The Duchess

is dumb. Don't see it. I think the reason it was made was so that the costume designer and the set decorator could get an Oscar nomination. And that is no good reason to make a movie.
Costume Designer-"I'm so tired of just going to the Gap to find clothes for actors. Lets make a Victorian era movie, their clothes are so pretty and fun to make."
Producer1- Well, we can't make a jane Austen, those have been done, and those characters aren't wealthy enough. Shakespeare has been done as well as queen Elizabeth."
Producer2-" There is this story about a duchess who has a hard life, and designs her own dresses."
Producer1 "Yeah, that sounds pretty boring, I don't think it would sell."
2- "Maybe we could get Keira Knightley to do it! The kids really like her from those pirate movies."
1- "I don't know"
2- "We could throw in a lot of sex!"
1- "Hmm, yeah that might work. Lets do it."

So a couple of lessons from that movie are;
1. Everything was backward and goofy back then! Look at how Keira knightley is disrespected and underappreciated. Look at it! Look at it!
2. Keira was a smart, modern woman who believed in freedom. How dare she try to be happy with her life! She should just give up and let everybody else push her around. In the end, she stops trying to be happy, and the movie ends.
3. Its ok for her husband to rape her, because it accomplishes his purpose of getting a male heir.

The movie was so over-the-top outrageous that we expected some kind of miracle ending. But she just ends up going along with everything, including letting her husband marry his mistress that lived in the house and sat at the dinner table for a long time. She didn't change anything. For her, life was sucky and it sucked then she died. Too bad they couldn't have molded it with Kill Bill, where she takes a trip to Japan, gets a sword and learns to fight, then comes back on a blood soaked journey for revenge. That would have been a much better movie.

Like I said, it's just an excuse to make some pretty gowns, and maybe win an award for those gowns.

Please don't go see it.

-Update-

It did win an Oscar for costume design.

Christmas!@!!!

Yay for christmas! I must say that it has been a pretty relaxing vacation. We opened some presents at my parents christmas eve, then we narrowly escaped a blizzard on Christmas Morn by fleeing to Manti. We hit a couple of rough spots at point of the mountain, or more accurately, Wind Tunnel of the Mountain. But it wasn't as bad as the snow storm on the way to Oregon a few months ago. Once we got past Moroni, the roads actually dried up.
Today we went sledding at this famous hill in Manti. Other people were there and someone gave us a ride up to the top. Using our new, GIANT sled, Kristen and I rode down this hill that was probably almost a half mile long. We didn't have gloves, so I had to use my heals to steer and brake. Every time I would do that, snow would blow into Kristen's face, so when we hit the cattle guard at the bottom, her whole face was numb. Then, being the city boy I am, I slipped into the cattle guard, but didn't break my leg, thankfully. I did fall over, though.

this is to prove to someone on the internet that i actually do own a gun. They were skeptical when i didn't agree that global warming is a scam

really productive day today

Today was the last day before christmas break. I took this picture at 8 this morning. Its the paylot by the Union building on the U of U campus. I was training today and I think we got like 5 tickets, and we weren't slacking either, we were out there in the snow, except for a break at the Union building's Christmas party.

see more puppies

I thought of dad on his mission and his experience with Narcolepsy. Two nights ago we went down to temple square to look at the lights. We rode the train and I realized that it had been a while since I had been on the train, because I was a little car sick the whole way down.
When we got to the library stop a bunch of people got on, and then at the city center exit, they all got off, along with us. I realized that there were about 40 people, and they all had tripods and expensive cameras. As a mob, they all got off the train and made their way towards temple square. And of course, ten of them stopped at various spots along the way to get pictures of whatever caught their eye. It reminded me of vacations growing up when dad would lug around 80 pounds of gear and film and cameras and lenses, and how it would take us 4 times as long as everyone else to get anywhere because dad would spot a good picture.
I think it was the Christmas Light Appreciation Associtaion on their annual national tour. They had rented out an auditorium at the City Library, and after filling up on overpriced donuts and hot chocolate from the cafe at the Library, they went to the KCPW studio to get pictures of their studio decorations. The DJ suggested that they go visit temple square, and that they could take the train since they were in the free fare zone. That was fortunate, because they had spent a lot of their food money on tripods in Reno when their pictures of Reno skyline turned out blurry.
So they got to temple square and immediately set the timers on their cameras to 2 seconds and started snapping pictures. There must have been a lot to see because they were still at it when we left, about an hour later. I guess Temple Square at Christmas would be a good place for that.
We also discovered that not only is the Joseph Smith Memorial building a theater and a family history center, but it is a functioning stake center. There are rooms for all the classes you would hold on a sunday, relief society and a chapel and stake offices, as well as offices for multiple clerks and bishops. Its one of the most extravagant chapels in the church.
here is a nice looking picture of KC.
Also, that sucks for BYU that their kicker just missed that kick! It doesn't look good for them.

more animals

Funny thing, this internet

So if you take communication classes at the University, you will be familiar with a debate among academics (who used to be journalists) about who should be the journalists, the news paper people, or regular joe's like me who have a blog and don't have an editor or someone checking for grammar or spelling or run-on sentences.

Check out this webpage, and read the whole thread, its pretty funny how tenaciously dumb the one guy shaka is. http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=409419

This is one argument in favor of the professional journalist class, as this guy lacks common sense. I thought it was funny.