Excuses, excuses

Sorry it's been a while since we posted. The holiday season, the new year, and the return to college has been crazy. Expect a blog by the end of the week. If no blog appears by the designated time, feel free to march up to our house with pitchforks and torches, screaming for justice.

Spreading the gift of guilt: my experience as a Salvation Army bellringer [Connor]

Joy filled my heart as I decided to sign up to ring a bell for the Salvation Army at Christmastime. What a wonderful way to display my love for my fellow man.

You can imagine the joy that filled my heart when I learned that you can get PAID to ring the bell.

What's more, I learned, it was decent pay; nothing you could support a family with, but it certainly tops the minimum wage I work for in the summer. Needless to say, I was on board. The next day, my friend Sam and I showed up at the Employment Solutions office in charge of hiring bellringers.

At this point I should clarify the job to which I refer: I'm talking about the people dressed as Santa* standing outside of Walmart, shouting "Merry Christmas" to random passersby and, of course, ringing a bell, all in the hopes that the random passersby drop money in a little pot next to the Santa. As far as I'm aware, no Santa has ever stolen the pot of money.

So there we were, me and Sam, men on a mission, applying for the position of bellringer. There are two kinds of bellringers: the volunteers and the paid workers. Signing up to be a paid worker takes slightly more paperwork, the helpful registration lady informed us. You'd think, of course, that we'd sign our names somewhere, maybe show them our driver's licenses and, if they were really thorough, be given a five-minute orientation ("Bell goes this way. . . Bell goes that way. . . You're doing good so far!")

No.

The registration packet was approximately as long as the Old Testament and contained sections for previous job experience, detailed character references, and waivers out the wazoo. In addition, we had to provide three forms of ID, including our social security cards. Finally, we had to watch a 30-minute orientation video. (Really.)

Midway through the paperwork, Sam and I looked at each other, nodded, and threw our papers in the trash.

"We'd like to volunteer instead," we told the helpful registration lady.

"Ok, sign your names on this paper. What shift do you want?" was her response.

Two days later, we stood outside Walmart wearing Santa hats.** It's quite a fun job, actually. The object is to get people to make eye contact with you, leaving them with no other choice but to dredge up a few coins out of their pockets to drop in the pot. People would go to amazing lengths to look anywhere but at the guy in the Santa hat waving and calling cheerily to them. They'd do a kind of hurried shuffle past me, staring transfixed at a stained ceiling tile. "Merry Christmas!" I'd shout to them with true Christmas spirit, joyfully spreading the gift of guilt. One of those people later drove past me in a shiny new Mercedes. I hope somebody scratches it with their keys.

In society's defense, not everybody tried to dodge us Santa had-clad volunteers. In particular, my thanks goes out to the guy who donated the $100 bill. In case he should ever happen to read this blog, I'd like to thank him on behalf of myself and Santa hat-wearing people in general: Thank you for your generosity. We tip our Santa hats to you.

And to the rest of you: [A late] Merry Christmas.

Ha! You made eye contact.

*In the sense of wearing a Santa hat and being human. All similarities tend to end there. You don't want your kids to get their impression of Santa from the bellringer Santas outside Walmart; they could grow up in the belief that Santa is a large black woman.

**In addition to other clothes. Don't want to give kids the wrong impression of Santa.

Twilight, a resurrected blog post

I published an older version of this article over a year ago in the BYU–Idaho Scroll, but the threat I addressed then has yet to be vanquished. In fact, with the release of the New Moon movie, the inexplicable appeal of Twilight has only grown stronger. Like orcs from Mordor, the screaming legions of Twilight fans bearing their arsenal of officially licensed merchandise issue forth, spreading darkness over the land.

Plus, I’ve seen enough of freaking Taylor Lautner. Maybe we should wait until he’s old enough to vote before we slap his grinning, lycanthropic mug across the tabloids.

Thus, here is the expanded version of the article, with more quips, quibbles, and references to better franchises.

Let's pretend that instead of being the thrilling space opera it is, Star Wars had been written by a woman with only the faintest grasp of what makes a good plot. Let's say that Han Solo spent all three original movies telling Princess Leia how much he wanted to kill and eat her. Let's speculate how things would be if the excitement built up to the point where Luke flew off to destroy the Death Star, only to have him pass out en route and wake up a few hours later with everyone celebrating, all the action having happened while he was frolicking in dreamland.

Sounds like a formula for failure, right? At least, that’s what you’d think.

When I finished Twilight, I honestly wasn't too impressed. Maybe it's because I'm a guy and my literary needs involve a few more explosions and fewer declarations of undying (no pun intended) love.

First, I could have gone without Bella's incessant reaffirmations of Edward's utter perfection. I understand that his skin is flawless, his eyes are rapturous, he has superhuman strength, his kisses have the power to instantly put a woman into a state of extra-bodily bliss, and even the results of his most basic bodily functions probably smell like Bath & Body Works lotion. I just don't need those facts repeated ad nauseum every chapter.

Next, I feel there is something unhealthy and possibly unrealistic in Bella's attraction to a vampire who wants to drink her blood. If I followed Edward’s example, I will tell my date (repeatedly; perhaps every ten minutes) that I hunger for her in more ways than one. If I believed Twilight, nothing would turn her on more. Girls love Edward because he can control his urges; what about us normal human beings? I've been on dates with girls I've been strongly attracted to, and to my knowledge, I've been pretty good at controlling my hormones. Would it be better, if you're a hot girl, if I told you at regular intervals how much I lusted after you but was able to contain my infatuation? Seems to work pretty well for Edward.

I had a girl explain to me once that Edward represents the guy every girl dreams of: a guy who’s protective, chaste, handsome … and utterly perfect. Let’s switch it around and take a look at Edward as though he were a girl, the embodiment of all the best qualities of male fantasy.

If Edward were a girl, she would be beautiful. She — Edwarda? Edda? Edwina? — wouldn’t just be gorgeous, though. She’d be an angel fallen from heaven, a genetically engineered Victoria’s Secret model. Her hair would float behind her by the gust of an invisible breeze when she walked. Her measurements would be within the “flawless” range, and she would not need to exercise, eat, or undergo any sort of physiological maintenance in order to keep her figure. Her eyes would be almond-shaped, glittering, and maybe (for good measure) able to shoot laser beams. She would also, apparently, sparkle in the sunlight.

She could quote the entire extended editions of The Lord of the Rings, could name every Heisman Trophy winner* from the award’s introduction to the present day, and would not only know the recipe for Pizza Hut’s deep-dish pepperoni pizza but could make it from scratch using only a can opener and a block of cheese.

Of course, she would also be a vampire that would thirsted for her lover’s blood with every makeout session.

Now comes the biggest quibble I have, the one that, if fixed, could have almost redeemed the book. WHERE THE CRAP DID ALL THE ACTION GO? It's not that the author got too busy to put action in; there's plenty of it. It just happens behind the scenes: There's a part where you're in a hotel room with Bella as she frets like a six-year-old girl and you're wishing intensely to be out there with Edward, tracking the bad guy vampire, but do you ever get to see the exciting stuff? Nope. Wouldn't it be more effective, as far as the story goes, just to SHOW the danger Edward's in, instead consigning the reader to hear Miss Whiner's jumbled thoughts about her lover's peril?

Then comes the clincher. The plot builds, and so does the reader's anticipation, as Bella finds herself face-to-face with an evil vampire James. Edward is on the way, tensions are rising, your heart is thumping — and then she blacks out, only to awaken having missed the whole fight between the bad guy and Edward. What's the use of having the action take place offstage? It's like spending hours preparing food, only to fall asleep and hear others describe it later.

There you have it. Twilight: the perfect escape from reality for thirteen-year-old girls who have yet to realize that men are human, not undead incarnations of Jane Austen love interests (Yes, Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy is not human, but a robot from the future sent to destroy women's perceptions of men). Twilight: the perfect blubberfest for people whose literary tastes are flawed and whose emotions run unchecked.

*My criteria for a perfect mate does not include this, but I figured other guys might appreciate it.

Writer's block and wayward analogies involving overflowing toilets [Connor]

I’ve come to despise writer’s block. You may notice my blogging has been lagging behind a little lately; my blogs are fewer and farther between. It’s not that I have nothing to write about, or that I have no time to write; in contrast, I’ve considered dozens of topics, and I have more free time now then I’ve had since August. I simply start writing something and find that, after a paragraph or two, my writing fizzles out like a. . . like. . . see? Further evidence of the onset of writer’s block. I should have been able to come up with a snappy, witty comparison involving an overflowing toilet, a Democratic senator, and a couple of chimpanzees, or something.

After five or six different attempts at blogs on topics ranging from my angst with Christmas political correctness, to the idiocy of Edward Cullen as the “perfect man,” to the book I’m reading which compares, among other things, real estate agents to the Ku Klux Klan.* Nothing clicked. They all just fizzled out like (insert witty comparison involving an overflowing toilet, a Democratic senator, and a couple of chimpanzees here).

So I decided to write on writer’s block. I mean, it’s only logical that I write about the reason I can’t write, right?

There’s a lot of topics I plan to cover as soon as I can plunge the clogged toilet of writer’s block.* In the meantime, stay tuned.

*It’s really quite a logical comparison, provided you have the proper amount of hallucinogens in your bloodstream. No, seriously, it makes sense. The book is called Freakonomics, should feel any curiosity as to exactly how the comparison works.

**I promise I’ll cut down on the mentions of clogged toilets.

Between Bauer, Bourne, Bond, and Norris: Who would win? [Ryan]

There is a question that has been bugging me. Sometimes, in a moment of deep contemplation (or the brain stupor that comes from watching an entire season of 24 in two sittings), I ask myself the same question that Confucius or Aristotle often asked themselves:

“Who would win in a fight between Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, James Bond,* or Chuck Norris?”

(Confucius, for the record, put his money on James Bond, which places some doubt upon any further wisdom we may encounter from him. I mean, we all know Confucius was basing his judgment on the Pierce Brosnan version of the character.)

The greatest scientific and philosophical minds of history have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. All four men are rough, tough, and, by all appearances, able to survive anything, including nuclear detonation and exposure to anything by Lady Gaga. Let us, for a moment, examine each candidate** in turn to analyze his strengths:


THE CANDIDATES

Jack Bauer: According to 24.wikia.com, he has 227 on-screen kills to date. He’s even ripped out a guy’s jugular with his teeth. He has the uncanny ability to heal from any wound within several hours; I suspect he shoots himself in the foot every night before he goes to bed just to acclimate himself to a little pain.

Jason Bourne: If you tick him off, he will come for you, he will hunt you down, and he will kill you. He’s one of those people who can kill you with a pretzel if they want to.***

James Bond: He’s always had the ability to woo any woman he breathed his martini-scented breath on, but in his last incarnation he acquired some pretty mean fighting skills that didn’t require gadgets such as invisible cars, flame-throwing bagpipes, or magnetic grappling hooks that shot from his suspenders. He has also survived a particularly painful interrogation that makes it a wonder he is still capable of pursuing women (see Casino Royale).

Chuck Norris: We’ve all heard the facts: Chuck Norris does not sleep; he waits. Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding. There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard; there is only another fist. Apparently, he is not only indestructible, but he is also omnipotent, omnipresent, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. At least Superman was killed eventually.


THE VERDICT

In deciding who would win in fight between the above-mentioned action heroes, we must consider the fact that none of them has ever truly lost a fight. True, Jack Bauer has been captured by terrorists and interrogated, but he has always escaped. Jason Bourne was shot in the back and dumped into the ocean, but he survived. We already mentioned James Bond’s horrific torture in Casino Royale. And Walker, Texas Ranger is no longer running, so we can count that as a relative demise for Chuck Norris.

But they always get back on their feet and rip out some more jugular veins.

So we must ask ourselves: in such a contest, would there be a victor? Could any of them actually lose, or would their battle continue forever, like the struggle between good and evil, or Cher’s career? Or would such unstoppable forces clashing against immovable objects create an explosion of energy that would eradicate life as we know it?

I conclude that because none of them can lose, none of them can actually win. Let’s allow them to stick to fighting nuke-wielding terrorists, clandestine operatives, greedy billionaire industrialists, and drug-dealing space aliens, or whatever the heck is it that Chuck Norris fights.

* Has anybody else ever noticed that these guys all that same initials? Does that mean that if I were to change my name to Jordan Brick, I would suddenly be endowed with the ability to take out all of Al-Qaeda with nothing but a stapler?

** Honorable mentions include Liam Neeson’s character from Taken, who possesses all the indestructibility and potential to kill a dozen guys with his bare hands as the others but lacks originality; and Han Solo, who is still going strong and running parsecs around the bad guys in the Star Wars books, despite the approach of his seventieth birthday.

*** Yeah. One of those people.

Or does he?

Twenty-four contestants. Four competitions. One victor. [Connor]

Twenty-four contestants*. Four competitions. One victor.

This is the saga of Mr. RHS.

For those who don’t attend Rigby High School, Mr. RHS is a yearly spoof of Junior Miss in which guys from our school compete in four divisions: Clubwear, Fitness, Talent, and Sensitivity. The objective is to determine which contestant can get the most members of his family to deny any relation to him. Technically, of course, the point is to display the best talent, exhibit the best fitness, etc., but we all know the truth.

Following the tradition set by the Junior Miss program of practicing and preparing exhaustively for every event, we began an arduous practice program nearly a week before the pageant. Many of the intensive practices lasted over a half hour. We began by practicing the fitness routine; essentially, a dance routine incorporating pushups, sit-ups, and other exercises. The dance itself was extremely physically strenuous, requiring the utmost fitness to compete. For the pushups, for example, we did three. The girls on the school dance team would show us the dance and then coach us through it, step by step. Afterward, we would try to imitate the girls. How did we do? Picture a duck trying out for American Idol.

The Clubwear event consisted of all of us dressed to represent an organization or interest that we represent**. I was Mr. Couch Potato, dressed in pajamas, a large T-shirt with a pillow stuffed inside to serve as a belly, sitting in an armchair with a bag of potato chips and eating them off my chest. (At one point, a girl asked me if I was Mr. Pregnant.) Other Clubwear contestants included Mr. Wrestling, who wore a spandex suit; Mr. Warcraft, who wore cardboard armor; and Mr. River Guide, who wore an actual kayak and was pushed onstage by a girl from the dance team. (Needless to say, he won that division. I bet the girl slashed his tires.)

The competition heated up in the Fitness portion of the contest. We separated into groups of five and displayed our dancing skills for the world to laugh at. Several of the groups, realizing that mere dancing would not pull through to a victory, added to the dance or took it in a new direction***, figuratively speaking. In defense of my group, our idea of tearing off six progressive layers of Velcro-ed clothing worked great in practice. (Important note: we did, in fact, plan to keep on the final layer, which was entirely modest and covering, except in the case of my friend who wore a Strawberry Shortcake shirt that reached down to his sternum and boxer shorts that spelled I’M TOO SEXY FOR MY SHORTS across the rear.) During the actual performance, however, the outer layer decided to grab the other layers of clothing and hold on for dear life. The result was that instead of a group of guys ripping off their shorts in unison and throwing them coolly into the audience, who would fight amongst themselves to grab them and keep them as a souvenir, what the audience got was a group of five guys bending over, wrestling madly with their shorts and toppling over, still grappling to pull off a good twenty pounds of excess clothing, as the song continued without them. My group placed undisputedly last in that competition.

The talents were generally pretty good. The title of the winning talent was “Singing in the Shower.” Other talents included a comedy routine, which included a joke implying that Hillary Clinton is a fair trade for a chihuahua, the Napoleon Dynamite dance, and two guys performing an interpretive dance to the hit song “Kryptonite,” by 3 Doors Down.

The goal of the final competition, Mr. Sensitivity, is to prove yourself as the sweetest, most sensitive of the contestants, or at least to deceive the judges to think you are. Numerous mothers, grandmothers, and girlfriends were called up to the stage, told how much they meant to the contestant, read poems, given hugs, chocolates, roses, Ferraris, etc. My eight-year-old brother Quinnie won this event. Ok, technically I won it, but take into account that I didn’t speak a word, or even put in any effort aside from smiling. Quinnie, the most sincere and sensitive person you’ll ever meet, had written the following:

“My brother is sensitive because he plays Legos with me. Sometimes, when there are bees in the clubhouse, he goes in first, so they get him instead of me. He likes small animals. He also took my mom on a date for her birthday.”

Eight-year-olds reading stuff like this aloud to a tearful audience have a special place in judges’ hearts, it seems.

Remember to follow my blog!

*Give or take the ones I forgot to count or counted twice.

**A message from the department of redundancy department.

***Of course, many of us were already dancing in completely different directions, but that had nothing to do with planning.

The triathlon [Ryan, with Connor's observations]

Here’s my take on our recent triathlon. Connor’s observations are in bold.

Three months ago, my aunt Jessica approached me with a proposition. There was a triathlon coming up, she said, and she wanted me to do it with her, Connor, and my cousin Zack.

You know that feeling that comes when someone asks you if you want to ride a pterodactyl through a ring of fire? No? I’m surprised. But it felt a bit like that — you just want to laugh at their nerve.

A triathlon? Me? You’re dreaming. Besides, I never give into peer pressure.

Good thing she didn’t offer me crack or something.

Three days a week, I ran. My training regimen was fairly consistent. Unfortunately, I never swam. I never biked until the night before the triathlon.

That night, my brother and the rest of my family brought our rented racing bikes from Idaho. I couldn’t immediately tell what set them apart from normal racing bikes. Apparently, they had skinnier tires, which reduced the risk of hazards like staying balanced during turns.

Triathlon bikes are basically cars without the safety features. Almost as fast, but without the seat belts, air bags, padded seats, and the actual car, which is your main line of defense when running into, for example, a brick wall. In a car, you at least have several feet of metal, engine, dashboard, and airbag to cushion you. In a bike, you have . . . nothing! This isn’t really a problem with regular bikes, but triathlon bikes are deadly. These bikes are built for speed, weighing about the same as a half-drank can of Sprite and sporting tires sold in sizes almost as small as bullet diameters.

I strapped on my helmet and took the bike for a test spin. Five minutes later, I limped into the house with a throbbing hand, a jagged tear in my jeans, and pride that couldn’t have been more injured if I had been mugged by one of the costumed Disney Princesses at Disneyland.

Who injures himself the night before the triathlon? I put ice on my swelling hand, scraped my mutilated pride off the asphalt, and prepared for the morrow.

The next morning, we gazed around at the masses of people, who ranged from inexplicably fit — these are the spandex-clad android replicants making their way among humankind in preparation for the final invasion — to people I was sure I could beat.*

Triathlon people (or “triathletes,” as they’re called) believe spandex is a reasonable substitute for actual clothing. Let me be frank: that is incorrect. I do not wish to elaborate anymore on this topic. Suffice to say that when the biker in front of you is leaned forward to be aerodynamic, exposing only one part of their anatomy to your view, you will agree with me.

When the gun went off, 500 triathletes ran toward destiny, or at least the general direction of the finish line. My injured hand wasn’t yet bothering me, so I took it as a good omen. When the run ended, my spirits were still high.

Those high spirits dissipated some time in the middle of the bike segment, when I realized that with my injured hand, I couldn’t use my back brakes or half my shifting capabilities. This proved particularly terrifying when descending and climbing hills. During the former, I nursed my front brakes gingerly; during the latter, I was forced to climb without my gears.

At one point, the race required us to ride in one lane on a public street in downtown Orem, while traffic traveling the same direction would use the adjacent lane. During this part of the race, I looked to my side and noticed two things: first, I was racing a Chevy truck.** And second, I was winning. During the downhill parts, we were expected to ride at approximately 175 miles per hour, or at least fast enough to make our handlebar-mounted speedometers catch fire. The experienced bikers were doing about twice that speed.

It sounds more fun than it was.

The swimming part was the hardest. Though the swim was less than a mile, my one-armed stroke left something to be desired. Imagine a mentally-challenged dolphin with one good fin trying to flop through the water, and then throw in dozens of other dolphins crowding the lane, their churning fins hammering the poor retarded dolphin as if it was all some lawless water polo tournament. Then the handicapped dolphin is eaten by sharks. That’s only a slight exaggeration. (There were no sharks.)

All triathlons have raffles for free equipment at the end, and it seems that longer the triathlon, the better the prizes. Ours was called a “splash” triathlon, and is the shortest form of triathlon I’m aware of outside the 5 and Under division. Just a 5k run, 10 mile bike ride, and a quarter mile swim. Apparently, at the end of some triathlons, they raffle off expensive running shoes, bike helmets, and even actual $1000+ racing bikes. Not so at our triathlon. The announcer would say, “And for number 399, we have here a brand-new pair of shoelaces!” and some spandex-clad person would wander up to the front and accept the gracious gift with a confused smile. Then the announcer would proceed to raffle off some other potentially useless item, like a water-bottle holder, a bike-helmet chin strap, or something called “yanks,” whose nature we never figured out. When they’re short on funding, they probably raffle off whatever stuff has gone unclaimed for six months in the fitness center Lost and Found box. (“And for number 256, we have this nice pair of like-new men’s briefs!”)

It was actually kind of fun. My hand injury complicated things somewhat, but I still wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.*** Next year, more of the family, inspired by our pioneering examples, plans to join in.

But I’ve written long enough. After all, it’s hard to type with a sprained thumb.

* During the bike phase, half of these people passed me. Nothing is more humbling that getting overtaken by a fifty-year-old woman with thighs the size of dinosaur bones.

** No, this isn't a shot at Chevy, although, for the record, I bet a Toyota would have beaten me.

*** Except maybe gold, jewels, a nicer car, the ability to fly, an authentic Boba Fett costume, or an iPhone.