Judgement Day

For those who were expecting my review of the Arnold Schwarzeneggeagoinerg critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller I am sorry to disappoint.  This post is about The End of the World!

Does anyone know what time RAPTURE starts?  There are a few things that I know I shouldn't have put off until the last minute.  Graduate school is not one of those things.  Turns out if I select "Dr." instead of "Mr." from the drop down menus on online forms, that becomes my official title.  Why would I ever do a thesis if I can get the same rewards with one click of a mouse?

Here are a few things I need to do:

1. Get a T.V. and some books.  Yes we have a television in the living room, but what if it is all radioactive out there?  I don't want to leave my room if it gets me infected.  Also I should bring food storage in here in case zombies end up in the kitchen, I've never trusted that kitchen.
2. Own more guns, and dogs.
3. Learn science.  I'm sorry world, but it is going to be a while if I have to re-invent electricity, telephones, cars, airplanes, bubble wrap, etc.
4. Steal Ford Erickson's megaphone.  He's the only person I know who has one.  Also I am not one of those people who can whistle really loud, or at all.  I can't whistle. I would be embarrassed to say something about it, but most of you will be dead? (right? what happens on judgement day any way?) before reading this.  So who cares?
5. LOVE YOU MAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and dad, sisters, bros, besties, etc, etc)
6. Write a will for my children . . . have children . . . have a mother for my children . . . get married . . . get a girlfriend . . . ok, I'm too far behind for number six to have any value or purpose
7. . . . OH! a boat.  Definitely I will need a boat, and a non-radioactive zombie companion who is good at manning the docks while I bark orders from the captain's quarters.

Ok, this is becoming frivolous and unproductive.  Why am I blogging at 7 pm on Friday night?  Here's the deal, if the world ends tomorrow I have 80 hours of unused paid vacation days that I'll take to the grave with me.  Lame. 

HOWEVER.  Let's just say by some miracle I survive and there are enough people around for me to keep my job and benefits.  I need to use these hours by August 31.  That's time to take two separate nine-day vacations if I use five days between weekends.  (If you don't understand the math on that, just trust me) 

Here's the thing.  I may be buying a home for the first time in my life in a couple of weeks, so I don't have money to backpack through Spain and exotic stuff like that until after I get my new vacation time on September 1.  So people, I need you to invite me on trips. 

"But I'm not going anywhere besides home this summer . . ." Great! It's about time I met the parents, we might as well get it out of the way now in case I marry you or one of your siblings or one of my kids and one of your nephews or whatever.  Ok, so I'm not entirely desperate for people to plan my getaways.  I am going to spend some of that time seeing my family, but they have jobs.  This means I'm not going to go spend 16 days in Rexburg because after three or four they're back to living their normal lives and there is nothing left for me to do. What I'm asking is if any of you are looking for a road trip companion to somewhere I have not been often, make me an offer.  I am an engaging and fun fun fun (yes three times) person to travel with and I love seeing nooks and crannies of this world that I have not known previously.

XOXO,
kwyNh

PS - R.E.M. could have made a better video for such a relevant song

In Defense of Rebecca Black

Friday really is not that terrible of a song.  I mean it is, but ask yourself honestly, is it really any more mindless than any other pop music that has been crammed down our throats lately? Rebecca Black, to her credit, has already mastered the trend of leaving out unnecessary words like "are" from her songs (we so excited, we so excited), so she must be on her way to stardom.

I try to listen to the radio here in Arizona every once in a while to help me be a well rounded person.  A person who is at least a little bit aware of what is happening in pop culture.  The harder I try, the harder it gets.  Lately, it's been terrible.

We have a few stations in the Grand Canyon State that are dedicated to "jams."  I used to think "jams" meant modern rap, hip-hop, and r&b type stuff.
 
As it turns out, "jams," - as defined in 2011 in the Valley of the Sun - means Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Rihanna and maybe a little Bruno Mars or Enrique Iglesias thrown in here and there.  That's it.  I'm serious. 

I can guarantee you that if I were to hop in my car RIGHT NOW and toggle back and forth between the two or three "jams" stations on a 30 minute drive, I could tell you exactly which songs I would hear:
born this way;
kiss me, k-k-kiss me, alien something, something or another 
sticks and stones may break my bones but something something, something excite me
this place about to blow oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh

Not only would I hear each of the songs that these lyrics belong to, I would put money down that I would hear them all at least twice.  With the only change up being a blast to the past hearing "deee jay turn it uh uh uh uh up, deee jay turn it uh uh uh uh up."

Now I promise I'm not just being sexist. Men are just as capable of creating bad music as women. Nickelback is turble (that's terrible, in Barkley speak), and I am convinced that "The Reason" by Hoobastank is easily the most overrated and redundant love song ever.  I also appreciate the female influence groups like The Fugees and Arcade Fire (as seen in picture below . . . ok, Arcade Fire is not in the picture below, but it's me at Arcade Fire, with John, Phil and hair on my upper lip)

That being said, here's my rant: 

Ke$ha, I've seen you live (on T.V.) and I can tell you that Quinn Patrick Merrill trying to sing Michael Jackson on karaoke night is more on pitch than you are.  Also, your songs have gotten progressively worse since "tic-toc."  Same thing applies to Rihanna and "umbrella." (ella, ella, eh, eh, eh)

Lady Gaga, you've done a great job at being the next Madonna and I mean that as a compliment.  Britney and Christina tried to do it and you've made their attempts seem silly and weak.  It helps that you're far enough away from the 80's and 90's that most teenagers don't really know who Madonna is anyway.  You are probably the most talented of today's recently emerged pop divas.  Now despite your commendable hard work, the novelty has worn off a little with this last song.  Please come up with something better than "born this way" and just accept that whether you meant for it to or not, it sounds strangely similar to a song written years ago by the woman you emulate.

Katy Perry you are the most desirable out of all the aforementioned group, but you're ludicrously overplayed.  So much that I really can't take listening to you most of the time.  It pains me to say this, but I wouldn't mind seeing you disappear for a little while.

So what makes Rebecca Black more bearable than these pop stars? Let me break it down:
She's not on the radio, just YouTube.  You have to actually seek her out instead of having her thrown at you all the time.
She looks pretty good when she wakes up and rolls out of bed in the morning (judging from her video)
I saw her sing acapella and she does ok without the help of synthesizers.
My one year old niece dances to "Friday" and it may be one the most adorable and funny things I have ever seen.

So you go, Rebecca Black.  Live out your dreams.  Sing a duet with Justin Bieber.  You're song is not well-written or intelligent in anyway, but it's not the worst song ever.  It's not even the worst song of 2011.

Side note: I fell asleep at my computer once while typing this post, and once in the middle of holding the backspace key to get rid of the three pages of ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd I had typed while sleeping the first time.

Them Cows Ain't Gonna Milk Themselves

Last Saturday I volunteered to work on the church welfare farm.  I had my overalls and straw hat on and was up by 4:15 a.m. ready to gather eggs, milk the cows and feed the pigs.  When I got to the farm they handed me a hoe and sent me off to clear out weeds along the irrigation canal.  It was a minor letdown but still a good experience overall.

When I got home I took one of the greatest naps ever.  Seriously, Saturday's nap was the Morgan Freeman of naps, silky smooth and refreshing.  Then I woke up and took a shower.

Like all good men I do my best thinking in the shower.  While my thoughts often drift to the idea that I feel like I am living far beneath my potential in my cubicle, I'm not going to spew those ideas all over this blog right now.  Another thought I had is that I don't understand why some people call me blond.

Now I know that no one is going to mistake me for a latino any time soon, but when I hear the word blond I expect to see more white/yellow like . . . (pause as I try to think of someone famous whose hair really is blond and not just bleached) . . . Reese Witherspoon? Maybe?  Eh, . . . anyway, it's no big deal, just a perception thing.  I actually had someone ask me a couple of weeks ago if I'm the only red head in my family . . . made me think blond isn't as much of a stretch anymore. 

Will Smith Just Killed Osama Bin Laden!

I know what you all are thinking.  That's what you get for taking your sweet time Chuck Norris.

In all seriousness though, I am supremely grateful for our troops and the sacrifices they make.

In other news:  I am fat.  On purpose.  Look at that belly!

What's going on is that we have a biggest loser competition at work as a friendly way to encourage people to live healthier.  By medical definition I am not considered overweight, but I would like to be healthier and I figure I will be more motivated to eat right and exercise if there is money involved.

I paid the $30 and bought in, so did 18 other people.  This means that whoever loses the highest percentage of their weight from March to April gets $90.  Same thing goes from April to May and May to June.  Then in July, whoever has lost the greatest overall percentage since April GETS PAID 180 BONES and whoever comes in 2nd gets $90.  

Again I do not consider myself overweight but I do know that I can pack on 10 pounds with one Thanksgiving dinner and lose half of it by the time I wake up the next morning.  Since I weigh less than 200 lbs, a 10 pound weight loss is a lot bigger percentage of my weight than for the guys who weigh over 300.

So I ate a huge lunch at YC's Mongolian Grill the day of the first weigh in.  You know, one of those places where you pay for your bowl and then they let you pile in the food until it touches the ceiling and then they cook it in front of you.  

I've been there a couple of times, and I usually get a to go box and eat heat up the leftovers for my next three meals.  Not this time.  I pounded the whole thing and then drank a million glasses of water.  Not to mention that the night before I had eaten a big Arizona burrito at Filiberto's around midnight, only after I had consumed 2/3 of a jar of pickles (something about sodium helping you retain water blah blah blah).  I also had a decent breakfast that morning. 

The bulking up worked as I weighed in 168.  Not bad for a guy who is barely 5ft 9 and couldn't ever get up over 155lbs in high school regardless of how much I benched and how many cheeseburgers I threw down.

By the next morning I was 163, giving me a five pound loss in one day.  We had an unofficial weigh in at the midway point and I was 161 (I didn't eat breakfast that morning, but I also hadn't really exercised at all in the two weeks since the first weigh in).  I was ranked 3rd place in the office with about a 4.5% weight loss.  

Then I went to San Francisco, otherwise known as the land of 10 million delicious bakeries.  Then I went to Thatcher, and Idaho, then Mexico, and everywhere I went people cooked up delicious food for me.

The day of the first official weigh in I realized I didn't have a chance any more.  So I went and ate lunch at the Brazilian Bull, a churrascaria where servers constantly drop by with big swords full of meat and cut it right onto your plate until you tell them to stop.  I didn't tell them to stop until I had consumed ludicrous amounts of ham, top sirloin, prime rib, chicken, sausage, etc. and then topped it all off with another 7,000 glasses of water and a delectable mousse de maracuja (passion fruit) dessert.

The result?  I weighed in at 171 after lunch (HOLLER!).  The next morning I checked myself on the same scale when no one was looking and was down to 165 already, and I even had eaten breakfast that day.  

The moral of the story?  I've never lost a weight loss competition in a month when Osama Bin Laden has died.  Jus sayin

Oh p.s. . . . for those who don't understand the purpose of the dried fruit picture on my last post . . . I put it up there because it is gross