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Because just one wasn't enough. Voting for the Sweet Sixteen starts now! Make your voice heard!

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I'm subbing for a friend today, so I'm teaching a special education class. Essentially, these are just regular kids who need a little extra help outside for whatever reason (trouble reading, doing math, etc.), so it's a mix of several different grades. The sixth graders were helping the fourth graders with grammar and punctuation. One of the students really REALLY wanted to write the sentences on the board, but I told him I was going to do it, since I'm the friggin' teacher. He responded by bursting into tears and running to the bathroom. (Surprise! He's in special education because he has a hard time controlling his emotions. He's very sensitive.) He eventually came back in, but when I accidentally erased the sentences before he had a chance to write them down, he ran back out of the room sobbing again.

The whole experience was aptly summed up by one of the fourth graders, who simply said, "I feel awkward."

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I've been working as a substitute teacher when I've had the chance lately (it's an unpleasant job, but we need the money), and I've noticed something that the rest of you probably already know - people today are giving their kids some weird, freaky names.

That's probably what people said about the rising generation twenty, forty, and sixty years ago, but I'm going to stand by my accusation. I'll list eight of the strangest names, and see if you can determine the gender of any of them. (Yes, I purposely chose the most gender-neutral of the batch, but that doesn't excuse the rest of them.)

Cayman
Crayton
Deni
Kyrston
Macay
Tasmmy
Tayson
Tylan

Maybe it's just me, and you can make immediate sense of these names, but I found them all strange. Someday, I could have a president named "Tasmmy." Worse yet, that candidate could be opposed by one named "Kyrston." Yikes, America. Just yikes.

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The wife and I started watching Diamonds Are Forever (hint: so is the movie) around 6:00 tonight. Around 6:30, we saw flashing lights outside our window and saw that a police car was parked blocking off our street. Within 15 minutes or so, a second car had appeared, as well as a tow truck a block away. The second policeman started placing cones across our intersection. When the movie finally ended (seriously friends, don't bother watching this one), we looked out our front door to see the two police cars, the tow truck, the cones, a fire truck, and an ambulance. After about ten more minutes, they started jackhammering on our street.

You're not going to believe this, but I can hear helicopters, too. No idea about what's happening here, but if it's not a rescue mission or something, I'm going to be seriously disappointed.

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Not that most of you are nearly as into pro basketball as I am, but the NBA All-Star Weekend is going on right now, and one of the events is the Slam Dunk competition. A couple of guys were worried that the contest would lack the flair and style of years past, so they bought a five-foot rim, set it up outside the arena, and got passers-by to dunk the ball and try to show up the stars.

Even if you aren't a basketball fan, there's just something awesome about seeing a five-year old pulling off a 360 windmill dunk. Check it out.



TBJ AZ 03: The People's Dunk Contest from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.

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Coming March 2.



(http://toc.mybb3.org)

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Slate Magazine is undertaking a project to find the person responsible for the "25 things" craze on Facebook. Someone had to have posted their list first, and they intend to find them. They're asking participants to tell them when they first saw a "25 things" note appear on Facebook.

I responded, but I'm not nearly as deeply connected in Facebook as I imagine some of you readers are, so I'm posting the link (yes, that was it, that blue underlined text there) so you can all help. The first time I saw a "25 things" note was January 14, but I imagine a few of you can go back further than that.

Feel free to share thoughts on the "25 things" craze here. I don't have any problems with it, really, but it seems frivolous to me, so I haven't bothered to make one. I rarely read the ones people send me, anyway. (ATTENTION THOSE WHO HAVE TAGGED ME IN THEIR "25 THINGS NOTES". YOU ARE STILL VALUED FRIENDS, EVEN IF I DON'T READ 25 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT YOU IN THEIR ENTIRETY.)

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In the midst of all of my worrying about unemployment, finances, and the future, I came across this passage yesterday:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

In short, relax. Do what you're supposed to do, and leave the rest up to Him. Peaceful words for troubling times, I feel.

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I was working as a substitute teacher at an elementary school today and was presented with an interesting situation. We had four students working on a worksheet, all of whom needed significant amounts of help (going over questions, reading/pronouncing words, etc.), but I didn't have enough resources (read: time) to help all of them as much as they wanted. There was an aide there to help, which was nice because one of the students was particularly uncooperative. When he wants to work, he's just fine, but when he's decided that the assignment is "hard" or whatever, he flops his head on the table, rolls around, makes weird chirping noises, and generally acts ridiculous. In order to get him (we'll call him "Lego", since that's all he ever talks about in class) to make significant progress in class, he would probably demand something around 95% of my attention and resources. The other kids would require something like 20-30% each. While the aide was there, she focused primarily on Lego, leaving me to deal with the other three. Perfectly manageable. Once the aide left, I couldn't help all four students to do a good job. What do you do?

Essentially, I just ignored Lego. He spent his time whining, flopping on the ground, and asking me if he could show me something funny on the computer. I told him no and to stay in his seat every minute or so and helped the other three do their work. I ended up with a 75% success rate (three kids did well on the assignment, and Lego completely punted it), which is better than I think we would have done if I'd tried to keep Lego focused. (Dealing with Lego is sort of like wrestling a water buffalo, or convincing a brick wall to move aside for you.) If I'd tried to deal with Lego and gotten him to do anything, I probably would have been closer to 40%.

The moral of the story? Sometimes you have to leave a child behind. It sounds horrible, sure, but if I were in that same situation again, I'd do the exact same thing.

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I bought a steak yesterday so I could make fajitas. Everything fried up nicely, but it turned out the spice mix that I used was ancient (it expired a year ago - why do I keep things like that around, anyway?), so it didn't end up like I'd hoped.

Today, I marinated the steak, fried it, and ate it with a salad and french fries. AMAZING.

This concludes this session of "List All of the Things Optimistic. Has Eaten Lately."

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Seriously, guys. Not cool. Someone needs to get on this.

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I know I tend to get excitable about sports, but oh man, the Portland Trail Blazers. These guys are so much fun to watch. We got to see them play at the Rose Garden while we were home, and what's more, we got to see them take down the Boston Celtics. (AWESOME.) And tonight, I got to catch snippets of their game against the Chicago Bulls. Greg Oden, the behemoth pictured above, was responsible for single-handedly murdering the Bulls at the end of the first half.

Seriously, friends, this is like the Rockies mania I had a year and a half ago, only more so. Gotta love these Blazers. And you've gotta believe I'm going to be making jump shots and dunks in my house until the NBA season is over (i.e., June).

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Genuine. and I were both really excited to head home today. We've been looking forward to it for months, each of us. However, Portland, OR has been in the icy grip of a brutal winter storm for some time, so we were worried that our flight wouldn't be able to make it. Surprise - our flight was cancelled, along with every other flight in or out of Portland until Christmas afternoon. Kind of an unpleasant realization, but hey, that's the way it goes sometimes.

So we're spending our first Christmas together huddled inside around our four-foot tree, wishing we were at home. Welcome to adulthood.

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Normally, I do a best CDs of the year list around this time, but since I only really bought one CD released this year (by Vampire Weekend, and every moment you spend not listening to is it a moment forever wasted), I decided to do something different. I was thinking today that my car's CD holder has ten spots (not a CD changer, but the thing you put on your visor), so logically, I can hold ten of my favorite CDs when I drive.

The question is, if I could only ever put ten albums there, which ten would I choose?

It's a difficult question for someone who loves music like me, and especially someone with as varied tastes as I have. (Who am I kidding here? They're all indie albums.) I thought about it for a while longer, and arrived at the (slightly annotated) following ten albums:

• OK Computer, Radiohead. Perhaps the most complete album I own. It's also one of the first albums I bought with my own money, and it hasn't let me down. (Try topping that, Soundtrack from The Saint.) One of the most bonechilling moments in my life was watching 10,000 people hold up lighters during an encore performance of "Exit Music (for a film)".
  
• Funeral, The Arcade Fire. The Arcade Fire were the group that, more than any other, helped me make the transition from the indie music of 1997 to the indie music of today. I could listen to "Laika" and "Rebellion (Lies)" for the rest of my life.
• Flood, They Might Be Giants. Fun, light, and perfect. Anyone who was a child of the '90s remembers "Particle Man" from Tiny Toons. Anyone who doesn't is lying.
• Fisherman's Woman, Emiliana Torrini. Part of the reason I love this so much is from seeing lanada's reactions to it over a period of months, but most of it is from the heartfelt earnestness of songs like "Thinking Out Loud". Her first album leans too much toward electronica, and her third leans too much toward pop, but in the middle lies this tranquil, folksy record. (Caution: do not listen while operating heavy machinery.)
• Come on Feel the Illinoise!, Sufjan Stevens. I know, we all remember "Chicago" from Little Miss Sunshine, but the entirety of the album is that good. I've only ever really driven across the state from St. Louis to Bloomington, but if the state is as beautiful as this album, then I'll start going house shopping today.
• Kid A, Radiohead. Of course, Radiohead gets two spots on this list. Kid A, more than anything else I own, is meant to be listened to in one go. I usually think of it as the Kid A suite more than anything else. It's dark, morose, mournful, and stunningly beautiful at its core. Could there be a better song than "How to Disappear Completely"?
• Loveless, My Bloody Valentine. Of course there is - it's "Sometimes". I listened to this song for an hour straight when I was trapped in the Las Vegas airport, miserable and pining for Genuine. even though we'd only been dating for a couple of weeks. Also, the rest of the album is fantastic.
• Ys, Joanna Newsom. I know most of you out there familiar with Ms. Newsom's work think of her as a gimmicky weird voice and a harp. I assure you, there's so much more here. The average track length on Ys is nearly ten minutes, but the complex, looping structure of her songs draw you in and make it feel like only two or three. And of course, there's the textbook-length "Emily" that makes rock operas seem like couplets by comparison.
• In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel. Ah, Jeff Mangum. It's a pity he has so many demons to deal with, but it's almost worth it if he can produce songs like "Two-Headed Boy" and "Ghost". Eclectic and strange - the album features dozens of out of tune trumpets and a singing saw - this album is the 1990s at their best.
• Weezer, Weezer. Oh, right. You can't really mention the best of the 1990s without bringing this up. I was once in a car where "No One Else" was playing, and the female driver refused to believe that men really think this way. My roommate and I just nodded our heads. Also, it's impossible to leave out an album that my entire generation can sing along to from start to finish.

Then again, those are just my ideas. Anything you think I should have included? What albums go on your top ten? (Remember, dear readers, Rascal Flats have no place on this blog. Be gone, demons.)

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I guess this comes along with getting married and having to enter the world of being a responsible adult, but this is just something I need to share with everyone. It's exciting! It's engaging! It's absolutely stupendous! It's...

THE WIDE WORLD OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION TRACKING

I know, I know, let's all get a hold of ourselves here. There's a website I was introduced to (courtesy of Slate, another fine and informative site) called Mint, which can keep track of financial information for you. Ever wondered how much money you spend each month on fast food? Once you enter your banking information (don't worry, it's secure), Mint can break that down for you. It can keep track of loans you have, as well as mutual funds. Looking for ways to save? Once it has enough of your purchases categorized, Mint can make those recommendations for you. It can help you set up a budget and send you email alerts if you go over your limit. It has fancy looking graphs that show how much you spend on each category.

I'm absolutely agog over this. It helps me keep myself honest and responsible when I make purchases. It keeps everything in one place. It even calculates my net worth, which isn't especially pretty right now, but probably could be one day. You really ought to check it out. I don't make recommendations like this often, so you know that when I do, it carries some weight. Hopefully.

Seriously, stop reading this and go check it out. You'll thank yourself for it.

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A list of increasingly inappropriate foods to bring to church:

• Cheerios
• Fruit snacks
• Crackers
• Peanuts, dry roasted
• Pretzels
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Peanuts, honey roasted
• Ham sandwiches
• Slices of cake
• Salads
• Doritos/Cheetos
• Bananas/oranges
• Cans of Diet Coke
• Cans of Diet Coke with cups of ice
• Apples
• Chicken drumsticks
• Swedish meatballs
• Buffalo wings
• Little Caesar's pizzas
• Turkey dinners
• Roast pigs on a spit
• Whole watermelons

Guess how many of these I've actually seen in church? (hint: 10)

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I took up running a few weeks ago in an effort to get myself back into shape. I've been steadily improving, but starting last Saturday, I noticed a sudden and marked decline in my endurance. I just can't run as far as I used to without losing my breath. I don't think I've done anything differently, but the more I run, the further I regress now.

In somewhat related news, I purchased some cold-weather running clothes yesterday. I bought some nice running pants, a pair of gloves, and a beanie. However, once I got home, I noticed the pants were a little too snug in some places, and a little too loose in others. Strange, I thought. They were in the men's section. They were the right length. What gives?

Dear readers, it would appear that I purchased a pair of women's running pants. Not the best for running for me, I don't think, but they're certainly flattering to my butt.

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I lost my job over the weekend, which threw most of my plans up in the air. Being at home during the day is strange and less than fulfilling, which I suspect will motivate me pretty strongly to get a new job soon. There are some silver linings, though, as there always are, that make the experience not wholly negative.

1. I can actually spend time on my worthwhile job (translating patents) and do a better job than I was before, when I had to keep looking over my shoulder at work. (That's not actually the reason I was let go, though it would sure seem that way from reading this.)

2. My younger brother is coming into town tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and now I don't have to take off work to pick him up.

3. The old job was a bad, bad situation for me, and now I have to find a new job. I'll be glad to find something that can not only further my career possibilities, but also not make me feel like a horrible person while I'm there. They asked me to get involved in some shady, weird things. Glad not to be there anymore.

4. Turns out I'm eligible for unemployment insurance. It's enough to keep me on my feet while I'm looking, but small enough that I'm still pretty motivated to find a new job soon.

In short, life is good, friends, even when it doesn't seem like it. Turns out they don't call me Optimistic. for nothing. Or something like that.

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I turned on the BYU game here on my computer and saw that we were down 14-10 at the start of the second half. I opened up my iTunes and turned on some Modest Mouse to listen to while I watched the game. In the time it took to play two songs, we had scored three touchdowns to pull ahead 31-14.

I really want to listen to something else now, but I'm afraid of jinxing the team.

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Can you feel it?

Election Day is just around the corner, and for most of us, that brings a sense of relief that the seemingly endless campaign season is almost at an end. I'm excited, for one. I'm excited to hear about other news than who spoke where, or who said what gaffe, or anything else that really doesn't matter all that much. But that's not what all of the excitement is about. Nearly every poll recently has had Barack Obama in the lead lately, and that's something that no one could have seen a recently as a few months ago. Barring something gigantic and unforseen, he'll be our next president.

This is a really, really big deal. It means far more than it would if McCain were going to be our next president, all apologies to the Arizona senator. A President Obama means that we will witness a dramatic shift in the American culture. It means we'll have our first president who sends text messages. It means we'll have a president who knows what it means when you tell him, "Bones." It means we'll have a president who understands the culture and is a part of it. Dear readers, this will be the first president who can really be said to represent Generations X and Y. This will be the first president who really represents people like me.

Yes, this is a big deal. This is a coming of age moment for my generation. This is probably a defining moment for my generation, just as Bill Clinton's election was a defining moment for the baby boomers. And we can all say we were there. We made it happen. We believed. (Assuming you voted for him, of course.)

You can agree or disagree with the man's ideas. I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that everyone likes him. But no matter where you stand, you have to admit that after tomorrow, we could be looking at a very different America. And that's a thought that excites me, at least.