Just another fluid approach to Catholocism

I would like to announce that I've gone nearly a whole week following my original Lent vow to be more responsible in my sleep habits.

It's been fantastic! My mind has been clearer and I've started to notice other vices I have. Vices that I really shouldn't have. For that reason I have decided that my Lent is going to be a weekly thing. So cross "Sleeping habits" off my list cause that baby's done!

This week I'm going to focus on Text Messaging. I've been doing it far too often. I blame it on my new phone. Why am I giving up txt messaging? I think I've been using it so much it is interfering with my communication with others instead of helping it.

So there you go. One week without sending one text message. I can do it I swear!

Tonight I hate Lent

Very few people are aware of my resolution for Lent this year. I tend to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and wake up with the minimum time necessary for me ot arrive to class on time. I decided I would use Lent to better my sleeping stragies.

Sunday thru Thursday I have to be in bed by 11 p.m.
Monday thru Friday I have to be up by 7 a.m.


I know there are plenty of you that wake up much earlier than I do. I'm not comparing myself to you though. I'm just trying to show a little more discipline in my life.

Tonight I hate discipline.

At 11 o'clock I went to bed. I went in my room and got underneath the covers and waited for sleep to come. I waited, and waited, and waited...

Two hours later I gave up on bed and came out to complain to you all. I lay in my bed for two hours feeling resentment towards Lent just as a little child feels resentment towards his parents when told to go to bed before the summer sun goes down.

I don't think I broke my vow for Lent though. I gave it the good ole college try tonight. We can just say I got up extremely early this morning and went to bed again. I'll be up at 7 though. Don't worry.

Just another favorite sin

I have a parking ticket I need to pay.

I'm banned from parking or driving on BYU property for a whole year, no wait...11 1/2 months.

My favorite sin is parking illegally.

Repentance is hard.

(more on this later)

Some cars just can't rock

After my Technical Writing class I got into my car and the sweet tunes of Boston's Smokin' were sounding from my speakers. Good song, good song.

So I pulled around the corner and was stopped at a light behind some white car. I didn't pay much attention to the make and model. I apologize. Both of us had our blinkers on to turn left.

Two cars stopped at a light, both waiting to go the same direction. One difference: the white car's blinker was synced with Boston. Mine wasn't.

Sad day, sad day.

A missionary story...Board-style

Last night I received word that Chrissy (Google Video Girl in Green) found my post advertising my intent to meet her rather...creepy.

I felt bad. Very bad. This morning I decided to give up my identity to her and apologize. I don't think she would mind me sharing her reply:

Hey [revealed identity of JAC],

Please don't apologize... [your informant] must've gotten the wrong idea from when I was telling him the story at [some place] yesterday. I asked him if he knew who JAC was, (I saw you two were friends on facebook) But he said he knew you only through the 100 hour board. So I proceeded to tell him how we came to find out about your blog,

(Basically a girl in our ward told Chaela that "some guy wrote a blog about how he wants to go on a date with Chrissy")

When Chaela told me this, before either of us had read the blog, I'm sure you can imagine we were both a little "creeped out."

But after reading it, and corresponding with you (on Chaela's end), we think you're a really nice guy, and we're amazed at how fast [your blog post] got back to us!

We know we're no professional film-makers, but it's very flattering to have people we don't even know singing praises about our movies, and us!

So thanks, and please don't erase your blogs. Because A: They're really good, B: It's a really cool story, and C: They're probably boosting our movies' popularity.

So... I'm sorry if you heard wrong, but basically we thought the whole thing was really cool, and didn't find it creepy because we knew if you were a member of the 100 Hour Board, and had your own blog, then you must be pretty internet savvy, and could've easily looked me up on facebook, myspace, or BYU's directory, and contacted me in any of those ways. But the fact that you didn't told us you weren't creepy at all. And from that point on we considered it flattering.

Well I hope this all made sense. Basically you're not creepy and we think you're really cool. (And now we've discovered the 100 Hour board.) I'm sure I'll meet you eventually, and there's no point in us avoiding each other until then. Talk to you later!
-Chrissy

There you have it. I'm not creepy, in fact, I'm really cool. What a roller coaster this day has been. Even more important than that though, two more people have been introduced to the Board. This is the kind of story you write home about.

Thanks Chrissy and Chaela for the good words and welcome to Board culture.

For all of you that are still in the dark as to who these two girls are then check out this video.

Einstein, Freud, and Darwin

In my theatre history class a week or so ago we were talking about Einstein, Freud, and Darwin. I know they don't seem like 3 gentlemen a theatre class would talk about but they are and we were.

With Darwin we talked about Evolution and his book, Origin of Species..., and it reminded me of high school where we put on a production of Inherit the Wind. Great show in my opinion about the Scopes Monkey Trial. Whenever you get to pit Creationism and Evolution against each other you're bound to run into dramatic action.

With Freud we talked about the theory of the Id vs. the Ego. Interesting stuff although sternly negated by my roommate.

Finally with Einstein we talked about his Theory of Relativity. Basically, time is relative. I thought about that this morning as I was taking a shower. You see, this morning I woke up an hour earlier than usual and hopped in the shower. At the time I didn't think I took a very long shower. Turns out I took half an hour. That's 20 minutes more than normal. Why didn't it seem 3 times longer? Because time is relative.

Think of the guy who waits for the girl to answer her phone when he dials her number for the first time. Time could certainly be going slow for him.

What a thought to think at 7 in the morning.

Grant Proposals!

Should that phrase really have an exclamation point behind it? You betcha!

I'm in a technical writing class this semester and we've just been assigned the task of writing a grant proposal to save an endangered species or something like that. Compare that with my job where these next couple weeks I'm going to be putting some proposals together to get funding for student internships and construction of student facilities. Yay...I'm finally studying something that I'm doing at work!

Where do I work? Can't say. I work for some college here at BYU. That's enough detail.

a girl, a blog, and a hungarian author

In 1929, back in the day where there was nothing else to do, a Hungarian author by the name of Frgyes Karinthy published a volume of short stories called "Everything is Different." Karinthy believed that the world was shrinking in a way due to the ever-increasing connectedness of human beings. You can imagine that with the strides of technology since then--cell phones, email, facebook--we are even more connected than Karinthy could have dreamed. In his book, the characters create a game stemming from this theory:

A fascinating game grew out of this discussion. One of us suggested performing the following experiment to prove that the population of the Earth is closer together now than they have ever been before. We should select any person from the 1.5 billion inhabitants of the Earth—anyone, anywhere at all. He bet us that, using no more than five individuals, one of whom is a personal acquaintance, he could contact the selected individual using nothing except the network of personal acquaintances.

As you can see this game seems to resemble incredibly the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game doesn't it? (I swear my neighbor can beat anyone you know at that game.) We're all connected huh? Hard to believe?

If any of you have read my blog within the past week (since Thursday) you probably read over my solicitation for the chance to meet a certain girl I saw in a flic on Google Video. I've received a few comments from said solicitation and would like to now take the opportunity to comment on them. :)

ChillyGator:

How happy this post makes me due to sheer randomness. 10 points.

Sometimes, dear, dates really do make just another great story. Too bad she probably considers herself a minor celebrity. Isn’t that always the way?

Use your stalking skills. (o:

I'm glad this post makes you happy. I will gladly accept the 10 points. Minor celebrity? Yeah...that's true. I sure hope that fame hasn't gone too much to her head. I mean I'm just a humble, down-to-earth kind of guy. Now with regards to stalking skill, hmm, I don't agree with that term. Sure we Board Writers may have excellent research skill, but we respect the privacy of others and wouldn't dream of violating that privacy. That's actually one of the main reasons I didn't didn't disclose last name info in my previous post.

Anonymous:

I believe this girl is in my ward. She lives in my complex.

Way to be discreet there Anonymous. Glad to know you know of her. Chrissy, if you're reading this then I suggest watching out for Anonymous. Werf obviously knows you but you don't know werf AND werf apparently lives in your complex. Consider moving. That's kind of creepy...no offense Anonymous. FYI - "werf" is a Board term if you need a definition.

Kimmy:

Can I please be on your Gift Approval Committee? Cause the committee really isn't up to par in my opinion.
Also, JAC is a fabulous person when not playing Munchkin and is a fabulous cook :)

Can you be on my committee? I don't know about that Kimmy. It's a very select committee consisting of my roommate and myself. I suppose if there is a divided decision we could at least consult you. I do think we do alright though. Hey thanks about saying I'm fabulous. Although i don't know if I'd use that word to describe me. "Fabulous" sounds a little too effeminate for me. Sure I've got a sensitive side but there are few things that give me more pleasure than re-wiring a lamp or opening a tightly sealed jar. If I were to use the word "fabulous" though, I don't think I'd restrict it from my Munchkin play. I've only played that game 3 times so I don't think it's fair to make a judgement there. I am a good cook aren't I? Thanks for noticing.

Now everyone, here's the comment that I was most surpised by.

Chae:

This is Chaela. [A] business partner with "Speakerphone Productions."

Besides being a little creepy and offensive (I'm just as cool) this is pretty funny. [The girl you saw] is my best friend and roommate...anyone who gets to her does so through me...so say some nice things about me and we'll see what happens. I can tell you though that she's not really into stuff like this. Like, at all. But good luck.

What a pleasure it's been to have you comment on my blog Chae! Really this is very surpising to me to have this message reach you so quickly. It's a real honor I assure you. You're so talented. I can't explain how nice it is for a minor celebrity like yourself to write on my blog. I'm very curious to find out how you were reffered to my. Ok, now...what did you mean by creepy and offensive? I thought you both would be flattered that I was advertising your movies. My blog reached a record number of hits because I posted your movie and hopefully you received a number of views as well. Google Video ought to be pounding on your door for more. I do understand what you say about [your friend] not being too into "stuff like this" and welcome your vote of encouragement. What else can I say? You're funny Chae and I'm glad you were able to laugh at my blog if at least for a moment. Hopefully laughter isn't the only thing that comes from all of this. If it is...oh well. Life goes on. Just note that I don't have any sneakers embroidered on my shirts. ;)

Back to the general readership, what an interesting episode don't you think? I posted a solicitation to meet a certain person I've never met and within 3 days I received word that a close friend of that person knew of my request. This world is much smaller than I expected. Karinthy must be so excited.

I'm tired and need to rest up if I'm going to get back to Provo tomorrow. G'night all.

Change of Plans

Last night I went to bed about 2 am. I got distracted by some Board stuff: new applications, questions, etc. Earlier that evening I had planned out my day up till about 1 pm. I even programmed my schedule into my phone so that I'd something nagging at me to get it all done. Going to bed at 2 am really wasn't boding too well for my plans. That's just late enough to switch any intentions I had of being productive with lazy yet oh so sweet intentions of sleeping late. I really wasn't expecting this Saturday morning to be anything more than that.

Well I woke up at 7 and got myself a drink and went back to bed.

Then I woke up at 8. I looked at my clock. Then thought, "I should go to the temple right now. Yeah, that'd be a good idea. I'm going to the temple." I then sat in bed for 3 minutes pondering the decision I had made, got out of bed, showered then dressed in shirt and tie (pants are implied), and now I'm sitting on my couch checking my email and whatnot.

Ok. Time to go to the temple. This is such a cool Saturday morning.

Anyone like to help me out?

So I saw this video on Google Video entitled Picnics, Racism, and Obesity. My gosh it's too funny. I then proceeded to watch every other video produced by Speakerphone Productions. "The Band" is especially great. These are two girls that know how to capture some hilariously subtle comedy.

Why am I writing about this? Why does any guy write about a movie he saw on Google Video? I want to meet one of the girls. Yes, that's right. I want to meet Chrissy, the girl in green. Those of you that know me know that I generally do not go soliciting introductions via online means. However, I think this solicitation can be considered appropriate.

Remember when I wrote Must there be a pickup line? Well this is pretty much the same situation. I've only seen this girl and her movies. I think she's someone I'd like to meet. Simple as that.

I'll admit that it's legitimately odd to advertise for a date online but a friend of mine once said that "at least it makes for a good story." This was said after she solicited me for a date. ;)

So here is my formal invitation to all that read my blog. I would like to take Chrissy on a date. If you can help me then I'm willing to offer one of three things:

1. I, JAC, will cook dinner for you and a few friends.
2. I will send you the official JAC t-shirt that reads "Just Another Board Reader".
3. Pending approval of the Just Another Gift Approval Committee, I will do one thing of your choice.

What do you say everyone? Will you help me find Chrissy? One date is all I'm hoping for. Ok. Time to answer some questions.

Oh, and just in case she's directed to my blog to see this invitation. How about some of you commenting some nice things about me to talk me up a little.

A Proper Homage

In honor of V-Day, I am wearing all black today.

Take that as you will.

On second thought...

This V-Day I will be giving no more than a nice smile and a cordial hello.

It's best this way.

V-Day is almost here...

So I'm working on a post. No, maybe that sounds too involved. I started a post the other day and wrote about 4 sentences and got bored. I decided I'd put it on the back burner a few days and see if a little percolating might help it. I'll give you a preview though: it's about my favorite sin. :)

Today though, I'm going to post something else. You see, I promised someone that I would post everyday this weekend and by golly, I'm going to do it. I mean it to.

I got thinking about Valentine's Day a few days ago. I've never really been a fan. Why? Well for two reasons mainly. First, I never have a girlfriend around V-Day. Second, even if I did I don't know what I'd do for it.

It's always been an unwritten rule for me to not start to date anyone between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day. Exchanging gifts because of holidays is the number one cause of over-commitment in a budding relationship. (Seriously, look it up.) This year however I've been going against my rule entirely, well, not entirely. I've dated a few girls but have managed to decide I wasn't in love with them in time for the next holiday on the calendar. Now that I look back on that it kind of sounds suspicious to me.

So yeah, it was strange for me to be contemplating Valentine's day. I got to thinking about a friend I wouldn't mind expressing my friendship to. Wait... How can I have those thoughts? I swear I'm not in love with the girl. I mean I like her. We just don't know each other enough for it to be more than that. Why am I rethinking my stance on V-Day? It must just be the guy in me that likes to give gifts and show my friends that I appreciate their friendship.

I like to give gifts. Honest. I remember one birthday I got about 10 bucks from birthday cards and ran down to the dollar store to buy candy for my siblings and ugly silk flowers for my mom and grandma. Boy were they overjoyed, I tell you what.

Last summer I started casually dating/hanging out with a girl. I wasn't insanely into her at the time but she was a friend and I appreciated her friendship so I'd do nice things for her. Well, I thought they were nice things. She thought they were tokens of my affection...no, let me restate that. She thought they were tokens of my undying love. Why must nice things be interpreted that way?!? That's part of what makes me hesitant to give gifts or do kind acts of service (let alone on Valentine's Day) to anyone or particularly any girl just because I want to show them that I value the friendship we've had up to that point.

I'm going to ignore my past experience though. It's time for me to be me again without fear of being misinterpreted. I can do this. I swear I can. I can be the sweet, loveable (and severely attractive) man I've been in the past. Nothing will be misinterpreted. My goal is that just enough will be interpreted.