Bryce Moore's Blog, page 216

A Disney Fan’s Review of Six Flags New England

Longtime readers know I have a fair bit of experience with Disney World vacations. I’ve been going to DW since I was a kid, and I’ve gone back again with my kids several times, planning a number of vacations in the process. When I go to Disney, I know the parks pretty much inside out, and it’s really easy to just go and have a good time.

With little kids, I haven’t been too antsy to jump at a Six Flags trip anytime soon, but the opportunity arose, and most of my kids are tall enough to go on all the rides (can you believe DC is 54″ with shoes on?), so I pulled the trigger and bought tickets.

(Of course, since this is me, “pulling the trigger” involved a slew of internet searches for the best possible price. We were going Labor Day weekend, so the odds of getting a good coupon seemed slim. However, with a fair bit of searching, I discovered there was a solid AAA discount for the park, which brought the tickets down from $60/person to $40/person. When we arrived at the gates, they had another deal going: for an additional $20/person, we could upgrade our tickets to season passes good for the rest of this year and all of next. Denisa and I thought about it throughout the day, but we finally decided against it. Six Flags New England is 4.5 hours away, and we just weren’t convinced yet our kids were old enough that we’d want to be going multiple times per year. That might change in the future.)

We got to the park around 10:30, expecting it to be mobbed. The good news? It wasn’t. Not even slightly. The longest line we waited in turned out to be the second time we went on Bizarro, and that was still under an hour. Not quite Ridemax awesome, but still not too awful.

TRC and DC saw the coasters and were a bit intimidated at first. Disney does a really solid job of hiding the fact that you’re going to be on a rollercoaster. Six Flags is all about emphasizing it. But we rushed over to Batman and walked right on–no wait! Both the kids had a blast and immediately wanted to go again. (DC: six year old with no fear whatsoever.) Over the course of the day we rode Batman twice, did Mind Eraser, Bizarro twice, Wild Mouse, a slew of kids rides, Blizzard River, Flashback, the swings–you name it. We didn’t do any of the water park, mainly because we thought it was going to be too chilly. (It wasn’t–some water rides would have been perfect to cool down. But maybe that’s where all the crowds were? No clue.)

TRC was pretty apprehensive about going on Bizarro–and DC flat out decided against it. I can’t blame them. It starts off with a 221 foot drop, reaches speeds up to 80mph, and pretty much looks taller than Everest when you’re standing beneath it. Still, TRC decided to go, and it was a blast to get to go with him–seeing the difference between how nervous he was before we went and how excited he was after it was over. Here’s a POV view of the ride, in case you’re curious:

Overall, we had a really fun time. Is it better than Disney? I don’t really think so, with the single exception being if you’re in the market for pure thrills. It’s got a slew of coasters that are just a blast, and that’s something Disney has clearly decided not to fight. The Mouse focuses on the whole experience, and Six Flags seemed purely concentrated on thrills, thrills, and more thrills.

Some other notes: I felt like Six Flags really tried its darnedest to squeeze every cent out of me that it could. No outside food or drink is one thing, but the food they actually have in the park left much to be desired, too. Disney food isn’t awesome (unless you know where to go), but it has way more options and isn’t as overpriced as Six Flags. And then there’s the constant merchandising, with “games of skill,” arcades, and add on rides. (The one bright spot? I bought a giant slushy cup that came with free refills all day for $10. We shared it as a family and refilled the thing 8 times. That felt like a really good deal, and it helped a lot to keep us cool and hydrated (and full of sugar.))

Maybe some of the nickel and diming wouldn’t have felt as bad if the ambiance were a bit better, but some of those rides were just worn down and dirty. Not fairground dirty, but still a lot worse than I’ve come to expect from my amusement parks. It was also really noisy almost everywhere you went. With Disney, there’s usually some out of the way places you can go to escape the crowds and noise, and that didn’t seem to be the case here. Maybe I just don’t know the park well enough. But when we left, my voice was really tired from a lot of yelling.

Still, all told we had a great time. I’d definitely go again. Yes, it’s expensive, but not nearly as expensive as Disney if you catch the deals right, and I love me some roller coasters. (Total cost for a family of 4 (baby was free)? $160 for tickets, $20 for parking, $40 for food (and we went way light on the food in the park), for a grand total of $220 just for the park. Add hotel and gas and tolls to that, and you’re looking at $500 for the whole trip. It’s definitely more economical if you have something else calling you to the area. Something like . . . a BYU game.) It’s not really a replacement for Disney at all, though. “Magical” isn’t a word I’d used to describe Six Flags anytime soon. And that’s okay. Sometimes you want magic, and sometimes you just want steel roller coasters.

Anyway–there you have it. If any of you have any questions or suggestions on how to do it more awesomer next time, I’m all eyeballs.

 [image error]

It’s Time for the Obligatory First Day of School Post

TRC and DC have successfully embarked on another school year, TRC to fifth grade, and DC to first. (When I asked them last night what grade they were going into, DC claimed it was third grade. She explained that she’d already been to two years of preschool and a year of kindergarten, so she was convinced she had to at least be in third grade by now. The kid had a point.)

The beginning of the school year is always more than a little crazy, and this year is a bit crazier still, since Denisa’s going to be teaching two linguistics classes at the university (all while keeping her bread baking business booming). We had a big family council last night where we went over what was going to be happening this semester and how the best way to handle it all will be. I’m going to be tweaking my weekly schedule to be able to watch MC while Denisa’s at work, which will mean I’ll be going to work late Tuesday and Thursday, and early the rest of the days–and that every day I’ll be staying until about 5:30, which is 1.5 hours later than I usually do.

It’ll require some changes, but I think it will all work out well.

In any case–no time no time! Here’s hoping TRC and DC are having great first days, and I hope to be able to report back on all the fun we had this past weekend over the next few posts. Stay tuned!

Are You Ready for Some Football?

September: the month when the awesome all begins. Summer is dead and gone at last. The bugs are freezing to death. You’ve got the wonderful quadfecta of holidays right around the corner (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Groundhog Day).

And you get college football.

Football of any sort, really. Tailgating, brisk nights, nail biting comebacks, chili dogs, hot chocolate.

September is almost enough to make living through summer worthwhile all by itself.

This year, I’m starting my September early. BYU is playing UConn this evening down in Hartford, and I’ll be leaving shortly to go watch it first hand. (If we choke like we did last year against Virginia, I shall be one sad puppy.) But consider this: the last time I went to an East Coast away game for BYU was back in 1984 when we played and beat Pitt.

1984 was also the year BYU won the national championship.

Clearly, the success of BYU on a national level hinges on my attending East Coast away games for BYU. So when we do well this year, I’d like all BYU fans to thank me profusely.

(I still remember that game. Not the game itself, but the events around it. I remember a bunch of people at the stadium giving me a hard time, continually asking “BY Who?” to which we’d scream back “BYU!” I remember really wanting a cool noisemaker, and almost getting very badly burned at the campfire. I also remember my dad’s tent stunk. Bad.

The things you recall thirty years later.

Anyway–I’m bringing TRC and DC with me to tonight’s game. Hoping they have the sort of experience they’ll vaguely remember in bits and snippets 30 years from now. In the meantime, watch the game tonight on ESPN and keep an eye out for the crazy bearded BYU fan and his two kids.

Movie Review: Popeye

Even before Robin Williams’ death, I had put Popeye into my Netflix queue. I’d seen it once before (a long time ago), and I wanted to know if my memories of it were accurate. From what I recalled, it was a bizarre musical, but it was directed by Robert Altman, so I wanted to give it another shot.

What did I think?

It’s a bizarre musical, pretty much exactly as I remembered it.

There are some good things to it. The set design was great, and I appreciated the way they tried to make the whole thing feel very cartoony and true to the source material, but then again, you also have to take a look at the source material and ask yourself if it can support a full-length musical.

No, my friends. That’s not really the stuff that awesome movies are made of. And the mistakes are much more plentiful than what Altman got right.

First off, in Williams’ movie debut, they shackled him with a squint, strange lines, and an accent so hard to understand he had to dub his lines over in post production. One of Williams’ strengths was how well he could improv–how he just could go off the walls and come up with the craziest things. Hard to do that when you have all this extra baggage around you.

And then there’s the music by Harry Nilsson. Every now and then they’re actually pleasant to listen to, but they slip in and out of discordance so often that it’s really hard to take a shine to them.

And then we have Shelley Duvall, who did perhaps the best version of Olive Oyl I could imagine anyone doing. You take the cartoon character and zap her into real life, and I’m pretty sure you’d end up with Shelley Duvall. And that’s not a good thing, folks. She was just so consistently annoying, and her singing voice . . . My ears are still bleeding.

In the end, it just never comes together the way it might have. Some of the pieces are there, but they just don’t add up to anything, which is a shame, because for all its flaws, it still had enough moments of watchability to keep me from stopping it. I didn’t *dis*like it (although this review may make it sound otherwise), but I certainly wasn’t mourning when it was over.

6/10

Public Bryce vs. Private Bryce

I have a confession to make. Not really a confession to people who know me well, but if you’ve only ever interacted with me with lots of people around, then it might be a bit of a surprise.

I really dislike big groups.

It’s not that I have a hard time dealing with them. I mean, I can handle myself with a crowd, and I’m not terrified of being out in public or anything. It’s just not comfortable for me at all. How many people is too many? Probably around . . . 10? If it’s a gathering where there’s a bunch of smaller conversations going on, then that’s a little easier to soldier through, but even then I’d really rather be just out with a couple of friends. Which is ironic, because I like organizing parties.

The best analogy I can think of is that being out in public or with large groups is like carrying a weight for me. The bigger the group, the heavier the weight. It’s something I can do for a while, but the whole time I’m doing it, I’m having to force myself to do things that I wouldn’t otherwise do. I come home from a gathering, and I have to just go someplace quiet and be alone for a while before I feel somewhat normal.

I know this is something a lot of people deal with, but I came to a realization a week or so ago that put it in new light for me. I think I’ve developed a bit of a public persona for when I have to be in these situations. It’s a different Bryce–one who is outgoing and eager to strike up a conversation with all sorts of people. One who likes being the center of attention or at least isn’t afraid to put himself in the limelight from time to time. He’s also a Bryce who isn’t quite as considerate or thoughtful.

I don’t like public Bryce as much as I like private Bryce.

Some of it has to do with the fact that it’s a coping mechanism. I’m dealing with an uncomfortable situation, and so my attention turns inward–I put all my energy into maintaining that public persona, at the expense of being nice and considerate to everyone around me. It’s like I just don’t have the energy to do both, so one has to go. I’m not saying that I turn into a total jerk in public (I hope not, at least), but it’s a definite shift in who I am and how I behave.

In many ways, it’s similar to an experience I had when I was a missionary in Germany. My sense of humor in German is much more juvenile than my sense of humor in English. I couldn’t understand the finer German jokes, and I certainly couldn’t make them. So I resorted to the jokes I could make: basic wordplay, for example. I also felt much more comfortable around children, and I think that’s because they weren’t as intimidating as adults, who had an easier time telling how many mistakes I was making in my behavior and speech. German Bryce was a dumber, simpler version of English Bryce.

Does anyone else have this sort of thing happen with them? I have to assume so, but it’s not really a conversation I’ve had with anyone before. It’s not that I think I have multiple personalities or anything (not that I’m aware of, at least)–it’s just that I develop different approaches to handling trouble spots in my life. Same thing with air travel. I get myself into a different place in my mind in order to cope with the stress I go through when this all happens.

Anyway. There’s the essential thought. I’d love to hear some other sides to the story.

What Causes Public Taste?

Reflecting on the Emmy’s last night, I was suddenly hit with a simple question: are these shows good because they’re inherently good, or because we as a society have decided to define “good” by these shows?

That came out confusingly. Let me try again.

Is “good” something absolute, or is it something that based on societal nuances?

I’m not talking about morals here. I’m talking about quality of art–or at the very least, quality of pop culture.

After having some time to think on it, I’ve decided (for the moment, at least) that the answer is a simple, “Both.” Take dramas as an example. I can watch two different dramas, and one can be lame, and the other can be great. And I tend to think that lame dramas will, on the whole, be deemed lame by the rest of society, too. (Sometimes I’m wrong on this. Let’s at least say “by the rest of critics,” and leave the rest of society to enjoy whatever the heck kind of garbage they like to consume when it’s awful. Two and a Half Men, perhaps? My favorite punching bag show du jour.)

But don’t we like these shows because we’ve been trained to like them? Is our taste something inherent that we’re born with, or something we develop over time?

This is related to a different conversation I was having today. Comic Sans. It’s the red-headed stepchild of the design industry these days, but why is that? Is there something in the font itself that’s just awful, or do we think it’s awful because we’ve been trained to think that?

I’m reminded of a study I read a while ago about how pop culture develops. The researcher created a bunch of small internet groups, and gave each group the same set of songs to download and listen to. If “good” were something inherent, it would stand to reason that the same songs would rise to the top when it came to popularity.

But that didn’t happen at all.

Instead, each group grew in its own way, as different songs became popular merely because more and more people were listening to them. If that happens in a single study, imagine how it plays out over entire societies, over decades or centuries.

Clearly, I’ve had too much time to think today. Time to go back to revising . . . (And if you can get the connection between this post and the picture I chose to accompany it, then mega nerdy bonus points to you.)

Overcoming Fear: Performing Music in Public

There’s a movie I was just recommending yesterday: Defending Your Life, with Al Brooks and Meryl Streep. It’s a romantic comedy with a fairly simple, unique premise. Brooks dies, and he goes to the afterlife, where he discovers this life is one big test to find out if we can overcome fear or not. If we’re still afraid when we die, then we come back to this life and try again. If we aren’t then we move on to the next plane of existence. To prove whether or not you’ve overcome fear, you’re assigned a defender who will use snippets from your life to show what you’ve accomplished. Of course, there’s also a prosecutor, who uses snippets to show just how scared you still are.

It’s a fun movie–you should check it out.

If it were true, I think one of the prime examples that a prosecutor would use to prove just what a scaredy cat I am would be my district orchestra audition Junior year of high school. I played the bassoon, in case you were wondering. A fairly obscure instrument, yes. But there were still other bassoonists there to compete against. When it was my turn to go, I was just. so. nervous. My hands were shaking uncontrollably, my mouth was bone dry. and all ability to play the bassoon seemed to have left my mind. (Have I told this story before? Seems like I have . . .)

Anyway, the audition did not go well.

The scores came back a few weeks later, and when they did, they were posted publicly. Of all the players, I had one of the worst scores. Not just bassoonits–players, period. (And yet I somehow still made the cut. How? They had slots for 4 bassoonists. Guess how many people auditioned?)

When I think of bad nerves, I still remember that experience first, every time.

Why do I bring this up? Because yesterday I was asked on the spur of the moment to be the accompanist for sacrament meeting. Something like 180 people there, and it would be me, playing very much in public.

Note: I am not a good piano player. I can play okay as long as there aren’t too many sharps or flats, and not too many parts for me to keep track of. There’s a simplified hymn book I practice from, and I sometimes I play in priesthood, but that’s about all I’m comfortable doing. Organ? Forget it. I’m not my grandfather by any stretch of the imagination. This wouldn’t just be public performance. This would mean I’d have to play during the preparation of the sacrament, which (if you’re not Mormon) would mean that there would come a time when the entire room would be quiet–no one singing–and everyone would just be listening to me play.

I said yes.

Why? Because there was no one else at the moment willing to play. (Someone came a bit later and offered to fill in, but at that point, I’d agreed to do it, and I didn’t want to back down from the challenge. I was overcoming fear here, peoples.)

I made a few demands, of course. We switched the songs to ones I could play, and I used the piano, not the organ. How did I do?

Not too bad. I flubbed a few sections here and there, but when the time came when I was the only one the room making noise, I didn’t hit a wrong note. Not too bad. (Remember, though–I was playing like 2 notes at a time. Maybe 3. Nothing complex.) Still, for not having practiced at all in preparation for it, I think I did well.

The high school junior in me celebrated that victory.

Still–I’m not looking for opportunities to perform for that big an audience again anytime soon. Yikes.

How about you? Conquered any fears lately? I really enjoyed the comments on Facebook where people shared their obscurely happy moments. So much fun to see what other people have experienced. So please, if you don’t mind, do share.

What Were Some of Your Happiest Days?

I’m in training all day today, so whilst I slave away in meetings, I thought I might put a question out to all of you:

What are some of the happiest days you can remember?

I’m not looking for the easy answers here. The common ones like, “The day I got married” or “The day my first child was born.” Actually, I’d be surprised if those were actually your happiest days. Don’t get me wrong–those are some important dates for me, but in my experience, I had so many other things going on those days that it wasn’t like I could just be happy on them.

No, for me the happiest of days–the ones that stick out in my memory–are the ones where the happy just sort of sneaks up on you, or where you’re dreading the worst, and then suddenly happy comes to take its place. Maybe this will make sense with a few examples from my own life.

One day that shouldn’t stick out to me at all but did was the day I was at Disney World with my family and I got Eeyore to sign my hat. I know this sounds silly. I was sixteen or so at the time, I think. And for some reason, getting to run up to Eeyore, give him a big hug, and have him sign my Eeyore hat has stuck with me over the years to the point that I still remember exactly how it felt. Bizarre, I know. But there you go.

Another extremely happy day for me was the day I had a phone call with my (now) agents, and they agreed to sign me on as a client. I was very nervous before the phone call, as I was convinced it could really go either way, and I was dreading being turned down. Finding out they wanted to represent me? One of the best feelings in the world, all jammed into one conversation. Seeing my first book published or signing contracts just can’t compete with that, because those things are long drawn out processes, filled with hard work and negotiation.

A different sort of happy day I remember still was an evening I spent in Jerusalem. I was sitting on the lawn of the BYU Jerusalem Center right before bedtime, all by myself, just looking out over the old city and listening to Van Halen on my CD player. Yes, I realize that Jerusalem and Van Halen don’t typically go together, but it was such a peaceful, happy evening. In a place I loved, listening to music I loved, all by myself. Just enjoying the moment. Likewise, I still remember an evening in Gotha, Germany when I was a missionary. I was walking back home after a day of hard work. My companion was furious at me for something I’ve since forgotten, and he was walking a good twenty feet ahead of me. It was snowing, and I was (more or less) blessedly alone for a bit. And the snow was like movie-magic snow: dry and dusty and sparkly.

It’s an interesting exercise, thinking about happy days. It puts me in a better mood right away if I really try to come up with specific examples. And once I have one or two, I start remembering more and more. Here’s hoping they can get me through 5 hours of training meetings . . .

So how about you? What are some days that truly surprised you in a great way–days that still stick out in your memory, years or decades later?

In Which I Realize Kids are Mean (and So Am I)

I know this isn’t some big revelation (and it’s a topic I’ve covered before on the blog), but it’s a concept that can sometimes sneak out and bite you when you’re not expecting it. Case in point? I was watching Rain Man last night with Denisa. We were enjoying the film, when all of a sudden I’m hit with a high school memory: me and some of my friends making fun of a kid who must have fallen somewhere on the autism spectrum. He was from middle school, as I recall, and he was taking advanced math classes at high school. Didn’t talk much, but he would rock back and forth in his chair during class at times, but mostly during breaks.

And we sat there smugly making fun of the kid.

Not to his face–I wasn’t that open with my meanness. But behind his back? Sure thing. And I didn’t think anything of it until–almost 20 years later–I remember we used to call the kid Rain Man when he couldn’t hear us.

Here’s the thing: yes, it was a mean, foolish thing to do to another kid. But I still think I was a pretty nice guy, as far as high school kids go. Maybe I’m going easy on myself there, I don’t know. But if I was willing and eager to do something mean like that, I wonder just how mean people can get. And I wonder how much it’s still happening today.

My kids have had so much more anti-bullying stuff in school than I ever got. There are whole assemblies on the topic, year after year. I applaud the sentiment, but I just can’t help thinking that it doesn’t actually work in practice. (I hope I’m wrong.)

Why?

(Note: speaking from my own experience here.) Because kids ignore adults. It’s nothing personal–it’s just a human tendency that your own personal experience trumps the advice of other people. TRC will tell me something one of the kids said at school. Something I know for a fact is wrong. I tell him it’s wrong. He trusts me normally, but I can see the doubt in his eyes. When it comes to what some kid at school is saying–a peer–and what his dad is telling him . . . It could go either way.

And kids like to solve their own problems. Again–this makes perfect sense. At no point in my life have I ever thought of myself as immature or foolish. I always thought I was cool, calm, and collected. Of course, there’s a corollary to that: at no point in my life have I ever not looked back at the me from a few years ago and thought, “Pffft. What an immature, foolish boy I was.”

There’s a problem there. I was immature, and I was too immature to realize it. (Ask me in five years how immature I am today. I’m pretty confident I’ll give the same answer.)

So because kids are like me–cool and confident in their own abilities–and they automatically distrust adults, I’m not sure all the assemblies in the world can counteract bullying. (I wish I were wrong.)

And that makes sense in a way, because you know what? Adults are mean. We bully. We ostracize. We ignore. Racism? Sexism? Elitism? That’s just bullying that grew up.

Sheesh. This post is becoming depressing. Mustn’t have that.

All I really wanted to say was a simple observation: the realization that

I was not as nice of a kid as I thought I was.
Kids in general can be casually cruel and think nothing of it.

Which scares me, and makes me hope that:

My kids can be better kids than I was.
My kids can rise above the cruelty, both when it’s inflicted on them, and when they’re tempted to inflict it on others.

Now to figure out how to actually make that happen. Ironically, some of the answers to that can be found in Rain Man itself. Tom Cruise starts as a callous jerk who couldn’t care less about anyone other than himself, but by the end of the movie, he’s changed. He cares. He gets it. What did it take? Getting outside himself. Being forced to help other people. Seeing firsthand how hard life can be for others.

There’s some truth in that. The only trick is knowing how to apply it. Suggestions?

Mormons Asked to Flood Social Media? Ruh-Roh . . .

I love my church. I really do, and I think that’s pretty well documented as I’ve blogged over the years. But there are times when I do a mental cringe about some of the things Mormons do or say or are asked to do or say.

Today’s cringe-inducing bit? This article in the Deseret News, where Elder Bednar challenged Mormons to flood the earth with gospel messages. Here’s a relevant quote:

Beginning at this place on this day, I exhort you to sweep the earth with messages filled with righteousness and truth — messages that are authentic, edifying, and praiseworthy — and literally to sweep the earth as with a flood.

And I’m not here to nitpick with one of the twelve apostles. I think a whole bunch of authentic, edifying, and praiseworthy messages are a great goal. I’d like to think many of my blog posts could qualify for some of the adjectives.

No, my cringe isn’t from the request. It’s from what I tend to believe this request will result in: a sea of Mormon Memes flooding my Facebook page.

It’s already something that happens twice a year when General Conference rolls around. Lately, it’s like every card carrying Latter-day Saint starts machine gunning me with quotes from the conference, plastering them all over their FB walls in a nonstop glut of edification. And I have to wonder how that looks to a non-LDS person.

Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to this. I police my Facebook feed like a dictator. I have a limited amount of time, and if a friend starts posting too often or too much or consistently on a topic I don’t want to spend my time on? That friend gets unfollowed. (NOT unfriended, mind you. I still care about these people, and I want to maintain the friendship. Unfriending is the nuclear bomb approach to social media. It’s far too back stabby. Unfollowing lets you still check in on your friend whenever you’d like. Much nicer.)

I realize my inner fears might not be something many other Mormons think about or are worried about. That’s okay. I don’t see eye to eye with many a member. But to me, this all risks coming across as one big Care Bear Stare, and we all know how that ends, right?

Seriously. Am I the only one who feels for Dark Heart in that scene? Poor guy just wanted to evil it up a bit, and instead he got all care-ified.

But it wouldn’t be fair of me to just lob a general “Get off my virtual lawn” post in the direction of all these potential Mormon Memes. No–I’d rather give something back. Do something to try and avoid the hopefully evitable deluge of doctrine unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. So here you go, folks: Bryce’s guide to creating authentic, edifying, and praiseworthy posts.

Less is more. Seriously. You don’t have to turn your social network feed into a firehose of faith to get the point across. You do that, and the only people who are going to be reading all those posts are other firehoses.
If you’ve got something to say, make it count. Cutting and pasting a quote or sharing a meme just ain’t gonna cut it most times. At the very least, explain *why* you’re sharing it. What made that quote so important to you right then that made you feel like you had to shout it from the roof tops? A heartfelt post is easy to spot, and folks will give you a lot of leeway if they understand why you’re saying what you’re saying.
Be yourself. There are a whole lot of suits in the LDS faith, but there’s a lot of original thoughts too. I don’t hide the fact that I’m Mormon at all, but I also try not to make it my defining characteristic online.
Just because the church posts something, doesn’t mean you’re a bad member if you don’t “Like” it, share it, or otherwise promote it. I’m no fan of schmalz, and my religion’s movie department seems to like their schmalz a side order of schmalz and another couple of schmalz to go. So guess what? I rarely share those videos. That’s me, being authentic. If you love your schmalz, schmalz away.
Support other praiseworthy things–not just LDS ones. We haven’t cornered the market on Good, last I checked. Spread the love some.

Maybe my fears are misplaced. Maybe this is all just going to go over smooth as chocolate milk. I’d love to be wrong. But if this is somehow manhandled into a church “doctrine” that everyone’s supposed to follow, then I don’t see it ending well.

Let me end this with a request to my non-Mormon friends out there (if you’re still reading). What do you think about all this? Do Mormons online have any sort of a rep yet for particular behaviors? What experiences have you had with this? How does it come across to a non-believer?

Inquiring minds want to know . . .