“I heard one that if you drive a stake into Madonna’s heart that all of the other sluts will die too.”

The other sluts being referred to are the Disney brand Super Slut, and the Nickelodeon knock-offs.  This list includes Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, Vanessa Hudgens, Mylie Cyrus, and the rest.  We can throw in Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and their ilk as well, even though they are more of borderline prostitutes than Super Sluts, but we will allow for some gray area.

I think the best way to totally screw up a child so that they grow up without any of the knowledge or skills needed to function in society is to make them famous.  Or rich.  This being said, I wish I was famous and/or rich (preferably both).  However, I’m not a kid.  My days of being psychologically damaged are behind me (although, catching my folks ‘in the act’ might still be able to garner some lasting trauma).  I’m fairly certain that were I to strike it rich and famous, I could retain at least a token hold on reality, enough so that I could hide my insanity from the rest of society.

Hmmm…maybe not.  Tom Cruise didn’t.

Well, I’m pretty sure I could avoid Super Slut status.  Given that I’m a dude, the word ‘slut’ never applies to me.  It’s okay for me to be overly sexualized and extremely promiscuous.  Nor would selling my body or abandoning my morals have any negative effect on the image of my gender.

This brings me to my other non-issue issue (meaning I don’t really care and I’m not trying to make any real statement):  Girls need to suck less at sports.  That’s right, I said it.  Here is what I mean:

Notice the difference in attire?  That’s because women don’t attract the crowds on skill alone.  So they get bikinis while the men wear perfectly logical clothing.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually prefer Woman’s Beach Volleyball over Men’s, for the reason I have illustrated here (I’m a little pervy, I know).  But at least they are grown women, unlike in gymnastics.

Gymnastics sells itself sexually as well, or tries to.  Only pedos are buying.  Most men discount this sport due to the breastlessness of it’s competitors.  And, quite understandably, prepubescent girls do not have breasts (*cough*china*cough*).

We are experiencing some technical difficulties here at cedenullis.com.  Be assured that our technicians are working furiously to repair the issue.

Just kidding, we have no technicians.  And there is no “we”, just me.  And I have no idea how to fix it.

The problem is isolated to just Internet Explorer, so if you use Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any of the others you will be fine.  If you use Internet Explorer, you’re hosed.  Sorry.

I have ventured forth to the Chicago, and returned again, unscathed.  It was a harrowing journey fraught with dangers.  There were giants, and dwarfs, and BO of epic proportions.

I flew out from Salt Lake to Chicago on Monday on Delta Airlines.  Despite my lack of prior seating assignment, I was able to secure a coveted emergency exit row seat; at the window, no less.  This is my preferred seat, as I have no desire to have people stepping over me to go potty or whatever.

All was going perfectly.  I was even spared the additional security cavity search, which is usually guaranteed for solo travelers.

I proceeded to my gate and boarded the plane without much of a wait.  I fought the inconsiderate throng of passengers to my seat.  I quickly stowed my gear without blocking the aisle for even a moment (it so easy, yet so many seem incapable of doing it…) and sat down in my cramped widow seat, albeit with ample legroom.

This is where I encountered the giant.  He, unfortunately, had the middle seat right next to me.  Moreover, he had a wicked cough, which I seem to have caught.  Thanks a lot, giant-dude.

The flight was mild overall.  I read the whole time, while trying to ignore the oppressive hacking giant to my left.

I occasionally smelled BO while in the air, and assumed that one of the nearby passengers needed some lessons in basic hygiene.  Later, once I had disembarked and once again had the ability to raise an arm, a quick freshness check told me I was the offender.  The heat of the plane and the cramped quarters must have forced an early expiration on my generally trusty Old Spice.

I was in Chicago for an interview and health screening for a position as an Air Traffic Controller for the FAA.  The following morning (Tuesday now), I got up bright and early had took a cab to the interview location.  I was the lucky one to complete my interview very first, so I was able to rush through all of the steps faster than anyone else was.  I was the first completed that day.

I finished up at 1:00, but my flight home wasn’t until 7:00.  Therefore, I had some time.  I decided to walk back to the hotel where my garment bag and street clothes were stowed.  It was only a mile walk, so I figured it would be relatively easy.  I’d just had a clean EKG, so I at least knew I wouldn’t die.

It was hot, and the ‘windy city’ wasn’t.  I was wearing a full suit and tie.  It was hot.

By the time I made it back to the hotel (dodging giant goose turds on the sidewalk for most of the way) I was drenched in sweat.  So I quickly changed into my street clothes, freshened up my deodorant (see, I learned my lesson), washed my face, and caught the shuttle back to the airport.

My return flight was on American Airlines.  I used to hate Delta since I was used to the excellent customer service of JetBlue.  But now…now I hate American Airlines a whole lot more, and I only mildly despise Delta.

The service on American Airlines is non-existent, unless you are in first-class.  I sat in the cattle-car bulkhead seat, so I had an unobstructed view of first class for the whole flight.  They were served drinks, meals, snacks, ice cream.  They were given blankets, pillows, and anything else for which they had a desire.

In coach, we never saw a single stewardess once they finished their pre-flight safety spiel.

I arrived home to the happy faces of my loving family.  I was only gone for a day, but I had missed them, and I was very happy to see them again.  I don’t like traveling without my loved ones.

I am not is the greatest mood today.  Therefore, I decided to write a happy little poem.  It somewhat mimics the style of one of my favorite poets.  10 points if you can guess whom, from what I wrote.

Here it is, in all of it’s shameful glory:

Let me know what you think.  In my own defense: I haven’t written a poem in years, not since my days of teenage angst.

I tend to think of blogging as a sort of inner monologue, with an external manifestation.  As I type, I generally just let my fingers transpose the dialogue as it parades around in my mind.

The thing I find most odd about it is that my posts are never funny.  Not even to me.

I find this a little disconcerting because my interactions with humans in the non-digital world tend to be hilarious.  Well, I think I’m hilarious.  Other people usually think I am mildly amusing at best.

Therefore, it appears I do have a serious side after all.  My wife, and maybe my mom, will be so pleased.

My ever-restless mind brought an almost forgotten childhood memory to my attention this morning.  It was something I hadn’t thought about in years, possibly soon to be replaced with more current or more relevant data.  As to what brought this memory back to me today, I cannot say.  Nevertheless, it has spurred a lot of thought about how the mind and how it works.

Here is the memory:

When I was about 10 years old, I was on a junior league soccer team.  I have never been particularly good at sport, in general, but I wasn’t extremely bad at them either.  I was usually in the middle somewhere as to my performance, not the worst on the team, but not one of the best players either.

On this particular occasion, we had a regular season game to play.  To be honest, I don’t even remember is there were playoffs.  Anyway, our whole team had arrived and we were ready to play.  However, the other team was short the required number of players to fill the field.  So, they forfeited.

We were all geared up in our hot pants, cleats, and shin guards, so we wanted to play still, as did the other team.  Our team decided to give a player to the other team so they could fill the field, and our team would just have less to substitute.

Whether I was just hated by my teammates, or if they thought I was the worst player, I do not know.  In the end, I was voted over to the other team.

I was mad.  And hurt.  I decided I would show them what they had given up.  Jerks.

While playing for that other team I played the best I have ever played in all my years of junior soccer.  I was on defense and I was blocking my own team, the one that had so frivolously spurned me, all over the place.  They couldn’t get past me.  I was unstoppable.

Well, since that day I was just mediocre again.  That was a rare glimpse in to what may have been some powerful potential.  In fact, it happened again about 6 years later.

At about the age of 16 I was playing in a church basketball game and once again, I was on fire.  I was jumping higher, running faster, and making more shots than I had ever previously done.  I don’t know what brought it on (I wish I did) but I was unstoppable that night too.  So much so that the event was still talked about months later amongst my peers as “the night Ben kicked butt,” (it was a church group, so we didn’t use the a-word).

On these two isolated occasion is had been as if I had take a dose of Felix Felices (the luck potion featured in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince).  Are such occurrences luck related, or are they actually how we would perform, were we uninhibited?  If we were free from self-doubt, social fears, regret, guilt, and poor self-image, would we perform at such a high-level all of the time, and in more aspects of our lives?  As it as stated in the following quote:

It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not. - Unknown

There must be some way to harness such powerful days and make them commonplace in our lives.  I think that there are more people afraid of success than there are of failure.  However, if we could unchain ourselves and unlock that power to bring ourselves success, at will, and use it every day, who wouldn’t want that for themselves?

I fear success as much as the next guy, but I would give a lot to be able to cast aside my fears and doubts, and embrace excellence, especially if I knew how to maintain that grip indefinitely.

Yeah, I’d like that.

Tauni opted out of seeing the recently released Batman film, The Dark Knight.  So, having no one else to go with, I had resigned myself to seeing it on DVD in about a year.  Luckily, I discovered our neighbor’s wife has the same aversion to dark and violent films that my own wife has.  So this neighbor and I decided to make it a guys night out and went to it without the wives.  We found one more friend that had trouble getting his wife to go, and invited him to join us.

Anyway, here is my official review:  That movie was almost perfect.  One of the closest to perfection in cinematography I have seen in a long time.  Cristian Bale was flawless, as were Heath Ledger and Gary Oldman.  Maggie Gyllenhal was bland, but I’m not sure she can help it.  My only pet-peeve is that Batman’s mask looked retarded.  But it seemed more realistically functional that previous versions I’ve seen.

Now, we all know that everyy story has basic archetypal character roles.  So lets play the define-the-role-in-the-film game.

First, Bruce Wayne/Batman, is very obviously the Protagonist.  It is his story, after all.  But more importantly, he is the one we see in emotional conflict (and physical conflict, booyah!) through the film.  We see him stuggle with internal and external demons, and feel the pain of his plight.

The Joker, also obviously, is the Antagonist.  He is the one in direct conflict with our Protagonist.  He does not change through the film.  There is no progression or regression.  He is evil and crazy from start to finish.

Jim Gordon is what is called a Contagonist.  He aids the protagonist in his journey, and shares in it to a lesser degree.  Once again, a very simple classification.

Alfred Pennyworth is the Sage.  He’s Batman’s Obiwan.  When Batman needs advice, Alfred is the man he goes to.  Lucius Fox shares this role to a degree as well.

Harvey Dent/Two-face is a more complex case.  At first glance it would seem he is a Contagonist that switches to an antagonist.  But I don’t think its that simple.  First, Harvey gets his own sub-plot.  A parrallel story line that intertwines with Wayne’s/Batman’s. I think Harvey plays the role of contagonist to the main plot through the whole story.  But he is also the Protagonist of his own sub-plot, to which Rachel Daws is the contagonist.

The conflict is very impressively done.  It was a lot more than a super-hero smash stuff style film.  There was depth and purpose.  And there was chaos.  Beautiful, beautiful chaos.

The setup can lead you to believe that The Joker and Harvey Dent are the bizzaro versions eachother.  Dent is pure good to the Joker’s pure evil.  I think that Dent has darkness inside of him, but he ignores it and suppresses it, until it builds up to a point that he can no longer contain it.  The Joker takes all of the darkness inside and revels in it.  He rolls in it like a pig in manure, and he loves it.  Bruce Wayne is aware of his darkness and uses it, together with his goodness to ferret out and destroy other darkness.  So, maybe its actually that The Joker and Dent are opposites of the spectrum, while Batman is the balance.

Sorry, that’s a pretty long review.  I’ll stop now so I don’t scare all both of my readers away.

I have been perusing some other blogs lately and I have come to a realization;  I am boring.  I don’t know if it’s because I am boring, or if exciting occurrences just do not happen to me (which technically makes me boring as well).

First, people that on occasion get drop dead drunk and pull some crazy antics have some pretty entertaining stories to tell.  But I don’t drink.  I don’t even hang out with people that drink.  The highlight of my day today was when a clear storage bin full of Playboys came down the conveyor belt at UPS this morning.  It was, of course, taped shut, so we just laughed about it and then loaded it into the truck.

Yup, I’m a regular party animal.

I’ve thought about fabricating misadventures to entertain my adoring blog readers.  Somehow that feels like cheating.  Although, I have toyed with the idea of starting a separate, fictional blog.

So, in an effort to re-capture the foolishness of youth, I will be having more insane adventures.  Just wait and see.  I will.  Really.

Not tonight though.  I’m too tired.  And I have work early.

It is one of my life’s ambition to become a polymath through personal educational endeavors, just as the great polymaths of the past have done.

I love to learn, but I hate the educational system.  Most of the greatest geniuses in the world, throughout history, became geniuses despite their schooling, not because of it.

And so, while I do still attend college to get that all-mighty piece of paper that will increase my career prospects and salary cap, my true education goes on in my own home.  Well, on my computer.

I have researched several subjects of interest to me.  A lot of my research centers around historical figures and what they accomplished in their lives.  The life of Benjamin Franklin, in particular, had a big effect on me.

The list of items I have researched is long, with an endless list of possibilities ahead.  I’m not talking about current events or pop culture here, but that stuff is good too (as long as it isn’t all you learn about).  I’ve googled and become versed in several scientific theories, home remodeling techniques, and how to draw using some cool methods in Photoshop.  And that is just since Monday.

Admittedly, most of this learning was done while ‘on the clock’ at my job.  But I have that even untrained monkeys could do.

Oh, and I would like to join Mensa.  I wonder how much a real IQ test would cost.  Maybe I’ll google it…