The game came down to the wire again this year. As with the ’06 and ’07 games, BYU took care of business in the end. Rock on Cougars.

And for your viewing pleasure, I present the last play of the game:

and of course: (more…)

No, this is about an entirely different global warming scandal. In this 2007 presentation, David Keith lets the cat out of the bag by revealing a cheap, fast, effective solution to global warming which we’ve known about for as long as we’ve been worried about global warming. Yes, you read that right.

Keith is a Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment at the University of Calgary and the opposite of a global warming skeptic. He loves conservation so much he is conflicted about telling everyone about the cheap, fast, effective solution to global warming because they may not want to conserve once they know about it. In fact, he cites political correctness as the reason no one discusses this cheap, fast, effective solution. (more…)

The first time I went to the temple was about a month and a half after my baptism. It was the day after Thanksgiving. I had just introduced the girl who had given me the Book of Mormon to my family (from here on, merely the girl). It was odd to me how much better she was at talking to my cousins and aunts and uncles than I was. It turns out that she had a ton more experience dealing with family than I did, as my family only ever got together for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and my brother and I were the ones who snuck off and ignored them. Speaking of my brother, perhaps my most memorable moment of that Thanksgiving was going over to his house with the girl. He opened the door, wearing nothing but his boxers, and thus my normal life was introduced to my new religious life. (more…)

Jacob’s recent post came to mind today in sacrament meeting. With Thanksgiving coming up this week we had a few excellent talks on gratitude. I was struck by how closely the stories of gratitude matched with the idea of synthetic happiness described by Dan Gilbert here. Further, it is striking that this so-called “synthetic happiness” — the state of happiness we can attain when we make peace with not getting what we want — is a form of happiness that is just as real as the “natural happiness” we feel when we do get what we want.

The interesting thing is in all the stories told today the specific method used to arrive at this real form of happiness was to consciously count one’s blessings. In other words, it seems from the stories that more grateful people are more happy people. And if Dan Gilbert is to be believed, the kind of happiness we can arrive at after not getting what we want is just as “happy” as the kind of happiness we arrive at after getting what we want.

So count your many blessings folks. Name them one by one. According to Lehi the purpose of life is to have joy, and being grateful may be the most sure-fire way to be joyful.

The football team took down AFA fairly easily today. Utah is next.

Also the men’s basketball team overwhelmed Hawaii last night and moved to 3-0.

As some of you might remember, I was participating in a Sept. 15 to Nov. 15 mustache growing contest with my five brothers and one brother in law. The contest is now over and entries are in.

BEHOLD! (and tremble)

The judging is taking place right now. (Judges are mostly extended family members on a family emailing list.) The three categories are Bushiness, Coolness, and Goofiness. While most of the bros went for bushy staches of sorts I decided to mix it up and focus on the goofiness/coolness angle. We’ll see soon how that works.

Anyhow, Kristen created the grand prize. Here it is:

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This talk by Dan Gilbert is one of my all-time favorite TEDTalks, I must have listened to it a half-dozen times. I can’t help but think of my mom who has as one of her principal catch phrases, “I like to keep my options open.”

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I can’t get my head around it. Why do Mormons name their kids crazy gibberish words? Or if they go with a normal name, they have to spell it in some insane way that makes no sense? What is up with that? There’s at least one in every ward I’ve ever been in. Is it Cree-L’s fault?

No wonder missionaries all go by Elder and Sister. No one would listen to a guy named Bucket.

If I’ve counted correctly, A Serious Man is the Coen brothers’ 14th film. As the 2000s got underway, I was starting to think the Coens had lost their mojo. With Intolerable Cruelty in 2003 and then The Ladykillers in (2004) things were on a bad trajectory. Luckily, after taking a few years off they proved they still had some genius left by adding another masterpiece to their body of work with No Country For Old Men. Last year brought Burn After Reading which, despite having its moments, was not in contention for their best work. (more…)

No, seriously. See here.

Oh, and the BYU football team managed a win this weekend too.

52-0. Just the way I like it.