Best Cheesy (and doubtless premeditated) Line of the Day

As the Women's Chorus was heading onto the stage tonight, one of the Men's Chorus guys said, "Give 'em heaven, ladies."

Aw.

Is it cynical of me to wonder how long he's been waiting to use that?

Another Playlist . . . Why Not?

Here's the playlist of the week. The only theme was songs that get really BIG. You know those songs that just explode and when you listen to them on your headphones they just feel like they're filling up all of the empty space in your head? Or the build is just fabulous and while you're driving down the road it makes you want to be running and jumping instead?
Maybe that's just me.
Anyway, here's the new list. I call it "Off With Their Heads." Don't read too much into that.
1)"Intervention" - The Arcade Fire
2)"Oh What a World" - Rufus Wainwright
3)"Sleeping Lessons" - The Shins (This song is where the name came from.)
4)"If Work Permits" - The Format (The part where it gets huge and he says "Tell all the folks back home - hey, hey I'm doing alright, yeah I'm doing just fine . . ." Brilliant.
5)"Welcome to the Black Parade" - My Chemical Romance (yeah, yeah. Don't freak out too much. I think this song sounds very Queen-esque. Also, "Carry on" is a great lyric, always.)
6)"Your Heart is an Empty Room" - Death Cab for Cutie
7)"Landed" - Ben Folds
8)"Into the Ocean" - Blue October
9)"Swallowed in the Sea" - Coldplay
10)"Bird on a Wire" - Rogue Wave
11)"Halfway House" - The Actual Tigers (you have to wait until the very end for the build, but it's so worth it.)
12)"Do You Realize?" - The Flaming Lips
13)"Let Go" - Frou Frou
14)"Last Goodbye" - Jeff Buckley
15)"Vienna" - The Fray
16)"Vienna" - Billy Joel (That's mostly for fun.)
17)"Starlight" - Muse
18)"Here (In Your Arms)" - Hellogoodbye
19)"Open Your Eyes" - Snow Patrol
P.S. This week's picture is another of Dain's. I hope that's okay with him.

I'm so glad I'm in college because...

I'm giving a presentation in my religion class tomorrow. Dressed like this. Not sure about the crown yet.
We're presenting on President Hinckley's 6 Be's. (I don't know if that's the right place to use an apostrophe, but Bes looks really awkward. Sorry.) I don't think I need to say anything else.
Except I would like to clarify . . . that it wasn't my idea.

We Are Sure We're Not Pretender

We may be the coolest people I know.
Ever since we saw the amazing "Worst Music Video Ever" on YouTube, we've been dying to remake it, so this week it was our last chance and we decided to get it ready for our talent/untalent show. (Ours was the latter.) Two rehearsals and a trip to the DI later, we were ready, but at the last minute our Danny, Jayson Gifford, threw his back out playing volleyball. Luckily, Todd owed me a favor. (I don't know why, but I pretty much figure he always does.) He fit into Jayson's ridiculous striped pants and unbuttoned his shirt a little more than he wanted to and we were in business.
Check out our performance here.
Also, if you've never seen the real thing, you probably should. In fact, do that first or our video won't be fun. Either look up "Worst Music Video Ever" or "I Want to Love You Tender" or click here.

This just in. Doug made an amazing edit that goes back and forth between our performance and the real one. It's one Google Video, but it isn't public, so take this link. Doug, thank you for being amazing.

Let Them Love Cake

I can't believe I'm staying awake to do this, but it just occurred to me that it would be a fun post, and I have to do it before I forget.
Once upon a time in the Globe met a man named Jonathan Cake. And by met I mean watched and was spit on and insulted by, because he was the lead in Coriolanus. So I fell in love immediately, and Lindsey and I made plans for my subsequent marriage to dear Johnny Cake . . . over facebook, of course. The ensuing hilarity should not be consigned to the 18th
back page of old wall posts, so I'm posting them here for your reading pleasure. Unfortunately, the beginning of this conversation was over IM and is lost, but Lindsey said something about how I needed to convert Johnny and marry him in the London temple and then we could live next to the Globe forever.
June 16th
Me: Um, I think when I marry Johnny Cake I'm going to name kids German Chocolate and Strawberry Short. Perhaps if one is a little chunky we can call him/her "Pound" as a delightful nickname. This would be a wonderful thing. Sigh...
Lindsey: Johnny Cake is cute - and he's amazingly limber. Do you see how high he can kick his leg into the air, even after he's apparently been in battle for some length of time?!
I would fear that calliing your slightly chubby child "Pound" Cake, although incredibly funny, might give said child a complex. Haha. Although I would love it if you actually did name your son German Chocolate Cake. German isn't such a bad name, ya know, once everyone disassociates it with Nazis and David Hasselhof.
And then: p.s. Johnny Cake really is quite attractive. We should start a Johnny Cake following. Seriously, not only is he good looking, he makes me think of cake. What could be better. Although, I'm sure seeing him in person is ten times better than the picture.
Me: Um, I'm ready to head up a fan club. BUt not only did I see him in person, he was like a foot away from me. I'm pretty sure he spit on me when he gave his angry speeches, and he almost kicked me in the head while grappling with the guy he was kicking in the head there. Be still my heart...
June 20th
Lindsey: Sam, Mandy, and I were discussing your future husband, Johnny Cake. Mandy says you should name your daughter Patricia. Think about it. hehe.
Me: I'll patty your cake. I have so little time to make him mine! I must get to work!
Todd: Dear Ms. Cake,
BlaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHHH!!!!
--Nature Boy
June 21st
Lindsey: You will patty my cake? I don't know if that is an appropriate thing to say. haha. glad you caught on though. although i was thinking that instead of calling your child "pound," you could cleverly disguise the nickname by giving them a first name that starts with "L" and a middle name that starts with "B" and then their initials would be LB Cake.
P.S. We are cruel, cruel people. haha.
Megan: Lemon Bundt Cake it is.
Lindsey: Lemon Bundt Cake.....genius. How do we make it through the day without offending people with our limitless intelligence and wit? Honestly. We = amazing.
Well, since you will probably be busy touring with your parents, I shall say my last adieu until you are back in the states. Until then, sweet dreams...and by that I mean dream a lot about Johnny Cake and having his little debbie babies.
Todd: I do believe that we need to go 4 wheeling multiple times this summer...but we better do it before you marry johnny boy...
June 22nd
Lindsey: Johnny can always come four wheeling with us....that is once you've safely abducted him into the States and the chloroform has worn off. I'm sure four wheeling will be a perfect distraction away from the fact that he was just abducted....that and your beautiful self. tee hee.

It still continues - feel free to add to the list of names for my "little debbie babies."

New Look?

Hey, I was playing around with colors and this seems more me than the black. What do you think? Is anything hard to read? Clark, does this help your afflicted cones and rods? Let me know.
Also, I've enabled the comments so you shouldn't have to remember any passwords or sign up for a blogger account to respond. Cool huh?

Project C'mon Get Happy

I made a remarkable discovery last week. I think it was preempted by the string of near perfect days here in Provo, but I'd like to think that at least some of it was personal choice and not just the end of the seasonal slump. I found out that it takes effort to be happy, but you can be, pretty much whenever you want.
I know that this is probably not a huge revelation to anyone else, but it was for me. I was reading for my Living Prophets class (good class!) and my assignment was this tiny little talk by President Hinckley called "Each a Better Person." ( Ensign, Nov. 2002 pg. 99) It's a great talk - way more packed into a page and a half than I would have thought possible. But my favorite part was this: "Let us be a happy people. The Lord's plan is a plan of happiness. The way will be lighter, the worries will be fewer, the confrontations will be less difficult if we cultivate a spirit of happiness." (emphasis added)
Cultivate. That's like what you do in a garden, yes? And you can't just stick the plants in the ground and leave them there, especially during one of our gloriously dry Utah summers. I grew up on the remains of a brick yard, and unless we paid attention to our little plants, they shrivelled up in the dry brown clay that passed as a garden plot. So "cultivate" implies some work for results.
So I decided that I was going to try it. And guess what?
It totally worked. I've been in a funk since the ever-so exciting goings on of last semester, and I had convinced myself that I had a right to walk around with a scowl on my face. But why would I? I've forced a few smiles this week and I've had to suck it up a few times when I was faced with yet another midterm or project, but overall, I ended up being sincerely happy.
So I'm still working on it, even though the week of the religion class "experiment upon the word" is up, and I think I'm a fan.
Out of context song lyric of the week: "Please drop the message that I'm picking up my chin at last." -Blue October, "Everlasting Friend"

So You Think You Can Dance?

So it's 7:30 am on a Saturday, and I'm pinning a number to a boy's dress shirt. Everywhere I look there are girls in dresses that match the ties of the boys to whom they seem attached. Some grumpy girls run from line to line and keep telling us to move back, then seem impatient when the mass does not immediately squish itself into the space that isn't there because the message hasn't reached the end of the line. Behind a huge black curtain a British man is talking about "heats" and then a silly version of "Sway" begins to blast.
Our line begins to move . . . quickly. Oh, gosh. Why am I here? What on earth was I thinking when I signed that stupid paper?
I take the hand of the boy with the number on his back and paste on a fake smile as we square our shoulders and march out onto the floor of the Marriott Center. I've never felt so awkward as we stop just a few feet away from a woman holding a clipboard. The same synthesized music begins, and I begin to count under my breath: 2, 3, cha-cha-cha . . .
Everything goes well at first. We are not sharp or flashy, but we are on beat. Cross over breaks. Walk around turn. Parallel breaks. Underarm turn. Pull-by. Cross body lead.
Chasse. Whoops. We chase each other back and forth a few times, but when we get back together we are not on beat. My partner can't count (hence the counting under my breath even though we aren't supposed to talk on the floor.) Not good. Luckily, the woman with the clipboard is watching a more flashy couple.
The music ends abruptly and we are left wondering how to stop. We let our hands drop, face the audience, smile (sort of) and allow ourselves to be herded off the floor and yelled at by a few more irritable dancers while the British man says, "Music please . . . heat 7 180 cha-cha."
The rest of the heats go through the awkward motions of the beginning cha-cha, and when we look at the screen, they've posted a list of numbers.
Shoot. That's our number, isn't it?
We are herded back out of the stands and into the tunnel, and then they put us all back on the floor to dance together - some 200 couples all crammed together and trying to fling their arms around.
We go back to the tunnel and get back in line, find out that making it through round one isn't a huge honor because the tunnel is still very crowded, and the whole process repeats.
This time we don't do the chase, but we still get off. While I'm trying to figure out how to get back on beat, I hear my teacher yelling at us, "TWO, THREE, FOUR AND ONE!!!"
Fabulous.
This time, we are not on the list.
I console my partner and exult inwardly. I look at the young kids practicing in the concourse and fully believe they could beat me even if they only had one foot, and I get out of there as fast as I can, grateful to get out of the atmosphere of nerves and awkwardness.
I think I'll stick to the kitchen in the future.

Music 101 - Playlist of the Week

I'm pretty sure most of you don't care, and I'm sorry that my blog has been so music heavy lately, but I was thinking last night that it would be fun to have a playlist of the week (or some other period of time to be determined) and I made one that I quite liked this week, so I thought I'd start today.
For those of you who don't know, I love putting music together, especially by style or common theme or whatever. So I usually have several playlists in progress and I add to them as I find songs that apply. Most are based on lyrics that I like, although I did just make one based on how fun and upbeat the songs were because I wanted to drive around with my windows rolled down and my stereo turned up.
SO. Playlist of the week. I call this one "Don't Go to Pieces," and it was designed specifically for nights when I am upset and need to get out and drive around. It seems more productive than listening to angry music.

1)"Heaven Forbid" - The Fray
2)"Let It All Out" - Relient K
3)"Don't Go to Pieces" - Hope of the States
4)"Amsterdam" - Coldplay
5)"Tell Me Something Good" - The Rocket Summer
6)"The Heart of Life" - John Mayer
7)"Waitin' For A Superman" - The Flaming Lips
8)"Kind of Hope" - Pilot Speed
9)"Rough around the Edges" - Teitur
10)"Existentialism on Prom Night" - Straylight Run
11)"Monsters" - Band of Horses
12)"New Slang" - The Shins
13)"Safe" - Travis
14)"Have You Got it in You" - Imogen Heap
15)"Don't Let the World Get in Your Way" - The Jayhawks
16)"The World You Love" - Jimmy Eat World
17)"Bend and Break" - Keane
18)"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" - U2

Travel sized for your convenience (all fits on one CD). So if you care, there it is. Feel free to post other favorite venting/feeling better songs. Obviously there are many more that could be on my list (I cut a few or sent them to other lists) but this was what ended up on the CD, and it seems to be working well. I gave it a test drive up the canyon the other day - awesome.

Open Your Eyes

Since I'm a little behind, here's the scoop on the Snow Patrol concert Monday night.
Wow.
The ticket would have been worth it for the Irish accents alone. My favorite moment of the night was when Gary Lightbody was responding to some adoring fan (in his beautiful accent) and said, "You love me? You don't even know me! If you knew me, you wouldn't love me. (fan yells something else.) You think you could put up with my crap? I'm officially the worst boyfriend in the world! Have you not listened to the lyrics of any of me songs?"
Later some girl was yelling something and trying to get him to promise to meet her, and Gary said, "Tell you what: this song is dedicated to you. It's another song about my being a crap boyfriend, but it's for you."
Meanwhile, the light show was pretty great, only slightly less spectacular that the one U2 put on, and Saltair is a really cool venue. Ok Go was a decent opening band, but they didn't do their dance to "A Million Ways to be Cruel, and there were no treadmills. Tragic.
Oh, yeah. Snow Patrol's music wasn't bad either.
And by wasn't bad I mean . . . was pretty much absolutely fantastic. They played all of my favorite songs ("Chocolate," "Run," "Headlights on Dark Nights," "You're All I Have," etc.) and the encore was probably the best set of the night. I couldn't believe that there were people leaving before they came back out - they missed "Finish Line," "Open Your Eyes," and "Hands Open." Absolutely fantastic. We all sang along to "Chasing Cars," and some girl from the audience got to pretend to be Martha Wainwright for "Set Fire to the Third Bar."
Oh, how I love live music. It's beginning to get to me.

Please Forgive Me

Please forgive me if I act a little strange,
For I know not what I do.
Feels like lightning running through my veins
Every time I look at you . . .
-David Gray (also on the Twilight playlist)

Stephenie Meyer should be paying me to advertise her books. I've recommended Twilight to half of the girls in my ward (and a few boys), the girls who sit next to me in Women's Chorus (who were victimized because I was going crazy while I was in the middle of the book and had to be in class instead of reading), several of the girls in my adolescent lit class, and some of my roommates' moms. However, I'm not going to write to Stephenie Meyer asking for a commission, because last night I discovered a reason for my great satisfaction when a girl tells me she is reading the book.
It drives the guys crazy.
Now, I'm not saying I'm bitter, but I have been in the past, and I think this is a much more constructive form of retaliation than sitting around eating ice cream and wishing I was on a date. I'm just raising the bar.
This is my gift to the women of the ward who have been rejected or are dissatisfied - they find comfort in the perfect love story. And my gift to the boys of the ward . . . who now have to compete with Edward.
I'm pretty sure I sound like a lunatic and a cat-woman in the making right now, but you girls who have read it know what I'm talking about. Also, I've extended the invitation to the boys, and two have read it so far. I don't see how this could hurt them, and it definitely helps us. :)
So girls, this is for you. Enjoy, obsess, read all of the supplements, dream, listen to the playlist, read the entire book in one sitting and then reread it.
And boys, this is for you. Good luck. (Snicker.)

Me=Train

In choir, we're singing a song called "Heaven Bound Train." It's a glorious spiritual, but the best part is that I'm one of the eight first altos singing in the chamber choir, and we get to make all kinds of amazing train noises, i.e. tshhhh---- tschika-cha-tshicka and also a-wah-wow with a fall off at the end that sounds just like a train whistle. Guess I can check "be a train" off my list of life goals. To see me playing train, come to our concert on March 27th or 28th. (Shameless plug. Sorry. Sort of.)

Book Mania

Got this from Katherine and Janssen - why not?

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, put a # in front of the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) - not sure why, but someday I'll find out what the hype was all about.
+2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
+3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) I hated the movie, but Sam says the book makes everything better. We'll see. Eventually.
+5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)
+6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
+7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
+8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
*9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
*10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
+11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) -I'll probably read this before Da Vinci Code - I've heard it's better.
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)- I got about 6 chapters into this one in high school. I'd like to try again.
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
+16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
*17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
*18. The Stand (Stephen King)
+19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
+20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)- favorite book ever.
+21. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)-also a favorite. I think I've read it 4 times.
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)-I'll be reading this one soon for Adolescent Lit
+23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
+24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
+26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
+27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
+28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
*31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
#32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
*35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
*36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)-I saw the movie in AP World History- fabulous.
*38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) - we used to talk about this a lot during my freshman year. We wanted to turn our apartment into the red apartment. It was all on hearsay though - I'll have to read it to see if that was a good thing or not.
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
*41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
*42.The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) Katherine said it was good, so I guess I'll be adding it to the list.
*43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
+45. Bible
+46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
+47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)-not sure about whether or not I'll read this.
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
*50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
+52. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
+53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
+54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
*56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
+57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
*58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
*59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
*60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
+61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) -made it halfway through and started reading Spindle's End instead
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)-I sort of want to read this, but my brother said it was pretty dark, so I'll probably skip it.
*65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
*66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) - again, made it halfway through, got distracted.
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
#71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Helen Fielding)-probably not.
*72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)-don't know anything about this except it was a movie.
+75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
*76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
*78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
*79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
+80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
*81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
+83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
+85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
+87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
*88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
*89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)-love his short stories. I could try this one.
*91. In the Skin of a Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
+92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)-another I'll be reading soon for Adolescent Lit.
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
+94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) - best book of 8th grade
*97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
*98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
*99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)