I'll Ping you in the Turtleneck.

Once upon a time, I was a fan of Apple. I've only owned iPods, and I liked iTunes well enough. At least, it seemed to work better than any of my alternatives.

Recently, Google has announced that they plan on opening their own music store. Depending on its efficacy, I fully intend on switching to it. I am a huge fan of Google, and I hope they'll stay as cool as they are right now.

I've owned an iPod of some kind for as long as I've been listening to music that didn't belong to my parents. And I've decided that my current one, an iPod Touch, is the last one. I am done with iPods, and I am done with Apple. I've gone from being annoyed to being flat-out enraged, and there's no reason I should stay with a company I don't like.

The beginning of this was the release of the iPad. As I've mentioned before, I hate the iPad. It has a dumb name, it looks dumb, and most annoyingly, Steve Jobs acted like it was the first tablet ever invented. Never mind the fact that my laptop doubles as a touchscreen tablet. I was severely annoyed by the people who waxed poetic about Jobs and his maxiPad. It got old, and, eventually, the world divided into three groups- those who loved the TamPod, those who saw it as a running joke, and those who had never heard of Jobs and thought Apples grew on trees.

Now, however, the turtlenecked vampire has given us Ping. It is a social Network, or at least, it's supposed to be one. I'm not quite sure you can just "create" a social network- Facebook didn't just come into existence with millions of members, it had to work at it and grow. Same thing with Myspace. Even if Jobs is "magic," I sort of doubt his ability to just bring a social network into being.

And this Ping shit is annoying as hell. Even though you don't have to create an account, there are countless icons crowding iTunes that want you to use Ping to tell people what you're listening to, what you're thinking about listening to, what you like, what you want to like, what you don't like, what you recommend to others, et cetera. It's making me crazy.

I want iTunes to store my music, keep it organized, and let me load it onto my iPod. I don't want anything else. I'm not interested in knowing what other people think of some song or album. I don't care. I don't want to know what everyone else is likes. That is not how I choose my music.

So, yes, I am quite annoyed with iTunes and Apple. Steve Jobs will be losing a customer soon enough, I can tell you that. And something tells me I'm not the only one who'll be leaving.

Rotting Our Brains on the Boob Tube

I watch a lot of television, I'll admit it. I watch a lot of news, a lot of Top Gear, and a lot of really dumb crap. In my defense, I'm doing like four or five other things at the same time- homework, writing, blogging, cleaning, et cetera. My apartment is rather large, and it just feels awkward when its dead silent in here.

I watch a fair amount of TLC. It's fascinating, in the same way automobile accidents are fascinating. One of the best shows on there is "Say Yes to the Dress." I don't care what my mom and sister say, I'm not getting married. In the event I do, however, I am eloping. Screw the goofy dress and gaudy traditions. I will never wear a white goddamn dress, and I will never buy one at a bridal store. So it's amusing and interesting to watch people place so much effort into something I find archaic. It cracks me up when they say things like, "I'm on a budget so I want to keep the price below $2000." Two thousand dollars would cover at least four months' rent for me, dude. Maybe it's because I'm in college, but two thousand on a dress you wear for one day is like paying a hundred dollars for a sandwich.

And I realize there are scores of women who lust for my blood when I call weddings antiquated. I don't mean antiquated for other people; I just mean it for myself. Much as I respect people who have a different religion than me, I respect women who, unlike me, have been planning their wedding since pre-pubescence. I'm not a lunatic feminist; women can do whatever the hell they want. You can be a career woman or aspire to bear four thousand children. Whatever, it's up to you.

But I digress. The new show on TLC that is my latest fascination is "Sister Wives." I stayed up till 11 on a Sunday night just to watch the series premiere. And boy, is it interesting.

Basically, it surrounds this man down in Lehi, Utah who was three wives and a bunch of children. His first wife grew up in a polygamous family, so understandably that is the norm for her. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure the second wife wasn't in a polygamous family but was open to the concept. The third wife was. The eventual fourth wife wasn't, and has been married before. So there you go.

I don't have a problem with polygamy. I'm an anthropologist, so there's no "correct" way to have a relationship to me. In fact, the only reason polygamy is illegal in the US is because it's a historically and politically-loaded concept. So I have a problem with a forced marriage between a twelve year old and a forty year old? Of course I do, don't be stupid. It happens in the polygamous community, and in the monogamous community, and it's equally as wrong on both sides. I personally would never be in a polygamous relationship, but, as before stated, they'll be lucky to get me to marry anyone. They're not part of the norm, and they suffer for it.

So, I give Sister Wives a thumbs-up, if, for no other reason, it makes for a fascinating ethnographic record.

Another one of my favorite shows is "Glee." Ironically, I really do not like musicals. I find them to be rather awkward, with very few exceptions. However, Glee has a great range of characters and conflicts. Jane Lynch deserves an Oscar for her performance as the She-Male cheerleader coach. It's just an overall great show. However, the beginning of the series has been somewhat lackluster, at least in my opinion. The season premiere introduced two new characters who could potentially rival some of the regular cast. And then they went away. Sue and Mr. Schu teamed up against the new football coach, only to sever ties in the same episode. While there was repeated potential for intrigue, the premiere fell flat for me. I had more hope in yesterday night's episode, as they were doing Britney Spears' tributes. Yet again, the episode ended in an awkward spot with little feeling of accomplishment. I waited the entire hour, in vain, for Kurt to sing one of Spears' hit singles. Even though he was obviously the most devoted Spears fan, he never got to do anything. Supposedly, Artie wants Tina back, but we wouldn't be able to tell save for quick allusions to it. Meanwhile, Rachel has a fit about Finn not being on the football team, and then being back on the team. Mr. Schu's ex-wife, who I secretly hoped we were done with because she annoyed the shit out of me, is back and crazy as ever. Emma won't date Schu, and is instead dating John Stamos, who is supposed to be a dentist with poor taste in gaudy cars. Oh, and they concentrate on those two slutty cheerleaders who have the combined IQ of a toaster.

I suppose the reason it all is falling flat for me is that they're trying too hard to cover too many people. Last season, it seemed like they would use the hour to mostly concentrate on the dynamics of just a few people. Now it feels like they're trying to make too many people into main characters, and it's not working.

Finally, there's "House." I love House, and this season's looking like it will continue the greatness. The whole House-Cuddy thing is fantastic. I have no complaints, except that Thirteen better come back soon. Olivia Wilde is a great actress.

There are, of course, other shows, but I have no complaints about any of them. Hooray for Bones and Fringe. Why is it that Fox has all the greatest shows?

Do I Believe in Writer's Block?

A writer friend of mine (Neysa Jensen) posed the question on her blog of whether or not writer's block exists. The query is a valid one- there are plenty of people who claim they suffer from writer's block, and plenty of people who don't. I was about to chime in with my own opinions when I realized I wasn't sure what my opinion is.

When it comes to writing, I have a semi-emotional view of it. I write every day, whether it's a blog posting, or a few pages on my latest novel, or even a three-page short story. Writing is my favorite thing to do in my spare time because it's a kind of release. Now, I frequently display the emotional aptitude of a turnip, but when I'm writing, my thoughts are more articulate, and my feelings have a certain amount of clarity.

But do I believe in writer's block?

I suppose it depends what your definition of writer's block is. If it's a period when a person is unable to write anything, then no. I can write about anything. I can write absolute nonsense, if that's what I have to do. However, if your definition of writer's block is reaching an impasse on a particular story or essay, then yes, I believe in writer's block. There are times when I am working on something and I just cannot eke out any more words.

When I run into a problem like this, I take one of two approaches. Either the story wasn't meant to be in the first place, or there's something that needs to change earlier in the story.

If it's suffering from the former, then away the word document goes to a file aptly named "Writing Shit in Progress." It is, without a doubt, the purgatory of my hard drive. Every now and then, I go in there, find something that doesn't completely suck, and try to revive it. This was the case with my latest story (can I call in a novel? Is that too formal?). I started it, or at least a version with similar characters, several years ago. I got about forty pages into it and realized it wasn't going anywhere. So straight to "Writing Shit in Progress" it went. After I got twenty pages into the handwritten story about two months ago, I realized it was turning into that story I'd already started.

The latter is easier for me to fix. Recently, while working on The Monster (not its title, it has nothing to do with monsters), I came to a point where the progression of the plot had slowed and gotten awkward. At that point, I was about 170 pages into it, and I was not about to abandon it. I went back about thirty pages and found a place that could be altered to revive the plot as a whole. The story roared on, and now it's closing in on 300 pages.

So does writer's block exist? I guess my answer is "only if you let it exist." If you're emotionally invested enough in it to the point where you aren't willing to send it to virtual limbo, then there isn't a block. There's just something that needs to be changed.

And I guess the second part to asking whether writer's block exists or not is considering your writing style. I suppose it's impossible to assess whether or not writer's block exists simply because everyone has a different writing style. There's no "correct" writing process. I don't suffer from any writer's "block," per say, but that doesn't mean no one suffers from blockage.

I Have a Blog? Oh, Yeah...

So, it's been awhile since I made a post. I could blame it on how busy I've been with school, but that would be a lie. I'm remarkably good at budgeting my time when I try, as it turns out. The biggest thing that has been eating my time is my latest writing endeavor.

It started out as a distraction. You see, I had only just finished a zombie story I'd been writing over the last year, and my typical strategy is to place a period of time between the writing and editing processes. This is not my creation; I got the idea from Stephen King's On Writing. Anyway, I started a new story between writing and editing. It began as a lighthearted story about a preacher from a religion that I created to parallel the monotheism of Christianity/Judaism/Islam who goes to serve at a school run by the church. This transformed, over the course of six weeks, into a 280-page monster. It is officially the longest story I've ever written in my life. It got much darker, much more complex, and much more interesting than it had originally been.

It also has yet to give any indication that it's finished. I write anywhere from five to ten pages a day. I wrote the ending two weeks ago. Now I'm working to fill in the gaps and elaborate on details. In case you didn't know, I'm more of a short story person. I like to create stories that fit neatly into a few pages. I've written a couple of stories that ended up being 100-150 pages, and I felt accomplished. This creature, though, is a thing all by itself. I have yet to run into a block or get tired of the story. I don't feel like I'm stretching out parts simply to make the overall product longer. The big difference between this story and my other ones is that 280 pages later, the story has yet to feel tedious.

But enough about the monster. I'm sorry to report Mormons for Dummies has been placed on temporary leave until I do not have school upon which I devote my attention. Mormons are, of course, hilarious. The other day, I earned myself a few good glares by shouting "Jesus Christ" on Temple Square. I was trying to get home when I got stuck behind a crowd of tourists. Another time, I was nearly run over by a woman in a Mormon Utility Vehicle (aka a minivan) who was not paying attention to the red light and was instead looking for parking. Like I said, Mormons are hilarious.

On a not entirely unrelated note, I love Salt Lake City. I really do. I'm surprised by how quickly I've adopted it and its quirks; it took me an entire school year to decide I semi-liked Portland. Salt Lake and Portland share a few things in common. For starters, the homeless people here are just as crazy as the ones in Portland. A few days ago, I observed a man carry on a conversation with a mannequin in the window of a suit store. It was fascinating. Salt Lake also has a decent public transit system. Ours is called TRAX, as opposed to MAX in Portland. We also have a good bus system.

The biggest difference, though, is the most important one- I love University of Utah. I absolutely love it. Portland State did not feel much like a university; it felt like a grouping of buildings where people went to class. The U feels like a real university. It's the kind of campus you see in the movies, with sloping grounds, towering trees, and people hanging out in common areas studying or playing instruments. The University of Utah is perched on a hill, set against the Wasatch Front. Our stadium is visible from virtually everywhere in the Salt Lake Basin. You can tell the city of Salt Lake has fierce pride when it comes to the U- the "drum and feather" logo is visible in business windows and flying from flags in front of homes. Everyone on campus wears their spirit gear with pride. It's a school that brags cutting-edge research and an excellent football team. Utah is a community in every way Portland State wasn't; I'm going to a school I enjoy and can be proud to attend.

So that's what's going on in my life. Thus far, moving to Salt Lake has been the best decision I've ever made. Two years ago, if you told me I'd be happy to be living here, I would have laughed. However, two years ago I was confident in a lot of things that turned out to be wrong. I never would have guessed that I would be studying anthropology, or writing a giant novel, or living in Utah. After the last two years, I've decided that assuming I know where I'm going in life is a dumb idea. I know a few people going into college, and the biggest thing I'd say to them is that it's bad to try and find something to do for the rest of their lives. All we can do is find what makes the present meaningful, and just go along with that. I moved from Portland to Salt Lake and I'm happier than ever. Nothing is fixed.

Hand Washing the Hard Way

I'm not afraid of germs.

It's quite weird, actually. I'm OCD about a lot of things, but germs are not part of that. Of course, I wash my hands, I scrub down cooking utensils, et cetera. But you're not going to see me opening doors with a hand-towel. I'm not going to refrain form picking up my pets just because they're dirty. When it comes to germs, I figure the amount that are beneficial or at least harmless far outweigh those that can make you sick. I take the approach of "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

So this shit makes me nuts- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqchsFwhSNQ&feature=player_embedded.

That's right- a hands-free soap dispenser. I mean, how dumb can you get? On the website for this stupid little tower of plastic, they even have a troubleshooting section.

Troubleshooting.

We're trying to turn our hand-soap into an electronic. This is insane, people. Why do we need to complicate soap? I mean, think about it. The only time we use soap is when we are about to wash our hands. Who cares how dirty the soap pump is; we're about to wash all the germs away, anyway. Not to mention, unless you have an automatic sink, you'll be touching the knobs, anyway, which defeats the purpose.

It's not even water-proof. Why would anyone make an electronic product that sits next to a sink all day and can't even stand up to water?

Not to mention the amount of money you're going to have to spend on this puppy. It requires four AA batteries. You have to replace the soap periodically, and those little refill cartridges aren't cheap, either. This is an investment that generates money long after you've bought the product. It's the reverse of what any rational consumer wants in a recession- instead of paying for itself, it only costs more as it ages.

It's nuts. I can't think of any situation where this would be a wise purchase. One review suggests that perhaps you are trying to re-create the hands-free experience of a public restroom. In that case, does the dispenser come with a decal I can stick to the wall that looks like a stall door? And how about an audio track of people doing there business, so you won't feel alone, just like in a public restroom. I'm just going for authenticity, here.

It has all kinds of things that can go wrong. It's like the new iPhone- if you hold it incorrectly when you pick it up, it malfunctions. If you let soap build up around the nozzle, it will malfunction. If you don't switch it off before moving it, it malfunctions. One review sites one possible use as being for a cook, so you don't have to handle raw meat and then touch the soap dispenser. But you'll still be washing your hands, so it doesn't matter.

The reasons some will buy this is that we, as a collective society, are afraid of germs. Think about it. What is the point of an automatic toilet? You'll just wash your hands, anyway. People carry around hand sanitizer. I mean, people started wearing face masks because they were afraid of the pig sniffles, which don't actually protect you much from germs.

The truth is, our fear of germs makes us willing to invest in false senses of security. It doesn't seem to matter whether or not it's actually reducing the germs, just as long as we feel like we're staying cleaner.

Germs are not bad. A few of them are, but proportionally, they're outweighed. We would not be able to live without the beneficial germs living in our systems.

And seriously? Troubleshooting for a freaking soap dispenser? Give me a break. Soap doesn't need to be complicated. It shouldn't be complicated. Chemistry is complicated. Calculus is complicated. Washing your hands is not complicated.

Leaving High School: A Year Later

Today, I read a blog post about filling out a "Five Years Later" questionnaire for high school. It was highly entertaining, and I felt myself agreeing with most of what the blogger had to say about his high school experience. It got me thinking about my own high school experience.

I've been out of public education for about a year now, and even after slogging through a year of Portland State's errant nonsense, it was still better than high school. I got to take classes that interested me, and I got to ignore ones that didn't. This makes me wonder- why isn't high school more like college?

They claim to be preparing us for college, but I've found that's a load of nonsense. They make us take tests in the eighth grade to tell us what we should do with the rest of our lives. They want us to select some kind of "track" based on said indication. And that is a load of shit. They didn't even offer classes in Anthropology, and look what I'm studying now, fools. Even given this "track," we're all required to take a bunch of classes that mean nothing. I finished Health in one day online. I finished Technical Reading and Writing in not much more time than that. And yet, neither of these classes did me any good except for filling high school requirements.

Why can't requirements be broader- why can't they just say, three years of math, three years of science, four years of English, and then have a wide selection of classes from which we choose? Why can't creative writing fill an English requirement as easily as AP Literature? That's how it works in college. Why can't we take two biology classes instead of one biology and one chemistry? What difference does it make to some district official?

The way public high school works is counter to how a university works. If no one took a class here at the U because it looked uninteresting, then they would stop offering it. In public high school, we had to take certain classes whether we wanted to or not. If given the choice, I would not have taken Health. I doubt anyone would. This would motivate the district to build a better, restructured curriculum, not to stick with the same song and dance that we heard in junior high and elementary school. The body parts don't change; there is no point to beating us over the head with the circulatory system. Sports medicine, for example, should be a suitable substitute. We should've been able to take classes that interested us, not ones that make us hate learning. I'm lucky that my love of learning won out over my hatred of public school, because I know people who refuse to go to college for fear of the same boring beating they had in high school. That makes me sad, because I think this is why people would rather borrow lies and propaganda from talking heads than learn the facts on their own. I think people have been scared away from learning because they're only impression was the one given to them by public school, and that wasn't learning. It was testing, and repetition, and memorization. Public school has nothing to do with learning; it is a three-ring circus.

The aforementioned blogger lamented how useless his high school education was, and that his overall experience was quite poor. My own experience was equally forgettable, redeemed only by the teachers who showed a genuine interest in learning, and students' ability to learn. I don't miss high school in the least; I was told by some that I would, and they're wrong. I don't miss the other students, I don't miss the ridiculous requirements, and I certainly don't miss the stupidity of so much of it. If they wanted to genuinely prepare us for college, and not just fill some legal requirement, they would model the schools after universities. They would stop treating students like children and start treating them like independent young adults. High schoolers are immature little imps, and if they were made slightly more responsible for their own education, they might be able to get to college and not act like idiots.

Mormon Report: Meg Buys a Guide

Today, I went to Barnes and Noble and bought Mormonism For Dummies.

I kid you not, the Dummies series seriously makes a guide to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Thank the Heavenly Father.

I won't lie, I felt a tad awkward standing in line holding the September issue of Automobile and my newfound Mormon guide. The checker nearly died laughing as I quietly explained I last lived in Portland, OR, and this is about as far from the damned hipsters as I could get.

So, after walking the half-mile home in jeans- bad idea- I sat down with a tall glass of water, a Monty Python documentary on the telly, and I cracked my new guide to living successfully in Zion. Part one is titled, "What the Mormon Faith is All About."

First thing is first: apparently, they don't like being called Mormons. They'd rather be called "The Church of Jesus Christ." Unfortunately for them, I think this is the idea behind most all Christian sects. I mean, that is where the term Christian comes from, is it not? The term "Mormon Church" is an outright no-no. According to the book, they're okay with being called the LDS Church, but they don't love it.

The best part of the entire book thus far is this- "Some Mormons joke that LDS really stands for 'Let's Drink Sprite.'" I nearly died. I hope they know this is what LDS stands for in my mind from here on out.

So I knew that Sprite-Drinkers spend a lot of time praying, but in the book's checklist of day-to-day life, it says that they pray by themselves, with their families, read scriptures, and they spend at least three hours on Sundays in classes and meetings at the "Meetinghouse"- the Sprite term for the church. (Note that "temples" are sacred and only used during special occasions; meetinghouses are for all the regular stuff)

There are a lot of rules. Last time, I talked about clothes and the LDS lifestyle. In addition to the whole "immodesty" bit, they don't drink coffee or tea, they don't use harmful drugs, they don't drink, and they don't smoke. Sex is an absolute taboo except between a married man and wife. Some go so far as avoiding cola and R-rated movies. R-rated movies? How can they live without zombies and Quentin Tarantino? Finally, no swearing. I would spontaneously combust if someone took away my expletives.

Sundays are all about church; no work or shopping for most. (Orthodox Judaism comes to mind) Monday nights are all about the family, which has good intentions, but any time someone makes something like that a rule, it's bound to feel a tad too oppressive to some people.

Beyond this, they're about charity and fasting. 10% of their income goes to the Church. If I ever hear an LDS person complain about taxes again, I will smack them. They fast once a month (not a bad idea) for two meals. That time instead goes towards a kind of "spiritual feast," prayer, scripture reading, and church services are just some of the fasting attractions. The money saved from said fasting goes towards helping to feed the needy, according to Dummies.

To conclude the chapter, we review what sets the Sprite enthusiasts apart from the rest of Christianity. While this consists of several pages, I'll just cover what stood out most. For starters, they believe in a concept known as "premortality"- souls exist long before they become bodies, and they continue to exist long after their corporeal form has expired. Interestingly enough, those who commit sins won't go to hell- they'll suffer for what they've done, but they can still seek eternal salvation and all the perks that go with that. In true sci-fi fashion, only those who "know God and still rebel against him" will go to "Outer Darkness." More on "Outer Darkness" in the second chapter, and it sounds interesting enough that I'm not going to flip ahead. They believe, unlike most other Christian sects, that God still sends down scriptures. They also believe that only they know all of God's "eternal truths." Most other sects acknowledge other churches, i.e. Episcopalians accept that Presbyterians have merit, however, in the eyes of the LDS Church, only they hold the keys to the castle, as it were. Finally, unlike most who believe "till death do us part," the Sprite drinkers believe that even after death, you're stuck together. So choose wisely, I suppose.

This concludes Chapter One. I probably won't do a review of each chapter- I don't have the attention span. However, I might check in occasionally with a visit to the Sprite Guide. I'm here for at least the next four years, so I might as well absorb a few things about the reigning religion here in the land of salty lakes.

Isn't learning fun?