Danger: Opinion Ensuing!

You know, I love sports. I really do. Few things in this life get me more exciting than the upcoming Turkey Bowl at our house, or an intramural basketball game, or just the usual pick-up games on Tuesday nights, or volleyball class at 8 o'clock in the morning...

I know what you're thinking: "Wow, Todd. You really ought to get out more... or maybe kiss a girl sometime." True.

But now is a time for reflection for me. As much as I love to play sports, watching them is really going down-hill. Although the win tonight was magical over Utah, I wonder what life would have been like had the game gone awry like last year... oh that terrible feeling of bitter irony, knowing how much enthusiasm was replaced by disappointment and sullen resentment since that historic win over Oklahoma (which lost its historic-ness as the season progressed and OK faltered). Yet, we did win, and as wonderful and elating as sweet vengeance is, I find it a bit tarnished by the ensuing comments of Max Hall.

"I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans. I hate everything," Hall said. "It felt really good to send those guys home.... I think the whole university and their fans and the organization is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them and they deserved to lose."

You know, my first reaction to seeing this quote was satisfaction. Hoorah, somebody agrees with me! Here we have evidence supporting my claims that Salt Lake is the city of abominable fans. And Max is right. Utah was classless, from what stories I heard of my BYU fan aquaintances that attended the game last year.

But then I remembered watching the game and thinking to myself, "I'm kind of glad I'm not there." The U of U is not alone in its classlessness. I find that fans everywhere, more than anything else, are angry, egotistical, and unrestrained. Wow, I sound really snooty and high-nosed here, but let me assure you, I AM NO EXCEPTION. I felt just as angry when the officials called the ball dead after BYU clearly recovered an obvious fumble (turns out they blew the play dead because the runners helmet came off and they were concerned for his safety), I just wasn't as verbal about it, but I would have been had I been surrounded by other outrageously boisterous fans. I've been an official before, too, and I know what it's like to be the object of hatred of everyone paying attention to your game. Perhaps that is why I am writing this blog.

Here's a shout out to "Bob Smith", the guy who called me a puss. You made this ranting possible. And here's another to my high-school basketball coach, Shannon Taylor. If I ever see you again, I might just kick you in the groonies. Shannon... snicker.

So, I know it's wishful thinking to say the world should embrace sports as what they were meant to be: recreational and friendly fun. Not gonna happen in our competitive world. Fans and players alike will go on hating people that they have never met apart from wearing a rival's uniform, and I will take all the absurdity into account before I drop another hundred-some odd bones on next year's All-sport pass, cause I probably ain't graduating anytime soon.

For what it's worth, Todd Martin. Good day.

The Stache Strikes Again!

So I asked out this girl the other day, and she was like, "I don't go out with pedophiles"*. Must be the stache.
I played a five dollar game of basketball yesterday, and realized how much I am going to miss playing with my brothers because I get in too late on Tuesday and because Jon will be in Utah. I love basketball! I am already implementing it into my birthday party for next year.
P.S. It was a pick up game, and I introduced myself as Todd, but they all called me Stache.
NNNAAAACHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

*Todd is not a pedophile, in fact the girl didn't even say this. She was busy or something, but I mostly stopped listening when she started with 'Satruday is really packed'.

This is My Only Number

This week felt really really social-ish. Wanna know why? Too bad...
Let's just say that on Monday I won a pony, Tuesday I was gone country, Wednesday I went to a thirty minute dance party, Thursday I went on a ward temple trip, Friday I played racquetball and beat a girl (two out of three games), and Saturday was yesterday where I went to DanceSport.
By the way, I am really consistent in this DanceSport thing. I was one round away from making the quarterfinals in Country Swing. It may sound impressive, but I really only made it to the second round again. That's the third time.
So there's a lot more to these stories, but I've got two words for you... and it's the same two words I tell the ladies that want me to shave the stache; "Too bad".
Or you could just talk to me in real life, if you gots the time.

Two Good Things in One

The voice of Tim Curry on the show Freakazoid! There is no cure for this awesomeness!

Life's Recurring Themes

I would have named this post "Deja Vu All Over Again" in a tribute to Yogi Berra, but I've already used that title. Yet another of life's recurring themes.
The real pickle deal here started the other day when I was brushing my teeth... and Waylon (that's the name of that fickle fake tooth that often falls out of my mouth) starts moving again. I'm thinking, "Great, here we go again". I knew Waylon's days were numbered, and this knowledge seemed to wrack my sleep with unspeakable nightmares. Sometimes I take these late afternoon naps, and every one I took for the last three days was accompanied by nightmares of Waylon falling out. I'm not kidding! Today's was particularly nasty: I remember thinking in the dream that without that tooth and with this mustache, I pretty much qualified for the ugliest person on earth (it's only what I thought in the dream, it's not a reflection of what I think in real life). With that revelation, I sat down on the ground, in my dream, and cried. Do you know what it's like to cry in your dreams? You can feel the despair, the depression, the dry-throat, sobbing, emotion-stuffed worst-day-of-your-life feeling in your sleep! I know I certainly did!
Then I woke up from my nap and not two hours later, the so-called "permanent" fell out when I was eating a sandwich. I sat down and cried. Not really... but I felt like it.
I AM THE UGLIEST MAN TO EVER WEAR PANTS UPON HIS HEAD AFTER AN EFY DEVOTIONAL! Let the world know it!
Such is life.
Here's something to cheer you up as you are certainly drying your tears from this downer:

Movember Update

November is Movember. For more information, click here.
So there is an actual person in my ward here at BYU that has cancer. I don't know what kind, I really don't think it's testicular, but he has cancer! He came to church one day without any hair, and when I asked him when he joined the ROTC, he told me the real story of chemo-therapy. Is that how you spell chemo? Keemo? Hmph... I didn't pry too much, knowing it could be a sensitive subject.
In light of all this, I am growing a mustache this November for testicular cancer awareness... or rather, just for awareness. I find it a truly noble cause, because I am down-right hideous with this growth on my upper lip. I'm pretty sure they turned me away from the plasma clinic yesterday for just being ugly (They claimed I had too few proteins in my blood after I had just eaten two home-made cheeseburgers... ya right!). So, expect Ignacio Libre to turn up for Thanksgiving in a few weeks, definitely not Todd.
Who will be a mo-bro with me!?
In other news, one of my desperate attempts for income was signing up for online survey taking. Now when people ask me what I do for my job, I tell them that I am a marking research assistant, and it's not that far-fetched if you think about it. I could be just getting scammed through all this, but you never know until you give it a try. Right? Why did they ask me my pants size?
In other other news, I got two sets of ladies' digits in one day, and did so much country dancing I almost died! Man, with all this social activity, you think I'd get a date someday or something.
Finally, I went to mentor's day today for print journalism, and received inspiration for how I may yet get my foot in the bolted door know as the Daily Universe. It all starts with Movember.

Here's a rare funny video from a recent SNL that has only one swear word in it.

Ok Mr. Freud...

So I had this crazy dream last night...
I was on a vacation somewhere in the US with mom and dad and maybe some siblings too. We are all staying at a hotel somewhere along a lonely street... and then we are in a train, racing through some wooded area at an alarming speed. I look out the window and see all these skinny trees and think to myself, "Wow, if this train were to go off the track, I would be in a world of hurt." So then we are at some chapel somewhere where there is a large gathering of people eating food at various tables... kind of like a "break the fast" or something, except there is this one table that has all this chocolate food on it: chocolate pie, pancakes with chocolate syrup instead of regular syrup, and a strange package full of Easter candy. I ask my dad if I can have some of the chocolate stuff and he says, "Yes, the Martin family is allowed three a piece", and then he talks with mom for a bit and then says, "Actually, you can have five items, not just three." So I go over to the chocolate table and start to cut myself a piece of chocolate pie and this strange lady comes up and asks what I am thinking eating from the chocolate table. I say my dad said I could, and then I realized how childish that statement seemed, so I reassured her, "The chocolate is so rich, I am only going to take two items anyways." Then Ben comes up to the table and pulls a star-burst egg out of the bag of Easter candy, which is like a starburst jelly-bean only the size of a Cadbury egg. I'm feeling a bit jealous at his awesome find, but then I realize that there are actually multiple Starburst eggs in the package, along with a small plastic container of flourescent, transparent, and altogether very cool looking hair gel. I pick it up, and then my roomy's alarm goes off and I'm back to reality... if only for a while.

Also, Saturday night I had a dream of pretty much the worst day of my life. I was feeling really nauseated, which is like the worst feeling in the world for me, and then people started turning their backs to me so it was like I didn't even exist. Then, one of my REAL bottom teeth fell out. I think it rotted out actually. It was in the very front, I can even point to which one. Back in the dream, I realized I didn't do the assignment that was due that day for school. I thought to myself (in the dream) "This is pretty much the worst day of my life".

So, I think I've had WAY too much Halloween candy over the past few days. Or maybe it's a vision, and I need an interpreter to tell me what they mean... What are your thoughts?