Outlandish!

My intelligence has been insulted by many movies, but last night we went to see the new Indiana Jones movie and I realized that Hollywood has reached another level of outlandishness. The gundpowder flying down aisles in the warehouse seeking out the magnet, the sword fight while standing on two jeeps driving through the jungle, surviving an atomic blast in a lead-lined refridgerator, an aging professor throwing Russian soldiers around like rag dolls, Indiana and Marion calling each other "dear" and "honey" despite her having been married and not seeing each other for so many years, falling hundreds of feet in waterfall after waterfall...I could go on and on. Granted, it was not supposed to be a serious, scientifically sound movie. But it got to the point where they could have dropped an anvil on Indiana Jones, flattened him like a pancake, and had him stand up and walk away like an accordian and it wouldn't have taken away from the movie.

So I got to reflecting on other ridiculous movies.

King Kong (2005) -- Peter Jackson was trying to out do himself. And he was trying too hard. The giant gorilla is swinging around on vines with like twelve tyrannosaurus rexes trying to eat the girl (apparently they were more concerned with a snack than they were with falling to their deaths) while she repeatedly fell thirty or forty feet without any harm.

Die Another Day (2002) -- James Bond goes off a collapsing glacier cliff and uses the wreckage of his vehicle to windsurf to safety. Yes, windsurf.

Superman (1978) -- Lois dies so Superman turns back time by...making the world spin backwards? That makes no sense at all!

Any Movie Starring Vin Diesel (1999 to present) -- I hope no one who reads this blog has actually gone to see The Fast and the Furious, XXX, Chronicles of Riddick, or anything else that guy has starred in, thinking, "Ooh, that looks good."

24 season 6 (2007) -- The plot was simple: terrorists are trying to set off a nuclear bomb in the United States and only Jack Bauer can save us. The problem is that every season you have to add to the plot. "Now let's have TWO nuclear bombs! Now let's have THREE nuclear bombs! Now let's..." We get it.

Hopefully that's enough to get you started. I didn't even touch romance movies.

Greatest Olympian?

My hat is off to Michael Phelps and all he has accomplished. Eight gold medals! Pretty impressive. But I can't help but wonder...greatest Olympian ever? Didn't he just do the same thing over and over to win all of them? Yes, he's a good swimmer. I got that. But do we really need to give out a new gold medal for each different method he uses to get from one end of the pool to the other?

"Now you have to swim like a frog."

"Now you have to swim on your back."

"Now you have to swim with both arms going forward at once."

"Now you have to alternate arms."

"Now you're going to swim like a frog and the guy after you will swim on his back and the guy after him will swim with both arms going forward at once and the guy after him will alternate arms."

Why don't we give soccer players and basketball players a chance to win multiple gold medals?

"Okay, now you have to play with one hand behind your back."

"Now you'll play with only three players on each team."

"Now you're going to play on a field with camouflaged trap doors and a moat around the goal."

Then maybe Ronaldinho or Lebron James would get a chance to be the greatest Olympian ever.

Yeah, I know that's ridiculous, but I also think it's ridiculous to give one guy eight medals for doing one sport and another guy one medal for doing ten sports. The "greatest Olympian" title ought to be given to the winner of the decathlon. And the "greatest Olympian of all time" title ought to be given to the best decathlete of all time.

Congratulations Bryan Clay, gold medal winner in the decathlon! Maybe they should give you ten gold medals. Or at least one great big one.

(And no, I obviously don't have Photoshop.)

Police Sketches and Witness Descriptions

I don't know how police sketches ever help. I would never be able to identify someone from one of those sketches. (Unless the rapist is the news anchor and it pops up right next to him.) And I don't know how witness descriptions ever help. I always hear something on the news like, "Police are looking for a white man in his twenties, between 5'6" and 6' tall, wearing a white T-shirt." Are you serious? That could be me! I guess if it happened in Pocatello and they were looking for a black man it might me helpful. Anyway...I had to find an excuse to put this photo on my blog.

2008 Olympics

I know that the Olympics is about building international relations and the spirit of friendship, solidarity, mutual understanding, and all that jazz. But it's also about squashing the competition! It's about hearing the "Star Spangled Banner" after as many events as possible! It's about sticking it to the French, the Russians, and the...the Chinese.

Well, for the most part our athletes have done their share of squashing. But the medal count says we're not sticking it to the Chinese. The United States is currently ahead in total medals, but the Chinese have nearly twice as many gold medals. That really erked me at first. But then I looked into what events the Chinese were winning.

The Chinese have almost all their medals in:

Badminton--Oh no, how could our mighty badminton players have been beaten?!

Gymnastics--Cheaters! And somebody got to the judges.

Weightlifting--What good does that do if you can't run?

Shooting--Okay, this one scares me a little.

The United States, on the other hand, is tearing it up in the respectable events:

Swimming

Track and field

Basketball

Volleyball

Gymnastics--without cheating or coercing the judges

So China, you can have your Badminton players. We'll be welcoming home the likes of Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, and Lebron James.

Current River Trip

I'm not a big fan of the "family blogs." You know. The ones that are named something like "Jane and John," or "the Smiths." Then they just tell you about trivial, insignificant, BORING events in their lives.

"Little Joey got his first tooth today! Yeah."

"Sam went in the big boy toilet today. We are so proud."

"I spent all day painting the guest room. It's going to be a beautiful shade of egg shell white."

"I had Cheerios for breakfast today. Jim doesn't like Cheerios very much so he had Frosted Mini Wheats. Todd must be taking after my side because he prefers Cheerios."

Who cares? Your mom and sisters? BFF? If so, you can tell them that stuff on the PHONE!

That said, I'm going to post some pictures and videos of our canoe trip. My excuse: When I tell people that I might move to Missouri they look at me with a disgusted, confused look on their face. Missouri?!? Yeah, Missouri! Check it out.

Here's a good overall view of what the river looked like. It blows my mind how green everything is in Missouri.


We explored this little cave spring.

This picture was taken from outside the water. It was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom except where it got really deep. There were fish and turtles everywhere. We saw a water snake, too.

In the morning there was a mist coming off the water. After living in Utah and Idaho for so long, it was refreshing to jump into water that was cold enough to cool you down without freezing the blood in your veins.

Occasionally, we took a break to swim, jump off a cliff, or swing on a rope swing.

Not bad for a guy who's deathly afraid of heights, eh?

Birds were everywhere. This heron flew right over the top of Rebekah and Mary.

Prom Date

This is what every young man ought to be confronted with when he goes to pick up his date. I'm doing my best hillbilly... What do you think?