikitembonosariguchipipperipembo hindu hindu rackamatack now now ahahahahahaha hhHAHAHAH AHHAHAH AHAHAHA!"

I'm connected to someone in India who understands me even less and I wonder how I could be transfered back to the creepy non-region-specific-40-year-old-woman-computer-voice.

This long winded post is meant to highlight one theory of mine, the machines are starting to take over. Do you ever wonder if the machine understands you but is just messing with you. Maybe I'm just paranoid but I think they are after us. They are training us to become machines. Just listen to someone talking to one of the "machines" all of the sudden we start talking in a monotone machine like voice.

So, all the John Conners of the world unite and reject the machines. Try my gibberish trick and you'll be talking to a real person in no time, the only drawback is you have to be prepared to speak hindi.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Excercising Options and Optional Excercise


In my last semester at the U, as a Finance major, we have been discussing stock options; fascinating to all of you I'm sure. Lexi loves it when I tell financial theorem bedtime stories so I'm dedicating this post to her.

The professor says "mathematically, gamma is the first derivative of delta and is used when trying to gauge the price of an option relative to the amount it is in or out of the money." I hear "blah BLAH BLAH!!" Actually I understand and this is how I interpreted it. Options value's increase as volatility and the time allowed to exercise increases. That makes sense to me but you probably hear, "blah blah BLAH!"

Let me put it this way, Lexi likes options and won't make up her mind until she has to. Lexi realizes the underlying theorem, the longer she waits to make up her mind the more value she can possibly derive from the outcome. The more volatile life is the more value she gets in not making up her mind because the volatility may cause her to change her mind. Likely this is a joke that only I get, if so thanks for your time and the next paragraph is more entertaining I promise.

The past couple of weeks I have been trying to lose weight and get in shape. I even went as far to make workout goals that force me to forfeit my spending money to my wife if I don't meet them. For each blank space Lexi gets one dollar.

To further solidify my standing as an analytical geek, here is another graph showing my variance from my daily weight loss goal. All of this evidence proves four things.




1. Lexi's tendency to procrastinate decisions is a zero-sum game where she wins and everyone else loses.
2. Lexi is right again and after four years of college I'm finally learning this.
3. Lexi will make money because in my weight loss plan exercise is optional.
4. Lexi is made for me because who else will listen to my ramblings and balance me out.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Witching Hour


Emily Rose, the creepy quasi-true story of a demon possessed catholic claimed that 3am-4am is the witching hour when demons haunt. I enjoy horror but it forces me to sleep with one hand touching my wife for a week after I see one. Last night the witching hours were 11pm-1am when I recalled every scary movie I could imagine and tried to sleep.

Lexi has to write a script for her class and I suggested a horror and proceeded to freak us both out with a creepy plot of my worst fears. At 11pm I got the bright idea to elaborate on the plot by personalizing it to our present circumstances. I don't recommend this as pillow talk it tends to discourage both of my favorite bedtime activities, sleeping and the other activity ideal for beds.

Here is the plot, try not to laugh.

The Amish believe that when a picture is taken you lose your soul. The bible says thou shalt not have graven images, some eastern religions believe you soul is stolen and trapped in the picture when photographed. A picture happy 30 something is slowly reaching the millionth picture of her husband. While we obviously don't lose our soul with one picture it is slowly lost with each picture and is taken over by the devil by the millionth. The main character first notices this phenomenon when her oft photographed cats become stranger and stranger ending with their death. One night while sleeping the cats start to scratch at the bedroom door but the cats have been dead for a week.

It was at this point that my two cats scratching at my door made it hard for Lexi and I to sleep.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Master Chief vs. Commander and Chief



I asked my wife what I should blog about and she suggested what I think most about. Lately I think mostly about Halo 3 and Politics, two topics that the Lexi loves. With super Tuesday looming I thought it would be fun to compare The Master Chief (Halo's Hero) with our current Commander and Chief(George Dubya Bush).

Achievements

Master Chief: Destroyed alien synthetic ring planet designed to eliminate planet earth.
Commander and Chief: Destroyed Saddam Huesien, the country of Iraq, and the US Budget.

Origins

Master Chief: Half human, half cyborg, his history as a human is unknown but his cyborg parts were most likely manufactured in China.
Commander and Chief: First human to be conceived by two males George Bush Sr. and Barbara Bush.

Known Enemies

Master Chief: The Covenant, an alien species with a fanatical religion preaching the need to destroy mankind and a mindless zoombie infestation called The Flood.
Commander and Chief: Osama Bin Laden, the word nuclear, and Anderson Cooper.

Popularity

Master Chief: Became the worlds best selling video game after it was released in 2001 only to be eclipsed by sales of subsequent games Halo 2 and Halo 3.
Commander and Chief: Set the all-time aproval rating record of 90% directly following 9-11 only to decline to one of the worst of all time at 30%.

Controlled By

Master Chief: 12 year old boys across the world over and 30 year old men living in their parent's basement.
Commander and Chief: Carl Rove

If Bush could run for a third term and the Master Chief were real to more people than those of us addicted to Halo I think Super Tuesday would be a little more exciting.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Thoughts on Thoughts on Other People's Thoughts


I was listening to the radio the other afternoon and they were giving their thoughts on what someone else thought about some news I heard earlier that morning. While I was sitting there thinking about someone's thoughts on someone else's thoughts I became confused. Let me give you a recap:

8:10 -- Read someone's thoughts in the newspaper
12:20 -- Heard CNN try to pass something off as their own thought
2:45 -- Saw an "exclusive" Yahoo article giving their thoughts
4:37 -- Heard NPR ruminate on this same thought


In conclusion I was sitting in my car not knowing what to think and I turned off my mind and put on some music instead. Enjoying the sweet sounds of Death Cab For Cutie, I resolved to engage my mind daily and think my own thoughts on a blog, but here I am talking about someone else's thoughts. What do you think?

Press Play!!