Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

This recession we’re in means you need to make more money, save more money and spend less money. Here’s a great life skill lesson on the latter. You can save a lot of money by timing the things you buy. This mainly means buying things off-season. A few examples:

Buy air conditioners and BBQ grills and houses in the winter, and buy used cars just before summer. Pick up a gym membership in the middle of summer. Purchase candy right after Halloween. Here’s a monthly breakdown the peps over at lifehacker compiled:

• January: digital cameras, carpet
• February: chocolate (after Valentine’s day)
• March: winter wear (clearance sales)
• April: used cars
• May: party supplies
• June: gym membership
• July: furniture
• August: laptops
• September: lawn mowers
• October: cookware
• November: candy
• December: wedding dresses

That will be $5, please. How do you save $?

src: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1SAYGk/lifehacker.com/5440376/the-best-times-to-buy-anything-all-year-round

src http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/

“The phonetic alphabet is a mapping of individual letters and numbers to specially chosen words which are unlikely to be mistaken for one another (for instance, none of the words in the phonetic alphabet rhyme). By substituting the NATO alphabet telephony for independent letters and numbers, you can ensure other parties (who also grasp the idea of the phonetic alphabet) can reliably interpret your communication. And you can avoid sounding like a character on a Saturday morning children’s show, repeating, “A as in apple, B as in ball…”" (packetlife.net)

Pyramids of Egypt, Chichen Itza, Pompeii, Mont St Michel, Great Wall of China, Petra, Kashmir Valley, Topkapi Palace, Taj Mahal, Nile River Cruise, Prague Old Town, Carnival in Rio, Serengeti Migration, Easter Island, Golden Temple, Stonehenge, Galapagos Islands, Cappadocia, Amalfi Drive, Angel Falls, Grand Canyon, Colosseum of Rome, Meenakshi, Yellowstone NP, Machu Picchu, Fjords of Norway, Chartres Cathedral, Santorini, Antarctica Cruise, St Peter’s Basilica, Mezquita Cordoba, Matterhorn, Iguazu Falls, Egyptian Museum, Damascus Old City, New York Skyline, Bali, Borobudur, Dubrovnik, Marrakesh, Amazon Rain Forest, Valley of the Kings, Uffizi Gallery, Eiffel Tower, Ngorongoro Crater, Hong Kong, Rio Panoramic View, Ladakh, Great Barrier Reef, Sistine Chapel, Golden Pavilion, Niagara Falls, Angkor Wat, Burj Khalifa, Delphi, British Museum, Victoria Falls, Alhambra, St. Basils Cathedral, Burj al Arab, Forbidden City, Louvre Museum, Abu Simbel, Yangtze Riv. Cruise, Bagan, Canals of Venice, St Mark’s Basilica, Yosemite NP, Karnak, Versailles, Florence Cityscape, Ayers Rock, Teotihuacan, Carlsbad Caverns, Kremlin, Hermitage Museum, Banaue Rice Terr., Mecca, Varanasi/Ganges, Chambord Chateau, Bora Bora, Kathmandu Valley, Li River Cruise, Lijiang/Shangri La, Acropolis, Metropolitan Mus, Shwedagon Stupa, Neuschwanstein, Potala Palace, Mt Everest, Sahara Desert, Banff NP, Jerusalem Old City, Temple Em. Buddha, Leaning Tower Pisa, San Francisco, TerraCotta Warriors, Hagia Sofia, Baalbek, Portofino

Generally if people say that instead of laughing, it means it’s not very funny.

Here are some actually funny quotations from Comedian Mitch Hedberg.

• An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
• Wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy, all day. Wearing a backpack and a turtleneck is like a weak midget trying to bring you down.
• I want to get a vending machine, with fun sized candy bars, and the glass in front is a magnifying glass. You’ll be mad, but it will be too late.
• When someone hands you a flyer, it’s like they’re saying here you throw this away.
• I don’t have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who’d be mad at me for saying that.
• I would imagine that if you could understand Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.
• Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.
• I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long.
• You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.
• I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it.
• A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.
• They say Sprite is made out of lemon and lime. I tried to make it at home, there’s more to it than that.

By popular request, here are the lyrics to the song I wrote and performed for our entry into the LDS Film Festival:

I am a zombie, I’m a mindless human man
I am zombie, not a creature, understand
we are the undead for blood we lust
we’re driven to kill people, but you must not distrust
when I tell you we are human, we work an honest day
our job is to eat people, so people we must slay

but in the morning time, when we lay down to sleep
we hit the rock of charity and promises we keep
we moan to let you know we’re coming, providing you with hope
we stay away from drugs, for zombies are no dopes

we do not lie, we do not cheat, we’ll never steal a limb
we’ll share with all our bounty, and work out at the gym
we eat a balanced meal, of fingers, heads and toes
we try to be clean shaven, while wearing tattered clothes

CHORUS:

zombies are forever, zombies are number one
listen to your heart if it’s not beating, let’s go have some fun

walk with me my brothers, lets walk side by side
and if you are beside us, you have probably died

so join a zombie family, be a zombie friend
if don’t succeed at first, you might as well pretend

zombies are forever, zombies are number one
listen to your heart if it’s not beating, you might be one

The long-awaited video:

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UPDATE: and now on youtube!

UPDATE: news coverage on Mormon Times.com

Speech, Speech!

And so I gave them a speech:

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Luke, Ben and I met up at my house two Fridays ago to compete in the 2010 LDS Film Festival‘s 24-hour Filmmaking Marathon competition. We competed against 50 other teams. This year’s theme was Charity, the object to use in the film was a rock, and the dialogue line was “I’m the one who…” We recruited a local actress, grabbed some clothes from DI and sat down to write a script. Sometime later, I was in front of the  bathroom mirror, applying zombie makeup (Rachel admitted I’m surprisingly good at it). We shot a few dozen scenes, and then we recorded the soundtrack– an original composition I played and sang.

When our 3 minute film (bizarrely titled Sociable* + Polite) premiered at the Festival this most recent Thursday in front of a packed theater of over 500, it was warmly received. Still, there were a few other very competitive entries. At the award ceremony last night, they announced the six honorable mention prizes, and my film was not among them. I consigned myself to a prize-less fate. Imagine my shock when they then showed a clip of the 1st place winner, and it was Socialble + Polite. I was speechless. Well, not speechless, because I gave a short speech, but astounded, anyway. Surreal.

Did we get the cold shoulder from the tight-knit, pretentious Utah Valley film cliques**? Yes. Were they annoyed at our blitzkrieg invasion of their self-congratulating party? Clearly. Will I do it again next year? Absolutely.

* Yeah, it’s misspelled in the festival. I didn’t do it… (socialble)
** Thanks, CBB

I found this online game where you drag country names onto a map. If you’re correct, the country changes color and is labeled. This particular game is a map of the Middle East, including northern Africa and extending almost to India. I was able to correctly map all but Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

How did you do?