Day 3. What were your top 3 favorite movies growing up?

So we didn't really watch TV when I was little, nor a lot of movies. So I guess this post is easier because there aren't a lot of options to choose from.

We'll start with the #3 favorite movie and then work to the top.

3. I think I'd have to put Mulan here. Not necessarily because it was my brother's and my favorite per se. But it was probably the movie we watched the most. See, my dad would buy us whatever kids movie was big at the time, and we'd watch it with him, and then when we went back to our mom's we'd bring it with us. But when Mulan came out, he really loved it. He loved it so much that he wouldn't let us take it back to our mom's with us. So it became the one kids movie that he owned. And since both of us were too young to drive or go out on our own, and we didn't have any games or toys at our dad's house, watching movies was all we had to do all day while dad was at work. Which meant that when we went to visit him, if we didn't make it to the video store early on in the trip, all we had to watch was Mulan. Over and over and over again. Luckily, we both really liked Mulan. To this day I think Dan and I can probably quote 78% of the movie word for word. Below was our absolute favorite part. Start at 2:57.

2. I'm gonna say this one is The Brave Little Toaster. My mom gave me a copy of The Brave Little Toaster a year or two back for Christmas and my brother and I watched it again. We were left with the conviction that Blankie is literally the most annoying character that has ever been, Lamp and Radio are by far the best characters in the movie, and whoever thought of a movie about a little boy's household appliances Incredible Journeying it back to him was definitely high on crack. Also, as with all our movies that weren't bought for us by our father, this one was a recording off TV by someone who was...over-zealous in their determination to skip commercials, and with an incredibly short attention span. So about 20% of the movie was cut out around the commercials, and then they just stopped recording when the appliances hit the city. Or maybe they were just doing some judicious editing, because when my brother and I watched the DVD we were suddenly seeing all these scenes we'd never seen before, including a horrifying dream sequence and a terrible pre-Toy-Story-3 junk yard scene ending that were legit disturbing. Seriously, watch this and tell me this was not made by a bunch of people out of their minds on cocaine

1. The number 1 movie is  by far.....Mickey and the Beanstalk. Also recorded off TV, but with a lot less [accidental] editing, this is hands down both my brother's and my favorite movie of our childhood. We still quote it constantly. And unlike The Brave Little Toaster, this movie holds up into adulthood. I literally just rewatched it a few weeks ago because I still love it. Apparently there were two versions of the movie, with two different framing devices. I never saw it, but I guess there's a version where you have live action people on a picnic or something, telling the story of Mickey rescuing the magic harp through the use of puppets which then turn into the cartoon? It is terrible, or so I've been told. On the other hand, the One True Version, which is the one we grew up watching, is all animation; Ludwig Von Drake (Scrooge McDuck's brother I believe because that's how accents and names work in families) telling the story to his best friend, Herman the Cricket (no relation to Jiminy). Professor Von Drake is explaining to Herman how fairy tales are expressions of the unconscious and attempts to explain unusual phenomena, hence the existence of magic. Herman insists that he believes all the stories actually happened exactly as they are told, including the magic. Herman is, of course, proved right at the end when Willy the Giant himself shows up, lifting the roof off Ludwig's home. Ludwig has a mental breakdown. Seriously, if you've never seen this movie, you should watch it. It is delightful. And the scene of the vine growing up to Willy's castle in the sky while Mickey, Donald, and Goofy sleep, remains one of my favorite animation sequences of all time. But the whole thing is amazing. I offer you this clip:

Seriously. every line is quotable. "If it was one man and three beans...but one bean, AND THREE MEN! Anyway, what a nice thing there are no bones in it!"

Thoughts on a night out...

Did you listen to that song?  If not, please stop reading for a second, scroll back up, and click play.  Then you may continue reading.

Tonight I attended the Punch Brother's show in Park City.  The song you should now be listening to was the song with which they opened their set and it was, if you can believe it, even better in person than that recording.

I was able to attend because of the truly magnificent generosity of my dear Matt, who decided that I needed to experience Punch Brothers live and so bought me a ticket as a birthday gift (somewhat prematurely, as my birthday is not till September).

Technically he bought me two tickets, though I intend to repay him for the second.  The goal was for me to bring someone to the show with me.  Unfortunately, it turns out that none of my friends love me enough to come see a band in Park City that most of them have never heard of, which hurt to discover, btw you guys (or, in the case of a few, they HAD heard of the band, they just had lame excuses like poverty or hanging out with their wife's sister who was in town for a short while).

As such, I ended up attending alone.  Which was fine except for the part where all of my witty conversation and observations were wasted with no one to hear and inevitably appreciate them. Which is why I'm sharing them with you all now.

So, without further ado, here is a small selection of the conversations I WOULD have had tonight, had I had anyone to have them with....

....wow...it turns out I did not need to leave nearly so early to get up here.  How shall I pass the hour and 45 minutes until the show starts?  Staring at nothing?  Sounds good....

....these people in front of me literally just pulled out 5 bottles of wine...

....This opening act is so boring that I'm daydreaming about getting a blood clot in my leg from this chair so I can leave to go take care of it...

....HOLY COW I LITERALLY CANNOT HANDLE WHAT AMAZING MUSICIANS THESE MEN ARE!!!....

mostly a picture of the drunk people in front of me, but also of the band all tiny at the front

....dude seriously, this song is so great....

....Chris Thile!  So nerdy!  So adorable!  Might very possibly be the most awkward dancer in the entire world.  Half the time he dances like Scott Pilgrim, the other half like he just needs to pee reeeeeally bad.  He is an even more awkward dancer than Chris Martin....

....Dear Utah, please stop being so tacky and leaving 10-40 minutes early so you can "beat the traffic"....

....And THAT is how you play a bass solo!....

....My mind is still being blown by these guys.  Totes 100% worth it!....

....WHAAAA????  Is he seriously busting out his Bach right now?!  From memory of course.  And this huge crowd of drunk people is actually digging it?  Aw yissssss....


....they drank all five bottles of wine, one bottle per person.  How are they getting home?....

....SHIRT!....

....Oh crap.  I may never get home.  I am 1000% lost on this mountain.  I will die here.  I wonder if anyone besides my mom will miss me.  Oh, this is the road I'm supposed to be on.  Ok, we're good....

....Dear Heber McDonald's:  You might have very fancy bathrooms and a confusing layout, but you gave me diet Dr. Pepper (so nasty) and onions on my hamburger.  We are not friends.....

....Who knew driving Heber canyon at night would be so fun!  I should maybe slow down?  I'll probably definitely get a ticket if a cop sees me.  And animals?  But...Gypsy Kings are singing "I Did It My Way" in Spanish and my speeds remain marginally safe and if I do crash at least there's no one else in the car to die with me! WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prompt 13: My Favorite Musician and Why

This is pretty much of the worst genre of question.  "Your favorite" questions are evil because how many people are there out there who are so resolved and passionate and sure that they have one single favorite anything?  So I refuse.  And this is my blog, so I can do whatever I want.  So I'll give you a selection of artists that I like

I'll begin with the first musician I have any memory of loving...

Yes, when I was about 8 I was completely obsessed with Michael Crawford.  Specifically the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera, but it wasn't limited to that.  I had these two CDs of him singing various famous Broadway hits and I loved them.  I listened to them all the time and could probably still sing them for you today.  And before you mock me, because I know you will, I just want to make it known that it was none other than my incredibly music-snobby uncle Jesse who introduced me to Crawford.  It was his enthusiastic teenage praise of those two high notes in this very song which converted me to my adoring status.  So Jesse, if you read this, feel free to judge, but know that you must also judge yourself.

Next is the second musician I feel in love with.  I believe I was 9 or 10.  And truly I still love her today.  She holds a place in my heart no one else could fill

I must begin with this song because it was my first love.  This is the song which converted me to Celine.  Also the song which granted her precedence over Michael, as he, too, sings a cover and I infinitely prefer Celine's version to his.  But I also must include two others.  When I asked Kara what song I should post of hers she said "'I Love You,' obviously."  And while I do adore that song, I instantly realized that, while I did always listen to that particular song, it was always on the way to the song that came right after.  So, just as it was on my CD so long ago I first give you "I Love You"

And then

No one can belt out love song like Celine.  And in case you don't believe me when I say that I still love her, this was a large part of the drive up to Union a few weeks back with Kara


Now, after Celine it gets a bit harder to pick my favorite musicians...I've typically tended more to specific songs than to all of any given musician's entire body of work.  I think that, post Celine, the first actual artist I really fell in love with was this guy...

It was the summer I worked at the Boise Cascade Particle Board plant.  I would have been around 19/20. I was working graveyard and that song came on the radio in one of the operator's shacks.  I fell head over heels in love with that voice (how can you not?) and as soon as my shift was over I headed straight over to Wal-Mart to buy the CD.  They weren't open yet (our Wal-Mart was not yet 24/7) so I actually sat in the parking lot and waited for thirty minutes for them to open so I could buy it.  And I have bought every CD since (though I think I've fallen behind and there's one I need to pick up).  Last summer I scored two free tickets; I took Kara and we listened to this song sung live

After my freshman year of college I went on a study abroad to London.  It was there that I met one of the greatest musical loves of my life.  I am speaking, of course, of none other than the legendary Mr. Freddy Mercury.  Broadly, I fell in love with the whole band (Roger Taylor, Brian May, and John Deacon) but most of all did I love Freddy.  It started with a show.  Before I saw We Will Rock You I was about as little  familiar with Queen as it is possible to be in this day and age.  That is to say...I knew "We Will Rock You" and "Another One Bites the Dust" and had a vague familiarity with "Bohemian Rhapsody" but I didn't even realize that all those songs were by the same band.  After We Will Rock You I came home and stayed up all night reading every Queen related wikipedia page I could find.  I discovered that somehow I owned to CDs of Queen's greatest hits (up till that point completely unappreciated and unlistened to).  For the rest of my study abroad and, indeed, the rest of that year I entered what can only be called a Queen coma.  I listened to nothing but Queen.  There was never a time when Queen wasn't playing in my head.  I remember I actually started getting worried about the length and intensity of my obsession.  Then I realized that there was a queen song called "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and just embraced the inevitable.  I eventually surfaced from complete immersion, but to this day they remain a true love.  If Queen comes on you sing.  At the top of your lungs.  Till your vocal chords give out.

This will forever be the anthem of my study abroad and my favorite Queen song.  

This post has turned ridiculously long.  If you're looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, there's only three more to go...that I'm aware of...

So the Queen mania lasted for over a year.  But all things must come to an end, even your obsessive repeat listening to your favorite band.  So eventually I began listening to other music.  I believe it was during my time in Glenwood that I discovered Mika.  Aside from my general love of him music, Mika holds special value to me because it was a long night of singing his music together driving back from Logan to Provo that Taka, aka my surrogate Japanese brother, and I became friends.  Mika writes the happiest, silliest, most brilliant music and I have loved all three of his albums.  This, however, is my absolute favorite of his songs.  It is literally impossible for me to listen to this song without feeling happier.  Ironically.  Because it's actually kind of sad lyrics.

About the same time I also discovered a completely different sounding band called Punch Brothers.

Now, specifically the artist in question here is Chris Thile.  It is possible that I have the kind of crush on him that it's only possible to get on famous people you know you'll never meet--you know, they're the perfect mixture of hopelessness and passion and conviction that if you were somehow ever to meet you would absolutely hit it off.  I have that kind of crush on Chris Thile.  And I love him in every different endeavor he has been involved with.  From his years with Nickel Creek to his absolutely phenomenal collaborations with people like Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, to his recent covers of Bach on his mandolin.  But above all of those things I love Punch Brothers best.  I love them because every member of the band is just as talented as Thile, but they also haven't quite reached the level of someone like Yo-Yo Ma so they're interested in making music that sells.  The combination of those two factors means that you have absolutely majestic, sweeping pieces like the "Another New World" above or "The Blind Leaving the Blind" (a damn bluegrass concerto Thile wrote after his divorce...go find the 3rd movement and listen to it because it's amazing) and then you have songs like Alex

I've been listening to that song for six years now and I love it every bit as much as I did the first time I heard it.  Also, this is the video that made me fall in love with him.  He's so adorably nerdy!

And at last we make it to the final and most recent of my "favorite" musicians.  And if you've known me for the last several years then you know who I'm talking about and how much I love these guys...

And because they're probably the best contender for my current true favorite musicians, I'm just going to give you lots and lots of songs to listen to because there's no way I can just pick one

there are literally no words for how beautiful I find this song...

Just listen to their voices!!!!!!

Please forgive the ridiculousness of the video and just enjoy this song.  It's from their new album under their new name and it is just the best!

As many videos as I have posted they have so many more wonderful songs.  Go get on Spotify and look them up (Guggenheim Grotto and Storyman).  Listen to every single one of their songs.  They have the most beautiful voices and their songs are catchy and gorgeous and sometimes funny ("Her Beautiful Ideas" will make you laugh if you have any sense of humor at all).  Seriously, buy all their albums and listen to all of their music because it is so so good.

Next up for tomorrow we have: A TV Show You're Currently Addicted To

Some thoughts on a Saturday...

My friend Jenna posted this video today on a friend's wall

I have so many thoughts about this video.  So many.  And, as the good Humanities major that I am, I am sitting here writing all those thoughts down in a blog post.

First and foremost is just...dang.  It's straight up funny.  I mean, completely and unequivocally funny.  Go ahead and laugh and don't feel bad.

Next, this video brings back all my fascination with the human impulse to exhibitionism.  How many videos or pictures have you seen of someone doing something crazy simply for the sake of being seen?  So many I can't even begin to count.  What is it about human nature that so craves attention that it is willing to do bizarre things like dance around in front of people nearly naked to get it.  That almost diminishes it, though.  To say that some of these people are just seeking attention.  Sure, some truly are.  But others, like this gentleman here I think, or like Amanda Palmer in her street performing days, or like certainly many others...some of these people are seeking connection, or love, or truly just to make people happy.

I'm referring to just the beginning of her talk here, but please listen to all of it as it is wonderful

Or perhaps they simply want to express themselves and themselves is an exuberant, demonstrative person who simply cannot be contained in one single self but must bubble over in dance and song and action.  Whatever the reason, I am constantly fascinated by these impulses.  Trying to decipher those reasons, trying to understand why this expression, simply enjoying their moment...

Then I think about this specific man.  Regardless of his reason, he was brave enough to display his, shall we say "less than ideal", body quite fully.  In fact, it seems as though he makes rather a habit of doing so.  You could say that, for this specific gentleman, clearly it does not actually require courage to dance around in a speedo.  But I disagree.  Even if this man couldn't care less about parading his physique naked in public...that doesn't change the significance of the act.  It doesn't make him any less brave.  It remains inspiring to me.

This is where it comes back to me.  It's my blog so I'm allowed.  Anyway.  Remember how I've hinted a couple of times at a project I was thinking about for a while that didn't work out?  This project I was thinking about was to become a model for the art department for the drawing classes.  For those of you who don't know what that entails, it would boil down to me striking various poses in front of rooms full of strangers for a couple of hours at a time...wearing nothing but a bikini.  Anywhere but BYU it would be completely naked, but we gotta maintain our standards here at the Lord's university.  But the point is that I would be stripping myself down almost completely and exposing myself to people.  Nothing between them and all my imperfections, my fatness, my awkward shape and movement, and my blemishes.  I literally cannot think of any more socially terrifying activity.  It didn't happen in the end, not because I chickened out, but because I'm not taking enough credits this semester to qualify for a campus job.

I just have to remember that it's ok that I don't look like this.  This is
a profile picture for this model

I wasn't going to strip down just to satisfy my own exhibitionist impulses.  I don't really have many of those.  They got lost in some box with my mob mentality.  I thought it would be good for me.  I have a couple of friends who do this and they've told me a little about the experience.  The people drawing you are not evaluating your attractiveness or relative levels of physical fitness.  They're viewing you as an art.   They are de-personing you in the best possible way.  In the process of drawing your body simply becomes a thing, neither good nor bad, to be captured on paper.  And the end results can, and often are, beautiful.  Letting someone draw you and then looking at that drawing is a way for you to dissociate from your mental filter and see yourself through someone else's eyes.  Not to mention, you're standing there in front of them for several hours...I can think of no more effective means to metaphorically throw your body image and self-confidence into a lake and let it swim or drown.

Which leads to my last thought about that man.  Yes, we're getting back to the rotund dancing fellow in naught but a speedo.  Scroll back up and watch him again for a few minutes.  Look at how happy he is.  Feel the confidence that flows out of him.  You watch him for a while and suddenly....you forget that it's funny cause a fat guy is dancing naked.  Suddenly you're watching a happy, wonderful man be happy and wonderful.  His physicality is peripheral.  His enjoyment of the moment overwhelms our impulse to judge and in the end we love him, even think he's beautiful, because we see happiness and vitality rather than a contrived social construct of beauty or ugliness.  You don't care that he's "gross".  You don't care that he keeps missing the changes and doesn't know the moves.  How could you care?

This is the best lesson this video teaches me.  Simply be happy and be confident.  No one cares if you screw up while you're trying.  No one cares if you aren't perfect.  No one cares about any of those negative things. What they care about is that you're happy and you're sharing that happiness with everyone around you.  Because you are happy, they have become happy as well.  If you can give that to people then no matter what you look like you will be beautiful in their eyes.

So I shall endeavor to stop worrying and simply dance.

A New TV Obsession...

Matt has been telling me I ought to watch Once Upon A Time for a while now.  This weekend was pretty intense for me, so by Sunday afternoon I just wanted something to distract me and keep my mind occupied so I figured I'd finally give it a try.  Tonight I finished the first episode of the second season, which started on Sunday.  That means that in about two and a half days I watched 23 episodes.  This is why I'm always cautious about letting myself get sucked into new TV shows.

because my brain doing the obsessive equivalent of this is also pretty dangerous...

If you don't know, Once Upon A Time was one of two shows that came out last year that are based on the idea of fairytales in the real world.  The other is Grimm, which apparently was darker and a little bit more subtle.  Haven't watched Grimm and I probably wont.  Once tells the story of Storybrook, a town populated by all the characters of your favorite fairy tales and children's stories (they do branch out from traditional fairy tales with characters like Mulan and the Mad Hatter).  They have been brought into our world, their memories of their former lives erased, by a curse from an evil queen.  Emma Swan, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, was the only one spared from the curse and is the only one who can break it and restore the townspeople to their happily ever afters.  The first season centers on Emma, her arrival in Storybrook, and the breaking of the curse.

is it just me or does blond hair just not look right on her?

have a picture of the Mat Hatter too.  Because he's beautiful with perfect hair,
magnificent three piece suits, and delicious guylined puppydog eyes.

While Once, pretty predictably, suffers from some problems with logic and logistics, I think that overall it is a really really well done show.  Matt was quick to point out that it is written by two of the Lost writers (Lost is a show he's been lobbying for me to watch for over a year now) and I think I can see the family resemblance.  There are plenty of twists and big reveals and mysteries.  But what has really impressed me is the quality of the basic storytelling.  I feel like so many TV shows are more concerned with those twists and surprises and keeping people hooked on overinflated drama than they are on actually telling really good stories.  Once, on the other hand, kept up a decent level of storytelling, sometimes caving to cliched plot devices or purely "gotcha!" twists, but overall utilizing some very good thematic development.  Part of this, I think, is a result of the principle of constraint. Which is a principle I just made up, but it's still valid.  Basically, if you tell someone to write a story about anything they'll think a while and then they'll come up with some random story that probably won't be much good and probably will be kind of generic.  If instead, however, you tell them to write you a story using the phrase "Oh, I don't need the dishes", contains a pair of tweezers, and takes place in one single late night then you'll get something rather more interesting (if any of you would like to write me that story, please do and email it to me).  In this case, the constraint was to tell a story fundamentally based on magic in a world that has none.  This really led to some very fun story telling moments and interesting thematic ideas.

because why wouldn't you translate "queen's huntsman"
into "mayor's sheriff and sex-slave on the side"

I will acknowledge my inner feminist for a moment here and say that I also really really appreciate how kick ass the women are in this show.  Snow White, when accosted at her wedding, draws her husband's sword and stands between him and the evil queen Regina.  Little Red Riding Hood? ...well, I don't want to spoil anything, but I kind of have a woman crush on her.  Even more so do I have on one Belle (but we'll talk more about her a little later).  Cinderella begins as a bit of a ditz, but she really grows and finds her strength.  Even Katherine, a proverbial "other woman" who simply exists to come between the two star-crossed lovers, is a really strong good woman who does her best.  And she may be evil, but you can't get much more hardcore than Regina herself.  And last of all is Emma, who is so unrelentingly tough and sure of herself that I'm able to ignore the fact that she is Cameron from House--a feat not to be sneezed at.  These are not your traditional damsels in distress waiting for their men to come save them.  They can and often do save themselves.  I love that so much.

not only is she maximum hardcore, she is also mind-bogglingly beautiful...sorry
Snow White, but you ain't actually the fairest of them all.  Your besty Red is.

But most of all--above all the other characters and all the good story telling and all the fun plot twists--above all that stands my love for one character.  And that character is Rumpelstiltskin, aka Mr. Gold.

so true.

Oh my gosh Rumpelstiltskin.  Matt and I have given many of the characters in the show nicknames, mostly because Rumpelstiltskin is really hard and long to type and then it was fun to give them to the rest.  I call him Skinner.  Which is a perfect name for him because you really never know if he's going to help you or skin the flesh right off your back.

Skinner...why are you wearing gloves and an apron and carrying a
shovel out here in the middle of the woods??

This character is so delectably ambiguous.  Usually, when a character behaves badly in a show it is one of two options: it is a bad character behaving exactly how we expect him or her to act and is therefore boring or it is a good character acting out of character and really stupidly which is immensely irritating.  But Skinner is neither of these.  Skinner is a deeply self-interested character acting incredibly deviously, powerfully, and intelligently to further his own ends.  And sometimes he is just straight up screwing with your head because he's Rumpelstiltskin and what the heck else do you expect?  I love the fact that at any moment he might betray someone and that I don't have to hate him for it because it's just who he is and what the heck, it may end up that that betrayal is actually going to somehow make everything better (sheriff's election anyone?).  One of the things I love most about him is that he's always completely honest.  He'll straight up tell you that he's screwing with you or that the magic you want from him will ruin your life completely.  But somehow, without ever lying, he manages to constantly play with the people around him and keep them all in the dark.

dude, you found a girl who laughs at your horrible jokes...you keep her!

And, unlike Regina with whom I was initially fascinated but have since come to regard as a lost cause, I can't help feeling like Skinner deserves to ultimately be happy.  Which is why I am dying with anxiety over the upcoming season.  Skinner has an opportunity to be with Belle (a truly genius twist on the Beauty and the Beast tale) and let himself be happy.  I want him to take it so very very badly and I am so terrified that he's going to ruin everything as he has so consistently done for himself.  I am more invested in his relationship with Belle then I am in any other relationship in the entire show.

no matter how much  love him I cannot deny that he is a
super awkward kisser...possibly because he has a frog face?

Rumpelstiltskin, aka Skinner, makes  up at least half of my love for this show.  Despite everything I've said, I really can't fully explain how much I love him and why.  I think it's just how very complex and interesting he is.  I'm always a sucker for an interesting guy--a guy who will never ever bore me no matter how well I  know him.  As evidenced by Skinner, this often leads me to take an interest in really hard guys.  That is something I should probably watch out for in my life, but for now it means that I will keep watching this show as long as it keeps giving me plenty of Skinner.  And I'm pretty sure it will...

how can you not love a man who laughs like this?

SPATULAs, Pad Thai, and Adverbials

So, I suppose I should write an update on ye olde SPATULA.  I know you all can't actually see them, but I want you to know that there are actually two posts lurking about in my Blogger Closet that were meant to be SPATULA updates.  I just never finished them.  I do that a lot.  I think there are some 20 ish posts I have here published on my blog, but there are about 45 total posts in the closet.  I should go through and clean that place out.  It's getting musty and I'm pretty sure there are spiders...

hands down...most awesome spatula on earth.

Anyway.  SPATULA.  So, Dr. Parry was fabulous and worked so well with me the entire time we were getting my project proposal ready.  He never shook his head and said "What was I thinking?  Clearly you're not cut out to do projects with the adults..." and for that I was grateful.  In the end I did manage to get my proposal finished and submitted on time.   I settled on the immensely clever and creative title of " Not the Hero We Deserved, But the Hero We Needed." Because when in doubt, just rip off a quote from your source material.  Except that I really like that speech Inspector Gordon gives there at the end of that movie.  As for the project itself, I'm supposed to be doing research right now.  The thing is, they don't actually tell us if we've gotten the grant till February.  Not that I really need the money to do this project, really.  Which is why I'm supposed to be doing research right now regardless.  I guess if I ever really need to write a paper for one of my classes I'll really get into that research.  Dr. Parry said if I find anything interesting he'd love to talk about it with me.  Bless him.  

~  ~  ~

So I've decided that I'm embarking on a quest.  I want to find the best Thai food in the Provo/Salt Lake area.  Which is to say, I want to find the best Pad Thai in the area.  I always get the Pad Thai, which seems like the best way to evaluate the relative quality of each different place I go.  On that note, today after class I decided to go and try the Thai place I looked at every day on my way to Vivint.  It's called Spicy Thai and it's on University Ave. next door to Magleby's Fresh (whatever the heck that is...they advertise their breadsticks, which was odd enough I almost went in after my meal and requested to try them).  I'm sorry to say that I was not hugely impressed.  I got the impression that it was one of those "Dudes in the office need lunch" kind of places, specializing in fast, not horrible, "Thai" food (quotes being important indicators of the quality of the food).  

My plate did not look this good...

In following with a place that caters to people on timed lunch breaks, the food came very fast.  I'm all for eating expeditiously, but when my food gets to me too fast I'm likely to assume that it was just siting there somewhat like a hamburger from McDonald's, soaking up the rays of a luscious heat lamp.  I took that picture straight off their menu, but I'm afraid that my meal didn't look even that good.  And the food itself was...fine.  Bland and fine.  I am oddly picky about the texture of my noodles, and theirs were quite good, fully cooked, but firm rather than mushy.  But the sauce tasted like the same sauce I could buy at Target.  Nothing special at all.  I traditionally get a dish of lime to squeeze over my Pad Thai, but once I got my food I never really saw my waitress till I was nearly done, so no lime for me.  Which is a pity, because that little zing would have been really helpful.  I splurged and got a brownie and ice cream for dessert.  It was chewy and sort of fudgey, but the taste was odd.  It tasted like they used butter flavored Crisco actually.  Not my favorite.  Either use butter or use Crisco people.  Don't try to use both.  The price for the Pad Thai was pretty reasonable, however the brownie was not.  Overall rating would be 2.5 stars (who decided stars was a good way to rate restaurants?  makes no sense to me...).  Probably not a place I'll be going back to.

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This semester marks my first steps on the road to editorship.  I am taking Elang 223, Intro to Linguistics with Professor Oaks.  I love Prof. Oaks.  He is hilarious.  Today in class he said "Verbs are the dungeon masters of the sentence."  The other day he was talking about back formations, which is when people assume that someone who "edits" must be an "editor".  The word didn't exist till people just started saying it.  Tangentially, this is the basis of my favorite joke in Clue, when Col. Mustard asks Wadsworth what he does and Wadsworth says "I'm the butler...I buttle."  Anyway.  Prof. Oaks is telling us about back formations and he mentions that there is currently one coming into existence right now.  "Ush" as a back formed verb from "usher" is starting to be more and more common in popular usage.  As he is telling us to pay attention and listen for "ush" he suddenly exclaims "See?!  There are so many reasons not to give up on life!" 

Anyway, the point was not, actually, to talk about how ridiculous my professor is, but rather to explain that I think I am really going to love my editing minor.  I have loved everything in this class.  Today we talked about some of the basic parts of speech.  This is the stuff I thought I'd hate.  I always loathed grammar when I was in high school.  But that is one thing I can say unequivocally in favor of my two years in Russian class.  I took from that class a new-found love of grammar.  It's like a logic puzzle, trying to trace out the parts of speech.  In Russian it's all about word endings, but in English it's about syntax.  I'm signed up for two more linguistics classes next semester and I'm very excited for them.  One of them is a straight up grammar class, and the other is...oh gosh, I don't remember how he explained it to me, but I know that it was what he suggested when I asked him if there was a class just about morphology.  

And lastly I will leave you with this gem.  A great song and a great video.  Please enjoy!

A suicide

This is the very short film my brother and I made because Kandace left her hot-dog sandwich out and then went and hid in her bedroom.