Thought O' The Day

Some People are like SlinkiesThey're only good for the smile they put on your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

Batman Begins Sequel and Other Cool Stuff Guys Like

MOVIE EDITION of The Blog!

Coming Soon to a Theater near YOU!!

DragonBall Z
Goku, in costume...

Indiana Jones 4
Google the Trailer online

James Bond 22
Blonde Bond is back

The Mummy 3
Featuring Jet Li

Hancock
The Black Superman with a Bad Attitude!
Will Smith fights Charlize Theron


The Dark Knight (set to open in Theaters July 18, 2008)

http://www.thegothamtimes.com/

Movie Posters (Official and Not)








And some Batman stills from the new movie!!!






BatBike!

Baby Talk

Some of my Baby Lingo:

"Toofer" = Tooth
"Toofers" = Teeth
"Ba" = Bottle
"Socky-Loos" = Socks
"Wiff" = Wife
"Baff" = Bath
"Nudities!" = Naked Baby
"Diapo" = Diaper








Carly's Nicknames --

"Graby" = Baby Girl
Carly the Grabe
Garly
Garlic-Face
Cindy Lou
Carly Lou
Cutie Carly
Carly-Maru
Cutie Bootie
Flying Carly!
Bougar Baby
Snarly
Sharptoof
Chomper
Creeper
Kiddo
Monster
Sweet Fart
Sweetness
Fart Face
Little Wiper (when I change her Diaper)
Stinky
Stinkyface
Stinky Binky
Carly-Kin
Daddy's Little Muggle
Little Ruggle-Duggle
Chunkle-dunkle
Minky Boodle (she's got a doodle in her noodle)
Smuckle
Mucklemouth
Little Bit
Sweet Pea
Drooly
Sweet Potato


3 Good Things:
Onesies
Baby Socks / Leggings / Headbands
Gooey Chocolatey Brownies

Overrated- Baby Talk

NBA 1st Round "Over"

78% of the NBA Playoff teams that won the first game will win the series. With each series having the first game over and done with by now, let's check whom the odds say will win, and whether there have been any upsets...

W1-Lakers
W4-Jazz (at Houston)
W3-Spurs (in double overtime... I think the Suns will become part of the 22%)
W2-Hornets (though the Mavericks played a great 1st half)

E1-Celtics
E4-Cavaliers (fun game)
E3-Magic
E7-76ers (a surprise 2-point win in Detroit by the underdogs, after being down 15)So there you have it. No upsets in the West, though Utah did get a road win and Phoenix blew a huge lead on the road as well, even with Shaq in foul trouble. New Orleans (the Western 2 Seed) looked much better than most thought, due to their perceived lack of Playoff experience (mainly Chris Paul, who is awesome). Cleveland had their hands full in the East with the Washington Wizards, and the Pistons played with no heart before losing at home to a worse team. Then there were the typical first-round blowouts, not to mention a couple breakdowns, such as the back-to-back technical fouls that got the Denver Thuggets' Allen Iverson thrown out of game #1. Good times.


3 Good Things (Carly inspired):
Teeth
Love Bites
Baby Gates

Overrated- Haircuts

The NBA Playoffs are HERE and The West is the best!

Follow the NBA Playoffs HERE:
http://www.nba.com/playoffs2008/series/index.html

WEST:

1 Seed (57-25) Vs. 8 Seed (50-32)
Los Angeles Lakers (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Denver Nuggets

2 Seed (56-26) Vs. 7 Seed (51-31)
New Orleans Hornets (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Dallas Mavericks

3 Seed (56-26) Vs. 6 Seed (55-27)
San Antonio Spurs (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Phoenix Suns

4 Seed (54-28) Vs. 5 Seed (55-27)
Utah Jazz Vs. Houston Rockets (Home Court Advantage)

EAST:

1 Seed (66-16) Vs. 8 Seed (37-45)
Boston Celtics (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Atlanta Hawks

2 Seed (59-23) Vs. 7 Seed (40-42)
Detroit Pistons (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Philadelphia 76ers

3 Seed (52-30) Vs. 6 Seed (41-41)
Orlando Magic (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Toronto Raptors

4 Seed (45-37) Vs. 5 Seed (43-39)
Cleveland Cavaliers (Home Court Advantage) Vs. Washington Wizards

Notice that the 8-Seed in the West (the Thuggets) has a better record than the 4-Seed in the East. Then again, that Eastern 4th Seed has LeBron James. All Denver has is recent DUI moron Carmelo Anthony. On the other hand, the 8-Seed in the East, the Atlanta Hawks, are in the post-season despite losing 8 more games than they have won.

Further note that my Sacramento Kings suck (and have since infamously stupid Chris Webber blew out his knee, back before Peja Stojakovic left), have fan-punching thug Ron Artest on the roster, and aren't in the playoffs at all.

Poor Houston. The Rockets had won 22 games in a row before losing their star 7'6" Chinese center Yao Ming to a season-ending injury. They were #2 in the NBA in team defense, but that's hard to continue after losing such an impact player. Tracy McGrady is a cry-baby who can't do it all by himself.

Mars' Picks:

Best Series in the 1st Round: New Orleans-Dallas

2nd Round-
WEST:
Lakers(1)-Jazz(4)
Mavericks(7)-Suns(6)
EAST:
Celtics(1)-Cavaliers(4)
Pistons(2)-Magic(3)
Best Series in the 2nd Round: Celtics-Cavaliers

Division Finals-
WEST: Lakers(1)-Suns(6)
EAST: Celtics(1)-Pistons(2)
Best Series of the Division Finals: Lakers-Suns (Rapist Kobe Bryant Vs. Former Teammate Shaq)

Championship Game-
Lakers(1)-Celtics(1)

Winner-
Ex-BYU Star Danny Ainge's Boston Celtics
MVP: Kevin Garnett

3 Good Things:
Home Court Advantage (especially if you're a PAC-10 football team)
Many foreigners' (like Peja and Dirk Nowitzki) work ethic, solid fundamentals, and humility
Yard Sales

Overrated- The NBA's New York Knicks (including Stephon Marbury, who I relish personally seeing being hit in the groin). You probably think they're horrible, but in actuality they're even worse than that. Thank you Isaiah Thomas!

Tit for Tat

I got home from work at 8:00am this morning and went to bed. My wife woke me up at 10:00am very upset. We had recently got a baby gate from KMart for $59.99 and she wanted to return it and get another one, but she couldn't find the receipt. That's because it was left on the counter in a pile of trash and I threw it away. Without the receipt, KMart would only give us the current sale price for the baby gate, $53.99. That made my wife angry. She decided that since I had thrown away "her personal property" (the receipt) without asking, that she should do the same to get even with me. So to gain proper revenge for the $6.00 lost, she unplugged my Nintendo Wii and threw it in the garbage.The Wii controllers she didn't throw away... she just threw them outside.

Random Stuff

My last day in Arizona, I took the PFD (Phoenix Fire Department) written Exam. Phoenix is the 3rd-largest fire department in the United States, and the #1 most advanced department in all of North America. Some departments do personality exams, some test basic math and English, some test on general firefighting knowledge. The PFD tests your knowledge about... the PFD. What percentage of the PFD's calls are fire related? 20%. What is the PFD motto? "Prevent Harm, Survive, and Be Nice". See? The exam was held in the Phoenix Convention Center, just across the street from the U.S. Airways Arena where the Phoenix Suns play all their home NBA games.About 4000 people showed up in all to take the test. I find out in 6 weeks or so how I did. That's a whole heck of a lot of competition.

Now for something completely different! Have you ever thrown up so hard that you puked out of your nose? I have. Just last week actually. You see, I was never sick before my daughter was born. But I'm not immune to her in the slightest, and she's not immune to anything. So now I'm sick all the time. She was sick while I was out of the state, and so I thought I missed it. But change a couple of diapers and breathe in maybe a little too deeply and WHAMO! I felt it coming on while I was at work, so I called out sick and headed home with a garbage bag seated next to me in the car, just in case. I made it to my driveway. As soon as I parked and got out, KABLAM! It was one of those times where you throw up so hard that you can't catch a breath in between retches. Lightheadedness was among the least of my worries though. My poop smelled like seafood that night, and I don't eat seafood. Dirty, salty beaches and dead seagulls, that was the odor perfuming from me for the next 12 hours. No es bueno. Moving on, quickly.

GOOD NEWS! I heard back from the Gilbert, Arizona Fire Department today. And they invited me to come back to INTERVIEW with them! I already passed their physical requirements by having a current passing time on my CPAT from within the last 12 months (I took that test on my birthday). My passing score on Gilbert's exam was an 85.5%, among the top 11% of the approximately 400 test-takers. The interview date isn't schedules yet, and probably won't be until July or so.


3 Good Things:
Passing a Test
Little Caesars Pizza
Predator

Overrated- Standing in Line

Two College Football Spring Scrimmages

So in the past week I've been to two different college football spring scrimmages.

The first was at Arizona State.
Stadium: Set in the side of a hill to provide maximum shade and protection from the hot sun, Sun Devil Stadium is truly a scenic and unique setting to watch some football. The stadium actually has 3 tiers to it, with the middle tier sitting only about 5-6 rows of seats. It wraps around in a complete horseshoe, seating 75,000 fans total.
Game: Here's the thing about spring scrimmages- Coaches don't want their star players to get hurt. So true to form, ASU held out their star QB Rudy Carpenter. And his back-up looked like... what's the word? Crap. Here is a summary of how things went- Dropped pass just out of bounds. 1-yard pass from the backfield. Tipped incomplete pass (too high) across the middle of the field. Wide-left field goal attempt. Bad pass out of bounds. Dropped pass across the middle. False start. False start. Long-bomb interception. Good 6-yard pass, receiver completely laid-out by a hard hit from the middle linebacker, slow to get back up. Nice run by an RB (the only running play of the day). False start. QB sack. Interception. Another interception. Way too high pass incomplete. 3-yard pass across the middle. Long bomb bobbled and finally dropped along the sideline. Hey, the defense looked great!

BYU was the second scrimmage I attended, the Blue & White game. It was a beautiful April day in Provo, Utah, and I actually even got a little sunburned! Plus I got a classic Cougar pulled-pork sandwich (though for some odd reason it was served in a sliced bagel). Nearly 17,000 fans showed up for the event.

Stadium: Lavell Edwards Stadium seats 65,000. It is an incredible place to watch a football game, especially if you sit on the west side with an amazing panoramic view of the Wasatch mountainside. There's only one level on seating, but it reaches high up into the air. And the stadium has a solid 4 sides to it, but the corners are not connected.Game: BYU followed a similar scrimmage style to ASU. The starting QB, Max Hall, came out for offensive drills but didn't play in the scrimmage itself. Same with WRs Austin Collie and Mike Reed, RBs Harvey Unga, Manase Tonga, and Fui Vakapuna, TEs Dennis Pitta and Andrew George, and others. That opened the door for the back-up quarterbacks (Brenden Gaskins and Kurt McEuen) and talented youngsters such as RBs J.J. DiLuigi and Wayne Latu, and WRs Spencer Hafoka and Luke Ashworth, among others. The defense didn't use nearly any 2nd-stringers like I thought they would, keeping mainly to 3rd and 4th-stringers like DB Jameson Frazier (who I had never heard of before). We did get a peek at some talented, athletic new guys though in the drills beforehand... guys like Andrew Rich, G Pittman, Brandon Bradley, and others. Overall, the offense dominated, looking very good, very sharp. The defense is my main concern for the coming season, but they look to be reloading very smoothly as well. Both sides of the ball should be strong in the coming year. Top 10 offense and Top 30 defense are good goals for the team in their BCS-busting-goal year coming up.

3 Good things:
Hot Dogs
Mustard
Ramps (as opposed to stairs... like for pushing a baby stroller up)

Overrated: Trying to judge how good a team is based on seeing them play themself. If the offense looks good, is the defense that bad? Gotta wait for game #1 unfortunately, and even then it was just the first game of the season.

Climbing the Camel's Back

At 2704-feet, Camelback Mountain is the largest in Phoenix Valley. So when I was in the big AZ, I thought I would hike up the trail. Sound like fun? Well, it was. Brutal, backbreaking fun...

Here is some more cellphone-documentary work:

Looking up












Starting off












Things Get Steeper












Then they Really get Steep











Halfway Up












The Last Scramble












Life is Good at the Top!













3 Good Things:
A good pair of hiking boots
Moleskin
Regular Exercise

Overrated- Marathons (named after a guy who died running one)

Who Wouldn't Want to Live in Arizona?

EVERYONE would love living in Arizona! Everyone besides freakish sun-hating vampires that is (they would live in Washington or Alaska, or perhaps even Canada if they're self-loathing enough).

Let's go on a photo-journey through "The Grand Canyon State"!

The Gilbert, Arizona Fire Department Office Building:Awesome "Man Down" Firefighter Tribute Statue in front of the Fire Building:Public Park Two Blocks Away from the Fire Office:The Public Swimming Pool:Local Church Building:A Downtown Phoenix, Arizona Park:A View from the Outdoor Shopping Mall in Phoenix:

3 Good Things:
The NBA Playoffs (The Phoenix Suns have Shaq now!)
Major League
Wild Thing

Overrated- Winter

My Week as Josiah (from American Idol)

This year American Idol had a kid with a pretty decent Emo voice, Josiah.
No, he wasn't the best singer cut before the real competition began (that would be Kyle Ensley, who was cut the last day of Hollywood Week by Randy and Paula -the dumb ones- despite Simon's anger, to have lame flamer Colton Berry make it through instead).The problem with Josiah wasn't his voice, the problem was his obvious lack of maturity and mental fortitude, which would have been tested past his limit had he been put through to the voting weeks (and that's aside from his inability to sing with a band, or any musical accompaniment for that matter). Yes, Josiah cried harder and more often than a pregnant woman watching Oprah. But that's not what I'll remember the kid for. I choose to remember him simply as "that American Idol wannabe who lived in his car for a year". Which is cool. Mormon-raised Jewel (she was born in Payson, Utah, which convinced a few of my mission companions to constantly listen to her CDs) lived in her van for awhile in Alaska before becoming famous, and she went on to win 3 Grammys!

So yeah, long story short, I lived in a rental car for 3 days in Arizona last week. I flew down to take two written firefighter exams, one in Gilbert and one in Phoenix (more on that later). I was going to stay with my brother's fiance's (*) grandparents, but they thought I was coming the week after, and I couldn't pull a replacement friend quick enough and was too cheap to rent a hotel. So I parked outside of the library in Gilbert, rented a couple $2 DVDs and watched movies on my laptop in the car. The library provided my bathroom and internet needs during the day and I drove around seeking ways to entertain myself (more on that later too). And that saving money idea? I saved some more money by not springing for rental car insurance. Then, while visiting beautiful Arizona State's Phoenix campus, somebody keyed my rental car. Thanks jerk. Some karma I've got going on eh?


3 Good Things:
David Archuleta
Public Libraries
Laptop Computers

Overrated- Grammys

Mars' Bracket Challenge RESULTS!

Not enough people signed up this year. I did send out an email, giving the ESPN.com group name (though the link itself was bad), but it would have been nicer to have sent it out a couple days earlier.

THE RESULTS:

1st Place- Lauren (1130 points, 91.4 percentile).
Good Picks: 10-Seed Davidson winning 3 upset games.
Bad Picks: Butler making the Elite Eight (they lost their second game).

2nd Place- Farlow (970 points, 71.1 percentile).
Good Picks: Kansas in the Championship game.
Bad Picks: USC in the Elite Eight (they lost to 11-seed Kansas State in the 1st round).

3rd Place- Mars (960 points, 69.5 percentile).
Good Picks: 4 of 4 for the Final Four.
Bad Picks: UCLA as my National Champ.

4th Place- Russ (I think... he didn't finish his entry on time).
Good Picks: His Final Four were nicely done (he says).
Bad Picks: BYU over Texas A&M.

5th Place- Randerson (720 points, 23.4 percentile).
Good Picks: 2 upset wins for 12-seed Villanova.
Bad Picks: "Bonehead" picked UConn to win 5 games. They won ZERO.

Worst Place- Star (620 points, 11.2 percentile).
Good Picks: UCLA in the Final Four (as opposed to Georgetown, Washington State, and Pitt).
Bad Picks: Georgetown, National Champions (they won only 1 game, not 6, sadly).


3 Good Things:
The Office
Red Milk
Jokes Making Fun of Women in General

Overrated- Picking the team with the best overall regular season to win any given post-season game.

The Curse of the Lorax

Yes folks, it's sad, but once again my wife has smeared me in a March Madness bracket Challenge. I'm not sure if it makes her 4-1 against me or merely 3-2, but either way it's plain embarrassing. How could I let a WOMAN -one who watches NO basketball and could care less about the sport- DO this to me, year after year?!? It's not like I'm my brother, Russell. I'm not terrible at making picks. Really, I'm usually quite good. But every time I finish in the 90th percentile, Lauren finished in the 98th. Yeah, she's like that. Memphis in the Championship game? She called it. 13 Siena over 4 Vanderbilt? She saw it coming a mile away. 10-Seed Davidson, beat 7, 2, and 3 seeds (Gonzaga, Georgetown, and Wisconsin)?? She didn't bat an eye when she picked the Wildcats to file their upsets in triplicate. She's just that good. Currently in the 97th percentile this year (to my measly 78th), and with UCLA and North Carolina going down, I (like Michael Vick) no longer have a dog in this fight. I have to concede. It's not fun to lose, and it wasn't pretty this time, but March Madness ended one game early this year.

And this season's eventual National Champion, either Memphis or Kansas, to be decided Monday night? Who cares. Like pregnancy scars, they existed only to humiliate my wife, and they've already failed in that department. The season is done.

Until next year.....

P.S. I love you sweetie!

3 Good Things:
Arizona
Baseball hats (preferably not baseball related)
French Toast, with powdered sugar

Overrated- Colorado

If you Hadn't Heard Yet

Snoop Dogg is now a Mormon. That's right, it's true- he was baptized on Tuesday.

Read about it yourself: cnnentertainment.co.nr/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/01
http://peoplemagazine.co.nr/people/article/008675309
http://bk5-hots.blogspot.com/2008/04/snoop-dog-mormon.html

http://www.cptimes.com/snoop-dogg-mormon-hoax-calvin-broadus-april-fools-day-joke/123

In REAL Snoop news, Calvin Broadus Jr. is fighting to be allowed into England as he blasts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama as a KKK member!


3 Good Things:
In-N-Out
InuYasha
InsideOut

Overrated- Indian Gaming

Return to Sender: Temporal Death in our Lives

A 7-year old girl went missing on Tuesday in Salt Lake City. Hser Nay Moo was last seen at 2pm, playing in front the apartment where she lived with her mom, dad, and two brothers. She was wearing a pink dress, a pink coat and pink shoes.

When I arrived at work early Wednesday morning, I was handed a flyer with her name, photo, and physical description. A few hours later the Amber Alert was finally called in. As police, government officials, and volunteers began to assemble at a local LDS church building among family, friends, and the media to begin a massive search effort, I was only a block and a half away, just arriving on scene for a cardiac call. Our ambulance was the first there. As we rolled the stretcher to the front door, we heard a woman crying loudly inside. We entered the home. Making our way to the back bedroom, we soon came to the side of an older man, lying on his back in his bed, his wife sobbing uncontrollably at his side. He wasn't breathing. I reached down and took his hand. His skin was cold, his body was rigid, and I couldn't find a pulse. I hurriedly opened our medical pack to retrieve an oral airway and a bag valve mask, but my partner stopped me. We were already too late. The arriving sheriff took the grieving wife aside; we made sure the coroner would be notified. Then we went back out to our ambulance, put our things away, and called dispatch to let them know we were available for another call. I never knew it would happen that fast. Almost as soon as it started, it was over.

The search for the missing little girl didn't last 24 hours. Thursday, as the sun dawned, local police found the body of young Hser Nay. She had never left the apartment complex. She was killed by one of her neighbors in a basement bathroom. As word spread, the community who had rallied to find her had no other option but to grieve. A small memorial grew at the complex, as people came by to leave pink candles, pink flowers, pink stuffed animals, and their tears. One elementary school teacher left a hand-written note addressed to their former student. It read: "I never would have guessed that the quiet little girl I saw on her first day of school--putting your backpack on the desk and keeping it there all day--would turn into the girl who dumped soap all over the bathroom floor so she could go 'ice' skating... It was really hard to have a bad day when you were around." Hser Nay's funeral service will be held in the same church building that had served as command post for all the volunteer searchers who had hoped to find her well.

The father of the girl, too freshly informed that he had lost his only daughter, was forced to find words enough to share with the television crews and newspaper writers. "I cannot replace her... I loved her most," the devastated man was able to manage. Then, after a moment of silent reflection, he added "We ask the Lord will be with us to lift us through this difficult trial in our lives." The six remaining remembers of the Moo family spent Thursday night reading scriptures together and praying. As family and friends gathered one by one in the little apartment to pay their respects, they began to sing hymns together. People kept coming, and the family sang songs of love long into the night with all those who would join them. I wish I could respond to such a terrible trial with such a kind spirit. I pray that I will never have to.

What would you do? How do we cope with a world that will end too soon for us, even sooner for many good people that we know and care about? How do you process the deaths of countless others that we only read about in the paper or see on the news? It's different for every one of us, personal, changing. It's different today than it was on Monday. It requires faith. It is made easier by hope. And, I think, facing the truth of our own eventual return to our Heavenly Father who sent us here can only make us smarter, stronger, braver individuals. We're here for a reason, for a purpose. I hope we aren't wasting the short time we have. I hope we hurt when others hurt... I hope we love others, each person around us. I hope we cry, sometimes, like I am now, and that we firm our resolve and square our shoulders and press on, doing good in the world and reaching out to others, reaching out to the best person in ourselves. I hope we do. God bless.


3 Good Things-
Loved Ones
The United States of America
Police Officers

Overrated: Fear