"I'm sure he just got tied up in court again."

I was suppose to go hang out with a buddy last night. Nothing big, just someone I hadn't seen in a while...but it never happened. He just never showed up or called. The reason I bring this is not because I was really that upset about it specifically, but more aggrevated about it generally.

"I don't think I've ever been to an appointment in my life where I wanted the other guy to show up."

In Hong Kong we called it "getting fonged," fong being short for a chinese idiom that means a person didn't make it to their appointment because they fell out of the plane on the way. And as satisfying as the image might be, you still felt disheartened and a bit rejected. Additionally far more aggrevating than not having any appointments all day was having a day of appointments where no one shows up because they overslept, had to meet someone, or just plain forgot.

"Why did you ask me to come here?"
"Oh, I was going to drop that tree on you."
"That big one?"
"Yeah."
"It would've flattened me like a pancake."

And perhaps there was a time where I was the guy fonging others. One time it took three seperate attempts for me to meet this girl at the ATMs on campus to do the library tour for english class. But now, I get so impatient and almost offended when people don't show up or fulfill there commitments. Like a kid waiting for his mom to pick him up from swim practice on a hot summer day or after football practice on a rainy afternoon. Dozens of or cutting rebukes on their lack of character and relative resposibility. Remarks that never come to an audible fruition when contrasted to the real reasoning behind their absence or delay; something like projectile vomiting or the car blowing up in a fiery explosion. I mean, come on, it's hard to be mad at someone for that. And maybe my expectations for others shouldn't surpass my own abilities. It's not like people call me Mr. Dependability...

"Don't do this to me, I have to go play with my son. I'm Jose Canseco, I'm Jose Canseco!"

... just Mr. Awesome.

"Mortal Kombat for the Sega Genesis is the greatest game ever..."

Well, Halo 2 is out.

"You know my great-great-grandfather Angus Griffin invented the game."

I wanted to write about this yesterday but got distracted halfway through writing and then in my gusto to get home and...well, play Halo 2, I closed the window without even saving what I had. And just let the record show, I do love Halo 2. It's gorgeous, very customizable, and above all else...it's a new game. But I'm not without my reservations and problems with the game.

"Oh, it's Cricket. Marvelous game, really. You see, the bowler hurls the ball toward the batter who tries to play away a fine leg. He endeavors to score by dashing between the creases, provided the wicket keeper hasn't whipped his bails off, of course."

In order change things up and improve them they seem to have made things unnecessarily complicated. There are no long big open levels or simple logical lay-outs, rather most of the maps are filled with obstacles and hindering terrain. New weapons and the ability to wield two weapons at the same time often leaves me standing over a gun for 30 seconds trying figure out exactly what weapon or combination of weapons I want.

"It's easy when you play with rejects and a fat kid, Rodriguez."

And I don't like to brag, but I was good at Halo 1. And what made me love it all the more was that I came into it from the bottom; being ridiculously beaten on every hand, to being the leader in kills. But the parts that I loved and got good at in Halo (specifically pistol fights in big open spaces)...are gone from the new incarnation and I am left sort of left with a nostalgic yearning for my comfort zone. Blood Gulch, a pistol, and Capture the Flag.

"Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money. It was the game... The sounds, the smells."

What made Halo a classic was not so much the game, but the people. Halo was only as fun as the friends you played with. It was about scraping together enough boxes, getting a comfortable seat, and rallying together as a team. Yelling out directions, whispering strategies to your teammate, going downstairs to rub in the glorious victory, or locking the door and turning out the lights to hide the shame of your loss. And while the medium has changed slightly, I guess I'll just have to wait and see if Halo 2 will bring together friends and good times like its predecessor did and still does...

"...Donkey Kong sucks."
"You know what? You suck."

"How am I not myself?"

I guess I get too ambitious and write long pretentious posts about imagined conflicts or futile analogies...or I write nothing at all. Consistency, I think I want consistency now. Not just consistency in my bjournal, but consistency in my life. But consistency can rapidly become routine, and routine can lead to boredom. So I guess I want some varied and exciting consistency. And I want a spear that can pierce any shield and a shield that is impervious to all spears.

"Everything is the same even if it's different."

Perhaps I feel like a contradiction myself. A contradiction born in indifference. Knowing what should be done, but failing to do so. Knowing what shouldn't be done, but failing to refrain. Nothing major or of a serious nature, yet that makes it all the more rational and justifiable.

"You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."

And that's where the real contradiction comes in. I know I should care. I feel the conflict within and try to remain a Switzerland in my own life. It's Dustin's own defense system, if there is an emotional wound or leak anywhere I just lock down everything until I get it under control. The problem is that this defense mechanism is so well tuned and automated, it happens without my knowledge or even consent. And before I know it, I don't feel.

"And suddenly I felt nothing. I couldn't cry. So, once again, I couldn't sleep."

But it's the easy way out. And sadly, that is what I tend to look for -- the easy way out. I don't look for the difficult or most challenging manner of action. No that sounds like work. And while I have been known to knuckle down and do hard work from time to time (or even for a two year period), it's usually because I'm out of options or there is no options. And sadly enough, barely dodging the bullet doesn't seem to make me that much more likely to avoid gunfire, it seems only to affirm my own ability to dodge bullets. I imagine it's like a soldier who survives several dozen battles, no longer sees each missed shot or dodged bullet as miraculous or spectacular, but rather sees it as common or expected. Shots riddling all around you and your not worried about the next clip unloaded at you or the one that just missed you, you've grown apathetic. If the next one gets you, that sucks and if it misses you that's rad. You feel like you have not control over your destiny and "suddenly you become euphoric, docile, you accept your fate."

"I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue...I didn't say I was different or better. I'm not. Hell, I sympathize; I sympathize completely. Apathy is the solution. I mean, it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work."

Dallin Oaks just spoke at the devotional and the topic of his talk was "Where will this lead?" Which makes me think...where WILL this lead? That, is an excellent question.

"Feel better, champ."

...myself?

“Oh, Dave….FUDGE!”

Sometimes movie quotes are the most effective way I have for expressing myself...and maybe the most entertaining.

“It’s like fate.”
“Exactly! It was my fate to meet her.”
“But it wasn’t your fate to BE with her. Unfortunately my friend, fate has a different plan for you. You will grow-up, go out into the world. You’ll forget all about the things that happened here, Ethan, Angela, the shit we pulled, those hookers that we THOUGHT were girls. And ya know, you’re gonna go out there and no one…NO one can shoot you down, because a woman one time stepped on your heart and left a scar in its wake. That is your FATE, Dave…

…just as it is my fate, to someday become Shogun.”

“We have been getting screwed by the system. The system that forces us guys to like girls. All right? We're getting pushed into this. What if we just take the girls out of it? We can have our own system, it's a counter-system. And then, you do things together, you swim, you row, you... boat, you eat, you stink. We can just be guys! You can have sex, you can do it, you know, many guys at a time, but it's not gay…

…I have a comment. Just so you guys know, I’m not gay.”

“I want to make sure that you and I are best friends – ‘gnome’ matter what.”
“Ethan, that's a troll. “
“‘Gnome’ it's not.”

“All right Jack. If you could describe yourself in one word, what would it be?”
“Hmmm, I'd have to say... slave-to-the-freaky-ass-booty.”

A stream of my thoughts, and those are from just one movie...slacker.

“Now put your clothes back on, and I'll buy you an ice cream.”

I’m a rainbow sherbet kind of guy. Almost without fail, I go to Baskin-Robbins with hopes of a new surprise, a new flavor to tantalize my mouth. I enter filled with ambition and ideas for the future of my ice cream frenzy. I enter with all of that and I exit with rainbow sherbet. Why do I come back to rainbow sherbet? Because it’s my favorite; the flavor I like the most. I could try other flavors and every so often I do. But I rarely find anything to compare to the elation I feel for rainbow sherbet. Actually, when X-men 2 came out in theaters, Baskin Robbins held a promotion where they gave away free cones of the cross-promotional tie-in flavors of Xtreme Blue Rasberry Blast and Mutant Mint Shockwave or something catchy and fresh like that. I tried the blue raspberry and I liked it and for the better part of that summer, that was my flavor of choice. It was my favorite. But somehow I was back to rainbow sherbet, I guess it just fulfilled my needs. I have one favorite at a time, and that’s what I prefer.

“Come, ice cream. Come to my mouth. How dare you disobey me!…What are you looking at? Damn you all... and such.”

My brother Todd is different. He can have a different flavor each time he walks into Baskin-Robbins and enjoy it just as much as any other flavor. I use Todd as an example because several of his high school buddies worked at Baskin-Robbins and so on any given trip to the Mall, one was usually on duty and would give us free scoops. So naturally a bulk of my Baskin-Robbins experience includes Todd. Todd could go in and get mint chocolate chip one time, rocky road the next, and then turn around and get bubble gum. It boggles my mind how someone can like so many different flavors. Sure I like chocolate peanut butter, Mutant Blue Sherbet Bonanza, and even bubble gum. But not as totally as I like rainbow sherbet. Todd can see the good in each of the different flavors. Things he enjoys about this one or that one. I can only see the total sum of all its qualities. I can have only one favorite.

“There can be only one!”

Maybe it’s a problem of perception. I see things singularly, while others see them plurally. If I preferred a different flavor, then the former, by very definition is NOT my favorite. I have but one “favorite” flavor at a time, all the other 30 flavors are merely secondary to that flavor. I could try to enjoy other flavors, thinking that maybe they could be my favorite. But really all I would be doing is trying to pretend that I was not totally devoted to rainbow sherbet.

“Benjamin is nobody's friend. If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick.”

This is an analogy, I guess, to…dating. Some people can date prolifically. Like this about one person and that about another person. Other people, only date one person at a time. Again a difference between singular and plural perspectives, holistic versus separatistic. Additionally each group finds it difficult to understand the other. Difficult to understand how someone could date one person for 6 months or why someone feels the need to go out with a different girl each night of the week. Neither side is really right or wrong, its just the way things are. I only relate this because I always seem to pick the flavors that either are no longer available or just plain sold out. And I think maybe “Strawberry Cheescake Chunk” will be my new favorite, it’s time for a new favorite, because obviously this flavor is not an option. But just because a flavor isn’t available, doesn’t make it ‘not’ your favorite. You’ve got to find a new flavor that beats the old one, not just one to replace it. And sadly its something you rarely have control over…it just happens. I’m still trying to find a flavor that is actually available at a Baskin-Robbins near me. Cause while I do love ice cream and girls…there really can be only one.

“We can never see past the choices we don't understand.”

…though sometimes it seems more like “There can be only none.”

“Fortune and glory, kid…Fortune and glory.”

Professor Gilchrist is about as Canadian as they come. Which, fortunately, I don’t mind. In fact I find I find it hilarious most of the time, like I’m watching Terrance and Phillip from South Park or the MacKenzie Brothers from Strange Brew. Only instead of fart jokes or calling people hosers, we talk about tyranny, the common good and political power.

“I was like a one-man army, like Charlton Heston in "Omega Man." You ever see it, eh? Beauty.”

After first relating Machiavelli’s The Prince to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (awesome), Professor Gilchrist explained that in a Machiavellian view, glory and immortality are the ultimate in ‘virtue’ or success. Causing, through your actions, your own immortality. To illustrate this he used a quote from the movie Troy. Achilles’ mother tells this to him as he must make a choice whether or not to will follow the Greeks and go to war against the Trojans:

“If you stay in Larissa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman, and you will have sons and daughters, who will have children. And they'll all love you and remember your name. But when your children are dead, and their children after them, your name will be forgotten… If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years! And the world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come back…for your glory walks hand-in-hand with your doom. And I shall never see you again.”

And it struck me; this was analogous to my dilemma. Like Achilles, I was posed with a choice of destiny. If I go to Brighton, Colin and I will have fun and the snow will be great. But next year or the year after, the memory will fade and life will just go on. Yet if I go to the Canyons, I will ride with my crew, we will make an epic video and the glory of the season will live on for generations upon generations. Go to Brighton and enjoy a fleeting moment, or go to Canyons and live this season forever...

“You're gonna get killed chasing after your damn fortune and glory!”

...and so I follow the Greeks to the Canyons this season...and glory...shall be mine (or at least like a really bad-@ss good time).

"Unite us. Unite the clans."

I hate friends. I know that sounds not only quite harsh but sort of contradictory. It's still true, though. You never feel peer pressure if you don’t have any peers. You never feel split and torn between a personal pursuit or desire and the love and companionship of your friends, if you don’t have friends. But then again I guess you'd probably get lonely. Ok, fine, I don't hate them. Sometimes I just get pissed off with them. Frustrated with how much I like them, enough to seemingly coerce me to action.

“With friends like you, who needs friends?”

I do, unquestionablly, love to snowboard. This love blossoms each winter and as a result, I purchase a season pass to a local Ski resort. The last two years it has been the Canyons in Park City. It’s been the cheapest, easily accessible, and for the most part “THE” place for college students to go. I've been pleased for the most part, though somewhat discouraged at the quality of the snow. But I have managed to have friends to ride with. I had a squad of friends from my floor in the dorms two years ago, and last year a crew from my apartment complex, we call ourselves “The Ninjas.” We even made a snowboarding video. I had a lot of fun.

“Because this is a very big idea, my friends. We're talking about a non-exclusive egalitarian brotherhood where community status and more importantly age have no bearing whatsoever.”

When everyone had come back from summer, I guess I felt like everyone was distant, sort of branching out into new facets of life. We were growing apart. And with that peoples drive to go snowboarding and ride as a crew seemed to diminish as well. Some people were considering not getting a pass at all, others suggested they would probably only go a half dozen times. And with that I felt like the vision of team unity I had looked forward to. began to dwindle and so my ties with the team began to decay. We're not talking complete decomposition, just some mild decay, like that sensitive spot above that molar on the upper right side of your mouth. Nothing was said, school started and everything moved on moderately. In fact, like an early forming cavity, I'm not sure I even noticed it.

F_ck what you know. You need to forget about what you know, that's your problem. Forget about what you think you know about life, about friendship, and especially about you and me.”

In my research and excitement for the new season I looked into some reports of equally cheap season passes at Snowbird. I looked into it and decided that it wasn’t sufficiently worth it to me. However I did find that for nearly the same price I could get a season pass to Brighton. Now I have only been to Brighton maybe 5 or 6 times. And I loved it each time. Brighton, statistically speaking is great, it has a higher average snow fall, higher elevation, more difficult runs, and best of all, offers night skiing. Actually, going to Brighton had been brought up before, but that was when it was thought to cost at least $500. But now it had a competing price tag. Now, I had a dilemma.

“You're gonna listen to me? To something I said? Hasn't it become abundantly clear during the tenure of our friendship that I don't know shit?”

Well one of the Ninjas is a rep for canyons. That means he sells passes for them in the pre-season and in exchange for his services, he gets a free pass to the Canyons. He did it last year and he’s doing it again this year. Well his response to the decision of where the “Ninjas” were getting season passes was basically “I'm going to the Canyons, but if you guys aren’t going then I probably won't go.” Another teammate then stated that “if I do get a pass its gonna be at Canyons.” So like the first of a line of dominoes, the Ninjas began to sign off on going to Brighton for the season. Everyone that is except for me. Why, you may ask. Well, I guess I hate feeling coerced or manipulated. I like to think that I make all my decisions based solely on my own preferences, snubbing my nose and giving the middle finger to the expectations of others. I had been researching and developing reasoning for why we should go to Brighton this year, I had done such a good job that I had even convinced myself. Quite thoroughly in fact. Only to find out that no amount of research or reasoning would change a simple fact: the Ninjas were going to ride at the Canyons in Park City.

“Master's my friend!”
“You don't have any friends, nobody likes you!”
“I'm not listening, I'm not listening.”

So basically I was left with an ultimatum of sorts. Like a car packed with your friends off for some fun after the high school basketball game, with the car door open, asking “You coming?” And then being frozen at that moment in time for the better part of a week. Yeah you can think of dozens of reasons why you want to go with them and yet a few dozen why you want to go do something else. But is my choosing to not go with my friends...unfriendly. What kind of damage does that do? And if I go and never get a season pass to Brighton, what kind of effect will that have? And why is it that I am the one standing outside the car being asked if I in, or if I want to come along, instead of the one driving the car to the social (or perhaps antisocial) event of my choosing?

“I want to make sure that you and I are best friends - "gnome" matter what.”
“Ethan, that's a troll.”
“'Gnome' it's not.”

Basically, I don't know what’s more important to me: the quality of the resort or the quality of the crew. Colin has pledged his alliance, and so I know no matter where I go, he and I will have an awesome time. I want to ride together and have fun together...snowboarding. And perhaps the thing that concerns me is that the excitement around this season pass issue is more about friendship than snowboarding. I thought I had it figured out, but now I've got to figure out, am I getting a season pass with friends to go snowboarding or am I getting a season pass to go snowboarding with friends.

“It’s time to ask yourself what you believe.”

...I guess I better “choose wisely.”

“Say goodbye to your two best friends, and I don't mean your pals in the Winnebago.”

“I want always to be a boy, and have fun…”

Succinctly put, that is exactly how I feel. Despite what I may say or the plans I profess for my life, I find myself often going back to this principle. Is it out of fear or defense? Or perhaps immaturity and selfishness? I don’t really know. And maybe I don’t care.

“Why don't you call me when you grow up, wait a minute that will never happen so, why don't you just not call me...yeah”

Last Christmas, we went as a family to go see the new Peter Pan film that had just come out. I’ll admit that my vote was in the negation on the matter, but nonetheless it was a movie complete with popcorn and treats, compliments of my parents and I’m no fool. Well, I loved the movie. And all of a sudden I saw that the story of Peter Pan wasn’t about kids going to a far of place to fight pirates, when they should be in bed. It was about growing up, moving on to the future and leaving the past. It was about moving out of the nursery. It was about me.

“What in the hell's the matter with you? When will you stop acting like a child?”
“I am a child.”
“Grow up.”

They call it ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ and when I say “they” I mean my mom. I’ve heard it used plenty of other places, but it’s a phrase made popular to me by my mother. It’s actually fairly self-explanatory. You don’t want to grow-up (i.e. be responsible, have a job, get married, provide for the needs of a family, etc.) you’d rather act like a boy; to play and have fun. Live and exist in a self-serving, carefree...(for lack of a better word) Neverland. And if this was a true disease, then I suppose I have terminal case. I like the fact that when I come home from work or school, the first (and often only) thing on my mind is “what do I want to do?” I can take a nap, play some video games, go to the store, go skateboard around the block, or just simply nothing at all. Yeah, I guess it’s a bit selfish. In fact I’ve heard it said that the truest and most sincere happiness is felt in the service of others. But I like being in charge of just me and being sure that my needs are met. Besides, I can always guarantee myself a fun time.

“Why do you have to spoil everything? We have fun, don't we? I taught you to fly and to fight. What more could there be?”
“There is so much more.”

But the more I think about it, the more I realize the root of my behavior: I’m scared. Not terrified like the scantily-clad blonde girl in a Friday the 13th movie. Maybe more like Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, a bank robber surrounded by cops and locked in a stalemate (except there’s no gay guy needing money for a sex change operation in my scenario). Trying to stall and have a bit of fun; prolonging the inevitable. All the while the pressure to make a decision grows and swells. It’s as if I feel like the safest action is non-action. Not regression, but stemming progression. The future is uncertain, it could be good or it could be bad. But as long as I can maintain the present things can’t get any worse. The Status Quo. And yet I find moments where the status quo is somewhat lacking to grasp my attentions. I tire of fighting pirates or hunting Indians; video games lose there luster and naps feel like I’m waiting for something. Admittedly these moments are brief, but they force me to think, to ponder.

“Surely you must have felt love once for something... or someone.”
“Never. Even the sound of it offends me.”

Yeah it offends me too. But probably it’s because I’m not in love. When you’re not in love or don’t have a significant other, you become annoyed with the romances of others; most especially when they conflict with your fun and games. I have a roommate who just started dating this girl. He spends an inordinate amount of time with her. The other night he said that he was just going over to her place for an hour and he’d be back to play HALO. Nearly 5 hours later, I went to bed and he still wasn’t home. Not that I’m even jealous, I just can’t understand. I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to fight pirates with me, why anyone would leave me and Neverland. But maybe that’s what it takes to make you leave Neverland. You have to find love. You have to care about someone so much that being with them is fun, caring for them makes you happy. Peter Pan stayed in Neverland until he found the right girl. He didn’t leave Neverland, because it was “about time” or he “needed to,” Peter stayed in Neverland until he found his reason to leave.

You can’t leave Neverland out of obligation or you’ll never feel satisfied or happy. You only leave Neverland when you found somewhere better…someone better, your Wendy.

Oh... Peter's found himself a... Wendy. And Hook is all alone.

“...You say so, Peter, but I think it is your biggest pretend.”

"I can't stop once I start...it stings!"

Writer's block can be such a pain.

“'Cause I don't like tall people, they bother me!”

I went to see Dodgeball with Colin and Spencer last night. My expectations were low. I had heard hardly a favorable review from anyone who had seen it thus far. It's crude, it's perverted, it's not that funny, and it's the same old thing. But I like “the same old thing,” I think it's funny. Fortunately for both myself and the movie industry there is the dollar theater. Movies that once I may have downloaded (err thought about downloading), I now just say "I'll wait for the dollar theater." I see them and with the exception of The Tuxedo and Johnny English, I have yet to feel that .50 cents or a dollar was too much to pay. I went into Dodgeball expecting the reaction similar to those of my friends and associates.

“Shit! Get old, you can't even cuss someone and have it bother 'em. Everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing.”

Well, I wasn't offended. In fact I laughed...a lot. As we walked out, we thought "People walked out of this? It's a Ben Stiller movie, not a Ben Affleck movie." Granted most stayed and watched, but a rather large number of people felt that they had been taken for a ride. Duped into watching Ben Stiller and his friends' latest batch of low-brow humor. I find it odd that people can be selective with there views on appropriateness. Particularly when they are worried about appearances. An example is a buddy of Colin's who actually had walked out on the movie. He had gone with a buddy and they had taken dates. The humor got questionable, so they took the moral high road and left (it was after all only a dollar). Do I think that he really was that offended…no. I think they felt that they should be bothered. The legitimacy of they're feeling offended or the lack there of, is not what I object to; what I object to is the pretense of piety. Not participating or enjoying something because of what others will think. Not making up their mind for themselves about the appropriateness of an activity or movie, but rather relying on the opinions and estimations of others. “I don't want them to think I'm a bad Mormon (Catholic, Hasidic Jew, Parent, Little League Coach, Star Trek fan, Al Queda suicide bomber, etc.)” Well, I guess the question you should ask your self is...are you? Are you a bad [insert classification here]? How exactly does the perceptions of others really effect who you are? Are you so insecure that you’re validity and successfulness in your pursuits in life are nullified by the opinions of others? If so, wow...it sucks to be you.

“You offend reason, sir.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I should like to offend it with you.”

Dumb and Dumber. Everyone loves that movie and most claim it to be one of their favorite comedies. I bring this up because I rarely hear anyone criticize it for its crude content (Actually my mom and dad walked out of Dumb and Dumber. They opted for the equally offensive Little Women instead). For example, the diarrhea / broken toilet scene, Lloyd's dream sequence, Seabass and the diner, the bus load of Bikini Girls, etc. (mmm Bikini girls). But it's a movie that everyone likes, so laughing when Lloyd loses his wallet trying to buy a pornographic newspaper called "Rhode Island Slut" is not bad because, hey, everyone else thinks its ok. We all know peer pressure is bad when it causes us to do 'bad' things, but is it really that much better when it’s the only reason we do 'good' or what's 'right'? Either way the root of the problem is agency. People not using their agency to make choices for themselves. Doing things "to be seen of men."

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

I'm not saying to go see whatever you want, and I'm not saying to avoid everything you're told. All I want is for people to do things for themselves and keep it to themselves. I want people to empower themselves and let other people do the same. When that next 'questionable' movie or CD comes out, don't see it because everyone else is or deplore it because everyone else is. We all have the special power of agency, the ability to make choices for ourselves. We should probably use it. And as Prince Adam exclaims before becoming He-man, "...I HAVE THE POWER!"

“We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example. And what I've done is going to be puzzled over, and studied, and followed... forever.”

..."My eyes are open."

“So what do we do next?”

Sunflower seeds. The only thing keeping me from falling asleep and taking the car careening off into the rural byways of Idaho is a mouth full of sunflower seeds. “Ok, my mouth is getting raw, I think I take a break for a bit” I tell myself. I finished the current mouth load, had a drink of water and sat back and stared at the road. One (one thousand) Two (one thousand) – cue closing eyes. Either my eyes start closing reflexively or they stay open with a glazed over stare. This is dangerous, especially when your mom tells you that a 22 year-old girl crashed into a cow and died on this stretch of road not that long ago. Gotta stay alert for the cows. Gotta eat more sunflower seed. Well my body’s awake, but my brain soon becomes bored. What to think about…what do I think about…

“Hey Eckhardt, think about the future!”

My mind wandered to the events of the recent past and the impending future. Going home for Jeff’s wedding was great. His wife is cute, fun, athletic, smart, and cute. I got to hang out with Jeff some the night before, went to the sealing, and then talked with him at the reception. I was reminded of all the times Jeff and I had played at each others homes in Medford and the times we’d worked and talked together in Hong Kong. It’s so cool to see one of your good friends find someone special and watch them start the rest of the lives together. And now its Jeff and Aime Zimmer. He did it; He made it. And I was left congratulating and pondering my own marital status.

“Escape is not his plan. I must face him. Alone.”

Todd was home. Actually he’s still home; Ensnared in limbo. It was kind of sad to see him caught in a shell of himself. I likened it to a dream. A dream where you know you’re gone in Brazil, working as a dedicated missionary, but the world around you, you’re dream world, tells you that you are not and that although you know and feel that you are a missionary, you’re environment is anything but. What your eyes see conflicts with what your heart knows; trapped. I think they call this a nightmare. Only you can’t wake up from this in the morning, you have to just sit and wait for the visa. But by Saturday night, he had warmed up and we were having fun.

“I like being unimpressive. I sleep better.”

I finally saw Garden State as well. As I sat down in the theater I honestly felt that the movie would never live up to the expectations I had conjured up. I…was wrong. It was exactly what I had wanted and imagined. It made me smile and laugh at parts both ridiculous and all too true. And in a way, the movie made me feel. That may sound weird but every now and again I watch a movie that capture an emotion, an event, a feeling. Like a biopsy of my life or a slice of the Dustin pie, its like a self contained memory. A memory I never had. And when I watch it, it reminds me of the feelings I had at a point in my life, then associated with that movie. And for some reason, this movie, captures this last summer; my summer in ‘Jersey.’ I loved it and I want to see it again.

“Yet even in certain defeat, the courageous Trager secretly clung to the belief that life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences. Uh-uh. But rather it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan.”

And onto the future. I watch the featureless scenery and yellow striped lines of Interstate 84 blip past. A new scholastic year, knocking at my door, almost as if asking permission to come in. Potential. There is a lot of potential for this coming year. Fun to be had, goals to be achieved, and destiny to realized. (Wow that sounds pretty epic.) How much control do we even have over our ‘destiny’? Are we even that destined? If you want it that bad, what are you willing to do to achieve it? What are you willing to give up? What am I going to eat for breakfast? I think a mind could be ripped apart by too much thinking. Thinking, unhampered by any external influences or senses. Apparently that does make you a Pinball Wizard, but I don’t think that makes you a very sane person. I guess in the words of Winston Churchill:

“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”

Left unchecked, I guess I think too much. That usually isn't bad, I like it. Maybe it makes me more observant, more attentative, more analytical. But sometimes I guess I just get going and my thoughts start to snowball out of control, bearing down on me like that boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ready to smash me into oblivion…

“Good luck in the infinite abyss.”

…I think it’s Colin’s turn to drive.

“Does everybody have a moving buddy?”

I didn’t get much sleep last night. Actually when you don’t go to bed until 5:30 a.m. you suppose to say “I didn’t get much sleep this morning.” And perhaps worse than being ‘can’t-keep-my-eyes-open-and-stop-mumbling-and-drooling-all-over-myself’ tired is being ‘my-whole-body-aches-and-I-can’t-stop-fidgiting-or-pay-attention-to-anything’ tired. But my foray into the break of both dawn and my sanity was not the result of some sort of video game marathon or the ridiculous sacrifice of my hibernation period for the company of a girl. No, I was packing from 10 o’clock (which just happened to be when I finished hangin’ out with some girls and a video gaming stint.) until I laid down to sleep…or rather, to nap.

“Milt, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?”

The weird thing is that I’m only moving to the other side of the block. Its all part of the same “Square,” just a different building in the complex. It’s like moving from Provo to Orem. Technically you are moving, you have to pack everything up, transport it to the new locale, and then reassemble your life. Oddly enough, regardless of where you move to, the processes is still the same. The only real difference is that when you are just moving across town (or the apartment complex) it’s not nearly as exotic or enthralling as moving to a new state, region, or latitude. No, it’s all the hassle, half the fun. Wait, isn’t that what they say about life after graduation?

“Chas? What's going on?”
“We got locked out of our apartment.”
“Well, did you call a locksmith?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, I don't understand. Did you pack your bags BEFORE you got locked out?”

To make matters worse, I have to give up my key and have everything out of my apartment by the 13th. This also happens to be the day I am flying to Portland. So what could be cooler than going home for the weekend? Uprooting your home and all of your earthly possessions and have them stuck in a transitory limbo at almost the exact moment you go home for the weekend. That’d be RAD! Fortunately, my roommate Dan is going to let me store my stuff in an extra room over the weekend til I get back. (I’m really glad I made friends with him and we didn’t try to poison each other’s Gatorade). It’s a $50 fee if your stuff is not out of the apartment when they check you out. So if they look in the room and ask “Who’s stuff is that?” We’ll just tell them…it’s Horatio’s.

“Actually, I'm telekinetic. I can move things with my mind.”

And it takes a fair amount of both time and effort to shove your earthly belongings in duffel bags, stack them in plastic boxes purchased from Wal-mart, and then cram the odds and ends that neither stack nor fold in garbage bags. I swear I spend a third of my time just mentally sorting through a proper execution of Operation Pack-rat. I try to keep some organization to it; clean clothes go in this duffel bag, dirty in that duffel bag, articles of debatable cleanliness in the garbage bag. Electronics and random toys of childhood delight in this box, Movies and books you still plan on reading in that box, and this box I will dedicate to my every growing collection of theme based Legos. And by theme based, I mean Star Wars. You never realize how much crap you have until you have to pack it up. And then you never realize how little you own until you see it all packed and stacked; piles of your life.

“Absolutely. My answer is I don't have the first damn clue. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the travel habits of William Santiago.”

So tonight, before my final departure from Jamestown 38, I’ll sleep on my bed one last time. Kind of sad I guess. Sad, because I never really sleep in my bed so it will actually be a foreign experience. Maybe I won’t sleep there. I already packed my sheets. I have to check out and I can’t yet check in. In a way I guess I’m sort of a nomad this weekend. A simple barbaric wanderer…with a gameboy.

“Moving buddy? You can't be serious.”

“No, I don't hate Balboa. I pity the fool.”

Didn’t get done with work until late. Mostly I just got distracted at work and didn’t wrap up my distractions until late. I got home without any plans whatsoever, fairly comfortable with the idea of spending the remainder of the day watching movies, maybe skating down to 7-eleven, hanging around my apartment in my underwear (‘cause hey, my roommate’s still out of town). As I was coming inside, though, I ran into Monica and Whitney, two of the girls that live in the building next to me. (As I’ve said before, they’re sort of like my sisters.) I hadn’t seen Monica in like probably 2 or 3 weeks, so I talked to them for a while. They were planning on going to see Dodgeball at 10:15 with a bunch of people and invited me to come along. I was cool with it, I hadn’t seen it yet, though I found the strong undertone of the activity was to facilitate them inviting some dudes from across the street that they were “totally crushing” on. Eh, a dollar movie is a dollar movie. And it would still be fun.

“If I know Mary as well as I think I do, she'll invite us right in for tea and strumpets.”

Yeah, well after a call from Izzo, and the pausing of “Being John Malkovich” I made a dash to Toys R Us to check out the reported re-release of some vintage style Star Wars figures. I was giddy to see the likes of the original Millennium Falcon and TIE fighters of my younger days. I got back to my apartment close to 9:45 or so. I was finishing up my movie, and I had forgotten about the invitation to Dodgeball until just after 10. I got up to go and then realized “wait…why haven’t I heard from anyone?” Now obviously I could have called someone up, or just gone and found them, but this seemed to reveal something larger. A character element (some call these ‘flaws’) of mine. I hate being invited by obligation. I hate being a charity. I hate being pitied.

“Did you invite that kid to your party?”
“Max Fischer?”
“Come on, Dad. There's gonna be girls there.”
“I'd rather die. Pull your head out of you’re A.”

That may sound extreme, but everyone has been to a party or an event at some point in there life, where they weren’t really invited because the host or orchestrator was thrilled to have their participation. The organizer invited them because of a couple of reasons. That person was present or overheard the invitation being given. “So what’s going on, Friday?” or “Cool, what time is that at?” [Insert awkward response and invitation here.] Other times it’s a “considerate” parent that insists on an invitation being extended. “You should invite that drooling retard kid from up the street, she seems nice.” And perhaps other times it’s simply that it comes up and they don’t ‘not like you’. “Hey, you should come.”

There are definitely degrees with which we appreciate the company of others. Some are just fun to be around, you’re funnest times are when you are doing nothing. You simply appreciate each others’ company. Others we will attend events or go to activities with, or friendship revolving primarily around external forces or influences I.e. Your buddy that you only hang out with to play HALO; the dude you laugh and joke with, only in your chinese and political science classes; the girl you call up to hang out with, only when you’re “lookin’ to score.” (I think the kids are calling that a…uhh…“booty call”)

“[F] sympathy! I don't need your [f’in'] sympathy, man…. I NEED my [f’ing] Johnson!”

But nobody wants to have sympathy friends. People to hang out with them because if they don’t they’ll feel bad for you. Well maybe there are people who want pity friends. I call those people ‘losers.’ I like it when my friends want to hang out with me as bad as I want to hang out with them. Equality. Nobody really likes to have the lower or upper hand. It’s just awkward.

“That's right, yeah. I got some old debts I've got to pay off with this stuff. Even if I didn't, you don't think I'd be fool enough to stick around here, do you? Why don't you come with us? You're pretty good in a fight. We could use you.”

So I didn’t go. I sat back down and watched “Bubba Ho-tep.” A delightful film about an elderly Elvis Presley (who traded places with an impersonator some years back and ended up in a coma and in a nursing home) and JFK (who had his skin dyed black by the CIA and then was hidden away in the same nursing home), who come together to battle an Egyptian mummy on the loose, sucking out the weak elderly’s souls, through their rectums. Yeah, I know you may think it sounds weird, but I liked it and no one there felt awkward or uncomfortable...probably because it was just me...

“You are a sad, strange, little man. And you have my pity. Farewell.”

…sorry I didn’t invite you.

“Where are the passports and tickets?”

It’s Tuesday. Todd should be leaving today. But he’s not. It’s nothing he did; in fact he’s more than ready to go. His bags are packed, he’s been set apart, and now he’s been put in the holding pattern, circling and circling his destination. Not yet at his destination, though no longer at his last point of departure. Stuck in some sort of limbo, a state of transition. Waiting for his visa to come through, waiting for the green light.

“I need to speak to the Jedi Council. The situation has become much more complicated.”

As we found out yesterday, the consulate in San Francisco was looking over the visa applications for the group of missionaries going to Brazil this week. Each missionary is required to produce a letter saying that the church they are going to go represent is recognized as a church in that area. Well there are nearly 30 different missions in Brazil alone, and as the lady in charge of the visas was looking over the letters, she noticed that the missionaries were going to places like Ribero Preto, Campinas, and the like, but all the letters were from Sao Paulo. Like most people, she assumed that although a church may have the same name, it doesn’t mean there is any sort of relation between them. Like the First Baptist church in Portland, Oregon is not necessarily affiliated with the First Baptist Church in Sweetwater, Alabama. So she wanted to see letters from each area that missionaries are going, demonstrating both the recognition of the church and the missionaries in that area. That was last week. Church lawyers had to scramble to draft letters for each of the areas (in Portuguese), take them to Sao Paulo, get them notarized by the Government, have them mailed to the Consulate in San Francisco, the lady in charge is actually on vacation, but fortunately another guy has offered to step in and process them. Then they have them delivered to the missionaries by courier service (Brazil doesn’t allow the passports to be mailed), and the Church Travel Services has to rework travel itineraries for the missionaries to get them down to Brazil. Fortunately this is only for missionaries who applied for their visas through the San Francisco Consulate. Unfortunately, that’s where Todd applied.

“Been here a week now, waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.”

When you find yourself poised to make a change in life; getting married, going to college, moving to a new city, you may find yourself uneasy about the change, but once you have come to terms with the change (the end of the chapter) you are ready for the next chapter. I’ve come to find that the best and most effective way to deal with the loss of the past is to embrace the future. When I come to realize the benefits and advantages of the future changes and pending circumstances, that’s exactly what I want. Those benefits and advantages. In fact, I want them now. Since I can’t go back, then I want to go forward. You’re never comfortable in a transitional stage. Nobody likes trying to find a clean shirt or pair of socks out of a moving box every morning. Nobody likes to just kiss and hold hands, still as fiancées, for an extra week. (Wow, that would be a long week). And no one likes to sit around with their family and friends, finding more things they’re going to miss, when they’re leaving for two years. You have to turn the page and start the next chapter in order to really end the last chapter. You can’t just stop reading. (…yeah that would have to be one of the longest weeks of a person’s life, it’d be like, like a week of hell. Yeah, “Hell Week.”)

“It wasn't my fault, sir, please don't deactivate me. I told him not to go but he's faulty, malfunctioning. Kept babbling on about his mission.”

I’m going back to Oregon this weekend, back for a buddies wedding. And most likely Todd won’t have left yet. Which means I’ll get to see him again. (YES!) So I guess I feel a bit like Shaun Brumder’s Mom in Orange County. Upon finding out that he didn’t get in to Stanford, she hugs him and says “Oh I’m so sorry,” while grinning with excitement and delight in getting to see her son more. It will be great to see Todd again, but deep down we all know it’s time for him to go. We’ll have fun I’m sure, but I know that Todd’s heart’s already in transit to Brazil. Just waiting for the rest of him to catch up and get on his mission. But first, one last test of desire, one last test of patience. Preparation before the expedition. (Umm ok that “delay the wedding a week” thing again…I don’t think I could do that, man. I think…I think I would just have to go uh…elope and not tell anyone. Yeah, I think that’s what I‘d have to do. Totally.)

“Well, Rick, after tonight, I'll be through with the whole business and I am leaving finally this Casablanca.”
“Who did you bribe for your visa? Renault or yourself?”
“Myself. I found myself much more reasonable.”

…I know it sucks for him, but hey, [fist pumped in the air] “we’re stoked dude.”

“We're sitting on the most perfect beach in the world, and all we can think about is...”

Star Wars. Right now, all I can think about it Star Wars. I know some might say, “Wait, I thought you were way into World War II or Special Agents?” No, I was obsessed with World War II two months ago. And special agents were like 3 weeks ago. No, now I am yet again consumed by the science fiction universe crafted by that storyteller of my youth, George Lucas. Saturday Heath and I sat down and watched the Clone Wars, a cartoon series produced for the Cartoon Network. The episodes are 3-5 minutes in length and the first two seasons are 20 episodes in total. So we decided to let them play as we unwinded from a day at the water park and prior to an evening of pizza and movies with the girls. As I watched Mace Windu break droids with the force and Anakin Skywalker give into his anger and rage, in order to beat a foe; like my 44 oz at the local 7-Eleven, I was refilled with a new flavor of passion. Star Wars.

“I can't get married - I'm a thirty-year-old boy.”

Anyone who knows me at all or has even seen my room, laughs at the amount of toys and gadgets I seem to possess. I own a cowboy gun and leather holster, a half dozen plastic lightsabers (some light up, some look real, others are just sturdy for actual sparring and personal accessory), action figures, stacks of video games (some legally acquired, others…also legally acquired), a shoulder and thigh holster for my realistic looking BB guns, a fake moustache, random action figures, legos and the list goes on. Why such a large collection of toys for an aged college student? Because I never know when I will get on a western kick or in army mode. Because sometimes I get consumed with a theme, or genre. And I run with it, because I like to have a thematic life

My themes or genres are usually brought on by some sort of event. The release of a new super hero movie can instantly send me into obsession with the world of superheroes and comics. I watch every movie, play every game, think of the world in terms of how I would use my mutant powers of rapid regeneration and telekinetic strength to defeat a foe. A mini series on World War II takes me to watching Saving Private Ryan over and over, wanting to get myself a real green metal helmet and trying to figure out what the best strategy would be to take control of the German held “Wash-hut” south of campus. And then when a new sneaking, covert special forces games comes on the scene, I start to plan on the handgun and martial art classes I’ll take, trying to sneak up on my roommates or brothers in the dark, and thinking about the fastest way to clear the room and secure the hostages in the BYU Independent Study office area. Without warning, without regard, these themes sweep in on my life. They become my passion, they become my addiction.

“Hehehehe! I’m also addicted to boobies!”

But why? Why do I become obsessed or consumed by these thematic elements. Why does this 23 year old man still clutch his plastic lightsaber with the same intensity and glee as he did as 4 year old? (The same 4 year old that slept with a He-Man sword down his shirt for almost a year.) I don’t really know. Maybe it’s what I do to make my life more interesting, more exciting. Some people just park their car. I look for the best position for my car for a fast get away in case “the deal” goes sour. Some people go camping. I go on a survival weekend with my special forces unit, testing our ability to survive in the wild. Some people go to work. I go to a job to maintain my alter-ego, allowing me to better fight crime by night. Some people just live. I have adventures.

“There are too many ideas and too many people. And too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that is whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”

Perhaps that’s just it. In order for me to be able to deal and function in this world, I have to break things down and rebuild them into environments and situations that I can deal with. Or maybe that I want to deal with. Driving my Jeep across the bare wasteland of eastern Oregon is not nearly as fascinating as imaging I'm maneuvering my Landspeeder across the desert of Tatooine in order to find my R2-D2 and rendezvous with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Maybe I'm an escapist, but that’s how I cope, it’s how I deal. Some people just blast music, go drinking, or maybe do some drugs. I buy toys, play video games, and for a while I pretend I'm just a simple man, trying to make my way in the universe...a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

“I’ll tell you a story. I once fell deeply, profoundly in love with tropical fish. I had sixty fish tanks in my house. I’d skin-dive to find the right ones. Anisotremus virginicus, Holacanthus ciliaris, Chaetodon capistratus. You name it. Then one day, I say "Screw fish." I renounce fish; I will never set foot in that ocean again. That was seventeen years ago and I have never since stuck so much as a toe into that ocean. And I love the ocean!”
“But why?”
“Done with fish.”

...and then just as fast as I started, I'm done. On to the next genre, onto the next passion.

“You sure you got today's codes?”

I didn’t write yesterday. Not for a lack of desire. Mostly for a lack of mental capacity. I spent most of the afternoon in a stupefied catatonic state. Like Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I stared blankly at the world, or more specifically my computer monitor. I had a great topic for an entry (Taquitos, Skateboarding, and time to think). But as the drool started to pool on my shirt and in my lap, I figured I’d try and get up and re-gather my thoughts and maybe some energy.

“They was giving me ten thousand watts a day, you know, and I'm hot to trot! The next woman takes me on's gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars!”

So I went to the break room and sat on the couch and just sort of tried to relax my brain. And by relax my brain I mean fall into a deep, quaking snore and drool soaked sleep. I sat down. Then I slouched a bit to support my head. Then I leaned my head back. Then I shut my eyes. And then I realized I was asleep. That has got to be one of the weirdest feelings. It wasn’t too bad, nobody came in, except for one guy who didn’t notice me and was calling up places to see if they had inflatable hemorrhoid pillows (Ok, so I was a little drowsy and it could have been “therapeutic” pillows, but I image hemorrhoid pillows are quite therapeutic, especially to someone with hemorrhoids). And technically we are supposed to get a 15 minute break at some point during the day. But no matter how ‘legit’ a break or nap is, if your boss comes in on you, you feel like a 13 year old caught looking up “big naked boobs” on the internet. A little frantic and immediately spouting off rationale and subtle explanations for what you are doing. “Oh hey, how’s it going? I’m, uhh, on lunch, so I was just resting here, because it’s my lunch break…until 1:30. I started it at 12:30 and in an hour, at 1:30 it’ll be over...yeah, ya know I think I’ll just go back and work now.” I realized that I was now completely useless at work and decided to just leave a half hour early. The rest of the day was not looking very promising. Things weren’t looking good.

“Just remember, if you hang in there long enough, good things can happen in this world. I mean, look at me”

Things were not looking good, that is, until I went over and played Super Empire Strikes Back on Brit’s Super Nintendo. Sometimes I get tired and bored with playing video games in my apartment all the time. So I go over to my friends’ houses to play sometimes. I love the Super Star Wars series for the SNES. To be honest I really do love just about anything related to star wars, except for conventions of 40 year guys dressed like Stormtroopers and Darth Maul, arguing over the legitimacy of midichlorians and the history of Boba Fett. (I can just smell the pungent odor of Cheetos and Mountain Dew mixed with 3 days of B.O.)

“NO WAY! I will trade you all of my Star Wars guys if it is. Except for Boba Fett. No matter how sure I am, I never risk the Fett man.”

But this time I did something different from the other hundreds of times I played the game…for 10 minutes, gotten frustrated, swore at everyone present, “Hulked out”, ripped my shirt to shreds and went on a green rampage of fury for 2 hours. Actually me “hulking out” mostly consists of me making roaring sounds while pulling my shirt up until people start laughing or I feel totally awkward and embarrassed, or both. Anyway this time I used…(drum roll)…a code. Ok, often these codes which provide invincibility, unlimited ammo, infinite lives, and the ability to score with hundreds of gorgeous women, are called “cheat” codes. I like to call them “Magical make the game more fun and fulfill my gaming fantasies” codes. I beat the game in little over an hour. Actually, I beat the hell out of that game. (Ok, that’s not really swearing because I was…uhh…talking about…exorcising the…demonic possession of the game cartridge through…superior gaming ability…and codes. I.e. beating “the hell” out of it. No seriously, it’s not swearing.) But it’s not like I felt bad. In fact I felt really good.

“I may be bad...but I feel good”

There was a time in my life where if I had taken the requisite 10 or so hours to beat the game under standard procedure, I would have felt “joyful and triumphant,” ready to brag to any who would hear me. But now if I had spent that much time to see a cheesy 16 bit rendering of the last scene of Empire Strikes Back, I think I would have felt really dirty and pathetic. Now with the help of some “magical codes” I only feel pathetic. It took me a good 10 minutes of restarts and attempts before I heard the rewarding voice of Darth Vader tell me “Impressive.” I blushed with embarrassment at the praise of the Dark Lord of the Sith. I punched a hole in the wall…with my head, so that everyone in the room knew that Darth Vader is no liar. There is something empowering about a code. It’s like authorization to ignore the rules and governance of the world of the video game. You can only get hit 15 times before you die. You can only die 3 times. You have to find the power-up to get a better gun. And with the magical pressing of A B Y X A B Y X A B A B Y X X Y A B Y X you can give the middle finger to the rules of the system and say “You know what? No, I don’t think I am going to play by those rules. Kiss off!!” I’m getting shot in the face, doesn’t matter it can’t hurt me. I fell down another cliff, time to teleport. This level is boring, press Start and skip to the next one. Codes aren’t for wusses or people lacking the ability. They are for those that demand reasonable, time efficient triumph and success. Those who want to control their video game destinies, to control their virtual lives. Total control, total victory…totally rad.

Sparks: “You totally rule”
Marduk the Sun God: “I totally already know that.”

…man, life needs some secret cheat codes.

“Sometimes I feel like an idiot. But I am an idiot, so it kinda works out.”

So I’ve got a roommate. Actually it seems more like I am renting one of the rooms in my house. Dan (I don’t even know his last name) is from California…somewhere. He just got back from an LDS mission to Nebraska and wants to be a dentist. He even lived in Budge Hall the same year as Colin, though he doesn’t think he knows him. People keep asking me “so how’s your new roommate?” And “what’s your roommate like?” Honestly, I don’t know. I think I have had more conversation with the guys that fixed my transmission than I have with the person living in the same apartment as me. He has a TV/VCR combo and so as he was unpacking and what not over the last few days he has just stayed in his room and watched movies, even had buddies come over to hang. All done within the confines of his room. I guess this shouldn’t bother me, he does his thing, I do mine. But, it’s one thing to be the ‘Odd Couple’ and have someone you argue with or conflict with, its an entirely different thing to be the ‘Awkward Couple,’ coming and going without so much as a “what’s up, dude.” It’s like I feel that something is amiss between us. Maybe just lacking some unifying element.

“No milk will ever be our milk”

Additionally I seem to monopolize the use of the living room, most of the refrigerator, the cupboard space, and the entirety of the freezer. Not because I am trying to maintain some sort of control or influence in the apartment. Mostly it’s just because, well, it was just me using that stuff last week. I can share; I was pretty good at it growing up. I’ll admit I had a hard time waiting my turn on Super Mario Bros. or letting my best friend play with my ‘Snake Eyes’ or He-Man action figure. But I’d like to think I’m a good roommate. And after all, He-Man even let Man-At-Arms crash at Castle Greyskull.

“Actually this shirt belongs to Frank. See [shows Frank’s name written in large print inside the shirt] Frank.”

So, after coming back from some delicious pancakes over at Brit’s, I came home to find that Dan had just came home, with some Del Taco, and was fixing to eat and watch TV. “Excellent, this is a perfect chance to hang with and bond with my roommate. But how, dang it, how?” I sat down and picked up the remote and began to surf, desperate for something that might interest him and spark some conversation. ESPN? No its baseball, I hate baseball and I asked about his favorite sports…basketball and football. His brother even played for BYU’s team. Cool. The desperate search goes on. And then I came to a classic that few people can honestly say they don’t find funny, let alone haven’t quoted into oblivion: Billy Madison.

I haven’t seen it in awhile and I figure that someone who has been on a mission for the last two years, probably hasn’t seen it in a while. So I set down the remote, leaned back in the lovesac and laughed. Watching it reminded me of a few things. 1) The unifying power of a good classic comedy. 2) The way network television censors can butcher a good classic comedy. And D) well those were really the only two things, but good points usually come in three’s so…I was reminded of my love for dodge ball.

[As a side note, Billy Madison was directed by Tamra Davis, (Tammy D) wife of Mike D of the Beastie Boys, who also directed Half-Baked (yay!) and sadly Crossroads (booo!)]

So Dan and I sat there laughing and remarking on the clever way the network found to take out classic jokes, like the principal’s valentine to Billy stating “P.S. I’m Horny” and the complete loss of Billy mocking a kid stuttering. “Ta-ta-ta-TODAY JUNIOR!” And the strange addition of a unfunny and slightly awkward scene of the Madison house staff playing kickball with Billy. Reminding yet again why some deleted scenes were deleted in the first place. There was a hot French maid in the scene, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss. And better yet, Dan and I seem to better friends because of it. Not like we’re going to be so close, we’ll hang out all the time after I move out, be his best man at his wedding and name our kids after each other. I guess it takes effort to even maintain a nice neutral relationship. Still, it will be nice to get moved in to my new place next week, where I’ll room with old buddies for the next year.

“Don't you say that. Don't you ever say that. Stay here. Stay here as long as you can. For the love of God, cherish it. You have to cherish it.”

I had a few periods on my mission that were either superbly excellent or craptastically crappy experiences living with other people. And from that I learned that the most important thing I can do to have a good experience with a roommate is to just try. If I want to and I try to, then things seem to work out fine. But when I make up my mind that this guy is an utter jerk-face, we both remain awkward and merely superficially cordial. And I sigh with a big exhale of relief when one of us leaves. And then, after the wave of fury passes on, I feel regret. Regret for being a schmuck. Finding myself still angry and hostile to someone I haven’t seen in probably 3 years. The thought of whom makes my skin crawl. I spent so much time blaming him and hating the situation and now realizing that it was just as much my fault as his. Yeah, he was guilty too, but it’s not his fault, he was just a jerk. But I guess by doing nothing I was too. I don’t subscribe the philosophy that we’re victims of our environment and surroundings. And while it may sound sort of new-age, self-actualization -ish, you control your destiny. You control the tone of your relationships. If there’s problems, you talk about them. Things are bad, make them better. If you do nothing, you have no right to complain. I did nothing and things were bad. So…I guess that was my bad.

“Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

…sorry about that.

“What's this I hear about you doing laundry with my sister?”

It’s warm and stuffy, that loud whirl and bang rings in my ears. I can’t leave to go eat or sit in my apartment because it’s already 10 p.m. and the night watchman will impartially lock the door for the night, sealing all my clothes with in the entombed laundry room. That happened last year, I forgot they locked up and went back to get my clothes, only to find that my clothes (particularly all of my underwear) would be spending the night, wet and mildewing, in the washing machine. So I sit, playing my Gameboy, throwing glances at the timer on the washer and thinking about…laundry.

I love clean clothes, new clothes are the best, but freshly washed clothes are a close second. Especially when they are still warm from the dryer when you put them on on a cold winter’s morning. Doing my laundry has never been something noteworthy most of my life. As a child my mom fielded that responsibility, all the way up to her breaking point of trying to manage the linens of 5 children, a husband and herself. Realizing that she could only manage to be either a well rounded mother or a full-time Laundromat service. Opting for the former, the responsibility of laundering my clothes fell on to my own shoulders. It wasn’t really that bad. I would accumulate dirty clothes either in my laundry bag or on the floor of Colin’s and my room. Each child was assigned a day of the week that was “your laundry day.” If you forgot or tried to bring it up later, a lecture about how it was no longer your day would usually result, but would end up meaning that you had to wait until whoever’s day it was completed there washings. But when you want your favorite Beastie Boys T-shirt or your lucky camo boxers clean now and Todd either isn’t around or is unwilling to cycle his laundry from washer to dryer and from dryer to a basket to be folded (haha yeah right), you are forced to cycle his laundry yourself. I’d like to think that this was done with in a charitable, Christian manner, but there was usually much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I’m sorry but I don’t like to touch the wet, soiled clothing of another person, particularly there un-mentionables. Even if I am related to them…especially if I’m related to them. Ewwww.

“A beautiful, successful, intelligent woman is in love with me and I throw it all away. Now I will spend the rest of my life living alone. I'll sit in my disgusting little apartment, watching basketball games, eating Chinese takeout, walking around with no underwear because I'm too lazy to do the laundry.”

College. Laundry became a struggle in college. All growing up it was just simply a matter of time, almost like a bodily function in terms of necessity and effort. But then I got to college and found that each time I wanted to wash my close I had to shell out money. Its like getting to the dorms and finding that I have to insert 50 cents each time I want to use the bathroom. And so I started to rationalize the necessity of doing laundry, because there was a trade off – clean clothes or cash. This dilemma was somewhat alleviated when I found that I could manipulate it so that the washing machines would accept my dining money, which was about as real to me as a stack of $100s from a Monopoly game. Further more the Laundromat was in the basement of the dormitory, so it was like home, only I had to swipe my card at the washing machine and still had to occasionally had to cycle along someone else’s laundry. Ewwww.

At the missionary Training Center, you still had to go to a Laundromat, but you had time assigned to that and it was free, you just swiped your ID card. And then while I was in Hong Kong, each apartment was supplied with a washing machine. Something was dirty or need to be washed. You throw it in the washing machine and wash it. And nobody has dryers over there. Instead there is a series of string and racks criss-crossing about the apartment, on which clothes are hung out to dry. I did have a dryer in two apartments. One of them was part of a nice discreet washer/dryer combo. Dirty clothes go in, clean dry clothes come out. The other was an obnoxiously loud lint factory we stole from the missionary apartment in Sha Tin. Wet clothes go in, they come out mostly dry, sometimes with lint on them, and no one can sleep when you run it. It was still something to be coveted by all.

Cassandra: You know, I haven't seen Garth in a while. What's he up to?

Wayne: Oh, Garth's doing his laundry.

Cassandra: Too bad he doesn't have a girlfriend to do HIS laundry.

Wayne: Oh yeah; thanks for doing my laundry. Hey Cassandra, how do you get my clothes so white and fresh-smelling?

Cassandra: It's an age-old Cantonese family method that very few people know about.

Wayne: Ahh... Wait a minute... Calgon? Ancient Chinese secret, huh???

But now that I’m back at college, I’m back paying to wash my clothes. And there seems to be some sort of laundry inflation conspiracy. The washing machines have gone from 50 cents to 75 and now to a dollar for each load. And the dryers were once only a quarter. But the trick is that one time through is never enough. It takes two to three. So when you go to the new laundromat at your new apartment you would expect the dryers costing 50 cents to be as effective as two cycles in the former dryers. No, regardless of the price per cycle, it seems to always take at least two. So I’m dropping 2-5 dollars for a trip to the laundry room. Not too bad as long as you only go every other week. So naturally, I wear every piece of clothing I have before I do laundry. “Hmmm, what do I have left that I know is not dirty…or at least doesn’t look dirty…or smell.” At home, you didn’t stress over how many loads you had. If you got a stain on a pair of pants, you went to the laundry room, sprayed on some Spray-N-Wash and threw it in the washer and had them clean by the evening. Now I put Spray-N-Wash on them, throw them in the basket and hope I run out of clothes before the stain sets. Now I am a clothing maximizer. I utilize every piece of clothing to the fullest extent of the law.

I guess I’m just rambling now. Longing for the days of casual laundry. No searching for change, no closing hours, no scrapping out 17 years of lint, no micromanaging of my clean clothes, and no scooping G-strings out of the dryer with a hanger. Just me, my dirty clothes, a washer, and whenever it’s convenient.

…wait whose boxers are these? Ewwww

“Did she say we were doing laundry? Because where I come from, it's called ‘doing the hibbidy-dibbidy.’”

“…where the women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.”

So in my pursuit of a most triumphant summer, I embarked on a two fold mission this weekend. This dual pronged attack had a retro and prospective element. First, Heath and I proceeded to hang out and play Nintendo games until the break of dawn. This was ever so reminiscent of the summer days long past, playing Mega Man 2 and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out until you passed out from exhaustion or your Dad came in and told you to be quiet and go to sleep already. You’d wake up in the morning at your leisure, go home to do you daily jobs, change clothes (maybe) and then call up your friend to go ride bikes until dark and then play more Nintendo. And just like the summers of my youth, Izzo and I had an awesome time, despite the fact that the Jeopardy questions are ridiculously dated and I can’t make a basket to save my life on Double Dribble. Apparently video games are pretty true to life. The second element of this weekend was a visit to the oasis in the mountain desert, the diamond in the rough – Heath’s new singles wards.

“Ewww get off of me you faggot, I HATE guys! I LOVE WOMEN!”

Singles wards are a bit of an oddity in the Mormon Church. Ostensibly they are the same as any other ward or meeting group of the church. People from a geographical region attend the ward for worship, instruction and fellowship. The difference is that a primary goal of singles wards is to provide a forum for men and women to meet, socialize, date and eventually marry. So if it can be said that a primary goal of singles wards is to meet people to date, than you want to go to a ward that has attractive people. It may sound shallow, but if you want to be married to someone you think is ugly, I don’t think that makes you deep. When Izzo told me about this ward he went to last week, I was skeptical. Its like Indiana and the quest for the Holy Grail, it has long been the belief of many and the story of some, that a ward with lots of cute girls exists, but yet it has never seemed to be found. Rumors of rumors. And it was time that I had a little faith and investigated some of the hearsay.

“The search for the Grail is the search for the divine in all of us. But if you want facts, Indy, I've none to give you. At my age, I'm prepared to take a few things on faith.”

Heath was right. “Tell your sister…you were right.” There were tons of good looking girls. Hot ones, skanky ones, high maintenance gorgeous looking ones, even plenty of just plain cute ones. The hard part just came from the fact that it was an overload. It’s like you complain that there is never an surplus or excess of cute girls in your ward, classes, work place, etc. But then when there is such a consignment, you suddenly stumble in the face of indecisiveness. When there is but one or two girls with whom you are attracted, it’s easy to plot a course and implement it. But when your radar screen pulses with the blips of dozens of enemy fighters, it overwhelms you and you’re not quite sure who to lock onto first.

“You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don't all bring you lasagna at work. Most of 'em just cheat on you.”

But coming away from a veritable candy shop for the eyes, I start to think about the dilemma that I am posed with. On the one hand I’m looking for someone attractive, someone that captivates me and makes me feel hot and bothered. On the other hand I looking for someone fun and relaxed, someone to laugh with and be my friend. And for some reason, they seem to be opposites. Fun, low maintenance girls tend to be unattractive and hot babes tend to have as much character depth as a sheet of cardboard or a Steven Segal film. Is this a broad-sweeping generalization? Well…yeah I guess it is. But my perception is my reality, and I percieve that this is true. The key word is tend. I know that there is someone balanced out there. And I know eventually I'll find her and everything will be fine. But I suppose when I see the seat next to me is empty or I have nothing better to do than play video games by myself on a Friday night, I’m reminded of my desire for a girl that is fun enough to laugh and talk with for hours and attractive enough for when its time to stop talking…

…and play video games.

“Where’s your car dude?”

“Hey what happened to your car?” “Hey do you need ride anywhere?” “Whoa, must be something serious, huh?” I nod and wave on coworker after colleague as they come out of the office at the end of the day. I suppose calling AAA to come and tow my car might have been better suited for a time other than 4:30. Yep, right on schedule, the tow truck arrived at 5:00 and everyone leaves at around 5:01. I love my Jeep, but I hate my Jeep. Which I guess brings to mind how much I love my Jeep. Even as it leaks out transmission fluid on the pavement, like a tall bottle of Aunt Jemima’s pancake syrup over waffles in the morning.

“I've seen some crazy stuff in my time, but that... was... AWESOME. Oh, sorry about your car, man.”

Considered the founding fathers of the automotive world, Karl Benz (1844-1929) and Gottfried Daimler (1834-1900), both created the first gasoline-fueled motor vehicles, just within a short time of each other between 1885 and 1886. I imagine, though, that the history books failed to mention the events of 1887. Benz found that his battery was dead and had to call up Daimler only to find that Daimlers transmission was somehow mysteriously leaking. Because they hadn’t actually built the engines, they had to call up the guy who did, Nikolas Otto. And they didn’t exactly know what was wrong, so they were totally at Otto’s mercy, damned to pay whatever he deemed requisite. And while Otto worked on the Auto (snicker), oh he found out that Daimler's T-case needed both plugs replaced and the radiator is leaking too. And so not only did they father the automobile, but the automobile mechanic as well.

Which brings me to one of my frustrations. I don’t know cars. I know about as much about cars as my brother knows Chinese or my dad knows HTML. The way I see it, most teenager nerds go one of two ways. They either become a gearhead and know everything about cars and how they work and how to fix them or they become a computer nerd and know everything about computers and how to fix them. Somehow choosing cars then made you not a nerd, cause chicks dig cars. And the size of your RAM doesn't seem to matter. And thanks to Wolfenstein 3D, I went the computer route. “Wait you mean this game lets me pretend to shoot guns and kill Nazis? And I’ve been using my imagination all this time!” This knowledge and these skills have served me well, its not that I regret them, in fact many of my jobs I’ve gotten because of them. Its just that when something goes wrong with my car, I am helpless. I feel like my mom when the toolbar in Microsoft Word disappears or when the computer boots to a black screen with the simple statement “operating system not found.” The only things I am sure of are: it is going to cost me more than I have to get it fixed and I wasn’t planning on it happening.

“I asked for a car, I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?”

“Well, welcome to car ownership,” my dad says to console me. It’s like getting shot and being told “Welcome to the army.” Yeah, I guess I knew this was part of the deal, but it doesn’t mean I like it. Things have been running well, except for a bit of transmission problem a year ago, until this summer, when I got shot three times. First it was my front left brake locking closed "Dude, what's that smell?" (new front brakes), then it was a battery that could no longer hold a charge, needing a jump everytime I wanted to drive...everytime (new battery). Now it’s the transmission, again, leaking out fluid as fast as I can pour it in (4 bottles of fluid so far and I’m waiting to here back from the Transmission Specialists) and this all since the beginning of May. I just wish that cars didn’t break down and need maintenance. I wish my car was indestructible. Now that I think about it I wish my body wouldn’t fall apart and was indestructible too…and I could fly, shoot lazers from my eyes and move things by thinking about it. Yeah, that would be rad.

“Now we went through this yesterday. That "jeep" is actually an armored car of some kind. It was made to withstand bombs, I can't just rip it apart with a crowbar.”

It could be worse, I could have totaled my car and had it be my fault. Then I’d have to pay to have my car fixed AND feel the almost literal spike in my insurance premiums. A little coolant pipe breaking isn’t the end of the world. It could be worse. “Yeah, well it could be a lot better too...

...but worse is more likely.” -- Calvin

“Young fool... Only now, at the end, do you understand...”

I talked to Tom today. He was leaving in an hour for China. Leaving his life of teaching in Japan, ending one chapter and beginning another. It reminded me of when I left Hong Kong. And when I left the dorms after my freshman year, and when I graduated from high school and when…ok I guess it reminded me of a lot of things. It reminded me of all the times I had watched an era in my life come to a close.

I still remember the last night I spent in our house in California. It was the August before I started 5th grade. Colin and I slept in bunk beds in the first room on the left at the end of the hall way opposite the top of the stairs. I remember laying there and thinking. This is the last time I will be sleeping here in MY bed. I had spent the last 5 years in the same room. From Kindergarten until that moment, nearly half my life, this had been my room, my sanctuary. And in a week, it would be someone else’s. I was sad and scared about going to a new school, making new friends, and living in a new house. And yet these things also intrigued me.

This same scenario would be played out again and again in my life. I felt similar “sadness” to watch all of my freshman buddies go our separate ways, making promises to keep in touch and eventual rendezvouses, but knowing the “good times” were now gone. Looking out the window of the airplane over Hong Kong, giving mental waves and head nods to the skyline, locales, and people below. Waving to him as he walks through the doors of the MTC and onto Kentucky; hugging him one last time before Brazil; putting my arm around his shoulders the last time he will be shorter than me. Sitting on the front steps of Plymouth 1, just talking. Thinking, “This was a great chapter, this was a great era.”

“All right, let's see..."It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?" You stupid monkey.”

I have so many chapters in the story of my life, and so many yet to come. But that never seems to make it any less difficult to finish the last line and turn the page. Sure great things lay in wait on the pages that follow. But the potential of the future is sure hard pressed to trump the joys of the past and present. The past is certain and finite; the future is not. And perhaps that’s the only time we really notice, when things are good. When things are bad, the transition is seamless and with a sigh of relief. “Anything is better than this.” But I find myself with many more good chapters than bad. And I don’t think it’s bad to mourn the passing, it’s how we cope, its how we adapt.

“Yeah but it's easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever's next. With a person though, adapting’s almost shameful. It's like running away.”

I suppose that life is not so compartmentalized after all. Like any good book, the chapters build on themselves and through the course of the work you watch the characters grow and develop. Without the division of chapters, there is no structure, no framework. And with out chapters in life, you don’t grow or progress. You languish and stagnate, you plateau. I suppose it’s just a bit difficult to step out of the comforting warmth of the present to the cold chill of the future. Like getting out of my bed and putting on my cold jeans on a winter morning in Utah. I dread it, but I acclimate and before long I forget about the warmth of my bed. I may even try to go back to it after class or come back from work. But it’s not the same, when its time to move on, you must move on. And you can never come back. And in the words of Metallica, it’s “sad but true.” You can never go home again. I mean…I mean you can go home, physically, like to visit for thanksgiving and for family reunions, unless its just to expensive. I guess the meaning of it is more metaphorical, as in you can not go back in time and relive the events and adventures of your youth because once you grow up and leave your home, then…oh never mind.

And so ends another era of my life, the close of another chapter. I found out that I have a roommate moving in. Actually, two. They came by and are moving in this weekend. I don’t think I like them. Or maybe I just don’t want to change.

I guess I never do

“You guys are brothers?”

I don’t like blackberries. I never have. Unfortunately, behind our house in Medford, lining the cow pastures, were mounds of wild blackberry bushes. This is unfortunate, because my mom loves blackberries. And with five children out of school for the summer, with nothing better to do than play Sega Genesis and swim in the pool, you have a fine blackberry picking crew. As a child, the bane of my summer existence was job lists. Everyday, or what seemed to be everyday, my mom had a list of jobs that needed to be done before we could play with our friends. And inevitably, 3-4 days of the week while the blackberries were in season, we were sent into the cow pasture with bowls and buckets. I’m sure we made a multitude of references to slaves in the cotton fields and jews in death camps, all ignorant and far-fetched comparisons, but highly logical and descriptive from the views of eight and ten year-olds. But we would head out, my three brothers and I, out to turn a half hour task into 2-3 hour project; getting distracted by “wildlife”, fighting, and just joking around. Eventually our bowls would be “mostly” full and we would decide to come back, hoping that we had enough to fill our worker’s quota. It would be a little after noon or so and we would walk or ride our bikes to Roxy Ann Market, and by tootsie rolls or sugar daddies for dimes and quarters and even get soda pop in bottles. We’d go swimming and play video games some more, exhaust ourselves with the activities of summer. Then get up the next day with again with no plans. Well no plans, except for a job list from mom and a field of blackberries.

So why was my mind drawn to this morsel of nostalgia, as I drove with my grandparents across the barren expanse of eastern Oregon? Because for probably the first time since I was thirteen years old, I had a taste of my blackberry summers. I was back in my house, with all of my brothers and my sister for a week. We had no real responsibilities, except cleaning up after ourselves (which seemed optional). I spent the week hanging out all night, playing video games, talking, laughing at inside jokes our parents don’t get (though they have usually heard them enough that they stop asking).  It was like summers when I was a kid. Summers without worries or cares, summers where all you had on your agenda was to have fun and be with your friends. Maybe that was the other part; it was the first time I’d been with my all three of my best friends in along time. 

“Rufus, Brint, and Meekus were like brothers to me. And when I say brother, I don't mean, like, an actual brother, but I mean it like the way black people use it. Which is more meaningful I think.”

I’ve got many close (also called best) friends from various phases of my life: elementary school, high school, my time in Hong Kong, and college. For whatever reasons I moved or they moved, we lost touch; but the most consistent closest friends I’ve had throughout it all are my brothers. Whether it’s playing video games, going skateboarding, quoting Family Guy while we try to look like we’re working, laughing about the times we pushed our parents to the edge, or one of the fights that broke out among us, I love each of my brothers individually as well as collectively. I love things about them that I don’t even know how to put into words. Things we laugh about and mock each other for, but characteristics I love because it’s what makes them who they are. The age differences and location along the timeline of life fade and for the time that we have together, we’re just friends. The best of friends. If people saw us running along the side of the road or wandering aimlessly through the mall, I imagine they’d say, “Look at those guys, they must be old buddies, out having fun.” I always have fun with my brothers. Helping an elderly couple (with enough food storage to feed Cambodia) move into a new house or out in the fields in Medford picking blackberries, its always fun. And what makes this bi-annual reunion so bittersweet; to have one of my friends come home, means another has to leave. Off on his own great adventure, off to war.

“This, this one night, two of my brothers came and woke me up in the middle of the night. And they said they had a surprise for me. So they took me to the barn up in the loft and there was my oldest brother, Dan, with Alice, Alice Jardine. I mean, picture a girl who just took a nosedive from the ugly tree and hit every branch coming down. And... and Dan's got his shirt off and he's working on this bra and he's tryin to get it off and all of a sudden Shawn just screams out, Danny you're a young man, don't do it! And so Alice Jardine hears this and she screams and she jumps up and she tries to get running out of the barn but she's still got this shirt over her head. She goes running right into the wall and knocks herself out. So now Danny's just so mad at us. He, he starts coming after us, but... but at the same time Alice is over there unconscious. He's gotta wa... , wake her up. So he grabs her by a leg and he's drag, dragging her. At the same time he picks up a shovel. And he's going after Shawn, and Shawn's saying, what are you trying to hit me for? I just did you a favor! And so this makes Dan more angry. He tries to swing this thing, he looses the shovel, goes outta his grasp and hits a kerosene lantern. The thing explodes, the whole barn almost goes up because of this thing. That was it. That was the last, that was, Dan went off to basic the next day. That was the last night the four of us were together. That was two years ago…

…Tell me about your wife and those rosebushes?”

I guess it makes me sad to think that this could be one of the last times it would be just us boys. No wives, family or professions to worry about. Just a bunch of boys, a bunch of buddies, brothers. Hanging out in the warm summer evening, looking forward to the fun that awaits us in the morning...

...though still slightly dreading those blackberry bushes.

“The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997.”

VH1, along with MTV have seem to become less and less about a steady stream of Music Videos and become filled with more and more trendy programs aimed at relating to the youth market (I’m waiting for Road Rules Rwanda and the Real World Provo). One of the most recent and arguably most popular series is VH1’s “I Love the… (insert decade here).” This began with “I Love the 80s.” For some reason, everyone in loved the series. It had all the fun and at times ridiculous things that were the components of our childhoods and teen years. And to be honest I like it, it was clever and funny. Comedians, celebrities and some of the pop icons themselves commented on items ranging from Shrink-a-dinks to Pac-man cereal. It was funny because, it’s things that I hadn’t thought of in quite some years and so each episode was fresh and fun and resulted in many exclamations of “Oh wow, I totally remember those.” Although I did feel ashamed at times for what a predictable sucker of a kid I was. “If you like this cartoon, go have your mom buy you all the action figures and accessory toys.” Umm, ok. I really did think I was a Master of the Universe for over a year of my life, sword permanently down the back of my shirt and all (Thankfully no spinal damage ensued).
 
Then VH1, victims to the mentality “you can’t have too much of a good thing”, decided to have marathons of these episodes, in order to catch more viewers. I guess the executives didn’t really think through one important detail: There are only 10 years in a decade. If each episode covers an entire year, you only have ten episodes. Nostalgia has a short replay value. You can’t see something yesterday and then get excited when you FINALLY see it again in two days. So VH1 branched out with “I Love the 70s.” Ummm, this just sucked. It was cool to see what was big and popular, but for the 18-30 demographic, we are left with mostly a sort of “Oh I remember hearing about that” response to the series. Needless to say, like disco dancing (thankfully), it didn’t last long.
 
Now the executives had to scramble to save this terminal, anthrax ridden cash-cow.
Well, why not do another 10 episodes of the 80s. They didn’t even mention classic 80s icons like Cagney and Lacey or Howard the Duck (Curse you George). They can even cleverly call it “I Love the 80s STRIKES BACK!”…see that’s a reference to the popular 80s movie Empire Strikes Back. Just in case you didn’t know.
 
That’s all fine and good, I even enjoyed some parts of the episodes, but the concept was feeling more and more contrived. Didn’t you love Thundercats? If you had any feelings for Michael Jordan or Lazer Tag, you would watch this show. It’s like having a family member hold you hostage with your own love for them. A girlfriend, “If you really loved me you’d spend time with me and my extended family.” And so despite the fact that your indirect or vicarious love of this thing keeps you there, you begrudge it. But again a return to the 80s can only last another 10 episodes. So…now what?
 
I love the 90s. It still feels like the 90s are barely over. I spent most of the episode or two like I was being lied to. “There is no way that was over 10 years ago.” The items are still so fresh and vivid in my mind, I don’t grin in gleeful delight. I smirk and politely nod, just as I do when a friend is telling me yet another “Hey do you remember when…” story for the 17th time. I didn’t forget about the 90s, in fact if I did forget anything, it’s because I wanted to. Probably because it sucked. Thanks VH1 for reminding my that Shannon Doherty was a b*tch on 90210. I had almost rid myself of that memory. Oh and Dennis Rodman was a freak? Thanks, I totally forgot.
 
Maybe I am a bit bitter toward the series. I think what makes me bitter is the way they took a fun and good idea and rather than releasing it in a rational and sensible manner decided to just pour the bucket of cool refreshing nostalgic water on us in one dump. And when they realized that, although a bit overwhelmed, we liked it, they decided that if they filled the bucket with just about anything, we’d like that too. Well, we couldn’t relate to the 70s and the 90s are to fresh to really feel like, it’s any sort of special experience or walk down memory lane. And I wonder how long until they start a series about this decade. What will they even call it?
 
…What do we call it now? The 2000s? “I love the 2000s”… already shaping up into a great series.