don't eat at joe's

mark prefaced this by saying, "we can never, ever, ever go to joe's again."
i was speechless as he told me.

food like that really was too good to be true.

at least in-n-out burger is almost here.

balance

two (or three or four) animation projects at two universities, a group of excellent friends, a ward and stake calling, working lay the foundation for future goals and dreams, continuing to be awesome, and a great schedule of movies at the international cinema, to name a few.

(i don't believe it! just yesterday, this video was up on youtube, and today it's gone--it's 20 years old, so how they chose today to remove it is beyond me. the only version i could find has dude's added score, which is unfortunate, because it's stronger with the silence.)

nevertheless, it's things like this that make me love the "short" categories at the oscars. we saw this in my history of film class, and i've loved it since. it's a few minutes long, but worth seeing (and it may not be up here much longer...)

mark your calendars

yes, it's getting to be that time already!

the annual muppets and egg nog party will be monday, december 14.

who knows what will turn up in the couches this year.

start practicing your sing-along songs.

two-face

i went to montana this weekend to work on a subaru commercial for a japanese ad campaign. i'm inherently somewhat fond of long car trips, even by myself, and my love for radio programs like this american life (and their blessed podcast) have only heightened that appreciation for time in the car. while i have not read my horoscope lately, but i suspect that the planets are alligning against me, because this trip would be an excellent opportunity to whittle down the growing pile of said podcasts. tragically, since my mac is dead, those hours of programming are sealed away on my nomadic hard drive. such is a telestial world.

up through salt lake, i listened to the morning show on the radio, then switched to a cd of general conference. from then on (a little north of ogden), i went to they might be giants. with my trusty ipod, i had 192 they might be giants songs, and, over the next six and a half hours, got through 154 of them. no repeats, no skips, singing my heart out, knowing the words to all but a handful. the trip was pure bliss, and i'm all the more excited to see the stellar johns in a few weeks.

coming home, i went through another conference cd, half an audio book, and tried r.e.m., but they have too many slow songs, and after about 12, went back to tmbg, who again took me all the way. i passed a semi that, on the back left of its trailer said "el passo" and on the right said "el smasho."

something else happened while i was in montana.

a few weeks ago, some certain friends decided that, if i was not going to sign myself up for facebook, they would. over the past few days, my inbox has been flooded with facebook friend requests. at last count, i'm up to 40 friends without ever having logged on myself.
so, if you want to have the privelege of being my facebook friend, hey, cool by me, but it's strictly ornamental. that's not me responding to comments. i didn't even choose my profile picture (although i approve of what's been chosen). i've looked at my page only once and very briefly. if you want to be my friend, you'll get added. but i prefer real-life friends.

as one astute facebook friend noted, the responses use capitalization.... : )

warm fuzzies at general conference

i remember the first time i got to be in the conference center for general conference. it was my first fall in utah, and it was as exciting as going backstage at a rock concert (well, same same but different). in the years since, i've had the privilege to be in there many more times, and it's still just as awesome. this year, i got to attend the saturday morning, priesthood, and sunday morning sessions. a lot of driving to salt lake, but the cost of a tank of gas is certainly worth it all.

the saturday morning session was, once again, my favorite. elder scott's talk on learning to hear the Holy Ghost was a message that, for me, reverberated through the weekend. it seemed that i heard, again and again, the importance of taking time to listen for those delicate promptings and to follow them.

as i've worked on my sunday school lesson this week, elder bednar's talk on the importance of consistancy in our efforts has come to my mind agian and again. the principle that being diligent in doing those things we ought to is more enduring that the seemingly meager immediate results.

brother osguthorpe's talk on teaching was like a fountain; i couldn't write fast enough.

looking through my notes, there was so much good said last weekend. i'm not going to post a review of my notes this time, but will let you to go back through your own. it's so wonderful to have this sort of council available to us. and that we can hear them speak in so many different ways (this was my first time watching a session over the internet) is fantastic.
and i'm looking forward to the conference cds.

saturday morning concluded with us finding an excellent asian restaurant, as is tradition. priesthood was followed by ice cream, as was tradition in our ward at home (and seems to be pretty ubiquitous through mormon culture). and sunday morning was followed by a text that made me smork and dinner at my sister's. feasting of all sorts all weekend long.

eat at joe's

a brief update: i'm taking an animation class at uvu and working on the student animation project at byu. it's a litte odd, since i don't feel fully at home at either place, and it's also odd to get back into the "student" mentality again. but it feels good to have a direction.

my blessed mac died (again) last week. this time it was the power supply, and my precious (and backed-up) hard drive is safe. i went to the mac store to get a lovely new mac mini and they said that they were out of stock, and that apple has withhelp shipping new ones, a very strong sign of a harder, better, faster, stronger (lower-priced) model coming soon. in the interim, i'm living off of my futurustic cell phone and my decade-old laptop.

bu the important news is this: last monday evening, mark and i went out to applebee's. i prefer cool local joints over franchises, but in suburbia there's not much of that. however, a tiny green plant has sprouted forth in a overly-congested world.
on state street in orem, between the arby's sign shaped like a cowboy hat and the yamato japanese restraurnt, is a small little plaza of shops. the sign post out front says "plaza 1100" and one of those store's in joe's cafe.

mark has been raving non-stop about it, and i finally went with him for breakfast on wednesday morning. i walked inside and joe, a black man from "h-town" (that's houston) with the self-ascribed "gift of gab" asked me what i wanted. when i halted for half a moment, he said "i'll tell you what you want, you want the biscuits and gravy!", then proceeded to show me the freshly made pot of gravy and the fresh biscuits. i had no choice.
and they were the best biscuits and gravy i've ever had. yesterday i got the "joe's omlet", and it was possibly the best omlet i've ever had. and i'm sure that if he made tacos, they'd be the best tacos i've ever had. when tim tried his burger, all he said was "wow" repeatedly for the next minute and a half.

he's been featured on x96's morning show, mark's been directly responsible for at least 14 meals there (he's brought people, although i'm sure he'll pretty soon have had 14 meals himself there), and joe takes a picture with you and puts it up on the wall.

in short, it's the best place to eat in town.
monday-saturday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

it finally happened

after playing rock band with my friends for nearly a year and a half, tonight was the first night i had a neighbor come over and ask me to turn it down. she was polite, didn't seem to be upset, and asked us to turn it down "just a little", since she was getting ready for bed.

i've often wondered if we get too loud (the family on my left says they've never heard us). i'm lucky to have cool neighbors, i suppose.