Someone needs to do a scientific study on why many LDS college students after a devotional feel compelled to congregate around the stacks of chairs and ignore the people who are trying to put the chairs away. And why they fail to learn from experience and instead keep doing it every single week. It's very annoying, but in all seriousness, I think there must be some evolutionary driving force behind it, probably the same force that compels white-collar workers to gather around water coolers. You may in fairness ask, what use would that study be? And the answer is, who knows? Science in its purest form is just the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Let someone else figure out the practical applications later. There will undoubtedly turn out to be some that we never could have imagined. Actually, there's a good chance someone has already studied this, but the only results I could find were about crows and flies. I found this video to be less stupid than I expected. It's not phenomenal either, but it's worth watching if you're bored. Having said that, I would like to make perfectly clear that I am not endorsing Provo, any universities in Provo, or Mormon dating culture. Having said that, I have only one real complaint, which is about the part on their first date where the guy has to recover from not listening. The joke, of course, is that guys don't listen. But this should not be presented as normal or okay. It doesn't even make sense. Why would you be like "I want to go on a date with this girl" and then when you're on a date with that girl you want to think about something else? If she isn't interesting enough to hold your attention then why do you want to spend time with her in the first place? Humans are so weird. I was surprised that they were bold enough to include an emotion of lust, albeit thinly veiled under the theologically significant title "Natural Man". I have also thought about lust in the context of "Inside Out" but was reluctant to broach the topic because I would hate to ruin the whimsy and innocence of that film. Now that the Provo YSA 26th Ward Elders' Quorum has given me an opening, however, I'll go for it, and if you think you're going to be offended please just skip this part and don't stop reading my blog because of it. This is what I imagined - Scene 1: Three identical triplets walk into Riley's brain. Joy (clapping with glee): Yay, new friends! Nice to meet you! I'm Joy! Triplet #1: Hi. I'm Love. Triplet #2: I'm Infatuation. Triplet #3: I'm Lust. Joy (smiling nervously): Er, I'm so sorry, but I can't tell any of you apart. Triplet #1: No worries, we get that all the time. Scene 2: Joy and the others are sharing the control panel. Lust walks in, whistling casually. Lust: It's my turn to run the controls. Joy (perplexed): What, now? I don't think - Lust: I SAID IT'S MY TURN TO RUN THE #@$% CONTROLS! Lust pulls out an Uzi and herds the others into a corner. I'm sorry if you considered that to be in poor taste. If you're upset with me you should be upset with the Provo YSA 26th Ward Elders' Quorum too. In trying to find books about Hinduism in the USU library, I stumbled upon a book called "The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture". Its entire thesis is to describe religion using the analogy of viruses. I considered reading it, because I consciously try to overcome the pernicious human tendency of confirmation bias which leads people to only read or watch things that argue for viewpoints they already hold. But first I looked in the index to see what it had to say about Mormons (I knew it would have something to say about Mormons). It had a lot to say about Mormons. The first page I flipped to had something to this effect: "Mormons had such complete political control over the territory of Utah that non-Mormons were murdered or driven out from the enclave. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the worst such case but was not unusual." The footnote explained what the Mountain Meadows Massacre was but gave no citation for the barefaced lie that it was not unusual. Having thus ascertained the author's standard of research and integrity, I decided not to bother reading it after all. The people who provided the worshipful blurbs on the back of the book probably don't even care how much of it is true, because it told them what they wanted to hear. I wish people had integrity. I wish people didn't make crap up because they they think the ends justify the means. I hate it when I have to defend Donald Trump because someone is reposting the "Republicans are the dumbest group of voters" quote that he never said. As Mark Twain famously quipped, "There are four kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, statistics, and fabricated quotes on the internet." I said in one of my blog posts several months ago that I wasn't concerned about Donald Trump because he isn't going to be the Republican nominee. It's becoming apparent that I was probably wrong. Since I was obviously expressing an opinion and have never claimed to be able to see the future, I feel no need to apologize for that, but what I do apologize for is severely overestimating American voters. I feel very foolish to have made such an unprecedented and unwarranted mistake. I should have known better. I won't let it happen again. And here's the other thing. Even though I detest the Republican party, I'm registered as a member on paper so that according to Utah law I can vote in the primaries. Except that my vote in the primaries means exactly zilch because by the time Utah gets to participate, the nominee has already been chosen. I love democracy! I find it interesting how things have changed in eight years. I remember that eight years ago when people accused the Democratic nominee of being a socialist, his supporters were like "No no no, he's not a socialist. We aren't socialists. Stop slandering him just because you disagree with him." And now the guy who is obviously going to be the Democratic nominee is just like "I'm a socialist" and his supporters are just like "Yep, he's a socialist. Nothing wrong with that. We like socialism." No comment. A few months ago in the Aggie Bull Pen Creative Writing Club we played a game which consisted of working three pre-selected words into a story that fit on one side of an index card. I've just now gotten around to scanning my index card so it can be shared with you lucky people. Here's the second story I did, but I'm putting it first because it's inferior. I'm much more pleased with this one. I don't remember whether I quoted Red Jumpsuit Apparatus on purpose. Probably. Debbie continues to be a source of frustration and heartache. Last week she made her position clear to me, and I know I should just gracefully accept it, but my desire is too strong to just turn off like a light switch. I can't help holding on to some hope that maybe someday, if I continue to be kind and respectful to her, I can convince her to change her mind. There's something to be said for persistence sometimes, isn't there? Until then, however, I have no choice but to respect her wishes even though they feel unreasonable and unfair after what I've done for her. I let her read my novel, but she won't let me read hers. She didn't even tell me she was a writer. This past week, thanks to YouTube's Autoplay feature, I discovered many new songs. One of them was really catchy and I listened to it five times and got it stuck in my head forever. Then the comments tipped me off that the refrain is a play on words glamorizing the recreational use (is there any other kind?) of ecstasy. Naive, innocent, literal-minded, unfamiliar-with-the-street-names-of-drugs me would never have picked up on that. So I guess I won't share it here after all. Besides, the video might cause seizures in some people. So I'm continuing with the theme of non-English love songs, but not sharing the video of this one either because it's on Vevo and Vevo is super lame and won't let me embed things. Just close your eyes and drift away with the music... Makano - Te Amo
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- Amelia Whitlock "I don't know how well you know Christopher Randall Nicholson, but... he's trolling. You should read his blog. It's delightful." - David Young About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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