Pinky Swear

         When I sit back and analyze the way my mind rationalizes things it's not only sad but at times quite laughable.  Sometimes I do right by myself  but this week has been a good example of how little I know myself. I  just got surgery on my foot and therefore have much time to spend confined to the couch. My first thoughts were "perfect, I will have so much time to do projects as I will now be relentlessly bored into productivity." As far as my blog is concerned I thought I would be writing constantly. What I failed to realize was that when you are stuck on a couch not much happens to you. This makes it difficult to have adventures or force epiphanies. Not impossible, but difficult. Despite the dullness of imprisonment I have decided I will commit to write anyway. It's not like I have anything better to do as we have already established. I may just have to reach into my past an retrieve some good stories I haven't told yet. I have a couple I think.

        After spending countless hours editing a video project for school I am quite fed up with video, but to show my dedication I will through a vlog about my surgery in there too so stay tuned.

A'murca

Now I know what you're thinking, you're thinking -'Hey, why didn't you celebrate the forth of July Jace! Are you an unamerican slayer of Patriotism?!'
      to which I would reply -'I did celebrate the forth of July you sack of spuds!'
      to which you would retort -'Then why didn't you write about it?!'
      to which I would concede -'I forgot, I apologize.'
      to which you would encourage -'It isn't too late to  write it now.'
      to  which I would confess -'But I'm too busy.'
      to which you would exclaim -'I'll make you a sandwich.'

Fine I'll do it for the sandwich. You drive a hard bargain. It was very  much a traditional A'murca day started late with a high stack of banana pancakes. I decided to tag along with a good friend of mine who we will call Trevor (because that's his name) and a group of conocidos from Vegas. We went to a park to festivitize with a cotton-candy monster, gladiators and children trying to drown a man trapped in a water tank. It wasn't as dangerous as it sounds I promise.

We left the park after a while and went to Trevor's apartment for a siesta, made America a cake and watched the only Nicholas Cage movie I have ever thoroughly enjoyed. I even got some  homework done because collage is not a respecter of days.  Finally in the evening after deciding we hated traffic too much to see the epic firework show down in Idaho Falls (second biggest in the west) we instead joined one of Trevor's roommates in Rigby to help him light off over $500 worth of fireworks, eat junk food and take lots of pictures of people we didn't know.

By the end of the day we were oozing with "patriotism".
Hope you had a good A'murca day too and I'll be coming by later for my sandwich.

Hunger games?

       If there is one wish that I have taken away from watching Disney channel original movies as a kid it is the unbridled desire to one day initiate, or at least take part in, a spontaneous and epic food fight. I was sorely disappointed when I made it all the way through grade school and the opportunity still hadn't presented itself. Although 'Initiate food fight' has made its way onto my bucket list I did get to witness a war with edible ammunition.

        Impromptu chaos would have been preferred but I guess this group of people got tired  of waiting and decided to plan one at a birthday party instead. After being recruited to photographize the carnage we set up the battlefield  by scattering a generous amount of food on the grass and unleashed a free-for-all.
        Hot dogs and salad dressing flew through the air and people began to pummel each other with water balloons filled with root-beer or BBQ sauce. The huge birthday cake found its way onto everyone's shirt along with mustard, maple syrup and  whip-cream. Even I didn't make it out without getting some ice cream all over my face.

        The night ended with a garden hose and a very sticky drive home for most. It was a satisfying scene but in my heart still lies the need to start fortuitous lunch hour havick in a public place. Among other things of course. After all who wouldn't want to sacrifice their tacos if it meant punishing an unfortunate stranger for standing within range of your Monday induced fury.

A bumpy ride

        Yesterday I finally had the wonderful opportunity to go skeet shooting for the first time. Considering I love shooting pistols at firing ranges it sounded like a wonderful time so, naturally, I let them drag me along. It was quite the adventure. Now that I mentioned there was an adventure you probably are under the false impression that the star of this story was shooting buckshot at disks of clay that don't remotely resemble pigeons-  BUT  it was after we burned through hundreds of shells (and cheese burgers) and ventured out to find clay pigeons that had not only survived us but also the ground which killed with much more accuracy than we did that the story actually starts. It was out in that field of clay carnage that someone stumbled onto a horse skeleton. Thinking that some girls might appreciate finding a horse vertebrae covered in cow excrement on their doorstep they threw several pieces of the horse into the back of the pickup.

        This didn't seem like a bad idea at the time and after cleaning up we hopped in the back of the truck to travel back to our car. The driver who seemed to have forgotten that there was a mess of passengers in the back began to race over the bumpy, dirt trail toward the road. I couldn't sit down in the bed for lack of room and a desperate desire to not destroy my tailbone from the violent thrashing. I also had to position myself in such a way to avoid being launched over the side of the truck which became a very awkward squat turning me into a less than effective living shock absorber. After starting this panic attack the force of our acceleration brought our good  friend the horse spine right back to were I was struggling for survival. I fought to keep myself just low enough in the truck bed to stop from being ejected and just high enough to stop from being painfully violated by the crap covered spinal column. It was a horribly entertaining 10 minutes until we came screeching to a stop and with shaky knees and thankful hearts we experienced a smoother ride the rest of  the way back.

        Fortunately we all made it back without getting shot or breaking bones. Sounds like a successful Elders quorum activity to me but for future reference- knowing who will be behind the wheel when you are in a precarious position can help you avoid getting covered in cow feces.
         

Sorry- it's an inside joke between me and the internet.

         Everyone uses the internet and there is so much content that we could never hope to discover all of it. There are entire communities  that we couldn't hope to be exposed to enough to understand them. Thankfully the truth is I wouldn't want to waste the time trying to immerse myself in all of them but I have stumbled into several on my cyber escapades and through friends that tickle my fancy. One of my favorites is internet memes. For those who don't know what the word meme means is is an adaptation form the Greek word mimeme meaning something imitated.  It is meant to describe the observation of an idea's evolution in a culture. How it is accepted, manipulated and spread. Using this description the word was then taken from something overly philosophical and applied to the spread of a certain genera of jokes on the internet. Anyone anywhere can set up humorous themes that others can contribute too and these themes are then spread from one person to another weeding out the undesirables and keeping the enjoyable ones alive and infectious. The most successful ones are attached to a image that makes the theme easily recognizable so you know what brand of humor to expect from the meme.    
If you are not familiar with a particular meme then you probably won't appreciate it as much as someone who knows what it represents and is trying to accomplish.

        The product of this hysteria is a mountain of inside jokes shared by select people all over the world. "Why is this important?" you might ask. I never said  it was, but if there is anything to get out of this it would be the realization that public consumption of  these memes isn't just a way to tell a joke and get a chuckle out of someone but a fast and  effective way to spread ideas to the world. Its amazing how much power a seemingly trivial meme can have on the unsuspecting (and probably procrastinating) mind.
  Don't underestimate the knee-slappers.