Beck to Harline

Ah, that was a beautiful day: "This should be the last snap of the football game...Snap to John ...John backpedals...plenty of time, plenty of time, plenty of time...He's moving to his left, shuffling, shuffling, shuffling...All kinds of time. Now the heat comes! He's got to run to the right. John Beck is on the run...He throws behind him it is...CAUGHT FOR THE TOUCHDOWN! Caught for the touchdown! Caught for the touchdown! Johnny Harline got it for the score! Harline by himself in the endzone! The Cougars win it on the final play of the game!"

I would have posted the video, but most of the ones I found were too grainy. You need to see it in full-screen glory to truly appreciate it. I found it on Youtube, but I know what's going on just because I've seen it several dozen times. I could post endless streams of U of U jokes (How do you get a [insert name of hated college here] graduate off your porch? Pay him for the pizza), but I think the picture says it all.

The rest of the posts for this week will simply be awesome moments from BYU, in anticipation of the big game this week...It is going to be one crazy Saturday--

Times I wish I had a camera

Have you ever seen something so amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking, inspiring, scary, or just downright unbelievable that the only thing you could think was "I wish I had a camera..."? These are just a few of those times

1. Seeing a kid with severe ADHD actually get something right in karate--this kid had seen his dad shoot himself, and in the aftermath of this event the kid had been molested by a babysitter. And all of this occurred before his ninth birthday. He either ran around screaming uncontrollably, or he just sat there drooling, staring at nothing. But one day he came out of his shell, he followed instructions, he participated, and his mother couldn't believe it--there was hope for this kid after all. Read more about it here (I wrote a memoir about it for a writing class).

2. Seeing a power line break about fifty feet in front of me, falling in a cascade of sparks and landing in a gigantic puddle. It had been raining all day there in Brazil, and that side of the street was ankle deep in muddy water. It's amazing how something as simple as being on the opposite side of the street could potentially save your life.

3. Seeing a war veteran walk by himself with a computerized leg after having struggled with a cane for twenty years.

4. The time I decided it would be fun to run and slide on the icy sidewalk, failing to realize that the sidewalk sloped down about three feet after I started sliding. It was a spectacular wipeout, but it failed to impress that girl...

5. The random time my brother and I started doing synchronized swimming in the living room while making up our own theme music. "Like a dolphin! Like a dolphin!"

6. The time my brother stabbed me in the eyes (yes, both eyes) with his fingers, knocking me over the couch. Apparently I'd never seen the Three Stooges and didn't know how to play along.

7. The time I learned how to ride a bike because my dad tricked me into thinking he was running right behind me. Read the story here.

8. When I was in the airplane leaving Brazil, wondering if I would ever see the people there again, wondering if I would ever go back.

9. on Saturday, when I realized that I was at the last football game I would see in college.

10. Seeing a guy break up with a girl. She was in tears, unsure of what to do, and he had a smirk on his as face as he said, "Don't do this--don't cry." He promptly walked away, shaking his head and rolling his eyes, while she just stood there in the cold and cried.

I have a ball...

Well, sorry about not having posted anything in the past two months--things have been pretty crazy. I'm getting ready to take the GRE tomorrow, and I'll be extremely glad once that is all finished. In the middle of getting ready for that, I've been working on grad school applications to USC, UCLA, Tisch (NYU), and UT at Austin. I'll also be applying to Chapman, but that isn't until February--a lot of the materials overlap though, so that shouldn't be too bad. I also took a mid-term this morning, I have 50 papers to grade this week, a final paper due on Tuesday, and I'm trying to get a date for this weekend. Lovely...

On a different note, apparently someone said I remind them of the hamster in the upcoming movie "Bolt." 

In order for that to really make sense, I guess you'll just have to watch the trailer. Check out the clip called "Animal Rescue," since that is the one that sparked the comment in the first place...

Sorry once again for the long time between posts, and the fact that this is such a short post--but once I get past the GRE, I should have a little more time to keep up to date with everything.

Mmm...nachos

Well, the Olympics are almost finished, and I think I'm ready for it. While it has been fun watching the U.S. winning big (Michael Phelps), losing big (4x100m relays, men and women), it has been pretty frustrating. The other day, my roommates and I woke up early (8:15am) to watch the men's basketball game., only to find out that it didn't start until 10:15am because of a stupid tape delay. 8:15 would have been the live feed (we're fourteen hours behind Beijing time, right?), but no...NBC tapes the live feed on the east coast and feeds it to us either an hour or two later (it varies, depending on the event). And today, the women's volleyball game was supposed to be on this morning. I even woke up at 9:00am on a Saturday just to watch it....it is now 2:30pm and it still hasn't come on. Every commercial break says, "And coming up next we will have the women's volleyball game, as well as rowing, rhythmic gymnastics, and boxing..." And no, of course they don't show the game....they start with the boxing. But wait!--there are all the divisions in boxing: flyweight, featherweight, etc. etc. Even though I'm studying film, it's hard to watch that much TV in a single sitting, so I've been doing some work, reading, preparing lesson plans, and then checking the broadcast every fifteen minutes or so. lame...........

And apparently my grandpa was friends with the guy who invented nachos. You can read my cousin's blog about it here.

Olympic Spirit, part 2

So last night I was eating at Applebee's with my family. It was a farewell thing for my sister, who starts grad school at Florida State this semester. I was sitting right underneath a TV watching the men's beach volleyball team beat Switzerland. A few minutes later, Michael Phelps was racing in the 100m butterfly. After the first 50 meters, Phelps was in seventh place (out of eight swimmers), more than half a second behind the leader. With about 25 meters left to go, I started hearing the following: "Dig...dig...dig, baby. Dig! DIG! DIG!!!" As if by magic, Phelps responded, touching the wall one hundredth of a second faster than Milorad Cavic, making it his seventh gold medal of these Olympics. The restaurant exploded with cheers and applause. Dozens of people sat entranced as the replay was shown again and again, every angle confirming that Phelps indeed finished first. Random people called out to other random people:"What was his time?" "Was that another world record?" "How did he do that?" All in all, it's just another reason I'm proud to be an American. There are about 53 other reasons, but that's too many to list (54 is the total medal count, in case you're wondering what the other 53 are).


And this is a picture of my cousins at the Breaking Dawn midnight sale. Some of them were asking about it, so here it is.

Olympic Spirit

So after watching the Opening Ceremonies, I couldn't fall asleep--I was too excited to watch the Olympic games. I stayed up watching badminton and fencing, and at 3:00am I watched the U.S. Women's Soccer team beat Japan. All day Saturday I was channel hopping between three stations to get the maximum coverage possible (commercial breaks meant it was time to switch stations...never a dull moment). But this morning, hearing about the spectacular finish in the 4x100m freestyle relay, has gotten me so pumped for the rest of the Olympics. If you haven't heard about it yet, you have to go here. You'll probably have to download Microsoft's Silverlight, but it's quick and easy, and the video is so worth it. Trust me. In the last stretch of the relay, the Americans are behind by a body length. And then here comes Lezak...Listen to the announcers screaming near the end of the race. It's pretty amazing. I've watched the video a good six or seven times today already. NBC just posted it this morning, and it already has 1.2 million hits.


And yes, our intramural softball team won the championship. It was kind of anti-climactic though, because the other team forfeited the championship game. Apparently they had a co-ed game at the same time, and they had a better chance of winning that game (the co-ed team was still undefeated in double elimination, but the men's team had already lost once to us). But it's okay--we got t-shirts and bragging rights for the next year, so hey, I'm happy.

Breaking Dawn at midnight?

Well, quite a bit has happened in the past little while. Just to sum up a little: I turned 24, I read "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place," I went to the midnight sale of Breaking Dawn (even though I haven't read any of the Twilight series), I saw The Dark Knight (twice), my grandfather passed away, and our intramural softball team is in the semifinals with a good chance of winning the championship (it's double elimination, and we haven't lost a tournament game yet.

My birthday was a lot of fun. I went and played sand volleyball in the morning, watched a couple episodes of Psych, and then we got a big group to go get some frozen custard. As for the midnight sale of Breaking Dawn, I was there to help my mom with the new bookstore. It was their first midnight sale, and they (meaning my mom mostly) were pretty nervous. So I was there to help move boxes, take pictures, and all that. My dad made some stickers that said, "Oh Edward, you can bite my neck," for all of the girls that came to the sale. He had wanted to make a big banner that said "Edward is gay!" but my mom wouldn't let him.

Anyway, I ended up taking over a hundred pictures of the event. This activity had all the girls making a wedding dress out of toilet paper.


Something else that I thought was pretty interesting--there was a band playing two stores down (another bookstore was also doing a midnight sale), and I happened to get a couple pictures of them playing. Afterward, the lead member wanted to pay me for the pictures...he ended up giving me a CD. His name is Sam Payne, so you can check out his website if you want. I haven't had a chance to listen to his CD yet, but he was on Glenn Beck's show a little while ago.
This picture isn't actually Sam, but a violin player that was doing backup work. I just thought it was a cool picture (I really like the new lens I got for my birthday...even in low light, I can still take good pictures without using the flash). I didn't want to use the flash, since I was only about three feet away. The band didn't even realize I was there though, because I was behind them and all of their sound equipment.

And just now, I got back from watching Iron Man at the dollar theater. It was still a fun movie, even the second time around. Someone even pointed out a little "easter egg" where you can see Captain America's shield in the background in Tony Stark's lab. Totally nerdy, but hey, it was fun.

I'll try and post some more tomorrow, after we play our softball game--