ten things you never knew about thomas j. leininger

10. he loves junior mints.

9. he knows all the words to almost any boyz II men song (don't ask me why, or how).

8. he actually gets excited about statistics.

7. if he could, he would have a cup of hot chocolate every day (and he has been doing so lately).

6. he can bench 900 pounds (true story, i swear).

5. his biggest pet peeve is when we're driving home from the library late at night and the pedestrians hit the walk button at that light by the tanner building. and the light changes to red for one person to walk by on the (almost deserted) road. and we have to wait for the light to change back to go.

4. he loves the musical seven brides for seven brothers, especially the song "bless your beautiful hide." for a while, that was his ringtone for when i called.

3. my ringtone for when he calls is "butterfly" by crazy town, because he knows all the words to this song too (again, don't ask me why).

2. he always makes the cookies for me when it's my turn to bring them for the writing fellows cookie jar. and makes our lunches every day. and likes to try and make dinner without me helping.

1. it's his birthday today, and he's a quarter of a century old. the big 2-5. duhhhhappy birfday tommy!

saddest news ever

we were supposed to go to this concert on friday:


but it was postponed until february . . . because elton john has the swine flu.

worst. news. ever. we (i) had been looking forward to this for AT LEAST eight months. and now we have to wait four more.

my mom said that she doesn't feel bad for me. whatever. i felt bad enough for myself.

the daily universe

in following the example of barret d. lybbert, i decided to protest something published in the daily universe. in fact, a plethora of somethings.

for example:
-this front-page article about twilight, of all things, which was published today.
-this front-page article about finding a hot date in the library, from earlier this week.
-this front-page article about whether or not you should wait for your missionary, also from earlier this week.

i am well aware that the daily universe publishes many well-written, informed articles about campus activities. i am also well aware that students are responsible for writing the articles. but why on EARTH do they write such ridiculous, practically offensive articles about such shallow, unimportant topics? and then have them be on the front page?

this is the letter i sent to the daily universe. they may or may not publish it. but i am just sick and tired of reading stories about things like this, and knowing that others who read this judge the BYU community by what they see on the front page. not all of us are concerned with such infantile issues as those.

Dear Daily Universe,

This semester's front page articles have been absolutely insulting, and today's article about the opening of New Moon is the final straw. Earlier this week, there was an article about whether or not girls should consider waiting for their missionary. And another article about romantic encounters in the library. How much can you insult the intelligence of the BYU community? Unfortunately, The Daily Universe is the only news source for the majority of BYU students. Even more unfortunately, they don't actually get any news from reading it. Would it hurt to actually cover national and global events instead of giving a two-paragraph snippet on the back page? What about actual events that are happening in Utah, Provo, and BYU? I understand that The Daily Universe is mainly a student-run newspaper and that obviously, it is difficult to come up with topics to cover, but there are opportunities all around us that would be must more informative than these topics. Isn't BYU's motto "Enter to learn, go forth to serve"? How are we to do that if our own newspaper only gives us stories about the most ridiculous popular trilogy of this year? I fail to see how these main stories are in any way newsworthy or of any interest to a somewhat educated audience (which, ostensibly, a university of students should be). Don't talk down to us and underestimate our intelligence, and don't continue to represent the BYU community in such a shallow, naive way. I for one am ready to see some articles about real stories and real issues.


i know it's not really a big deal. and even if nothing happens, it feels good to get some steam off after this long and stressful week and make a statement. alec, tanner, and annalise, at least, all agree with me. it would help if the daily universe invested in some truly competent editors, too (who will ever forget the "Twelve Apostates" incident of winter semester?) . . . but i didn't think i needed to go that far.

first snow

good-bye, fall. we had a good run this year. i love what you did around these parts; you did wonders with the decor. i really enjoyed spending time with you. let's do this again next year.

i'll miss you.

random fact of the day

did you know that in iceland, they believe in thirteen different santa clauses? they are all brothers, and they come one by one, the thirteen days before christmas, and are known for stealing things and causing general mischief everywhere they go. kids hang their shoes out their windows and if they were good, they get small presents from the jólasveinar (yule lads, as they're called) every night, but if they were bad, they get a potato.

because i know you're dying to find out what they're all named, you can look here, if you want.

i know this valuable piece of information because i did a presentation on icelandic holidays in my icelandic 101 class on friday. they also celebrate beer day on march 1, in honor of the 1989 lifting of the 79-year ban on beer. this makes me proud of my 1/4 icelandic heritage.

halloween

fun things we did this halloween season:

-a married FHE pumpkin carving activity with five other married/engaged couples from our old singles' ward (but some hooligan vandals smashed our pumpkin on halloween night, probably because we weren't home to give out candy... and we never even took a picture of it.)
-a married ward activity at the church (where we are in the picture)
-made yummy mummy dogs and halloweiners with grandma and grandpa murphy (seriously. check it out. grandpa's idea.)
-played monopoly with car, pj, whit, and josh (whit and i tied for first place after the game had been going for 3 hours. we didn't even want to quit.)
-made caramel apples
-watched hitchcock's rear window and thoroughly enjoyed it

happy halloween amigos. bring on the holidays!

U2 concert!

while i'm blogging, i might as well post about the amazing vacation that we took this week. monday afternoon, we left provo and started driving to arizona for the U2 concert. we stopped down in st. george and stayed with tommy's aunt bettie and cousin jacqui and had a lot of fun with them. then tuesday we drove the rest of the way, had dinner with the rasmussens, and then went to the CONCERT!

this is how excited we were about going to the concert, after driving 11 hours to get there.

tommy bought a shirt with bono's face plastered on it. plus, one of their band members has gray hair! it was kind of funny how old they all are..

the stage was pretty cool... bono kept calling it a spaceship they designed for their concert.

it was just so nice to be able to leave school for two days and leave the stress of provo behind. and we really loved being able to see bettie, jacqui, and the rasmussens! it was fun to be able to hang out with them. we went to denice's spin class with her on wednesday morning and almost DIED before we drove the 11 hours back up to provo. we also got to drive over the hoover dam both ways, which was pretty cool.

some might say a 22-hour road trip is a bit extreme just to see a concert... but it was more about the experience, anyways. and we LOVED it. i'd do it again, too.

NEXT UP on our list of fun and exciting things we're doing: billy joel/elton john concert, november 20th. be there or be square.