one ring to rule them all

Today I went to my ward's Family Home Evening, a Monday night thing where people do stuff. The stuff the people did this evening was to go to the Church History Museum near Temple Square, and then go to someone's house for icecream. I participated in both activities.

The museum was nice and there was some great artwork on display. For the most part I don't get Art. Art and I don't mix. My natural defense against this is that I write off all things artsy as "stupid" and don't concern myself with them any longer. I do have two favorite paintings on display at the museum, though. These I had a much harder time writing off as stupid than the others. One depicts Joseph Smith giving a sermon in a clearing with the sun in his eyes. He's squinting in this picture because of the sunlight. I guess I like it because it shows to me the potential of a man, if only indirectly. It's easy to think of Joseph as a great prophet and historical figure, a larger than life character removed from the realm of real people. That picture reminds me that when you get right down to it, he wasn't more than a man. What is different about him is he is a man who realized much more of his potential than most.

The other painting was of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when they were baptized in the Susquehannah River. The shot was painted with a wide viewing angle. Joseph and Oliver took up just a small part of the canvas. They looked very alone in that painting. I like it because it emphasized to me that on that historic ocassion the world had no clue whatsoever what important things were happening, and that the only people who did know were two men and the hosts of heaven. What good has come from that event that had no earthly witnesses, though!

So the museum was nice. Afterwards I went to a little ice cream party at a friend's house. The party was in part a celebration of National Ice Cream Month, which is July, which is now over. We had to get in our ice cream consumption while it was still legal. I guess. Anyway, at this party I discovered that in social situations where I don't feel I have any clear purpose I tend to act more awkward than I really am. Does that make sense? If I have someone to talk to I can chat up a storm and be clever and witty (if not dry and subtle, often to the point of nobody laughing but me, on the inside), but if I'm left to just socially flail about, hoping someone will toss me a life preserver, I do what you usually see stereotypically awkward charicatures from movies do-- I lean against things with a lack of grace and balance. I don't know why I do this, but I'm pretty sure it's conscious. Maybe I do it thinking it will get me some sort of attention so someone will end my involuntary silence for me. Whatever the reasons, I don't feel like I'm really being me when I'm awkwardly leaning against furniture and door jambs.

To get back on track, other than the Church museum, I've had another profound spiritual experience lately. Perhaps you've heard of it-- "The Lord of the Rings" (movies, as I aspire to illiteracy). I bought the non-extended-version box set the other week and just finished them tonight. Wow. I've seen them before, when they were first in the theaters, but I didn't really follow what was going on then and didn't get as much out of them as I could. Since then, though, I've delved into the archives of the wikipedia and scrapped together some info to help me better make north and south of the plot and characters and creatures. I find most fascinating the origins of the different races and the ancient history of Middle Earth, as well as things like the nature of wizards and where they came from. Good stuff. I now actually understand what the One Ring does (other than make people invisible) and why it's so dangerous. I could tell you many other things I've learned, but I'm pretty sure my sister is the only person who will ever read this, and she's read the books (she's a book-reading type, you know) so she knows about all them things & such. Next up I'm planning on aquiring the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD and having a completely different "spiritual" experience from that.

This is finals week, wish me luck.

of shoes and ships and sealing wax

That was a pretty good night. I had a lot more fun than I expected I would. Someone at work invited me to a little get-together this evening; a party if you will. I anticipated it would be exactly the kind of party I don't go to, and I was right. It was the single-most alchol consuming gathering at which I've ever been, and I was offered an alcholic beverage for the second time in my life. Yes, I've led a very sheltered life. The girl who offered me the drink this evening only did so because I had previously told her the experience of the then-only-time I'd ever been offered one, and she thought it would be funny to offer me my second opportunity. Thankfully I stuck to my guns on this one too and declined.

Since I have led so sheltered a life, tonight was my first experience with a new smell. Alcohol. Yeah, it has a pretty distinct smell. I didn't know what to think when I'd been enjoying myself talking to a beautiful girl and she'd have this new smell on her breath. That was a new combo I'd never seen (smelled?) before, and it kind of befuddled me. Growing up with all this talk of "alcohol is bad, alcohol is evil" (which I do personally believe) and then juxtaposing that with something I really enjoy and appreciate- pretty girls. Yeah it was a pretty weird night for that reason. Also in the back of my brain I was thinking that all I could do was try to enjoy myself there and then, because I knew I could never go out with any of those girls,- it would never work out. There was also another RM there whom I'd met years earlier in a class we'd both taken pre-mission. At the beginning of the party we were both visibly awkward and unsure of what to do, but we both knew people there and got a little more comfortable with the situation and just tried to have some fun. Good times.

Speaking of good times tonight I was introduced to beer-pong. It's like ping-pong with beer. Yeah, that's pretty much all there is to it. Two teams set up glasses on either side of a ping-pong table, they take turns trying to throw ping-pong balls into the other players glasses, and whatever throws you make the other team has to drink the contents of the glass. At the beginning of the night this game was entertaining to watch, but by the end of the night I was pretty bored with it.

So that was (one of) my adventure(s) for the day. It was adventure-awesome.

furious mine sweeping

I'm sad to say I've fallen victim to the entertainment juggernaut that is the Fox Network. Blast them for entertaining so well! I've said for years that all their non-animated shows are stupid and that American Idol is what's wrong with America, but they have finally ensnared me in their twisted web of pop culture. So. You. Think. You. Can. Dance. Those six words will spell my doom.

I think it has as much to do with my Mormonicity as anything else why I like that show. With (up to) 3 Mormons on the show I feel like it's my duty to call in each week and vote for them. Well, that and I really enjoy quality dancing.

I'm an extremely crappy dancer. I have great respect for anyone who 1) feels comfortable in front of people, putting themselves out on the line, potentially making a fool of themself and 2) can do that without actually making a fool of themself. Sometimes (well, actually a few times per day, every day) I have a lapse of judgment and spontaneously burst out dancing in public. I'll have some phat techno beat in my brain thumping away and my body just yearns to respond, to communicate that beat to the world. So it does. After a fraction of a second I remember I can't dance well, so I abort. Sheepishly. It's just one of those things I do.

My sister thinks it's funny I have listed as one of my favorite movies Elektra, and as one of my interests Jennifer Garner. Why is this funny? I'm intensely interested in Jennifer Garner and her welfare. Something like that. Actually I do like the movie Elektra a good deal. I think the idea of a deadly OCD ninja is hilarious. She could probably take on the ninja from askaninja.com pretty easily. He's all talk. Elektra kills. Frequently. Unnecessarily. Awesomely. The real reason I bring up the movie is that today I bought another copy of Elektra on DVD. Yes, I now own two copies of Elektra on DVD. The regular edition and the director's cut. I've yet to explore all the additional features and featurettes offered in the director's cut edition, but I'm sure I will not be disappointed. Hopefully the additional content contains many good shots of a deadly red-clad ninja-ess.

I've recently taken up Sudoku. Today I completed my first medium-level puzzle. I've ruined so many Sudoku puzzles it's embarrassing. And infuriating. Today was also the first time I completed a very easy-level puzzle the first time through without making any mistakes. It was a huge day for me and Sudoku.

Sudoku is not my first love, though. No, that distinction belongs to Minesweeper, the most perfect free videogame of all time. A bold claim, I know, but that's how I feel about it. Very few games can rival Minesweeper in terms of sheer clicking speed. I click hundreds and thousands of times each game. My bulging forearm muscles are not my only motivation for playing this amusement. No, its Siren's call comes from its frustrating blend of luck and skill, just like any good game. As fast as I am, and skilled at flagging the mines, it doesn't matter if I'm forced to randomly guess between two equally-likely mine sites. Where does the mine lay? Whenever I am forced to choose between two places, I pause. I hesitate. I know that I will quite likely lose this game of Minesweeper here and now. It's not possible to avoid this situation. Even the greatest Minesweepers must guess sometimes, and mostly they guess wrong. But oh, the times when no guessing is required, how sweet they are! Flying through the squares as onlookers look on in awe. Most people think that game is impossible and doesn't have actual rules it follows, so when someone is good at it it's all the more amazing.

All that is why I do what I do.

i can read lines poorly

One of my best and oldest friends is Will, and he's a film student at Hampshire College. Tonight several people got together at his house and read the lines of the script he wrote for his senior project. It was quite the experience. Well, from my perspective at least. My film experience is extremely limited, so I thought the whole thing was "quite neat".

I got a copy of the script yesterday and glanced at the first couple pages before I went to bed. Today just before I headed over to Will's house I read through the whole thing, beginning to end. I was pretty impressed what he came up with. Reading it on my own I got some images in my head which were shattered when I got to Will's house, like how the characters would speak & whatnot.

I was assigned the role of James. James has very few lines and is the only male character who curses not. I think that had more than a little to do with my assignment. That's fine for me. It was really fun to sit around a table with many crazy people and hear them crazily read the lines of crazy characters. Crazy. Yeah.

Don't worry, the limited number of my lines did not keep me from missing my cues and screwing everything up. OK, I didn't really screw everything up, but I did miss my lines sometimes. Oh well, we survived.

The script is about a vampire hunter fighting an evil pharmaceutical corporation which is run by vampires. I look forward to seeing the final project someday. It should be sweet.

sunday thoughts: episode 1

Ha! I haven't posted on this here 'blog for like 2 or 3 weeks. Isn't that cool!?! I sure think it is. I'm going to share a few thoughts I've had today, and since today's Sunday, hopefully those thoughts will be more spiritual-like than normal. Actually, that's not a very good attitude. Thoughts should be consistently spiritual, although in reality Sunday does seem to give a good shot in the 'ol spiritual arm every week.

So this Sunday we had our second elders quorum presidency training meeting with Bro Johnson, the stake high council representative assigned to our ward. Bro Johnson is great, he has practical advice and a lot of experience in church leadership, and he seems to have a younger attitude and mentality than his age would suggest. I mean that as a compliment. Yeah. Today's lesson was about home teaching, and how to inspire people to do it, and how to organize it throughout the quorum. It's quite a daunting task taking a list of people, rather few of whom I'm familiar with, and with a couple other guys who don't know this list of people much better than I and matching home teachers to home teachees. How are you supposed to know who to put with whom? My dad says that's why you say a prayer before you begin. That seems like sound advice.

I also conducted elders quorum for the first time today. I have a feeling I didn't impress anybody. It's a good thing that's not the point, otherwise I would have failed. I got up in front of everyone and in my typically dry style enumerated the announcements and tried to get people to volunteer for passing the sacrament. That style of delivery works a lot better when I'm trying to tell a joke or a funny story. I don't know what I was thinking. When I do it again in a few weeks I'll try to look more like I actually have a pulse and less like a boring robot-without-a-cool-robot-voice.

Here's my spiritual thought for the day. I was reading through Elder McConkie's "A New Witness For the Articles of Faith" a few minutes ago and came across this: "... it is as though the Holy Ghost ... was broadcasting all truth throughout the whole universe all the time, using the light of Christ as the agency by which the message is delivered. But only those who attune their souls to the Holy Spirit receive the available revelation." When I read that I thought to myself, "I like that way of thinking about it." It's like all the answers are always there all the time, so the only thing keeping me from them is me. It's not like Heavenly Father is holding out on us. The message is out there if you'll just prepare yourself and then listen.

So I hope that if anyone ever reads this they'll like that thought. I'll see if I don't write again a couple more times this week. No promises, but it's just something I'd like to do.