A strange memory of times past.

I still owe all you readers a worthwhile post, but it has yet to arrive.  The thoughts are in my head.  I just need to assemble them into something that makes sense.  

Anyway, I had a funny/quaint experience tonight.  I was speaking some Portuguese to myself, something I ought to do more often, and for some reason my train of thought led me to say, "...jeito de palhaco," which means "the manner of a clown" more or less.  I'm not sure now why I said it, but I'm sure it was a well-deserved self-deprecation.  Saying it took me back to a night in early summer of 2005.  I was nearing the end of my two-year mission in Brazil.  At the time I was in the city of Jose Bonifacio.  At the end of another long day, I decided that I would order a pizza for my companion and me to eat.  I went to one of the public phones, put in my phone card, and dialed one of the city's pizzerias that delivered.  I made my order, and everything was going smoothly until I told the person on the other end of the phone our address.  

"There is no such address," he told me.

"Yes, there is," I replied.  "I live there."

"No, there isn't.  I know."

"I'd think that I would know.  I live there."  We were both getting upset.  I could hear it in his voice as he ended our conversation.  

"That's not an address, you clown."

He hung up on me, and I could only look at my companion incredulously.  I could not believe what had just happened, and I was kind of upset.  I really wanted that pizza.  We laughed about it amongst ourselves as we walked to our apartment.  I think we ended up getting burgers from a little burger place on the corner of our street.  

I laughed when I remembered this experience.  I hadn't thought about it for a very long time, and it was a nice little moment during my rather pedestrian evening.

Status

I am alive.  I know I haven't posted for awhile and maybe some of you were afraid that I had ceased to be, but I just want everyone to be assured that I am, indeed, alive and well.  

5 Things That Have Taken Time Away From Blogging:

• I have been working on another short film, the first of a planned trilogy, and most of my "free" time has gone toward that in some way.
• I've been playing Goldeneye on the old-school Nintendo 64 with some friends.  This game was a big part of my adolescence, and reliving the 4-player madness has been amazing.
• My new found love for Sammy's, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint in downtown Provo.  I knew it was true love after my second visit.
• March Madness.  Need I say more?
• A slight increase in socialization.

I promise that I will try harder in the near future to keep this blog moving forward.  Though I'm not the only trapped in this famine of new blog posts.  Pretty much everyone on my Google Reader list, with a very few exceptions, hasn't been posting lately.  I hope that changes soon.

I Can't Believe It's Not--- Aaahhhhh!

I was chatting it up on Facebook tonight, talking with a friend about genetically engineered beasts and romance novels, you know, the usual stuff, and I wrote something that I found pretty funny.

"Birds don't respect Fabio."

It's an obvious allusion to his famous get-smacked-by-a-bird-on-a-roller coaster incident, but the line itself made me think of a song that's yet to be written or perhaps an album title.  Anyway, I felt like it was worth immortalizing on the internet.

Another brick for the Bricks.

As I was shaving my two-week old beard to comply with the BYU Honor Code, I decided to leave my mustache.  I thought that rocking a 'stache might help my lowly basketball team win another game.  

Turns out I was wrong.  

We played our final regular season game last night, and it ended similar to every game besides our first, which we actually won.  I didn't play horribly last night, but I only ended up with 3 points.  Though I didn't score, I did other things and should have had a better stat line, but most everyone else on the team was also a bit off.  I'd be more upset, I suppose, but we are clearly not a middle division team.  We ought to face better competition, better as in more suited to our skill level, in the tournament.

One thing is for sure:  I must destroy the 'stache.

Manly Men Only - a tribute to Presidents' Day

I like holidays. With the exception of Valentine's Day, I think any holiday is a good holiday --- especially one that gets me out of work. With that in mind, it's easy to see why I would love Presidents' Day. And I loved this last Presidents' Day. I got a Monday, easily the worst work day of the week, off with pay, and I was free to have fun with friends.

Back in September, a group of us decided to do something extra awesome for Labor Day. We ended up seeing who could buy the best outfit for $10 at Savers (a thrift store that happened to be having a 1/2 off sale that day). Later we all dressed up in our awesome clothes and decided to throw a Labor Day parade. Suffice it to say that it was supremely awesome and will long be remembered. I'll blog about it sometime soon, I promise. A sort of retroactive look at some of my favorite moments in 2008.

Anyway, Savers was having a similar 1/2 off sale on Presidents' Day. I ended up going shopping with my boys Jared and Joel. Jared and I were hoping to find awesome briefcases (just because), but he found the only one. I took care of my predicament by finding an awesome brown faux alligator skin briefcase on Ebay --- it's sweet. Anyway, we bought a bunch of stuff: some awesome clothes, pictures to decorate our apartments, and other miscellaneous stuff like a lunch pail. We stopped at a 7-11 to get slurpees because it just felt like the right thing to do to celebrate the beautiful weather we were enjoying.

As we were driving back to Sparks, I blurted out, "I want to make a movie." That was that. We got back to our apartments, put on some sweet threads, and got to work making a movie. We started with a very, very loose plot based around Jared's briefcase. With that seed of an idea planted in our brains, we started filming with my digital camera, the only camera we could find spontaneously. The quality isn't great, and it's pretty obvious that we were winging it, but after a week's worth of editing, I managed to put together a decent little film.

We premiered it just over a week ago to a group of friends and associates from around the way, and the film was successful. People laughed quite a bit, and that was enough for me. We didn't make any high art. It's pretty basic stuff, but what else would one expect from a spontaneous gesture on Presidents' Day?

I've since uploaded the video to Youtube, but I haven't done anything with it yet. I decided tonight to make it available to my faithful blog readers before I whore it out on Facebook. I hope you enjoy it, and if you really enjoy it enough to post a comment full of praise, feel free to do so. I suppose you could comment and tell me how stupid it is, but I've probably already thought whatever negative criticism you might bring up. So unless you've got something really original, you should probably just keep it to yourself. Anyway, enjoy. Here it is:

True Blue

This will not be the so-called substantial blog that I have long promised.  No, that post is still stewing in my brain.  It will likely require some more stewing before I can make sense of it and share it with you all.  Also, I haven't had time for serious writing.  I've been somewhat busy.

Friday afternoon my former roommate Jeff spoke with me about the possibility of camping out for the BYU-Utah basketball game.  People had first started camping out as early as Tuesday this past week, and getting decent seats for the game Saturday was a concern for both of us.  I had planned on just arriving early Saturday morning, possibly creating a rotating shift system with Jeff, Whitney, and Paige, as well as whoever else would want to watch the game with us, but it became apparent to us that just showing up on Saturday might make getting good seats difficult.  Jeff told me that he was going to head over Friday afternoon and set up a tent, and he invited me to join him.  Since I really didn't have anything else to do, I accepted Jeff's invitation.

Jeff ended up pitching his tent near the southwest corner of the Marriot Center.  Tents stretched from the northwest doors, which would be the first opened Saturday afternoon, all the way across the bridge and around to where we found ourselves.  By the end of the night, tents would nearly extend to the southeast doors.  It was astounding and awesome.

I arrived at 8:30 with my gear and some foodstuffs to tide us over; I would have arrived earlier (I did bring Jeff some Arbys for his troubles earlier that evening), but I was forced to do my job for cleaning checks so I wouldn't have to wake up early and go home to clean Saturday morning.  It was definitely a cold night, colder than most that week, but I was just fine with a couple layers of clothing.  Jeff and I sat around and talked for awhile; we were joined by his wife Amy and later by our friend Whitney.  Jeff, Whitney, and I ended up watching the hilariously terrible film Troll 2, and, all in all, it was an enjoyable evening.  

After the movie, around 1 a.m., Jeff and I both felt it was time to try and get some sleep.  I climbed into my sleeping bag, pulled a couple blankets on top of me, and did my best to fall asleep amidst our noisy neighbors.  There was something like a dance party going on not too far from us; then in one tent next to us someone was playing NCAA football on an XBox with the volume up too loud, and then in the tent on the opposite side of us they were watchingArrested Development, one of my favorite episodes even.  People were being loud all around.  I'm not sure exactly when, but I fell asleep at some point.  Then I was awoken by someone who didn't care how loudly he was speaking.  I guess I got a couple hours of sleep, but I can't say how many.  I was warm and stayed in my sleeping bag for a little while, but eventually Jeff and I both got up.

Then all we had to do was wait.  We snacked on the food I had brought, packed up our stuff, and took down the tent.  Whitney rejoined us, and I was able to head to my apartment where I took a shower and tried to recruit others to watch the game with us.  I failed.  I grabbed two pizzas from Little Caesars and rejoined my compadres in line.  All the while more and more people were arriving and getting in the line which had nearly circled the entire Marriot Center.  Something about camping out for the game had increased my excitement for the game.  Not only that, but it was the first BYU-Utah basketball game I could remember in a long time that had such implications regarding the conference championship and postseason play.  

They opened the doors at 1:30, and the Cougar faithful filed into the Marriot Center.  It didn't take long for the student section to fill up.  We ended up with seats about two-thirds up the lower bowl, right at mid court.  We had a perfect view of the court, and I was pleased with our seats.  All that was left was for BYU to overcome the Utes; then all would be well.

For those who don't follow BYU basketball, it was a close, hard fought game.  BYU shot poorly in the first half, but was only down by two points at half.  The second half, however, was a different beast.  Our defense completely shut down the Utes' offense.  Luke "Beaker" Neville finished with just 9 points and got completely outplayed.  Lee Cummard's block of Neville just might be the play of the year; it was insane.  Jimmer Fredette continued his domination and finished with 25 points.  In the end, BYU beat Utah 63-50.  At the end of the game, I felt like I do after an intense football game.  My throat was hoarse from too much yelling, but I was elated with the victory and ready to camp out all over again.  For a BYU sports lover like myself, it was all I could ask for.  I've read numerous news articles about the game, and every time the raucous crowd is mentioned, I am proud to have been played a part.  I credit the crowd with causing at least one Ute turnover, when Neville held on to the ball too long and got hit with a shot-clock violation because he couldn't hear anything and had no idea how much time he had.  I couldn't even hear the ref's whistle; people just stopped playing and I had to catch the ref signaling the violation to know what was going on.  It was very, very loud in there all game long.

Oh yeah, Jeff flashing the Ute hand sign thing to a couple Ute fans as we drove away was priceless.

Jeff standing in front of the tent.

The line of tents behind us.

Just some of the tents ahead of us.