Look who got a facelift... my blog! I'd say that it's more tasteful than the last one, but the fact that I'm writing on it negates that. I still have a few kinks to work out, but it's now 20% more enjoyable than the last blog (according to our experts).
Anywho, I thought I'd celebrate by posting something that's both random and explosive. This is the way to diffuse a car bomb the awesome way:
New Digs
Get a Job...
Some people have waaaaaaaay too much time on their hands. But hey, they sure are entertaining. Here's a little treat I found for you people. I know it's a little late for the 4th, but hey, explosive candy is awesome no matter what time of the year it is.
A Sad Day Indeed...
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have grave news... Just as he was becoming popular amongst the masses, Animal (my antenna topper)was STOLEN off of my car whilst parked in Idaho Falls.
A moment of silence for the fallen comrade...
...
...SO! I need a new one. I'm taking suggestion concerning which topper I should get now. Any ideas?
Long Time, No Post.
Geez, it's been forever since I've posted here... Sorry about that.
But first things first, you need to meet my new friend. This is Animal:
Animal lives on my car's antennae.
When it rains and I'm driving, his hair slicks back in true Animal fashion. Sure, he makes the car look 10X as tacky, but he's always welcome on my car.
News, news.... I'm still in Logan, and it's finally getting hot. Thank Zeus for AC! For the first time in my college career, I have air conditioning in my housing. I also have a dishwasher for the first time, too, which turned out to be a curse when I forgot what the difference between dish soap and dishWASHER soap was. So many bubbles...
I'm taking 3 classes, but because of the short semester, they go much longer, so I have a deceptively busy schedule:
HIST 4820: WWII in Europe
HIST 3070: Perspectives in Folklore
FCHD 3350: Family Finance
Combined with institute, homework, the lack of a computer (the Library is my second home), and other random stuff, I'm pretty busy.
That's my life right now. I'll try to be more "faithful" in updating this thing in the future. Then again, I'm not sure if many people would notice if I didn't...
If I were an Evil Overlord...
I got these from a friend, and they're quite possibly awesome. They're a bunch of things that Evil Overlords overlook, which usually lead to their defeat/demise by the end of the movie/book/comic.
So, here are the things I would do if I were an Evil Overlord, to ensure that my empire would outlast the ages:
-My stronghold will have ventilation ducts that are too small to crawl through.
-I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to demonstrate how evil I am. Loyal service should be rewarded... Which is how it becomes "loyal" service in the first place. And besides, honest messengers are hard to come by when you are in the Evil Overlord business.
-I will never utter the sentence "Before I kill you, you should know…"
-I will never turn into a giant snake, no matter how much I might want to, because it never helps.
-If my Trusted Lieutenant tells me that my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him... After all, he is my Trusted Lieutenant.
-If any of my advisors ever says to me "My lord, he is but one man, and what can one man possibly do?" I will reply "This.", and then shoot him.
-I will not have a son. Although his eventual and surely laughable plan to overthrow me will fail, it could provide a fatal distraction at a crucial moment.
-I will not have a daughter. Although she would certainly be as evil as she is beautiful, once she sees the hero's rugged good looks, she will no doubt betray me to him.
-The entrance to my stronghold will have doors that are normal sized. While twenty-foot tall doors do impress the masses, they are difficult to close quickly in an emergency.
-If I am forced to make my escape, I will not pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner before leaving.
-Shooting is not "too good" for my enemies.
-No matter how tempted I am by the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field that is larger than my head.
-When I capture the hero, I will also make sure to capture his pet ferret, dog, monkey, or whatever other sickeningly cute pet animal that is capable of untying ropes, fetching keys, etc that happens to be following him around.
-If one of my enemies says, "Look, before you kill us, will you at least tell us what this is all about?" I will say "No." And then I will shoot them.
-My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic rifle marksmanship. Any who cannot hit a man-sized target at ten meters will be used for target practice.
-My Legions of Terror will be trained to dogpile hand-to-hand opponents, rather than attacking them in ones and twos while the rest stand around waiting their turn.
-No matter how much I desire vengeance, I will never issue the order, "Leave him! He's mine!"
-Since nothing is more irritating than a hero defeating you with basic math skills, I will design all of my personal sidearms to fire one more bullet than is standard.
-If I come into possession of an artifact that can be used only by the pure-of-heart, I will not, repeat,will NOT, attempt to use it nonetheless.
-When it is prophesized that "no man will defeat me", I will keep in mind the growing presence and influence of non-traditional gender roles in the world today.
-My Legions of Terror will be trained so that if they burst into rebel headquarters and find it empty except for a strange, blinking device, they will not approach it to investigate. Rather they will run like hell.
-If my mad scientist tells me that my superweapon is almost finished, but requires more testing, I will wait for him to complete the testing. No one ever conquered the world by using a beta-version.
-My force field generators will be located inside the force field they generate.
-The interior decor of my fortress will not feature pointy objects I could be impaled upon if I'm knocked off balance and stumble backwards during a fight.
-Once my power is secure, I will destroy any pesky time machines that might be at hand.
-All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
-When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
-If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
-If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
-My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
-The gun turrets on my fortress will not rotate enough so that they may direct fire inward or at each other.
-I will allow guards to operate under a flexible work schedule. That way if one is feeling sleepy, he can call for a replacement, punch out, take a nap, and come back refreshed and alert to finish out his shift.
You're More than Everyone... and Here's Why
Today, in my Management Information Systems class, we were talking about the various sizes of data that we use in modern computers. Many of you have heard of megabytes and gigabytes, but how “big” are these, exactly? I looked it up, and I was absolutely astounded as to just how much information humans have bothered to record. Not only this, but I found a mind-blowing fact that I’ll remember forever, and you should know about it as well.
A “bit” is the smallest unit of data. Basically, it’s a 1 or a 0; a true or false, up or down. 8 bits make a byte, which is the basic unit of computing, with 10 bytes making a single word and about 100 bytes making a sentence. Next is a kilobyte, which is 1024 bytes (1 kb=one page of text). Megabytes are 1024 kilobytes, with 10 Mb giving a one-minute song and 5 Mb holding the complete works of Shakespeare.
Sorry for all the techy lingo, but stick with me. A Gigabyte is probably what you’re most familiar with. A single GB can contain an entire symphony or a TV quality movie, whilst 10 GB can hold the entire orchestrated works of Beethoven and 50 GB is equivalent to an entire floor’s-worth of books at a library.
Now THIS is where it gets nuts. A Terabyte is 1024 Gigabytes. A SINGLE terabyte can house as much information as 50,000 trees worth of paper, and 1.24 TB is estimated to be the capacity of a human’s functioning memory. 2 TB is how much it takes to store an academic research library, and 10 TB is the amount of information in the Library of Congress.
But it gets BIGGER. A Petabyte is 1024 Terabytes. If you had 100 PB, you could store all printed history in human civilization. That means every book, magazine, newspaper, or anything that’s been published. But it doesn’t stop there; one Exabyte (1024 Petabytes) is the amount of information that has ever been SPOKEN by humans. That means that every word, phrase, sound, song, laugh, or anything that has ever come from the mouth of humanity could be contained in an Exabyte.
And here’s the point that made my jaw drop: a Zettabyte is 1024 Exabytes. This piece of information is so large, if everything humans ever build, said, wrote, designed, and even DID was recorded, you could fit it into a Zettabyte with tons of room to spare. Now here’s the kicker: if you took a single gram of human DNA, it would contain more than 2.2 ZETTABYTES OF INFORMATION. I don’t know about you, but the sheer ‘size’ of all this makes me feel pretty small. Isn’t it amazing that the thing that makes you “you” is greater than the rest of all humanity combined? It’s a pretty sobering thought.
And THAT, kids, is your mind-blowing fact of the day.
It's quiet... Too quiet...
So I was right: Utah State is pretty much abandoned. I knew that there were less students than normal during the summer, but it feel a lot like this:
The labs are always empty, and the library is like a morgue. San Juan (the building I'm staying in) is very private and anti-social. But hey, it's only for a few weeks.
On the bright side, I get to ride my bike as fast as I dang well please. I stil it in the highest gear it's got, and I don't have to worry (much) about mowing down some poor pedestrian.
Random question: I want to put new music on my playlist, but I don't know if it's worth the time. So I ask: do you like the music? Not care much what's playing? Let your voices be heard, my people!
Back to School
I'm pretty sure I didn't mention this earlier (or ever, really), but I'm going back to USU for the summer!
I'm going to be up there for about 4 weeks, and depending on the mission paper situation, I may be at school for 8 weeks after that. I love it up at Utah State, and I can't wait to go back on Monday. I'm living in San Juan Hall, even though it's about 1.3 miles away from campus (center of the quad). But hey, it'll give me some excercise.
I'm not taking as many classes as I'd like, but it'll be nice to be in Logan for the summer.
Facebook Status...es
For you Facebookers, you know that you have a "Facebook status" that you can use to let people know what you're up to or what you're thinking. But, as you know, there are those statuses that simply become so repetitive and irritating that you want to throttle the people who post them. Because of this, I wrote a note (on Facebook. Where else?) that outlined what I thought should be the "untouchable statuses."
Now, remember, I wrote this as a SATIRE. I'm not being totally serious here. Apparently, some people didn't get that, and my note comment area has become something of an intellectual battleground.
But hey, I thought it was pretty funny, so I thought I'd grace the masses with my wit and humor.
Please, don't thank me. It's for the kids, really.
The Facebook status feature is pretty darn fun, in my humble opinion. It's a magical place in which simpletons like myself get a stage to attempt to show off our witty humor (and often fail horribly). HOWEVER, there are a few things that show up on this stage that deserve to be booed off with all haste: status updates that are annoying and/or completely unnecessary. Here's a list of status ideas that both I and my crack team of fellow Facebookers find to be the worst of the crop:
-USING YOUR STATUS AS A RELATIONSHIP BATTLEGROUND. Look, friendships and relationships can go sour now and again, but listing the offender's faults and secrets on your status only makes you come across as a bitter person. Not very productive...
-SONG LYRICS. They can be poetic at times; that's why they wrote them. But posting them does nothing but confuse the poor innocent souls that then have to both interpret them and figure out why the heck you'd post them. They may have significance to yourself: keep it that way.
-COMPLAINING THAT YOU'RE UP TOO LATE. We get it, you're a party animal. "Suzie Q is surprised that she's up at 2 am" isn't impressing anyone. If you're so worried about being up, why not sleep? Remember sleep? He's a good old friend...
-PUTING "IS..." AS YOUR STATUS. You may be trying to be insightful or mystic when you write this. You aren't and you're not. This got old a few weeks after Facebook first came around (circa 2004). However, this is forgivable if you're updating by phone and it freaks out on you. Hey, it happens.
-LETTING EVERYONE KNOW HOW AWESOME YOUR GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND IS. You know what? I bet they ARE the greatest friend in the world, and I'm sure you love them for buying you ice cream last Thursday. But when you love the "best bf ever," tell THEM that. They won't roll their eyes at it (I hope).
-USING YOUR STATUS FOR POLITICS. We know Obama won, Liberals. And we know that he screws up, Conservatives. And NOBODY cares about Ralph Nader (that means YOU, Ralph). If you want to sling some mud or demonize a public figure, keep it off the status. That's what blogs are for.
-COMPLAINING THAT YOU SHOULD BE STUDYING/DOING HOMEWORK. So you're a slacker, huh? Well, why not tell the whole world? Telling us that you're putting off that 12-page biology paper to be on Facebook doesn't make you look like a rebel; it makes you look like a procrastinator. And while I can appreciate procrastination as much as the next guy, please, keep your sluffing news to yourself.
-EXCESSIVE EMOTICONS. Sometimes text-based communication doesn't get the feeling of a statement across, and you need to put a small emoticon in to get the point right. :), :D, and even :( are okay now and again, but "Mark had a wonderful day!!! :D:D!!! But has work tomorrow :,(!!!" can make anyone want to step on a kitten.
-DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA. Your friend Jenny doesn't want to hang out on Friday, and you didn't get asked to Homecoming. I feel for ya, but don't be a martyr. If you're looking for pity points, Facebook isn't the place to get 'em.
And last, but most definitely not least:
-OVERDO THE ALL-POWERFUL EXCLAMATION MARK (!). Hey, it's a crazy world, and we're all pretty passionate people, right? But putting an "!" after every sentence (or multiple "!", for that matter) only makes you look like you're begging for attention. We know you're life's important, but don't make it sound like you're making an infomercial sales pitch.
100 Posts!
I'm at 100 Posts!
Pretty dang awesome, huh? I remember starting this blog because I missed writing columns for the paper, and I thought it would be refreshing to do that every now and again. It's been a wild ride, and I hope to keep this up for a while longer (at least until I leave for my mission). I hope I've been at least a bit entertaining, and if I haven't... well, tough beans.
I'll try to update more often.
Here's to another 100 posts!
Cheers.
Mark.
What the...?
I've been places and seen stuff, people. Stupid stuff. Add this and the fact that I have a camera phone (aleibt not a very good one), and you've got yourself a blog post. When I see something in life that makes me ask "What the...?" (see title), then I usually like to get a picture of it. These are some of my favorites.
Elvis lives, huh? Then why does it have his DEATH DATE?
I don't wanna know what recipies call for this.
Wow. In case you didn't know, the "real" movie is "The Day the Earth Stood Still." This is one of those cheap knock-offs. Made me laugh.
Aren't ripe bananas yellow?...
It's like they didn't even try.
This is what I call a "suicide inducer."
I think that card catergories are being a little too specialized.
One is a children's classic. The other is a sad attempt to make a few bucks. Try to guess.
I saw this poster at Wal-Mart's Men's section. This is THE definition of panzy.
A guy with a club beating a bear on the cover of a French book. What the...?
More Useless Garbage!
You all know that I'm the King of Useless Information, right? And as your king, I willingly distribute my wealth of useless facts to the peasantry with grace and dignity. So, to keep my popular public image, I should probably dish out a few more, huh? Here's some more facts for the huddled masses (you).
-Approximately sixty circus performers have been shot from cannons. At last report, thirty-one of these have been killed.
-Calvin and Hobbes: Hobbes originally had pads on his hands and feet but Bill Waterson (the creator) found them too distracting and removed them.
-In the name of art, Chris Burden arranged to be shot by a friend while another person photographed the event. He sold the series of pictures to an art dealer. He made $1750 on the deal, but his hospital bill was $84,000.
-In Britain’s House of Commons, the government and opposition sides of the House are separated by two red lines. The distance between the lines is two swords’ lengths, a reminder of just how seriously the Brits used to take their politics.
-The numbers on opposite sides of a die always add up to 7.
-If you were born in Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Manhattan project (where they made the atomic bomb), your birth place is listed as a post office box in Albuquerque.
-The St. Louis Gateway Arch had a projected death toll while it was being built. No one died.
-The Chinese national anthem is called "The March of Volunteers."
-Revolvers cannot be silenced because of all the noisy gasses which escape the cylinder gap at the rear of the barrel.
-According to Dennis Changon, spokesman for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal, Canada - if all of the commercial planes in the world were grounded at the same time there wouldn't be space to park them all at gates.
-Jane Barbie was the woman who did the voice recordings for the Bell System.
-Before settling on the name of Tiny Tim for his character in "A Christmas Carol", three other alliterative names were considered by Charles Dickens. They were: Little Larry, Puny Pete and Small Sam.
-Mario, of Super Mario Bros. fame, appeared in the 1981 arcade game, Donkey Kong. His original name was Jumpman, but was changed to Mario to honor the Nintendo of America's landlord, Mario Segali.
-The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
-A "hairbreadth away" is 1/48 of an inch.
-On dry, windy days, pollen can travel up to 500 miles.
Well, there ya have it. Let me know if you want more in the future. Thank you, loyal subjects.
Two Decades.
Yikes. The fact that I've been terrorizing this little planet for two decades kinda gives me the willies. But then again, 20 isn't exactly the biggest birthday, huh? I mean, when you're 18, you're an "adult," you can buy cigs at 19, and drink at 21, right? While I haven't smoked and don't plan to drink, It's kind of strange that they wouldn't put something in that "20" slot. How about this: when you turn 20, you can legally own a Nerf gun and pop any teenagers who you catch texting. I like that...
Speaking of Nerf guns, I got one of those six-shooter Nerfs for my b-day. It's actually a lot more entertaining for a college student than you'd think; I've already managed to make a name for myself as the best marksman, and Russian Roullette with Nerf is pretty fun.
I lost...
People tell me that I'm getting old... however, "old is 15 years from now."
-Bill Cosby.
Besides, I've gotten to the point that I can't really judge age simply by numbers anymore. For example, I know 18-year-olds who are more mature than most of us can ever hope to be, and yet I know some people in their 20's and 30's who act like teenagers. The number of years you've been here are how old you are, but it isn't your age.
Whoa... deep...
P.S. I wanted to let you know that I've found a physical representation of demons incarnate:
You know what these things are? They're a toy that asks you 20 questions, and it can guess what you're thinking of. Almost every time. I mean, seriously, this thing's disturbingly accurate; it got four-leaf clover and ruby all within five minutes. Sure, it's pretty fun, but it's evil.
Plastic evil.
Spring Break '09
Last year's spring break, a few roommates and myself decided that St. George, UT was the place to be. It was warm, and we were itching to go camping. It was pretty cool:
This was last year.
Well, this time, the same group (minus one) went to St. George once again. This time, however, we weren't camping. Oh, no, we were staying in the Presidential Suite at a condo complex, thanks to my dad's generosity and bonus points.
So, we thought we'd go hiking at the same places and what not. It was about as fun as a barrel of monkeys. See for yourself:
This is the Presidential Suite we stayed in. Livin' the high life... for a week, at least.
This is Slot Canyon. You have to nearly kill yourself to get there, and it'll make anyone claustrophobic, but there are some really cool Indian carvings in the walls.
We found a playground in the area, and Austin challenged me to Tic-Tac-Toe. I defeated him soundly.
Me and Mom at Red Robin. She said "smile." I refused. Heh...
This is the area around Slot Canyon that we hiked. Actually, "climbed" is a more accurate verb.
Eric and I in another crevice. I really didn't panic. Really.
This is one of the Indian carvings. It's either a ram or a dog with rabbit ears.
The walls were 20 feet at the shortest, and it was only a few feet wide. I said that if there was an earthquake while we were in there, it wouldn't be pretty.
Us on the playground. It was VERY late...
This is a fish-eye of the view from our deck. Our PRIVATE deck. With a HOT TUB.
Lookie What I Made
I've become addicted to a new program: Google SketchUp. It's pretty simple for a 3D rendering program, and I've caught on to it pretty quick. I wanted to make something of my own, so I decided to make a 3D digital version of my Zune Mp3 player. Now, you have to remember, I built this thing 100% from scratch. Am I bragging?
Why, yes. Yes I am.
You can put your statements of awe and amazement in the comments box.
Ask a Ninja
I'm surprised at how many people have never heard of this website... askaninja.com is an endless source of clean entertainment (until you run out of episodes...)
Ever wonder what the life of a ninja is like? The Ninja tells you just how it goes down. Check the site out later if you want, and make sure to watch the older episodes (20's and 30's). They're the best.
Enjoy.
Oooooh boy...
So, good (maybe) news. You may know that I was serving as the Vice President of South Campus up here at Utah State this last semester. South Campus has ~400 students, and I wanted to join Area Government because it was akin to student gov't back in high school... except you actually do important things up here.
Well, the President resigned, and I was VP... Do the math...
You may ask why I'm not totally ecstatic about the whole situation, and here's why: I'm already taking 16 credits worth of classes, as well as serving in the Elder's Quorum Presidency. I don't exactly have much room on my schedule, and I'm apprehensive that this will finally give me that "push" into insanity (see 'Dark Knight').
But, like everything else, we just need to take it in stride, right? I really am trying to be positive about it. For example, I got to go to General Council today: where all the Area Governments, Peer Mentor reps, etc. get together and discuss things of the utmost importance. I'm going to do what I can to make this work, and work well.
Plus, it looks good on a resume...
Come One! Come All!
May I have your attention, please! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you a spectacle that has no equal in astonishment and amazement! Behold, the STADIUM SEATING:
Pretty boss, eh? I know I'm a little overexcited, but we've been thinking about doing this for a while, and we've finally gotten to it. What we've done is taken the small couch and raised it up on cinder blocks, so it's about 3 feet off the ground, with the large couch in front of it. Not only that, but we've raised the chair to the right about a foot. What you have now is a movie-watching setup that rivals that of any in existence. Add to that the fact that we've got an American flag made of Christmas lights on the front window and the strings of light and black-bulbs in the room next, and you've got the most happenin' room on campus.
Come by sometime. We'll give ya a free tour.
TOP 25! It's about time...
People of Earth! The college sports community has finally seen the errors of its ways and decided to lift the Utah State basketball team to its rightful place in the glorious top 25. For those of you who have no idea what the significance of this "25" is: the top 25 is the list (lists) put together by various people in college sports to determine who the top 25 basketball teams in the nation are. We're #25 on the AP list, and #22 on the coach's poll. This has been a long time coming, considering that Utah State has the best starting record in the school's history, tied for the best record in the COUNTRY, and currently has the BEST AWAY RECORD IN THE NATION. People may say: "well, they aren't playing any hard teams..." Look, I don't care who you are or what you do, any team that can has the best away record in the nation AND tied for best record deserves a little sugar.
So there's my bragging session. And no, I'm not going to apologize.
Cheers.
Oh, by the way... BYU and Utah aren't ranked.
Booyah.
Fail...
For the last while, I've been totally swamped with school, homework, social stuff, Elder's Quorum, Area Government... it's been absolutely crazy. It's getting to the point that I feel like I've died a bit inside, and so I need laughs more than ever. Derek showed me this website, failblog.org, and it's got a bunch of epic fails on it that others were kind enough to point out in everyday life (a fail is... a fail. An epic fail is a fail to the extreme).
So, just in case you've got your hands as full as mine, here's some funnies that I stole from the site. Enjoy.
