Bryce Moore's Blog, page 314

Talk on Sunday

I'm giving a 20 minute talk in church on Sunday. That's the plan, at least. In practice, it's proving to be a bit harder to get this talk done than some I've done in the past, likely because the topic doesn't quite mesh up with my typical MO. Wanna know the topic?



"He that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming."*



Yeah.



Pay up or burn, baby! Bonus points to any of you out there who can make the connection between the picture for today's post and the topic. I'll give you one clue, even...

Breadweavers

I'd like to take a moment off from my regularly scheduled cornucopia of movie and book reviews, writing observations, woodshed updates and dental complaints to tell you all about something The Wife is up to.



She's started a business.



Ever since I've known Denisa, she's wanted to be able to eat good, quality European bread as often as possible. We would go to bakery after bakery, bread store after bread store, in search of the best bread. Sometimes she found some (New York City, Panera), but...

An Explanation of How the Internet Makes Money

I don't really have anything particular I want to blog about today, but this topic has been at the back of my mind for a while, so I thought I'd take the time on a slow news day to write about it.



The internet.



Well, not the internet in general, but more along the lines of "where the money comes from." Because right now, we all use the internet, pretty much for free. Yes, to get the service to your house costs money, but to use various sites online (Facebook, Youtube, Google, CNN, etc.) doe...

Jar Jar Binks' Dialect: A Linguistic Look at the Gungan Language

Mesa Jar Jar Binks:

A Linguistic Look at the Gungan Language Introduction Who knew linguistics could be so much fun? This is the paper I wrote for English 323, the class that made me decide to add linguistics as a second major during my undergraduate years. The topic is perhaps a little out of the pop-culture limelight by now, but if you'll all recall, at the time there was quite the uproar over Jar Har and his ridiculous lines. Doing a simple linguistic analysis, I found there was a ...

Book Review: Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins



My rating: 4 of 5 stars



So I've now read Mockingjay, the finale to Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games series. What did I think? Well, I don't want to spoil any part of the book for those who haven't read it yet, but I think I'm safe saying this: I feel like the first book in the trilogy was jaw-droppingly fantastic. The concept is so easy to understand and so well executed. Young girl must kill other children in a fight to the death that's broadcast on national tele...

Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

I know--it took me long enough to get around to reviewing last year's best picture winner. Well, sorry. Life's busy--what can I say? For those of you who don't remember, this was the film that aced out Avatar for best picture, pitting a former husband and wife against each other in many different categories. So the important question first: was it actually better than Avatar?



Easily.



But that's not exactly difficult, all things considered. I mean, Avatar was basically Dances with Smurfs, in...

Wednesday Craziness

It's Wednesday, which means a whole lotta crazy for me. I headed out the door at 7:10, and I'm booked straight through until 10:00pm. Oil change, class, tech training, wiki presentation, parent/teacher night, class, Elders Quorum presidency meeting, writing group. Eating is in there somewhere, too. I worked on the woodshed another three and a half hours yesterday, but didn't make a whole lot of progress, since I discovered most of what I'd done before on the rafters was done incorrectly. Sigh...

Woodshed Update

I know you're all wondering just how my woodshed is going. Well wonder no more. I managed to get quite a bit done on it over the weekend, and I now have the five rafters up, three pillars, both headers, support braces . . . it's coming along very well. Is it perfect? Unfortunately, no. I've decided that no matter how smart you are or how much education you have, all you need to do is try to do something well outside your skill set to discover just how incompetent you really can be. While this...

Movie Review: Surrogates

Denisa and I took a break from Buffy to watch a movie the other evening. Surrogates had been in my Netflix queue for quite some time, so I figured we'd give it a shot. I honestly didn't have too high of expectations for the film, mainly based on Bruce Willis's hairstyle from the trailers. It's not the bald Willis you see on the cover. No. It's bad comb-over Willis, and nobody wants to watch a comb-over for two hours. Okay, that's not the only reason I had low expectations. The movie had just ...

Buy Me Stuff for My Birthday! Now! I Demand It!!!

(WARNING: Tongue Firmly in Cheek for the following post)



Each year for Christmas and my birthday, I try and think about other people: specifically, I try to make it as easy as possible for other people to get me stuff I want (ie video games, board games and books), rather than stuff I don't (ie ties and socks). Because nothing's worse than opening a perfectly good present, only to find something you wear on your feet, which isn't Super Mario Bro. Mega Mushroom Slipper (Rare) (please don't ge...