Sunday, July 30, 2006

42

My blogging has been severely lacking as of late. Although my feelings on Spiderman run quite deeply, they really don’t constitute the majority of my feelings about my life, the world and Subarus.

Although I do have to write a quick note about Spiderman, because you brought it up. I was talking to a girl last night who was about to go see Superman at the theater and I felt obligated to let her know that Superman is a moronic superhero and that she was stupid for liking him. I was a bit more tactful. She claimed that Superman was superior because 1. He was more powerful. 2. He was hotter. 3. Spiderman is gross because he excretes bodily fluids on his enemies. 4. Batman is stupid because he can’t fly. I had so many issues with her and her superhero rating system that I had to walk away from her. Again I was more tactful than to immediately turn away from her poorly stated arguments, but I certainly didn’t pursue any further dialogue with her. I realized that there was no way to disprove her ridiculous points without making a complete nerd of myself, as this whole paragraph has served to do. That’s it for superheroes today.

I’m just going to give you the weekend update since I’m too lazy to think back more than a couple days. That and I’m pretty sure nothing happened at all during this work week. Friday I was amazingly social and stayed home and watched Shawn of the Dead. It was actually much better the second time. Why did I buy it if I didn’t think it was that good the first time? For one I compulsively buy movies that are five dollars. For two I supported the concept of the movie regardless of my desire to watch it, so felt it was worth having in my collection. Is that weird? Maybe. I just feel it was a very cool movie. Not too popular, with dry British comedy. And zombies. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it again.

Saturday I did a much better job at being a person person. I went to our branch activity, which was ostensibly ice blocking. I had never actually done this (sliding down a hill sitting on a large block of ice) so decided to go through the effort of finding the park. Unfortunately it was pouring at the time and the ice blocks had melted the night before, so no blocking occurred. But we ate some hamburgers and told corny jokes. I was also accosted by the Superman fan, but I’ll try to forget that. After this I stopped by friend’s place (I had given her a ride to the event) and we played Yahtzee and Blackjack for an hour or so until we met up with another friend. I had never played Yahtzee and may never do so again. It was fine, but not something I’d ever do late into the night. I thoroughly trounced her in Blackjack, which is of course my gambling game of choice. After stopping briefly at another friend’s we went to an improv comedy show. It was fairly entertaining at points, but was a far cry from amazing. I’m pretty forgiving of most forms of entertainment, but have a pretty high standard for comedy performance. If I’m going to pay someone for being funny they need to be substantially funnier than any of the amateur performances I’ve put together. Otherwise they’re in the wrong field and are wasting my time. I enjoyed the performance, but more because of the group I was with than the quality of the performance. We dinked around a bit afterwards, mostly so I could procrastinate putting together my lesson for Sunday School.

Today was probably my final Gospel Doctrine lesson. Last time I played with my sword during the lesson and the time before I had played rock music, so I think it was anticlimactic that my final lesson lacked any disruptive elements. But I did have a good time teaching Ba’alism 101 and trying to relate how feeding widows related to causing draught and performing genealogy. I’ve found that church callings very often follow patterns. I ran a Home Evening group, then ran the ward’s FHE program, then once again ran a Home Evening group. The bishop sees what you’ve done and can be pretty confident that you can continue in that or a related calling. I’m hoping that my brief stint as a teacher will start me on a new calling career. I much preferred researching Elijah for the good of the ward to putting together party games and finding people to provide treats. I do value the Home Evening program, and will go as time permits in med school, but this was certainly more fun for me. And isn’t that what church service is all about?

Song of the moment: “White Lines” by Grandmaster Flash.

4 comments:

Catherine Elizabeth said...

No offense; I know you've been dedicated to it in the past, but I can't resist any forum in which to express how idiotic I find single's FHE. The reasons I've been given as to why it's important are 1)so singles won't feel alone and 2)so we're in the habit of doing it, because we could never start doing it after marraige if we hadn't before. Both points are stupid and untrue. I actually have friends and a family, and have no interest in pretending that the other singles in my general area are part of it of that circle if they are not. Also, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to manage starting FHE later in life, even though I haven't participated in many years.
On an unrelated note, I did see Superman Returns, and I know you don't like him, but I thought you might know anyway: how strong is Superman? The movie seemed to be built around having Superman lift heavier and heavier things, so I was wondering if there is a limit to this superpower? Do you think he could pick up the whole world?

Anonymous said...

There are issues of physics that almost cause me to disbelieve the reality of some of Superman's powers. The whole idea of lifting astroids and airplanes without levers and fulcrums is troublesome. What is exactly his means of propulsion?

X-ray vision on the other hand, as well as the bulletproofness of his (impressive) chest, are perfectly reasonable attributes to me.

Jeanette said...

My favorite is actually Batman, because I like the concept that there is nothing actually physically different about him, just psychologically. He wasn't bit by a spider and he isn't a mutant or from some other planet... he's just obsessed. And that's awesome.

Ranteumptom said...

The physics of Superman's powers are indeed quite flawed. Although I don't require my superheroes to make perfect scientific sense, I also don't appreciate a complete disregard for any explicable force behind their powers.

How strong is Superman? It depends on what decade you're talking about. Every so often DC alters their universe and reinvents their characters. During the 60s and 70s he was pretty much infinitely strong. Currently he has his limits, but those limits are around 100 tons.

Batman is indeed a vastly superior character. I take pleasure in the fact that he has beaten up Superman a number of times through fighting dirty. But Spiderman still wins as the best superhero of all time.