Tate Jones is Two!!!

Happy Birthday Tate! We celebrated his birthday a day early on Veteran's day because some of his cousins had earned a trip to Chuck your Cheese we tagged along and partied. I think I'm still feeling the effects of the worst pizza in the world, let's see, here's my rankings of pizza's:

1. Sourdough Pizza - East Mesa, yum
2. Barros on a good night
3. Nellos - pizza crusts appetizers rock also
4. Pizza Hut Taco Crust (ultra thin crust)
5. Rosati's Thin Crust
6. Some pizza I had at a cool place in Detroit - no clue of the name anymore
7. Freezer pizza's - Tony's, Totinos, Any cheap wad red baron knock off
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8. Way down here you have crap e cheese and peter piper pissa...., I mean pizza.

We had fun with the cousins, here's a picture of the cake we built (tribute to pedro) for Tate:

Here's Tate rockin into his two's!!!!

Annoying sayings, I knew I had some of them right

I love reading about new words, the history of words and phrases, and slang.  I think I have a propensity for picking up phrases and vocabulary and have several non-standard dictionaries such as: 

The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins

NTC's Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial Expressions

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms

The Little Hiptionary - pretty cool but doesn't have a lot of new info, some new words and office humor

Anyway, I found that a writer  compiled a list of the top ten most overused phrases  using the Oxford Corpus (a massive only word database of more than 2 billion words), compiled in a new book I will buy called "A Damp Squid" and here they are:

The top ten most irritating phrases(see news article here):

1 - At the end of the day  -- I had a boss that used this whenever he couldn't articulate what he really meant to say, or maybe just whenever he thought things were final and needed no more debate.  Either way it got supremely annoying and he had no idea that he used it so much. 

2 - Fairly unique

3 - I personally

4 - At this moment in time  -- I've been know to use this, yikes

5 - With all due respect  -- I never use this, apparently I have no respect

6 - Absolutely  -- Yikes, what's wrong with saying absolutely?

7 - It's a nightmare 

8 - Shouldn't of  -- 

9 - 24/7

10 - It's not rocket science

What words do you overuse?

Yeehaw! Life moves on, and what more could you ask for but a new Hobbit Movie coming out

Ok, One of my greatest joys in life is to spend time with the kids watching movies like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has been one of my favorite book series of all times(I've read it at least 6 times), actually is my favorite, although Harry Potter comes in close. Leeshe is quite tolerant of my LOTR addiction, the kids are a mixed bag, McKenna likes Harry Potter so never wants to watch LOTR, the oldest boy LOVES LOTR - go big Z, Gollum freaks our Aidan out, I haven't brainwashed our youngest yet since I do maintain some discretion when it comes to fantasy violence and young children. Now that elections are over and life continues I have another 2 movies to look forward to in about 3 years, yes you heard it right, the Hobbit and some made up sequel to it (prequel to the LOTR movies), 2011 and 2012, here's a link answering all of your burning questions:

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/hobbitfaq/#1.1

That's some exciting stuff there, I'm sure that brightens your day after the past couple of election months. I'm excited for the Hobbit because hopefully it will be a much more fantasy based and light hearted movie, the book is far more "fun" and "fantastical" than the Lord of the Rings series. Where LOTR deals with the one ring, horrible wars, and evil, this touches on the ring (where Bilbo finds it) but focuses on a fun fairy tale like adventure all throughout the book. Hopefully it won't be too dark and be more reminiscent of the book.

The excitement doesn't stop there though, we've all got 3 more Harry Potter movies to look forward to.

Giddy up, election day is almost here and OVER! Everybody better be voting :-)

Leeshe gave me some great advice last week which I think I followed pretty well, she challenged me to avoid looking at any blogs or news sites for a day, it resulted in a marked improvement in my attitude and outlook on life. Regardless of how things go, it's great to know that we live in the BEST country in the world, we have the Gospel in our lives, and awesome families. I read a great quote from our Late Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley which really helped pick me up:

I stand here today as an optimist...I realize, of course, that we are best with many tragic problems...I have seen a good deal of this earth. I have seen its rot and smelled its filth. I have been in areas where war rages and hate smolders in the hearts of people. I have see the appaling poverty that hovers over many lands. I have seen the oppression of those in bondage and the brutality of their overlords..I have watched with alarm the crumbling morals of our society.

And yet I am an optimist. I have a simple and solemn faith that right will triumph and that truth will prevail.

Have fun and get out and vote! Check out this dude's blog posting: http://www.arizonaconservatives.org/2008/11/arizona-proposition-102-get-out-and.html