Pure as the driven snow

There are some things in life that just make you feel warm and fuzzy. Some of them particularly so if you’re a geek. I would be considered by some to be a geek (just ask my daughter!) and so I have a warm and fuzzy to share…

My blogging software finally works properly on my desktop PC.

Sure, that may not seem like a big deal. But it’s never worked right on this machine, so whenever I would blog it was always from my laptop. I have a very nice laptop, but it just isn’t as convenient as sitting down at my desk where my machine is always on and inviting with the ice-blue LED glow of power lights. As an aside, why does everyone think such a piercing, blinding color is appropriate to use anyway? I’ve actually disabled some of them on my machine because they were so overpowering. Anyway…

So, what the problem was I’ll never be sure. But I was having trouble getting Word to run lately, and if that isn’t going to work for me then it’s just time to get down to business. So I did something else that gives me warm fuzzies, and that I haven’t done in a long, long time. I completely reformatted and installed my machine again. It had been through a few upgrades to the operating system and various software, and somewhere along the line a hairball got stuck in its processing craw.

So at this time of year, when we’re all remembering the small things that make us thankful, remember me. A humble computer dork getting warm fuzzies over taking hours of time to re-install a computer to fully working order. Because then when you’re wishing you somehow had more to look forward to with your life, you can think "Wow, at least I’m not that guy".

Being Careful What You Wish For

My brother “gave” me my Christmas present this evening. Not a present really, other than that of time, but that’s good too.

He had told me on Christmas day that he wanted to watch something in particular with me. Something that we, as brothers, could bond over.

What he didn’t realize, and I couldn’t have forseen, was that he gifted me with my warm-down lap I was complaining about the other day.

“How so?” you might ask. Simple. He had located the Star Wars Holiday Special, in its unholy entirety, online. This show is a thing of myth. Legendary in its fecal prowess. The kind of thing that prisoners in Guantanamo are subjected to when waterboarding doesn’t prove to be successful.

In short, it’s a painful piece of dreck that George Lucas wishes had never been produced. And with good reason.

Feel free to watch the first few minutes (or the whole thing if you’re a masochist), and keep in mind that the breakneck pacing in the first 10 minutes is kept up throughout the whole of the show.

For those of you also requiring a holiday warm-down lap, enjoy!

Even The Wannabes Get A Warm-Down Lap

A couple weeks away from the blog again. It’s been the end run for Hallowchristmagiving, and it’s been busy. Work parties, making cheesecake to take to said parties, buying gifts, etc. etc. etc. All the good and great stuff we all love to do, but that really winds up meaning I don’t have much time in the evenings to sit and put thoughts up for public consumption.

And then, suddenly — abruptly even — it is all over.

I didn’t want it to be all over. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I was enjoying it too much. I had a great time with my kids and my extended family. I kept to a good budget but still wound up being super-dad in the gifting department. I enjoyed everything about the season this year, the entire way through. And I wasn’t lonely, even when I was alone. This was my third Christmas as a single person, and it felt "normal".

So I was caught off guard when it ended so cleanly and surgically. I was at my parent’s with the kids, and stayed through the day after Christmas. Then I left the kids there to visit while I came back home to finish out the work week, and as I was pulling out of the driveway I turned on the radio to listen to Christmas music. And it wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere. Every station had stopped playing any music relating to the holiday season, and was back to a rotation that would have been considered lame thirty years ago.

The music has to stop at some point, I know. But consider when it started. I began driving my oldest daughter nuts a few days before Thanksgiving by listening to Christmas music. I loved it. Sure I’ve mocked the commercialism of the fourth-quarter retail money-grab for the past couple months. But I love all the rest of how this time of year makes me feel. The build-up was great! The subtle infiltration of holiday cheer and spirit into the nooks and crannies of my day-to-day life felt fantastic, and the big day itself was thoroughly enjoyable.

So being dropped like a rock is a bit of a stunner for me this year. And it doesn’t really help that nobody…and I mean nobody…in any stake or congregation in this area seems to have any plans for a New Year’s get together of any type. That’s when the official end of the season is supposed to be as far as I’m concerned, and instead it’s been cut off at the knees. Though I can admit to having some moderately high standards for New Year’s, as my all-time favorite was going to Time’s Square and meandering around Manhattan.

Sidebar: For some perspective on just how fun New Year’s in Manhattan is to do, consider this. I did that with my ex before we were divorced, but after she had started living the gay life and leaving me panicked and wondering why things were in such shambles. So it was so good that, even when life sucked and I felt like absolute hell, I still had a good time. Everyone should go do it sometime, and I fully intend to do it again someday, though preferably as part of the all-evening party in Bubba Gump’s Shrimp.

So I don’t feel like I’ve been allowed my cool-down lap after Christmas. Somebody flipped a switch somewhere and palpably turned everything off, and I’m just not reconciled with it yet.

As General Waverly in "White Christmas" would say, "Don’t just leave me standing here. How do I get off this stage?"

So, Billy Graham and Gordon B. Hinckley Decide to Throw a Christmas Party Together…

I’ve been busy this week. Really…freaking…busy. Yes, with work. And not in a bad way. I’ve been coding up a demo for an executive board presentation and loving every minute of doing it.

Right right…I’m an experience designer and not a developer officially. Doesn’t mean I don’t still have the strong skills, and frankly I think a really good UI experience designer should know how to do this stuff. How can you tell someone what you want built if you don’t have some notion of doing it yourself?

Anyway, by Friday I was ready for the weekend. I wanted to unwind, hit up a couple of activities I planned to attend, and write something here (which I need to make the time to do a little more frequently in a week). Friday night was just about having dinner with a small group of others that have had to deal with a spouse going gay on them. I don’t go much because, frankly, people that go are usually pretty new and therefore feeling pretty raw, or have been coming for a while because they’re “still angry, after all these years”.

Wait, that’s not quite how Paul Simon puts it, is it?

I’m not a person who holds on to anger much at all really, so hanging out regularly with angry people just doesn’t work for me. I do want to be supportive, but I have my limits.

Saturday’s activity seemed to hold more promise though. The Single Adults on the southern side of the city (the better of the programs in our quad-stake area) were having an open house social, follwed by a trip to the local ward to view some nativity stuff. “Excellent!” I thought. Get out of the home, meet some new people, do a little socializing, and engage in some of the festiveness of third-trimester Hallowchristmagiving.

Parts one through three of that plan went reasonably well. Again, nobody in my demographic was in attendance, unless I was looking for a hot time involving a trip to the local Ponderosa followed by an evening of stories about someone’s cats. All nice people, certainly. Just not dating material. But it was still good to get out.

So then part four, checking out the nativity displays. At least I thought the information said “displays” in the plural. I’m still confused. Because this is the part where things went sideways for me, and at least figuratively Billy Graham took over at the local ward. Because what we were going to see was a live nativity performance.

This wasn’t your typical, Mormon roadshow style performance either. Someone in that ward obviously has some sort of theatrical background if not a job in the theatre. This was a performance done in scenes, with staging, sets, and props both inside and outside the building. Thirty to forty people in the ward were involved in the performance. It was a big deal.

But it left me feeling really, really awkward. A kind of “What the hell was that doing in a Mormon building?” kind of awkward.

We were effectively being led on a tour of Bethlehem around the birth of Jesus. So starting in the “Israelite marketplace” in the cultural hall was all well and good. Watching Joseph and Mary and their donkey (yes, a real, live donkey) walking outside to the inn was okay too.

But then we got the the shepherds in something of a culvert on the one side of the church property. With a live fire roaring. And a flag pole with a star on top and a stuffed angel perched on the top of a ladder. Live with me for a moment the thoughts that went through my head when the narrator told us about the angel appearing to the shepherds in the field:

Wait a damn minute, that angel isn’t stuffed! It’s a live person! And he’s got a stage mic booming over a speker system outside when the gun light hits him! What the hell?!

I was pretty flabbergasted and embarassed. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. I don’t know. But there were Elders there and this was a missionary activity, with non-members in attendance. This was like bringing an investigator to church for the first time on a Fast Sunday when someone gets up and starts going on about how the Spirit revealed to them which of the stars in the sky is Kolob.

True story from my mission, by the way.

The next stop was the manger scene, back inside the church (thank goodness, because my bald head was absolutely freezing by this time). The scene is surrounded by people that are supposed to be angels, representing different periods of time. So of course there are vikings, Musketeers, and a nun. A nun, inside a Mormon church.

None of it prepared me for the last scene though. The final scene was staged in the chapel, which had been prepped to be the ancient, Jewish temple. Including pillars and a Mennorah on the pulpit. The men playing the parts of the temple elders were going through the rituals of kissing the robes, wearing praryer boxes, and enacting the blessing of children.

I was stunned.

I get that it was all meant to be a semi-accurate depiction of the events as they really took place. I know that there was nothing that wasn’t scriptural on display. So maybe I’m just a bit out of touch, and stuff like this has been done in other congregations, but I just didn’t know what to make of this. At all. I was so overwhelmed by how out of sorts this all was with my world view that I didn’t feel the Spirit in it. And when the performance was over and everyone was heading for refreshments, I headed for the door and left.

I didn’t start life as a Mormon. My mom joined the church when I was seven years old. Up until then, if and when we went to church, we were Presbyterian. My friends growing up were of other denominations, mostly evangelicals. And this was the sort of thing I was used to seeing in their congregations. It felt really weird to see that in one of our own buildings.

One of these days though, I’m just sure I’ll come away from a Single Adult activity thinking what a great time it was and how it met all my hopes. Of course, by then, I’ll probably be sixty and being happy with the activity will make sense.

*sigh*

First Life…Second Life…As Long As I Have One

Many, many days since last writing. Kanye went quiet after his mom’s unexpected death, so no new lyrics (though reportedly there will be a new batch for the impending second trimester celebration). Without that extra bump of energy, how can I be expected to keep up here when there’s been so much going on?

The biggest part of my free time has been taken up with Single Adults. Yes, I seem to have finally caught some kind of vision for the program. My vision is that what we have right now really does suck as bad as I’ve always said. But beyond that I also caught a vision for how it only sucks as long as I, and the other singles that could benefit from it, stay away.

Here’s a quick story. I am the SA rep in my ward pretty much for one reason: everybody else had already been asked and turned down the calling. Very "Night Court" really. So I’d be like Harry, except that I’m bald, which would be like Bull, but I’m not that tall and imposing. So at least I’m not Roz.

By the way, if you didn’t just get that whole reference then you’re probably too young for me. (Drattit)

So of course once you have a vision for something, you need to start acting on it. So I did. Lots of putting together mailers and e-mails. Lots of organizing contact information. And all culminating in helping put together a last-minute Thanksgiving dinner for any single adult in the area that wanted to come. We had about thirty people show up, so for something executed in five days we all felt pretty good about it.

The weekend continued to be good from there. Good college football (home team wins, beating the big-time rival), time with some friends, and some of my kids asking to go to church even while at their mom’s. Life has been good.

So why haven’t I been around here lately? I mean, besides being busy of course? Like all things, computer parts have a defect rate, and that rate caught up with me. Now, after paying for and installing a new motherboard things are better than ever.

So now both the first and second lives of Señor Monkey are right and good. Sweetness!

Deferral of the Fittest

So Kanye called today. I asked where he’d been since we’re running behind on the Hallochristmagiving verses, especially having passed the first trimester mark a full week ago. He said he had gone out that night all costumed up, and wound up going through too many tricks and getting ill. I corrected him and said he meant "treats" of course. He said I was too white, and then made some comment about being rich now and personal doctors compared to free clinics. I didn’t understand it.

Anyway…I have this odd thing with my personal train of thought. It often winds up playing out like a game of Chutes & Ladders, though usually not involving dice. I’ll start out with one thought, which then reminds me of something and jumps me to another thought, etc. I consider it more of a blessing than a curse since it’s often a source of creativity, but it can lead to the odd moment of me looking faraway at awkard times. Jim Davis of Garfield fame did a sketch of me once in that state during a project meeting. Priceless stuff.

So today I’m driving home from work and I wind up behind a car with a bumper sticker that says "Darwin Loves You". Next to that is the requisite Darwin Fish of course. And then my mental game of Chutes & Ladders kicked in and lept me to this thought: Ever notice how the Darwin Fish people are usually part of the tree-hugging crowd?

"Why sure," I thought back to myself (because talking to yourself doesn’t mean you’re crazy unless you wind up in an argument).

Then my next thought was this: Isn’t that ironic, given that Darwinism and evolution are all about survival of the fittest?

"Whoa. Yeah, that is ironic. Pretty hysterical actually."

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating going out and polluting randomly, or killing anything that crosses your path. But if you’re strict about survival of the fittest then we’re at the top of the chain baby, and nothing should stand in our way. It’s all about who’s the strongest, and having the strongest exercise supremacy over everything else until something stronger comes along and begins to shift the balance of power.

Instead, the Darwin Fish crowd typically advocates the exact opposite. Don’t kill any cute and cuddly critters they say. We should respect and revere them, and put their needs above ours. Now I don’t think you’d see a pack of wolves saying, "Sure our pack is stronger than that deer, but we should put it’s need above ours. Let’s go steal nuts from a squirrel instead. Oh, whoops! Can’t be doing that either, now can we?"

So do the Darwin Fish types really believe in survivial of the fittest or not? I feel one of the great things about the gospel is that it doesn’t box me in to an either / or scenario. I’ve long held the position that science and religion, when we have a perfect understanding of it all, will meet up completely. No loose ends. So I’m free to accept those things that the Spirit touches me as being true even in areas of science.

Yeah, that’s right Darwin Fish types. Religion sets you free rather than tying you down.  Crazy, huh?

The one "A" is for "Ambiguous"

Yesterday was the twenty-third day of Hallochristmagiving, and by odd coincidence the gift for the day was “twenty-three dollars to purchase ‘Fido’ from Best Buy. It was perfect because I had been looking forward to picking this movie up since I first read about it this past summer.

You see…I am a fan of zombie films.

What’s important to understand about that statement is the unwritten word “good”. I am a fan of good zombie films. There are honestly loads of bad zombie films. And I’ve seen a few of them unwittingly. They are poorly written, poorly directed, poorly acted, and tend to focus on entrails and breasts. They have no story and no message. They are, in a word, crap.

I’m sure many of you are already re-reading that last paragraph and thinking “Good zombie films with a story and a message? What’s this guy smoking?” The answer to that, of course, is nothing. Read the previous post about the Word of Wisdom. I live by it. The truth is that I’m utterly serious. There are good zombie films out there. They are smartly done and very entertaining without being exploitative. They carry strong social messages and deep insight. “Fido” is one of those films. It’s a Lassie movie with the collie being replaced by a flesh-eating corpse.

Those Mormons in the crowd might now be saying to themselves “But hey, Finite Monkey Guy, aren’t zombie films all rated ‘R’? And doesn’t the church teach that you shouldn’t be watching those?” Guilty as charged. I do own (and watch) a select few movies toting an ‘R’ rating. And I have some quandries over it. Not the least of which is how the heck do the people in the MPAA come up with their ratings?

Certainly many movies with an ‘R’ rating richly deserve them. And I don’t go to see those. Like “Super-Bad”. The title pretty much sums up all I need to know to make an informed decision about not watching that film. Any of the Freddie or Jason flicks. Boobies and blood. Not where I want to be. But then there are those like “Fido” where I watch them and come away wondering whether anyone actually watched the film before rating it, or just saw the word zombie and rubber-stamped it. I wonder because, aside from a blood spatter when a zombie is shot in the head to put it down (the traditional way — trust no other) there is absolutely nothing, and I do mean nothing, offensive in the movie. Not one single curse word. Not even of the mildest variety. No boobies. No entrails. Only a wink and nod piece of innuendo. Prime-time television has more in it to offend the innocent than this movie, especially if it’s a night that an episode of CSI or Law & Order is on. So any given night of the week, really.

“Fido” is a light zombie-comedy that, dare I say, could almost be a family film.

Compare that with something PG-13 like, say, “Blades of Glory” from earlier this year. A film which starred Jon Heder, Mormon actor and star of “Napoleon Dynamite”. That film was loaded with straight-up references to sex, let alone innuendo, along with drug and drinking references, vomit, bathroom jokes, and Will Ferrell walking around in underwear. How is that less offensive? How does all that require a less mature individual than watching “Fido”? I mean, aside from the maturity of those writing it of course. Really when you think about it, even the ‘G’-rated fare of Disney is loaded with wink-and-nod references to the burgeoning sexuality of their nubile female characters.

Other cases like this led me to the conclusion long ago that, in many ways, I just can’t trust the MPAA and their movie ratings system. I need to be more active in checking the commercials and trailers, along with checking viewer comments on movie sites and paying close attention to the explanations that began accompanying the ratings not so long ago. All together, those cues have been immensely helpful in avoiding many ‘PG’ and ‘PG-13′ movies that contain plenty of material I don’t care to see. The same cues have also let me feel not completely guilty about watching a few ‘R’ films as well. I feel like I either need to take that approach to movies now, or give them up completely because I’ll never know what I might get hit with.

So, Kanye actually left me a note that for the twenty-fourth day of Hallochristmagiving the verse should be something involving “ho’s”. I told him I could see my way clear only if they were undead and fully clothed.

Happy Hallochristmagiving!

Egads, we’re already 11 days in and I have yet to wish everyone a Happy Hallochristmagiving. While we’ve been slowly migrating into this new holiday since the middle part of my happy childhood I guess it’s now official, and I’ve missed jumping on the bandwagon by a week-and-a-half. At least I think it’s official. It was either Fox News or CNN that I read it on, I’m sure of it.

I would have completely forgotten that it was the Hallochristmagiving season if it hadn’t been for a short stop by my local warehouse club format store. There were glass ornaments for trees, fakes trees blaring music, roasting racks, palettes of candies, and in the middle of it all a manger scene with baby Jesus wearing a goblin mask while holding a jack-o-lantern and a turkey baster. It was a fantastic site that caused an unfamiliar emotion to well up inside of me. But fortunately I made it to the bathroom in time.

A lot of other changes have begun to take shape now that Hallochristmagiving has become official. Most notably is the special spirit the season brings. It used to be that you had to wait until the day after Thanksgiving for things to really start ramping up. Then you would suddenly see decorations on the streets and in the stores, with a window of only 30 days or so to enjoy them. The excitement and wonder of it all was amazing. So why not extend that by starting things off earlier? A lot of people think that moving to Hallochristmagiving is just a shallow attempt by retailers to generate a longer sales season. But I don’t really think that’s it at all. Perhaps stores do realize a boost in sales, but I believe the genesis is the spirit of charity and giving, and the desire to have that joy last the entire fourth quarter of the fiscal year. It was evident that it was working for one of the employees at the store I visited when I heard them commenting on the fake Hallochristmagiving tree blaring out electronic Hallochristmagiving music. They were talking with a co-worker, and in an animated voice said “It’s only October and I can already hardly stand it!”

Obviously the anticipation is already building even at this early stage in the season.

The official Hallowchirstmagiving movie is making its second annual opening in 3D this weekend I think too. “Nightmare Before
Christmas” is a pretty cool movie, and it was very forward-thinking of Tim Burton to have made something that now so perfectly fits into our new, three-month long holiday season. I’ve seen the movie a few times on video in the past of course, but seeing it in 3D would be pretty slick. Even better if it were a triple feature with “30 Days of Night” and “Fred Clause”.

The other big change, of course, is the complete overhaul to the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. I’ve never actually been sure why it was twelve days to begin with, but there’s no doubt now about the origins of the “Ninety-two Days of Hallowchristmagiving”. I’m working now on committing each of the verses to memory, and though it may clock in at slightly longer than a performance of Wagner’s entire “Ring Cycle” it’s certainly worth it. Although I have to admit, I still haven’t quite figured out why all the instrumentation has been changed. Instead of the traditional tune, it’s now set to Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”.

So again, Happy Hallochristmagiving everyone. And I’ll look forward to next spring when I can wish you a lovely Valeasterick’s Day.