Black Friday

Once again humanity has shocked me with its stupidity.

At the beginning of the season that is supposed to be the least selfish and the most caring time of the year, a time for many of us to remember our Savior, a mob of people killed a temporary Walmart employee. I can see it in my mind, the eager Christmas shoppers, each with a list of things to buy for their special person, a son, a daughter, a wife, or a husband, charging into the store, carelessly trampling the body of the man who opened the door for them. And then, when informed that they have to leave the store because somebody has just died they respond, "but I've waited in line since yesterday!"

I want to karate chop that person in the throat; which is shameful in itself, because I want to revisit violence upon a whole mob of people, most of whom are probably quite innocent alone, just self absorbed and oblivious.

Oh, the irony of the moment. There is such a juxtaposition of images and values here, the values that we should have been feeling at the beginning of this season, and the selfish and careless mob consumerism that turned over 2000 people into accomplices in a murder.

Truly, Black Friday is a fitting name.

Twilight

This isn't a review of the movie, which I haven't seen and probably won't for quite some time; this is a review of the books, or perhaps, more of a review of Stephanie Meyer as a storyteller.

It may surprise those of you who know me that I have read these books, they aren't something that I would typically read, but I figured that since Stephanie Meyer is a product of BYU, that I should acquaint myself with her work (scout the competition). Anyway, the first day of Thanksgiving break, I read the forth book at my sister's house which is what prompted this post.

So, my thoughts. Hmmmm. Being a man, it's hard to get past the bodice ripper approach to the vampire genre. The Twilight series is more of a romance with the vampire approach added as an interesting twist rather than a vampire story that includes romance. Every page literally drips with drivel like, "he was as beautiful as a Greek god. I just wanted to reach out and caress his perfect marble cheeks, but he was out of reach. I felt the tears forming in my eyes. . ." And while that wasn't a direct quote (best I could come up with, sorry), it gives you the idea. While this type of writing might be interesting to many girls, as a man, it makes the story a bit cumbersome.

Which is what is so frustrating about Meyer's writing. She certainly adds interesting approaches to the vampire genre, and, every once in a while, she decides to toss the more adrenaline oriented audience a bone, but it isn't enough to make the story completely engaging. She has, at times, marvelously brilliant ideas, yet they are clouded by shameless romance.

Unfortunately, I think this romance approach alienates a large potential audience. Not that Meyer is hurting, with her legions of emotional teenage girl fans, but it's quite possible she could have doubled her fan base with a little more attention paid to the interests of the opposite gender (a little more action please).

My sisters and I were talking about these books the other day, and one of the things that they complained about was that they did not like the characters of Edward, Jacob, and Bella. It isn't a good sign when the three main characters are disliked by members of the target audience. I myself could have cared less for Edward or Jacob, both of them were a bit off from a masculine perspective, but it would take another thorough reading of the series for me to decide why. Initially I want to say that they are written too much through a woman's eyes, but that may not be it. I did like Bella's character, probably because her narrative voice sounds accurate to what I expect from a 18-19 year old girl. That could be a disastrous assumption though. And, I'm not gonna lie, Bella became cool in the end. I think I'm in love.

The support characters (mainly the Cullen family) are all considered to be pretty awesome, and Meyer does an excellent job making the reader like them. I doubt there has ever been a cooler group of vampires created than the Cullen family. But that is a rather general claim that I have no right making because, honestly, I'm not that well versed in vampire literature.

I think I may be coming off here as giving these books a quite negative review, and yes, much of what I have said has been focused on the flaws of Meyer's approach to her novels. But on the other hand, I, a 26 year old American male, read these books straight through. It really says something that I was able to slog through all that romance just for the few tidbits of vampire story that Meyer tossed in there. At its core, the essence of Twilight is a very cool story. You just have to struggle to find it amidst all the mushy, emotional writing.

Utah 48, BYU 24

Curse you Max Hall! I couldn't tell which team you were playing for yesterday. Did you purposefully throw that game? How can anyone contribute SIX turnovers and not be getting something under the table?

OK, I don't really believe anything of the sort. I'm just really angry right now.

Writing Constipation

So many times, recently, I have sat down with my fingers perched over my keyboard, with an overflow of thoughts and ideas ready to spill upon the page. . . and yet, I stall, because the meager words that I am able to express are so inadequate, so empty. Ah! the torment of the writer!

Quantum of Solace

I managed to see a late showing of the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, this weekend after Dancesport. Here are my initial, first viewing, thoughts.

I'm still not sure if I like this movie as much as its precursor, Casino Royale. The first movie developed Bond's only real relationship with a woman, Vesper, which was what made it so intriguing and. . . good. Quantum of Solace takes place immediately afterwards as Bond pursues the organization behind Mr. White. Obviously, because Vesper is dead, this movie lacks that romantic element of the first. However, this does add an interesting twist as Daniel Craig does an excellent job, again, of portraying a man who has lost his soul. You can see the development of Bond's character, as he resorts to sex and excessive violence to deal with the percieved betrayal of Vesper. I think this adds an element that has never been seen in a Bond movie before, because you get the sense that Bond is really in pain; you start to understand why he is the way he is.

Plotwise, QoS, is a typical Bond film; tons of villains, two unbelievably attractive women, action, intrigue, blatant product placement by Ford, lots of shooting and explosions. . . yeah, it's good.

And hooray for the absense of the painful one-liners that were typical of every Bond film made before Casino Royale.

My initial grade is an A- but that might change when I view the movie again.

Life Again. . .

It seems that I have once again survived another week of Dancesport. What a relief that it's over. For those of you who don't dance, Dancesport is a sort of high cost/reward type of event. In essence, life outside of dance is put on hold for a week, and all energy is placed into dancing at the highest level possible. Dance is fun, but a week of focusing on nothing else tends to be quite draining. I shall try to illustrate why.

My week actually began over a week ago at a warm up competition at Hillcrest High School in SLC. For those of you who don't know what the heck Dancesport is, here is my succinct definition; a competitive event where ballroom dancers go to show off their fancy moves in front of a panel of judges who make split second judgments between couples based on posture, smile, balance, rhythm, costume, etc. . . Anyway, Hillcrest was a disaster for my partner and I. We only competed in one event, Novice Latin, so we made the drive up there with high hopes and came away (an hour later) rather crushed after being eliminated--for good reason--in the first round. I have no scientific explanation for what happened. It just did. The end.

That was how this whole adventure started. On Tuesday, my Latin partner and I met with our coach (who was a judge at Hillcrest) and he was rather truthful with us--perhaps a bit more truthful with me than with her--which is good, because I find the truth to be helpful. But I don't really like hearing it that much. Still, it was nothing that White Zombie's "More Human than Human" couldn't cure in a few minutes. I came out of the whole experience with a new found determination to practice. Unfortunately the net result of practice times for my partner and I the week of Dancesport was only about 1.5 hours--not my fault--and the only real result was an elbow to the face, which, if it had been maybe a centimeter higher, would have broken my nose. I've never been hit in the nose that hard before.

Even with a little practice as we had, I feel totally redeemed, for the most part, from the debacle at Hillcrest. We danced the Novice Latin category again on Friday, and we danced worlds better. We made it to the second round--not that far, but a big improvement from the previous week--who knows, if we practiced to the point where we knew our routines instinctively we might have made it much farther.

On Saturday we competed in the Pre-Champ Latin event, which is the next level up and, consequently, much more difficult. This time did not go quite as smoothly, and I admit that I had a complete brain fart at the beginning of our Samba, so that the first 15-20 seconds were absolute patheticism. 180 (beginning) students could dance better than I was doing at that point. And then my shoe came untied and I almost died. And then, my partner's dress sliced open my finger and I bled all over her gloves and I had to madly scramble to stop the bleeding before the Rumba, which, though without the drama and violence, wasn't really danced any better. By some miracle, we still made it to the second round. Ahhh, the sweet taste of redemption; we danced much better, though this time, Samba again, I got an elbow to the solar plexus that had me gasping for air for several steps. Dance is so fun! We were eliminated thereafter.

Meanwhile, my Standard partner and I, as of say, a week ago, had no clue how to dance our quickstep--a six sided routine thrown at us in an hour by our coach. And our waltz was suspect as well. But, with two lessons this week, and a last minute practice session, we managed to get to the point where we could dance them. . . kind of. So, we danced the Novice Standard event, and got cut the first round. I kind of expected this, but I have high hopes for my Standard partner and I. There are moments that suggest the potential for dramatic improvement by the March competition.

Last of all I competed in the Gold Bar Cha-cha, a class event. The most advanced technique class at BYU. . . what was I doing there? I'm not sure. Still, I was confident for this event because my partner and I had excellent connection and a good knowledge of our routine, and we did dance well, though my partner got sliced on the wrist by a broken bracelet. We got cut the second round, which was disappointing, but not unexpected because of the quality of the dancers in this event.

Anyway, Dancesport is over. Now life starts again. . . and it's actually a bit of a relief.

Pictures later.

Romney/Palin 2012!

Well, I can't say that I am pleased with the results of this election. I certainly hoped that it would go the other way, but reality prepared me for the worst.

I hope Obama proves me wrong. I hope he IS the saint that the media has portrayed him to be. I hope he somehow possesses the political savvy to solve all of the problems which he will face; the economy, Iraq, etc. . . I hope there is something deeper than his charisma. I hope he will stand firm on the rights which are granted to Americans in the constitution. I hope he really will fight for the people (and not just vocal minority groups; Brady campaign, PETA, Gay rights activists, etc. . .).

On the other hand, I have many fears, too many to list here. Suffice it to say that I will be watching how Obama treats the key issues in which I believe; 2nd ammendment, marriage, abortion, etc. . .

With that said, Romney and Palin for 2012!
Romney should have been the Republican nominee anyway.
And even if Palin did come off a little clumsily during some of her interviews I still think she would have been an awesome VP. Give her 4 more years to get herself situated on the national stage (hint: she can do the same thing Obama did) and she'll be in the running.


That's all I have time for tonight. Later!