Scott needs...

Okay, so I read my friend Bob's blog and I'm going to use her idea. (Okay, I asked her first.) So you go to google.com and you put your name with the word 'needs' with quotes. Like this: "Scott needs". It can be very uh... interesting. Here are mine:

Why Scott needs Mozilla I actually wonder why I need Mozilla. I'm not even sure what it is. But you can need something you don't know exists... so I guess this follows suit.

Scott needs nude models Uhhh.... don't ask me! What would I even do with them!?

Scott needs to get out more Now that is debatable!

Scott needs to step up now To what? And for what purpose?

Scott needs to back up his regrets with action Wisdom. However, right now I have no regrets. But if I were a fortune cookie, that would be my fortune.

Whatever his issues, Scott needs to get over them Are these googles fortelling something amiss in my future? Only time will tell... and google.com I guess.

Scott needs a partner Agreed!

Scott needs the practice It has been awhile since I've tickled the ivories.

Scott needs more of Mike's guitar Mike! I didn't even know you had a guitar!

Scott needs to access all seven sites I wonder what sites those are? The Seven Sites of the Devil? The Seven Sites of the Ancient World?

Haunted House

Saturday we had the ward haunted house, dance, games, party. I was in charge of the haunted house. It went really well. At first we were really afraid. As we went around the ward to recruit people to be in it, all we got were people telling us that they wouldn’t be coming to the party because they’d be out of town, or that they’d probably get the very end of it and thus they couldn’t volunteer at all. So we were afraid the haunted house wouldn’t be very good, let alone have very many people come at all. So when the party started, there weren’t very many people and we were getting nervous. I knew that no party actually starts on time… they are always an hour late. Even still we were worried. All day before the party we were buying stuff for the house. My family didn’t give me even a fourth of the stuff that I thought I would get. So I had to go buy it myself. I’m sure I spent close to $150 on it. Yeah, I had that money, but I really didn’t want to use it on that. But it had to be done. We could have used 2-3 more people helping us out but we had enough to do very well.

(More to come...)

I'm a Pirate! Arrrrrrrr!

It's true, I am a pirate. I love downloading music! A friend just referred me to a new tool in my quest for new and good music. I started out with Napster. They had quality downloads and were on the forefront of piracy. Eventually they had the crosshairs on their forehead and went down with a fight. Not long after I discovered Kazaa. Their network was extensive. You would often hear stories of how they were eluding authorities. *grin* Eventually I switched to Kazaa Lite, Kazaa's safer little brother. I have been a Kazaa-litist for many years. But only last week I was referred to LimeWire. I have been very impressed. I find the good music quickly and on the first try. There are not as many spoofers on this network. I highly recommend you try it out. I just got "Fallout Boy - Sugar We're Going Down" It's a *great* song!

Now once you start downloading music, you'll need something to play it on. I've recently changed from MusicMatch to jetAudio's player. Kyle will agree, this thing is good. And those you know my tastes in music... I love music with a beat. I also like my music danceable and a little faster. Well jetAudio's player has effects that will allow you to do that easily and seamlessly. Wow. I'm listening to Missy Elliot's "Lose Control" at 110% speed and a flange effect. Incredible.

Now those of you who would like to know more about my stance on pirated music, take the following link to an editorial article I wrote. I'd love your opinions on the matter after you've read the article.

Arrrrrr! That be nice!

Touche

In an 1860 debate between the Darwin-doubting Bishop of Oxley and Darwin protégé Thomas Huxley, the bishop asked Huxley which side of his family was descended from an ape.
Huxley famously replied, "If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who ... plunges into scientific questions with which he had no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."

Bravo.

A taste of Halloween

Here's a little taste of Halloween. The three pictures of just me are from last year. For those of you who don't know, I dress up as a dead prom date every year. Each year it gets better and better. The other picture is my friend Franzis and I. I do a lot better job with my makeup now. LOL

So on the 22nd I will be hosting my ward's haunted house. Along with it we will be having a game room, scary stories, scary movies, a Halloween dance, a costume judging contest, among other things. Now my haunted house is going to be spectacular. I've been doing these things for over a decade with my family. So these haunted houses aren't just little things with people jumping out with masks... No, this is serious stuff. And for those of you curious what this year's haunted house holds... Here's a hint: Bloody Mary and death by pencils (LOTS of pencils). Mwahahahaha. I really do LOVE scaring people and I'm very good at it. As well this month, my roomie Chris and I will be showing lots of scary movies from "Nightmare Before Christmas" to "The Ring". I will be having my annual Halloween reading as well. I really love the month of October.

Freedom of Speech... N/A

So I just read an article in which a woman on a Southwest flight to Portland, OR. She was wearing a t-shirt protesting the Bush family. Airline stewardesses asked her to cover the shirt because it was offensive. The woman did so, but later on in the flight she uncovered it again. The attendants gave her an ultimatum: Remove or cover the shirt or leave the flight. Well, the woman was booted off in Reno. Of course she did so with complaints. Well, the entire time I read this article I was thinking... "Lame, what does a t-shirt matter?" Then I read that the t-shirt was a spoof on the movie The Fockers only it had "but with one crucial vowel changed." That changed my entire perspective. I now believe that Southwest had perfect reason to deny her further passage. Their rules state that they can deny passage to anyone with offensive clothing. It's a case by case judgment. Go Southwest! Way to stand up to the Liberal Pig Woman!

Make Like a Tree...

2 October 05

This weekend was fantastic. I took Thu-Fri off of work. Thursday evening Kristen and I prepared for our camping trip to the Nebo loop. Amy happened to be over right before we were going to leave to buy our food. And I invited her to come, spur of the moment. She said she’d love to, that it was just what she needed. So she went to class and we went and bought our food and headed up. Oddly enough, certain parts of the campsite got cell reception. So we kept Kristen’s cell on top of the car in a certain location so that we’d get Amy’s call and give her directions to our location. For dinner we had barbecue chicken wrapped in foil and we made this incredible reflector oven out a cardboard box and tinfoil. You put coals in there and bake whatever it is you’re making in there for about double the time of a conventional oven. Anyway, we made brownies. And they turned out to be as good as any brownies you might make in your house. We also brought up a small thing of ice cream too. We of course had jamlet and rolls too. We had some great campfire conversation. In the morning we made sausage in tinfoil and had hot chocolate and rolls with jamlet. Mmmm, that was good! Amy had to leave for class soon after that. Kristen and I packed up the camp except for the tents and then went on a hike. We had seen some cub scouts leave their vans and head out somewhere so we decided to explore. We ended up hiking to a place called Red Lake. And let me tell you, this was the perfect time to be up there. The forest floor was blanketed with leaves. Yellow, red, gold leaves were all over. So beautiful. As always, we had wonderful conversations as we walked. We also saw about a dozen cows along the way. We didn’t bring our camelbaks on the actual hike because we didn’t think it would be that long. It wasn’t long but it did get hot during the day. I ended up having my fleece and my sweatshirt wrapped around my waist. I was worried that I’d get a dehydration headache, but it didn’t happen. Kristen and I both said that we wouldn’t mind heading back up there soon. It was an incredible trip. And the cool thing was, it’s only 30 minutes away from here. You don’t have to travel the normal 3.5 hours to get to the camping spot and then drive that all the way back and get home at 2 in the morning tired both physically and sleepy. It was sweet.

Totally 80s!

So we had an incredible 80s party this weekend! There was some Twister action, 80s foods like: Twizzlers, Combos, and Cheetos, we had an 80s trivia contest and a bubble gum blowing contest. Thinking about it now, we should have had an 80s costume contest. As you can see, we had some totally outrageous gear present!

Utah State Fair

Shout out!

Here is a shout out to Lori-Ann who reads my blog! So this weekend was an excellent one. Kyle and I took off work on Friday so that we could attend the Stake Opening Social. The social was incredible as always. I belive I told you all it entailed already. Saturday I got to go up to a party/social with my friend Mike up at Park City. Let me tell you, in Park City it is already fall. I was cold up there! Provo has started getting cold at night and the trees are red in the mountains. Did you know that trees turn the most brilliant colors when it is very hot during the day and very cold at night. The larger the difference, the better the coloring. On Sunday it was a wonderful day at church. Our Bishop and his wife gave talks. Or should I say Sister Huntington gave a talk... and all our bishop had time for was some comments. lol But good comments nonetheless. That night I went to a dinner party at my friend Jeromy's. I met some new people there and talked with some friends too. I made my mother's world famous Spanish rice. Mmmm, I have leftovers of that and I love it! Monday I got to go the Utah State Fair. Now when I was told about that I was thinking more of a rodeo. But it isn't just that... there are animals, crazy rides, tons of fried foods, and tons of fun. I will definitely want to go again. Tuesday, being today, I went to work. However, I didn't have to go in till 4:45. Normally I start at 3pm. So that was pleasant. Afterwards I went to Jeromy's, hung with my friends and we barbecued. Sadly, I had been eating grapes and Mike's incredible chip dip so I was full by the time my bratwurst was done. You know, I've never had a bratwurst before. I'm told they're like hotdogs should be. *shrug* Will I ever know?

What a wonderful four (five if you don't count the 4.5 hour interruption of work) weekend. Sweet!

Pics of the famed White House North

World Domination

This might have been the sound you heard from me last night: "Mwahahaha-huh?" Mike, Aaron, Kyle and I played Risk last night. I was black as in the Black Plague. Well, I must have been a very weak strain because I didn't hurt anyone. On my first turn I had a string of bad luck. Everything I went against beat me. I was warned to stop, but I had to keep going till I got a card. Which left me with only one country with more than one army on it. And that one only had two armies on it. I should have dealt with not getting a card and just held my own. I could have had Australia and then finished getting Africa after that. Well, hopefully I learned my lesson. Next time I will (hopefully) be a force to be reckoned with.

It's Thursday and I am wishing it was Friday. We are having our Stake Opening Social. It's at our old stake president's home. Let me tell you, this is the most incredible place. It has two large homes, a human slingshot, an indoor pool and hot tub, a tennis court, a horse pasture, a bonfire location, it's up a canyon and next to a mountain. And TONS of people come too. I took all of Friday off of work so that we could go on time. It will be a blast. (It has been every other year.)

I am also happy for tomorrow: I get paid! Yeah, for paydays!

Today

Today has been a good day thus far. Last night I stayed up till four I think talking with Mike. I was in a very good habit of going to bed at one every night. Mike's a bad influence. lol. But I enjoyed our talk. We disagree on our likes of scary things. I taught a Sunday School lesson for Amy today as well. The actual lesson was from Gospel Principles. It was only 4.5 small pages long. With some guidance I found the same lesson online through lds.org from the New Testament manual. That helped significantly. So I woke up at 10:30 to finish preparing the lesson. Fast and testimony meeting was very good as well. The lesson went very well too. I had more material than the time required. Now, there was only about a dozen people in my class... but they did well in participating and commenting. So all in all, I was proud of the results.

And a little while ago I got back from Break the Fast. So now I am nice and full. I have started the novel "Dune" today as well. And for now I am resisting the urge to take a nap. So I am writing this blog entry and listening to some classical music. I'd write the name of the song I'm listening to, but it's just too long. Why couldn't classical composers name their music. Maybe something like "Frolic in the Forest" instead of "Concerto of Violins in A Major With a Side of Simple Fugues and a Glass of Fortisimo" Ugh. My roommate says that Bach was all mathematical so all of his titles reflect that. I hate math.

SobekPundit's Elegy to New Orleans

My friend and first roommate has created a photo tribute to New Orleans. Check it out here.

Can I say 'Wow!'

First of all, my good friend Joe gave a link to an interesting site. It's called reddit. Basically it's a fully democratic news site. Meaning the readers are the ones who determine what news stories are presented. These news articles come from all sorts of networks like CNN, BBS, etc. I highly recommend it if you'd like to stay on top of breaking news in many topics. So there's my plug.

Now to the heart of my post. I was just on reddit and checked out an article from the Sunday Times. Now this is breaking medicial/scientific news. A certain strain of laboratory mice have been discovered to have regenerative properties. The strain, known as MRL have regenerated amputated toes, tail and ears or damaged organs, such as the heart. And as the scientist said "[We] just watched them regrow." For those of you wondering about the science of this miracle here it is:

“We have found that the MRL mouse seems to have a higher rate of cell division,” she said. “Its cells live and die faster and get replaced faster. That seems to be linked to the ability to regenerate.”

Professor Ellen Heber-Katz has also said that humans almost certainly have comparable genes.

Wow.

At work

I'm writing this from work right now. And for those that know me, that is odd. BRG does not allow us to get online normally. However, our project has not yet come in. So we're sitting here waiting for it to come. I just heard that we're not supposed to be clocked in (meaning not being paid) but I had already clocked in before that. lol.

I was also just reading about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. It seems that most of New Orleans is under water. All refugee centers have been ordered to evacuate. Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones and are suffering. It makes me wonder if I am prepared for a natural disaster. Here in Utah, there's always the lingering fear of the "Big One" meaning an earthquake. Here at BYU there is enough food for (I believe) three days for every student. That's 30,000 students. After that..

Whoops, gotta go.

To liven up the debate some.

A little earlier I had a short discussion about "Intelligent Design" being taught in our schools. Just to clarify, I believe in God and that he created all things. However, I don't think that we should teach that as fact. There are no facts to prove or disprove the existance of God. Then on a purely logistical sense, whose Creationism would we teach? Baptist, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu? I don't think it is possible to teach Creationism without a certain religious skew. Afterall, not all creation stories are even based on the Bible. If these things are to be taught, it should be in it's own class.

What a Dilemma.

Amen! "Intelligent Design" is not science. It should not be masqueraded as such. I personally believe that God created and organized all that is. But that is my religion not my science. If parents want intelligent design taught in their schools, then perhaps they should create a Religions of the World or Religious Theories class. There is certainly a place for creationism to be taught. But it is not in any science class.

Let's get you updated.

So I just got an e-mail from my good friend Lori-Ann. She had recently moved from here in Provo back home to Merced, California. She is doing well and already has a job. I'm envious. I want to be graduated and have a good job. She did an interesting thing with her e-mail. She gave different sections headings like: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Bureaucratic. And then wrote paragraphs under each. That is a *really* good idea. Perhaps I will use that from time to time on this blog. Thanks Lori-Ann! And good to hear from you!

And I think I'm going to start making my blog even more creative. If you've noticed I have a "Things I Am Doing" list on the right. It comes from a site called 43things.com It allows you to list things -both long and short term- that you'd like to do. In tandem with that site there is a 43places.com site where you (apparently) list places you've visited or would like to visit. And I think I'm going to add another list: My Top Ten Music List. I'll have to use all my vast html skills (HAHAHAH) to make it happen. Basically that means I'll be copying and pasting some html from elsewhere on the site.

Tonight we had our first games night in quite some time. We played Tibbits, Mafia, and Signs. It was quite fun and we had many new people and some old favorites. I was Mafia once... but they found and killed me quickly. Dang. I'm usually much better at that. Well, hopefully I'll get more practice.

For us bloggers

Here's a chuckle