HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

I was doing my Christmas Shopping yesterday (December 24) and while at Deseret Book, I made an interesting discovery. Why are these books for sale at Dessert Book? Because Normons (I guess that's the nickname for members of the LSD church) obviously worship the devil. In fact, didn't the Book of the Mormons have a Golden Compass in it? Jonas Smith (being a prophet) must have looked into the future and watched this movie. Then changed the name of the Golden Compass to the Liahona and wrote a book about it.

Sorry if anyone was offended by that last paragraph, I think anyone who has served a mission has heard people come up with stuff more ludicrous than this on a daily basis. One of my buddies who served in Chicago told me about how he knocked on a lady's door, and she told him of how she "had a friend" who was in the Salt Lake Temple when she saw one of the spirits that apparently wander around freely inside. She was so scared she jumped out one of the windows but wasn't hurt because she landed in the Salty Lake.


right.

Where Did Everybody Go?

For some reason everyone left town at the same time besides Ford, Tom, and me. Inevitable boredom has followed.
Here are a few things we've done so far:
Taco Bell - Eat food, heavy metal
Wal-Mart - Obtain dog food dish to poison Bernii (our neighbor's gay dog)
K-Mart - Purchased women's pajamas; started a choir featuring dozens of creepy singing stuffed aminals singing three different songs, none were in unison.
Thigh Food Home: Registered for online dating sites. Not to find love, but wholesome entertainment. I entered all my information but used a picture of Tom dressed up as a clown. (He looked creepily similar to that Bubbles guy who always shows up at birthday parties)
I also added a picture of myself and registered user names such as Steely Maverick, Maverick 6, and Patrick Fly.
Surprisingly, I've gotten a lot of response. Many females winking at me, inviting me to chat, etc. Some of them are just plain scary, but some of them are attractive and seem normal. Apparently I can wink back at them for free, so this may go on for some time, because they have a financial pitfall in place if you try to give them any information besides "I like to wink with you."
These little boxes pop up that say stuff like "take the next step! email (or chat with) her now for free!" I click on the link and the first thing it asks for is my credit card number, which for some reason I can't receive my free 3 Day Trial without giving to them. I guess they just keep it on file so if I fail to cancel by calling 3 separate 1-800 numbers during specified hours during my trial, they can immediately begin charging me $50/month due before using the service that month.
I might do it, I can always sue them for false advertising and get it back. The only reason I joined was because they said this girl ------------>
wants to talk to me, and I haven't seen or heard from her yet.
Then I had the realization that the girls I interact with won't know if they're dealing with me, or Tom in clown form. I don't want to disappoint anyone, but if I had the choice between dating Tom or myself, I pick Tom. I came up with a few good reasons why.
First, throw out the physical attraction factor which is usually so important in dating because I'm not into guys. This would be one of those relationships where we go out all the time, but don't ever touch each other. Kinda like in middle school, except without the notes.
Now the reason I would rather date Tom than myself is that I think I'd get lonely dating myself. I can keep myself entertained for a long time by watching movies, reading books, singing loud and out of key to the music I have turned up way to high so I can still hear it when I leave the room, talking to myself, solving world hunger, designing a playoff system to replace the BCS, etc. But eventually I'm going to want to go out to eat, and I don't really enjoy going to restaurants by myself. Also, Tom has 3 cars and an I-phone.
Please leave your thoughts, not on whether you'd rather date Tom or me, but on whether you'd date yourself or a friend. Also if you have any ideas of things Tom, Ford and I could do between now and whenever Rexburg becomes populated again, we'd greatly appreciate it.

The Ugly Place I've Often Called Home

For those who have never strayed from the I-15 or the stretch of Highway 20 between Rexburg and Idaho Falls, here is what you are missing.

There is a simple hike less than an hour's drive away from Rexburg where you can watch the sunrise over the Tetons. I've been wanting to experience this for years, but haven't found anyone who wants to do it with me yet.





Drive 25 miles from Rexburg in any direction besides due South to Idaho Falls and there is a good chance you will see something pretty. Drive farther and you may find something
breathtaking.








Why is this picture not as good as the other ones? Because I took it. I don't claim to be a photographer or have a nice camera.
I'm also sorry I don't have a better layout. The placement of text and images on Blogger isn't as simple as InDesign or even Microsoft Word.

Jim's Shorts

I was thinking today about gym shorts. They are named after the location they are designed for. I guess sometimes they can be called basketball shorts. For people who only shoot hoops and don't use shorts for racquetball, dodge ball, floor hockey, or just running and stuff like that, basketball shorts can be an accurate description.
But let's be honest, I haven't been to the gym for at least 5 or 6 months. Yet I still wear this article of clothing to bed every night. (excluding those occasions when I pass out on someone's couch during a movie) If I were to make a rough estimate, I would say about 95% of my friends (especially those of the male persuasion) wear them to bed AT LEAST twice as much as they wear them to the gym. So shouldn't we start referring to them as bed shorts?

Wayne's Wild World of College Football

I'm planning on sending a proposal to President Obama that includes adding me to his cabinet as Secretary of Sports and Recreation. Then I will just meet with the Commander-in-Chief briefly each week to make sure we have the same agenda, and he can focus on foreign relations and fixing the economy blah blah blah.

My idea is to have a 16 teams qualify for the playoffs. The champion of each of the 11 conferences gets an automatic bid, as well as the 5 highest seeded teams in the BCS that did not win their respective conference.

Seeding would be determined by end of season BCS rankings. The conference winners not ranked in the top 16 of the BCS would take the lowest seeds. Teams would be divided into 2 eight-team brackets.

Assuming the higher ranked teams win their championship games this week, and the losers of those games don't drop in the rankings, the brackets would look like this, with the higher seeded team playing on their home field:
Left side of Bracket:

#1 Alabama (SEC) vs. #16 Troy (Sun Belt)

#8 Penn State (Big 10) vs. #9 Boise State (WAC)

#4 Florida (At Large) vs. #13 Cincinnati (Big East)

#5 USC (Pac-10) vs. #12 Ball State (MAC)

Right side of bracket:

#2 Oklahoma (Big 12) vs. #15 Tulsa (Conf. USA)

#7 Texas Tech (At Large) vs. #10Ohio State (At Large)

#3 Texas (At Large) vs. #14 Boston College (ACC)

#6 Utah (Mountain West)vs. #11 TCU (At Large)

The only team with 2 losses or less that would be left out of the playoffs would be BYU, and they along with some 3 loss teams like Oklahoma State, Georgia, Oregon and Georgia Tech, may feel screwed when teams like Troy and Tulsa get in.

However, this is what makes every single regular season game important. If you lose more than 1 game in your conference, you know you're running the risk of not making the playoffs. If you can't finish in the top 2 or 3 of your conference, maybe you should consider moving to the SunBelt or Conference USA.

It's much better than the situation now where Texas feels they are getting screwed out of the national championship and Texas Tech and Boise are likely to be screwed out of BCS games altogether as they watch Cincinati, Ohio State, and BC or VTech play in the big money bowls.

This format also rewards the conferences with the better teams for the year instead of "honoring tradition" as the Big 12 gets 3 teams in. The Mountain West also gets 2 teams in while the Big East, Pac-10, and ACC only get 1 each this year. This way the little guy can't complain as much about getting screwed, and the big boys only have to worry about winning. Assuming the higher seeds win, the next round of my playoff format would look like this:
#1 Alabama vs. #8 Penn State (Holiday Bowl)

#4 Florida vs. #5 USC(Sugar Bowl)

#2 Oklahoma vs. #7 Texas Tech(Cotton Bowl)

#3 Texas vs. #6 Utah(Rose Bowl)

I'm sure there would be some upsets along the way, but for simplicity's sake, we're going to assume the higher seeds win every game again to help visualize the next round.
#1 Alabama vs. #4 Florida (Fiesta Bowl)

#2 Oklahoma vs. #3 Texas(Orange Bowl)

The National Championship game would rotate every year like it does now between the sites of the 4 major bowls. The Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl would alternate every other year with the Fiesta and Orange Bowls between being semi-final and quarter-final games.The other bowl games I just randomly plugged in, but a system could be organized to rotate those games as well.

The 24 other bowls not included in the playoffs could still be held. There will still be 11 of the BCS top 25 available for these games and there should easily be another 37 unranked teams throughout the nation that have winning records. The quality of the matchups and the viewership of these bowls won't change much as they will all be aired between December 23 and January 1 while the 1st 2 rounds of the playoffs are taking place and people are off from school and work and watching 3 or 4 games a day.

In order to prevent the student athletes from being overloaded, the teams in conferences without championship games will only be allowed to play 11 games. (Instead of the 12 most of them are currently playing) Pac-10, Big East, Moutain West, WAC, etc, would be able to play every team in their conference but would just have 1 less non-conference game.

The teams that have conference championship games would be limited to 10 season games plus the conference championship for the 2 teams that qualify. The Big 12, SEC, ACC, etc, would still be able to play all 5 teams in their division. They could also play half (3) the teams in the other division of their conference(alternating each year) and still get 2 non-conference games each year.This way there are only 2 schools in the entire country whose teams play the maximum 15 games over the course of the year. It's not a flawless system yet, but it's close.