Swimming in the snow...

So I'm kind of on a posting videos kick right now... this one is from Jessica and I's open house at my place in Clayton. Carson my nephew was obsessed with Jessica and her dress. While she was in the bath room getting ready he came in and asked "what are you doing?", "I'm getting ready" jessica answered. "that makes me really happy!" It was cute. he cried a lot when she took it off. Anyway, Carson had a lot of fun swimming in Jessica's snowy dress.

Attack of the The Inflatable Cat

So last semester I took 3-Dimensional art so I'd have enough credits to get my Pell grant... Anyways, for one of the projects we had to make an inflatable sculpture, so I made a giant cat in honor of the Nieman family cat, Midnight, that died when I was 6. So after I got a grade for it, we took it to Logan for Kaity, Christian, Alec, Sadie, and Lindi to play with. It was a good time. Once we were tired of it, we taped up the door in the back, so no air could come out and blew it up until it was bursting at the seams (probably twice as tall as it is in the video), then Jessica body slammed it and it popped. Jessica 1, inflatable cat 0. RIP.

Jessica Picking Bugs!

Dave and Robin (who just had a new baby!) made us this great little video from our wedding day. Be sure you check out their blog HERE to see their cute little kid Coby!

Der Nieman's new Slogan!

Ever though to yourself, "man my life is pretty good, but I wish I had a little zinger of a line that I could attach to my name... then life would be better." Well think no more. http://www.sloganizer.net/ can make all your dreams come true. It's already made my life way better. So far I've got 3 slogans (1- Think. Feel. Dave. 2-Dave, to Hell with the rest, and 3- hhhhhmmmm.... Dave). So I'm about to push the sloganizer button one more time, to choose the official DerBlog slogan! And the winner is........... "Let Your DerBlog Flow!"

For more awesome stuff guaranteed to make your life better, and some info on time travel visit the other blog I contribute to, Thinkercize!

Help Me Help You...

So since freepay.com has a 120 day window for you to complete the process to get a Free Wii, I realized that I need to get cracking. So if anyone wants to participate, here is my referral link:

http://gaming.freepay.com/?r=44503240

It asks you to put in some info about you (no credit card info), I made a separate gmail account for freepay, but so far I've only gotten one email from them (no spam...yet). Then after you make your account with freepay, the next step is to complete an offer! I recommend Blockbuster online, Video Professor, or one of the ring tone sites. If you don't want what ever service you sign up for just remember to quit it! If you have questions, email me. If you're only doing this to help me, thank you. If you want to get a free something yourself, awesome! let me know and maybe I can help you.

This one's for you D-Smooth

A year or two ago, my brother in law Dustin (D-Smooth) showed me this video that he really liked, and I didn't laugh out loud at it as much as is curtious to do in such situations, so he concluded that either I thought it was dumb, or that my sense of humor wasn't as refined as his. But D. I want you to know that since that day a week doesn't go by that I don't get this song stuck in my head (it's usually acomponied by a silent little head bob dance and a chuckle). So thank you Dustin. You are the man.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Did you say Free Ninety Nine?

I am incredibly cheap... most of the time, and a total sucker for anything free. I'm not really sure which one of my parents to blame (or thanks) for this blessing / curse. Anyways 3+ years ago me and Devan Perona (who loves free stuff possibly even more than me (but less than John Hendricks)) got pumped about getting free ipods from http://www.freeipods.com/. After much research, and hassling many friends and family members to sign up for some free offers, Devan and I both got free ipods! So it worked!

Anyways being married has driven me to my former depths of cheapness, as well as my former love of video games, and I'm signing up with the same company for a free Nintendo Wii. So this is a warning / invitation to a lucky 6 of you that might want to help me in this quest of supreme manliness (being cheap and video games all in one). I'll make it worth your while.

Sawyer called me Math Boy.

So me and Jessica have been really getting into Lost lately, and are right now finishing up season 3. Anyways, if you're anything like me, you loose sleep over what clever nick name Sawyer might call you... well count sheep no more. Click HERE to check out Sawyers nick name generator!

Customers win when online companies make mistakes

This was an interesting article that made me want to do nothing but cruise expedia.com for mistakes all day. Check out the air fairs people have been able to get: $39 round-trip from Seattle to Lebanon, $51 round-trip from Los Angeles to Fiji, San Jose, Calif., to Paris for $27.98, $0 Air Pacific flight from Los Angeles to Fiji.

and HERE is the article.

MONKEYS CONTROL ROBOT ARMS WITH THEIR THOUGHTS!!!

This is crazy. They put electrodes in the monkey's brain and connected it to a robotic arm, and the monkey learned how to use it like it's his own! But I wonder, would a robotic arm be a help or a hindrance when swinging from trees? Probably a hindrance, unless it were talking about a go-go-gadget arm. But then you'd have to worry about Dr. Claw...

Click HERE for the story.

Top 5: THINGS DAVE NEEDS TO BLOG ABOUT

So I'm a big fan of lists...lists of things... favorite things.... least favorite things.... etc... So this is the first in series of Top 5's that should keep me busy for a while. Today's "Top 5" is.... Top 5: THINGS DAVE NEEDS TO BLOG ABOUT!

1) Getting married. - I'm married. The best comparison I've come up with is it's like life before / after cell phones. Only imagine that you're cell phone washes your cloths and makes good food and rubs your back. Yup. It's awesome.

2) Me and Jessica's apartment - We live in an attic free of right angles. Seriously. But even though it's wrong, it feels so right.

3) Iron Man - So awesome Jessica and I snuck into see it twice (it was cheap movie night at the nice theater, but you have to see a crappy movie). If theirs one thing Iron Man has taught me, it's that you can live your whole life in a selfish-drunken-stupor and still be a hero if you can kill bad guys and look awesome doing it.

4) 13 lbs - the weight I've gained since getting married

5) Moab - 4 days with Jess, Eric and Jamie Forsyth and my sister Kaity + 4-wheeling + mountain biking + hiking and checking out cool arches + lots of yummy food and ice cream = totally awesome

ps. I also really like "...'s" apparently

Hurray for Dave!

So today is my last day of college...(future grad school plans not included) and it's pretty anti-climactic. I think it's because I'm more stoked about getting married in 3 days!!! (3 exclamation points = more excited than a 12 year old at a Hanna Montana Concert). So I will be taking a break from blogging for a week or so because I will have better things to do. Like trying to impress Jessica with my almost a decade worth or bachelors level education.

Snoop's a Mormon!

For rizzle my nizzle.

http://cnnentertainment.co.nr/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/01
http://peoplemagazine.co.nr/people/article/008675309

You Tube March Madness #2

Ok so it's not March anymore, but unlike Collegiate Basketball, on the web there are no rule, so March madness continues. For some reason today is a Star Wars themed day... and this will probably end up being the last installment as well... but who knows, if I say it's the last one of these, I might just go and do another one just because you wouldn't see it coming... because hey, no rules right? Man it's awesome having your own blog... voting is really heating up on the first round of Youtube March Madness, seriously.

This video was the bomb when YouTube was still a baby in diapers. Recognize.

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

and this one is long, but pretty freaking awesome. Ps. me and Devan spotted the Green Wizard from this clip in the background of a documentary on my favorite NY street Prayformer THOTH. THOTH is awesome, and put me in his slide show... but that's not the only reason he's awesome.

R.E.M.? In your Dreams!

So I was pretty stoked when I heard that REM was going on tour again. They've been one of my favorite bands since I was little tike in the 80's, thanks to the influence of my heavily hair sprayed older sister Kendra (who was aways nice enough to peg my pants for me too back in the day). Anyways turns out REM doesn't love me as much as I love them, since only 13 of 45 dates are in the U.S, and none near me... but that's ok because I'd probably be uncomfortable if Michael Stipe really did love me... still it made me sad.

I dedicate this blog entry to the movie Jumper. I want to come out publicly and proclaim my shameless love for the movie. It seems that most people feel encumbered by the need to renounce the movie simply because of it's ridiculous teleportation story, hackneyed dialogue, and horrible acting. While these things may be true, Jumper is a great story of historical human interest, coupled with a moving score and an amazingly accurate portrayal of how Hayden Christensen ruins ever movie he touches.
This being said, if you haven't seen it maybe it's time to go to the movies and give Jumper a shot. Here's to you, Doug Liman, I salute you.

YouTube March Madnes #1

I'm not really to into College Basketball, so I thought I'd make my own little version of March Madness... but for this to work I'm going ot need lots of participation from all you avid reader out there, so that means if you're reading this you have to vote... So the idea is this: each day 2 videos will square off and which ever video is the most awesome and gets the most votes wins that bracket and advances. We'll see how well this actually works....

Today we have...
GERMAN HUMAN TETRIS! Vs. Lenard Nemoy's Folk Rock Epic "the ballad of Bilbo Baggins"!
Be sure you vote for which video is more amazing, and props to Karl my brother for showing me these.

Tweed, the new black?

So I've been trying to find a black 3-piece suit on the internet and came across this really cool website where you can order custom made tweed suits from England! You pick what kind of tweed you want, and your size, then all the bespoke (customizations) you want, and they make it and mail it to you! So if anyone is doing early Christmas shopping I'm a 38 Long...

http://www.tweed-jacket.com/

My Phone: broken or just playing a trick on me?

So sometime last winter I did something (I have no clue what) that upset the cell phone gods and have sense been cursed with "my-phone-breaks-all-the-time-itis". It's true. Last winter my beauty of a camera phone decided it was time to give up the ghost and died... it was a very sad day.

Then my friend Sam graciously let me borrow his old phone... which also died on me a short time later.

Then my brother Mark mailed me his old phone (conveniently the same model Sam had) which served me well until I moved out to Manhattan and then died... cutting me off from all contact with the out side world.

So I bought a new (used) phone on ebay. I didn't even have time to learn how to turn up the volume on the ear piece before it too went the way of the Buffalo. This has all happened to me in the course of 3 months now. So My good friend Melissa mails me her old phone. It works great until it dies.

Then my mom mails me my Dad's old phone... side note: my family got a 4 phone family plan, but my Dad never learned how to turn his phone on, so it sat on the shelf for over a year. And that's the phone I've been rocking for the last 5+ months. It's served me well. And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered passing it on to one of my sons when they were of age... but that's never going to happen now because on Sunday it died too. Not fully dead. More like it's dying of old age, so for now it's just crippled and almost useless... It works great as an alarm clock, and the screen is bright as ever... but for me to be able to hear anything I have to hold the flip portion of the phone at a very certain acute angle (see picture). So just like an old grandpa that can't hear too good, I have to ask people to repeat stuff a lot, and shout loudly to be heard myself. Soon it will start forgetting peoples names and be a danger on the roads.

*** Update***

The sceen on my phone is no shattered, but I can still recieve calls!

Engagement Pic...

This is me and Jessica's Engagement picture... we just mailed out some (not all) of our invites today... so be excited. Our friend Carolee took this picture of us with a holga, and then did a little remixing to it.

Credits!

When are we finally going to make the jump from dollars, or yen, or pesos, to credits! I think the world is ready for it. Just think you could buy this land speeder for like 1500 credits! can you believe that only 1500 creds! Only one five zero zero credsticks! I can't wait for the future.

News from the Iraq front line

I just got out of a College Republican meeting where Major John (?) Ward, a US Marine Major, spoke about his 2 terms of service in Iraq. I always enjoy the opportunity to hear about Iraq from people that have actually been there. In summary of his comments: 1) We're not close to being done in Iraq, but conditions are MUCH better than one or two years ago 2) a with drawl from Iraq before we fix the problems the war has caused would create a deadly power vacuum as well as undermine much of America's honor and also be morally wrong 3) There's a lot of good being done in Iraq in the life of the average Iraqi. It was really interesting hearing him speak. Major Ward is in his late 30's, and has served in the Marines and CIA his whole life.

enough is enough

So I like music, probably a little more than the next guy... and it's always been one of my indie rocker dreams to go to Cochella, the biggest indie rocker festival in the indie rocker world. What surprised me this year about their line up though wasn't the headliners or the big acts that were playing it, but mearly the sheer number of acts preforming: 125 different bands! Now if you are rockin' 24 hours a day for 3 solid days, that gives each band .57 hours each to set up preform and take down their gear. From my experience most bands can't even set up their gear in .57 hours, so that doesn't leave much time for rockin'! "But wait Dave," you say, "what about the double /triple /quadruple stage?!" that's true, by multiplying the number of stages, bookers have been able to cram massive numbers of bands on one bill and also insure that you'll only be able to see 1/8th of them by the time you get done shuffling from stage to stage. So assuming that there are 4 stages, and that each band takes about an hour to set up, that leaves each band one hour to play... assuming you got 24 hour a day rockin' going on. It's a good thing I only listen to 6 of the 125 bands playing.

Our Wedding Map!

Mexican or Mexican't?

Me and Jessica had an amazingly Mexican time over Christmas break and went to Mexico. Everything was so Mexican... it blew my mind, not at all what I was expecting. But Mexico even brought out the Mexican in us... we didn't want to pay $10each for Mexican horses so I pulled out all but $8 out of my wallet and Jess put $4 in hers so when we went ot bargain with the Mexicans I could say "hey look I only got $8!" and Jess said "hey I got $4 see!" so they gave us the 2 horses for $12 (not to be confused with Pesos)... we totally ripped them off. Turns out the joke was on us though, because when I got done riding all my other money had fallen out on the Mexican Beach. Too much Mexico.

The Honor Code is Keepin up with the Jones's ARE YOU?

So I've been going to college up here at BYU-Idaho since the summer of 2000, and I've seen my fare share of changes with the administration; a change to a 4 year school, a change in the school president, a change in the schools learning model. But it appears that things up here are changing so fast and the administration so forward thinking, that often they doen't even have the time or recources to tell the students about the changes, espessially with issues of the schools Legendary HONOR CODE. A few recent examples:

1) You can now acess Facebook on campus!

2) R.A.'s are no longer to check apartments nightly to make sure students are keeping curfew, and are not allowed to do suprise bed checks

3)The Testing Center no longer enforces the schools Dress and Grooming standards, and no longer reports infractions to the Dean.

These are just a few of the changes that have been made in the last year that most of the student body is still unaware of... I guess if you were a really hard working student the administration might let you still believe that only women had to keep curfew, and overalls and shorts were still forbidden.... oh wait they are.

Ps. I'm still looking forward to the day when the schools Learning Model makes it's obvious final metamorphosis from "Teachers Teaching Students" to "Students Teaching Students" (our current level) to it final level "Students Teaching Teachers"

McCain is a Blink-a-holic

So I've been a big supporter of Mitt Romney the last year, and even worked at some Romney events this summer when I was in New York, so of course I was saddened when he dropped out of the republican race. But I think his move to endorce McCain is a pretty smart move. It works to reinforce his "true conservative-heart of the republican party" image. And this might set him up very nicely for a 2012 election. The thing I can't understand is WHY IN THE WORLD DOES McCAIN BLINK SO MUCH? I tried counting in this video and he blinked over 100 times in less than a minute! How is that even possible? Don't tell me it because of all the camera flashes, if that were the case Romney would blink as much too.... any ideas as to the reason for the blinkin'?

Ghostland hearts Rexburg!

Random... so The Belafonte video I posted below was actually from this show we played with these guys! Listin to them give it up for rexburg!

Glory Days....

So I used to be in a sweet band called THE BELAFONTE... I miss it. The fame, the adoration, the sweaty freshman guys giving you awkward side hugs and say "dude, that was sooooooo sweet man!.... good show man, good show...". Those were the day.

I'm ENGAGED!

This may be old news for some of you dedicated readers, but for the rest of you... I'm getting married! To Jessica! Yay! Needless to say I'm extreamly excited, and as cliche as it sounds I really do honestly feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

Ok so for those of you who don't know, Jess and I have been friends for 3+ years, and been together for almost a year now... We'd been talking a little bit about marriage, but niether of us are the type to plan it all out before it's official. So all we'd said was that we loved each other and hoped that we'd get married some day. That was enough for me. So on MLK day I went ring shopping, picked out a ring, put in on hold, and later that week after Jess's room mate Annie approved of it, I bought the ring! Jess had no idea. I still didn't really have an idea of how I was going to do it... but I told her I wanted to take her out on a "just us" date on Friday.

So Friday came around and Jess had no idea what we were doing or what was going on... I came by and picked her up, she looked really beautiful, I brought her roses (a first in our year of dating), and we went to a symphony preformance on campus. Jessica and I both really like symphonies, and it ment that we had to dress up which is fun. After that I took Jessica out to her favorite resturaunt in IF, Snake Bite. This is another thing that we've never done together, even though Jess had told me before that "Snake Bite is where a boy takes a girl when he really likes her". After that we spent some time parked up by the Rexburg Temple talking about our relationship and everything.... Jessica had written me a really sweet letter that she read to me as well. After that we headed back to her place, and the date was over.. or so Jessica thought. After hanging out upstairs for about an hour, I told Jess I was tired and going to go home. Jess was a little sad, since it was still kind of early, and insisted on walking me out to my car... but thank goodness, Annie was able to distract Jessica and keep her in her room playing guitar for a while. A few min later I call jess and ask her if she could run me out my wallet that I had left in her room. So Jess comes downstairs, only to notice candles lining the stairs... she slowly proceeds only to find more and more candles downstairs, covering the tables, the counters, the couches, and all of the floor except for a small path through the kichen to the back door. In total there were about 300 candles.... "what the heck.... candles?" she kept saying... finally she gets to the back door and opens it, but no Dave. Then I came out of the down stairs bathroom where I'd been hiding with my guitar. This is pretty much when my nervousness reached it's all time peak. I'd written Jessica a song on guitar, and played it to a still very confused Jessica. After the song I put down the guitar, got down on my knee, Jessica started to cry, I pulled out the ring and asked her... and she said YES! :D it was awesome! Jessica cried and cried, and was sooooo cute. After hugging for a bit I asked her again just to be really sure, and then put the ring on her finger. It sounds cliche again, but it honestly was the happiest I've ever been in my entire life. Words can not describe... then after who knows how long, Annie and our friend James (who were both in on it) came in, and we made strawberry short cake and pretty much just had a super happy happy freak out overload for hours and called family. I'd called Jessica's dad earilier in the day to ask his permission (which was probably more nerve racking that asking her...) but he said he wouldn't tell Jess's mom.

So thats the story! I know lots of people say being engaged stinks... but It's been pretty amazing so far. We're going to be married April 12th at either the L.A. or NewPort Beach temple! More details TBA...

Here are lots of pics ... they make me happy.

Vampire Weekend

This is a new band that I've been digging, compliments of Scotty Mo.

When ever I see cool creative video's I kick myself for not thinking of it first... but I guess I probably wouldn't do anything about it if I did have a great creative idea... still it'd be nice to be able to say "oh yeah the Six Sense, I had an idea to make that exact same movie 3 years ago. Oh you liked the Matrix? I should show you my 7th grade journal where I outlined the plot for all 3 films, I totally thought of that idea first, the matrix has you dude... You think Parappa the Rappa is a creative video game? Dude I wanted to make that exact same game back in '84 but the world wasn't ready for it yet..." That would feel pretty dang good.

Dave in Dwarf = Fat nerd

So me and Jessica have had a long standing competition between us as to who is the most nerdy. I think this puts me over the top. I translated my name into three different Tolkien Languages, the first is the old English runes he uses in the Hobbit, the second is Cirth Angerthas Moria dwarf runes, and the third one is Elvish Tengwar Runes like those used by Gandalf at the end of the Third Age. The letters often changed their meaning, so these are not quite identical with the much older ones from the One Ring.





Here's the site that some super nerds built to make all us lesser nerds jealous.

ps. notice the web site... http://www.derhobbit/.... Der is Der bomb...

MLK = Snow day in Jackson

Ok so it wasn't actually on MLK day, but Saturday me and Jessica, her brother Joe, and my long lost friend Eric Forsyth (I lost him to graduation and a wife... my loss, his gain) went snowboarding down Teton Pass. For those that don't know, Teton pass is the mountain pass that connects the Idaho and Wyoming sides of the Tetons. There are 2 (actually thousands) of different trails you can take; Trail 1) is a really steep 45 min hike up a mountain then an amazing 10-15 ride down. Trail 2) is a shorter easier 15 min hike with a longer 30 min ride down (then you have to hitch hike back up to the top).
Anyways we did the steep hike and ride first.... it was amazing how amazing the powered was. Then we did Trail 2 which was fun but then I thought Eric was hurt and stuck and dying.... the truth was he was way ahead of me and was yelling " HELLO? Dave I'm NOT STUCK!" but all I heard was "HELP!! DAVE I"M STUCK!". So after not being able to find him I snowboarded down to the bottom where he was waiting for me. After that we grubbed on some amazing Bubba's BBQ in Jackson and I almost bought the DUKE (http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/19384.jpg) and drove home. It was awesome, and all day long I was just reminded by how few girls would have done what we did, and how awesome Jessica is.

SUCCESS!!!

Video DerBlog went better than planned, so to keep you hungry readers happy, why don't you bite into this delicious new video.... I don't care if it is artistic, I could watch this crap all day (actually only for 2 minuets and 9 seconds, but it's still pretty awesome )

Video DerBLog Experiment

I'm experimenting with adding video to DerBlog to make it even more mouth watering and amazing than it already is... hard to imagine I know (while on the subject, my British Christian Authors teacher taught today, that imagination is the gift God gave us to make up for 'the vale of forgetfulness' ... funny I think it was Jesus that said it was the Holy Ghost...)

Never-the-less! here is my current favorite Youtube video (Props to Dustin for sharing this with me)... if it doesn't work, just copy and paste the HTML code into your Myspace profile and then you can enjoy Indian Thriller as well.

Things I've learned

Yippie this is my first blog... this is gonna be freakin' awesome...

So I was supposed to be taking chinese class this semester for 4 credits, that met 4 days a week at 7:45 in the AM (the freezing cold Idaho AM), but mercifully the head of the Hummanities Department said that I could sub Chinese for another Hummanities class and still graduate.. so I ended up in Hummanities of Film! I think that calls for another Yippie! (I really don't use Yippie that often... only when no other english words will do). Anyways here is something I learned today:

Steven Spielburg watches 3 movies before he makes any movie: 1) the Searchers... and then # 2 and #3 I can't remember...... and I dont wanna look them up. But I thought that was kind of cool.