Uglification

'I couldn't afford to learn it,' said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. 'I only took the regular course.'
'What was that?' inquired Alice.
'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied; 'and then the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'
'I never heard of "Uglification",' Alice ventured to say. 'What is it?'
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. 'Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. 'You know what to beautify is, I suppose?'
‘Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means–to–make–anything–prettier.’
‘Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.’

~Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"

I ran into a good friend of mine the other day who, as a ward activities type guy, helped put together a date auction. He told me of their apartment's plan to auction off a formal date that consisted of everybody dressing up, eating breakfast-type foods in their apartment (waffles and such) and then having some sort of dance.

There was just one snag, my friend said.

"You see," he said, "my roommate brought up a good point. He said, 'Cute girls in formal dresses are really attractive, but ugly girls in formal dresses just get...well...uglified.' "

I then proceeded to laugh my guts out, and mentally award him several monkey points.

Hello, am I just a poser?...

...trying to be a plunderous part of Threepointfivia? Or am I a L'Afronious pirate in my own right? Perhaps I'll never know, but you boys (and honorary boys) are pretty much awesome.

Oh, and Keith, I still have your Labyrinth DVD. Argh!

Or should I say, "Yargh!"

Ships Ahoy Maties!

On the Far Horizon...

I saw the social life ships that had left me on this island.

Now, you might think that being marooned is a bad thing. There are, however, other factors that have to be considered.

For example, would being marooned be such a bad thing if you were marooned with a beautiful woman? Definitely not! And if you had enough to eat and enough cool things to do, watching the sailing ships leave wouldn't be that bad, especially if you knew that they would be coming back someday...

Virtual Pirating

I work at an Internet marketing firm, taking over Internet vessels full of treasure...

Walking the Plank

I'm near the end of the plank—in April I graduate and they make me jump off the end of my 4 year long friendly plank.

Ship's Cook

Lindsay loves being a stay at home pirate, cooking new concoctions and training up future pirates.

Pirate in Training

Andrew is 8 months old and loves to jump. He's off the charts for height (no surprise here).

Anyway, I promise to post more about my pirating adventures...

—Mike

Your Grandma.......

What's up guys?
Just wanted to drop by a Wuz up?
As you know my little Melanie is pregnant, and I'm not sure if y'all heard we are having a cute little girl! We are thinking of naming her Madeline and calling her "Maddy" for short.
We are living in American Fork, and I am the Activites Chair in my ward here. Hmm... have I ever done that before?
Anyway, Thanksgiving was fun, I pigged out and got fat. Now I weigh over 700 lbs. hehe
Watch out Felipe, I just might come eat you in your sleep.
Things are going great for us! I promise I'll write on a regular basis!
Have a good one!

-Commando-

Traffic Filth

This would consist of my drive up to the West Jordan area. I leave Provo only to enter I-15 at near stand still traffic. Up until American Fork I don't go faster than maybe 22.43 MPH. That's not so hot. I take the 106 South exit to go to said South Towne Expo mall where I probably spend more money than I should have. Eh... After that, I take 106 South on over to Bangerter Hwy. to arrive at my final destination. I was tempted to stop by the old Okelberry abode but decided better not to, though it would have been fun. However, this doesn't work because Bangerter is closed going north at 106. So I backtrack down to 114 S. and head to Redwood Rd. where I head north on that 'til 78 South and get to West Jordan that way. I decided I don't really get lost if I stay on the main roads. That's a good plan. Ooh, and I scored some elk jerky. Nummmmssss......

The Role of the Steel Tipped Plow in the Economic Development of Threepointfivia

Well, I figure I oughtta post already so that there's something here to read when everyone signs in. In case you haven't gotten it, it's good ol' Ben "Flippin" here, and this is indeed the Three-Point-Five blog. I wanted 3point5 for the url name or threepointfive, but both of those were taken, so three-point-five it is. Remember that. Probably the best way to keep in touch using this thing is to post when you have news for the group. Only members of the blog are allowed to post, so if you know some info about someone who's not a member, post it for them (I figure this is how we're gonna get info from John unless his MP has very liberal views on what "e-mail" means--I did send him an invite). Also, anyone can comment, so that can be a useful tool for the more distant acquaintances of our glorious state. Another good way to get the news even if you don't have any news yourself is to use an RSS feed. Those of you with Gmail can do it thusly:

• Click on "Settings". It's at---no, not there, up!--up--the top right hand of your home screen (inbox).
• Click on "Web Clips". That's at the top right hand of the Settings screen (in that orange bar).
• Scroll down to the bottom of the lemony filling of this screen, and click on "Add more clips".
• You'll get a pop-up. At the middle-right of the orange bar, you'll see "Custom Clips". I'd like you to click on it. Now.
• Put http://three-point-five.blogspot.com/atom.xml in the textbar and hit Find.
• Ta da.

For my news, I'm trying to leave Provo at the semester break. I haven't found a new job yet, but I'm working on it. You see, I need the bucks to keep going to school, and I think it'd be an adventure.

Hi!

Welcome!