Anyone that is a friend of Chris Burke must never have seen this window into his tiny shrivelled soul.

Lately I’ve been seriously addicted to Chopped, the cooking show on Food Network.  They always purposely have a dick hole competitor and it’s funny how they always put them on the far left stove.

Cocky bastards like Chris Burke are such bad sportsmen to bring attention away from their own mediocre performance.  They are so insecure about their performance that they feel they have to gain an extra edge by distracting and putting down their competitors to their face during competition in order to throw them off.

The quick story behind this guy with the poop tickler grin is that he’s been on Chopped before (and got chopped).  All of the contestants on the show were past contestants on for a new chance at the $10,000.  Having lost it once makes the contestants want it even more apparently.

In Chris Burke’s first appearance on the show, he accused a competitor of stealing his mushrooms, when it turned out he spaced it and left them in the pantry.  He didn’t apologize until prompted by the judges.

In this episode, he was especially mean to Katie Rosenhouse, who admirably took his abuse with a remarkably cool head.  He saw her as a threat for the last round, dessert, which makes sense since she is a pastry chef by trade.

As most contestants that were obviously chosen by a group interested in boosting ratings/drama and put on the far left stove, Chris was very verbal and distracting.  He appeared as though he were the star of a cooking show, explaining in detail what he was doing at all times.  The judges had more bad than good to say about his food, but his narcissism only allowed the good remarks to make it into his consciousness.  He’d fit right in here in Utah Valley.  Actually, this might be the very first time I’d have to say this place would be the worse with him.  That’s saying a lot for a blog called provosucks.com.

This is the first time I’ve seen a contestant actually try to take over as announcer when the ingredients were being announced for the final round.  Ted Allen had to quiet him down.

$10,000 is a lot, and apparently Chris Burke thought it was worth making himself look like a clown to make a win more likely.  Fortunately he succeeded admirably in the clown department, but did not win the competition.  Perhaps the most satisfying hour of television I’ve seen in months.

This Saturday morning I went to Bicentennial Park for my customary disc golf rituals.  Don’t know what disc golf is?  Yes it’s that nerdy sport known to Seinfeldites as “frolf.”  Provo actually offers quite a well-laid-out disc golf course at this park, and I even like it more than Salt Lake City’s course.

Anyway, at the park was a company party for a company called Temkin.  They manufacture materials for packing, such as the cellophane you see on flowers.  Only, it’s not cellophane, its some other material with a large name that some lady over at this party corrected me on.

Arriving at the party my attention was first drawn to one of the stands.  I couldn’t be sure what they were doing, but just that they had Baloons, whatever those could be.  Balloons on the other hand would have been a lot more fun.  Tell me, how do 40+ people get together and not one single person tip the Baloon stand operator off?  Either everyone is a total dick, or everyone is a degenerate.  Both could be true, but there was a grown person riding a tiny tricycle:

And what kind of crappy company party requires you to buy stuff?  They want you to come work and probably get underpaid as is the reason people set up shop in this poor dusty state, just so that they can lure you to some crappy company party where they were seriously selling baseball caps with their company logo.

Najix was seen this weekend at the Taco Bell in Orem.  Najix is best known for his role where he plays himself in the South Park 100th episode entitled Cancelled.

Najix plays himself, an intergalactic reality TV show director for a show called Earth. Najix and his other Alien colleagues have thrown all sorts of species together, Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer, Hispanics, etc. on a single planet as the rest of the Universe watches and laughs as they struggle to get along. The show Earth is in danger of being cancelled when the inhabitants find out they are merely reality show stars. The inhabitants of Earth take it rather well, celebrating the fact that they are all famous.

Najix, of course, can take any form he wishes, but the boys of South Park settled on a Taco that defecates scoops of different flavors of ice cream.

If you’re planning on driving through Utah, primarily Utah Valley, be warned that those things you see driving cars are not human, they are some species of sheep, ovus utardus to be exact.  This guide will take you through the basic techniques of making it out of Utah alive.

1. Watch out for high-speed grazing. These sheep are ravenous eaters, and they are often grazing on fast food while operating deadly vehicles.  Don’t be fooled by the skinny ones either, as these sheep have no qualms against plastic surgery, bulimia, or other highly unhealthy forms of keeping outward appearances up.

2. Yellow Blinking Light Challenged. It is a mystery to scientists, but the prominent theory is that, after over a hundred years of rapid, high-volume breeding in a tiny gene pool, ovus utardus has lost the ability to see yellow blinking lights.  Therefore, a good test for spotting ovus utardus is by using a turn signal to indicate a lane change.  If a car that is in the new lane speeds up so that they are in your blind spot in a failed attempt to pass you right before you make the lane change, it is probable you have found a good specimen.

3. Roundabouts. Further testing has revealed that, although ovus utardus is really good at learning basic repetitive tasks that require very little activity in the region of the brain responsible for creative or independent thinking, they quickly forget all that is learned when the context changes slightly.  A good example is yield signs.  Many of the utardus species (about half) can pick a yield sign out of a line-up of as many as two street signs, but when faced with one at a roundabout, all that was taught to them about yield signs suddenly appears irrelevant.  This can be true for utards already in the roundabout who yield to those waiting to enter, and vice versa.

4. Stop sign intersections are too complex. Much is still unknown about ovus utardus, but one of the most baffling traits is their inability to ever learn how to work a stop sign.  They might stop, but they see the oncoming perpendicular traffic as irrelevant.  My only advice is that if you are driving on a 35 mph road and you see a car up ahead stopped and ready to merge into your lane, keep your foot hovering over the break.  3 out of every 10 utards will cut in front of you.

5. Difficulty with telling distances. To get right to the point, ovus utardus enjoys riding your ass.  They are always in a rush to wait at the next stop light or to ride the ass of the utard in front of you if they manage to pass you in some insanely unsafe way in heavy traffic.  Scientists attribute this with their inability to perceive depth.  This would also explain why they often buy houses that are too big for them to afford with a credit line some other utard was not supposed to give them (discussion of ovus utardus shady business ethics in a later post).

Another possibility that experts use to understand utard-brand impatience is a shitty home life.  Most utards were forced by their parents to marry too early (to avoid premarital sexual encounters) without really getting to know their future spouse.   Once married, they feel trapped and confused and become very similar to any wild animal that has been cornered, including driving 85mph on average on a 65mph highway.

I would like to invite all other humans living amongst the ovus utardus philistines in Utah to slow down every time a utard tails you too closely.  These simple minded animals just need a little negative conditioning, just like Pavlov’s dogs.  Also, don’t rely on legal recourses if a utard rear ends you; they are likely to just drive away.  Many use weekly church attendance and other outward signs of piety as a way of quieting their consciences.

6. The sheep dogs are even worse. The sheep dogs are easy to spot, they drive cars that look like police cars, have giant crime-friendly asses, and have no ambition to do anything else in life but to make both humans and utards alike feel bullied.  This comes from many years of being made fun of as the fat kid at school.

In Utah Valley, the Mecca of Secret Backbiting, where the pricks kick against the pricks, where phonies multiply like rabbits, you’re bound to meet a lot of interesting people.

But, in other news, lets go to the weekly SEO blooper reel:

Ever known of anyone with an agenda or grudge to SEO their opponent’s name for ill? It happens all the time. Usually its pretty hard to; you have to find some damning terms somewhere parsed in their content, and optimize it (usually out of context) using some basic SEO techniques. But, even more rare, have you ever known anyone to SEO their own name for ill on purpose?

Nate Bagley has spent the last several years accumulating inbound links from friends with the anchor text: Life is a joke (You’re most certainly welcome, Nate). The result of course is that he will definitely own the first two results for the term: Nate Bagley’s life is a joke. What a freakin pimp.

Now its fair to say that it is likely anyone’s personal blog will rank somewhat high on this term since it is what we would call a “tail term”. For instance if you google the same thing but replace his name with my name, you get my post-modern high scale art project ranking #2: the goyin blog, that happens to be a money making machine (If you would like to know more, you know where to contact me).

Anyway, Nate, you have easily reached escobar status.

A blog that hates on Utah Valley wouldn’t be complete without a portrait of Utah Valley’s Higher Education system. I’ve been working mostly for the past 5-6 years and am coming back to school finally. Since UVSC has moved up in the world and is now UVU, they say as many as 15% more students will be attending. Below is a representation of what I thought class was going to be like, and what it turned out being like:

What I thought class would look like:

What Class Ended Up Being Like:

Yes, it almost seemed this empty in my “full” class. Apparently you don’t have to go to class to pass. Yes, the facilities really were this neat and clean, and the utilitarian architecture really did provide a stainless steel toilet within a convenient distance. And yes, no minorities.

Unfortunately, the architecture at UVU is uninspired and not functional or utilitarian at all. It’s also ugly, so I don’t get it yet. Whoever designed the place obviously wanted to copy Wright’s negative spaces, only superfluously, times a hundred. The building materials really give off a 3rd World impression, and the intentional unfinished look really nails the Brazilian Public School look; you know, all of those schools built during the height of the cold war when Brazil was Socialist more than ever, and they moved the capital to Brazilia. Bare essentials: concrete and brick, but distastefully executed.

Its kind of like how Utahns make up names for their children that have never been used because they think they are being clever, when in fact they look like hick clowns that got gored at the rodeo in Kanab Utah. Stupid hicks.

Anyway, no inspiring spaces, no balance, arbitrary entrances and exits here and there with narrow stair cases, low ceilings, wastes of space everywhere. As if to make up for all of this, all of the pipes are visible and painted with all primary and complimentary colors in rainbow order running along the ceilings. It was at that time I’d realized I forgot to bring something for show and tell.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about that campus is the waste of Horizontal Space. Instead of building up, they decided to build across, and everything requires a carefully planned hike with dehydrated foods and water purification tablets. It’s like one of my favorite books when I was a kid: Sideways Stories at Wayside School. Its about a school that was supposed to be built sideways but they screwed up and built it tall. Only UVU would be the mutant bastard version of the sideways school if they screwed up, and screwed up yet again, building the school flat, but still with no rhyme or reason.

My other impression of UVU came from my esteemed counselor. I won’t say who she is or what I’m studying, but she is a fat dyke bitch. I’ll let you know who she is once I graduate.

I come on time for a 9 am appointment and she is busy talking to someone so I wait. She sees me and comes and closes the door. About 20 minutes later (of listening to nonstop laughter come from the room) the person leaves, and it turns out to be another one of the counselors that works there. I come in trying to be friendly and affable (I’ve seen this lady before and she was nice when another female was in the room) telling her I wasn’t good at figuring out classes/prereqs, etc and she jumps down my throat telling me that that was the reason why she put asterisks on my worksheet (a worksheet with lines, scribbles, notes, and… asterisks). She asks for my UV ID number and then assures me I’ve got it wrong (with her irritated condescending voice) because its ‘missing a number.’ She then writes out her own number on a sheet and counts the numbers. After realizing her folly she doesn’t even apologize.

Yeah, I’ve been busy in the real world where us grown ups have to face the anarchic and risky throes of capitalism. I didn’t have time to grow my ass big and fat while studying UVU’s arbitrary administration policies and other bits of “valuable world knowledge” on other people’s tuition bill. I don’t get to sit in a cute little office that other people’s tax dollars and donations built, and stick stupid posters and ironic messages all over it.

When you’re a male dealing with a female supremacist, you can’t make any mistakes. Without a female by my side, I must have looked like such a Neanderthal. If this chick were born with a penis, Rush Limbaugh would have some serious competition.

As far as I’m concerned, writing this was cathartic enough, and she can just rot her fat ass off (which I wouldn’t hold my breath for) in the ugliest campus I’ve ever seen in this Country, advising retards such as myself.

Some upcoming events of note in the Mother Land (Salt Lake City):

September 15, Tilly and The Wall at In The Venue

October 9, Deerhoof at the Urban Lounge

October 30, Girl Talk, at In The Venue

November 17, of Montreal at The Murray Theater

You could have gone to see Architecture in Helsinki for free at the Gallivan Center, but you missed it.  It was a couple weeks ago.

What better way to celebrate distaste for the town I live in than to celebrate what I did out of town. A week or so ago Jenna and I rolled down thunder mountain to see Devendra Banhart and Beck play at the Grand Sierra in Reno, Nevada. If you’ve never been to Reno, it’s a lot like Las Vegas if Las Vegas were a giant whore with a ton of make-up that looked OK at night but like shit in the morning, only without the make-up if you know what I mean. Going any further into it would be superfluous like a ribbon cutting for a porta-potty. If you’ve never been to the Grand Sierra (a Hilton Hotel) in Reno Nevada to see a show, listen up.

Playing Ball at the Grand Sierra in Reno Nevada

If you got tickets with seat numbers, don’t be fooled, you probably don’t have a saved seat. It’s first come first serve and seating is mainly booths with tables. We got in first thanks to some kids we met and managed to get a booth right in front and center. Booths at the venue are raised above the general standing area, so you won’t have too much trouble seeing over heads. This was the most comfortable seat with a super close view I’ve been to.

So anyway, we checked into the hotel and bumped right into Beck who was heading to the venue, but i didn’t really want to disturb, he looked busy. And very short.

The show was off the hizzook. Beck announced that his son forces him to sing Mama Wolf before he goes to bed, and then invited Devendra and his posse to do the song with him.

After the show Jenna got a late dinner and who do we see standing around the casino, Devendra:

That’s me in a t-shirt with the drawing Devendra Banhart drew with Jenna, and Devendra Banhart.

It is still surreal in my mind that this Devendra fellow, someone that I have built up in my mind over the last couple years as a mysterious mystical psychedelic figure that happens to date Natalie Portman was standing next to me. He’s organized in my mind with the dead mystics of the sixties in my mind, with the Lennons, the Garcias, Morrisons, Mingi (the plural of Mingus?).

The trip was cathartic, mainly for being outside of Provo.

There are very few promotional emails I actually enjoy getting, although I get about a dozen a day (these are subscription emails, not spam. I get nearly 1000 spam emails a day to my work email). The one from Geeks is one of my favorites. I don’t think I’ve actually bought anything from them yet but I love seeing what deals I could have. Their latest email finally had me pulling plastic out of my wallet until I was almost done checking out.

According to the subject of the email, I would expect to be “Seeing Double for Half the Price @ Geeks.com.” Doesn’t this speak to the bargain hunting region of your brain, the one connected directly to that nerve center also known as the magnetic strip of your credit card? It makes me think that there’s a promo where I get double for half the price of one.

In the email, the following promotion follows:

This ad confirms my prior inclination that I will in fact be receiving two of something for the price of one-half, saying “Buy one get one free just 34.99 each.”

A new-customer-registration sub plot thickens

Of course in order to purchase from Geeks you have to create a user account. I attempted to use my email address but that one was already taken, obviously, because that’s how I got the email promo in the first place. I try to log in using that email but I’ve never bought from Geeks, so the taken email address doesn’t work. So I give them one of my gmail addresses. When I’m getting ready to check out, it appears that there are too many units of the product in my shopping cart and no way to edit that on that page. So I have to start all over, but of course, now my gmail email is already registered but I haven’t registered an actual account to buy anything because I guess it creates your purchasing account after you’re done with the purchase because I try logging in with the gmail address and still nothing.

So now I have Geeks emails going to two of my addresses but still no account is created. So far so awesome.

So anyway, I finally get to where I’m about to pay and notice that I’m paying twice as much as I thought. I go back to the email promotion and sure enough in small print in between promos on the email it says that the deal is really just two for one:

Even the star next to the price in the email isn’t directly next to the bad news, it’s just next to the promo code. The bad news is in the fine print below: that you’re really paying 69.99 for two units, not 34.99. It does read ‘price with code: 34.99 each’ under the price, but that to me sounded like one unit was 34.99 and then you get a second one free. Wouldn’t any logically thinking person think this after all the things that had been previously read?

I work for an internet retailer and we’d never put that kind of price trickery knowingly into an email. I can’t really chalk it up as an honest mistake on their part because when we send out promo emails half a dozen pairs of eye balls goes through the email carefully before it gets sent out, and I’m sure we’re much smaller than Geeks.

Obviously there is no truth to the title simply because Utah already has a lot of deer and only Chris Cohen, former member of Deerhoof, is coming with Nedelle and their band ‘Cryptacize.’  I am pretty excited about the show this coming Saturday and hopefully I’ll finally have something interesting to talk about happening in this particular place.

The above  picture was snapped on my crappy camera phone while Jenna and I were cruising by a clearing right on Center St. in Provo near Seven Peaks.  They all looked like less than a year old.  I guess I’m glad that Provo has at least evolved passed the collective civility stage of driving around with the posse in the back of a big loud diesel pick up shooting anything alive and furry.  It is telling, however, that of all the things happening on Center Street these days, a bunch of deer in a clearing wins the blog entry.

Coming up: A review of the other Amenities Provo Center St. has to offer.