All Hail Lord Obama!

Well, it's finally over. We can now sing praises to our new King. Obama the mighty savior of the USA! Now we won't have to pay for gas, the financial crisis will disappear, we won't have to pay for healthcare or mortgages and we will all work for the new national civilian defense force. If that weren't enough we will now have no sadness. Every single person is guaranteed absolute happiness through master Obama's new proposals.

Our mighty new Emperor will bring prosperity to all. He is leader. We all serve him with one heart and mind. He knows best. We will all get everything we ever wanted for our birthdays, and other holidays. A new holiday will be added to the calender: Lord Obama's birthday.

Your tap water will turn into your favorite drink. Your refrigerator will be automatically refilled with your favorite food, courtesy of Obama's intangible, but real love for all of us. You will become more physically fit by watching his speeches. Your yard work will do itself. You will receive twice your salary for half the work. You can have 27 wives or 32 husbands regardless of sex (you can also have both options). 

We will party all day wading in a velvet sea. And this could be our new anthem.

Props to the Prop that's propping the Prop

(Sasha Baron Cohen (Borat) crashes the party)

Out here in Provo, and I'm sure in other cities, counties, and states people have been promoting ballot initiatives. But, the interesting part for me is how many people here have no idea what initiatives or representatives are on their local ballot, but yet are deeply informed about California's ballot propositions. And, particularly prop 8. 

I am not saying that you cannot, nor should not be interested in other states' initiatives, but I find it somewhat hypocritical to be promoting one, while having little to know knowledge about your own. The argument could be made that I shouldn't listen to you on the mere grounds that you have no idea what is on your own ballot. Of course I don't entirely believe that, because your knowledge of local politics does not transcend your moral and religious convictions, which are indeed important. 

But here are some of the things that irked me a little bit, perhaps because of their zealotry, and perhaps because most of these people have never been politically inclined or willing to galvanize themselves over any prior issue, which may have had just as much import. These are some examples of facebook status lines and even text messages that I saw and received:

Voted! Yes on Prop 8!

Pray for prop 8.

Join with us and fast for prop 8

so and so has donated their status to remind everyone to vote Yes on Prop 8 today.

Yes on Prop 8!!!

hoping CA votes yes on prop 8!

is voting yes on prop 8!

*PrOp 8*8 pRoP

already voted Yes on prop 8 two weeks ago. And believe it or not, I'm not ignorant nor discriminatory... I even have two gay friends.

YES ON PROP 8! AND PROP 102 FOR ARIZONA!

reminds everyone to VOTE YES ON PROP 8!!!

VOTE VOTE VOTE! Mccain & YES to Prop. 8!!!!

is praying and fasting for the election. YES on Prop 8 and other important values!

Then there were people like me, who wanted to point out the perhaps unintended ridiculousness of it all:

Yes on 8... and 1A, 2, 5, 7, 9, 11 No on 3, 4, 6, 10, 12. Oh yeah... and John Galt for President.

And here was mine:

Michael gives props to props and those voting for props. He likes prop 345365462634523456345623.

So, any thoughts?

Discovering male close family that dress as women

I have always had respect for a certain member of my immediate family. He studied hard, worked hard, ate well (as in healthy food, not necessarily large quantities), and has for most of his life been admirably normal. Well, not normal, but admirably great in the normal way of being great.

Well, I have recently re-thought that admiration. You see, I was on facebook, as is my custom, and saw a few interesting photographs. This family member was tagged in them, but I couldn't really see him. Well, not as I expected to see him anyway. What I did see was a very top heavy woman with little poise and plenty of floozy mannerisms. What I saw was a drag queen. 

I spoke to him about it and he said it was for a contest, and that he had won it. Well, as much as I like a winner, I don't know if winning that contest was really a win for him. His mentality was, "Well, if I was going to look like that I was going all out, and I was in it to win it, otherwise it would have all been for nothing." 

Winning. 

You chose winning over redefining your life-long image of masculinity. Thank you for that. You left me with great pictures to show your future children. I promise I will use them. Frequently.

Mystery of the missing forks

After coming home from church, I was happy with the prospect of eating. I was going to reheat the pasta I brought home last night from a local Italian restaurant. And, I successfully reheated it, and even offered some to my brother. However, when we sat down to eat it, we realized something horrifically disturbing had occurred. We had only one fork. 

I checked the sink for dirty dishes. There were only 2, and no fork. I checked the drying rack. There were only spoons and knives. I checked the silverware drawer. Again, only spoons and knives. I checked the random kitchen utensil drawer. No forks. We had no forks. 

No hope. 

So, I ate my meal with a spoon (begrudgingly might I add). Oh, and to make things worse, the fork we were left with was a midget-sized one. Yeah, a shrimp fork. My brother used it, with tears pouring down his face.

I honestly do not know what happened to our forks, but I should have seen this coming. About a month ago we lost all but one of our big forks, and just today we lost all but one of the shrimp forks. But, I do have some theories as to how this has happened:

1. First and foremost I will blame the trash collectors, who have not only refused to take our trash, but now have absconded with our forks (Probably so they can do some weird trashman mystic rituals).

2. We have a clever criminal who has a moderately refined taste for IKEA silverware, and particularly forks. He could be Swedish, given that IKEA is a Swedish company, or he could be Chinese, because all of IKEA's stuff is made there.

3. Our forks left us. They just could not tolerate our cooking any longer. They probably ran off to Italy so their could skewer sausages for the rest of their lives.

4. Ashton Kutcher has devised his most carefully orchestrated PUNK'd episode ever. The filming is over the course of several months. He is starting to mess with us by stealing our forks, then he'll move on to where it hurts: our house plants and pillow cases. Bastard.

5. There are gnomes that live in our house, and they are plotting to take over by creating super-powered fork thrower that they will connect to the back of their pet fox. Their leader David will ride out gloriously in the midst of a charming Christmas dinner party and all hell will break loose.

PS - If you have any ideas as to the whereabouts of our forks please contact us immediately. This is a picture of Fred the fork, last seen with this pasta dish:

Defiant Garbage Collectors

Every wednesday morning, garbage collectors come by my house. I assume they come to collect garbage. Seems only logical. 

Well, last week they came by our street and picked up all the garbage from every house...except our house. Why? Well, I figured that it was some technicality. Perhaps we had too many trash cans or something. Or, maybe we didn't roll them out far enough into the street for their passage to be obstructed enough not to ignore. Or, maybe the fact that we filled each can with 300 pounds of lead, and a family of rats. But no, I think what happened was much more malicious.

They are haters. They didn't like our trash. And they don't like us. They were making a statement. Well, we're going to get them back. First, we called up their supervisors. Yeah, we're tattlers. And, when they come back, we'll have a post-halloween surprise waiting for them. A few dead bodies!!! That'll learn 'em (you love my grammatical correctness).

Halloween Laziness.

Call me lazy, but this halloween I am just giving you a link to an article my friend Scott Spjut (satire correspondent for ABC)  wrote. It tells what all the political candidates are going to dress up as tonight. Here it is:

This is the link to the article.

Here are some photos to enjoy that I put up with my halloween party event on facebook:

...

You should be ashamed.

Scooby-rooby-roo!

Yes, your girl friend does look like a chubby little boy.

This is for my friend Nicole who hates cats.

I always knew Paris was a zombie maid.

Oh shi...

What a great dracula costume!

I'm a lego block.

You better cover your face.

Alien! Those parents are just messed up.

I thought this was Owen Wilson at first. Nope, just ambiguous in relation to his sexuality.

Oh no! Your head is being eaten by Hello Kitty!

This dog makes me laugh, but also makes me sad inside.

This dog makes me hungry.

Dumb.

Hey, that's a little tight, could you ease up a little?

Meh.

Charming. Really.

You have no friends.

Look! You can be a douchebag for halloween!

This dog is actually a rat.

Buzz, where's your ambiguously gay friend?

Nacho!!

Nice. Shaggy is stoned. Typical.

Awww.

You suck.

Um...random fish...this is what we eat on halloween....I guess...

The thinker. Silverback gorilla style.

Okapi's have long tongues...and they will be at the party.

Upset at Presidential Campaigns and plugging myself.

This Presidential election season has not inspired me. I suppose it's not obligated to do so, but I would even go so far as to say I am beyond fatigued at this point, and indeed disappointed. The methods employed by both campaigns were shoddy and only they only feigned accountability and decency from time to time. The press pretty much shot itself in the foot with its fiendish diagnosis of one side, while almost entirely ignoring anything even remotely detrimental from the other. I believe in tough journalism, but it needs to be equally tough and effacing for both parties. Our press has become so sensationalized and subjective it has caused an uproar among its own. 

Here's a great article on it from ABC news columnist Michael S. Malone.

That being said, I will be glad on November 5th. I will be able to write about other things. I will be able to write about defiant garbage collectors, toothpaste, writer's block, provo dating scenes, manly men, global cooling, cranberries, eco-cars, wo-men, girlfriends, new housing market options, potatoes, the Chinese, taking naps, etc., etc., etc.

Yes, I just plugged my own blog. And, I'm patting myself on the back now. Thank you. 

I am Victorious.

VICTORY! Well, for now at least. Here's the breakdown of my day.

7:00am - Woke up

7:30am - Woke up

8:00am - Woke up (for real)

8:02am - Wanted to take a shower but couldn't, someone was in there

8:05am - Dressed and finished French shower (smelling like roses, but still being as filthy as the Seine River)

8:06-8:45am - Intermittent reading for 9 o'clock class, as well as reading of todays news and eating random stuff and halloween candy

8:45am - Walked to class

9:00am - Got to class just as the bell rang

9:00am-9:50am - Tried to stay awake in class. Started off great for the first 10 minutes (Being close to the front didn't help)

10:00isham - Got home with intention to nap until noon, but got distracted by life

10:45am-12:05pm - Sort of napped, yelled at a showering brother listening to Phish, put on headphones and listened to ambient sounds and the ocean.

12:06pm - Ate some ham, cheese and spinach tortilla sandwiches. Washed them down with milk

12:35pm - nowish - Wrote a ridiculously long paper for a class midterm with interruptions (friends, emails, facebook, this blog, etc.)

Current Time: 5:48pm - VICTORY. Well, for now.

Homework left to do: Shoot myself.

Papers, Papers, Everywhere!

I've been writing too much lately. But, it's really not going to stop any time soon. I've written a big chunky delicious paper each of the past two days (and I should have written two yesterday, but I didn't) and I have another paper twice as big to write for Thursday. I'm a bit light-headed from staring at my computer screen, not getting decent sleep, and some weird bug that's going around.

But who cares! I already wrote a post about how inebriation has helped some artists create better art. So maybe the same goes for me....I lkmef rn.kv krn.kv....pokpwd?.........l;;;;;;;;ytffffffffffffffffffgtrdcrttttttttdxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Ok. Perhaps not.

And who drooled on my keyboard?

Living our dreams

I live my own dreams.

It's perhaps just the luck of the draw. Some are destined to dream their dreams and only dream of living them. There are also those who dream real dreams, believe they are but dreams, soften the edges of those dreams, and chase the shadow. Then there are those who live them.

We all dream.

We cannot avoid it, and even if you believe you do not, you're only deceiving yourself. When you wake up from a dream and can't remember it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Even if all you remember is closing your eyes and waking up, you dreamt while sleeping. However, when we dream, our conscious mind and subconscious mind synthesize a fantastic world of abject horror and unfathomable jubilation. The real world (or what we would like to believe is real) is a muddling in between those two extremes. But it is with the help of this muddle that we are able to see the extremes. Our dreams are a composition of the glorified muddle.

But it is that composite that gives us hope. Perhaps not a particular subconscious REM romp, but our hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They come from within us and without us. They give us something to strive for. Something that we might become, or attain. And, we must give them life. We cannot allow them to remain mystical mental illusions. We must live them.

It's something that I've done all my life. Of course there have been exceptions, but on the whole, if I have a dream, or aspiration, I put myself to work to attain it. If I want to sing a duet for someone's wedding, I do it. If I want to write a great philosophic work, I do it. If I want to travel the world, I do it. Sitting on my hands was never an option. It allows a meaningless reality to consume me. Our reality does not have to be meaningless, and we can consume it.

Live your dreams.