The facebook news feed function can have a strangely powerful influence over the tired mind...

Facebook lurking seems to be a popular new pastime. Requesting to be friends with people you have never really met affords the creepier characters among us to seek out those of their own variety, but today I met the most charming stranger.

Looking for a brief moment of relaxation and distraction from a laborious day of playing the brother-of-the-bride role, I skimmed over what virtual social updates facebook had to offer: So and So is now friends with So and So through the such and such application… ughhh isn’t there anything interesting going on? Oh wait, that’s a weird way to spell a name… Raechel… I’ve got time to click on that. Kind of an unexciting profile pic… I guess you had to be there… not much else to see, but wait, there’s a blog! Blogs can be interesting! My own blog at one point was very interesting to me… I’ve got time to click that… what’s this?! A unique title and pretty colour scheme? Maybe I will read an entry… strange. Her writing style is very reminiscent of a close friend whom I adore. Oh no, no more time to read blogs must go back to setting up chairs and posing for pictures.

Three A.M. Time to watch that episode of Demetri Martin I have been craving all day and go to bed at a reasonable hour like a responsible adult. The website freezes. It could be a sign that I am in need of sleep and shouldn’t be watching T.V. shows on the internet in the middle of the night. Or maybe I am supposed to do something else online… oh yeah! Blogstalking! Let’s see what Raechel has to say… I’m hooked. I read a few months worth of entries. The content is interesting but more so I am captivated by the idea that women still exist in my town that are not completely insipid and can easily capture my consideration with an intelligent personality. A renewed sense of joy and appreciation for the world comes; all from reading a blog. Maybe someday I will meet a girl like this Raechel; maybe I will meet Raechel. Maybe I can call in a big favour from my friend happenstance and she will hit my car with her shopping cart. Maybe I will be a creep and friend request her on Facebook. Maybe she will be a creep and friend request me. Doubtful. Maybe I should just write about her in my blog…

Dealing with intimidation.

Many guys are intimidated by attractive women. Rarely is this the case for me. If you are a good lookin nancy and you can make me feel inadequate, congratulation! you win at the game of life! Much more often I find myself apprehensive to interact with ugly women. Why is that? It is strange I know. I want to be nice to them generally and sometimes I would even love to in someway make that swamp donkey's day. Sometimes to achieve something in life you have to be really really fake. (i.e. pass a job interview, hook up with hewitt girl #3, etc.) Good looking girls are used to guys being fake with them all day everyday... If the ugly duckling figures me out then I'm screwed. So it turns out associating with ugly girls is harder than it would seem.

Listening to good music...

inadvertently makes me smile. Often times other people will smile back. Don't they know that I smiling at my iPod and not at them!!?? That's OK because sometimes they smile back. Sometimes the person smiling back is an incredibly cute girl with black boots and brown hair and blue eyes.
PS I was on the news. here's the link: http://universe.byu.edu/node/6818
as if you will actually watch it!

im laughing on the inside.

Self deprecation has been esteemed to be a beautiful thing. Why? you ask? itemize it:
a. nine times out of ten it is funny
b. the world is full of funny things. sometimes it takes a keen eye to perceive the hilarity within. a good sense of humor to me is being able to laugh at the "teachers that make a differance" (irony is everywhere). a regular sense of humor is being able to laugh as bob saget comments on the man being hit in the crotch by a baseball hit by his 5-year old. you must learn to seek out the funny in everything, and what better place to start with than yourself. (im talking things to laugh at here, not with.) to establish a good sense of humor, you must learn to laugh at yourself when you clumsily drop your cell phone in a glass of water or when you are peeking through a door crack and someone opens it, hitting you in the face.
c. self deprecation is the victory of comedic prowess over absolute hubris or arrogance. A prophet has declared that pride is the universal sin, the great vice. If you cannot set your pride aside then you will choke on it when it occasion mandates to swallow it.
d. a laugh is to be treasured over vain pursuits. humor pastes a smile on your mind whether manifested physically or not.

It is ok to poke fun of others as long as the parties have a mutual appreciation on for the other, or if it is some drunk douchebag that deserves it or a pompous gossipy girl that had it comin. The same prophet stated that the central feature of pride is enmity - enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. I would like to think that by making fun of ourselves and each other, we can grow together as a society, tearing down each others' pride, one jabbing comment at a time. You may want to thank me for mocking your poser lifestyle or pointing out in front of everyone your dandruff, but i would say, dont mention it: you would have done the same for me. A word of caution: phrases such as "you would" or "you can say that again" or "you got that right" emphatically declared after someone makes a self-deprecating comment are about as necessary as turn signals on a space shuttle. here is why:
a. you may think by piggy-backing the joke with simple agreement you may reap the accredation of whatever cleverness the joke had in the first place. this is not the case. you are an idiot.
b. you may think that it is a great way to get a jabbing comment in at someone toward whom you feel some sort of malice. remember, we are making fun of each other here to make the world a better place. (unless they really deserve it which i highly doubt because they already made fun of themself so they dont deserve any more making-fun-of. it would be much more efficatious to be original in this case anyhow)
c. you look like a jerk and a douchebag at the same time.

so get out there everyone and make fun of yourself and then once you feel you have earned your wings, make fun of someone else. i would feel honoured to be made fun of by a worthy opponent. and if people ever get intricate in their mockeries, always remember, parody is the highest form of flattery. good day.

The Futurist Manifesto that changed my life.

1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.
2. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry.
3. Up to now literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggressive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap.
4. We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5. We want to hymn the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the Earth, along the circle of its orbit.
6. The poet must spend himself with ardor, splendor, and generosity, to swell the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
7. Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man.
8. We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!... Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.
9. We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.
10. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.
11. We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

Singles wards are the same no matter how far north you go.

12:07 PM - This stake centre has an extra-special layout conducive to young single adult interaction. For some, this is an excellent stage to gather material from gems to relate to those special someones that live in another state yet share the same appreciation for the things that make life fulfilling. The chapel has only only set of doors at the rear. There is a large waiting area lined with a greater-than-usual amount of couches. Big windows and lots of leisurely churchgoers make me feel like I am in a showroom for the single people putting themselves on the market. Not wanting to make the architect's effort in vain, I decided that It is my duty to talk to someone. The form-fitting purple skirt with hair that appears to be washed with clorox? naw. The very snug light blue blouse with long rampant brunnette curls that appear to have been prepared with a deep fryer?? meh. The specimen hiding behing the door that weighs in at 300 lbs and has a vibrant purple cast on her wrist? Yes please.
"oh hey, I like your cast" i throw in a flirtateous smile as I draw nearer in a swift gliding fashion.
"Thank You!" she can barely disguise her excitment.
I point to my velcro wrist brace, "I had a purple one too but they took it off." Lie. I followed this lie with an even better lie. Drawing upon my keen sense of deduction (it was winter in canada) I inquire, "OMG did you slip on the ice outside on the stairs too?"
"oh my gosh yeah! its so nasty i fell so hard!"
I went ahead and feigned some empathy for her but really was feigning sympathy. My counterpart in the conversation then got too excited too fast, so i graciously yet promptly excused myself from the showroom.

Music...

Some of my favorite music has varying time signature and "unintelligible" vocal delivery.