Hayley's Tri-Dip Tray (Guac, Roasted Red Pepper, and Green Salsa)

Per tradition I held my Annual Super Bowl party, and it was once again a wonderful success!  The turnout was a little lower this year, but when you factor in my smaller apartment and that I am not as interested in impressing people as I may have been previously, I’m pretty OK with the overall size going down; Besides, most of the important people were here.  Oh, and the food was fantastic!

Aside from the game, which was a disaster this year (hate. packers.), one of my favorite aspects of the Super Bowl party is seeing all of the exciting food that people bring.  I annually include in my invitations a small tidbit suggesting that people bring their favorite “Big Game” snacks, and once again I was not disappointed.  We had a plethora of dips, a homemade Super Bowl cake, delicious rib roast, some steak, and a handful of other treats.

Hayley's Corn and Black Bean Salsa Fresca

Did I eat too much?  Yes..  Was it worth it? I think maybe so!  My buddy Lowell brought the rib roast this year, and I was honestly a  little disappointed since he typically brings the most delicious ribs ever.  That was, of course, until I tried the roast..  W-O-W! It may have hurt the gut a little, but hurt never tasted so goooood.. As bad as the Packers made me feel, that rib roast kept me going when the Steelers were really not looking good early on.

As for the game – could there have been a larger disappointment? Thank goodness it was fairly close in the fourth quarter, but a Packers win is a depressing Packers win either way… One of these days the Bears will figure out how to win something and I can forget Super Bowl XLV!  Right? Dreams come true.. right?!

One highlight I find worth mentioning is the fairly awesome halftime show.  No, I’m not a huge Black Eyed Peas fan, but come on!  That was pretty rad. I was making the comment to everyone, “Hey, this isn’t too bad for the Black Eyed Peas, eh?” when all of a sudden Slash appeared on stage playing the opening strains to Sweet Child of Mine (which is a top 5 rock song IMHO). I may or may not have squealed..  Just a little.. And then they brought out Usher? I gotta give it up to Wil.I.Am for pushing the envelope – he really brought it. It was nice to see a Super Bowl Halftime Show that didn’t have some 90 year old rock star, and I’m glad the Black Eyed Peas kind of nailed it..

Crystal's homemade Super Bowl cake, with rice cereal football on top

Oh, and the REAL highlight of the Super Bowl (since I hate the Packers and don’t really care much for the Steelers) was the wonderful Captain America trailer! You may not be as excited as I am (as I am mildly obsessed), but it looks AWESOME!

Anyway, before I nerdgasm, I’ll wrap this up.  Here are a few more images from the party, with credits for food justly given.

Another shot of Crystal's Cake

Spencer's fantastic steaks - grilled to perfection, as always

Crystal's deviled eggs (scrumptious edition)

OMG! Josh Brown came!!!

Sorry I didn’t get a picture of everyone that came; I only pulled the camera out one time to take pictures of guests and I know I missed some people.. Thanks to all who came, and here’s looking forward to a bigger and better party next year!

Tangent: A quite humerous and adorable blog post about the rumorative power held by Facebook can be found here.  It may be of interest to frequent readers and those who know me personally.

I went and saw Scott Pilgrim vs the World on Saturday and I love, love, love, LOVED it!  It’s the kind of movie a comic book/video game/hopeless romantic/kinda stupid nerd would love, and I think that description defines me pretty well (except for maybe not the stupid part – you decide!).  If you grew up playing games in the 80′s and 90′s, and you love movies that make you laugh and are insanely different than anything else Hollywood does, do yourself a favor and see Scott Pilgrim.  I promise, you’ll love, love, love, LOVE it!  And if not, lie to me and say you did.

I’m saddened that the film is “failing” in the eyes of the movie industry, and I think there are 2 legitimate reasons why..  Every movie blog within the blogosphere has  come up with their own guesses, but I only really consider a these 2 to be legit:

1. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is hard to categorize. This is one of the aspects of the story that I really love, but it has to be a marketer’s worst nightmare!  The posters with Scott rocking out on the guitar have been slammed for making people think the movie was about a rockstar, which is not the case, but they do make sense if you already know the story.  You also can’t sell it as a love story, because that’s only one component of the whole.  And an action movie?  With Michael Cera?  That won’t fly…  So, how do you categorize this film if you’re Blockbuster Video?  It doesn’t even fit in with the goofy punk/skateboarder movies I remember from the 80′s and 90′s (Gleaming the Cube, anyone?)…  Universal Pictures tried, but mixed messages left potential audiences confused, which is a shame.

2.  This movie was made for a small subsection of the population – the comic book/video game/hopeless romantic/kinda stupid (maybe) nerds of this world.  I honestly don’t see this movie having a strong appeal to the masses when you consider the ever rising barrier to entry for this kind of thing (e.g. the $9 movie ticket).  Those who have read the comic, which is supremely delightful and highly recommended, will be immediately drawn to the move.  Those who love Michael Cera (a dwindling fan base) might be drawn.  Those who love Edgar Wright (the director) may have been drawn…  Aside from some of those pretty small fan bases, you’re lucky to pull in the occasional straggler (like my buddy Spencer, who was a rockstar for coming with the lady and I).  Does the movie deserve a wider audience?  YES, but that doesn’t mean it will automatically have one.

If you’re reading this and find anything I’ve said interesting, go see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and love yourself for it.  It will treat you to something wholly different than anything else Hollywood has produced in a very long time.  I thought the acting was good, the writing was witty, the transition from page to screen was handled marvelously, and I finally got to see a girl kick some butt with a giant hammer (+5 against girls).

K.O.

I recently read Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and I LOVED it! Fantastic read! Definitely a nerd’s tale, which is likely why I loved it so much. I ripped through the books in just a couple of days, it’s that good. I’m very excited for the movie, but for the time being you can check out the GREATEST ONLINE TRAILER EVER CONCEIVED!!

Yes…

New Year’s Resolution: Blog more frequently so that Jason doesn’t have to pester me into doing it…  Not that Jason’s pestering isn’t welcome, because that’s how I remember to do most things, but I should be better at doing it on my own…

As for a life update:

• I work at ExxonMobil and I love it.
• I’m still single and working on it.
• I still enjoy movies, literature, video games and the occasional comic book (though I admit I don’t read comics or play games as much as I used to, which is probably entirely appropriate).
• I bought an iPod Nano and a Nike+ with my Safety Money I received for surviving a quarter at the largest refinery in the United States – thus I’m hoping somethinge encourages me to run (please Nike!!!).
• I’m throwing a New Year’s Eve party.
• I’m still sexy.
• I still think the best movie line ever is, “Come with me if you want to live…”  Actually, I really just think it’s the most believable line that MUST BE ADHERED TO, even in real life.
• Travis is getting married on January 17th and it’s the best/worst/greatest news ever.  Only worst because it means I have to get spousal approval to kidnap him now…  And him visiting me in Houston became a tiny bit harder.
• I make the greatest Gingerbread known to man.

The End!

So, I wrote this up in an email for Jason and I realized that I might as well post it since I had typed it up anyway…

I’ve been playing with stuff the last week to get all of my good software and such installed on the Mac, and here’s the list of what I would call essential:

• NewsFire – best RSS reader in life… SO GOOD! It’s really simple and it makes life pretty easy for me since it’s not integrated and messy like some other RSS readers. I should have gone with something like this a while ago.
• Transmission – super simple and nice BitTorrent client. Azureus had me messing with settings for at least 30 minutes to get all the encryption and everything I wanted setup, this came with the best setting pre-done and without all the stupid bloated code in the program. Simple and clean!
• Adium – THE best chat client I’ve ever used – ever! The only thing it lacks is video chat capability, which I can load iChat up for on the random occasions when I want to do that. Seriously though, it incorporates every other chat protocol I have ever heard of with the exception of Skype, which I hate anyway. I need to figure out some of the plug-ins and such (haven’t messed with it yet), but it’s great already… AND they’ll be adding Facebook Chat support in the next release (doesn’t quite work in the beta), which I think is hilarious and cool.
• Camino – kills Firefox in almost all respects other than themes and add-ons (which I really didn’t use other than IE tab, which doesn’t matter on a mac) – I do have firefox for a couple random BYU sites that don’t render in Camino (which makes NO sense but I just didn’t bother uninstalling firefox before I went with Camino, so I just use it since it’s there). Anyway, I really like it for it’s clean look and OS X keychain support.
• AppDelete – Most effective uninstall prog I’ve seen. I know you just need to delete the executable, but this deletes any random settings or libraries that install with your install prog. I was suprised when I used it the first time to see what I was missing in my normal uninstalls. (There is a $5 donation required after you use it a certain number of times – but it’s definitely worth the $5)
• Caffeine – makes me happy because I can avoid my computer going to sleep when it should be downloading. Plus, it runs on the tray (top of the screen) and makes turning it on and off pretty easy.
• Cyberduck – I like it for ftp, cause it’s pretty simple and easy to use… You may have another preference, but it makes me happy that it is simple.
• Handbrake – great for ripping movies to the iPod, PSP, or other things. Pretty fast actually!
• Jomic – BEST comic reader other than CDisplay, but CDisplay is windows only (sadness of my life, trust me).
• Alarm Clock 2 – I have my computer in my room (I’m at college and can’t do much else since everyone else will complain I’m taking over the living area), and I thought having an alarm clock that would bring my computer out of sleep and play some wake up music would be GREAT – thus Alarm Clock 2.
• VLC – goes without saying, but it’s a million times better than Quicktime. Besides, I swore off Quicktime in the 90′s, and I don’t wanna disappoint myself at this age.

Anyway, there are a ton of others that are “required” such as VMWare Fusion and a Boot Camp partition of Windows, but those should go without saying. Let me know if you’ve got something else I should try!

Well, my buddy Brian Corrales tagged me… I guess some folks have been playing the Blog Tag Game, or whatever they’re calling it, and I’m next in line.

1. I’ve been in two movies. Ok, so I don’t know the name of the second movie, but it has that Kirby kid from all the Mormony movies… It’s some family Christmas gone wrong picture, and my buddy Ben Meek and I are extras, floating around a Christmas party. The movie I’m slightly famous for (and only in my mind, I’m sure) is Charly. I wish I could capture a screen shot or something of the part (who am I kidding, there were at least 5) when the camera zoomed in and focused on my gorgeous melon… When I was on my mission, I returned to my greenie area after about a year where all of the members had seen me in the movie and had apparently been so excited that they showed the clip in both Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum (only in a Latin ward). Anyway, it’s usually something I only bring up after the third date, unless Travis (who is also in the scene with me) ruins it and brings it up right away.
2. I sing. So, some people know this, but generally only because I was given the calling of death to be the ward choir director this year… Generally only those that went to high school with me, or that witnessed the brief period in time when I had an a cappella group at BYU (ahh, good ol’ Resonance), know about this. I performed in several of the musicals back in the day, and was a leader in our school’s madrigals group. During my senior year I was ranked as a top 5 bass in the state of Illinois at the high school level. I don’t really know if that is something I should consider super impressive, but it felt good at the time. I don’t think I sing nearly as well as I did back in the day, but I still have a little skill left; actually, this is one of the things I think I’m looking to re-establish in my life… It gives me some character, right? :)
3. I still read Comic Books. OK, this is the ULTIMATE blow to my aura of cool. About a year ago I picked up a hardcover copy of The Ultimates, which is a modern retelling of the Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, etc…), and I absolutely LOVED it! I was pretty surprised at how much I enjoyed the book, and then I went out and started buying some other hardcover copies of different titles. I must admit, I’ve always been a sucker for super hero stories, and some of the comics in this generation are definitely geared to a much older audience than they were when I was a kid (or maybe they were always geared towards an older crowd?). Anyway, I pretty much only keep up on the Marvel books, though I never hit up the Dragon’s Keep (the only comic shop in the Provo area). Anyway, this is probably the biggest and nerdiest confession I have ever made in a forum as public as this.
4. I absolutely despise Hollywood. I wrote a little bit about this in a post on my old blog a couple years ago, but my full emotions were probably not expressed in their entirety… Honestly, in that post I mentioned the idea of writing a book, and it’s probably a pretty decent idea. How Hollywood Blindsided America or something like that. Well, alright, I stink at the creativity stuff, but I think I could seriously go on a rant for 200+ pages about how I think Hollywood is corrupting American values and trying to push its agenda onto the easily influenced American viewing audience. Seriously, the average American has a much stricter moral composition than Hollywood portrays, and anytime someone stands up for their morals it seems like Hollywood comes blazing in accusing everyone of bigotry and lack of compassion. This type of thing is mostly seen during big elections (does anyone else remember Whoopi “Freak-Face-Hairy-Scary” Goldberg and Ben “I suck at acting, so I’m gunna convince America that they should subscribe to my values” Affleck trying to convince us that we should agree with them simply because they are famous? I know those weren’t the words coming out of their mouths, but what else could they be using as a foundation for their arguments? Higher intelligence? I understand that people who believe in things will use whatever platform they have to get their point across, but I don’t have to like it when Rosie “when did I become the most unlikeable woman on television” O’Donnell gets on her soup box and attacks everyone and everything in sight… I guess it may not be a problem with Hollywood using their means of communication to get out the message they want to spread, but rather it is a problem that the American people have given those in Hollywood an exalted status. Does it make anyone else sick to see a bunch of girls (and guys for that matter) in their 20′s and beyond reading some of the trashy “star chasing” magazines? Do we not have lives of our own to where we now have to live our lives through people who would place themselves (heck, many of us agree) as our superiors? Can you tell I have an opinion on this? :)
5. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Those who know me well already know this, but I really am a bit of a hopeless romantic type of guy… Sick, I know! It really is pretty much the downfall of my life, I’ve had my heart broken a few times (once really badly) because I put myself out there and I’m always looking to fall in love. I guess it’s something I believe in when there isn’t a whole lot to believe in during our generation. The love of God and the love we have for each other (especially between a man, his wife, and his children) is all that will save us in this world. I didn’t know what else to put as my number 5, so here ya go!

Anyway, I guess I’m done playing tag but I’m supposed to pass it on. Jason Malwitz and Aaron Hardy get the official invitations, so keep the game going!