wait, I have a blog too?

Oh yeah. Sorry there little blog - forgot about your for 6 months.

You'll notice I've made a couple minor changes around here. 10 cool points to the first person that can name two changes to the blog.

Well, I guess I should write about something. Health care? No. I'm just as lost as everyone else, so I wouldn't have much to say.

All the great happenings in my life lately? No. That's what my wife's blog is for. Ask her for an invite if you aren't already on her list.

Some of my great new ideas, like "New Deli" - the Indian food restaurant idea I had? Nope. That's pretty much the idea - there's not a whole lot else to explain.

I know! I know!

"SEVEN POUNDS" WAS THE WORST MOVIE EVER.

And thus begins my rant. I actually had the idea for this post about a year ago when I saw the worthless movie, but haven't been the bloggiest blogger lately, so I forgot.

And since it's been a year, all the crappiness isn't as fresh in my mind, so this won't really be as powerful of a rant. I'll summarize with bullets. heh heh, that kind of makes me sound like a bad-A. Maybe I'll use that line in a screenplay about a corporate lackey who's tired of giving presentations so one day he flips out and yells, "I'll summarize with bullets!" just as he begins his rampage.

Back to my rant, in bullet points:
(PS don't read it if you haven't seen the movie and you still want to. Also, if you haven't seen the movie, this won't make any sense.)

• It took WAY too long for the love story to develop. I found myself wanting the movie to end faster.
• Suicide. I'm not a big advocate of it. The next few points will illustrate why the protagonist was NOT a selfless hero, but a selfish bat-turd in doing what he did.
• He'd caused an automobile ACCIDENT (not on purpose) that took the lives of several people. He thinks he can atone for this accident? He thinks improving the lives of a few people and saving one, and then taking one more (his own) will even the score? 6-1+1=6. Or is it ok because he was so sad anyway so death was a nice way out for him? Guess what? That's the coward's way out. That is not heroic.
  
• The people who's lives he had "improved" had already been dealing with their disabilities and were leading good lives. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they lived out the rest of their lives that way, or just waited until the next natural death resulted in some organs being available.
  
• Are you still reading this? I probably would have stopped by now. In fact, I haven't really been reading any blogs lately. Sorry.
• Let's consider that he traded his life for the woman's at the end. Each of them had people in their lives who cared about them, although the movie didn't really focus on his loved ones. Consider, for a moment, the social lifestyle of such a charismatic individual as the protagonist was - he built up a HUGE company from nothing. That type of personality would likely also lead to many rich and enjoyable relationships with the people around him. I'm not saying his life was more valuable than hers, but if you could somehow quantify the sorrow brought about by his suicide compared with her passing of natural causes beyond her control, I think his actions caused much more suffering, not less.
  
• MOST IMPORTANTLY (I typed that in case you were just skimming for the important part) - consider the alternative. This man was rich, and he accidentally took several people's lives because he was texting while driving. Should he A) kill himself and donate organs to people who need them or B) set up a charitable foundation to raise awareness about the dangers of texting and driving, begin and ad campaign to reach millions and change their behavior, use his political influence to outlaw the practice in the entire country, fund research and development of a technology that prohibits phones from working (except emergencies) while inside a motor vehicle, and thereby prevent any further loss of life due to this stupid behavior. I guess A makes a better movie, but B would actually make a difference.
  
• Killing yourself with a jellyfish? That part was actually kind of cool. I'd never thought of that.
  
• I felt that I needed to write this because of so many people who, before I saw the movie, told me how amazing it was and how it made them cry. I couldn't disagree more. This movie made my think of all of the things the man could have done instead of killing himself. Heaven forbid I ever find myself responsible for the deaths of several people, hopefully my love for the people who are a part of my life would give me the strength and courage to get through it, overcome my sorrows, and go about my life with renewed resolve to make a difference in the world.
• This is the only Will Smith movie I didn't enjoy. (Note- I never saw "Wild Wild West").

End Rant.

Next post will be more positive.

Happy Birthday to my Blog!

That's right! March 23rd, 2008, I started this little operation with a few explanations. Here are some other noteworthy things to happen on March 23rd:

• "Give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry uttered this phrase in in 1775.
• Lewis and Clark turned around and began the trip home in 1806.
• The first version of the modern elevator (the safety elevator) was installed in NYC in 1857.
• The University of California was founded in 1868.
• The Wright Brothers applied for a patent on one of the first successful versions of the airplane in 1903.
  
• Benito Mussolini founded Fascism in 1919.
• Adolf Hitler officially became dictator of Germany in 1933.
• Jason Kidd was born in 1973.
  
• Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donoldo Colosio was assasinated in 1994.
• The first major conflict in Operation Iraqi Freedom happened in 2003.
• And finally, I'd like to think that someday wikipedia will also state, "Benji's Blog was launched in 2008."

Also, Poland and Hungary observe the day of Hungarian-Polish Friendship.

Enter The Dental Ninja....

My blog has gone the way of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Pink Flloyd, Led Zepplin, Guns 'n Roses, and the Smashing Pumpkins. It has split up.

The topics "Dentistry" and "Ninjutsu" decided they'd be better of forming their own blog, leaving this site to "journal," "movies," "politics," and "random." Mostly random.

Why? They say that in order to write a quality blog you need to picture your readers and focus on them. I found myself going back and forth between addressing two groups of readers: those who care what I do on my vacation and those who don't.

Enter The Dental Ninja. This blog will contain very little details of my personal life but will be a repository of the more amusing side of dentistry, mostly from the news. In fact, you should go there now to read the interesting account of a 3-year-old who injured 7 teeth in a failed attempt to get out of a cage. Gad Zooks!

PS, which entry page do you like more?

100 posts - time for a DTR

100 posts, wahoo! I've been racking my brain trying to come up with something worthy of this historic occasion, but no single idea stood out as the clear winner so instead, lets just have a DTR. (If you're wondering what that means, it stands for "Define the relationship". It's a pleasant talk that young couples have when the try to figure out how committed the other person is to the relationship. It can be very rewarding and lots of fun. It usually includes questions such as "where do you see this going?" as well as lots of questions about feelings.)

First off - last week's poll about music: 3 of you voted that you like automatic playing music. 6 of you voted that you don't like it, but 3 of those votes came from this house, so it's still sort of a tie. 7 of you voted for Barack Obama - probably so that if he does really well and everyone likes him you can also claim to have voted for him. Anyway, for now I'll stop forcing my music upon you. I'll put it back on the bottom of the page where you can go click if you really want to hear it.

Now lets talk about content. I've looked at the titles of my first 99 posts and done a quick tally of exactly what it is this blog is about. Here are my results:

My experiences/thoughts/journal....35
Random intersting things..............19
Current events/politics.................12
Dentistry (me)............................9
Dentistry (news)..........................9
Movie Reviews...........................8
Random funny things....................6

I think I like that balance. Ever since my wife started blogging and then really really started blogging (like several times per day) I have felt less of a need to talk about my family because she takes care of that. Feel free to share with me what you want to see more/less of. I might take your suggestions into consideration, I guess it depends on how committed I am to making sure this relationship works.

Lastly, I'd like to change gears and discuss the phrase "scattered like ice from the spoon." Sound familiar? Bonus points if you can tell me where it's from before reading on. Ok, time's up, it's from Black Balloon by the Goo Goo Dolls. People from the internet say that it's a drug reference - but before you go wandering around in San Bernardino suggesting things like, "Hey guys, lets all go scatter some ice from a spoon!" you should know that "ice" refers to methamphetamines and "spoons" are used with heroin, so people don't really use "spoons" and "ice" together. The mystery remains. I'd like to think that something so innocent sounding as a "goo goo doll" wouldn't condone drug use and that they are simply talking about putting ice cubes in spoons and just scattering them around. How fun would that be?

A couple years back I was telling a story and near the end I said, "and then the cops showed up so we all scattered like....." and I was at a loss for words. The first thing my mind wanted to say was "ice from the spoon" but I knew that didn't really make any sense. The second place my mind went was to a memory I had as a teenager when I was on my back porch and stepped on a huge, HUGE wolf spider to kill it. When I picked up my foot I saw tiny dots scattering in every direction and had no idea what had just happened. Later I learned that when wolf spiders give birth, the tiny babies will stay on the mother's abdomen for a while. (Some sources say a week, some say longer. Either way, click here if you don't believe me or if you just want to learn more).
Alas, I digress. I wanted to end the story with "we all scattered like baby wolf spiders on the mama spider's back!" but figured not many people in the room had seen it actually happen, which is a shame because it was a really good description of what we looked like and the way we all scattered when the cops showed up.
Eventually, I ended my story by saying "we scattered like ants!" That was probably the worst choice. Ants don't scatter - if anything they congregate. My point in all this is simply to state that we need better expressions for things that scatter. The end.

Update: video of baby wolf spiders.

A few explanations

Here I am, on the interwebs, blogging. Sometimes Melissa and I wonder what words that are common to us will be something our kids will laugh at - like when innocent old people use the word "gay" to mean happy and all us young 'uns snicker. I think "blogging" is a good example of one of the words with potential to turn that way. (Hee hee hee, Grandpa just said he was going to "blog", hee hee he he he. I wonder if he'll "google" something when he's done).

So here's the explanation - My brother started blogging last year. Due to my busy schedule, I didn't really go there that often, but, in fairness to Joe, whenever I went there I found some pretty interesting things. Anyway, Joe's lovely wife Stephanie started blogging a few months back and Melissa started reading her blog weekly and would often tell me stories of my awesome nephews, Lincoln and Daniel.

I realized that "blogging", as the kids call it, is a great way to stay connected while we're away from our friends and family in Utah - and after that it would be a great way to stay connected with all the wonderful people we've met here in Loma Linda. So there you have it, I blog.

Had-a-field
Years and years ago in the Somebody Else home on 7th north in Brigham City, it wasn't uncommon to hear the Somebody Else children teasing each other. Sometimes it went back and forth like this - "Joseph had a field, and he lost it!" "Benji had a field, and he lost it" to a melody something like the universal "neener neener neener" chant that children do so well. Yeah, we were brilliant. No better way to really burn a sibling than make fun of the last name!