MY OTHER BLOG IS YOUR MOM

The Help

2011-10-11T23:44:00.000-06:00

Whenever I see a movie that has a very emotional scene, and the whole theater gets quiet, I always think about how funny it would be to release a very vocal fart that everyone will be able to hear. This thought always makes me start chucking to myself, and it probably sounds like I am crying. But I'm not crying, I'm laughing.

-As a side note, I went through with this idea during a particularly touching moment of one of the Harry Potter movies, and it was just as funny as I thought it would be.

A Review of Canadian Candy

2011-09-19T10:22:00.006-06:00

The blog has gone untouched for several months now. I wish I could come up with a good reason for this, but it really is a lack of interest.

In the middle of August I accomplished a big life goal when I took a drive to Alaska and visited my 50th state. During this drive I was to spend a good deal of time in canada. While driving through alberta and british columbia, I took the time to indulge in the local cuisine, and by cuisine I mean candy. As a self-proclaimed candy aficionado, I was aware of the fact that canadian candy is in some ways superior to the offerings we have in the US, and I wanted to test the rumors that I had heard. The following is a fairly extensive review of some of the better options you will find in the great white north.

Crunchies:

My first thought in biting into a Crunchies bar was "If I were a bear, I would be pretty into this." Sadly, I am not a bear, and the Crunchies bar is not the right bar for humans. Crunchies are essentially a bar-shaped honeycomb that has been coated in chocolate. The wrapper calls this honeycomb "sponge toffee", but I call it instant diabetes. In fact, there seems to be a french warning on the packaging that is advising french canadians about the dangers of consuming an entire Crunchies bar. French canadians are notoriously weak, and their feeble bodies just cannot handle the amount of sugar that is delivered by a Crunchies. Mine took me three sittings to finish, and I can typically hold my candy like a champ.

Smarties:

Many an American has lustily poured a box of canadian Smarties into their mouth, only to reel away in shock. Much like you would if you were expecting a nice cup of water and your cup was instead full of juice...or human blood.... You see, the canadian Smarties is a vastly different creature from his American cousin. In fact, they share no resemblance at all. Canadian Smarties are different from American Smarties in that they are chocolate, candy coated, and incredibly difficult to pound up and snort through your nose. Gosh knows I tried. But in all truth, these little chocolates are pretty delicious, and bear my strong recommendation.

Mr. Big Deal:

The Mr. Big Deal is a huge candy bar that is sponsored by one Alexander Ovechkin. On the front on the wrapper, this large russian man issues a challenge to any potential buyers to "Be Big Deal Like Me," while proudly displaying a thumbs up sign and a wide russian grin. This challenge is to say the least, perplexing, as Ovechkin offers no instructions on how to become a big deal in his simple command, and one can only assume that it is through the consumption of the Mr. Big Deal. Also, my confusion deepened as I come from a place where pop culture and sports are actually relevant, and the fact that I have never heard of Alex before picking up my first Mr Big Deal makes it hard for me to confirm that he is indeed a big deal. I also have heard that loons and beaver trapping are pretty big deals in canada, so who's really to say what constitutes a big deal up there...but I digress. Challenge accepted Ovechkin, you big Russian animal you. I ate the entire Mr Big Deal, and to be honest, I do feel pretty cool.

Power Jubies:
Based on the name alone, this is the best offering in canada. Based on the drawing that I found on the packaging, this is the best candy in the world. This drawing consists of a stick figure jelly bean doing some pretty radical crap. At one point he is shredding an electric guitar while playing soccer. The drawing leads me to believe that Power Jubies are the go-to candy for canadian extreme athletes, rock stars and mounties. In fact, it's rumored that Avril Lavigne, the most extreme of all canadian punk rockers, eats several PACKS of Power Jubies every day. The crazy energy from these Jubies gives her that trademark spunk that so many Sk8ter boi's and girls have come to admire and emulate. However, the actual candy looks like someone stuffed a few jelly beans into some old nougat, and I can tell you right now that it is pretty disgusting. Maybe after doing some killer turns on some pow or some gnarly flips on a wakeboard I will get it. One can only dream I guess.

Crazy powerful after downing some Jubies

Wunderbar:

The Wunderbar is to say the least, wunderful. The crowing achievement of canadian industry, the Wunderbar is the perfect mixture of chocolate, caramel, peanut butter and wafer. You may remember Reeses trying to do the same with the Fast Break. But where the Fast Break is overbearing and suited to the palette of a six year old, the Wunderbar is a much more subtle and balanced selection, and much more suited to the tastes of slightly older children and ridiculous 28 year old candy eaters. After a brief scare at the border, I managed to bring several Wunderbars home, and ate the last of them on top of a high mountain peak. Completely content, even a moose scare earlier that day could not ruin my euphoria.

Well there you have it. Sorry about the long wait on the blogging kids. I’d like to say that during this downtime I have been thinking of great ideas and putting together something special, but that obviously isn’t the case. I mean, I’m writing about candy here for pete’s sake.

Too soon?

2011-04-06T15:11:00.003-06:00

You have most likely heard about some of the crap that has been happening to Japan over the last month or so, and unless you are heartless, or a dolphin, you probably feel pretty bad for our Japanese friends. Well, things are about to get a whole lot more complicated. Let me set up a little equation for you.

Under-sea earthquake + Nuclear radiation = Godzilla

Godzira!

Yes, an 8.9 magnitude quake is more than enough to wake that old lizard up, not to mention that nuclear power plants are leaking some of his favorite food into the ocean on a daily basis. It is pretty much a perfect Godzilla storm, and I'm expecting to see an appearance any day now. I also expect that Godzilla is going to be pretty bummed when he shows up and sees that the place is already in shambles, and there is no real reason to cause further mayhem. I bet the look on his face is going to be priceless.

Anyways, it is pretty sad to see the normally cheery Japanese people having such a hard time. However, a few of the Japanese were getting into some pretty weird stuff over there, and maybe the silver lining to the disasters will be a return to normalcy for some of these guys:

I want to know if this is common, everyday behavior or just something you do at car-shows in Japan.

Japan's National Turd Sandwich Team

I honestly don't know what is going on here. I doubt it is legal in the U.S. whatever it is

Swirly? Torture? Baptism?

Please get better soon Japan, we need you back to embarrass our whale wars hippies.

Montana Fly Fishing

2011-03-05T11:33:00.001-07:00

So I just bought a new camera. Now the trick is figuring out how not to look like a total douche while using it.

I have a real love/hate relationship with this blog. Blogging seems to be turning into an increasingly feminine pursuit and that concerns me. Not to mention that about half of the posts that I start turn into gibberish and never get finished. But the fact is that I love writing and have since I was a small child. And while my normal topics involve things that I think are funny or interesting, sometimes I just feel like writing about something that is truly important to me. So in a break from the normal format of MOBIYM, I want to write a bit about possibly the only thing I am truly passionate about. If you are looking for laughs, it may be time to stop reading.

Those that know me well have likely grown tired of my constant expressions of love for my home state of Montana. I talk about it way too much, so much so that I probably come off pretentious. Is Montana the best place in the country? In the world? Well to me it is. That's not to say that everyone should feel the same way, because they shouldn't. For many people, most people, Montana is not an ideal place, and that is a big part of what makes it so great. I do not think Montana is better than other places (except Colorado) but I do think that it is better for me, and regardless of where I live, it always will be.

Now, it is difficult to really determine why I have fallen so deeply in love with a place that can at times be very hostile and unlovable. Montana is a very beautiful state, but so are many others. The answer is very subtle and is something that I discovered while fly fishing. Fly fishing has taught me that Montana is a place where wilderness can still be found, and a place where that wilderness is still appreciated and valued. For me, wild forests and water have a way of masking your worries, and they can bring a clarity that I have a hard time finding anywhere else. Some of the biggest rewards I have ever gotten have been through a relationship with nature that I strengthened while fishing a wild Montana.

Fishing is not just a hobby for me, it is a release and often even a spiritual pursuit; it is a gentle reminder that there are still primitive things in the world and those things are not to be ignored, but benefited from. And I'm not just speaking about trout and animals, but also the water, the insects, the trees and the intoxicatingly fresh Montana forest air. At times fishing or even just exploring Montana is a way to relax and enjoy time with people that I care about. However, when I take the trip alone or with someone that has a similar passion for wild things, it becomes a much more therapeutic experience.

I don't wear waders or bulky gear when I fish, and aside from the fact that they look a bit goofy, I never really understood why I didn't like them, until recently when my younger brother brought it up and made me think about it. The waders keep you from really being in the water and they keep you from feeling the touch and push of the river. I know that sounds cheesy, but it is completely true, and it illustrates why fishing has become so important to me, and to my brothers for that matter. Because it is constant, unflinching and unpredictable all at the same time.

I love catching trout, it is exciting, and I also happen to think that next to women, trout are just about the most beautiful things ever created. But catching fish is not always my main reason for fishing, my reason is generally to leave something in the river and forests, and to come away better. In a way, fishing is sometimes like a type of personal sacrament for me, and that is what makes it very sacred and sustaining. It is a way to stay connected to the natural part of my life, a part of my 27 year existence that has become increasingly important to me in recent years.

For a few years I dated and fell in love with a girl that added a lot of complication to my relatively peaceful life. In fact, for a while, our relationship completely ruined it. But I loved her in spite of our problems for a few reasons, some of them more noble than others. Unfortunately, a main reason for loving this girl was because she practically completely understood my passion for Montana, the river and fishing. Almost more so than anyone I have met to this day. I recognized this understanding when she wrote me a note, a note that out of dozens was the only one I kept. I kept it not as a token of my old feelings, but because she effectively said what I had always struggled to make sense of. She perfectly analyzed my relationship with my favorite creek when she said: You can so easily bring your stress and the confusion of the world to the woods and wash it away in the river. During those times you are so distant from everything.

Now that may sound like an incredibly selfish reason for me to care about a person and it probably was, but it was strangely comforting that she understood my reasons for fishing, and in some ways it allowed me a way to express my passion for my water and my forest even when I was hundreds of miles away. Needless to say, this was a relationship that was built on a pretty poor foundation, and a "marriage" relationship is obviously made of something much more substantial than one shared understanding, regardless of how important it is. When you feel the same way about a river as you do a woman, things are not going to end well. But at the same time, that may be one of the highest compliments that I could ever give this particular girl.

I bring all of this up because it correctly demonstrates the most important and sometimes dangerous reason for my love of Montana and fly fishing. Because when I am driving through Rock Creek canyon, or when I am walking through the waist high grass to the Bitterroot, when I am lost in the comfortable rhythm of my cast, or when I am bringing a trout to briefly have a pretty horrible experience, I am also bringing something very wild to the surface, I am forgetting the complications and the things that do not matter and remembering the things that do. It is important for me because it has helped me cope with just about any problem I have ever faced in my "adult" life. It is dangerous because it has become something that I rely on. Fly fishing for me is a way to learn from the wilderness rather than conquer it. It is a personal way to know God through some of his most impressive creations.

Pregnancy

2011-02-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

I am confused as to the current rules on greetings. Is a hand slap/slide still the socially acceptable acquaintance greeting? I sure hope not. I am not a fan of the slap, the slide nor the bump. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a solid handshake or hug to any of the previously mentioned greetings. Last week I met a cute girl that tried to plant the european fake kisses on my cheek. Needless to say I was incredibly flustered. I made a huge mess of that whole situation.

Put 'er there! An internet picture of a properly done handshake between interracial sports enthusiasts

My parents were in town for the weekend so me and Jeff took the jaunt down to happy valley to hang out with them and some Provo friends. For the most part it was a great time. However, at times my parents decide to drop some facts on us that can frankly be a bit rattling. My cousin just had a baby girl and we were driving to see it as the conversation naturally turned towards our own births. During this talk my mom decided to tell us that at one point the doctors were almost sure that Jeff was going to be born with birth defects or mentally retarded. No surprise there. But then she also informed me that she had to have X-rays while pregnant with me and had some similar concerns. Now, I am not so concerned about the possible retardation as the fact that at any moment I may have some kind of mutant powers manifest themselves. There is little doubt that the X-rays have had a lasting effect and it is just a matter of time until I start seeing through walls, talking to animals and breathing underwater. Whether or not these powers will be used for good or evil remains to be determined. I sure hope it is not the talking to animals one though, because that would sure make fishing a lot more traumatizing and personal.

On a slightly unrelated note, during this conversation I expressed my disinterest in watching any woman ever give birth, including my future wife. These feelings all started when I saw a cow give birth as a boy and became very agitated when a green, mucous-covered placenta plopped out on the ground right after the slimy calf. My mom, concerned that I was not looking forward to the whole birthing spectacle, remarked: "if you can gut an elk, you can watch your wife give birth" Which has to be about the most disgusting comparison ever made and I am ten times less excited to be in the delivery room.

An Important Choice... and CANDY!

2011-02-03T00:19:00.000-07:00

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about if I would rather one of my future children become a brainwashed child star or a brainwashed child soldier. Both commit unspeakable acts of evil. One day while watching the movie "The Incredibles" on the disney channel, I was forced to sit through painful advertisements for current Disney channel programming. It became very clear to me that I would probably rather my child gun down people with an AK-47 than be associated with that kind of soulless trash.

On a lighter note...
Those who know me well are aware of my fondness for candy. My biggest candy phase was not in my younger years, but rather my senior year of college. At the time I was taking several classes with my good buddy Grant who also has a severe candy problem. In order to kill our boredom, we would take turns buying candy and bringing it to class to share. Our addiction quickly progressed and we were soon spending around five dollars a day on candy. And let me tell you, five dollars a day will buy an obscene amount of candy. I remember one particular day when Grant challenged me to purchase an ICEE drink (which is the most sugary drink ever invented) and combine it with that days bag of trolli gummi eggs.

Not one to turn down a challenge, I purchased and consumed the items. This was, of course, a disastrous combination. Following roughly half an hour of a fairly wild sugar rush, the body would shut down and sleep was unavoidable. So for half of the class I was far too jittery to pay one bit of attention, and the second half I quickly crashed into a deep slumber. Psychology was a pretty boring class and needless to say, we continued drinking our new creation every tuesday and thursday for several weeks.

Lately, I have become rather addicted to a candy that you would most likely not expect: Bottlecaps.

Now, it has probably been some time since you have tried bottlecaps, unless you also are a candy aficionado or you are nine. Not quite as tart as a sweet-tart and powdery like a smartie, bottlecaps are quickly becoming my staple for church meetings and movies. I challenge you to buy some and let me know what you think. Do it. Do it now.

PIne Pants, a Gentlemanly Pursuit

2011-01-17T21:12:00.003-07:00

This picture is incredibly intriguing.

How did this dinosaur get there? What is he doing in the house? Is he napping? I like to think that the most likely situation is that the dinosaur snuck inside, quickly ate the residents, and just got a little tired after his meal and decided to take a nap upstairs. But who knows if that is the story that goes with this picture. All I know is that I like it.

Throughout the history of the world, mankind has participated in different competitive events. Some of these events and sports slowly gained more and more prestige and were considered to be the pursuits of the refined and sophisticated. Polo, Tennis, Golf, Fox-Hunting, Pistol Dueling, Fencing and others are commonly regarded as some of the more civilized athletic contests. Today, I wish to submit an addition to this list: Pine Pants

Pine pants is a game that was invented by my younger brother Jeffrey and my cousin Brent. It is a two person game and it is genius. The rules of the game are as follows:
First, each competitor picks about six ponderosa pine cones. Ponderosa cones are used because of their density and specifically because of the sharp spines that are found on the outsides of the rather large cones.

Brutal Cones

Participants are encouraged to search for the pine cones that are heaviest and sharpest, as it will pay dividends throughout the competition. Once the cones have been gathered, each competitor will put on the official uniform of the game which consists of a pair of basketball shorts and several rubber bands. The rubber bands will then be placed around the leg openings of the shorts while the gentleman is wearing them, effectively sealing the shorts. The shirt is removed, and gameplay begins.

The player on the defense will pull the waist of their shorts out, stretching the elastic and creating a basket area. Then, the other contender will carefully choose from their pine cones and lob their chosen cone through the air with the intent of landing it in the shorts of the other participant where it will be stopped from falling out by the previously mentioned rubber bands. The goal of the game is to land the highest number of cones in the pants of the other competitor, potentially harming their genitals in the process. At times, a gentleman will hurl the pine cone with great force at the chest of the other individual in order to cut them and throw off their concentration. Once all cones have been landed, a penalty is carried out by the person who has the highest number of pine cones residing in their shorts.

This penalty can be excruciatingly painful for the gentleman who has the misfortune of losing. Common penalties include a number of consecutive summersaults, jumps or rolls with a cluster of pine cones still held tight to your nether-regions. Men are separated from boys during these grueling penalties.

A Game In Progress

Pine Pants has become an honorable tradition around the Larson home, one that is held in the highest esteem. Champions are praised and adored while the loser is scorned. Should you choose to play at home, please do your best to maintain the noble spirit and dignified tradition of the game.

2011 Resolutions

2011-01-13T21:30:00.001-07:00

I am pretty bad at this whole blogging thing. 2010 has come and gone, I started a post the other day about my favorite things that happened in 2010, but did not finish it and I probably wont. Here is the basic rundown though.

Best Movie: Inception?
Best Album: The Suburbs, Arcade Fire
Hottest Babe: Marion Cotillard
Best Personal Choice of 2010: Spending summer in Montana
Worst Personal Choice in 2010: Not spending the rest of the year there
Number of Bears I saw in 2010: 10 (6 black, 4 grizzly)
Fruit Snacks consumed by me: Approximately 36,000

That's about as far as I got. Work currently demands a lot of writing, which has left precious little time for myotherblogisyourmom. However, the tenth of January is upon us and it marks the day that I make my Resolutions. I'll be honest, I made some horribly poor decisions in 2010, but disaster was averted and lessons were learned. In order to avoid similar mistakes, I put a lot of thought into this years resolutions. Now, to be frank, I did not accomplish many of the semi-gay resolutions that I set for myself on the blog last year, which leads me to believe that I am not gay. Not at all. But I am determined to make this years resolutions a reality. Here they are.

-Spend at least a month in Mongolia (Mongoria)
-Turn down zero bets
-Watch the movie "the Rock".... every day
-Buy a large exotic animal for a pet. Then upon realizing that it belongs in the wild, try to let it go. When the pet does not leave and looks back in confusion, scream and tell it "GET OUT OF HERE! GO! JUST GO! I HATE YOU!" When the pet still does not leave, I will punch it in the face. It's for the best.
-Play one round of russian roulette

My final resolution is a big one that deserves a bit more attention. This year I have decided to start my career as a stay at home dad. I am currently accepting applications from ambitious and career-oriented young women that are willing to help me towards this goal. If you are older than 18, fertile, willing to live in Montana, and don't mind if I take our kids fishing every single day, go ahead and email me your resume (picture). I'm not very picky.

Anyways, I'm going to try and blog a bit more. But no promises. I recently found this picture of what is most likely my soulmate.

Kids

2010-11-03T17:45:00.001-06:00

It has been a while. In fact, we completely missed the entire month of October. For that I apologize. Montana has had a tight hold on my heart these last few months and I have shirked some of my other responsibilities. I shirked them good and proper. Montana will do that to a manboy.

This picture is awesome.

If my kids ever pull hijinks like this, I am going to have a hard time telling them to stop because I will be jealous of their lack of restraint. And I will be laughing too hard.

Kids are pretty stupid, but they are my favorite kind of people. Some of my favorite pictures I have seen are of kids doing things that no adult would ever dare. The kid in the picture above saw a pig nose and wanted to lick it. It was wet and shiny and looked like something that needed to be tasted. Was the child pleased with the results? Was his pigsicle all he dreamed it to be? We can't tell from this picture and that is what makes it so awesome.

Wolves are currently big news in Montana. We seem to have way too many and they are eating up all of the animals that hunters like to shoot. When I heard about this problem, I was thrilled because wolves are one of the only animals brave enough to kill a moose. More wolves meant less moose, and substantially safer forests. However, I had SEVEN different moose encounters this summer. Seven. That may be a new record for me. These wolves are obviously doing a poor job, or they just found easier fodder. Whatever the case, I would like to make a plea to all wolves that may be reading this blog. Please kill more moose. Kill them all if you would like. I will be forever grateful. With that, I will leave you with some more pictures of kids doing stupid stuff.

Ok, so that last one is not a kid, but obviously some kind of hobbit dancing with the neighborhood cat.

Poverty, Part 2

2010-09-10T14:40:00.007-06:00

Sorry Mom.
I sell photos in our local farmer's market. Most of the booths have some sort of tent or large umbrella to help shade the vendors, mine does not. So the other day my mom comes in with the good news that she had salvaged an umbrella from the neighbor's. . . trash. I was excited until a 20 second inspection revealed that this umbrella was completely destroyed. Almost every fiberglass rod was shattered and seconds into my inspection, I had shards of fiberglass in my fingers. When I told my mom that it was no good, she replied that I should just fix it because "new ones are $20 at Costco." I gently reminded my mom that we were no longer poor and could afford a 20 dollar umbrella. which reignited the whole debate once again.

Before presenting further evidence, I do feel it necessary to once again reiterate that I had a fantastic childhood. If I can give my kids half of the experiences that I had as a kid, I know they will be ok. My family no longer is poor, but we were poor growing up. Or maybe we had money and did not spend any of it. I have complied some more evidence to help me in the debate. Click on the pictures for larger versions.

Holidays:

This is something that we have already covered a bit in Poverty Part 1, but a halloween is a time for the poor to really shine. Now, my mom argues that we decided on these costumes on our own, but the pure fact is that kids are stupid. We wanted nice expensive costumes but forgot about it when it came to deciding. This is all because of the way we were asked: "Wes, do you want a HOMEMADE COSTUME!!!! Or that dinosaur one in the store?" I have always been easily talked into things, and the proper emphasis on a certain sentence could make us dress up in just about anything. And here is the proof:

I guess I should have considered myself lucky, because we hit a new low this year:

No little boy wants to be a witch for halloween

Here is a nice example. My guess is that Cyrus is a ninja turtle. My other guess is that is magic marker on his face. My other guess is that his costume cost approximately 3 dollars to construct.

Thats 3 dollars more than this skeleton costume costs. Why you may ask? Because that costume was actually an old halloween wall decoration that got stapled to my shirt. Recycling, completely free. Lets not forget the infamous cat costume.

Halloween is not the only holiday that really brings the poverty out in people. Here is another glaring proof of our financial troubles.

Decorating the Christmas "Plant"

My parents saved the ten bucks they would have spent on a tree by just turning our dining room plant into one. Truly prosperous times for the Larson family.

Family Trips:

Rich people go on nice trips and take their kids. My parents could afford a trip to Hawaii. They could not afford to take us. Here is a little gem of a letter that I wrote mom and dad while they were in Hawaii.

It should be noted that in later years they took my childhood advice and went to Australia as well, once again without their children.

Haircuts:

My father is no artist. Nor does he excel at cutting hair. What he does excel at is giving bowl cuts, and that is because they are the cheapest and easiest haircut to perform. When I was five, I wanted a rat-tail haircut but did not get one. You know you are poor when you cannot even afford a white trash haircut. Here are some classic shots that illustrate our fine hairstyles.

My mom really should have hid this one better

Hard Labor:

Almost every kid has chores. Poor kids have jobs. We started mowing the lawn from the time we were eight. Jeff started practicing even earlier. They bought him a lawnmower toy?! That is like purchasing a toy sewing machine for an infant in malaysia. It is trickery.

"Those fields are not going to till themselves boys, now put on your diapers and get to work"

Treats:

About once a month growing up we would go out to eat, generally on my Grandma's dime. Where did we go every single time? The Sizzler. The Sizzler is an amazing place to a poor child. "Wait, so your telling me I get to have chicken nuggets, nachos, pizza AND ice cream?! This place is unreal!" But the general excitement over endless food is not what proves our poverty. The icing on this cake is what Cyrus and I would do after eating our meal. After finishing our food and ice cream, we would carefully stuff as many gummi bears as possible into a napkin, sometimes several napkins, and stash them away in our pockets. We would then save these bears for weeks, carefully savoring each one. If that is not the act of a desperate poor child, I do not know what is. Candy in our house consisted of chocolate chips and lemon drops, and both of these treats were strictly rationed. My mom once made a decorative ghost out of fabric and a sugar paste...I used to lick that thing like it was an effing lollipop.

The ghost in question. No doubt damp from my determined slobber

Technology:

The greater part of my life, we owned a nintendo 8 bit system. When other friends naturally upgraded to the super nintendo, sega, nintendo 64 and so on. We stayed resolute with our original nintendo. When begged to purchase a new system, the answer always was "Why would we buy another nintendo? We already bought one." If this has ever been your answer to your kids, you may or may not be poor.

There is the nintendo proudly displayed in the back. Jeff is most likely begging for food here.

This next picture does nothing to prove our poverty. But it is strangely terrifying.

   AHHHHHHH!

Well, for now I have exhausted my resources as far as the debate goes. Although I am certain that further evidence will surface in the future. For the record, I would once again like to say that I had the best childhood... but we were poor, mom.

P.S. When discussing our poverty recently with my mom, I brought up the fact that we lived in a trailer. To which she replied "a really nice trailer".

Ponderings

2010-08-16T13:04:00.007-06:00

There have been many times in my life that I have wondered what my ideal pet would be. Found it:

So my last post was more true that I thought, well at least the hanging out in the mountains part. Montana has not allowed for much time to devote to myotherblogisyourmom. But a recent jaunt to utah reminded me of my responsibilities, so here you go.

#1: Butter Rum Life Savers
Possible the most divisive candy ever created. Generally, people either despise or love these controversial treats. I am of the latter group and generally tend to lose my inhibitions around a pack of butter rums. My gay friend Grant Barnes also feels the same way, which is one of the reasons that our friendship has remained so strong over the years. That and our yearly trip up to a secluded spot in the mountains together... but I digress. Mr. Barnes used to bring a pack of these candies to our classes together and we would generally down the whole thing in one sitting. Which leads me to a huge complaint.

The 1.4 ounce "roll" of butter rum lifesavers can be found in almost any supermarket or convenience store. This roll generally costs around a dollar or more and lasts me approximately seven seconds. In short, the roll is far too expensive. Whereas, the much larger 6.5 ounce pack of BR lifesavers costs around 3 dollars and often lasts much longer. Only three bucks for six times the candy.

This picture accurately demonstrates the proportional differences between the roll and the pack.

Why the price discrepancy lifesavers?! The big pack is literally impossible to find in Missoula and I am often forced to buy the insufficient, vastly overpriced rolls. This kind of injustice needs to be remedied. Either more companies need to start selling the pack, or the price on the rolls needs to drop big time. But the fact remains that I am in severe deficit here in Montana. If you happen to cross a pack in your travels, send it to me. Steal it if you have to. I will do my best to make it worth your while.

Wesley Larson
4150 Birdie Court
Missoula Montana 59803

#2: An Important Question
No doubt that at one time or another in your life you have asked yourself how many kindergarteners you could defeat in a fight at once. This question has been rattling around in my head for sometime now. I am fairly certain that I could handle at least a hundred. Now there are a lot of factors that come into play here. Some argue that once they began biting, the fight would swing in a different direction. However, I am fairly certain that this would just infuriate me to a level where I would inflict some pretty serious damage.
Another point that has been brought up in the debate goes something like this "oh, well when I wrestle with my little cousins (nephews, brothers, etc..) they really hurt me sometimes." But there is a simple explanation for this. It is because you never actually fight with these young children because you cannot, you just lay there and let them jump on you. If you were actually defending yourself, I feel like fighting of a horde of 5 year olds would be similar to battling a pack of rabbits. One hit and they are done. This leads me to believe that my "number" lies somewhere in the triple digits.
If they came staggered, like ten at a time, I think the only thing that would limit your "number" would be breaks to sleep and eat. Someone needs to do this for a TV show or documentary. Most likely in a foreign country. Feel free to comment and weigh in on this critical debate.

Arnold could have handled at least a thousand of those kids. . . if you could ever get him to stop playing that ukulele.

So basically, these are the two topics I have been thinking about for the last month and a half. That and fishing. A lot of fishing. I am going to be bringing you a moose update in a few days, and it is not pretty.

Animal Spotlight

2010-07-01T23:29:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, while fishing, I passed a herd of bighorn sheep that I see just about every time I go to this particular spot. The funny thing about bighorns is that you only generally only see females in the valley during the spring and summer. The males are up in the mountains hanging out doing manly crap, and they only come down in the valley occasionally to find a female and do their business. Which is essentially what I am doing this summer too.

Talents

2010-06-27T18:11:00.001-06:00

So I'm fairly certain that I was one of the first Americans to really get into Ace of Base. Just putting that on the table.

MOOSE Update:
This week we had a moose encounter. The moose tried to attack our car and flip it over like the T-rex in Jurassic Park. But I thwarted his attack by staring him down and after a truly epic battle, the moose retreated. I did not manage to get a picture but did commission an artist to paint a rendition of our confrontation:

Then he painted a trout for me to hug, just for kicks:

About 6 months ago, roommate Shane asked me what I was good at. I have been thinking about it since. Here is what I have come up with:

Things I Am Good At

Spotting animals

Sneaking into places

Flyfishing

Distinguishing between grizzly and black bears

Dinosaur knowledge

This puzzle

Shark identification

Reading

Enjoying stars at night without knowing hardly anything about them

Backpacking

Rock skipping

Trout identification

Knowing when it will be a good sunset

Staring contests

Losing things

Finding things

Birds

Cliff jumping

Road trips

Bus rides

Enjoying juice

Making grilled cheese

Things I Am Not So Good At

Getting retarded Lady Ga Ga songs out of my head

As you can probably see, I spent a good part of my childhood boning up on my animal facts. Much to my chagrin, this knowledge has not done much for me in the money and babes department, but I have a feeling it is going to pay off soon.

Montana thoughts: Part 1

2010-06-13T14:23:00.003-06:00

This summer I was presented with an interesting decision, spend time with girls in provo or hang out with fish in Montana, this decision was not a difficult one to make.

I think a lot while I am in Montana, fishing and being outside help me think clearly and feel pretty stupid about past decisions. These moments of clarity need to be recorded and they led me to this post and it will probably be followed by others.

I am always loosing shoes

Montana is not a bad place for someone like me to spend part of the summer, in fact it is the perfect place to spend a summer. There are even babes here, you just have to dig a little deeper to find them. If you manage to find one, they generally have their heads on straight. . .a rare find in Provo. But I am getting off topic.

There are two things that everyone should know about me. One, I love Montana more than anything in this world and two, I get uncomfortable when people sing acapella in public. Many people however do not understand why I love Montana so much and why I am so happy here. I don’t really understand how you could be really happy anywhere else. So here are just three reasons off the top of my head why I love Montana so much:

Montana stays light till after ten in the summer
I commonly smell of gasoline, fresh cut grass, fish, gunpowder or campfire while in Montana. If you are a man and have not smelled like all of these things at one time or another in your life, you may want to reconsider your supposed masculinity. If this upsets you, you may want to reconsider your feelings as you may be having your period.
Montana has 1.4 elk, 1.4 antelope, 3.3 deer and 896 fish per square mile. There are only 6 people per square mile in Montana. Utah has 27.2 people per square mile.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Utah. But Montana is my muse, fishing is my therapy and I want to find a girl that is comfortable in the forest. A lot of girls elsewhere claim to be outdoorsy but they actually get real bored outside. My dream girl does not need to want to fish or hike or be active in the woods, but she can just hang out in the forest or by the lake for hours and be content. So in other words, I will probably be single for a while.

My ideal woman, aside from being blue and ten feet tall, and the whole weird ponytail thing

Animals I Love: Snapping Turtle

2010-06-11T10:29:00.000-06:00

Missoula is full of hippies, which are preferable to hipsters. Essentially the main difference is money, determination and hygiene. A hipster wants to be ironic and believe in the same things hippies believe in but they don't have the will-power or originality to do anything about it. They also want to wear the same types of clothes but they want to buy them from high-end retail stores. Also, a hipster wears deodorant and shaves; a fact which makes hipster women much more appealing than your average hippie girl. The final difference is that your average hippie still has a soul whereas most hipsters have lost theirs in a jumbled mess of i-phone apps.

Recently I drove across the country and during the journey I completed a life goal by catching a snapping turtle. I took some time to write about it during the drive and just never got around to posting it. I am rectifying that now. Rectifying is a weird word.

"A few years ago when the blog was started, I listed a few animals that the world would be better without. We covered polar bears in the first post ever on the blog and went on to mention koala “bears” and my eternal nemesis and eventual downfall, the moose. Only recently did I realize that the blog has been rather one-sided and the number of animals I love far outnumbers the ones I detest. So “Animals I Love” is going to be a series of posts that will pop up today, starting with the snapping turtle.

One word comes to mind when one thinks of the snapping turtle . . .formidable. Let me elaborate. You see, there are not too many things I would consider myself a professional at. But if there is one thing in my life that I truly excel at, it is spotting and catching animals, especially turtles. As a child I spent almost all my summer days at a local pond catching frogs turtles and the occasional snake and I have caught thousands of turtles, thousands. I am really awesome at it. But we do not have snapping turtles in Montana and catching a snapping turtle always seemed like the ultimate prize to a young turtle catching enthusiast. Plus turtles look like dinosaurs and you all know how I feel about dinosaurs.

I spotted and caught my first snapping turtle this week on the side of the road in North Carolina and only then did I truly realize how completely awesome they are. I have never encountered an animal that wanted to kill me so badly, and it was admirable. Soulless moose tend to try and kill people for no reason, but this turtle was completely justified in his homicidal rage. I had disturbed him from his slumber and he wanted me to pay. And pay I did.

You see, the snapping turtle is so amazing because of the level of protection that it exhibits. First of all, they are built like a tank and have ridiculously tough skin, which is already enough to deter most predators. The second line of defense is the snap, which is ten times faster and more violent than I had imagined. When I lifted the turtle into the air, its neck started shooting out like some demonic piston and its jaws cracked through the air vainly trying to end my life. But I know how to avoid the wrong end of a mean turtle and I firmly grasped the side of the shell, avoiding any problems, or so I thought. Enter the third line of defense.

When the turtle realized that his efforts to remove my fingers were in vain, he blasted me with just about the foulest smelling mix of urine and musk that you can imagine. The fight was over and the turtle had won. I placed him back on the ground and retreated and my respect for the beast has increased three fold. I can still smell him on me.

If you read that last line without knowing the context of this post, I sound pretty gay.

The victor of our battle

Top Ten Lists

2010-05-16T18:50:00.008-06:00

Between 80 and 83 percent of the girls in Provo Utah are undateable. That is statistical fact. I compiled the numbers, did the research and settled on that number. The remaining 17 to 20 percent should give me a call and I'll make you dinner. You know who you are.

Everybody loves a good list. Everyone loves a good movie. Everyone loves a good sandwich. That last one is unrelated, but I am hungry right now and could go for a sandwich. My roommate Shane is not a fan of the sandwich, a fact which seems to be a big damper on our friendship. But I digress.

I love a good movie and my favorite movie seems to change fairly often. Here are my top seven right now and a brief explanation of why I love them.

1. A River Runs Through It

A movie about fly-fishing brothers in Missoula Montana. This one is a no brainer. If you know anything about me, there is no reason to ask why I like this movie. When I am away from Montana, this movie is like a little taste of home. Often people find this movie boring or slow and that is because they are too used to watching movies about fighting robots and sparkly vampires. This movie does not thrust itself upon you. It is subtle and beautiful.

Best Line: "Oh, I'll never leave Montana, brother"

2. Swiss Family Robinson

I am, of course, referring to the 1960 classic Disney movie. Family shipwrecks on island, family captures all sorts of animals, family builds awesome tree fort, family fights pirates, the end. Oh, and not to mention, a babe falls into the family's lap while on the island. Animals, pirates and babes; now there is a winning combination for a movie. My brothers and I liked this movie so much growing up that we started calling each other Fritz, Ernst and Francis.

Best Line: "Francis got his tiger."

3. The Proposition

The Proposition is the best Western that I have ever seen and it takes place in Australia. A man's younger brother is in prison awaiting execution and the only way he can rescue him is by tracking down and killing his other brother, who is a brutal killer. This movie made Guy Pearce my second favorite actor and gave me chills. You deserve to see it. You also deserve a nice sandwich.

Best Line: "Mr. Murphy, Russia, China, the Congo, oh, I have traveled among unknown people in lands beyond the seas. But nothing, *nothing* could have prepared me for this godforsaken hole."

4. Fight Club

After the first time I watched Fight Club, I immediately started the movie over and watched it again. That was the only time I have ever done this. Fight Club, in essence, is about boys being boys. After becoming disenchanted with his life, Edward Norton joins Brad Pitt and starts a fight club and recruits other men who have similar misgivings. Things escalate. This is what will happen to Provo in a few years if things continue on their course. Except it will probably be called X-box Club and will be much gayer.

Best Line: "Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken"

5. Jurassic Park

I still remember the feeling I got when I saw the title of this movie grace the screen for the first time at ten years old. I still get that same feeling to this day when I watch it. I saw Jurassic Park in the theater five times when it came out. Five times. I also almost peed my pants from excitement when the T-rex ate the guy on the toilet. If Jurassic Park was real, I would devote my life to getting a job there. And once the dinosaurs got out, while everybody was running around screaming, I would be sitting in the corner with a big smile on my face just waiting for the mayhem.

Best Line: "Clever girl"

6. Casino

Martin Scorsese is one of my favorite directors and I actually prefer this movie to Goodfellas. Maybe it is because Ginger reminds me of a girl I once dated; beautiful, smart, charming, but incredibly destructive. Their relationship is, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the movie and it leads to the eventual downfall of almost everyone in the movie. Robert De Niro is amazing, Joe Pesci is cringeworthy and the movie never once looses steam. I can't change the channel when I come across this movie on TV. It also makes me feel like a chump.

Best Line: "When you love someone, you've gotta trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours. Otherwise, what's the point? And for a while, I believed, that's the kind of love I had"

7. The Fall

Visually, this is one of the most, if not the most impressive movie I have ever seen. The little russian girl is amazing and steals the show. Lee Pace is amazing as an injured, suicidal stunt man. If you do decide to rent this one, watch it on the biggest and nicest screen possible. It is hard to follow at times, and pretty weird as well, but it makes up for it's shortcomings with amazing cinematography and some great acting.

Best Line: "Are you trying to save my soul?"

Stuff I found on the Internet.

2010-05-05T16:25:00.002-06:00

I think the main reason I want kids is so I have an excuse to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and watch cartoons again. But that is off topic.

My life has been a bit busier lately and I apologize for the lack of posts to those of you that follow MOBIYM. One thing that I am never too busy for is looking for stupid stuff on the internet. Every morning when I wake up, I check my stocks, email and the news to see what is happening around the world. In my mind I picture news websites like the kid that was at first reluctant to give into peer pressure but when he finally caved, went overboard and started doing stuff that made his friends uncomfortable. News pages that used to be reputable are now posting some of the silliest pictures and stories out there to attract new readers. Consider me attracted. Case in point, this little gem from Fox News yesterday:

This guy was the recipient of Spain's first "successful" face transplant. I'm curious as to what his face looked like previous to the surgery because I am having a hard time imagining something scarier than this. It also makes me wonder if maybe his surgeon is just an art-lover and was paying homage to Munch's "the scream"

In any case, Fox News was all over this story. And I am completely aware of the eternal implications of making fun of this guy's face, but I just cant pass up a picture like that.

This dog is severely depressed.

I know how you feel buddy. I had some heart-wrenching stuff happen to me this week and I feel like maybe me and this dog should go out and have a beer together. But I don't drink and this dog has probably drowned himself in his own water dish by now.

Speaking of dogs, this has to be fake but it is awesome.

Now I'm about to offend a good chunk of you women, at least most of you that consider yourself feminists. Just be aware that I do not necessarily agree with the next picture but it did give me a good chuckle because it is true for a handful of girls that I know.

Sorry.

I generally do not like the pictures on the internet that have writing on them (Im sure there is a name for them) but this next one comes with a near perfect caption and I could not resist.

I'm not quite sure why this one appeals to me so much, but I really like it.

Anyways, those are just a few of the pictures I have seen over the last few months. I apologize that this post is so late and I promise to do better in the future. I am also thinking pretty seriously about moving to puerto rico for my optometry school. I have decided that all important life decisions, rather than being carefully pondered and weighed out, will just be subject to the readers of this blog. So comment and let me know if you think this is a wise idea or not.

Poor Cyrus

2010-04-22T11:47:00.004-06:00

Recently my brother Cyrus had a experience that affected him greatly. Cyrus lives in Boston and while he has lived in the big city for almost four years now, he admirably still retains his small town trust in humanity. A fact that recently came back to bite him. He requested that I tell his story on the blog and I figured I would just include excerpts from his email rant to me so that you get the clearer picture. Then I will issue a critique on where he went wrong. Here is his email:

"I think the worst thing that could ever happen to a person is to cancel Christmas. I mean, think of lil’ Jimmy, waking up at the crack of dawn. No groggy feeling that morning because as soon as his lil’ eyes pop open he knows; he knows the new best day of his short little life has arrived. Now imagine he runs downstairs, peaks around the corner and sees…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a lump of coal. The tree is gone, the present are gone, the decorations are gone, Christmas is gone. That little kid will never be the same.
Tonight this is the only thought that gives me comfort. Knowing someone else has it worse. For a month now I have been planning to go to the Snoop Dogg concert with Snoop Dogg’s Wife’s cousin, Constantine. He called me up out of the blue, told me Snoop was going to be in and asked me if I wanted to go and meet Snoop backstage afterwards. Needless to say I was excited. Meeting one of the most famous rappers of all time? Seeing someone actually C-walk? I listened to Snoop songs to get ready, I picked out my most "legit" clothes, researched Crips so I didn’t offend him, and told my friends where I would be that night. I was ready. I even called Constantine the day before. All was set. But then it came crashing down. Not two hours before the concert began I get a message that Constantine wasn’t coming to town. I was crushed and abandoned. Constantine had lied to me! He never planned to come. Constantine is famous for telling stories and he had duped me. I was furious but then I conjured up lil’ Jimmy. The lil’ boy who didn’t get Christmas. Who am I to complain? At least lil’ Jimmy drew a tougher hand than me. Too bad lil’ Jimmy is make believe. I hate Snoop and I think I’m going to become a Blood."
-Cyrus

Clearly not having an awesome time

This was a pretty rough time for big brother. My heart goes out to him but he did make a few mistakes that could have been avoided. Here they are:

Mistake one: Never befriend or trust a dude named Constantine.
Mistake two: Never plan on going to a Snoop concert on 4/20. That is just too good to be true, and is certain to be false.
Mistake three: Snoop Dog's wife's cousin? Chances are this guy is sitting nosebleed with all of the other liars.

Of course hindsight is alway 20/20 and I probably would have been all decked out in blue waiting by my phone patiently as well.

SPORTS

2010-04-14T17:30:00.001-06:00

This is quite possibly the best picture ever posted on the internet.

There is just so much going on. People are ducking and flailing their arms in order to avoid the rogue bat that so quickly entered their universe and one man to the left is literally using his baby as a shield. The man that is taking the bat to the face is doing so like a champ. His arms remain tranquil and motionless at his sides as though in the split second he had before impact he decided that his face would be best to bear the brunt of this one. And you have to admire his commitment to that ideal. Almost as interesting, the slightly rotund redheaded girl in the foreground does not even seem to have noticed any kind of approaching danger as her attention seems to be fixed elsewhere. This leads me to believe that this girl either is pondering something earth-shattering or is blind.

Tonight is a big night for Utah Jazz Basketball, which I have become an avid fan of. My evolution into a sports fan has been a slow one. Even as I write this, I can still taste the martinelli's that I chugged out of the bottle and sprayed all over my teammates after we clinched the victory in our bowling league championships with a strike in the tenth frame. Not to mention the fact that I am mentally preparing myself for a double header softball game tonight for our undefeated intramural team. But you may be surprised to know that I have not always been so dominant in the realm of semi-leisurely sports. In fact, when I was a young boy it was quite the different story.

My earliest memory of sports was being forced to play little league when I was about 7 or 8. I wanted to be out in the stream picking up rocks, catching frogs and chasing water skippers. But my parents felt that instead I should be learning life lessons from a sadistic coach and a bunch of kids that seems to already be roiding. My stint in little league was short lived, I think my parents finally decided that it was not worth the effort when I would just sit down in the grass in right field every game and play with bugs. No amount of yelling or coaching could make me get up. I was making my stand and I did it well. I was subsequently talked into playing other organized sports, all of which I failed miserably at (except for street hockey, in which I represent a dominant force to this day) I played city basketball with my dad as coach and I think I only made one bucket the entire season. Im pretty sure this kid knows how I feel when I think about middle school basketball.

In high school I wrestled for three years and while I was pretty decent at it, I hated every minute of it. Tennis was my next foray and I'm pretty sure that is where things changed for me. I finally found a sport I loved and soon I started even embracing other sports of all kinds. I even like watching them on TV, a fact which my mom and several girlfriends have despised. As summer approaches, I literally get giddy thinking about the softball season. I am rambling. I like sports. I wish I knew what that little girl was thinking about.

Mindblowing

2010-04-06T16:35:00.003-06:00

If pimps and pimping exist in the animal kingdom, this is probably what it looks like.

So the other day I overheard and saw something that blew my mind. Some buddies were over and we were watching March Madness on a fairly standard Saturday afternoon. My good friend Seth was one of these buddies, as was my roommate Shane. Shane left to go to the kitchen and came back with a "Cup of Noodles." Pictured below:

I have included this picture due to the conversation that followed Shane's re-entrance with the "Cup of Noodles." Here is a transcript of that conversation:

Seth: What is that?
Shane: Uhh... Cup of Noodles?
Seth: Hmm. Is it like ramen or something?
Shane. Uhhh...seriously?
Seth: So you just put in hot water and it is ready?
Me: You are kidding right?

Unfortunately he was not kidding. Seth had literally never eaten Cup of Noodles before in his life, nor even seen one. The kid did not even know the logistics behind preparing a Cup of Noodles. It has been a long time since I have been that shocked, especially because Seth claims that he was poor as a kid. I'm pretty sure that EVERY kid in my grade school had Cup of Noodles in his lunch for a period of at least three years. Which leads me to believe that Seth may not actually be American... or even human. Needless to say, our friendship is over.

Now onto something I read on the internet that upset me. A man was recently tried and charged with poaching a couple Bull Moose in Montana. The only thing this man should be charged with is heroism. It is known fact that moose are ruthless, killing machines and instead of receiving jail time, this guy should be getting a medal. My fishing season is right around the corner and who knows if this will be the year that the moose will finish the job and end my short life. All I know is that thanks to this "poacher" there are two less moose to worry about and for that I am grateful.

A moose launching a suicide attack on an American military base.

Wesley Larson Fan Vs Wild Competition

2010-03-19T16:31:00.007-06:00

Degree for Men is hosting a competition that is sending four fans on an expedition with Bear Grylls. Many of you know that Bear is a hero of mine and some of you know that I am even planning on naming my first son Bear. Anyways, part of the competition is to provide a link that shows me on an adventure. Instead of providing a few different links for different adventures, I decided to post them all here and just send the link to my blog. Long story short, if you are not from Degree for Men, you should probably skip this one because it may bore you. If you are from Degree for Men, you should pick me because I am awesome.

Adventure #1: Montana Adventures.

Montana is my home and I have been fortunate enough to explore and enjoy the woods, mountains, rivers and wildlife of this amazing state. I have spent countless hours in the wilderness and have learned valuable survival skills both from my father and from the scouting program (I am an eagle scout) I have backpacked hundreds of miles, hunted elk in waist-deep snow and have trapped my own food. I have been charged by moose twice, stalked by grizzlies, slid down glaciers and floated class four and five rapids. Here are a few pictures, just click on them for bigger versions.

Adventure #2: Cross Country Adventures

I love the US and I have done quite a bit of travel around the west and have had my fair share of adventures throughout the Rockies including climbing 14,000 + foot mountains in Colorado and Utah and exploring the Deserts of the Southwest. Here are a few examples:

Adventure # 3: International Adventure.

After living in several parts of Brazil for two years, I have since returned to and have participated in jungle expeditions in the Atlantic Rainforest as well as general backpacking and adventure travel on the beautiful coasts and countryside of Brazil. I have also been to Mexico several times and have been able to visit the breeding grounds of the Gray whales in Baja Mexico. I recently backpacked through Central America where I did everything from exploring active volcanoes in guatemala to virgin rainforest in Honduras. I was also able to stay with an indigenous Garifuna community on a small island off of the coast of Honduras. Here are some pictures.

Well, Degree, I have about a million other pictures and stories that I could tell, but this is all I am going to put on here. Feel free to look through the rest of the blog and you may get a better idea of who I am.

Steve, The Alligator.

2010-03-15T16:38:00.005-06:00

September 4th 2006 was a rough day for me, a real rough one. On that tragic day, Steven Robert Irwin met a tragic fate after encountering the wrong end of a stingray in Australia. Steve was somewhat of a hero to me and I did not take his death well. I tend to get a little drastic when upset and after about five minutes of talking with my good friend Grant, we purchased an alligator in memory of the Crocodile Hunter. Our little bundle of joy arrived a few days later in the mail.
We quickly named out new roommate Steve in honor of our fallen comrade, and quickly fell in love with him.

We also quickly learned that Steve was just as outgoing as his namesake and he quickly made friends with most of his visitors (with a few exceptions).

Steve hated Greg

Steve grew about a foot a year and after three years he had just about outgrown his cage and we had a real nasty little pet on our hands. Once cute Steve was now a hissing, biting, mouse-munching machine, but I loved him more than ever. If you never saw Steve eat when he was in his prime, you missed out on a real impressive spectacle. Steve would not just eat the live mice we threw in, he would play with them and then destroy them. Once, while feeding steve a chunk of raw chicken, I grew a little too comfortable with him and decided to feed him with my hands. My finger learned that day what it felt to be a mouse in Steve's realm, a mistake that was not repeated.

Steve relishing in his victory

In the summer of Steve's fourth birthday, his future remained unclear. A new cage was under construction but we were having issues finding someone that would be able to keep Steve at their house. The difficult decision was finally made to kill, skin and eat our little friend. It may sound a little harsh but after killing and eating pet chickens and ducks growing up, I felt like it was the right thing to do. Two weeks before the planned Steve-B-Que, I left to go home to Montana for a week. Enter Patrick.
Much like a cartoon fox that slides into a chicken coop to steal what is not his, Patrick (a kid that lived at my house) stole my Steve while I was gone. Patrick took Steve to an animal shelter and I'm pretty sure they sent him to an alligator farm. No goodbyes, no last pictures, no closure. Needless to say, I am fairly upset with this Patrick kid and I think it is time he got his comeuppance. If you would like to let Patrick what you think of him, here is his phone number: (I REMOVED THE NUMBER FOR LEGAL REASONS)
If you call or text him, do not mention this post or me or Steve as I am not sure as to the legal ramifications of owning a pet alligator. A good example of a text would be:

-Hi Patrick, I think you are cute
-Who is this?
-I don't really think you are cute, in fact I think you are a liar and a spineless excuse for a man.

That is just an example, feel free to get creative. Just try not to mention how you got his number.

Here is one of the last pictures ever taken of Steve with both of his parents:

Miss ya buddy, hope you escape and eat someone.

Juice

2010-03-03T16:20:00.003-07:00

Growing up, my dad always told me that he was in Vietnam the whole year before I was born. I'm not sure what he was doing in Vietnam during the early 80's but it does bring up some interesting questions.

Babies are just the silliest little things in the world. I can't wait to have a couple. My buddy took his baby bowling with us last night and I was pretty interested in it. Jack, the baby in question, was a little uneasy at the lanes and when my buddy pulled out his bottle to make his formula, Jack instantly had a new goal. His single, unifying purpose was that bottle and he literally wanted nothing else in the world . . . just the bottle. What I wouldn't give for that kind of concentration and focus. My focus seems to be at record lows and I get distracted by just about anything. I will walk to the fridge to get some juice and will forget what I was going there for when I get to the kitchen.

Speaking of juice, I love it. Recently while in Central America I was sitting at a table with several Israelis and they offered me something to drink. I politely declined but asked them if there was any juice around and I remarked "I love juice." Their english while great, was not perfect and they misunderstood me and thought I had said that I love Jews. "We are Jews!" they replied, to which I replied "No. . . Juice, Juuuice." They gave me a confused look and that was that. Maybe they don't drink juice in Israel and if that is the case, Im not going to Israel anytime soon.

Brazil has so many wonderful juices that you just have to see to believe. If there is one thing that Brazil does right it is juice, they have the juice situation under control.

Some people think that Kool-Aid is not juice and those people are dumb. Is it fruity? Does it go down smooth? Does it stain your lips? Well, then it is effing juice. Accept it.

Speaking of big red stained lips, did anybody watch the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters as a kid? I watched that crap religiously until this guy came along:

WAY TOO SCARY

WTF Ghostbusters?! Here I am, an unassuming 9 year old boy just enjoying my Saturday morning cartoons when the boogeyman comes slinking out of some kids closet on my TV and ruins my life. Look at his goat legs! Just look at them! That is some scary stuff. Needless to say, I was convinced that he was living in my closet and started sleeping on the basement floor in a sleeping bag instead of my room. That went on for years and I still love sleeping in sleeping bags to this day.

I shaved my mustache.

Famous Mustaches

2010-02-21T21:30:00.003-07:00

For the last month or more, I have been cultivating my mustache and I have been real pleased with the results. This is not the first time that I have embarked on such a journey and it shall not be the last. My mustache has cost me some friends and it has won me some as well. Growing a mustache has some amazing advantages . . . it warms your lips, it retains water, it tickles face when you kiss someone and it tastes like whatever you ate that day. These reasons among others show why many great men, and a few women have decided to devote their lives and their careers to their mustaches. Lets take a minute and look at some of the more famous mustaches that have ever existed. See if you can guess the mustache, the first couple will be easy and then they are going to get a bit harder.

Could you guess them? Well here are the answers in order and you can click on the names for the full picture. Starting at the top from the left:

Hulk Hogan: Successful wrestler, most of his opponents were intimidated by his impressive handlebar.

Ghandi: Skinny Indian pacifist, full handsome mustache.

Mr. Miyagi: Taught Daniel-Son the sacred art of Karate, the mustache did most of the teaching.

Ringo Starr: Drummer for some band, sporting the "sad" mustache.

Burt Reynolds: Wore the lifelong mustache, which is highly commendable.

John Waters: Pencil mustache, gayest mustache ever.

Yanni: International superstar, his mustache smells like gyros.

Brad Pitt: Me and Brad grow the same mustache.

Here is me with mine:

As you can see, my mustache lacks the girthy fullness of many of these famous mustaches. This problem has brought me and my mustache to a critical turning point. Do I commit to my mustache and continue to let him grow unfettered? Or do I bid farewell and shave him into oblivion? I am leaving it up to you, faithful blog readers. If I get ten comments either way (shave or cultivate) I will abide by your wishes. Feel free to weigh in. I would also like to ask the boarding school of girls that seems to read my blog to take a class vote. Preferably with your heads down so you cannot see what your classmates are voting.

Mid-Life Crisis

2010-02-09T16:16:00.001-07:00

Looks like I am only living to be 52, which is fine by me. Thats about 15 years longer than my mom would have guessed. I say this because I am now 26 and I seem to be going through my mid-life crisis. Broke up with the girlfriend (fiance?), quit my job and am thinking about moving to Maui to study coral. All the pieces seem to be in place and I'm pretty sure that my life is half way over. Another thing that seems to happen to a lot of men when they go through said crisis, is that they become very attracted to young "trophy" wives, which brings us to story number one:
A week or two ago, I was with some friends in Park City at a restaurant and I fell in love with the hostess. After taking a few walks around the lobby to spy on her I noticed her glancing in my direction as well, and I decided that it was meant to be. I managed to inform this young lady that she was indeed very beautiful and while she seemed flattered, she quickly asked me how old I was. After informing her of my age, she, crestfallen, told me that she was 16. Our conversation ended on that note. The sweet young girl did leave me a nice note when I left, but 16 is a line that I will never cross, mid-life crisis or not. She was beautiful though.

I am getting pretty darn good at jump-roping.

Since writing the first half of this post a few days ago, I have decided to dive head first into my mid-life crisis. I put all of my money into a high risk stock, I am seriously considering moving to puerto rico and I am proposing to every girl that I go out with. . . the ol' shotgun approach. And all these developments are going great, except for the proposing thing, most girls seem to think that is weird. The thing that has been the hardest for me during this crisis is not having any kids. I seriously cannot wait to have kids and mess with them. Growing up, my dad kept his shannanigans to a minimum until my mom would leave on vacation. Then the gloves came off. One of his favorite games to play with us was to put puddles of rubbing alcohol on each of our legs (including him) then we would light them on fire and see who could go the longest before swatting out the fire. I repeated this game once on my own with a tennis ball and gasoline thrown into the mix, with disastrous results.

There is the whole clan back in the day. Jeff was just a twinkle in my parent's eyes

We also only ate cereal on these weeks that my mom was in california and when the cereal ran out, we got creative. I distinctly remember my mom calling me to check up once and when I told her that I was eating dry bisquick out of a measuring cup, she decided it was probably time to come home. Another time, my dad bought 12 chickens without telling my mom while she was gone, then we ate them the next year when she left again.
I hope my kids like adventure. . . and dinosaurs, because that is what they are getting.

Hobbies and a bit of business.

2010-01-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

I am a man of many hobbies and I excel at being mediocre at most of them. Recent events have motivated me to take up a few new hobbies and a few of them seem to be going alright. Fly-fishing will always be my passion, but winter is tough on fishing and here are the new hobbies I am looking at. First of all, a friend and I are currently writing a screenplay that is sure to be a major motion picture. The script is in it's early stages but I predict big things and I will keep you updated. Second, I have taken up a old hobby of mine, thinking . . . with my brain. Lately, my brain has not been doing much of the thinking and I think it is time to start again. The male brain is a curious thing and I have included a diagram of a normal male brain that I made some years ago for oreo night.

Another hobby that has been taking up a bit of my time is painting. My older brother Cyrus was a bit part of the inspiration for this one. My current painting is of a grizzly bear and a few other things that will remain unmentioned for good reasons. Here is the work in progress:

Most of my paintings will probably be bear, trout or dinosaur related.

I had a real interesting couple weeks. . . real interesting. Amid the chaotic ups and downs, a few ghosts of my pasts have emerged, Steve being one of them. You may remember Steve as the dancing, French-Canadian rugby player that used to contribute to the blog. Me and Steve knew each other for years before we decided to blog and we thought that we were ready for it. We were wrong. After blogging together, our relationship grew strained and we drifted apart. I even think I may have fallen asleep the last time Steve blogged me. Divorcing Steve from the Blog was no easy choice but it had to be done. Needless to say I was surprised to see Steve on a recent outing to do some target shooting on Martin Luther King Day (a strange day to do it if you ask me.) It was nice to catch up and we even discussed Myotherblogisyourmom a bit, but those bridges have been burnt and Steve will not be returning to the Blog.

Oh, and jump-roping, I also started jump-roping at the gym.

Let me know if any of you have any other ideas for hobbies I should start. My mom thinks the hobby I should be working on is getting into Optometry School, so we have that one covered.

Resolutions

2010-01-12T15:13:00.005-07:00

2010 is shaping up to be a pretty outstanding year already and I owe that completely to my resolutions. My first resolution was to get someone from Japan to look at my blog and I accomplished it yesterday. Over 3000 people visited Myotherblogisyourmom last year and we had visitors from over 70 countries, but no Japanese . . . until yesterday. My guess is that it is because I posted something about whaling and we all know how much those little sushi-eaters love whaling. So thank you Mr. or Mrs Japanese visitor, you truly made my day.

That's one resolution down.

Here are some of the other ones.

-Fight a wolf

-Ignore one of my roommates for a week

-Buy a Chinchilla

-Skip a rock 47 times

-Clone a Dinosaur

-Psych myself up and then watch Brokeback Mountain

-Wake up crying in the shower at least twice

-Skin my chinchilla and make a glove or steering wheel cover

-Rescue Steve the alligator

-Seduce my friend Manti

So those are my resolutions and yes some of them are pretty gay, which is something I have been flirting with for a while, becoming gay that is. Hard as I struggle to understand women, I seem to fail for the most part. I'm not complaining, just resigning. Part of the problem may be that I picked the most inexplicably unstable woman to try and understand, actually that was probably the majority of the problem. So maybe I will hold off on homosexuality for the time being. Hmm, you guys just witnessed me confuse and then rediscover my sexuality. Well now I am rambling and should probably go. I am sure I will be adding to my resolutions and I will let you know how they go.

I want to congratulate AMERICA (besides Wyoming and South Dakota who can go F themselves), Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil as the most frequent visitors to the blog these year. Here is the map showing where most of our visitors came from (Countries that are green)

An Ode To My Brothers.

2010-01-07T18:15:00.002-07:00

If my brothers were animals, they would be unicorns.

Speaking of unicorns, this old chinese lady obviously is some sort of unicorn/human offspring because she has been growing a horn since 2003. Her family wants to cut it off, probably to grind up and sell in Thailand for money. Those crazy Thais are always looking for the new thing.

I wonder what her Boone and Crockett score would be?

Things that need to stop

2010-01-06T15:37:00.007-07:00

Ok friends, it's 2010 and enough is enough. A few of you have been asking for a post, so here we go. This is one I wrote a few months ago but never got around to finishing. 2010 has some potential to be a decent year but here are five things that we need to do away with this year.

1. Captain Paul Watson.

Paul is the "captain" of the Steve Irwin, a boat full of worthless hippies that chases Japanese people around and tries to stop them from whaling by throwing bottles at their ship. You would have a hard time getting a Toyota Prius to stop by employing the techniques used by the "Sea Shepherds" let alone a huge whaling vessel over 100 feet long. Who really cares if the Japanese kill 900 whales every year anyway? They kill less than .1% of the population of minke whales in the Antarctic Sea, just let them have their fun. Paul Watson is nothing but a bloated, egotistical, racist that has nothing better to do than save try and save the animal that he most closely resembles.

Somewhere a smelly hippie is crying

2. College Students that Know Best.

I recently graduated from college and I learned a lot, I truly did. But I also learned that I do not know nearly as much as a lot of people, including most politicians. BYU, my alma mater, is full of kids that seem to think that their 100 level Poly-Sci class has somehow qualified them for comprehensive political analysis and criticism. Sure, Obama has probably made some mistakes guys, but something tell me that his advisors and cabinet are a little bit more prepared than someone that spends most of their time on Facebook and watching "Family Guy."

Normal college expert spending some free time pondering our nation's future

3. Marching Bands

I should clarify, I do not dislike a good marching band at a football game, but if I hear the BYU marching band play that Star Wars song one more time, I am going to die a little. Learn a new song. Please.

4. People that do not Believe in Dinosaurs.

If you do not believe in dinosaurs, you are stupid. Sorry to be so frank, but someone needs to tell you. Not only are you stupid, but you are boring because you do not want to believe in the most awesome thing that has ever happened on this planet.

5. People That Hate Wolves.

I am from Montana and I kid you not, every day there is an article about wolves in our local newspaper. We recently had a wolf hunt in Montana and Idaho and it was a great idea and that is because wolves are so incredibly bad a** that they literally destroy just about every animal that they come across. This year, two wolves attacked a flock of sheep in Montana and killed 120 sheep within a matter of minutes and they did not even eat any of them. Just killed them, good and proper. Hunting wolves to control them every year is a great idea, hating them and wanting them completely gone is ridiculous. They are the ninja of the animal kingdom.

There you go. There are plenty of things that need to change but I want to take a second and congratulate everyone on something that has changed. It has been MONTHS since I have even seen a trace of a moose and the world is truly a better place for it. Good work.

Poverty

2009-04-03T13:36:00.017-06:00

Two days, two posts... new record for me. Yesterday and today were the first days in a while that I have had any time so I am giving you faithful readers a double dip.

I recently had a little debate with my dear mother about my family's financial situation while I was growing up. I had brought up the fact that we lived like poor folk and she vehemently argued that we were not poor. I agreed that we were in no way living in the depths of extreme poverty but that we did do a lot of things that are common for poor people to do. I had the best childhood ever. I literally spent everyday outside exploring the ponds and rivers and wild Montana forests, so please do not think I am complaining. But we were poor. To bolster my argument I have prepared some evidence that will help you the reader decide if we were poor or not.

Exhibit A: The Single Wide Trailer

Home sweet trailer

Undoubtably the single most important piece of evidence in proving our poverty. This is the "house" that I spent the good part of my first year in, my parents lived in it for several years total. For those of you who are not familiar with trailer speak, a single wide is a trailer that is 14 feet wide. It is, in essence , the poor mans trailer. You could easily fit this whole trailer in our garage.

Exhibit B: Lack of clothes and food.

Right out of Huckleberry Finn

My brother does not even have a shoe on in this picture for pete's sake. Im pretty sure he is wearing a cast but there has to be something to put on that thing. Literally everything I wore as a child was a hand-me-down from my brother Cyrus and later I even wore hand-me-ups from my little brother Jeff. I cant think of a picture that makes two kids look more like hobos. Just take a good long look at Cyrus in this picture. We ate those fish. Do you know how I know? Because they are dead and thats what you do with dead fish. Would I even think of eating a 6 inch fish at this time in my life...No. But that is what you do when you are poor, you eat anything and everything that you can get your hands on.

Our dinners usually consisted of a hamburger patty cooked on the stove with a slice of bread for a bun. On several occasions I ate grape-nuts cereal with water instead of milk. For dessert we would eat chocolate chips. If you have ever eaten a ketchup sandwich, you were poor at one point.

Exhibit C: Homemade Everything.

Seriously, gayest costume ever.

I seriously doubt that if Cyrus could have picked what he wanted to be for Halloween, he would have picked a flamboyantly homosexual cat. But that was a cheap costume. A little black paint, some fake nails, ears and Walla! You have a complex for the rest of your life. If these homemade costumes are not enough to convince you check out these little numbers that we were forced to wear...

100% homemade

How we turned out straight is beyond me. Actually I think these little outfits are pretty funny and I cant wait to make my kids wear crap like this. But did we have money to afford new clothes? No. Take a look at my dads truck if you want more proof from this picture.

Exhibit D: Improvised toys.

No, I did not love sweeping, that's my toy.

Every Poor Kid's dream toy

Nice toys are expensive, so why waste money on toys when your kid loves the dustpan? My parents were lucky to have some pretty imaginative kids because we turned everything into toys. When I was in kindergarten, my favorite thing in the world was to smash rocks against each other so I could see what they looked like inside. No Nintendo necessary here, just give me two rocks and I was ecstatic . Me and my brother used to spend hours throwing a tennis ball back and forth on the couch and we loved it. It was like friggin Christmas. Man, we were poor.

Exhibit E: This picture.

This one just speaks for itself

If that isn't the picture of slight poverty, I don't know what is. My Grandpa Cyrus was classic.

So there you have it. My mom says that we had plenty of money but that it all just went towards paying everything off. I guess those payments on the 1971 Oldsmobile were pretty intense...haha. But I don't really care because if there is one thing that I learned from my childhood it is that you don't need nice things to be extremely happy.

Bite Me Stephanie Meyer.

2009-04-02T13:04:00.007-06:00

I want to preface this blog by clearly stating that I DO NOT agree with media portrayals of what the perfect woman is supposed to be. I am merely making a comparison. So ladies, don't get your panties in a knot.

Recently in my bioethics class, we have been discussing the pressure that young women feel to become like the flawless women that are seen in movies and tv. I feel for you girls, I really do, but lets look at what we men have to try and become.

When girls are growing up, they are bombarded with movie after movie of the humble girl falling in love with the handsome strapping prince. Due to this, every little girl wants to marry a prince. Later, as the "real world" slowly crushes the fragile dreams of these young girls, they gradually come to accept that they are not going to marry an actual prince, but hopefully just a guy that acts like one. This is an expectation that can be lived up to. . . but oh how fast it disappears because along comes someone like Stephanie Meyer and she ruins everything.

Unless you have been living in a cave or Montana for the last few years, you have probably heard of the Twilight series. It is about a lonely, beautiful girl that falls in love with a handsome vampire. Great. Thanks Stephanie. For you girls to live up to the image of the perfect woman, you have to go to the gym a bit and eat right... I have to turn into a bloodthirsty creature of the night.

I cannot think of a single actress or media figure that is adored by men because of the character she plays. Jessica Alba is hot...plain and simple. She can be playing a rich girl or a homeless person, a nerd or a superhero and I will still think she is smoking hot. But take the guy that plays Edward the vampire, did any girls give this guy a second thought before he was a vampire? the ultimate bad boy? No they did not. Were people running around with Cedric Diggory t-shirts on after he played him in Harry Potter... of course not. The reason he is so desired right now is because he played a mysterious brooding vampire from a popular book. Big shoes to fill. I know a handful of girls that I think are just as pretty as any hollywood starlet...good luck finding a handsome vampire, girls. Im pretty sure I have seen a few skinny ones hanging out around hot topic.

Your average vampire couple

Don't get me wrong. Robert what's his face is a handsome dude and I doubt they would have gotten the same reaction had they cast Andy Dick as Edward. And I don't even think that this Twilight craze is a bad thing...you girls need to have your fun too. But the fact remains that when it comes to why he has caused such a stir in girl's hearts, it is because of the idea he presents, not his actual image, and an idea can be much harder to live up to than a physical image...especially when that idea involves royalty or the walking undead. Not only is this image unreasonable, it is a little shady. If you girls run around looking for the dark, mysterious shut-ins, you are going to wind up with a perv.

There is a face you should trust

Please don't miss-understand, Im not bitter...not one bit actually. Im very happy with what God gave me. Really the only point that I am trying to make is that sometimes we men get the short stick when it comes to media representation of what girls want. So girls, if you would rather be with a lean (skinny) , fly-fishing, movie buff with a weakness for flannel and big eyes, than a bad-boy vamp-like imagination, let me know (but you better look like Jessica Alba..haha).

Disgust

2009-02-19T17:26:00.009-07:00

Disgust is one of those words that if you say it enough, it looses its meaning. Try it. So it really is not a word that I throw around too often. Not too many things disgust me. I was greatly blessed to have been raised in a family of all boys (aside from my wonderful mother of course) and the experience led to a general hardening and acceptance of things that are found to be disgusting by the general public. However, there are still some real gross things out there that really get to me. Here are a few of them:

Smacking: My number one pet peeve and the thing I get most disgusted with. You could literally eat a pile of your own crap in front of me and I would probably be ok. But if you smacked your mouth while you ate it, I would want to kill you. I find loud mouth smacking to be so disgusting and aggravating that I literally have to leave the room when it occurs. The only noise I hate more is the voice of my least favorite French-Canadian (Mrs. Dion.) The worst part about hating smacking so much is that when you tell someone that you hate it, they invariably have to make the noise right in front of you just to make sure they know what you are talking about. My roommate Zane (a notorious smacker) did this the other day and I had to restrain myself from punching him in the face repeatedly. ( it should be noted that this sound does not gross me out when I am touching mouths with a girl)

Obesity growths: Morbid obesity on its own does not disgust me. I actually think it is kinda silly. But something really disgusting does happen to the morbid obese, and that is the appearance of weird growths and boils. When someone gets so fat that they can't really move anymore, they start to get weird red boils and rashes and crap starts to grow on them. That stuff gets me. Click Here to see it.

Two words: Phlegm and Discharge. Don't use either of these words...there are better options out there.

Cutesy fart terms: Sometimes when someone farts, they think it is crude to say "I farted" or "I ripped one" and so on. So instead they say something like "I passed gas" or " I tooted." One of my friends even took it as far as to say " I fluffed." The image of my friend pushing one out and it making a fluff sound as it left was enough to make me hate terms like these. Farting is crude and funny, so should be the words that describe it.

Chimpanzee butts: I don't really know what is going on there, but it is weird and pretty gross.

CUT!

2009-02-12T11:28:00.004-07:00

I deleted my last post. Why, you may ask? Because it sucked. I re-read it and was not pleased with myself. In fact, I scrolled down and saw that I repeated some ideas in it that were already in a previous post (and that one was pretty mediocre too.) I think the readers of MYOTHERBLOGISYOURMOM have come to expect more of me than that. I mean, who am I; Steve? So I deleted the post... cut it from the team so to speak. I have that kind of power around here. That brings us to an important point.... Steve. Steve has shown very little interest in the blog as of late. So what is to be done? Should Steve suffer the same fate as the aforementioned post? Should we cut him? Steve is really good at a lot of things. He excels at softball, rugby, dancing, broadway trivia and being french. But Steve does not excel at MYOTHERBLOGISYOURMOM. In fact, I do not even feel it when steve blogs me. So should we cut him completely? Should he remain a figure-head on the blog but be stripped of his "writing" privileges? Or am I being too harsh and should I just let things be? Leave a comment and weigh in. I personally want him to stay, but maybe be punished for a bit. Let me know what you think.

We hold Steve's fate in our hands

Some signs that you have been in Utah Valley too long

2009-01-24T17:50:00.008-07:00

Lets start with the apologies. I promised that I would do another post right after 5 comments on the previous post. We hit that mark a few days ago and I am only now posting again. This may have caused some frustration for some of you and I apologize. Steve is no good to us anymore and while he remains an essential part of the blog, I made some crazy promises and I needed some help. So I found a suitable replacement for Steve and hired a baby and a chimp to help me think of ideas and type them. I did not have the money to hire any real people and these two work for lollipops.

So lets see what kinds of ideas this all powerful think-tank has come up with!

10 Signs you have been in Provo too long:

You have ever used or heard the phrase: "Cuddle-slut"
You can recite from memory all of the movies at the dollar theater
You think UVU is a "liberal" school.
You really like Ultimate Fighting
They know your order when you walk into Smart Cookie
You know what ice-blocking is and enjoy it
Your roommates tell you that a scavenger hunt is a good idea for a date
You go to Vegas to ride the rides
You complain about the dating scene and the general hotness of the girls (Go to Montana and come back an this place will look like the playboy mansion)
You have a facebook for yourself and one for your pet alligator.

Now don't go thinking that this post means that we don't like Provo. In fact I love it here. But i think we can all admit that Utah is a silly place. Anywhoo, once we get five (or a few more) posts, me and my crack team of journalists will get to work on the next post. Here is a little something to tide you over. I don't know where I got this picture or who these people are, but the kid in the bottom left cracks me up.

Pardon me sir, but you seem to have misplaced your balls.

2009-01-15T20:17:00.009-07:00

Well, the people have spoken. We reached our five comments quickly and as promised, I am posting again. Tonight I thought I would talk about something that has been bothering me for some time...hipsters. Now, some of you may point out that I myself sometimes express some hipster tendencies. I listen to indie rock and wear vans; I have a large collection of flannels and fairly skinny jeans and I am a sucker for a hipster girl. So am I a hipster? No. There are a few key things that separate myself and other people like myself from the hipster crowd and undoubtably the most important thing that causes this separation are testicles. Most hipsters are in fact completely without balls. No one knows exactly how or when this happens, but it does. Some would postulate that it is an effect of the tight pants, but they are mistaken. In my humble opinion, I feel that the balls finally recede and die when the last inkling of manliness seeps out of the hipster. Hipsters are notoriously useless and they seem to be without a trace of what makes them men (testosterone). Ask a hipster to change a tire sometime and then sit back and enjoy the pandemonium. So aside from direct inspection of the groin, how can you tell who is a hipster and who is not? Many people resemble hipsters...people like surfers, skateboarders and even the occasional fly-fisherman. So how do you tell? Well, here is tip number 2: All of the people I just listed are good at something. The only thing most hipsters are good at is being pompous and spending money. We all have talents that set us apart from one another and make us individuals. Hipsters do not. They have convinced themselves that they are the most non-conformist, individual people around when they are actually just conforming to all of the other hipsters and even regurgitating past trends from other decades (the 80s and 60s are two of the most popular). For example, most hipsters will openly admit to being huge fans of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Jurassic 5 and Pink Floyd, when in truth they have probably only heard these bands while they were playing over the loudspeakers at Urban Outfitters.

Another dead giveaway of a hipster is their faux commitment to being "open minded" and "artsy." These two words get tossed around so much in the hipster community that they have lost all meaning. Being open minded pretty much equates to accepting other people that are strange and useless and being so ridiculously close minded to the majority of the population that it is staggering. Plus, hipsters that think they are "artsy" have been responsible for some of the worst music, art and clothing trends of this century. Wearing a V-neck does not make you artistically talented...sorry.

(Ooh. what an artsy picture)

A final trick for hipster identification, hipsters refuse to label themselves as hipsters. This is a unique trait to Hipsterdom. All other counter-culture movements of our century have been proudly embraced by their members with a sense of pride. Hippies were proud to be hippies, punks were proud to be punks and so on. But call a hipster a hipster and be prepared for some resentment. Im not quite sure why they are so reluctant to be labeled, but my money is on the shame associated with the lack of Balls.

So next time you see your friendly neighborhood hipster convulsing and gyrating to the new nintendo sounding trip hop, you now should be able to quickly identify and avoid them. And if you find yourself turning into a hipster, just go out and do something manly. Shoot a gun, light a fire, grow some nuts.

Good News!

2009-01-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

2009 is not shaping up to be so great for this guy right here. I have been going through a bit of a rough stretch here recently and while Im trying to nurse the withered prune that used to be my heart back to health, at least I am not alone. I check out the news every day to see what is happening in this world of ours and usually the news is pretty bad. Our economy is crashing, wars are raging and celebrities are setting lower and lower standards for society. So I decided to give you guys some good news to make you feel a little bit better. Here are a few things to feel good about:

There will never be Gay Marriage in Montana ( I guess that might not be good news for some of you...sorry)
OJ Simpson is in jail.
James did not break his hip when he was dropped
Scones are easy to make and delicious to eat
Dinosaurs existed and are awesome
Nerds fall in love too
Global Warming is a bunch of codswallup
They recently found twice as many gorillas as we thought existed
Non-native Iguanas are taking over Southern Florida
My bird pooped on Greg
You never get tired of using a megaphone
Steve the alligator is going to make a handsome wallet
200 moose starve to death every winter in Anchorage
You can buy a baby bear for 600 bucks
A kangaroo scrotum makes a great coin purse
Paris Hilton is going to be back in Utah soon and I am ready for round two
I write a great love poem... ask Grant
Great White Sharks jump out of the water whilst hunting seals
Fly Fishing continues to be the best hobby in the entire world

Thats enough to make me feel better. if its not enough for you, here are a couple pictures that always make me feel happy:

P.S. For those of you who actually read and like this blog, sorry I have not been posting much. From now on, whenever I get a least five comments I will do another post. That way I know people are reading.

Oh Steve...stick to rugby and musicals. Leave dinosaurs to the real men

2008-11-16T11:55:00.006-07:00

Raise your hand if you love dinosaurs. If your hand is not raised, you might as well stop reading right now, in fact just stop reading this blog altogether. Lets be honest, who doesn't like dinosaurs. Ever since I was a wee lad, I was obsessed with these ancient beasts and even now my bedspread is dinosaur themed and I have a dinosaur poster on the wall. If a movie comes out that involves dinosaurs eating people I will watch it and pay top-dollar for it. People constantly tell me about the decreasing quality of the "Jurassic Park" movies. I don't care if they make Jurassic Park 17...if it involves people getting terrorized by dinosaurs I am there.

So lets take a moment and talk about something that bothers me. There are some people out there that don't believe in dinosaurs. These are the kind of people that tell little kids that Santa Claus doesn't exist just to see the expression on their crestfallen faces. When someone starts to tell me the reasons why they don't believe in dinosaurs, I immediately tell them to stop. We had a lot of people give their lives in the fight against communism and this kind of thinking is a step backward. Unfortunately Steve is one of these people. Now I will be the first to admit that there is something a little fruity about loving dragons and orcs and such and that is because they are creatures of myth, but dinosaurs really were around. That is why Steve's declaration of unbelief shocked me so, he was taking something that was a big part of my childhood and turning into myth. Plus, it is just a ridiculous claim...where did all of these bones and footprints and fossil records come from Steve? Other planets? Think about it Steve, do you really believe that? Because that makes about as much sense as a gay pride parade in Montana.

Unfortunately Steve is incredibly stubborn on this issue and because science and logic does not appeal to him, I fear that the only way for him to learn the truth is for Broadway to come out with a musical that features the scientific evidences of dinosaurs. Only then will Steve actually pay attention to the facts...if we can get Zac Effron or Meryl Strep to star that should help.

Politics

2008-11-06T17:12:00.004-07:00

Jeez...what an election season. I cant help but feel like we were picking between a douche and a turd sandwich. But the douche won and I will proudly support him as my president. The turd sandwich did have a pretty hot running mate however, and I will miss seeing her on the news every day.

President elect Obabma, I imagine you read my blog so I have a few basic suggestions for your presidency:

1. Try to pass some legislation banning the show "the Hills" from being broadcast and possibly shipping all of the "stars" of the show to Guantanamo.

2. Create a wall with French Canada. Forget Mexico, its our fruity neighbors to the northeast that should really be kept out. Celine Dion should not be allowed to step foot on American soil ever again. Steve's citizenship should also be severely questioned

3. Put some funding into the stuff they were researching in Jurassic Park. Those guys were onto something.

4. Get rid of Iowa and North Dakota

5. Allow for the systematic killing of all moose. Do not restrict Moose hunting in any way, in fact, make it a law that people that live in Moose infested forests are required to carry high powered rifles at all times.

6. Tell Grant to stop watching Oprah. He knows he should stop and I worry about him.

Bear Grylls is better than you

2008-09-14T20:12:00.003-06:00

Let me tell you about something that bothers me. Every time I watch the show "Man vs Wild" with friends, someone always has to make the comment that Bear Grylls actually stays in hotels and has people there to help him. If you are unfamiliar with the show, Bear Grylls is this English guy that goes out into different areas of the world with his camera crew and shows us how to survive in hostile environments. Recently though, it was discovered that sometimes while filming a show, he would stay in hotels and whatnot. This made a lot of people mad and they claimed that he was a "fake." Well, I was watching the show the other day and he caught and killed a rattlesnake, gutted it, and then peed in its hollow sock of a body. A few hours later, when he was thirsty, he drank the pee from the rattlesnake tube. He drank his own urine/rattlesnake guts...I dont care if this guy is staying the ritziest hotels and eating filet mignon for dinner, he is a bad a** and my hero. Bear Grylls deserves the man of the year award and I am going to write him in as my vote for president. I bet when his wife has a baby, he eats the placenta afterward and knows exactly how much protein it contains.

Where's Steve?

2008-08-19T19:40:00.006-06:00

Steve has disappeared. when the Sea Dragons were disqualified from the BYU intermural program, Steve; as captain, was dealt a crushing blow and was banned from itermurals permanently. Steve did not handle the news well and has since vanished from once "happy" Provo valley. Much like Waldo before him, Steve is no doubt wandering far away lands with no intention of being found. A trap was recently set for him in the form of a mud volleyball tournament. We all know how much Steve enjoys playing mud volleyball and how much more he enjoys watching the teams of young boys as they slip and slide around in the brown goo. But Steve did not show. His roommate Manti insisted that Steve had traveled to New Zealand with his family, and while I know that Steve does often fantasize about being a hobbit and walking the Mordor trail in NZ ( see picture) I doubt that Steve did indeed make such a trip.

Steve the Hobbit

So where is he!? Well, I had to find out for myself and decided to start out across the U.S. in order to track him down. I know how much Steve loves girly musicals and figured New York was as likely a place to find him as any. Four days of driving later, I arrived in the Big Apple but was distressed to find the theater where "Mary Poppins" was playing completely Steve-less. Disheartened, I returned home and issued a silent prayer that my Steve would be returned to me.

What could possibly cause such an absence? What force could possibly hold our beloved Steve so captivated that he would nary answer his phone, nor return a single text message. Then the answer hit me like a ton of bricks. I grabbed my keys and rushed to my car. When I burst into the theater, I saw him, sitting in a pool of his own urine and defecation and watching "Mamma Mia" for the 120th consecutive time. The mystery of why nobody had seen him had been solved and Steve was slowly weened off of his obsession and has been returned to us.

Sea Dragons: 0 My Beard: 1

2008-06-20T21:14:00.004-06:00

Well, it has been months since our last entry and I must apologize for the lack of attention to the blog. My summer has been wrought with travels through this great country of ours and I have neglected the frail child that is "my other blog is your mom." But I am on the road in the midwest right now and this part of our country sucks enough to make me turn my attention back to my blog. Lets catch you up on a few things: We lost softball, but at least we lost with some flair. The referees broke up the fight but had it continued, no doubt we would have laid waste to the much smaller, weaker team. There is no fighting allowed in BYU intermurals and we were of course disqualified. I personally cannot see a better way that our season could have ended. The true fury of the Sea Dragons was witnessed that night and Im certain that that team will think twice before crossing us again. On the plus side, my beard could not be happier about our loss. The rigid Nazis that run BYU intermurals have banned any sort of facial hair outside of a mustache, so during softball season my face generally remains about as hairless as pre-pubescent balls. But since the fight, my beard has enjoyed unprecedented growth and I am beginning to look a bit like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Aside from that, our summer here in Provo has been one of the worst on record, highlighted only by a few trips to Montana. On the plus side, I have not seen a moose since late may and I am starting to think that people have gotten the point and are eradicating these pesky ungulates. Good work people, good work.

I Need a Shirt (wes)

2008-05-21T12:33:00.006-06:00

As the great age of exploration started centuries ago, mariners would cross great distances on ships in order to reach the far corners of the earth. Sometimes these men would become lost at sea and strange tales of monsters and beasts would surround their mysterious disappearances. The most fearsome of the beasts of the sea is of course the terrible Sea Dragon. Nary a man survived to tell his tale after meeting with the Sea Dragon and that is why we have named our intramural softball team after this formidable monster. Intramural softball is the best thing that ever happened to BYU (possibly aside from the class "world bird families"). Our team this year seems to be vastly improved on last year. We have traded Grant Barnes for the newer, sleeker Barnes model, Caleb, and we have also managed to keep morale at an all time high by consistently taunting the other team. Our stalwartly captain Steve has managed to suppress his french blood and has coached us to several victories (a feeling the french are not usually familiar with). All in all, we now see ourselves as practically unbeatable and the coveted Intramural champions T-shirt seems to be as good as mine. In my 4 and a half years at BYU so far, I have longed for one of these shirts and I think this season is my best shot at it. I would happily trade me degree for it and if we do not win this year, I plan on dropping out of school and spending four or five hours at the batting cages everyday, and I expect that the rest of the Sea Dragons will do so as well.

Moose update:

I recently saw a moose as I was driving back from Montana. It did not attack us.

Things that confuse me (posted by wes)

2008-04-30T13:43:00.004-06:00

So I recently was informed that we actually have some people that read our blog and they were disappointed with the lack of posts recently. I apologize for my tardiness and now that finals are over, we should be able to keep things a little more up to date.

I am a fifth year senior now and I have learned a lot in my years at BYU. But there are still many simple things that I find confusing and I wanted to share them. So here we go:

1. Why people name their kids names like "Bubba." If your name is Bubba, you will either end up in Prison or the fast food industry and the blame lies completely on the parents.

2. Pickles. I don't really understand pickles and I don't think I ever will.

3. When people get attacked by a shark or bear or something and they always say, "I don't blame the shark, it was just doing what comes naturally to it." If eating me comes naturally to that shark, then I want it dead. He had his chance to finish me off and now it's my turn.

4. Organic Chemistry. I managed to pass the first semester and have attempted the second part twice. I withdrew from the class both times. Centuries ago, the things that chemists do were considered sorcery, and that's how I still feel about it...sorcery.

5. Tiny dogs that never stop barking. "Hey, you know what would really add to this place? A shill, constant, horrible noise." I could die a happy man if I never saw another Pomeranian.

6. Dolphins' mammal status. I understand that there are certain criteria that make an animal a mammal, and that dolphins meet most of these criteria. But just look at a dolphin, it is obviously a fish.

7.Belly Button Lint. This blue fuzz probably confuses and frustrates me more than anything else on the planet. I harvest an unnatural amount of lint from my belly button everyday, and everyday it remains the same bluish-gray color. Regardless of the color of the shirt, pants and underwear, it is always blue. I have researched on the Internet literally for hours and I could find no concrete answer. If I ever pull a differently colored piece of lint out of my navel, I will be so happy that I will probably frame it.

So that is the list for now. There are other things that confuse me, but for now these were the only ones I could think of.

I've got a snowball with your name on it Al. (posted by Wes)

2008-04-11T13:30:00.005-06:00

I am sitting in a forum right now that I do not understand. I am bored and decided to write about something that has been bothering me lately: the apparent slow-down of global warming. It is now the second week of April and it was snowing this morning when I woke up. Is this the global warming that I was promised? I think not. When I first heard about global warming, I got so excited that I ran out to my SUV, fired it up and left it running all night. But I fear that my efforts were in vain as this seems to be one of the colder springs that I can remember. Isn't March supposed to come in like a lion and leave like a lamb? Well, it sure came in like a lion and it left like a slightly smaller lion. Al Gore is a purveyor of lies and false promises. Everyone that believes in global warming is concerned for Polar bears and other arctic animals. Well, I would publicly like to put out a message to all arctic animals: If it is getting too warm for you guys up there, feel free to come down to Provo, because it is cold as a witches teet down here.

Here is a picture of Al trying to squash the sun with his bare hands,

thats how much this guy hates the warmth.

A Quick Rebuttal (posted by Wes)

2008-04-11T12:44:00.004-06:00

I completely agree with Steve. colorado is SOOO much better than Montana. In fact, I think that everyone that reads this blog should visit or even possibly live in colorado. The more the merrier! There are cuter girls and mediocre professional sports teams in colorado and colorado has more actors that have played vampires too!! How could you not want to go there! The picture Steve posted is of a man, probably a tourist, that was attacked by a grizzly bear in Montana. Do you want to be horribly disfigured or even killed by one of these marauding beasts? Of course not! We all know that there are no such threats in colorado and you will not be molested by any grizzlies in colorado ( I wish we could say the same for people). So it would probably just be in everyone's best interest to just stay out of Montana and leave it to the Mountain Men and Brad Pitt. colorado is much better, just move there. I mean, 8 million+ people cant be wrong, right?

Colorado Envy (posted by Steve)

2008-04-11T11:39:00.009-06:00

There has been some recent activity on this blog regarding some bashing of a certain awesome state known as Colorado. Though Montana is a beautiful place, it leaves much to be desired. Now to the analysis:

MONTANA
# of hot chicks: 1 (wes' mom)
# of professional sports teams: 0 (unless you count lawn bowling)
# of residents who played a cool vampire in a movie: 0
Highest elevation: 12,799
Miles from Canada: 0

COLORADO
# of hot chicks: way more than 1
# of professional sports teams: 7
# of residents who played a cool vampire in a movie: 1 (Lon Chaney)
Highest elevation: 14,433
Miles from Canada: way more than 0

These are just a few points. The list goes on and on. It was even hard to find information on Montana cuz it is so boring. It is a place for canadian wannabes who don't like chicks (other than wes' mom) and hate sports and vampires. Come to Colorado and be enriched by its bounteous beauty!

MONTANA

COLORADO

The choice is yours........

Why Montana is better than colorado (posted by Wes)

2008-03-26T19:20:00.001-06:00

Me and Steve are usually on the same page. We enjoy many of the same things and generally have similar views. But we do differ on some key issues and one of these issues is exactly why Montana is so much better than colorado. Both states are situated in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and both states enjoy the amazing scenery associated with the region. So it is natural that some comparisons would be made. I have put together a list of some reasons why colorado pales in comparison with Montana and hopefully this can put an end to any argument over the matter.

Montana colorado

# of Brad Pitt Movies: 2 # of Brad Pitt Movies: 0

Population: about 950, 000 Population: 4,861,515

# of Grizzly Bears: about 1000 # of Grizzly Bears: 0

# of Sex offenders:1,323 # of Sex offenders: 8,344

4th largest state 8th largest state

Never was part of Mexico Once part of Mexico

# of species of native trout: 5 # of species of native trout: 1

So there you have it, colorado is a crowded smaller state that is full of child molesters and devoid of Grizzly bears and trout and has never been featured in a Brad Pitt movie. Roseanne Barr from the show "Roseanne" is from colorado. Also it is illegal to marry your cousins in Montana, whereas it is completely legal in the great state of colorado (too bad you can't marry your sister there, right Steve?) Here are some pictures to compare the two.

colorado

MONTANA

Steve, really? (posted by Wes)

2008-03-06T12:12:00.001-07:00

Bad form Steve, bad form. As you can see below, Steve St. Pierre recently posted his views on the moose issue. While Steve is a good friend of mine, I do find it necessary to state that his opinion on moose should be regarded as "wrong." Steve is a big city boy and I doubt he has ever even laid eyes on a wild moose. Fortunately for Steve, he probably never will have to come face to face with a moose as their populations in colorado are small and dwindling. Unfortunately for me, moose are thriving in the great pristine state of Montana and one can hardly walk to the mailbox without fear of moose attack.

(the only good moose is a dead moose)

Steve used the word "shorties" in his post. When I first read his post I figured this word must be what male coloradans call "it" when they get a little too excited, but I then realized that he was referring to girls. Well Steve, I will have you know that both times that I was charged by moose, I was fishing by myself and was miles away from any "shorties."

Steve also stated that Moose enjoy helping the elderly cross the street. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have included a link to a video that shows exactly what moose think of the elderly. Just click on the purple words!

Moose Hate the Elderly

If you cannot view the video, it is of an elderly gentleman having the very life relentlessly stomped out of him by a moose . . . for no good reason.

Animals I love pt. 1 (posted by Steve)

2008-03-05T22:06:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot of animal hatred going lately so I thought that I would send a shout out to some of my favorite animals. First off we have the beloved moose. This furry character enjoys eating leaves, crocheting, helping old woman cross the street, and ramming things with their antlers (just to woo the ladies). Some people even name their three legged dogs after our antlered friend (see pic). Meese will attack if provoked by unruly teenagers trying to impress their "shorties". But if left alone they are valued members of the circle of life. They even come in different colors.

Animals I Hate: Part 2 (posted by Wes)

2008-03-04T17:36:00.001-07:00

Koala "bears"

I would like to meet the idiot that first called this little creature a bear.

The Koala is beloved by thousands of Australians and Japanese teenage girls and could be considered a mascot for the land down under. I should clarify that I do not actually hate Koalas as much as I hate the misconceptions associated with these little balls of fluff. A bear can be a terrifying creature, they are full of claws, teeth and muscle. Due to the misnomer of the Koala "bear," many people think that Koalas are indeed a bear and as such, are ferocious and dangerous. Erroneous. The only thing that a koala has ever terrorized is eucalyptus. It would be difficult to imagine an animal that is a greater polar opposite from a bear. People that live in koala infested areas of Australia are instructed to chain up their dogs and keep their cats inside so they do not attack koalas. Thats right, these little p#$$*#s would even even loose in a fight with a cat. Definitely not a bear.

Animals I hate: part 1 (posted by Wes)

2008-03-03T15:55:00.002-07:00

Recently I was thinking about animals that I hate. I have gotten a bit of flak for my hatred towards polar bears and the experience made me think of some other animals that I think we are better off without.

Moose: I probably hate Moose more than I hate polar bears and that is because I know that one day a moose will probably end my life. I spend a good deal of time in the woods of my native Montana and while most animals tend to leave me alone, moose are an important exception. Twice I have been attacked by

moose and both attacks were completely unprovoked on my part( the moose pictured to the right was one of the attackers.) Both times I was charged, I was lucky enough to escape without injury but I was left severely shaken. Why would a moose do such a thing? Because moose are jerks. Plain and simple. They get their kicks by charging unsuspecting fly-fisherman and making them pee their pants. (right after this picture was taken, this moose bit off the cat's head)

Most people tend to fear bears and mountain lions when they go into the forest, I have also had my fair share of encounters with them but never did they attack or threaten me, they minded their own business and so did I. I fear moose . . . they would stomp the very life out a defenseless baby and not even feel bad about it.

My favorite French-Canadian Whore. (posted by Wes)

2008-02-28T18:52:00.001-07:00

Recently I was sitting down at a local restaurant when I heard a Celine Dion song playing loudly on the other side of the street. My dinner was expensive and I did not want it to go to waste, so I crossed the street to politely ask the person to please change the music. Imagine my surprise when I found that it was not a Celine Dion song being played, but rather it was a large deaf man yelling at the top of his lungs while simultaneously smashing a piano with a sledge-hammer and raping an unwilling donkey. I apologized for my mistake and warned him that he might be violating some copyright laws by stealing Celine's signature sound and then I returned to my dinner.

This was not the first time that I had experienced this type of confusion. Once as I was looking through pictures on the internet, I stumbled upon this picture of Celine:

something did seem off though, and Celine seemed to be much better looking than normal and upon closer inspection, I soon realized that the picture was actually of a cow afterbirth. Still not completely convinced, I called Steve and he studied the picture and verified that it was indeed afterbirth and not Celine.

We are straight...I swear. (posted by Wes)

2008-02-28T17:28:00.002-07:00

As if having sex was not enough to be jealous of, all of our married friends have recently started "blogging" each other. Steve and I are not married, not to each other nor to any young ladies, but we still want to blog together. As far as I know, pre-marital blogging is allowed within the rules of our church and society and I assure you that the blogging between Steve and I is completely consensual. Steve is well aware that I am blogging him right now. Usually Steve is busy with Rugby or going on dates with his Sister, so I generally have to take the reins when we blog ... Steve likes it when I am in the drivers' seat.

I do not remember when we first met, but I met Steve through

Grant Barnes. Here are some things I know about Steve:

- He likes to dance and dancing movies (step up, stomp the yard..etc).

- He has large muscles

- He is proud of his unfortunate French heritage and last name

- He is a marginal mini-golfer

- He plays for the 2nd best Rugby team in the nation ... go cougs.

- He rarely picks his nose, but when he does, he gets the job done.

- He is very handsome

Steve is very proud of his impressive physique.

He once posted a picture of he and I on his facebook account that made him look very large compared to me ( see picture). I was at an all-time "skinny" at the time and the mere comparison made Steve look even more brutishly strong and made me look like an Auschwitz survivor. I have since put on some weight and will no longer be Steve's arm candy. Luckily for Steve, I love him very much and was flattered to even be in the same picture as him and the whole experience motivated me to hit the weights in a vain effort to be more "like Steve".

People often ask me what I hate about Steve. You would first guess that I would hate his French blood, but I do not. I find the French to be a silly people but I do not hate most French-Americans ( French-Canadians are a different story).

I am sure that Steve will want to contribute to the blog sooner or later