8 x 8

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I guess I'm just in that mode of thinking where I want to, sort of say, put down the camera and just watch the sunset. Sometimes I think it's weird when people have to bring their cameras everywhere, to remember whatever cool thing they are about to do. Especially when they have to recreate the event to get the picture they want. You know what I mean. That face behind the camera says, "Oh, I didn't catch that. Do it again, will ya?" Do it again!? That's a false memory, my friend. Actually, sometimes the moments of recapture are pretty fun and worth capturing themselves...as long as you remember which is which.

My point is, sometimes writing about things I've done feels like I'm recapturing a moment. And that sorta thing is secondhand and lousy. Ah, I know, it's like that Emerson quote I posted, like "going out of the house to see the moon." The real impact and happiness just hits you, unprepared, without camera in hand, without pen in hand. That's not to say it can't happen that way, but usually not.

This is not to suggest that writing about such moments are not worth anything. It's to say that what we write, and the pictures we take, the tangible stuff, can actually replace the memory, instead of reinforcing it. Better than nothing, I guess. Speaking of memories, I just read a tag on Betsy Bradshaw's blog that I responded to...so, I guess I'm supposed to pass it on. I'd like anyone reading to write a little memory about me. Whatever you like. I realize that not too many people read this, or make comments if they do, so, I don't expect a lot of replies.

And what with my disinclination to write about my day-to-day, I'm going to do another tag that I saw on Jennie Payne's blog. Ironically, I'm usually much more in the mood to write about the goings on of the day than to do this sort of thing. Go figure.

8 Things I Am Passionate About
1. Friendship - This is number one because it involves all of our most important relationships with others from God to Family to Spouse, as well as to those we generally consider friends.
2-4. From the Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
5. Prayer
6. Education
7. Music
8. Literature

8 Books I Have Read and Enjoy
1. Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. The Book of Mormon
3. The Pearl of Great Price
4. The Odyssey
5. Lectures on Faith
6. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
7. Macbeth
8. The Lord of the Rings

8 Words and Phrases I Often Use
1. Yo! (as a greeting)
2. Yoink! (when I snatch something up)
3. I said you suck! (as I response when someone asks me to repeat something)
4. Mmmeehh! (sad The Cheat-like sound)
5. Bah! (frustrated expression)
6. Swish! (something went just right, like when a basketball swishes into the net)
7. Sweet! (when food is sweet, jk)
8. Kaa! (if you haven't heard this one, you should ask)

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
1. Graduate (shouldn't be too hard if I avoid death sports this year)
2. Marry
3. Have a son
4. Publish something
5. Live out of state
6. Be and find continuous inspiration
7. Help someone find the gospel
8. Go on a sailing voyage (really)

8 Things I Learned This Past Year
1. Progress is not exponential.
2. Give people the benefit of the doubt.
3. To be good is not enough, you must be good in the right way.
4. Priorities are as important as dreams...they are your dreams.
5. Every relationship should include Christ.
6. Working as a whole toward an end has significantly more power than individual efforts.
7. Life gets pretty crappy when you put off paying tithing.
8. Don't half-express yourself.

8 Places I Want to See (before I die?)
1. Greece
2. Egypt
3. Venice
4. Hawaii
5. New Zealand
6. England
7. New England
8. China

8 Things I Miss
1. Family
2. Friends that have moved away
3. Working with people
4. When USU and Logan were a new adventure
5. Biology and Classics classes
6. An airconditioner
7. My totally awesome ringtones
8. McDonald's frysauce

8 Things I Currently Want/Need
1. $!!
2. A place to stay this fall
3. School loan
4. Newness
5. Positive dating attitude (I admit)
6. Discipline
7. mp3 player
8. Compliments (love those ;) )

Singin' N' some Rain

This weekend was a lot of fun. I went to Salt Lake on Friday and hung out with Ali and Matt. We didn't do much for the 4th of July except go to the Pie and have what turned out to be a pretty nasty Greek Pizza. Every inch of it was covered with low-quality lamb. I actually didn't even try it, because the smell was a little too nauseating. I was perfectly content with their delicious cheesy bread, though. We were planning on watching fireworks from the stadium since Ali lives right by it, but they didn't have them. We're guessing that it will happen on the 24th. I also missed the fireworks in Logan due to work, so, I really want to go see some for the 24th now. I do love a good firework show.

On Saturday my nephew Noah got baptized. I didn't get to see my other nephews get baptized, so I was pretty excited about it. It was especially cool because they did the confirmation just afterwards. When I first got to the Stake Center, Noah came right over and gave me a hug. When someone pointed out that Matt had also come in, Noah said "I know," and continued his way down the hall to get ready. I don't want to say I was happy that Matt didn't get a hug. But I was happy that I got singled out. That sounds weird, but it meant a lot. I don't get to see them very often.

After having lunch together, Matt and I went out to see Speed Racer with Scott and the kids. I was pretty bored, but I think the boys liked it. I was thinking that it was a stupid movie, but would probably be a fun video game. I blame it on the monkey. Monkeys automatically make movies horrible. My niece Emily didn't seem too entertained by the movie either, so she was hanging out in the lobby. When I went out to get a drink, I bought her a rub-on tattoo, and we went to the bathroom to put it on. She was really excited about it, which was pretty hilarious. I also bought the boys some tattoos after the movie. One cool thing about the movie, I will say, is that it introduced me to the Korean pop sensation, Rain. Of course, what I really mean is that it introduced me to the rivalry between Rain and his nemesis, Stephen Colbert. They both put out killer music videos:



But what the battle finally came down to was a Dance Dance Revolution dance-off, where sadly, Rain outshined Colbert's sweet sweet dancing skills:

Rain!!!

After the movie, we picked up Ali and went out to a birthday party for my friend Dave. It was a lot of fun, complete with Guitar Hero and fireworks. Personally, I've always been more a fan of throwing parties than going to them. You can invite who you want, and do what you want, and see all your plans and preparations come to fruition, with full enjoyment. So, I tend to notice elements of party planning when I go to other peoples' parties now. And I can say that Dave was well prepared, from all the signs, decorations, and food, to a complete transformation of his room to a dance floor, including his very own fog machine. I think I'm allergic to those, I mean, they make me sneeze at least.

On the way home from the party, a Starship song came on the radio and Matt, Ali and I all burst into song. All of a sudden, we were in the mood for karaoke. The only place to really do that late on a Saturday night is a bar, so we decided to pick up Ali's friend Gentry to come with us, who knows where we could sing nearby. I had never sung karaoke before, so, it was a first. That's right, never before. And that's right, I let it loose in a bar, to Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf! Gentry happened to have a Duran Duran shirt on, so she sang it with me. I can't say I enjoyed it that much. I think it was the fact that I was...in a bar. But, that was a new and interesting experience. So, have you ever heard that people really let out some emotions when they are drunk? Like, "I love you, man!" when they don't know you. Well, Matt and I got the, "I respect you!" speech, because we don't drink alcohol. It was kinda funny, really. As it turned out, closing hours didn't even stop our singing, we kept going all the way home with the radio. However, despite the mood that I get in the next time I belt out R-E-S-P-E-C-T...I think I'll avoid a karaoke bar.

Nerd Band

The most recent issue of Rolling Stone featured an in-depth article on none other than...(let's have a massively elaborate drum roll please, complete with such flourishes as chimes, crotales, timbales, and melodic cowbells)...RUSH! And no, they were not critical this time, but finally objective enough to say,"Music taste aside, the scope of Rush's achievement is undeniable - 18 studio albums, more than 35 million records sold worldwide, a legion of fans as loyal as Deadheads and the Kiss Army. Still, much of the world ranks Rush somewhere just north of the mullet. Their hypertrophic musicianship is mocked by critics, their lyrical pedantry spoofed by hipsters, their singer's voice a subject of churlish speculation..."

Wow, "just North of the mullet," huh? That is an insult I have never heard. But no, I have no qualms with the article. So, I will move on, and include some snippets that I found interesting. I'll do it this way, I'll pose a question, and answer it with quotes from the article. In fact, I'll keep all the questions geared on the undeniable stimga that Rush is a "nerd band."

What is your stereotypical Rush fan like?

"Under bright houselights, the 17,000-capacity venue is quickly filling with fans of the Canadian rock trio Rush - many resembling the two young men I find sitting 10 rows from the stage: brow-fringing hair, utilitarian glasses, sprouts of chin whisker. They look straight out of an '82 yearbook photo of the after-school D&D club - a suggestion neither finds insulting. 'We fully embrace that,' says Sam, 21, an electrical-engineering student with a Ziggy Stardust tee and Harry Potter tattoo. 'That's definitely our lifestyle, the whole nerd thing. We play video games and listen to Rush, we play video games about Rush. That's what we did all last night in preparation for this.'"

So, Rush fans are nerds?

"The American-Nerd Age is nigh. Today, everyone from the bed-headed club promoter to the siliconed spokesmodel calls themselves a "nerd" because they play Sudoku or can operate an iPhone. But 34 years ago, when singer-bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart first emerged on the music scene, the n word had teeth. And if you were heavy into Rush - three skinny Canadians with a fixation for sprawling rock epics and Tolkien references - you had found your home."

So, the members of the band are nerds too?

"A ruddy 55-year-old with a Robert Mitchum-ish brow, Peart stands drinking bottled water, dressed head to toe in a ninjalike black suit topped by a black tarn bearing the logo from Rush's 2007 album, Snakes and Arrows. One pant leg is cinched by a bicycle clip. His feet are in dancing shoes. "

Yep, you heard it here. Neil Peart dresses like a Ninja with dancing shoes.

"'This is to absorb the sweat,' Peart says of his outfit...'They're so you get the dance and glide on the pedals like you get on a dance floor.'"

That's it though, I mean, they never look like characters out of some fantasy novel, right?

"With his long hair, soul patch and round sunglasses, the 54-year-old Lee suggests either a French semiotics professor or an abstract expressionist. He's often noticed but frequently misplaced. 'For some reason, Latino people think I'm Ozzy Osbourne,' says Lee. 'I don't know-big nose, long hair? Others say Bono.'

When Rush emerged as a hard-rock power in the Seventies, Lee entered the history books as one of the genre's truly sui generis frontmen: gimlet eyes, ectomorph frame, noted proboscis. Robert Plant may have sung about Tolkien's mystic realm of Mordor; Lee looked like he'd been there."

It's true. The man really looks very witch-king-like.

But does he act nerdy too?

"Sitting under Toronto's former Sky-Dome, Lee recalls Rush's U.S. debut, at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena in 1974. "They asked us if we wanted anything in our dressing room, so I asked for some Southern Comfort," he says. "I read that rock singers drank that before they went on. So I had this little shot when we go on, and I'm like, 'Holy mackerel!' I've got all of 26 minutes to play, and I'm dizzy for half of it.' Behold Rush's entire history of onstage intoxication."

Now while some might argue that any rock stars that are responsible enough not to get into the drug/alcohol scene at all must be nerds, I think that what I'm really aiming at here as evidence of the nerd factor is the phrase, "Holy mackerel!" Now, that's pretty nerdy.

How was their luck with the ladies?

"Now for the sex. This wont take long either. Lifeson is married to his first girlfriend, Lee is married to his high school sweetheart, and Peart was with the same woman for 22 years until she passed away in 1997. Of Rush's 150-odd songs, not a single one concerns that rather popular rock & roll topic: chicks - which, when compared to the likes of Kiss, makes Rush more or less the AV Club of 20th-century rock."

Songs without chicks are probably pretty nerdy. What did they write about?

"When Peart signed on as Rush's drummer, he also took on the band's lyric-writing duties, beginning one of the most infamous oeuvres in the entire rock canon. Peart did not write like a lyricist. He wrote like a philosopher. A German one. In translation. 'I was ambitious and had wide interests,' says Peart. 'So I kind of tried writing about everything: autobiography, science fiction, fantasy, social commentary and junior philosophy.'"

Did the fans like it?

"...Rush dived off the deep end of prog with Caress of Steel. The album, whose five songs contained the 12-minute "The Necromancer" (which drank deeply from the well of Tolkien) and the 19-minute "The Fountain of Lamneth" (about a search for the fountain of youth), tanked. The band went on an internally dubbed 'Down the Tubes Tour'...But at this rock bottom, Rush found their moment of clarity...

The result was 2112, widely considered Rush's masterwork: a seven-part, dystopian fantasy complete with interplanetary war, robotic vocal effects, instrumental fireworks and clerical bureaucracies straight from the Dune trilogy. With a theatrical pitch somewhere between Jesus Christ Superstar and Pink Floyd's The Wall, 2112 portrays a galaxy controlled by one Red Star of the Solar Federation, whose Priests of the Temples of Syrinx dictate all cultural life. In the titular year, a young hero discovers an ancient, mind-freeing relic - yes, an electric guitar - and brings this Promethean gift to the Talibanic priests, who promptly wreck it and ground him, sending him off to his bedroom, where he presumably smokes bud, bums out and eventually kills himself. After which a coup brings a new galactic order and completes the most heroic rendition of the cranky-adolescent-male consciousness ever committed to vinyl.

2112 went multiplatinum and won Rush their independence. But it did more than find an audience. With philosophical touchstones in Orwell, Nietzsche and the band's acknowledged hero, Ayn Rand (whose politics got the band members labeled cryptofascists in the late Seventies), the album played a role analogous to that of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology-launching book, Dianetics - eventually amassing the most die-hard, detail-obsessed rock fans in history."

I think that that paints a pretty good picture of this author's initial claim that Rush is a "nerd band." And perhaps this is why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame overlook them time and again, despite their obvious success. "Nerds have no place in Rock and Roll!" I can hear them protest. Or, perhaps they have something against Canadians. Anyhow, I like that the closing remarks of the article reflect the bands' feelings about this well-known rejection into the hall of fame.

"Self-effacing poise may be rare to arena rockers, but like Green Party candidates and Nascar heroes, the members of Rush have adjusted to both idolatry and disregard. Just prior to tonight's dinner, they were once again snubbed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which instead inducted no greater rock luminaries than the Dave dark Five. But Rush seem convincingly unfazed. 'I just keep saying we're too young to be in there,' says Lee.

'Yeah,' says Peart. 'Unlike all those other people, we're still working.'

'I think it really upsets our fans,' allows Lifeson. 'It's a big issue for them.'

It's true that Rush doesn't mean today what it did in '76 or even '96. It may mean more. Back when Peart was lost in America, Lee remembers knowing that his friend's path back would be through music. 'Because that's who he was,' Lee says. 'The quickest way to health is to be who you are and do that thing that you love to do.' And if today's Rush stands for anything besides dazzling chops and heady abstractions, it may be that simple, oddly courageous conviction: doing what you love - whether it gets you called a nerd, spurned by your label or turned into an icon."

So, if you've read this far, you've basically read half the article. But here it is in full. And if you've read this far you know the message I want to leave with you. Do what you love! Be who you are! Even the n word, just like Rush, but the n word with teeth.

I SEE YOU

Imagine that you are walking the bustling city streets of Manhattan. Usually you tend to ignore the giant billboards, whose bright colors, through over-exposure, have amazingly become as bland as hospital walls to you. But today you pass a digital billboard, with crisp high definition advertisements that seem to change just as someone new passes by. Your interest piqued, you take special notice in walking past it, and see the advertisement suddenly change to one for your favorite restaurant. And the featured image happens to be your favorite dish.

No, that could never happen...really, you might think. In reality, it may actually happen in the not-too-far-distant future. In reality, this technology is underway. In reality, something like it exists today. According to an article in The New York Times, some billboards are being equipped with cameras that are gathering information, about YOU. Okay, perhaps not your thoughts, feelings, and inner-most shames and wishes, but in the very least it is capable of tracking age, gender, physique, and interest in the billboard (by gauging how long you look at it).

The article claims that the makers of these devices are not using actual video recordings, but software that can determine these characteristics of individuals by such sophisticated means as calculating the distance between facial features, among others. At present these measures are designed to distinguish gender, but in the future it may be used to distinguish race as well. If you ask me, I think that this is much creepier than regular ol' video recording. Can you imagine the price of this magic billboard? Though, of course, they are trying not to invade the public's privacy. "Phhfff," I scoff.

And just as the scenario suggests, the goal here is to target the ad specifically to the passers-by. Yeah, and you thought ads at the movies ticked me off. They do. However, this is going too far, to dangerously...dystopian proportions. At least, it would be if the profiling technology could become as accurate as a retinal scan. AND if the advertisements tempted us to our damnation. That is of course if you don't have too much trouble picturing CEOs with pitch forks, horns, and a tail. Hmmm, maybe this IS something to worry about.

Although I hope you've gotten a disturbing glimpse at what advertising has become, you ought to know that I like to be over-dramatic at times, and that I hate marketing. But if you are interested, I suggest you check out the article.

Am I the only one that can hear

the voice of Sauron piercing my brain?

"I SEE YOU!"

No End In Sight

Recently I've become a member of Netflix, and I love the service. In fact, I've actually been renting documentaries lately, as I'm acknowledging a bit of a shift in my interests the last few years. Yes, I like non-fiction, and yeah, documentaries rock. But it's not a very popular genre at the video store or on Redbox.

Anyway, this weekend I got No End In Sight in my mailbox. If you haven't heard about it, it is a documentary featuring clips and interviews with those involved and opposing many courses of action in the war with Iraq. I wish I had seen it sooner, and I wish it had come out sooner, honestly. I knew that things with the war weren't going well, and a lot of suffering on both the part of Iraqies and our soldiers seemed very needless. But, I admit, I didn't know very many details. I admit also that I generally stay away from the news. I had a professor a while ago who kept up very well with what was going on in the world. Each day when I'd come into work, I'd ask how he was. And often he'd say, "Terrible! ___ people died in ____ today." It made me depressed. I didn't want to feel terrible about something I couldn't control.

Anyway, I feel no worse after watching this documentary. Once again, I knew things were bad, I just didn't know details. After watching, I was irrate to discover that so many bad decisions were made by people who did not consult with others, especially those with much more experience in the matters of their decisions. Here's a few things that particularly upset me:

1. The decision to disban the Iraqi military was very arbitrary, unsupported, and the results devastating. Thousands of soldiers no longer had money for their families. You can't really afford to live without money.
2. The Pentagon alone was responsible for post war reconstruction, and none of them really knew what they were doing. They ignored most of the proposed ideas, in several well-prepared volumes, by those who had experience.
3. President Bush did not even read the Executive summary of the report written on the state of the people in Iraq. It was one page long.
4. 18 billion dollars was proposed to help the reconstruction efforts to provide the people of Iraq with food, water, electricity, etc. A year after the proposal only one billion was spent, and very little after that as well.
5. One of the men they interviewed on the street said that things were bad under Saddam, but that things were worse now. Now, that's a comment that ought to put things into perspective!
6. The government knew where a large storage facility of weapons were being kept, but they "didn't have enough men to guard it." In consequence, the opposition in Iraq who were angry with us were able to get a hold of these unguarded weapons. And unfortunately, many US soldiers were killed as a result.
7. Donald Rumsfeld...wow, what an @** ****.

However, the efforts of the mass majority to do what is right in the matter of this war is also very apparent. There are many more people to praise than criticize for certain. However, when the control lies in the hands of those who made mistakes, and these mistakes affected the lives and well being of so many people...one can really only focus on the negative here.

It's a documentary I feel everyone should see. Check out the trailer.

And I will make an effort to keep up with the news now, for crying out loud! Also along these lines, I also apologize to my dad for having made fun of him for only watching C-Span. I'm pretty sure I was watching crap like Saved By the Bell in those days. Wonderfully patient fathers...I love my dad :)