An ad for nothing, apparently...

I found this ad and I had to post it. Take a look at the picture. It is a guy and a girl, both with guitars on some pseudo stage, not really singing and just smiling while they are 'rocking out.' So, what could this be an ad for? Guitar Hero? Some bad dating site? A teeth whitening ad? Nope, its for Cigarettes. Seriously...its the one thing they are not doing at the moment, nor do you see a cig in his pocket or anywhere for that matter. Does anyone see this ad and say, 'I am totally in the mood for a smoke now?' I guess I am talking about it, so mission accomplished for Newport. Well done.

two women and lots of kissing

I have a great office overlooking the Salt Lake library. I get some great views. Yesterday though, that view changed. A couple of women were walking down the street and they stopped and started making out on the sidewalk. I hear all the time on television how hott! it is to see two women make out. Let me say, it wasn't as hott as others say. Oh well.

Box mesh, tennis and basketball

We went out to dinner on Friday night for our Valentines Day. I picked a mexican grill restaurant downtown which we had never tried. It had a fun atmosphere and it started off well. We ordered our food and we waited and waited and waited. Finally, our waitress came over and apologized and told us that there was a computer problem with our order but that our order would come out soon. Fine. The manager actually came by and apologized as well and offered us dessert for the inconvenience. Cool. Thank you.

Well, our dinner came out and we had a nice dinner until the very end when Brodi leans over and takes out what looks like a hair out of my food. Egads. Well, almost all of the food was gone so we decided to let the manager know after our check came. We eat a nice dessert and then we finally mentioned it to the manager. The manager replies, 'Are you sure it was a hair? Was it gray and kind of rubbery? Now, normally I would not have spent much time analyzing the hair, but it was just like he described. I replied Yes, it was. He then explains that it was not a hair but it was 'box mesh' that got into my food. Box Mesh? I actually think he was right and that it was not a hair, but it led me to a few questions that I was too tired to ask:

• What the frak is box mesh?
• Why is it dropping from the skies into my food?
• What the frak is box mesh?

These are questions destined to remain unanswered.

The next night, we took the family out for Utah sports night. We went to watch the Ute tennis team smack around Idaho State (if you haven't gone to a college tennis match, you should...highly entertaining--we took the boys to about 5 of their matches last year and this was our 2nd time this year so far). We then went and cheered on the Utes as they lost to #15 ranked New Mexico in overtime. Overall, good weekend...box mesh and all.

Book Reviews

On the left hand column, I am going to keep track of the books that I read this year. I am linking all of the books to Amazon for those interested in learning more of these books. I am also going to put them in order of how much I liked the books, so you can keep track of what have been my favorite books through the year. Every month or two, I will give quick reviews of the latest books. Here is my first round of books, in order of what I like the best, for the year 2010

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Most of you have probably heard a bit about this book. The author wrote several books at once and finally got this published and it has been a huge hit. He died this past summer but he still has those final couple of books that have been published and about to be published.

The book is about a large family corporation, the Vangar Corporation, in Sweden. The story centers around the disappearance of the niece of the CEO of the company. She disappeared over 30 years ago and he hires a guy to find out who murdered her as well as to write a family history of the Vangers. The person that is hired is a somewhat disgraced financial reporter who looks at it as a way to make some good money and possible unravel a mystery. His assistant is the quiet, dark researcher (the girl with the dragon tattoo) to help him figure it all out.

It is interesting for the first half of the book but some may feel it moves a bit slow. It picks up in 'excitement' as the book moves along. There are also some difficult spots in the book dealing with rape. Though not necessarily graphic in detail, it is not just briefly mentioned either, so be warned. Overall, it was a great tale though and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I really enjoyed this. For those that have not yet read Hunger Games, get on it. Then pick up this sequel to it. The basic premise is a society of 12 towns/cities under the rule of the main capital city. The capital city holds its Hunger Games once a year where 2 participants from each city are randomly selected to be a part of the games. They are then thrown into the 'game' where the winner is the last one who is alive. The rest are killed in these 'games.' Dark and thoroughly entertaining and Collins does a nice job with this sequel. I don't like the open-ended-ness of this book, but the 3rd book comes out this summer so I look forward to it.

The Pyramid by Henning Mankell

The writer of this book is an international bestselling author and he has written a bunch of stories about a policeman in Southern Sweden named Kurt Wallander. I was a missionary in Sweden so it has been pretty cool to read about the towns, etc. there as well. This is a collection of Wallander cases from when he just began as a cop, then to cases over the next 20 years. It fills a lot of gaps for this detective and it also gives some interesting cases. These books are not big time thriller books. Wallander is a pretty methodical cop who investigates and thinks. There are some action scenes but it is more of seeing how a good cop slowly figures out why a crime happened and who committed the crime. These books have been translated into English and I think that The Pyramid is a good place to start with these books. If you like it, continue on with the other 7-8 of them...if not, move on.

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

An older couple is brutally murdered in a quiet farming community during the middle of the night. The lead policeman, Wallander, is left scratching his head as he can see no connection to why this violent crime happened. The story takes some twists and turns and it follows the regular Wallander stories as he tries to figure out why someone would kill the old couple so viciously and how the murder was going to affect the community.

Rat Run by Gerald Seymour

This is written by a famous European author. The premise is good. A guy was a military officer and he was disgraced (accused of running away from a fire fight). He goes home to England and becomes depressed and lives in tract housing. He develops a friendship with an older woman but he never ventures outside of his apartment. One day, his friend is beaten nearly to death because he did not meet her at the station to pick her up late at night. He goes on the offensive, going after all of the drug dealers and drug warlords in the city. The story gets bogged down as it also deals with international terrorism, the English government and other governments. It is an intricate weaving of a story that often left me a bit confused.

Random Food Thoughts

I talked to one of the Coca Cola delivery guys at the local Smiths. He said that his store goes through about 12-14 twelve packs of Tab every week. He said though, while most drinks get sold on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays...the majority of Tab is produced during weekdays. He says that is because older people buy it during the week. Who woulda thunk that Tab was drunk mainly by old people? Don't kids also love Tab?!?

Last Fall, I picked up some chicken nuggets from KFC. I asked the guy at KFC how much regular chicken is bought every single days at just that store. He said if you add up the chicken wings, legs and breasts, over 1100 individual pieces of chicken are bought from just that store. Egads. That is a lot of chicken.

So, at Wendy's, they serve square hamburger patties. Why don't they serve it on square buns? I understand the round hamburer patty and round bun...I don't understand the square hamburger patty and round bun.

I love cheddar cheese. But I don't think that I have ever seen cheddar cheese sold in round packaging. Other cheeses are sold in round packaging, but cheddar cheese is always sold in rectangle or square packaging. Why?

New favorite best cereal? Strawberry Honey Bunches of Oats is terrific, especially if you combine it with its sister cereal 'Just Bunches, caramel.' Tasty treats. Don't get me wrong, it still cannot match Pop Tarts in terms of goodliness, but it is a great cereal.

Did you know that they serve salads at Arbys. I didn't either. But, they do.