Top 5: My Personal Buzz List Edition

Normally, the Top 5 is a list of pop culture things that I want to rank. For this installment, I decided to list the things that have piqued my interest over the past week or so. That's not to say that there aren't any pop culture items on the list, but they're not all pop culture related. So here are the Top 5 things that are on my buzz radar.

5. Spiderman: Web of Shadows
I'm not much of a video game player. I used to be, but I just kind of lost interest in them. Maybe that means I'm growing up. When I saw the trailer for this game though, I was ready to be a kid again. I love Super-Heroes and comic books and the trailer for this game got my inner fanboy going. It has both Venom and Wolverine! How much cooler can you get! Check out the video and you can judge for yourself.




4. Denver Broncos Football
Okay, I know they aren't playing very well right now. I know, they've lost 3 out of the last 4 games. I know, that they have a slew of players that are out because of injury. I know, their defense can't stop the run or pass. I know, they've turned the ball over 12 times in their three losses. But I'm no fair weather fan. I love this team. I think that they can pull out of this rut they're in. With the bye week coming up, it time to heal up and recommit to being a good team. When healthy, the Broncos offense is hard to stop and is able to score almost willingly. They lead the AFC West by a game over the Chargers. There is still time to turn their recent poor performances around. I look forward to being there to watch them.


3. Nick-N-Willy's Pizza
Last week my roommate came home with a pizza from Nick-N-Willy's. He was kind enough to let me have a slice. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't the absolute best pizza I've ever had, but it was good. Good enough for me to plan to order it for Monday Night Football. The nice thing is that the restaurant is close to my house so I can just stop by on my way home from work. That makes it even better.


2. Fort Collins Run For The Wolves
Yes, I'm running in yet another 5k. Mostly because I was not satisfied with my time for the CSU Homecoming race. I know I can run 5 kilometers in less than 30 minutes. Signing up for the race gives me an chance to prove it to myself. I've also heard that it's a really fun race. There is a costume contest for people and dogs, and trick or treat stations for the kids. Those types of activities definitely make running a race more fun. I wonder how many people will be there. I don't think there will be 1600, like there were at the CSU Homecoming race, but I'm sure there will be a good turn out. My friend Rachel said she was going to run it too, so I think I'll just try to keep pace with her. Hopefully the weather will be nice. I'm not a fan of running in the rain. The forecast for Saturday is supposed to be sunny with a high of 65 degrees. I hope the weather man know what he's talking about.


1. Elder David Bednar
Elder David Bednar, and apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is coming to the Fort Collins area this weekend. He is coming to speak to the young single adults as well as a conference for the Fort Collins stake. As young single adults, we have the opportunity to listen to an apostle and hear his counsel for us. I'm really excited to be able to attend. I had the opportunity to meet Elder Bednar while he was president of BYU-Idaho. My family home evening group was invited to have family home evening with both he and his wife. It was one of the coolest meetings I've been too. I'm sure the meeting coming up this weekend will be even better.

I Never Liked The Game Of Tag

Apparently I've been tagged. I was told that means I get to post the 8th picture in my 10th folder. The problem is, I don't have that many pictures on my computer. I sure don't have 10 folders, and if I did, I don't think that they would have at least 8 pictures in them. So I opened the last folder of pictures on my computer and chose the 8th picture. I know it's kind of cheating, but it's all I can do.

This is my brother and sister in-laws wedding reception back home. It's a group picture of my immediate family along with all our aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad's side.

If you're reading this, I tag you. Post the 8th picture that is found in your 10th folder (or your last folder if you don't have 10 folders).

Super Busy Saturdays

This past Saturday was crazy busy for me. Normally I like to have a nice quiet Saturdays involving sleeping in and relaxing the rest of the day. This last Saturday was nothing like that. To start off, it was the day of the CSU Homecoming 5k race. The race started at 8 am and I told my friend Tabi that we should meet up at 7:30 am so she could get registered. I wonder why they start races so early in the morning? Getting back to my day, I woke up at 6:30 so I could eat a healthy breakfast before the run. Unfortunately it was a cold rainy morning and that wasn't much fun to run in. When we got to the race location, there were roughly 1700 people there. That's a lot more than the 600 at the last race I ran. I couldn't believe how many people were there. I did see quite a few people from the institute, so that was cool. There were so many people, that there wasn't a single time during the race that I was by myself. I was always passing someone or someone was passing me. A little over crowded if you ask me. I finished the race with a better time than the other 5k I ran, but I still didn't break 30 minutes. That disappointed me a little bit. So I've decide that I'm gong to run another 5k in a couple of weeks. It should have fewer people, so I think my time will improve.

After the race, I was supposed to meet up with some people to play a game of football. Unfortunately only two other people showed up because of the crappy weather. So we couldn't get a game going, but that was okay since I was still pretty tired from the race. It was cold enough to make my hands sting when I tried to catch the ball though. Maybe I should invest in receivers gloves. We ended up calling it quits after about half an hour. Hopefully more people will show up next time we play.

Then I went home to get cleaned up so I could go to the CSU Homecoming football game. I thought I bundled myself up pretty good and made sure that I was wearing lots of layers. Turns out that really wasn't enough. It was still raining and windy. By the end of the 1st quarter I was freezing. To make matters worse there were lots of rowdy fans and CSU ended up loosing the game 13 - 7. Lame.

I then hurried home to get ready for the institute choir concert. Elisa volunteered me to be the curtain puller and possible narrator. So I got all dressed up and went to the stake center to do my part. But because of some miscommunication I ended up sitting there not doing anything. The concert was good though and I think the choir did a really good job. Hopefully they'll have even more people join and they'll just keep getting better.

After the choir some of my friends and I played some games and went to the movies to celebrate my friend Brian's birthday. We went and saw "The Express: The Ernie Davis Story". It was a good movie. I really enjoyed it and I even geeked out a little bit when they included Floyd Little in the story. I liked the movie, but it was not one that I came out of all hyped up from. If you know about Ernie Davis, then you know why.

That in effect, was my busy Saturday. Running a race, playing football, going to a football game, watching a choir concert, and then seeing a football movie. Sounds like football related events dominated the day. Hopefully future Saturdays won't be so busy, but I'm sure that won't be the case.

Hair Of The Dog - Literally!

This is the funniest and possibly one of the more disgusting things that I've heard of people doing. While checking out random blogs today I came across a post that had me laughing. The post stated this:

"In photographer Erwan Fichou's series Dogwool, pet owners are photographed wearing sweaters made from the fur/hair of their animal companions, with the actual dog posing along side them for verification."

Does that gross anyone else out? Because it sure made me a bit squeamish. I remember my dogs growing up and their fur is not something that I would want adorning my body. Maybe these people have better dog grooming habits than we had for our dogs. I don't think that I'll ever love anything enough to make me want to wear it's hair. Here are a couple of pictures from the photographer.

You can see the rest of the photographs here. The site is in French, but click on the link to the left that says Dogwool.

Best Date Ever!

Occasionally I'll be flipping through the channels on TV and I'll come up on some pretty interesting shows. Recently I came up on VH1's Best Week Ever. It's a show that recaps all of the pop culture happenings of the week along with commentary from various comedians and celebrities. Not that any of that matters. The reason why I bring up the TV show Best Week Ever, is because the title made me think about some of my best fill-in-the-blank ever experiences. That got me thinking about the best date that I had ever been on and gave me a another subject to post about.

The best date that I've ever been on was when I was attending Ricks College (it wasn't BYU-Idaho yet) and my friends and I decided that we would do a big group date for an upcoming dance. I know, there aren't normally dances at college, but it's a Mormon school and we can be a little weird. My friends and I decided that we would find dates and have an evening of excitement and fun. Before I get started, it's important to note that I had a friend who was a Rexburg local and his parents owned several business locations and were also the owners of the local Sears dealership.

We started off by getting permission from his parents to use one of the empty commercial buildings they owned for our date. It was an old tile store and there were no furnishings at all, except for the counter. Prior to picking our dates up, my friends and I did all of the set up work. We bought about 150 candles and set them up around the room. We also set up our dining area with blankets, pillows, Asian style dinnerware, and chopsticks. Now that I think back on it, it kind of had a middle eastern harem look to it.

After all of the set up work, we were off to pick up our dates and attend to our pre-dinner activity. After picking up our dates, we headed to the mall in Idaho Falls for some fun dress up time. We broke into groups of 2 couples and went into the different stores trying on different clothes and taking pictures of ourselves with disposable cameras. It was a good time and we got some pretty fun pictures. When we finished at the mall we headed back to our dinner location to surprise them with our dinner set up.

As the girls came in to the store, all of the lights were off and the candles were burning. We presented each girl with a rose and we sat down as we waited for the food to arrive. Because of the way we set up the dinnerware and the chop stick, the girls were expecting to get Chinese food. They were a bit surprised when the pizza guy showed up instead. They had a good laugh though, and enjoyed the pizza too.

After the dance we decided to watch a movie. We picked a movie to watch and realized that no one had an apartment big enough for everyone to fit. My friend talked to his parents and they said we could watch the movie at the Sears store. We got a bunch of bean bags and soft chairs and headed over Sears to watch the movie. It was quite the experience to watch a movie on 2 dozen screens. I think we all ended up falling asleep though.

I've had lots of good dates with lots of different girls but this is the one that I remember as being the most fun. What was the most fun you had on date? What did you do?

Top 5: Childhood Cartoon Edition

Growing up I spent a lot of time watching cartoons. I'm sure my parents appreciated the three of us kids waking up at 6:00 am on Saturday mornings, watching TV for 5 hours, and eating all the cereal we could. Looking at my life now, my Saturday mornings were much more fun when I was a kid. Thinking about those cartoons I decided to list my Top 5 childhood cartoons. Keep in mind that I was a typical little boy and I liked the typical little boy cartoons. So cartoons like Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, and Jem won't make my list. That being said, on to the list.


5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
When you're a little boy like I was, all that you have to do is mention the word ninja in the title and I thought it was cool. Having four ninjas with names like Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo only made it cooler. And how could you not end up with the theme song stuck in your head, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Heroes in a half-shell, Turtle Power!"



4. Dungeons & Dragons
This is a cartoon that not only I enjoyed, but one my mom enjoyed too. The premise was about a group of kids that gets on an amusement part ride and find themselves magically transported to the fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons. Wanting only to get home, the group takes detours to help out others in need. The animation was good and some of the monsters that the group faced were just plain cool.



3. Thundercats
This cartoon had it all. A main character trying to become the hero and protector he is meant to be. His team of allies who teach him the importance of becoming a good leader and have cool powers and abilities of there own. Finally it had a villain that would fail in his evil plans, but would not stop trying. When I was 8 years old there weren't any other cartoons nearly as cool. Unfortunately I saw it later as an adult and it wasn't nearly as entertaining as when I was a kid.



2. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero
What typical little boy doesn't like a cartoon about military heroes, secret organizations, and lasers? This show had all of those things plus ninjas. How can you top that? Plus, each episode had it's own public service announcement that would always end with the phrase, "Now I know. And knowing is half the battle." I loved this show. I would wake up early on weekdays in the summertime just to watch this show. And I had a lot of G.I. Joe action figures to hold me over when the show wasn't on. So good.



1. Tom & Jerry
Okay, I admit this show would not have even made my list when I was a kid. There were so many other shows out there. But I always enjoyed this cartoon when it came on. They were only about 7 or 8 minutes long and they were fun. Now that I'm older, I enjoy watching these short cartoons more than ever. I haven't seen one on TV for a long time, but you can watch a bunch of different episodes on YouTube. The episodes produced by Fred Quimby are some of my absolute favorites.