​The referendum against Utah's recent tax reform ended on Tuesday, having collected an estimated 150-170,000 signatures out of the 116,000 that were required. It would have taken some time to verify the final count, and some would have been rejected, but we were pretty dang confident we had this in the bag. Then it became moot because the Legislature was so scared by this upswelling of resistance that they repealed the tax reform altogether. Now, instead of being put on the ballot in November, it's simply ceased to exist. Of course I hope Utah will still remember in November exactly which people voted for that train wreck in the first place, and I hope this will leave a lasting impression on anyone currently in or planning to enter politics. I have to admit the referendum would have most likely been a flop without the endorsement and enthusiastic participation of the Harmon's grocery store chain, where I would happily shop if they had a location in Logan, and the conservative think tank Sutherland Institute who encouraged people to sign by running radio ads telling them not to sign.

I finished submitting the supplementary materials for my graduate school application. The requirements use all this pompous academic language, of course, and it's intimidating and it makes me feel like I'm way out of my depth when I just want to write fun science fiction stories. Realistically, though, and I'm not trying to be cocky, but realistically, I'll be very surprised if I don't get in. I think the skill exhibited in my writing sample will speak for itself, and I also know the professors giving me recommendations will speak very highly of said skill, especially the one who urged me to consider graduate school and teaching in the first place. By my estimate I was the third best writer in his class the first time around and the second best the second, but of course that's kind of subjective and when I told Stormy she was probably the best she said "No, you definitely are." I think my biggest strength is that I fill a different niche than most. Nobody else in any of my writing classes over the years has focused on fun science fiction stories.

I recently lost a substantial chunk of one of my ​teeth, substantial enough for me to see the sensitive core with my naked eye and touch it with my naked finger, which I only did once. I assumed the remaining chunk would have to be pulled out and I was surprisingly quick to accept that. It's way in the back where nobody would notice, and I've already learned to chew without it, and I figured this life is mercifully short and I'll get it back when I'm resurrected so whatever happens to me in the meantime doesn't matter. I was far more concerned about the cost. I just got Medicaid but it doesn't cover anything dental because the US government has decided those things aren't super important. Imagine, then, my relief when the dentist said he can repair my tooth in half an hour and it will only cost $254.84 if I pay the same day. He might have to follow up with a root canal, but there's no sense worrying about that yet.

The situation with my neighbors... hasn't changed at all, but after the initial shock, I surprisingly don't much care. Their wrongness is their own loss. It will also make my memoir that much better.

This review of my site on Webwiki, the first one from somebody who isn't me, isn't new, but I just noticed it the other day and it made me happy.

Thank you, Jason. Now I'm all like

Anyway, I was skimming through this unfinished sci-fi epic "The War" as I moved the text over - I had intended to read it all straight through, but that was too painful - and this little bit stopped me in my tracks. When I wrote it as a teenager in 2008 or 9, it was just a silly attempt at humor with virtually no real-life subtext intended, but anyone reading it today would be unable to avoid what TV Tropes calls Unfortunate Implications. It's - well, I'll just let it speak for itself.

[Beginning of excerpt. The setting is a party/dance with members of many alien races present.]

“All right,” Hok announced, leaping to the nearest hovering microphone on ridiculously long gangly legs. He was a short, skinny green man with a gargantuan head and pointy ears. “All right,” he repeated, “hang on to your kramblotches, because it’s pippiks’ choice!”

There was a slight groan from some of those assembled, elicited by the fact that there was only one pippik present, a suddenly rather confused-looking Troikot.

There is a simple pattern followed by many species throughout the universe, and that is this: male, female. The reason this is followed by many species is that it’s simple, it works, and if you believe in an all-powerful Hand guiding it somewhere along the line you can imagine Him wanting to keep it consistent. For those who like to keep it even simpler, the options of hermaphrodite and null were made available. However, the Universe being the humongous place it is, some species are bound to be dissatisfied with these perfectly reasonable choices, and choose to come up with their own fancy alternatives. Pippiks, then, are only one of thousands of relatively obscure genders to be found throughout said Universe. Kramblotches, on the other hand, are completely unrelated organs found in some species for the purpose of throwing at predators.
​
When it comes to interstellar travel, this also brings up the problem of gender pronouns. The language of a species with its own special genders will have developed its own special pronouns, of course, but usually any being from a normal male/female/hermaphrodite/null species will not want to bother memorizing all of the pronouns for the thousands of relatively obscure genders that exist. As a result, most choose to lump them all under the “it” category. Some find this offensive, but, others argue, they should have thought of that before their species decided to create its own genders anyway.

“Ask that cute farfel over there,” whispered a Queezik.

“I don’t swing that way,” the Troikot timidly whispered back.

Hok’s keen ears picked up their exchange and he grinned in spite of himself. He knew, of course, that there was only one pippik in the room, but he was trying as best he could to be fair and tolerant of everybody. Sexism, of course, was unseemly even by this society’s standards.

[End of excerpt]

So. Much. Cringe.

I've avoided talking about all the sex and gender controversy (except that one time, which I won't apologize for) because it's surprisingly complicated and I don't want to say ignorant things. I know that chromosomes are complicated and there are several - not percentage-wise, but numerically - demonstrable exceptions to the "XY = male, XX = female" dichotomy. Externally female bodies may have only one X chromosome, or even XY chromosomes and useless internal testes in place of ovaries, to cite a simple and surprisingly common example. I do think a lot of other people don't know as much about it as they think they do either, even when citing "science" as their authority. A couple months ago in the Mormons Building Bridges group someone posted an article about a study that had allegedly found that, marriage expert Mark Gungor's hilarious routine notwithstanding, there is no difference between men's brains and women's brains. And more recently in the same group someone posted an article about a study that had allegedly found that transgender children's brains matched the gender they identified as, not their biological sex.

​I may be missing something obvious, but I can't help feeling like it's fundamentally impossible for both of those claims to be true. Of course it's not my place as a non-scientist to reject either or both of them without being able to explain why, but neither is it the place of other non-scientists to imbue either of them with more authority than it actually has. Scientific truth is not established overnight by one scientist or team of scientists. A study may be interesting but means very little unless and until its results are replicated in additional studies. This often never happens. There's also the issue of news outlets and other lay people misinterpreting studies to mean what they want them to mean - for example, this happened a few years ago:

Study from BYU: We found that religious people who use pornography are more likely than non-religious people who use pornography to describe themselves as "addicted" even if they show no signs of addiction.

Almost Everyone Else: This study from BYU found that pornography addiction is a myth created by religious guilt.

These people seemed to believe they were objectively reporting the study's results, when in reality they were doing something else: making crap up. In any case, I'm going to reserve judgment on most of these issues for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, it costs nothing to be kind.

I do still consider it plausible that the vast majority of alien races would fall into something recognizably analogous to the male/female dichotomy, just as the vast majority of advanced organisms on Earth do even with chromosomal arrangements that in many cases radically differ from ours. Sexual reproduction is weird and gross but it works because, by mixing and recombining parents' DNA, it drastically boosts the genetic diversity of the species, which in turn makes it far less vulnerable to being suddenly wiped out by disease, climate change or whatever. This obviously requires at least two parents. Three, four, or a dozen would create even more diversity, but the exponential difficulty of actually pulling it off in practice would more than nullify that benefit. Of course, there may be aliens out there who aren't even made from DNA as we understand it, but that's also too complicated for me to think about right now.

Ugh, I need to get the taste of that excerpt out of my mouth, so here's another from the same scene that I don't hate.

​[Beginning of excerpt.]

“Let’s go find a seat,” said Bert. They turned around and nearly bumped into the nine-foot tall hairy mass behind them. It reacted slightly less than a tombstone, but the purple snake coiled around its neck reared up and hissed at them violently.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Alicia, who had spilled soda all over her clothes in response. “Er, nice pet,” she said to the hairy creature, hoping to make light of it.

“How dare you speak that way of my fiancé?” demanded the snake.

[End of excerpt.]

It's a dumb joke, but I find it amusing. At least I was supportive of interracial marriage long after it was cool.

Why do I put these garbage writing samples, these "sins of my youth" as Hergé would call them,  on the internet instead of burying them forever? First of all, because when I'm famous everyone will be fascinated to see how my writing has evolved. Joking but serious at the same time. Second, because despite how bad they are, they're actually not that bad. Oh sure, they're too painful for me to read, but they have their moments of brilliance and I can see in them the potential that my teachers saw and urged me to cultivate. They're better than some Legend of Zelda fan fiction I've read. Heck, they're better than some things I read from some of my undergraduate English classmates. Not singling anyone out but just being honest. And maybe some people who hold me to a lower standard than I do, who aren't personally embarrassed by the existence of this old writing, can actually enjoy it. I enjoy the Star Wars Holiday Special, which shouldn't be possible for a carbon-based life form, so it's not that far-fetched.

While I was skimming through "The War", I laughed out loud at a part where (spoiler alert) one character who's just learned English as a second language refers to puppy love as "dog lust". Maybe I'm just an idiot, but I think that's one of the funniest things I've ever written.

​In the days leading up to my viewing of "The Rise of Skywalker", I tried to remain untainted and open-minded, without preconceived notions of how much I should reasonably expect to enjoy it. This was difficult to accomplish while being confronted with reviews like "'Rise of Skywalker' is the Worst 'Star Wars' Movie Ever'" or these Facebook posts.

​I watched the movie with a small group of friends. We had really good seats except that I was next to a guy who, infatuated with his own voice and unable to understand how public theaters work, thought he needed to verbally react to almost everything that happened onscreen. I wanted to break his nose, but that would have been a path to the Dark Side. I did flip him off a few times but I don't think he noticed in the dark.

My spoiler-free preliminary review of "The Rise of Skywalker": it feels rushed and confusing, tries too hard to exploit nostalgia for the original trilogy, and incorporates several plot points that either too predictable or make little sense even by Star Wars standards. The retcons and justifications for several of "Last Jedi"'s controversial decisions are painfully obvious, making it painfully obvious in turn that the sequel trilogy was made up one movie at a time with no overarching plan or outline from the beginning. The new characters felt awkwardly shoehorned in with little purpose other than to sell toys, and I'm apparently the only person anywhere who doesn't think Babu Frik is cute. Seriously, what's so cute about a ninety-year-old space leprechaun who moves like a crappy stop-motion puppet, looks like his head was squashed and sounds like his brain was damaged in the process? Is this a fricking joke, pun intended?

Notwithstanding all that, the movie has some cool and creative stuff and wraps things up about as well as could be expected given what J.J. Abrams had to work with. The humor, while still not as funny as Disney thinks it is, doesn't feel totally out-of-place and obnoxious like in three of the other four Disney Star Wars movies. I think I like "The Rise of Skywalker" better than either of the previous sequel trilogy installments. It's not a ripoff of an earlier film like "The Force Awakens" and it's not totally bizarre like "The Last Jedi". It was originally announced to be nearly three hours long and I'm guessing there's a lot of cut footage that shouldn't have been cut, that would have made it more coherent and better paced. I thought it would make perfect sense for the finale of nine movies to be the longest one anyway, but nobody asked me.

In any case, with the Skywalker saga out of the way, I hope Disney and subsequently fan films will give the era of the Empire a much-needed rest and move on to other parts of the galaxy's multi-thousand year history. I'd be fine with never seeing another stormtrooper again.

So that was Star Wars. The next and final major event of the year for me is Christmas, or Life Day as they call it in some places, or Impeachmas as several of my left-leaning friends have recently started calling it for some reason. As I'm tired from staying up from the movie, on vacation in sunny Idaho, and generally not in the mood to try and peel back my cynical exterior and wax all poetic about feelings and stuff, yet still feel an obligation to recognize this special day that comes but once a year and only lasts two months, here are some better words from a better person.

"​This Christmas mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love, and then speak it again." - Howard W. Hunter

On average I attend one to two movies in the theater per year, and I've never done so on opening night. Most of the garbage that passes for entertainment these days is not, in my opinion, worth ten dollars to see on a big screen, and even when I make exceptions for the few movies I actually really care about, I've never understood the hype or urgency to attend the earliest possible screening. As Rat pointed out in "Pearls Before Swine", "The movie will still be here tomorrow." However, my friend and neighbor somehow secured tickets to see "The Rise of Skywalker" this Friday evening so why not? It's as good a time as any. The fact that he just bought these opening night tickets a week or so ago might not bode well for the level of enthusiasm about this movie, but maybe he just killed people for them and I'm better off not prying too deeply.

It's probably inevitable that my enthusiasm is nowhere near the level of twelve-year-old me exploding with anticipation to see "Revenge of the Sith", which as far as I or most people knew was going to definitely be the last Star Wars movie ever. Disney isn't trying to pretend that this new one is the last one, but they are claiming it's the end of the episodical Skywalker saga and thus it's supplanted "Revenge of the Sith" in that regard. But I don't feel the same excitement. I've had mixed feelings about these newer films, except for "Rogue One" which blew me away, from the moment Poe delivered his first awkward line of dialogue in "The Force Awakens" and I realized from the tittering in the audience that it was supposed to be funny. I try really hard to like them but, except for "Rogue One" which blew me away, they've never quite felt entirely like Star Wars to me. More like Guardians of the Galaxy or something.

And that's probably inevitable. It's probably akin to how people who grew up with only the original trilogy felt about the prequels, which were quite different from what came before. Arguments still rage about whether the prequels are objectively inferior to the originals, or have just been unfairly held to a higher standard by grouchy middle-aged people viewing the originals through nostalgia glasses. I've come to the conclusion that both are true. George Lucas was lucky with the original trilogy to have many talented collaborators who compensated for his shortcomings in scripting, editing and so forth, and by the time the prequels rolled around he no longer depended on them because he was rich and famous and nobody would argue with him about anything. But even so, the prequels have many strengths and they don't have a monopoly on the series' flaws by any means. It will probably take another decade or so of hindsight to decide whether I can embrace the new ones without reservation, except for "Rogue One" which blew me away.
 
I want to embrace them without reservation. If I do, I will have more opportunities for happiness than the people who hate them, just as I currently do with the prequels. I can say this much right now - and this is a no-brainer given the advance of technology, but still, they're the most visually stunning of any batch of Star Wars movies so far. The cinematography and the near-flawless marriage of practical and digital effects looks light-years better than the practical fakeness of the originals or the digital fakeness of the prequels. The paucity of familiar aliens from the first six movies bugs me and makes them not feel like Star Wars, but the new ones look amazing. It fascinates me that the vast majority of them are costumes and puppets, yet far more advanced, sophisticated and realistic ones than anything George Lucas had at his disposal in 1977. And they look amazing. I already said that but I'm not going to revise it. And of course, as I've said two or three times on this blog before, having more female and non-white characters addresses what was Star Wars' biggest flaw (not sarcasm) and, frankly, also looks great.

Tacking on a third trilogy after the other two had already established a sufficient self-contained story arc seemed unnecessary. On top of that it was clumsily handled, with "The Force Awakens" requiring you to read supplementary materials to figure out just what the heck happened since "Return of the Jedi", e.g. why does the Empire still exist but with a different name, what's the relationship between the First Order and the New Republic, what's the relationship between the New Republic and the Resistance, why should we care about that unnamed planet we just saw for the first time three seconds before the third Death Star blew it up, and like that. But the prequels weren't entirely cohesive with the originals either. Watching the first six movies through leaves some plot holes and unanswered questions. And now J.J. Abrams has had the chance to rectify that for good, to draw all nine Skywalker saga films into one satisfying conclusion and tie it up with a neat little bow, and that's exactly what he claims to have attempted to have done. If he succeeded, this movie is going to be fricking amazeballs for more than just the space battle with twenty billion ships.

Also, Palpatine and Lando and Wedge are back. If Disney thinks I'll play right into their money-grubbing hands just because they so blatantly attempt to exploit my nostalgia like that, they are absolutely right.

I was just talking with someone the other night about "Splinter of the Mind's Eye", the first Star Wars Expanded Universe novel ever written, which has a special place in my heart for how its influence helped to shape my own novel. It was written as a potential low-budget sequel if the original movie flopped, meaning for example that it has no space battle and virtually all takes place on one planet where the fog would have saved a lot of money on sets. And I've given some thought since that conversation to how history could have played out differently. If the original movie had flopped, we would have gotten this on screen instead of "The Empire Strikes Back", and then probably nothing else. Maybe both movies would have been all but forgotten, or maybe they would have become cult classics. Hollywood would have attempted to remake them at least once at some point during its "almost complete lack of original ideas" phase that shows no signs of dissipating anytime soon.

Now I quite like "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" and it would make an interesting movie in its own right, but I and the world at large are so blessed by how much more we got instead - movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, and video games from now until the extinction of the human race. By the time "Revenge of the Sith" rolled around I had reluctantly come to terms with the then-understood fact that George Lucas' rumored Episodes VII, VIII, and IX weren't going to happen and this movie was really the end. I think that helped to make it as special as it was. But now those movies exist after all. Where once there was nothing, there is now something, and I think that something is better than nothing even if it isn't what it could have been and what I might have chosen. Even the two-hour mediocrity-fest of "Solo" was better than nothing. Even the Holiday Special is better than nothing. Clearly I need professional help.

On an unrelated note, today marks five years since my finest moment of any kind ever. I really don't know why I bother to go on living anymore knowing that I'll never do anything to equal or surpass this achievement. I guess just to annoy people.

The other day a friend in Uganda asked me what Black Friday is. I and many if not most Americans have long recognized that Black Friday is a sickening orgy of consumerism that brings out the worst in humanity, but when he asked me about it I realized I have no clue what the original paper-thin excuse for its existence is. To my knowledge, it literally is and always has been nothing more than a sickening orgy of consumerism that brings out the worst in humanity. I didn't use those exact words in my explanation but I felt, as seldom before, profoundly embarrassed to be an American. I saw that one company this year started its Black Friday sales at 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

So speaking of Thanksgiving, this year I decided to try something new and revolutionary: giving thanks. Here are some things that I'm thankful for this year. The list is biased toward the latter half of this year because I habitually try to block out most of my memories.

* Music.

* Not being in school.
​
* Music.

* Becoming dependent on melatonin.

​* Music.

* Finally getting endowed.

* Music.

* My sister getting married (albeit on my graduation day) so I can finally have those adorable little nieces and nephews I've been praying for. Better get on that, Heather.

​* Music.

* The development of effective Ebola vaccines and treatments.

​* Music.

* My friend Terrah doing my apartment search for me because I would have rather stuck a dirty needle in my eye. And also giving me food.

* Music.

* Being forced to move into this great little apartment complex with only one roommate who's frequently gone and the best neighbors I've ever had. Excluding Barky McBarkerton next door, who needs to die.

* Music.

* Sixteen new temples and eight new missions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being announced, to say nothing of the long-overdue death of the stupid Young Women's class names.

* Music.

* Millennials finally getting their revenge on idiot boomers who have been relentlessly mocking them for struggling to survive in the economy that the boomers ruined.

* Music.

* "The Mandalorian" TV show demonstrating what Star Wars is supposed to be. Even though the unnecessary existence of yet another streaming service is really annoying.

* Music.

* Hong Kong voters coming out in record numbers to overwhelmingly displace their pro-Beijing council members with pro-democracy ones.

* Music.

* Congress passing and Trump signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Suck it, China. Whatcha gonna do, stop manufacturing all our cheap plastic crap?

* Music.

* My crush giving me stimulating conversation and an unsolicited hug.

* Music.

* Not developing any serious illnesses or injuries that would put me into life-ruining medical debt because my country  has the worst healthcare system in the developed world and I don't have insurance.

* Music.

* "The Rise of Skywalker" coming up and looking like it's going to have enough epic battles and stunning visuals to compensate for the plot holes, SJW preaching and lame Disney jokes.

* Music.
​
* Not wasting time or money on any dates.

* Music.

* Trump's wall still conspicuously failing to be built.

* Music.

* 2019 thus far (knock on wood knock on wood knock on so much wood) having been a much, much, much, much, much better year for me than the crapstorm from hell that was 2018. Largely because Kristin Pike wasn't part of it.

* Music.

What's happening now in Hong Kong feels like the most Earth-shaking event of my life since the Arab Spring erupted while I was in high school. At that time I was on proverbial tenterhooks to see what this would mean for North Africa, the Middle East and the world. And what it meant was that Tunisia transitioned to a constitutional democracy, seventeen other countries did not transition to constitutional democracies, and Syria spiraled into an eternal civil war that's now a primary contributor to the largest refugee crisis in world history. Not exactly on par with the fall of the Iron Curtain. As yet there have been no other comparable events of such obvious significance in my lifetime. 9/11 could have been, if I had been old enough to understand its repercussions or if I had ever so much as heard of the World Trade Center before that day, but it wasn't.

The proposed legislation that pissed many Hong Kongers off enough to protest has been retracted, but the protesters have still had enough and they want their independence from mainland China altogether. I fully support that goal because the government of mainland China is evil to the core. And this is where things have a chance to turn out differently than the Arab Spring. My hope, in fact - and I don't know the likelihood of this happening, so I'm not getting too excited, but I really really would love it if it did - is for the protests to spread across the mainland, for the entire country to rise up and bring down Winnie the Pooh and the other murdering dictators who control their lives. It would be difficult to coordinate without Facebook, but the government wouldn't have a chance in hell of suppressing such an uprising if it included a majority of the population.

Of course, it does have the power, in theory, to suppress the protesters in Hong Kong, and every intention of doing so. I say "in theory" because there is ample historical precedent for poorly armed, vastly outnumbered underdogs kicking their enemies' trash (e.g. the American colonists, the Viet Cong, the Alliance to Restore the Republic). So I'm on the tenterhooks again waiting to see what will happen, wishing I could actually contribute to this cause I believe in. If I were an actual successful multimillionaire author instead of a virtually unknown blogger talking to himself, I could have enough political and financial influence to put my white savior complex to some use, but as the situation stands I can do little more than pray for them. And I know prayer is powerful, but as the continuing epidemic of mass shootings in my own country demonstrates, it's not a substitute for action.

Even the best case scenario will come at a heavy cost. There is almost no conceivable chance that many, many innocent people won't be disrupted, hurt and killed for standing up for their city's freedom. This is probably why many other Hong Kongers are wary of, or even opposed to, the protests. Every sane protester is undoubtedly terrified. I hope that as the situation deteriorates, their courage and convictions will not falter, and that others will be emboldened by their example to join their ranks. This is mostly what I pray for. I pray that God will strengthen their hearts for what lies ahead. As Captain Peter Quincy Taggart said, "Never give up, never surrender!" As the singers on Atari's video game cash-in album "Yars' Revenge" sang, "Better to die a hero, than to live a slave." And I'm sure there are some similar quotes from real people that I could throw in if I felt like it.

My one piece of white savior advice that will make no difference to anything is that their actual physical violence and vandalism need to be directed at the right people. The protesters need to stop disrupting civilians' lives and livelihoods, no matter how justified they feel. They are needlessly alienating potential allies from their cause. Maybe they need to target police officers. They probably will need to target soldiers and bureaucrats as things heat up. But they should never target anyone merely for having, or being suspected to have, certain political leanings. They should not vandalize businesses, airports, train stations, and the like that are not actively strengthening the government of mainland China. They need to let their call for freedom ring loud and clear without giving others reason to paint them as terrorists or common criminals.

And if/when all hell breaks loose, they should fight clean and with dignity. The government of mainland China will undoubtedly commit war crimes. The rebels shouldn't stoop to that level. While certain regrettable actions may be justified and necessary for this cause, there is a line that should never be crossed. Some things are never justified by even the most noble cause. People of Hong Kong who will never read this, I implore you not to become the very thing you seek to destroy. I know it's none of my business, but I'm praying for you, for your own sakes and for your children and your grandchildren. Good luck.