Ratings

I'm a movie nut. I like to watch movies. Sure I like to get outside once in awhile and do outdoorsy, active things, but most nights I enjoy just watching a movie. Or sometimes I combine them both and do some nice outdoor activity or something that involves travel, but then just end the night with a movie. That is my perfect day. Movies are awesome. I quote them all the time. Sometimes, I don't even mean to quote them. They are just so ingrained in my being that the movie lines just come out. I even wonder sometimes what heaven will be like and I like to think that we will be able to watch back our lives on  Celestial-Ray Discs  or something. I could watch some of the cool things I did. Like that time a fly was resting on my elbow and I caught it in my hand - That was pretty cool. Maybe instead of watching it on a Disc, it would be more like YouTube. Maybe I could just type in a search, such as  "That one time I caught a fly off of my elbow" and it would pop up and I could watch it and leave a comment like, "That was awesome!" (because it was). Anyway, I'm getting side tracked, back to the original point. I like movies and I've seen a lot. Maybe not as much as my amazingly awesome brother, but I've still seen a lot and I like them. Do you get what I am trying to say here?

There are a ton of movie rating systems out there, and frankly, I think they are all crap. 3 out of 5 stars. Two thumbs up! 3 out of 3 stars! 4 and 1/2 bees. If I am reading about two different movies and they both get "Two Thumbs up" how am I supposed to know which one is better? Which one get the better thumbs up (I imagine in this situation that one set of thumbs has warts and the other one doesn't. Obviously I would want to see the unwarted movie). All the different rating systems kind of remind me of those surveys that I hate to answer. The ones where they ask you to fill in one of the following circles: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree. A lot of the times, none of those answers work. It's like on Netflix, they ask you to rate movies and the choices are: Hated It, Didn't Like It, Liked It, Really Liked It, Loved It. How am I supposed to rate all my movies based on those ratings? And however I rate things on Netflix determines what kind of suggestions they will give me. How am I supposed to show my different feelings for different movies. I might " Really Like" two different movies but I like one a bit more than the other, but I don't quite "Love" the better one. What am I supposed to do in that situation, huh Netflix??

Rotten Tomatoes has found a pretty good system that I am quite satisfied with. They pull all the critic reviews from around the world (it might just be the USA, but around the world sounds cooler) and then give the movie a percentage rating based on whether the reviews were favorable reviews or bad reviews. So if the critic gives a good review, the movie would get a fresh tomato rating. If they movie gets a bad review, it gets a rotten tomato rating. Then they add all those up and take a percentage and boom, you know how good the movie is. It gives you 100 different options instead of just a few. That is a great system. So when people ask me from now on how a movie was, I will give them a number from 1 to 100. At least, that is one way I'll do it. The other way, is more of a system just for myself, but I occasionally share this rating system with others as well.

So, my rating system.... Let's call it... Mike's Movie Rating System. Or MMRS for short (I am very creative). And here it goes:

1. I never want to watch this movie again. I will turn it off if it's on TV or leave a party if it is the movie of choice (Example: The Lorax)
2. I didn't like this movie. I'd really rather not watch it again, but if it was on TV and I couldn't find the remote I'd watch it. Or if it was the movie choice at a social gathering, I'd stay but I'd probably play a little Where's my Water on my phone while "watching". (Example: Gulliver's Travels)
3. I liked this movie alright. If it were on TV at some point in the future I'd set the DVR to record it. Or if it was on Netflix instant viewing I'd watch it again. (Example: Iron Man 2)
4. I liked this movie (proceeded by a shoulder shrug). I'd buy it if it showed up in the Walmart 5-dollar bin. (Example: Clueless)
5. I liked this movie (said with a smile, while nodding). I'd buy it if its on sale somewhere or if I have some gift cards to use. (Example: Grown Ups)
6. I really liked this movie. I'm going to buy it as soon as its out of theaters. (Example: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol)
7. I really really liked this movie. In fact, I may go see it again in the theaters with somebody else. (Example: Inception, The Dark Knight).

I know that seven is only two more than five stars, and with stars you can do halves and such, so that would actually make 10 different options. BUT, with my system, the possibilities are endless. You can just say how you felt about a movie (this could be a plethora of words. Such as "meh","it was fun", "cool", wobble your hand side to side in a "so-so" motion, etc etc) and then just add on what your future plans are for the movie. Its a perfect system! That's all I am saying. And now I am done. Just thought I'd share.

Nice to Meet Me

I'm at the point in my life where people are starting to question why I am not married and what I am doing to get married. I even had a couple people tell me if I don't get married soon, people might start wondering what team I am playing for (not that there's anything wrong with playing for that other team).

It's pretty simple, though, why I am not married; I have issues. I think it's pretty common knowledge. Just go look at some previous posts from this blog. I am a major procrastinator, I have a ton of old man habits even though I'm not that old (I guess this depends on who I'm talking to. Anyone older than 28 thinks I'm a youngin'. Anyone younger than 21 thinks I should get myself a walker.), I think awkward situations are quite fun, I have a bunch of SIRs (Self Imposed Rules. Maybe that'll be another blog post someday... Or you can just ask Rob), I watch a lot of TV/movies, I get obsessed with things, I have some "interesting" dating theories, and my dating life is..... well, let's say I follow in my brother's footsteps and do the general conference dating schedule.

Even with all those, I'm sure that I'll end up married. There's a butt for every seat, right? Lot's of times people get down on themselves and say how bad they suck and that nobody likes them etc etc. Y'all know how it is. I am not one of those people, I know I'm awesome! I am one of the coolest people I know. HOWEVER, I must be allergic to dating. Or maybe my mutant power (yes, I'm a nerd. why hide it anymore?) is that I transform into somebody else. I think subconsciously the reason why I only go out on dates about every six months is that my alter ego comes out every time I start down the dating path. From getting the girls number to actually going on the date, I become Date Mike.



I don't know if you saw that episode, but Michael is totally hitting it off with a girl until he realizes it's a date. Then he turns into this guy that he calls "Date Mike" and everything falls apart. That is me, I just don't do it on purpose.

I like to think that I am a pretty friendly and sociable fellow. I have long talks with my friends. I've been told that I am pretty easy to get along with. My church calling forces me (and I think has helped me) to get along with all sorts of different people. I have a few friends and a few of that few are the lady folk type. I get along pretty easy with both sexes, but I seem to get along easier with the ladies. I'm not saying that I'm a ladies man, I'm not even close to that. I just think that 83% of my communication is flirting and that seems to go better with girls. Basically, what I am trying to say is, as far as I know, I'm not socially awkward when it comes to non-dating situations. But throw me into a dating situation and my conversations end up going something like this:



I fall apart into this awkward shy guy, I become way too polite (yes, there is such a thing), I start liking things I had no idea that I liked, I forget conversations that we had earlier over the phone, I talk about really odd and random subjects and I tell a bunch of inside jokes that only I get.

And now, for some real life Date Mike examples (the names have been changed to protect the innocent.... and I forgot some of them):

The Mall Girl
I once met this girl at the mall and talked with her for quite a bit. This was back in the day when it was.... I was going to say cool, but I just realized it was never really cool to go to the mall, I just had nothing better to do..... easier to go to the mall.  I got her number and a few days later I finally worked up the courage to ask her out (I can't remember how it went, but I'm sure it wasn't good), but she must have said yes because we ended up going out. We went to a Quick Wits show for our date (which is a pretty freakin awesome Improv Comedy show). Quick Wits shows have a little intermission break in the middle of their shows, and during intermission we both got up to stretch our legs, hit the bathroom, and get a drink. While we were out in the little foyer waiting to go back into the show, I saw some old friends from school. They came over and wanted to chat it up for a bit. So I said to my date, "This is Tyler and Amanda" and then I said to Tyler and Amanda, "This is my date....uhhh........(awkward silence)........." I had completely forgotten my dates name. It was no where. I looked at her, and nothing came to mind. She was a Jane Doe. Finally, my date leaned in and said to them, "Kate....." and then to all three of us, "My name is Kate." ...... That was my last date with Shannon.

Fresh
When I was just off my mission I started going to the singles ward. I started going because my Stake President asked if I would go to that ward and because that's where the girls were. And how lucky was I that one of my first singles ward activities was a pool party! So I took my farmer tanned body over to the pool party and had a pretty good time. There was a certain girl there that caught my eye, she was pretty darn cute. She seemed pretty friendly too. And we actually hung out together most of the night! And by hanging out I meant I "happened" to play volleyball at the same time she did ( I was the kid that stood in back of the court quietly on the other team) and we also ate at the same time (of course, everyone else ate at that same time too). Eventually, after everyone had left and I had finally worked up the courage and the perfect line, I asked for her number by saying "Hey Claire, I'm a boy and you're a girl. Right? Right. So I was thinking I could maybe get your number." She was very kind and gave me her number, but she was good at avoiding any future awkward conversations by not answering my calls. Did I mention I was shirtless while I asked for her number?

Texting Obsession
I got a girl's number luckily and I was pretty excited that she said yes when I asked her out. Before we went out, this is how one of our text-versations went (as far as I can remember). My thoughts will be in parenthesis (and I understand that they might not make any sense, I was in Date Mike mode).

Me: (I need to figure out if she hates any kind of food) Hey Juliet! I have a question for you.
Juliet: Hey Mike! What's your question?
Me: Any food that you absolutely hate or any rare food allergies that I should be aware of (haha... I am so funny, rare food allergies. Clever Mike)
Juliet: Not really.... Why?
Me: I don't want to take you to a place with peanuts and have you keel over. That would make for a bad first date! (hahaha. Oh Mike, you should start a stage career. You are for sure cracking her up!..... Oh wait, you said peanut place. She might think you are going to Five Guys, you better let her know that you aren't going to a peanut place)
Me: Not that we are going to peanut place. (Good, now she knows. But wasn't that kind of pointless to tell her that.... Dang. It was)
Juliet: I guess fish, but if we went to a fish place I could just get something else.
Me: (Wait..... Is she allergic to fish? Or does she just not like fish?) Wait.... Are you allergic to fish? Or do you just not like fish? (Shoot coach! Now she thinks I'm obsessed with allergies)
Juliet: I do not have any allergies that I am aware of. I am allergy free. I just don't like fish.
Me: (Yup, she thinks I'm obsessed with allergies. Say something besides allergies) You never know with them allergies! (..... dang)


And that's just a few stories. I might leave a couple more in comments if I think of them, but that's a good start. Again, I'm not complaining. There has to be some girl that is not allergic to Date Mike. I'm sure I'll eventually find a butt.

Mary Poppins Ain't Got Nothin' On Me!!

I don't really remember watching the movie Mary Poppins all the way through. I just remember snippets and parts here and there. But these small snippets have taught me many important life lessons. Things like:

• You can fly with an umbrella.
• If you sing about doing something (let's say, for example.... flying a kite), it will be the coolest thing since sliced bread and you will get old men to follow suit (is that the phrase?).
• It's okay to pull your pants down on a date as long as there are cute penguins in the vicinity.
• If you are laughing, you are most likely high.
• Your reflection moving separately from you in the mirror doesn't have to be creepy.
• And the most obvious, of course, is that if you make cleaning fun, cleaning will get done.... or something like that.

Great life lessons. But I have found the last one to be not quite true. Cleaning can be fun, but it's still cleaning. And even though I can make it MORE fun, it's still not fun. And thus, I am not motivated to do it. That is, unless I am in school.

I've never been officially diagnosed with A.D.D., but I think I may have a slight case of it. I am constantly procrastinating, have troubles prioritizing, and am constantly distracted (I could make some joke here and get side tracked on another story... But that is too obvious. This thought did, however, get me sucked into the blackhole of youtube for quite awhile because I thought of a Simpsons clip where Homer is supposed to be paying attention in church or something like that and gets distracted by a butterfly outside. Anyone know which one I'm talking about?)

Anyway.... I realize that I am a fairly lazy person. I text and call people on the phone even though they are just upstairs. I drove down to my friends' (Skybo and Adam) houses, and they each only lived two houses away. I've seen plenty of them girly designer television shows and other shows I would probably never watch just because the remote was not in my immediate reaching range. I usually end up driving for about an hour in a parking lot to find that perfect parking place. My family tried to train the dog to close the door (we had already taught him to just walk in) so that we didn't have to get up to close the door after he came in (this didn't work so we built a pulley system so the door would shut on its own). And that's just the starting of my laziness.

I can't think of anything really significant that I got done during the summer. Except beating Batman and Portal 2. I had a few projects that I could have worked on, but I didn't. I mean, come on, I was busy with..... going on that.... one date I went on .... maybe...... and I probably occasionally mowed the lawn...... and other busy stuff.

This month I just started going back to school for my Masters. Homework, as we know, always comes along with school. The Masters program seems a lot worse. There is a ton of homework. It's non-stop. One of my professors said that for an undergraduate class, they expect you to spend an hour out of class for every hour in class or something like that. For the graduate level, they expect you to spend 3 or 4 hours out of class for every hour in class..... are they serious? That's an entire long boring movie! Or two good movies! An entire weeks worth of exercise that I don't do! An entire nap! An entire weeks worth of church! An entire football game!..... And that's just for one hour of one class! I have three classes.... That's like ..... a lot of hours (I didn't feel like doing the math). And the reading..... oh the reading. That's all they give us for homework, is reading. And they actually expect you to read and learn. What's with that?

So, as I was saying earlier (before I got sidetracked), I get sidetracked really easy. And this seems to happen most often when I have homework to do. I make all sorts of plan the day before (*cough*procrastination*cough*) to get my homework done the next day. The game plan is generally something like this:

1. Wake up early.
2. Get some breakfast.
3. Get some exercise in.
4. Do some homework.
5. Go to work.
6. Work super hard and don't slack off at work (just in case any one from work is reading).
7. Get some homework done on my lunch and then continue to work hard until that clock hits 5 pm.
8. Come home speedily and start on my homework and don't stop until caught up on all the homework.... In fact, get ahead and do all the homework for the rest of the semester.
9. And then go to bed super early, because being healthy is important.

But then, that day comes and goes and it usually ends up going something like this.

1. Hit my snooze alarm.
2. Hit my snooze alarm.
3. Realize I hit my reset alarm instead and have to be to work in 5 minutes.
4. Rush to get ready and get to work late (a little stressed because nobody likes to be late to work).
5. Work extremely hard (again.... people from work may be reading this).
6. Lunch time! I was going to do homework, but I worked hard so I deserve a nap... Take said nap in car.
7. Wake up late from work nap and get back to work late after lunch.
8. Having a semi-nap in car just makes me sleepy but some how make it to 5:00 without passing out.
9. Get home determined to do homework.
10. Realize that I can't do homework on an empty stomach, so I make myself some food.
11. Realize that I can't make food without something on TV.
12. Realize that I can't really watch TV when the family room and kitchen are dirty.
13. Proceed to clean family room and kitchen.
14. Now that family room and kitchen are clean, try and find a show to watch while cooking and eating.
15. Start cooking, then eat, all while watching a show.
16. First episode of whatever I'm watching ends while I'm still eating. I might as well start another episode to watch while I finish eating.
17. Finished eating but episode isn't over yet. Might as well finish episode.
18. Walk upstairs to do homework.
19. Realize that I can't do homework without a drink, make a quick Maverick run.
20. Come back and realize that room is dirty and one cannot do homework in a dirty room.
21. Clean room.
22. Sit down on luv sac or bed because all the cleaning and eating has worn you out.
23. Wake up an hour later.
24. Start on homework but realize it's dinner time.
25. Repeat steps 10 - 19 (yes, the house gets dirty somehow. And even if it didn't, I could still find something to clean).
26. Finally sit down to start on homework and maybe get an hour in before I convince myself I should go to bed and just wake up early to do my homework.
27. Better play one more level on that Playstation before going to bed....
28. And finally, go to sleep close to 1 am.

And that is a normal day. 

Anytime I think about homework, I think about that little project I've been putting off. I mounted a TV on my wall awhile ago. And then I got a sound bar earlier this past summer. The sound bar needed a digital audio cable plugged into it. I put it off during the summer because it was going to be quite the project. But the second I have to do homework, I think to myself that I really can't let that sit anymore. So I spend the next few hours trying to get that wire plugged into my TV. Then I've been perfectly fine not having blinds in my room for years. But, as soon as school starts, I decided that my room must have blinds and I proceeded to go and buy them, mount the brackets, and  put those suckers up. I may have vacuumed my room once during the summer, I think I've already vacuumed it four times in the four weeks since school has started. I've washed my sheets more often. And I have dusted a ton (I don't think I dusted once during the summer).

Little did my parent's know all those years growing up that all they had to do was ask me to do my homework. All my chores would have been done at that very second. Mary Poppins' spoon full of sugar? Pfft.

(P.S. Did you notice the dates of my last blog posts? Last one was pretty much when school just ended. And now I'm doing this post right after school has started. Just sayin....)

....eh?

Warning: If you are older than 26, you make think I'm being overly dramatic and need to wait a few more years until I start complaining. You have been warned.

I've never really considered myself old. I may have considered myself older than other people, but even though I joke about it, I never really felt old. That is, until this past weekend. There were a few things that just made me realize that I am getting older.

My church young single adult group went down to a little pageant this past weekend for an overnight get away. It was a fairly long drive (about 3 hours) and it was decided that it would probably be best to get some carpools together. On all the church or scouting activities I've ever been on, the older folk usually end up being the drivers. Well, I ended up driving on this trip (driving a carpool car on road trip for youth/ysa group = old).

On the way down, we had to stop and get gas. So we pulled off the freeway, found ourselves a Chevron, and put some gas in the truck. After I had filled up the truck, I was about to get in the car when it dawned on me that we still had about another 2 hours left to drive. I didn't have to pee, but we were at a gas station, and said gas station had a bathroom. So I decided that I was going to go even though I had no natural urge telling me to relieve myself. I just figured that I might as well because I might not get another chance (for a brief 2 hours... I seriously can't hold it that long?). So I went, and I told the others in my car that they should follow suit. (Doing a plan-ahead-bathroom trip = old. Telling others to do the same = old. Being worried about having an bladder related issue even though you don't have to go and the trip will only be another two hours = old).... This happened multiple times during the trip.

Once we finally got down to the city with the Pageant, my little car group got some food. While we were eating we had a very lovely conversation. One of my carpool members finished a bit before the rest of the group and got up and started moving around a bit. At one point, she came up behind me and was probably lost in her thoughts about how awesome my hair is, when she exclaimed that she had made a discovery. She had found a gray hair and everyone in earshot also knew at this point that I have gray hairs. (Having more than one (yes, I have multiple) gray hairs = old).

The pageant ran pretty late (it didn't get over until about 11 or so) we all headed back to our campground. Once we got there we made sure that everyone had a place to sleep and then we chatted it up for a bit. Eventually everyone got into their own little groups and went their own way. The group I ended up with was playing card games outside in a little circle. Sometime around midnight I announced to the group that I was heading to bed and got up to leave. They eventually talked me out of it and convinced me into staying for a bit longer (considering going to bed before dawn on a camping trip = old).

So while we were out playing cards until the late hour of 1 am, the little card playing group discovered that I had a giant bag of Starbursts hidden away. I told them that I wouldn't mind sharing my Starbursts as long as they took care of their wrappers (telling people to clean up after themselves = old). I had just brushed my teeth and so I didn't even end up eating any of them (brushing my teeth while camping out = old. not eating candy just because I had brushed my teeth earlier = old).

The next morning we headed back home. After my bathroom-before-we-go-break (..... old), we got all loaded up and took off back home. On the way home multiple people passed me on the little two lane highway (getting passed multiple times = old). Once we got back on the freeway (and maybe a few times before and the day before) I changed lanes a few times. And multiple times, a mile or two after I had made said lane change, I would discover that my blinker was still on (forgetting to turn blinker off = old).

There have been a lot of things that make me realize that I am getting older (no eating late at night, wanting to go to bed earlier and earlier, bad back, etc), but these were all condensed into one weekend and it just seemed to be a bit more in my face. And I would probably be convinced that I am old, if it weren't for the fact that I laugh every time I hear some one use the word "do" twice in a row in a sentence.

Married People Are Weird

I've always known that married people are different from single people:

• Married people like to do things together. All the married folk I know are constantly wanting to be together : Single people like their free time. I'm constantly looking for some "Mike" time.
• Married people talk like they are Gollum using " us" and "we", when a normal person would say "I" or "me". Sometimes the other part of the "us" or "we" might not even be part of the conversation : Single people talk like a normal person should.
• Married people like shopping at stores like Lowe's, Michael's, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc together : This may be normal for a single dude (Lowe's) or a single girl (Michael's, Bed Bath and Beyond), but there never should be any kind of cross-over. A single man would never step into a Bed Bath and Beyond if he didn't have to.
• Married people have bedtimes again. And they're early : Single people are semi-wise adults and sleep when they feel the need

...... and many more.

But recently it seems that this fact, that singles and marrieds, are different has been more apparent in my life. One example just happened a few days ago.

I had been studying for a test for quite awhile one day (this studying may or may not have occurred whilst at work). I finally decided that I was ready (aka was sick of studying) to take the test. And so I headed up towards WSU's main campus to take the test.

At this point, I had recently discovered Wal-mart's little food corner that sells chicken of different varieties, potato wedges, and who knows what else. I had always known this existed, but I had no idea that it had such delicious General Tso chicken. And it's less than $2 for a little personal serving. Delicious and cheap. You can't beat that. So while I was driving to the main campus, I saw the Neighborhood Wal-mart coming up in the distance and instantly decided that I needed some brain food (this is actually a plot by Wal-mart to take over the world. Along with Microsoft and Google).

As I was walking out of Wal-mart, very happy with my neighborhood market delicacy, I bumped into an old friend. He was there with what appeared to be his wife and his child (I was assuming at this point because he was holding the kid in one arm and he had the girl's hand with the other). So I stopped, because that's what you do when you see someone you know (Although I think it should be socially acceptable to continue on walking. The person need not be offended. It's actually the polite thing to do. You don't want to waste the person's time with fake interest in what they are doing with their life. Think about it. The last time you bumped into an acquaintance, you probably talked about what they were doing with their life. Do you honestly remember anything they said?). Anyway....

I said hello. And he introduced me to his wife and kid (I wasn't assuming anymore. He said "This is my wife, _______ and this is my daughter, ______. ) And he asked what I was up to. I told him about the test I was about to take and how I was pretty close to finally graduating.

Then it was my turn to ask a question, I really didn't know what to ask. I had just met his wife and kid. That's enough. But there wasn't any way of just leaving without appearing rude, so I thought of the best single-guy Wal-mart question I could think of while outside of a Wal-mart. I asked, "What are you doing here?"....... He just stared at me for a bit and then slowly answered, "....Shopping....?" Or in other words, I was asking a pretty stupid question.

But, to all you marrieds, this question makes perfect sense to us single people. If you are married, try to remember back to your days of singleness. Why did you go to Wal-mart? For the most part, you'd only go with a purpose. You were going to buy a movie, or just browse through the movies. Or maybe there was a new video game that you wanted to buy. You needed toothpaste. You wanted that can of chili for queso. You wanted to pick up on the girl at the hair-salon. Again, you were going with a purpose.

My asking, "What are you doing here?" in singleness, was a perfectly legit question to ask. Any other single person would have understood what I was asking. But, alas, married and singles are different.

My question kind of killed the conversation. After looking back and forth at one another, I said, "Cool..... Well, see you later." And left. Hopefully it gave them a good Gary Poll story for later. It gave me one.

And by the way, I'm not dissing marrieds. I'm just saying we are different. Being a married is actually a goal of mine. I'm planning on finding a girl, having her ask me out, and eventually ask me to marry her. Is that too much to ask? And when I am married, I'll send a proxy into Bed Bath and Beyond.

Gary Poll

Most of you are probably confused by the title. Let me explain.

A while ago, my father and I found ourselves having to socialize with some odd people and the whole thing was quite awkward. We were all sitting in a booth having a little dinner. I was sitting next to my old man when he leaned over and said, "Gary Poll."... and that was it. My dad was obviously having a little logical conversation in his head and decided to have me join in at that particular point with no other explanation. A few minutes passed (maybe it was seconds) before he realized what he had done. He then went on to catch me up on his conversation he had been having with himself.

Apparently a long time ago, mi papa was out to dinner with an old neighbor (I am not referring to the age of the neighbor, rather to the fact that he no longer lives in our neighborhood. Hence he was once a neighbor or, in other words, an old neighbor) named Gary Poll. During dinner, they got to talkin about an awkward experience that Gary had and he mentioned that while this awkward situation was playing out, all he could think about was how good of a story it would be after it was all over. Or something like that. I can't remember the exact story. Anyways, what he was trying to say was that any awkward experience is survivable because you can know that its almost always going to be a good story after.

Rob introduced this theory to me as the Gary Poll theory. I believe that this theory has been being taught for quite some time now from comedians, television, and movies.

One of the best examples is the TV show The Office, American or British (My brother wrote a little something on his blog about The Office awhile back). You also have the movie Meet The Parents. Most of Brian Regan's stories. They are all funny because of all the awkwardness.

And I think that's why my life is so awesome. Its full of awkward moments. And that just gives me plenty of good stories. So, occasionally I will share these awkward stories. And they will hence be known as Gary Poll stories. I was going to share one at the end of this post, but I starting writing all this and I changed my mind. I decided that this was enough for one post. So, moral of the story. Awkwardness will always end up making for a good story.

Why Bother?

As mentioned in the previous post, I enjoy Weezer. A lot. It's true. I think one of the reasons that I like them so much is that their songs relate a lot to how I feel and think. I could name multiple songs that I think fit me perfectly, but one of them is "Why Bother?" from their Pinkerton album (Listen to it, its good). The gist of the song is that Rivers (the lead singer of Weezer) knows he's going to get hurt so he asks "Why Bother?" or what's the point of even trying when you know its not going to end well. This song is kind of my view point on dating. Some of you might say that is not a great outlook on dating or that maybe it is even a bitter outlook.... Yup.

I've told people about my Why Bother Weezer theory and they have been confused by it or taken it the wrong way. So I thought the best way to describe it would be graphically. But as soon as I tried to put my thoughts into graph form, I realized that the whole graph idea was easier said then done. I get what my brain is saying, but its another thing to try and get my thoughts out on paper (or whatever the blog equivalent of paper is). But after talking with a few people and playing around with a few different graphs, I think I finally figured out how to graph it.

The Why Bother Line (in red above) just shows the sum of all the crappy parts of dating:

• the awkwardness of asking for a girl's number and asking her out
  
• the chance of getting shut down and the suckiness of that
  
• planning the first date
  
• picking the girl up awkwardness
• the whole we're on a date awkwardness
  
• spending money
  
• if it ends up being more than one date then you have the define the relationship awkwardness ahead
  
• if it doesn't work out, the crapiness of the break up.
  
• etc.

All that summed up together equals the Why Bother Line.

For me to date a girl, all her attributes (or how smitten I am) must exceed or be above the Why Bother Line. Her attributes can include, but are not limited to: looks, personality, where she lives, her interests, smarts, (my buddy, Bubba, said to put boobs on here, but I decided against it. Because that's not appropriate. Plus I'm a stomach and legs guy), etc etc. All these attributes can contribute to the over all smitten-ness level.

#1 shows the smitten level completely empty. I don't know why I put this on there, it just seemed like a good idea at the time
#2 shows a girl who surpasses the why bother line. This girl would be datable.

#3 shows a girl who's attributes do not exceed the Why Bother Line, and so she is not datable. Why should I bother?

Make sense? I hope so. I may end up re-writing this post a few times.

I also talked about this with my good friend, Ann, and my brother, Joe. They both came up with similar ideas. My brother, Joe, sent me this graph. This is also a pretty good representation on my dating theory.

So there you go. That is my dating theory. You may think that I am picky and shallow, but is it so wrong that I want to be head over heels for the people I date? That may seem gay (not that there is anything wrong with that) but that's how it is.

By the way, I was inspired by the television show "How I Met Your Mother." Here is the clip that inspired me.

(The Pops Proviso: Although this is my general rule, I do realize that I need to date. It's something you have to do when you are a 25 and single. And so, I will occasionally date for the sake of dating. Dating's a skill and you got to keep your game up.)