What are you doing here?

Seriously, what the heck are you doing here? There's nothing going on, here!

I didn't want to muck up my humor-based blog(The Casual Blog) with unfunny personal info, so I started this one(The Casual Mormon). I wanted to have a blog about religion, since one of my favorite past-times is reading arguments between atheists and theists and mormons vs. non-mormons. I'd love to get in on those sorts of arguments...but I don't have anything new to bring to the table, so I haven't posted anything yet.

I also plan on blogging about my awesome family and stuff like that. But again...nothing really new to say at this point. I mean, my awesome family is awesome. What more can I blog about?

For now, just keep checking out the Casual Blog at http://www.johnqcasual.com/blog/. Hopefully I'll get everything in order with this blog once I get some more time. I love you all. Thanks for visiting.

Alright Alright, Stop Tagging Me!

I've been tagged more times than I'd care to publicly state. People keep urging me to post 8 random things about myself. I've put it off for weeks, but every once in a while there will come a time where boredom eclipses procrastination. Now is that time. Here we go:

8 Random Things About Jeff

1. I hate following instructions. When people tell me to do something, I will try to do exactly the opposite. Unless I suspect that they may be using reverse psychology, and then I try to do it exactly as they have instructed me.

My first instinct when being "Tagged" to write 8 random things about myself was to instead write 8 deliberately ordered things about myself. I'm tired of blogs being about random things--give me some structure, man! Maybe I could write "8 Things About Me That Relate Specifically To My Experiences With Driving Instructors" or "8 Things That I Like About Board Games".

Despite my dislike of instruction, I will continue with random selections of "things".

2. I once peed on a girl's head.

I was four, and my mom was making mad scratch as a babysitter. One of her babysitting kids was sitting on our back porch, at about my crotch-level. I decided to pull down my pants and pee all over her hair. I'm not sure why I did it. I wasn't doing it to be funny, and I wasn't doing it to be mean, and I certainly wasn't doing it because I'm some drooling idiot who honestly thought that a girl's head is the place where I am supposed to pee. It was just one of those "I'm a kid and I have no idea why I am doing this" moments. I'm just glad my mom wasn't arrested.

3. When caught making a mistake, I like to elaborately lie to see if I can convince people that it was all intentional. Sort of like Pee-Wee Herman, with his "I meant to do that" gag...but more elaborate.

Example! Somebody gave me a phone number to write down. I wrote down all seven digits, and then asked "and what's the zip code, again?". Clearly, I had meant to say area code--but the other party still felt the need to ask for clarification.

"You mean area code?" they asked.

"No no--I meant zip code. After calling this person, I am going to then promptly mail them a goodwill package. I have their street address, but no city or state. If you could supply me with their zip code, I can just look it up on usps.com and then send them this package."

Usually when I do this, people will realize that I'm just being a sarcastic little twerp and give me whatever I had originally meant to ask for. Other times, they will think I am serious, and go along with it. If that happens, I have to ask for the area code again later on which is always a little bit awkward.

4. For being such an unusual looking guy, I sure do have a ton of look-alikes running around. Just about everyone I've met tells me they know at least one person who "looks just like you!". I even saw one of these lookalikes at Kings Dominion one time, and it was crazy. I was in line for a water slide, standing in line, when I saw him walking across the park. I couldn't help but sit there and stare, even though it meant about a dozen 9 year olds cutting in front of me.

He had the same smooth, shapely shaved head(completely bald, just like I had things at that time), the same height, the same level of fatness, the same goofy walk. Even the same cheap-looking elasto-shorts and Faded Glory T-shirt from Walmart. The face was harder to make out, since he was 30 feet or so below me, but he appeared to have the same sunken-in eyes and protruding nose as well.

5. On my first date with Molly, I took her home and we watched From Justin To Kelly, which I had just bought for $5.50 at Walmart(I love to buy crappy movies). She clearly hated it, and it was about 3am by the time it was over.

So what do I do? I make her watch it again, this time with commentary. I'm so romantic. About a third of the way through, she told me it sucked so I turned it off. Then I took her into my room to play on the internet, but my prankster friend had put gay porn all over my desktop. Molly politely walked out, and then Doug came out of his room, half asleep and in his underwear, and introduced himself to her.

Slightly less than a year and three months later, we were married. That's love for you.

6. I am churchy. Mormon churchy, even! How nuts! Sometimes people ask me why I started going to church, and I'm never sure what to tell them. I never had any deep undeniable spiritual revelations. No great big sign telling me to go to church, and no crazy coincidences that are too heavy to ignore. It was a lot of little things.

But there was one moment that still burns in my mind, even though it had very little to do with me getting back into the church scene. I went to a drinking party held by a very hip friend of mine who went to UVA. I got completely trashed that night--so drunk that half of what went on didn't even make sense to me. I would talk to people, and have no real idea of what the conversation was about.

I was shooting the breeze with one other drunk guy, and I must have said something about God(nothing serious, I don't think--probably just an "OMG!" type exclamation), because his face suddenly became very serious. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me a little, and very sincerely explained to me that there was no God. I forget what else he said, but he spent a few minutes elaborating on his point.

I nodded as if I understood and agreed with him, but then the conversation petered out. As I thought about his words for the rest of the evening, I couldn't help but feel that he was full of crap.

I'm not sure what's worse, a hardcore atheist or a hardcore christian. At least the hardcore christian believes he's saving me from eternal damnation. What is the hardcore atheist saving me from? Wasting a few hours at church every Sunday? It's not like I was doing anything productive with that time anyway...

I have a pretty open mind--I'm not particularly scared of a Godless universe. If I die and it turns out that I'm wrong and there's no afterlife, then oh well. What can I do, cry about it? Still, when the drunk atheist was telling me how sure he was that God didn't exist...it just felt so wrong. Everything about that moment just felt wrong. The fact that I was drunk, the blasphemy, the fact that I was unemployed and living with my dad and being a terrible example to the younger kids in the family--everything.

Ever since that moment I have tried to turn my life around. It's a slow process, and results aren't always noticeable...but I think I am in a better position now than I was at that time.

7. I am indifferent.

I wish I cared more about stuff. I wish I cared about any one subject so I could have gotten myself a good old college education. And I wish I cared more about my job so I could suck up to the right people and get a promotion. But the truth is, I just don't care all that much. I only care about spending time with my family. Too bad I can't get paid to do that.

8. I don't like much TV, but the TV I like I reeeeaaaally like.

Every time I turn on the TV, I become disgusted. So much crap! But the few shows I like, I tend to become ultra-obsessive and nerdy over.

Futurama is my favorite show. I can name each writer for the show, and tell you which episodes they wrote. (I used to be able to do this with The Simpsons too, but eventually I stopped caring about the show.) I've also been to a few in-person meet-ups with other Futurama fans in New York City. They have seriously been some of the funnest experiences of my life.

I'm sorry I stopped being funny at number 2. It's harder than you'd think to come up with 8 random things. I tag everybody else who is reading this blog.