Let's Talk Radio

I love talk radio. No wait, I hate talk radio. Okay...I kinda love to hate talk radio.

Traditionally my car radio has 3 stations programmed into it: x96.3fm KXRK "Live, Local, Alternative", Arrow 103.5fm KRSP "Utah's Classic Hits", & 94.1fm KODJ "Good Times, Great Oldies". This gives me the mix of "Radio From Hell with Kerry, Bill, & Gina" in the mornings, then alternative rock and Beatles when I need it during the rest of the day. I also try to keep the local NPR (National Public Radio) station close at hand to listen to "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" and "Car Talk" on the weekends, as well as "All Things Considered" in the evenings sometimes.

Recently, however, after my morning drive to work (during which I still listen to Kerry, Bill, & Gina), I've been changing the station to KVNU 610am Talk Radio. Notably this station plays "Rush Limbaugh", "Dr. Laura", "KVNU: For The People", "Sean Hannity", and "Coast to Coast Live". Luckily I don't listen to the radio much, because I don't think I could stand any of the people on these programs, but in moderation I'm actually quite entertained.


"Rush Limbaugh" - Super obnoxious, and yet if I'm just running an errand and his program's on, I usually listen. He's actually pretty funny.


"Dr. Laura" - HATE HER. Hate her stupid callers. This is how the program works: 1)Someone calls up and tells Dr. Laura how wonderful she is and how grateful they are to be speaking with her, 2) They tell Dr. Laura their problem, 3) Dr. Laura tells them they're an idiot, 4) the caller gets all quiet and sortof offended, 5) Dr. Laura says something like "I'm sorry, but..." then calls them an idiot again, 6) the caller thanks Dr. Laura for her "help". EVERY SINGLE CALL GOES LIKE THIS!!! ...And yet, I can't help but listen to the show and yell at all of them for being morons as though they could hear me.


"KVNU: For The People" - Two under-informed guys from Logan rant about stuff they don't understand. Occasionally they make good points, but more often than not they read a headline from the newspaper and jump to conclusions. I couldn't stand these guys if I had to listen to them for more than the 5 minutes it takes for me to drive home from work.


"Sean Hannity" - I try not to listen to him. Ever. All the obnoxiousness from Rush but with none of the humor. When this comes on I usually check NPR.


"Coast to Coast Live" - The best radio program EVER. Unfortunately this program is on way late at night, so I usually only hear it when I'm driving to or from Logan at night. Have you ever listened to it? If you enjoy listening to the rantings of crazy people, this is the show for you!! The show is done very professionally and unbiased, which is quit amazing considering the topics they cover. My personal favorite show was when they had a guy on talking about how mankind was created by aliens to mine gold for them, but then we revolted, and most things in the bible are actually events having to do with these aliens (the Tower of Bable, for example, which was actually a launching pad for inter-planetary space ships). Other good episodes have dealt with hauntings, Men In Black, Mothman sightings, and how robots will one day become self aware and wipe out humankind. The show's completely ridiculous, and I love it. Whenever I need to drive long distances, I try to do it late at night so I can listen to "Coast To Coast Live" while I'm on the road.


So Talk Radio...love it? Hate it? ...thoughts?

What a croc...

Being an avid fan of the Olympic Games, I've spent considerable time the last few days watching various coverage of the Olympics in Beijing.

The best moment so far: The men's 4x100m freestyle swimming relay!! Holy cow!!! If you missed it, I'm so sorry!! If you saw it and didn't jump up screaming as it finished, you're probably a terrible person. It was incredible!! I saw a replay of it this morning on the Today Show and got goose bumps all over again...so amazing!

The worst moment so far: The commercials! What is wrong with advertisers these days?!? Okay so there are a couple of good ones, but so many of them are SO awful!!

This blog isn't so much about a bad commercial, but about a bad product for which I don't ever recall having seen a commercial until this weekend: Crocs.

Why, people?! WHY?!? Alright, calling them a "bad product" may be harsh. I mean, I don't consider fishing waders a bad product, but they shouldn't ever be worn, say, to the mall. That's the problem with crocs. People think it's okay to wear them outside the privacy of their homes. WHY are people wearing them outside the privacy of their homes!?!? WHYYYY?!?!?!

An actual (as close as I can remember the exact words) conversation I had a few years back with a friend about her crocs...

Jinx: "Why would you wear them out in public? They're SO goofy-looking!"
Friend: "I know, but they're so comfortable!"
Jinx: "Yeah, but slippers are 'so comfortable'...do you wear your slippers out in public?"
Friend: "No."
Jinx: "Why not?"
Friend: "Cuz it would look weird."
Jinx: "!"

Now I'm no slave of fashion! Believe you me!! I've never owned a designer anything in my life. But c'mon! When people like ME are able to point out a shoe fashion faux-pa, it's SERIOUSLY time to consider a change in footwear.

Please, wear them around the house, in the garden, even to the beach...I could see that. But people, please. They're not "cute". They're bad. So very, very bad.

Scrambled!!!

If you are lkie me, then you plbbraoy rcvieee your sarhe of rnadom ealims taht ciotnan random jkeos, funny pceiutrs, or lsits of stnrgae and irtsnnetieg ftacs. One scuh eaiml taht I've seen ciaurlectd seevarl temis is the cailm taht pelpoe tend to jsut skim over wdors wlihe rdeinag, and throefree the atcual oedrr of the leertts is not vrey itpnmaort. The email cialms taht athulogh i'ts srtagne to look at, the aervage psroen can siltl read at aobut the smae rate so long as the fsrit and lsat letrtes of the wodrs raimen in pacle. Well I hvae dcedied to put taht cialm to the test.

As I am srue it is ovrely obuvois to aynone rineadg this psot, by the time I ataclluy pibuslh tihs to my blog, this etnry will hvae been scblmeard fllownoig the guiiendle taht just the fsrit and lsat ltretes need to rimean in tiher prpoer plcaes. To tset out the toehry I just sepnt aobut 10 mintues wriintg a litlte prrgoam taht tkaes a text file, sptlis up all the wdors and then scremblas the inenr letrets. I am cuerlrtny wrntiig this psot unisg natoepd, then rghit bferoe I piusblh it, I will run it trohguh my pgroarm and chcek out the retusls.

I was qiute iemsepsrd at how eailsy I was albe to raed the llitte massgee taht cmoes with taht eaiml...I wednor if it wlil be as easy to raed this, or if taht eamil csohe vrey spfeciic wodrs that it knew wloud be easy to read when sbrleamcd. Let me konw!

Summer Snowboarding

This dream was really quite long, but all I remember is the ending of it...

*** Dreamt June 30 - July 1, 2008 ***

Whatever the other events in the dream were, they culminated in there being a snowboard competition that was being put-on by the University. My favorite teacher in the Computer Science Department - Dean Mathias - was doing some of the officiating, and was in charge of the event to some extent (other teachers had to keep asking him questions about what was going on and about rules and stuff).

The competition was more or less a "Best Trick" competition, except that you actually got to do several tricks on a single run. The competition was being held right outside old main where this HUGE ramp (which was FAR to big to actually fit in the QUAD in real life) had been constructed. The apparatus was made of wood and was enormously tall on each of the two sides with a huge dip in the middle that had several jumps made out of snow in it. People would start at the top and snowboard down, gaining speed until they hit a jump, at which point they'd throw some huge trick, then land and prepare for another huge jump, then eventually they'd start to slope up and they'd end up at the top of the other side (obviously friction was not a factor here).

I did my run and apparently did quite well (I don't actually remember my run) because Dean was congratulating me...it was at this point in the dream that Dean no longer looked like Dean, but instead looked like Ben Linus from Lost; this wasn't frightening or upsetting in anyway in my dream, because it was just Dean, but in retrospect it was definately Ben playing the part of Dean.

Anyway, right about then my friend Alisha Geary showed up!! We were all really relieved because we hadn't been sure if she was going to show up in time to complete, but she made it in the nick of time. As her run began, the camera angle of my dream changed to an overhead view of Alisha, so I could see her run really well, and it was INCREDIBLE!! She only hit one jump, but as she went off it she threw her head back to begin the rotation for a double backflip, she made it through the first but in the second she lost her momentum and kindof got stuck upside down. Then, defying all physics, she tucked her head and reversed the direction of her flip mid-air so she came back around and landed it cleanly. The crowd was going crazy!!

She came over to me and I said, "Holy cow, Alisha, that was awesome! I didn't think you were going to be able to recover from the second flip, but then you somehow got the board back underneath you!!" She looked just a little miffed, but still happy. Apparently my lack of confidence in her being able to pull out the second flip was the wrong thing to have told her. We went over to Ben-Dean and the other judges to see how they were going to rank her, but they decided that since she was school faculty that she couldn't rightfully be in the competition. They then decided instead to instate her as a judge to represent the city of West Point (my home town).

*** *** ***

A Whacked Dream

*** Dreamt June 15-16, 2008 ***

I was at this REALLY tiny shack that was located near the field behind my grandparents house. Inside the shack everything was black, white, and gray. The interior consisted of a small bedroom with a rather large, comfy-looking, white bed in it that pretty much filled the entire room, and a hall that had a closet at one end and a swinging door that led to a kitchen at the other. This was being used as the set of "Fear Tactics"....which was knock off of "Scare Tactics" (For those unaware, "Scare Tactics" was his terribly evil show on the Sci-Fi Channel where they would just scare the crap out of the people....think of "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes", but instead of funny pranks, they would make the target of the gag think he/she was witnessing an alien landing or a haunting or other freaky stuff....I think the show got sued by several of the people they'd punk'd so they ended up getting pulled off the air). Anyway, I was in the crew of this show, but I wanted to try it out anyway to see how it would feel if I were the victim of the prank.

The prank we were going to pull was the person would walk down the hall towards the kitchen area, then somebody would emerge from the kitchen area wielding a knife and come at them. (Yes, our prank - apparently - was to make the person think they were about to be MURDERED! ...can you smell a law-suit on this one?). So I did it...I walked down the hall, and right as I got to the kitchen door it swung open and there was Johnny Depp with a huge cleaver. I was freaked! I backed away as quickly as I could until I got to the closet at the end of the hall, which I promptly climbed into to hide. Right about then the target of our prank came in the house, but I was now trapped in the closet so they wouldn't see me.

The stunt went down as planned, Johnny Depp came at 'em with a knife, they freaked, we all had a good laugh. When it was over I came out and found the cast and crew all out there. Among them now was actress Helena Bonham Carter...I'm not sure what role she'd played in it, but there she was. As we were discussing the prank we decided this was going to make for a really great episode of the new show "Whacked!!", which was billed as "the ongoing adventures of Sweeney Todd". That's why Helena Bonham Carter was there...we were filming "Whacked"...not "Fear Tactics" at all, it turns out.

I decided to go pay my grandparents a visit since they lived so close, when I got there I found most of my family there watching TV, and right then a commercial for "Whacked!!" came on. I was so excited!! I told them all that I was in the show and that I got killed in the pilot episode. They were all very proud.

*** *** ***

Okay...not the wild & craziest dream I've ever had, but for some reason I haven't been remembering a lot of my dreams lately. This dream is, however, an excellent example of how in dreams things can change at the drop of a hat and it all seems to make perfect sense. We were definitely filming "Fear Tactics" and then all of the sudden it was now "Whacked!!"...which was never explained to me, but I completely knew what "Whacked!!" was.

Tut, tut, it looks like rain...

I get SO annoyed at bad weather. It just sucks the energy right out of me and I want to sit around and be grumpy. I'm especially annoyed at the moment because (per my last post), I'd just gotten into the swing of being more active, and then all of this dreariness started looming over us in Logan. Sure, I could go the gym & be active, but being stuck inside isn't what I want...I want to be outside walking or running. Saturday, Sunday, & Monday I went on the nicest walks around town...no where in particular...just briskly walking around for an hour or so, and it was great. But the last 3 days it keeps being all drizzley and nasty...I hate it.

It's kind of a strange thing how glancing outside has the power to change one's mood so profoundly. Stranger still is when the weather changes quite rapidly on you, and your mood follows. I definitely feel different when it's raining vs when it's sunny...even if I'm indoors. The most striking example of this was when I used to work in a windowless part of the building at SDL...there'd be days where when I got to work and it was cloudy and raining, so I'd be in a "rainy" mood all day, then suddenly I'd pass a window and see that it was now sunny outside, and I could practically feel my mood re-adjusting itself to match the weather. It's like when you go to the movies in the afternoon & you expect it to be night when you walk outside, but when you exit and all that sunlight so unexpectedly hits you, you have to sortof re-adjust your state of mind to be in a day-time mood instead of a night-time mood.

Am I the only one who experiences this? I can't be, right?

I'm sore...it must be spring

I started running almost two weeks ago, and I now have this bizarre mixture of exhaustion and energy...two things that don't SEEM like they should be able to co-exist. My legs are super tired and rather sore, and yet I feel like I want to go run some more...stupid endorphins.

Every year I get all excited about the warm weather and I start exercising and by the end of the summer I'm typically in great shape (well..decent) and down 15-20 lbs or so from where I started, and then it starts to get cold again and I lose all motivation, so by the next summer I'm once again dreadfully out of shape and pretty much back where I was before the previous summer.

At the end of last summer my typical morning/evening run was a two mile trip that took me about 20 minutes (6 mph on average...not terrible). I've been doing the 2 mile thing again this year, and each time so far it's taken me closer to 30 minutes (4 mph...bleh). This is, of course, to be expected considering the majority of my exercise in the past 8 months has consisted of getting up from my computer to grab a soda. Still annoying, though.

Today I lifted weights for the first time since this exercise kick started. Oh man...I'm not sore yet, but I am SO MUCH going to be so tomorrow.