Linn Mar

This weekend our show choir went to urbandale and competed. We didn't do that great for us, but we still managed to pull up a first runner-up, only behind Ankeny 30 points. That's pretty good. Linn-Mar happened to be there and was second in the country. They got fourth. So when the rankings got updated, they were twelfth, and we're sixteenth. Make sense to you? It sure doesn't to me. We have a second, first, and second. They have a first and fourth.

Then to add on to my ill feelings towards Linn Mar, my old school, our basketball team is getting beaten by them by thirty points right now. We are undefeated and second in the state and they are third with a loss. It's a little dissappointing, especially since they've beaten us for the last three years. I'm beginning to develop a hatred towards them.

Why I Blog

Because I was assigned to. But i guess that doesn't really help anyone so I will say what I think about it.

Blogging is great for some people, and not to good for others. It really depends on what type of person you are and if you enjoy writing. With me not being a writing person, I don't like it all that much. But that doesn't mean I don't see the appeal and wonder of it.

The best part is, it can be anything you want. You can review stuff on it, complain about stuff, use it as a diary, or do anything else on it. Yes you can also just have a diary or notebook. But with those, people don't see it unless you show them, and you also don't get comments unless you show someone. Blogs can let anybody in the world see what you're writing and put there own opinions on it or give you advice if needed. And if the privacy thing is an issue for you, you can just set the privacy setting to allow only you to view it.

You also can't put videos into a journal and pictures would be a pain to insert to it. Well blogs solve that problem. Picture's, video's, you name it.

I use mine as a kind of update for Hawkeye fans and to express my opinions about what's going on in the program. I also took about other random tidbits in my life and it's a much better alternative in my opinion then keeping journals.

Kids

After reading one of my friends blog, I saw that he used his blog to vent his anger towards the world on it, so I think I'm going to try that for a post.

I'm sick of kids. It's nothing against them, but there are just too many of them. Maybe I'm just sick of parents. After all it's their ignorance to keep having kids. I'm not talking about all parents and saying that no one should have kids. That would obviously end our species. I'm talking about people having eight or more kids. Why would you do that? Religion. Most people do it because of religion. They read the bible and it says go now and populate the earth. Yeah that was over two thousand years ago. WHEN THE EARTH WAS NOT FREAKEN POPULATED! DAMNIT PEOPLE, NOW IT IS NOW OVERPOPULATED SO USE YOUR BRAINS THAT WERE GIVEN TO YOU AND USE A CONDOM!

The most recent case of ignorance and irresponsibility is from Nadya Suleman, who just had octuplets. Now I'm not mad about this because of the octuplets. You can't really control that. I'm mad because now she has FOURTEEN kids. That means she already had six. Now if this was a normal case, I would have just said fourteen kids? How about you use up some more of the earth's resources and hurt it more. But no. She's going to be using up the earth's, and our governments resources for her kids. Now why would that be? How about because she 33 year old single mother that is unemployed. And before these kids, she was already getting $490 in food stamps. Now taxpayers are only going to have to pay more for her and her kids because she's not intelligent or responsible enough to know when enough is enough. Honestly how do you get that stupid? You're doing good for no one. Not the earth, your species, your government, or your kids. They will grow up in poverty since you now will hardly be able to provide for any of them. Birth is not a miracle when you're kids are brought into a life where they are set up for failure. I'm not saying because you're poor you will fail in life, but statistics do show that people in poverty don't do as well in life.

This situation makes me just about as mad as the Duggar's, but not quite. The Duggar's just had their last kid this past December. Their EIGHTEENTH FRICKIN KID. That's just pathetic. I went to their web site and it's pretty clear their loaded as seen with their huge mansion. But it's also easy to see that their hardcore christian. That's what makes me so mad about this whole situation. They make Christians look bad because these people are too dumb to see that not everything is supposed to be taken literally. It talks about how to treat your slaves in the bible. Does that mean that we should get slavery? These people probably think so. So when it says go populate the earth when it was sparsely populated, it probably meant go ensure the survival of your species by populating it enough for everyone to be safe and live in harmony with the world. Not to start overrunning it and destroying it, and once it's close to it's breaking point, continue to repopulate by having eighteen kids. Do the Duggar's expect us to go to another planet? No. I can almost guarantee you that they say, oh well my kids won't be around long enough to feel the impact. The same people that take the bible so literally and go to the extreme, are the same people that don't give a shit about the environment and don't care about what God gave to us. Oh it's not my problem they say. I'm not saying that is the case with everyone, but I've seen it way too often and I'm willing to bet that that is the Duggar's opinion for it.

MAGIC!!! continued

The next trick he did involved someone from the audience so he pulled up a mom. He then handed her a paintball gun and explained what was going to happen. She had five shots, but had a hard time listening to directions and Tim had to repeat them over and over again. It was funny at first, but then her stupidity started to get annoying. She was supposed to shoot the paintballs at a huge piece of paper with a lifesize sketching of a person on it. When she finally took the shots, she missed her first two and then landed the last three, two pink, one green.... I think. He then went to open a box with a lock on it that had been sitting on the side of the stage the whole time. He took out a key and approached it. After it was opened, a small piece of paper with the same image on it, and it mirraculously had the excact same arrangement of colors and they were in the same spot. As the lady took her seat, the croud applauded loudly.

Tim then announced that the next trick was his favorite to perform, and that caught everybodies attention. He grabbed a table from offstage and set it in the middle of the stage. He also had a cloth in his hands and set that over the table, and put a box on top of that. He picked up two corners of the cloth, braced himself, and the table lifted up off the ground and began floating, with him just holding the cloth out from it. He would take one hand off a corner, lift up the other sides to show there was nothing underneath, and it would keep floating with him only holding onto one corner. After making it float for a bit longer, he set it down and moved to the next trick.

This was a card trick and he said he would need someone to pick a card for him. He called out to an old woman in the crowd and she replied "The ten of queens!" Apparently she had been asleep and he then asked her to join him on stage. So she did and picked a card. She then held the card as they went back to back and he got his big drawing pad and began to draw the card. He turned to the audience and held up his picture and it was.... the shape of a card with nothing on it. "Smartass" i thought as I laughed along with everyone else. He then transformed that card on the paper into a deck and held the pad up and told the audience to watch. Slowly, a card started to creep up from the deck on the paper and she held up her card to find that they were matching cards. It got even better when he went to rip the paper off the pad and we saw that the card was now drawn onto the paper since we could see the ink had leaken through onto the back of the sheet. It was truly impressive.

Then Tim announced the finally was coming up and he sat down on a stool as a blue light was cast down on him. Music was playing that sounded like it was from the polar express and he began telling a story about how he told a kid he could maked snow. He took out a napkin, folded into quarters and began ripping edges off to make the paper snowflake. He then went on with the story and went on with how he then showed the kid this: and he began a rapid motion with his hands out of our view, as little shreds of paper began flying up from his hands. And I mean flying. Hundreds were shooting up and it lasted for a good thirty seconds. It was a perfect ending to a great show.

MAGIC!!!

Our choir held a fundraiser Tuesday night, but not in the typical fundraiser way. It was a magic show. And not just a lame cheap magic show. It was a legit, Las Vegas magic show, with a legit, Las Vegas magician. Do you know how I know it was legit? Well besides the tricks, he had a panther, and a leopard to help him perform. That ended up being the only flaw with the show: then animals weren't allowed to perform because they didn't get a license front the city in time. Everyone was very bummed out because of that, but it was still great. And it was probably the some of the funniest two hours of my life and I was laughing the entire time. That sounds odd for a magic show, but it was extremely funny.

But the show started with some simple tricks; tricks with doves and ducks. Making them appear, disappear, then change species. This was very impressive but i had seen it all before, and was shown how in movies like the prestige (although in that movie, to do the trick they crush the bird and kill it and I was hoping they weren't doing that with these birds). After the bird stuff he put a cloth over a big ball on a stand in the middle of the stage after a few seconds he took the cloth off and his assistant appeared inside the ball. We were all amazed as she stepped out and walked up next to him. He finally spoke and told us about the himself and the show. He informed us that it was a comedy, magic show and that when his tricks were right, it was magic, but if he messed up, then it was comedy and we should laugh to save him embarrassment.

Now I'm going to do my best to type everything the way it happened, and in the order but I'm not sure how exact it will be since the show was so overwhelming that I can't remember everything. After the whole dove routine, he took out a huge pad of paper and drew a bowling ball on it and wrote around it "Bowling Ball". He closed the pad and started moving it around and all of a sudden a big lump was in it. He moved the lump towards the ground, and a bowling ball fell out of the pad. Our jaws dropped at about the same rate as the ball and when he opened the pad, the words "Bowling Ball" remained but the picture of the ball was missing. Then he called my friend's uncle up to the stage to help him make sure the bowling ball was real. It was and the magician told him to throw the ball up to him and so he did. But then the magician dodged it and scolded him for throwing it at him, bringing in the comedy aspect to the show.

The next trick brought out the star of the show, which happened to be in the audience. He was a four year old named Sam. He was selected when the magician, who i've decided I'm going to call Tim, took a tin can with a stick around the audience hitting the can. He would hand the stick over to a few select audience members to try to repeat the sound he had just made. Four of them failed before he came to Sam who did the noise perfectly. Tim then took a few steps back and held it out for him to hit it again. He did and then Tim took a few more steps back, leading him to the stage little at a time, in the same way a person would lead their dog somewhere using treats. When they finally got on Stage and the following conversation took place.
"Well what's your name?" Tim asked
"Sam"
"How old are you?"
in a tired voice accompanied by a sigh "Four."
" Oh really? Too bad you have to be five to be on stage. Hey Sam how old are you?"
In the same sigh, "Four."
"Oh? Too bad you have to five to be on stage. Hey Sam how old are you?"
Sighing "Four."
It could possibly be one of funniest conversations I've ever seen a little kid have. Tim laughed then pointed at another girl from the audience to come up and join them. She did look about five, maybe four. Her name was Emily. He then said what he wanted them to do was use their imagination, grab a floating (make believe) coin from mid-air and put it in the tin can. He demonstrated and we misteriously heard a clink inside the can. Then Emily tried it. She reached out, closed her fist, and let it go over the can: another clink. Then it was Sam's turn. Tim told Sam to reach out and grab a coin to place it in the can. So what does he do? He reaches his hand inside the can, grabs the coin and drops it back in it. Tim tried to tell him what to do but he kept grabbing the coin from inside and dropping it back in. When he produced a few more laughs, he smiled and kind of spasmed, where he slapped his hands against his legs and shook back and forth which produced a bigger laugh. He was just so cute! I feel gay now but whatever. He did finally get it right, but when he dropped the invisible coin in, no noise was made. Until Tim put the can behind him under his butt and tugged his arm. We misteriously heard a coin drop. After a few more of these tries he sent the kids back to their seats to begin another trick, which I'll get to in the next post.

Sixth?

Today the show choir rankings came out and according to them, we're sixth in the country. When i first saw them I was ecstatic. We were the sixth best showchoir in the country! But when I looked at the rest of the list, my excitement quickly deminished. I looked at who was first, and saw it was a school I've never heard of. Second was Linn Mar and following them in third was Urbandale. Two schools separated us and Urbandale that I also didn't recognize. Now I'm not saying Linn Mar is bad, but Urbandale is definitely better. They've won two competitions, Linn Mar has won one. Urbandale's were both really hard, and Linn Mar's wasn't that difficult.

As I looked down the page I also was amazed at the fact that Washington is 14th and Totino Grace is in the 90's and Bemidji is in the eighties. Washington missed the finals at Linn Mar by a lot and Bemidji and Totino were both in it. Wash did win one competition, but it was against nobody schools. Those other schools are a lot better than Wash and everyone knows it. Wash people will even admit it. Although I do think some of the rankings are accurate like ours, Ankeny's (who is 13th), and a few others. But I feel as the year goes on, they will become much much more accurate. Only two or three competitions in, it's pretty much impossible to even get a close guess at the right rankings. But there is still no possible way that Linn Mar should have ended up in second. All of the numbers point to Urbandale, so I don't know why they would be in front of them.

Super Bowl Commercials

So I was finally really impressed with the Super Bowl Ads and that's good because it makes it a show you never need to stop watching. You're equally excited for the game as you are for the ads. But there were several good ones this year.

I think the funniest one was one for NBC shows and it was about people who were losing their butt's and had to go to the hospital. They were suffering from "LMAO" or laughing my ass off. It was really funny and I laughed for a good time after that.

There were also several movie commercials and really good ones at that. One was a Transformers 2 preview that had every one in the room hushed as soon as it began. Excitment flowed through the room as it played. Also there was a preview for a GI Joe movie starring Dennis Quaid, and it looked really good. The action looked really good for a story like that. And finally there was a preview for Monsters vs. Aliens that was really only good for the 3D.

Along with that preview there were two other 3D commercials. one was a preview for Chuck tomorrow which is going to all 3D. But the real good one was a Sobe one which was really noticeably 3D through the whole ad and it had several instances where it looked as if something was flying towards you.

The most common ads were either Dorito's ads, Coke ads, or Budweiser ads. The Dorito's and Coke ones were all extremely funny, but not very memorable. I only remember that they were funny. The Budweiser ones on the other hand, were all very memorable. There were all the Clydesdale horse ones, which were funny, but I just don't really like those commercials cause I don't like those horses. But the Bud Light ones are hilarious. There was one with an office guy suggesting they don't have bud light at their meetings, then proceeded to get thrown out the building. There was also another with Conan O Brien that I don't want to even try to describe. Lets just say he decided to do an ad, in the ad, that was a little risky.

There were several others that you can find here and you will enjoy pretty much every single one. http://video.yahoo.com/network/100076996

Pittsburgh

Superbowl 43 was won by Pittsburgh. yay... Bear with me because this post my be a little angry since i HATE pittsburgh. I didn't really realize i hated them so much until this game when i started despising them more and more. Watching it as I type, I think the only player I truly like on the team is Hines Ward. That's it. But that's not to say it wasn't a good game. It was a great game. An amazing game. Maybe one of the best in Superbowl history. There were hard hits, long plays, a great comeback, and a few broken records.

The only score in the first quarter was a field goal by Pittsburgh. In the second quarter is when they started to pull away. They scored on a one yard run to bring it to 10-0. Then the Cardinals scored on a short pass play to bring it to 10-7. It was looking for bright for the Cards when they were in the redzone with a few seconds left in the half. That's when Pittsburgh's Harrison intercepted Warner and ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown. That was the longest play in superbowl history. It was not a good ending to the half and the score at the end was 17-7.

The third quarter made it only worse with Pittsburgh kicking a field goal to widen the lead to 20-7. Then in the fourth quarter, the Cardinals got another touchdown from a pass from Warner to Fitzgerald. Then after a penalty on the goal line, Pittsburgh was given a safety to bring the score 20-16. Then with two minutes left, Fitzgerald caught a long ball for a touchdown, 20-23. If they won, it would be the biggest comeback in superbowl history. Too bad that then the Steelers drove down the ball in a minute and a half to score again with a pass to Santonio Holmes in triple coverage. When Cardinals tried to pull off one more drive, the ball was hit from Warner's hand for a fumble and the end of the game

Super Ad

The Superbowl is one of the most if not the most watched program in the United States annually. But most Americans don't tune in for the game. Most watch for the little breaks from the game : the commercials. Over the years they have gotten better and better and they have also gotten that much more expensive.

This year some companies have taken that to their advantage. Miller is doing a one second add. Yup that's right. One second. They're hoping this generates publicity and becomes an extremely efficient ad while only spending a little bit of money. It consists of a worker in Miller talking about how expensive the commercials are, then saying he's going to make a one second commercial. Do you know what, i'll just post it.



Now the beer commercial won't necessarily be funny, but I do think it will be effective. The dog adoption one was pretty funny. It was the actors and actresses that made it though. It wasn't a funny commercial in itself, but their performances made it funny. I didn't think the career one was that funny until the end with the small animals bit. The Koala Bears "oh my" did make me laugh.

Last year I was really disappointed with the commercials and didn't find hardly any of them funny. But this intro does give me some hope and I'm thinking I may be laughing a little more this year.

Respect

So one of the things I like about being in Happiness Inc. is the respect. Sure Showchoir doesn't get that much respect from other kids in the school, but among other showchoirs, Happiness Inc. is the most respected. We have a reputation for having some of the best sportsmanship and being the kindest people at competitions. We are also starting to get a reputation for being the most fun.

We always respect other groups and don't talk bad about anyone. That's what started our reputation and has helped it continue for 20 years. Our director constantly gets emails and phone calls about our good sportsmanship and we always hear kids say they wish they were in our group, not only because we're fun, but also because we're nice. Recently a kid told me that that was gay. Not even being the rebel among showchoirs, but being the goody goods. But I don't see it that way. If you were that type of rebel, you'd have to be a dick and then everyone would hate you and look down on you. Now I don't know but that doesn't sound too fun to me. I'd much rather be liked and looked up to.

And we are kind of rebels and that's where the fun comes in. When in awards or before a performance of another group, we randomly break into cheers or chants. Sure it annoys people, but most people like to get involved and just have fun with it. Also when not watching a group or getting ready, we go back to our room and use my speakers to play (blast) music through the halls. With the subs turned up all the way kids from other groups eagerly would come over and stand and listen with us and a few would dance even. But if we were dicks to everyone, noone would want to over to us, and the competitions would be much less entertaining.

Now when i look back on the person that said that, I feel bad for them. If they think being rude and obnoxious will get them liked, or will help them have fun, their life will not be a great one. Having fun and being nice go hand in hand. If you treat people crappy, their not going to want anything to do with you and that's what this reputation is about. We don't want to be the group that wins, but is despised because of our attitudes.