Project Mayhem: Rexburg Chapter

I have some new heroes, in Rexburg of all places. Sadly, my heroes, shortly after performing their epic heroic deed, were defeated by the minions of one* of Rexburg's most evil organizations of villains: The City Government (specifically the Police Department, the government's enforcers and tax collectors). I wish I had been there to help, because these true heroes pulled off what I have been wanting to do for years, which is to make all the parking signs in the entire town disappear over night.

They didn't quite pull off something so dramatic, but they did accomplish something that makes the same point: four Rexburg Citizens took down 60 parking signs around BYU-Idaho campus, tossed them over fences or under cars, and left a bag full of the nuts and bolts used to hang the signs on the front steps of City Hall. They also posted a three-page manifesto, ransom note style, on the door of City Hall. Aside from demands that Rexburg's ridiculous parking regulations be relaxed, it makes several other quite reasonable demands, such as lowering the town's legal smoking age to 6, and having a town baby sale.

Here's the mistake our heroes made: They pulled off this stunt while still living in Rexburg. This is something you do after graduating school and moving away, to minimize the chances of adverse consequences at the hands of the City Villains, the armed meter-maids. The heroic deed was discovered early Tuesday morning, April 20th 2010. I propose that 4/20, aside from the typical activities engaged in on that day, be also known as Annual Rexburg Anti-No Parking Civil Unrest and Peaceful Protest Day, or ARANPCUPPD. Double park, park nose-in in the back-in spots, park where you don't have a permit, etc., etc. Of course, the villains have more power than we do, so only do this if you are prepared to pay tickets, etc., because until enough people participate, we won't have power to truly protest these laws, and there are too many people in Rexburg who fear their government, or at least do whatever they're told.

Also, next idea for a good deed: Leave the back-in parking signs up on 2nd street in front of campus, but re-paint the parking lines back the way they used to be, so that to back-in park you have to cross a lane of traffic. Mwahahahahaha!

*The other evil villainous organization is the BYU-Idaho administration...

Wrong Number

It's fun to mess with people. Here's a short text conversation I just had with a wrong number:

Wrong Number: "hey dad i am hungry and isaac said that you were going to bring pizza"

Me: "Well son, I have been looking for you for a long time, and now I've found you, it figures you just want free pizza."

Wrong Number: "Hey who is this think i got the wrong number"

Me: "Haha, yeah, you did."

The end.

Amazing True Facts

Normally I like to keep the content of this blog completely original, but this is too good. Here is a list of incredible facts that you can impress your friends with. I got this list from blogger Dan Bergstein at Sparknotes. Enjoy:

• When placed in warm milk, raisins re-plump into grapes.
• The metal backs of iPods are made from recycled zippers.
• Eskimos don't believe in bridges or tunnels.
• Every sixteen minutes, someone named Richard dies.
• Billy Bob Thornton's grandfather was the first person to own a television.
• Dolphins kill more people annually than sharks and influenza combined.
• On a dare, former President Rutherford B. Hayes declared war on Chile for 17 minutes.
• The original title for Catcher in the Rye was Hey, Look, a Carousel!
• Professionals call the top socket on an electrical outlet the "Martha," and the bottom socket the "Jasmine."
• In the archives at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., there are two identical snowflakes preserved in a freezer.
• Three out of every ten nickels has been in someone's mouth.
• If you hold one nostril closed for 72 hours, you will slowly lose the ability to see color. (Your sight will instantly return to normal when you release your nostril.)
• Wave a magnet at the lower left corner of a vending machine to receive a free soda.
• The glossy paper from the backs of stickers can be used to soothe sunburn.
• To be a train conductor, you have to cut off one of your own toes during a loyalty ritual.
• The Z in Jay-Z's name stands for "Zeppidemus."
• Jean shorts were invented three weeks prior to the invention of regular jeans.
• Whispering instead of talking on cell phones saves significant battery power.
• In Austria, the traditional Christmas colors are not red and green, but purple and clear.
• Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase "Baby Mama" in a satirical poem published in Poor Richard's Almanac.
• If you take the first letter of each word in the Monopoly board game instruction manual, they spell out an X-rated sentence.
• The original name for the laptop computer was "Hinged Smart Slab."
• The average person inhales 3 pounds of spider webs in his or her lifetime.
• When first introduced to the public, plastic laundry baskets cost $75 each.
• Winnie the Pooh started out as a non-fiction account of mental illness.
• Reading backwards for twenty minutes burns the same amount of calories as walking a half-mile.
• The Q in Q-tips stands for "quantum," as the small bit of cotton on the tip contains more atoms than the entire human body.
• Revolving doors were first invented as a way to keep horses out of department stores.
• Peru and the moon weigh the same amount.
• Human beings and anteaters are the only animals that can snap their fingers.
• If you soak a baseball hat in coke, and then let it dry on someone's head, over a 3-hour period the hat will shrink with skull-denting force, causing intense pain and irreparable damage.
• Clouds cannot travel south southwest.
• In sign language, there are 72 ways to say "drawbridge."