So the Oscars are tonight. I don't know who will win what. Of those nominated for best picture I've seen Toy Story 3, The Social Network, and Inception. Of the others that I haven't seen the only two that I'd like to see are True Grit and The King's Speech. I've heard that the King's Speech is a lock for the win so I'd especially like to see that to see what the hype is. I've heard that there are only a few minor parts where swearing is heavy, so I would think that the clearplay would turn it into a veritable PG movie. But let's return to those that I have seen- I thought the social network was good, but not the best movie of the year. I actually didn't think that about any of those three. But in all fairness, let's look at other movies I saw from 2010. Megamind, Prince of Persia, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and How to Train Your Dragon. Prince of Persia was easily the worst of that list, but an equally clear choice is the second to last movie-Alice in Wonderland. Let's look at my rankings for these movies. 1 being best.

1. Social Network

2. How to train your dragon

3. Harry Potter

4. Inception

5. Toy Story 3

6. Megamind

7. Alice in Wonderland

8. Prince of Persia

Other movies from 2010 that I still want to see besides the two I mentioned above include: Tangled, and Tron. Maybe Red. Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'd like to start watching more new movies because it always seems like there are a million that I want to see. Always feel free to let me know about movies you'd recommend. (Thanks Erin and Daniel for the recommendation about Waiting For "Superman."

Here is a song on youtube that I like called "Teach Me How to Jimmer"

Rocky

So I think I want to start posting my favorite youtube videos as I come across them. Here is one about some guy from France who goes around pulling pranks. If you search more of him just be cautious, I ran into a couple of his that weren't appropriate. Also, even though only family views this blog, I've decided to grab Jessica's button for this post.



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MLK jr. day

I'd like to say I appreciate your comments, Erin and Jessica. I know that I have two people that read my blog. So I thought I'd let you know that I played racquetball again with Lauren a few days ago, on Saturday. As I was beating her in the first game she said, "how about we play to 21, not 15?" I ended up beating her 21-9, 21-6, and 21-18. She said, "You shouldn't be this good." I guess I looked confused or said something because then she said, "if you've only played 3 or 4 times in your life, you shouldn't be this good!" I apologized, but I don't think it changed anything. But she wasn't too mad because afterwards she invited me over for dinner and made this breaded chicken that was just amazing.

I decided to post some videos from my mission up here that relate to my most recent letter to Stephen. My memory card had problems so it would skip around a lot. I have 4 videos, so I'll post all of them.

Raquetball

I'll start off with a quote from Calvin and Hobbes,

"if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life"

I played raquetball yesterday and this quote reminds me of it. Though I obviously wasn't playing on grass I did play hard enough to come away with green knees if it had been possible. I have scraped elbows and bruised hips. I haven't played since before my mission, a little over 5 years. As you all know, if my opponent wants me to give the game my best, I will. I was playing a friend, Lauren, who plays consistently. She told me that she would go easy on me because she didn't want me to be too tired afterward. She told me that she's had guys say before that they would be fine, and then they're sweat is dripping all over the floor. Well, she gave me the first serve, which was kind of her, and I proceeded to take a 3-1 lead. She then said to watch out because she plays on a different level when she's behind, and she wasn't going to take it easy anymore. A few minutes later I had a 6-1 lead. The game got a little bit more tough and the game was tied at 9, I believe. I told her at that point that I didn't know if I could win, I was slipping all over the sweat on the floor. Her response, "whatever. You're not even sweating." I got a good laugh out of that before I served it and scored a point. I went up 12-9 before she got on a run and won 15-12. It was a really fun game. I've only played racquetball maybe 4 or 5 times in my life, but I can't think of a time I haven't enjoyed it.

On another note, Condoleezza Rice is coming to speak tomorrow in the Marriott center and I'm very excited to hear it.

This week not too much happened. My classes started for a new semester as well as my training program. I'm in a furniture design class that I'm pretty excited for. I'm not sure what I'll build yet, I'll let you all know once I decide. Another consideration is how much money am I willing to spend on this thing? If I went with nice thick pieces of lots of rare wood it could add up pretty quickly. One piece of that stuff isn't too bad, but if the entire piece had rare wood, it could end up around 2K pretty quick. I'm hoping to keep it under $500, and however much lower than that I'm able to keep it, so much the better.

As for the training program, this week I began training in earnest for the triathlon I'd like to do this year. I'll be swimming on Monday and Wednesday, running and lifting on Tuesday and Thursday, biking on Friday, and Saturday will be my combo day. Like I said, I started training in earnest this week, and it was enjoyable. Exercising really does make you feel great. On a side note that I'm sure is completely unrelated, I ate like a horse this week. I was just so hungry, I ate 4 or 5 meals every day. Okay, since I know how interesting that is, I'll try to shift gears and tell a better story.

On Wednesday night we played UNLV in basketball, at UNLV. Our basketball team is ranked 14th in the nation and UNLV is ranked 25th, so they have a good team. Another point of interest is that our basketball team hasn't won a game against UNLV at their court since before Dave Rose's time as BYU bball coach. That translates into something like 5 years. The game was a kinda big deal but not too huge, so ESPN didn't pick it up, but CBS college sports did, which we don't have on our TV. So what we all did, we went to legends grill, and they have an upstairs room where they set up a big TV and probably 100 chairs or more. Bryan and I were there, and it the game started out with us having a slim lead (This was wednesday yet I just heard Bryan mention the game on the phone to Analisa in the other room). So we were up 15-12. Then they went up 24-15 or so. It was really nerve racking. As the buzzer for the first half went off they took a last shot which missed, so we went into the break 38-35 with us in the lead. Bryan promptly got up out of his seat and tried to make his way out of the room without a word to anyone. As he tried to get past a fold up chair that was in his way he grabbed the back of the chair, and threw it, it landed on the ground with a bang. Everyone in that area kind of looked over and he just hustled through the rest of the crowd looking like he had just been notified that he had been kicked out of school. He was white in the face, walking as fast as he possibly could, knocking into people's shoulders, etc. When he came back, we asked him what was wrong, and he said that the game was too tense for him. I made mention to the chair, and he said that his hands weren't working well, they were too shaky, so it was the only thing he could do to get it out of his way. I thought it was a little humorous.

Tune-up

I think everyone remembers when one of the exhaust pipes on my car rusted through and broke last summer and made riding in my car an unforgettable experience. When I had it brought in for a check-up the mechanics put a quick weld on the rusted metal, a quick fix. A week or two ago the weld broke, proving the pipe needed to be replaced altogether. I took it into a mechanic to have that replaced and while there I asked the mechanic to take a look at the rest of the engine and see what needed tuning up. Apparently there were quite a few things that could be done- the valve cover gasket needed to be replaced and it was leaking oil into the engine block, and the spark plug wires and plugs needed to be replaced immediately. He said other things that needed to be done but weren't as urgent. Those included changing the cooling fluid and changing the fuel filter.

I gave him the green light on the spark plug wires and the valve cover gasket (gaskets scare me a little bit because what if I don't get the seal like I should? Plus, a lot of gaskets take substantial work to get to.) I told him not to replace my spark plugs, that I wanted to do that. So he fixed what I asked, then I stopped on the way home to get some spark plugs, and a spark plug socket (thanks, dad, for telling me recently that spark plugs need special sockets). Bryan asked me recently if he could observe whenever I fixed something on my car so I waited for him to get home and we changed the spark plugs on my car.

I've taken so long to explain this because it was a large feeling of accomplishment. I had never changed a spark plug before. When I got under the hood I regretted having him change the wires (he also changed the distributor cap, but I don't know if I could have done that). The wires look like something I could have done. It left me wondering if, instead of taking my car back in to have the other things done, I should just try to do them myself. I checked on the price of a fuel filter at auto zone and just the parts would cost $174 while the mechanic would do it for $114. When I googled the fuel filter online, I found it for less than $50, but it didn't look like the same fuel filter that I saw at auto zone. Any thoughts on how easy on this may be? Dad, I'm specifically hoping for feeback from you. Also, for any of you who have taken your car in to had a complete service on your cooling system, is $90 a good price?

In any case, my car sounds like a dream now, I don't remember if it was this quiet before, but I feel like I'm driving a new car with how quiet it sounds. I have a date this Friday, and I wanted to get it fixed before then, but I hiked the Y with this girl last weekend and didn't stress about getting it fixed before then. I know you're all wondering "why not?" The answer is that now when she gets in my car it will feel new and nice to her too, and we can joke about how bad it sounded. That's my best attempt to make the best out of a bad situation.

I think that's all for right now, but I hope to put up some pictures next week. Oh, and for anyone wondering how much I saved by replacing my own spark plugs, it was a little over $40 (by the mechanic's estimate).

Already the end of the summer.

I'd like to point out to everyone that the title of this blog is "Sporadic Thoughts from Tyler" I'd like to put an emphasis on the word, "sporadic."

So what's the latest in my life? I moved this past week into my new apartment in University Villa. I am in apartment 37, Stephen was in 38 last year. I am living with Bryan still and living next door to me are Trevor Guthrie and John Baird. We haven't met more than 20 or 30 people in the ward yet, so it is hard to give any true opinion of the ward, but from what I can tell, it is going to be a fun ward.

When we moved in this last week, there were a few things missing... hand soap, shower curtain, etc. Small things like that. Bryan's take on it? He doesn't mind showering without a curtain. Not if it is going to cost him $7 for a curtain. Sometimes his frugality impresses even me. For anyone who is looking for the rest of the story--I bought the shower curtain.

I start school next week. I don't really have any feelings towards it, it is just something that is going to happen, neither exciting nor depressing.

As I was writing this post I actually got an e-mail from an old mission companion. He is brazilian and is in SLC for a week. I'm going to drive up and visit him for the day tomorrow I think. That'll be awesome!

I also spoke with another Brazilian elder from my mission on facebook today, and he asked if I was married. I told him I wasn't, that I didn't have a girl yet, and that needed to come first. His response to that was:

"hey man many girls there

Just ..date them

go and ask them for date"

I realized that for members down in Brazil, they probably don't see any reason why it can't just be like that. I realized there was no side stepping that logic, so I just admitted that I should date more. I definitely hang out enough with girls, but I am going to try and go on official dates a little more. I'm sure the girls would appreciate it too.

Well, that's about it for now. If anyone wants me to blog about things that I'm not blogging about, let me know, and I'll try to include it in my next post.