Here’s a free date idea!

Everyone is invited to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat produced by the Provo, Utah South Stake.

What: FREE Musical production of Joseph
Where: Provo, Utah South Stake Center, 835 South 500 West in Provo
When: Thursday, Friday, Saturday March 20–22; 7:30 PM

For crowd control, the stake wants everyone to have tickets (but the show is free). If you need tickets, e-mail Steve ASAP.

Just figured I would say HI to everyone here… :) Anywho… Has anyone here read any of Gerald Lund’s books. I just read one yesterday. It is an interesting story about what life would be like in the United States if the Constitution had never been ratified. And to make a long story short… it was pretty bad. To find out more you had better read the book. It is called “The Freedom Factor”. Yeah it has a little romance, but still the story line is pretty interesting. Anyways I was wondering what others thought about all of these ppl who want to take away our Right to Bear Arms. And so on like that. Or maybe our right to free speech. With the Congress wanting to let the CIA or whatever, have more freedom to spy on ppl that they think are a threat to our country. Whether or not they have the evidence. Or to get the evidence that they need to. Anyways that was in the news like almost 10 months ago so I may be a little rusty on that topic. I guess I just feel that we need our Constitution. And so on.

~Shi~

A few months ago (Stu will know what I’m talking about) I downloaded a fun little freeware app that tracked how far my mouse had travelled. It even gave you links to download (relatively) cool stuff for each mile you reached. Well, the program was horribly buggy (perhaps Win XP problems?) and I deleted it a few short weeks after I downloaded it.

Now I have found something similar, but much more practical in my opinion. I was looking for a good freeware typing tutor program, and stumbled across a freeware typing speedometer. It has a needle that shows how fast you are currently typing in key-presses per minute and WPM. It also has several other indicators that track your average and maximum WPM, along with your average over the last ten seconds, so that after you’ve typed something you can look at it and see how fast you were just going. Plus, it keeps track of your total key-presses, words, and mouse clicks.

You can read more about it and download it here. It’s free, and as far as I know does not contain any spyware. Have fun! 

Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing about a lecture series at the University about the Iraqi-American conflict. The last lecture in the series took place yesterday, and I was unable to attend on account of my UPC Technology Chair interview.

Anyway, an article came out in the Chrony today about the lecture. You can read the article by clicking the following link:

Paris and the Middle East: Making Sense of French Politics

This article helped me to gain a better understanding of why France and Germany have problems with the idea of starting a war in Iraq. It’s still difficult for me to see a way to get Saddam out of there without some kind of conflict, and this whole situation has really gone on longer than it should have, but I can see how this war could really start a chain reaction with a lot of nasty repercussions.

I have complete faith that the U.S. Military can take Saddam out without creating unnecessary casualties. However, I personally think we aren’t doing enough to get the rest of the world on our side. If we violate the U.N. as we go to war with Iraq, I’m really afraid that we will only create more enemies for ourselves (Listen to me… I sound like a Democrat! 😛). 

I honestly have no idea what to say. Call me insensitive and pessimistic, but I really had no hope for her being alive past August last year. I guess I was wrong!

In case you haven’t heard (and I have no idea how you haven’t), Elizabeth Smart was spotted today walking down the street in Sandy. There have been so many articles written about the story that it would take me a while to list them here, and you’ve probably read them all, so I won’t. However, I discovered one article that really suprised me. This has got to be one of the more twisted parts of the whole story:

Elizabeth Smart May Have Been Photographed With Street Preacher At Party in September

Some guy at a party last September took some pictures of Brian David Mitchell (Smart’s kidnapper), along with two women with veiled faces. I don’t blame the photographer at all for not turning in the pictures sooner, since Mitchell wasn’t a suspect until October/November, but even then the media didn’t know about him until February, when they began releasing photos and sketches of the guy. I just think it’s nuts that for at least part of the last eight months she’s been walking around in broad daylight and nobody could see the forest for the trees. Scary. 😳