Kemosabi, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...

I just had to post this. I couldn't help myself...

Money doesn't talk, it swears.

The above quote is Bob Dylan. My point is, is that I'm thinking about picking up swearing. I think I'll start off with "hell" and "damn", but from there I think I'm going to move on to new and greater things. Why you ask? Well in my Political Science class today my teacher said "Son of a Bleep" (Obviously I haven't moved that far yet). Except when he said it in front of 200 Freshmen, it wasn't offensive. It seemed like a regular piece of vernacular. In no way do I want to become a swear-type person, but it seems to me that this language can be used appropriately. It almost sounds dignified like saying: audacious, indubitably, or tendentious. Either way, what I'm saying is that possibly swearing has its place. This is my guideline:  1) A situation arises where you think a swear word might be appropriate 2) Think of an old chap in England fox hunting, and ask you self "Would that chap use a swear word in this instance?" 3) If the Englishman would swear, then swear. However, if he would alternatively use a word like "Blast" pronounced "Blah-st" than don't swear. I think this is a good guide. Hopefully soon we'll have a swearing party, but we need to do something frustrating so we have instances in where we can swear. Maybe something like talking about politics. Sounds lovely!

Going Old School

So I've been puzzling over what I wanted to ask for this year from old Saint Nick and I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted from the man up North. I already have a bunch of cool stuff and I'm kinda tired of the whole clothes thing. It finally hit me though. A record player! Yes that's right folks a record player. For the past couple of (I don't know how long) I've been talking to Rich about how cool it would be to start up a record collection. I have a lot of music in mp3 form already but there's something about owning records that would make my music collection more legit. CDs are cool and all but it's just not the same thing. I remember watching the movie High Fidelity a couple of years ago and thinking to myself how awesome it would be to own John Cusack's record collection in the movie. So now that I've decided that I want a record player for Christmas, I've began to build up my collection of LPs starting with The New Pornographers - Electric Version and Immaculate Machines - Fables. I've been trying hard to get The Beatles - Rubber Soul (I think the album I want most in my collection) off of ebay but it's been a bit harder to get good copy. So as I wait for my new records to arrive I just have to be a good boy and hope Santa comes through this Christmas with the record player. 

Mob Mentality!

Michael, Stephen, and I love blogging! I thought I would just put up the obligatory Brigham Young University beat the Utah Utes post. It was such a fun game! Just to summarize really quickly, at a minute and a half Utah had just scored a touchdown putting them up 10 - 9. On the BYU drive we failed miserably and were left with 4th down and 19 yards to go. However, we ended up throwing a miracle 49 yard pass that gave us the first down and great field position. It was simply the biggest play of the game. BYU continued driving in until Harvey ran 15 yards into the end zone to put us up 15 - 10. BYU scored the 2 point conversion leaving 45 seconds left on the clock for Utah to score. They actually made pretty good descent down the field but they ultimately got stuffed and Utah lost! It was a great feeling. I have no funny stories. The people behind me spilt soda all over my jacket. Oh ya, I feel kid of terrible about something I did for the game. I sold mine and Stephen's tickets on eBay for $70 each. But then I bought a ticket for myself for $20. I felt really bad because, honestly, no one should have to pay that much for a ticket. But I felt better when I bought a new sweater with the money.

It was also great because we got to rush the field.

Thank you... for loving me... for being my eyes

Oh man, a friend just recently reminded me of an amazing feud my brother Stephen and I had when we were in high school. I had fallen asleep in my room with the radio playing. Stephen walks into wake me up and on the radio is Bon Jovi's "Thank you for loving me" gently playing over the airwaves.

Well, I woke up and looked at Steve and he said "Richard... are you crying? What happened?" Obviously, he was joking... I wasn't crying! I just woke up. Anyways Stephen had a great laugh. At his next available opportunity he recorded "Thank You for Loving Me Off" with his tape deck and planted it in my stereo with a sticky note of "Press play". I did and Steve jumped in my room and was like "Dude, get over it man! She's not coming back." This went back and forth a million times... and for the last time, I fell asleep and the song just happened to be on the radio! 

To watch a truly inspired interpretation... click HERE.

Dance Dance Revolution!

I'm speechless!

Can we learn something from Otters holding hands?

Yes, and this is what we can learn:
1) It is actually common for Otters to hold hands in order to stay together in tight social knits despite the currents and waves around them.
2) Just like rope is tightly knit together and Otters hold hands, so we must support each other through life's hardships.
It seems that the Otter has taught us an important lesson, and while reflecting upon natures beauty there certainly are many more lessons to be gleaned.

Otter Love!

Stephen just can't get enough of this video. I think mostly it's because he's a hopeless romantic. 

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked - Bob Dylan

It's been a while since I've written something in here. Mike has been doing a fantastic job! The picture of Special Agent Jack Bauer was a good choice. Anyways, I have two important matters. First, a moment of fragility. Mike and I were the recipients of a late night covert attack of shaving cream in the face. What do I have to say about this? Two things: revenge and revenge.

Second, I have decided to take a stand. I hate American foreign policy towards the Middle East. First reason: Guantanamo Bay. Recently Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, spoke at Harvard declaring this: “You taught us no government worth its salt can subvert the rule of law. We believed you. That’s part of what you have as a gift for the world. Then how can you commit Guantanamo Bay? Take back your country.” Guantanamo Bay infuriates me! Second reason: Iran. This is no time to impose useless, ineffective sanctions. A recent poll suggests that "At least a third of respondents in the six nations surveyed think the best way to deal with Iran is to impose economic and commercial sanctions." This is frustrating. This is just because it seems as though many people think the only other alternative is nuclear war. Guess what? It's not. Rather than force or economic sanctions let's start engaging the country. Don't even try to use South Africa as some sanction success story. There were so many other elements involved that we just cannot copy and implant this policy in another nation. Rather, I would like to see more investigation on how we can engage Iran because I believe there is a significant population within that wants a voice in government other than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Let's not estrange this population. "Hardliners in Tehran are looking forward to the sanctions. It helps them hide their incompetence behind the embargo"

I'm going to go America all over your Asses!

It's thursday and I'm happy. Not because I've actually finished my ochem write ups before my lab. Or the fact that I don't have to go to my physics lab tonight either. I'm happy because there's a new episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia tonight. 

A while back Lisha kept telling me there was this show that I would really like. But that's all she did, talk about how there was a show that I would like. Finally about a month ago she invited me over to see and episode (I don't have cable). But I finally saw my first episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I fell in love with the show from the get go. I enjoyed it so much that the next day I went and got the first two seasons so I could catch up with the show. I even bought the seasons pass of the third season on itunes. 

What's so great about this show you might ask. Well the best way to describe it is that it's a combination of Seinfeld and Arrested Development with a TVMA rating. It has a pimp named Peppa Jack, who loves Fraggle Rock, a cat born in gasoline called Special Agent Jack Bower, and the McPoyles. If you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend that you watch your first episode tonight 11pm on FX. 

Soccer Mom

I went out to my car yesterday and I noticed a sticker that wasn't there the day before.

No one yet has claimed this stroke of genius. But I must say I laughed pretty hard and I'm actually going to leave it on because I find it quite funny. 

Buried Treasure!

So about two months ago I upgraded to a new computer, which has much more hard drive space on it than my last one. Eight times to be exact. But now that I have all this new space I find that I can fit more of my music library that I've been keeping on an external hard drive. As I've been importing song from my external hard drive I've been finding songs that I haven't listened to in years. It's like finding buried treasure! For example I've fallen in love with Beck's Odelay all over again. It's such an amazing album. Some other ones are The Beastie Boys Licensed To Ill, Timbaland and Magoo Welcome to Our World, Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dreams, and the list goes on. These are all amazing albums that I would listen to non-stop but somehow I just forgot that I had them in my music library. I'm just glad that I brought them back from being buried deep in my music library.  

Baguette?

How can you not fall in love with Françoise Hardy?

tous les garçons et les filles de mon âge
se promènent dans la rue deux à deux
tous les garçons et les filles de mon âge
savent bien ce que c'est qu'être heureux

et les yeux dans les yeux,
et la main dans la main
ils s'en vont amoureux,
sans peur du lendemain

Beijing 2008: wishful thinking or hardcore reality

I am taking a springboard diving class next semester in hopes to rekindle the prodigy like skills I had as an 11 year old in this domain. The thought of the olympics started when I mentioned to my Mother that I would be taking this class and she said, "good, you were so gifted." Even though she is my mother she meant it. I could do a one and a half, and a very nice backflip. Then, Rich said, "maybe you could go to the olympics". Thats when I realized that... maybe I could. This would surely be a commendable achievement. And just a note on Rich's entry: instead of robots I thought everyone turned into a gremlin, but they didn't want to strangle me, I didn't know what they wanted.

You're All Robots Out To Get Me

I recently had a conversation with my brother Stephen that went something like this. When I was a kid I thought whenever I closed my eyes every other human being turned into a robot. And each of you moved extremely slowly on a mission to strangle me.

How did such a conversation come up? Well, I've been studying the philosopher Descartes recently and he of course famously said "I think, therefore I am". What does this mean, you ask. It means that the only thing he could know for sure is that he could think. His body and the whole world around him could be an imagination of his mind or the creation of a devil.

Basically long story short, before I even knew about Descartes and even though I was super young, I was beginning to deconstruct the world around me. Long story, even shorter: I was a child genius. Even shorter: I'm on to all of you because I know you're robots out to get me, and guess what there's an inherent flaw in your system, once you start strangling me I'll probably open my eyes and you'll turn back into a regular human. So I'd hit the drawing board again, robots.