Blog Review

This was the first time I had ever blogged and I didn't mind it. I would have enjoyed it much more if it had been a little less. It was a high word count for 3 blogs a week. I really ran out of stuff to write about. I just had nothing to say and couldn't think of anything I wanted to talk about. When I was first told about the blogs I was pretty excited. I was psyched to have my own webpage to do whatever I wanted with. Once the blogs started got going though, I began to dread them from lack of ideas. But the ones that really got going I enjoyed. They just started flowing and the ideas began pouring out of me. I enjoyed letting my thoughts and ideas out on paper... um on screen I guess. I think my favorite blogs I wrote were the ones that I ranted and just vented. Those would include Kids and Creepin' Creeper.

I just realized one of the hardest parts about blogging... It's way to distracting. You get on the internet to look for something, and you get drawn up by browsing the whole web for random stuff. I just got held up for ten minutes because I opened up Yahoo real quick and started reading all of the articles. But maybe that's my own flaw: short attention span.

I think my favorite part of my blog was just setting it up, designing it, adding stuff to it, and making it look tight. I also enjoyed adding pics and videos to posts to make a dull text full page into an interesting display. But my favorite part of the whole blogging assignment as a whole was just reading other peoples blogs. I learned so much about other people, including some stuff I didn't necessarily want to know. But the majority of the stuff was really interesting and worth reading it. I think the one i enjoyed reading most was Spencers, because it was so outrageous and I disagreed with it so much, that I actually found it really interesting and enjoyed it. I don't know maybe that's weird. But anyway as a whole, I thought it was a pretty interesting assignment and I definitely feel I am a better writer because of it.

Talent SSSShow

I reluctantly went to the talent show saturday. I went for two reasons: To see a gorgeous version of "Guy Love", and to see improv. I didn't care much about the other acts, but overall had a pretty good experience.

The improv was easily the highlight, and best part of the show. The games were funny, the kids were great, and it was a great way to pass the time between each act. They were actually more interesting than the acts.

But some of the acts were still really good. Third place was an incredible original guitar composition by stuart something. It really was amazing. Second place was a country song by some freshman. It was pretty good, but I hated the song they did. The winners were Paige and Josh. They did a song from a musical, and it was really really funny. Some other good acts were the scientist by Emily Kipper and Micheal Sepulveda, and guy love which was by Sam Krause and Alex Green. Then there was a scene from an acting class that the teacher of it just inserted in the show. It was AWFUL. It was 20 minutes long, boring, not funny, had bad acting, and would not end. It almost single handedly ruined the whole thing.

Ok now back to the improv. It was awesome. The first game was party quirks, where guests included all of the muppets, sperm, Mr. Yuska, and Britney Spears? The first three were funny, but sperm easily beat them all. It was Evan O'brien and was funny as hell. Then there was the ABC game where it took place at a bank, there was press conference where scooby had killed shaggy, and they did a competition like skit. It just may have been enough to convince MR T IS ON THE CUBS GAME me to do it next year. Sorry about the last comment. It surprised me. Damn now mr T is throwing a pitch. He's a beast. He has all American attire plus a cubs shirt. Hardass.

Hawks

Unlike the title of this blog suggests, I haven't been talking much about the Hawks, but that's mainly because there hasn't been too much to talk about. Spring football is in full swing, basketball is over, and I really don't care about anything else.

But I'll try to fit in some news concerning Iowa athletics. Well.... King got hired as a free agent by someone... Tony Moeaki should be back by fall and a key member of the team.... umm.... Keenan Davis will be on the team next year.... Iowa is ranked no. 2 in the nation.... that last one was a lie.... so yeah not to much to say.

But I just realized I can talk about the cubs. THEY SUCK WHAT THE HELL HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. Those are a few thoughts that go threw my head when the cubs come to mind. Last year, they had the most wins in the MLB at the end of the regular season. This year, they are 21-21, 4th in the central division. They have lost seven in a row. What's going on? seriously.. And now I'm watching a cubs game right now and they have red hats on? I have no idea what is going on. The only good news I can think of is they are winning the game I'm watching right now... yeah not great but it's a start.

Then there's also the vikes. Bad news for them too. The Williams's's are suspended for four games for substance abuse after the williams's's's' brought the case to the supreme court saying that they didn't know they couldn't use it or something like that, and now they're screwed. But in better news, they didn't get Favre since he's remaining retired, and they got some good recruits. Their number one pick was an amazing receiver from florida, who is a bit of a hothead, but they need a receiver. So yeah there's the news

Movie

In AP US History we were assigned to do a project about anything in history. Me and Rog decided to make a Vietnam movie. We decided to make it accurate and went to uncle stan's military surplus to get some supplies. We asked the guy about some fatigues that we could find for our movie. He proceeded to get us fatigues worn by marines in the vietnam war. tight right? Well then we got some vietnam era grenades, and guns. The movie was turning out really legit and we couldn't wait to shoot.

Today we shot the first little bit, and lets just say it didn't turn out very well. It took us about 45 minutes for everyone to get ready, then we went out and shot for about an hour, and got nothing done. It didn't help that the cameraman didn't know how to film anything and any good scenes we would have had, turned out bad cause he did a crappy job of filming.

Besides that people just weren't focused and it was extremely unorganized. We didn't have the part we were filming written out and were just kind of making it up as we went. This seriously hindered the whole experience. I feel like once get a completely clear idea of what we want, it will be much easier to get on camera but until then......

Going out

Last week, going out concert occurred. This is always remembered for the sobbing that occurs during the show, and afterwards. This year was a little different, but not much.

As always, it was a very boring show, with tons of gifts exchanged before each performance and it got a little ridiculous. Ok I can see giving gifts to the directors and so on, but when every parent that helps with the show gets a gift too, it gets a little lengthy. Especially when it's done for an audience that really doesn't give a shit and just wants to see a show. But apart from that, it was a pretty good experience.

Our performance was pretty good except for the ballad which was AWFUL. But for the whole show we were really feeling it, and were making the best of it since we knew this would be the last time we performed together as a group and we would never perform this show again.

After the show, everyone in the group got in a horseshoe to prepare to sing the annual "Forever". It's a song about leaving, and missing everyting etc. It's a pretty emotional song, during a pretty emotional time, but surprisingly not many people were crying or getting emotional. This was a very surprising change, escpecially considering the type of year we had, and how close we all were. We were all just having a good time singing with each other, and as the seniors went up to the front to say their last goodbyes to showchoir, only a few were balling. It wasn't until after the show that everybody broke down into tears.

For the most part, I kept my composure and just supported everyone else, but I knew that next year might be a different story. But i felt bad for several of the people that had showchoir as their life, and that would never experience it again. They felt like they had lost a relative, and they showed it. They stayed onstage for almost an hour after the show was done, just crying over their loss and the memories.

Scrubs

This is a little late, like over a week late, but I still want to talk about it. Scrubs season/series finale aired 2 weeks ago and it was not fun. Not because it was a bad episode, cause it was an awesome episode. But it wasn't fun because scrubs has been my favorite show for a while now and I have greatly enjoyed the new episodes and have been dreading the end of the show.

The final episode and last few episodes of the season involved JD leaving the hospital to work at a hospital closer to his son Sam. The finale was his last day at Sacred Heart and how he pictured the rest of his life.

In the very beginning of the episode they start off by Elliot telling JD not to be too disappointed if his leaving isn't as big as he imagined. As the day goes on, it quickly shows that this will be the case as it seems Turk is the only person really taking notice and trying to make it special.

Since it is probable that this is the last episode ever, you can feel the emotion in all of the actors through several points, such as when Carla is telling JD how much she will miss him. But where I felt it the most, and where it could be one of the most emotional points in the episode is when Dr. Cox is defending JD after he leaves when an intern says he wasn't that great. He then goes on to say that he was the best doctor to ever come through their and he was also an exceptional person. He ends it by saying that JD was his friend, all as JD is listening. After this rant, JD gets his dream by giving Cox a hug.

After this occurs, he begins his walk out of the hospital as many old characters make appearances as he imagines them wishing him goodbye. When he leaves is when they kind of resolve everything. A montage begins playing as he watches and it's home video like footage of his future. After the montage gets done playing, you could see Zach Braff (JD) crying since this was his last moment ever on scrubs. JD thinks to himelf as he walks to his car, "maybe this once my fantasies will come true." implying that this montage was indeed the future. After he thinks this, Bill Lawrence, the creator and director, is seen as a janitor saying goodnight to him.



Then the credits got rolling and it was somewhat hard to watch. They played the theme song as they showed them shooting the last episode and they showed everybodies last scene. It was pretty emotional. I liked this finale, but felt like it came a little short since I wanted to know what was going to happen. I wanted JD to propose or something like that, instead of just saying, yeah this could happen.

This was supposed to be the last season of scrubs, since it is definitly Zach's, and without JD, there is no scrubs in my opinion. But I guess now they are saying that they will continue next season, maybe with most of the same characters and cast. I'm not totally sure about how I feel about this because I love scrubs, but the main thing I love about it, is JD. He is the show for me. so I think if he guest starred on it every once in a while, I would enjoy it. But they can't just continue without him and expect it to be great still.

Wolverine

This weekend I saw X-men Origins: Wolverine, the newest X-men movie in the series. What I was expecting was an intense action movie, with a pretty good story to reveal how Wolverine's, or Logan's, previous life went down. And that was exactly what I got.

I'm not going to go into too much detail to prevent giving away the entire movie, but t started off his troubled life by showing some traumatic events that ocurred during his childhood. In these early moments, you learn that Victor Creed AKA Sabertooth, is actually Logan's brother. They had a special relationship and made a pact to always look after the other one, and not to let anyone get in their way.

In the very first scenes, it showed their roles in the civil war fighting for the union, in WW1, WW2, and the Vietnam War. And that's about all I'm going to say to not reveal anything more.

One of the coolest aspects of this movie were all of the references to other mutants, including Gambit, Deadpool, and many others. I was also really surprised when the movie started and I saw all of the people that were in this movies. I knew Ryan Reynolds was deadpool and that Liev Schreiber played Sabertooth, but I didn't know Will I Am and Dominic Monaghan were in it. That was a very pleasant surprise.

Some of the effects weren't great, like his claws at a few points. There were also few really bad/lame parts including the fiery explosion of a helicopter as Wolverine walks away from the wreckage. But I didn't pay much attention to that seeing as the fights kicked a lot of ass.

Vacation

This summer I will be going on three vacations, which is a little more than usual. I will be going to the Dells (for the third time) and staying at the Chula Vista there (for the third time). yay. Then I will be going to California for 10 days right before school starts to visit family and will be seeing many great sights. That should be really fun. But my dad also made an offer to me saying that if I kept my grades descent this year and didn't blow them, he would take me anywhere in the U.S., just us two. This got me very excited and I immediately said Hawaii. He said no, as I expected and I contemplated on where to go for the longest time. I definitely wanted to go somewhere tropical, but I wasn't sure where. When I told him this, he suggested Miami where he has a friend that could show us around and take us deep sea fishing, and then maybe go to the keys. I instantly said yes, and now if I do keep my grades up and we do go, this should be an awesome trip. But after thinking about where I wanted to go, I started mentally making a list of where I want to go in the world, so here is my top 10 list of where I want to visit in my lifetime.

10. Tokyo, Japan- Awesome sights, awesome food, awesome technology awesome girls. What more could you ask for?

9. Amsterdam, Netherlands- Amazing architecture and parties.

8. London, England- Cool historic sights and British accents are sexy.

7. Rome, Italy- Catacombs would be cool, and ancient Rome would be fun to see.

6. Galapagos Islands- Incedibly unusual but beautiful islands with unique animals and landscape.
5. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- Amazing city on the ocean. While there I would travel inward to the rainforest and chill there awhile

4. Australia's Great Barrier Reef- The miles and miles of coral off the coast of Australia is slowly disappearing from warming waters and pollution. I really want to see this life and color before it disappears forever.

3. Cape Town, South Africa- Gorgeous environment in Africa with plenty to do on this coastal city. Like Rio de Janeiro, I would go inward and tour the savannah.

2. Hawaii- Do I even need an explanation here? One of the most relaxing spots in the world, with many islands, rain forests, beautiful beaches, resorts, and much more.

1. Maldives- This chain of tiny islands is slowly disappearing due to rising waters, and it's beauty will be lost forever, so I want to take advantage of it while it's here. Just take one look at the pictures of it and you will see why it's my number one destination.

Snakes

I'm sitting in the computer lab right now during AP Lang, and Robert is sitting next to me looking up pictures of huge ass snakes, so I think I'll talk about that.

For anyone that doesn't know me that well, I have a phobia of snakes. I'm not sure what that's called so I'll look it up now. Ophidiophobia is what it's called. I don't know why I'm afraid of snakes, but it's almost more of a recent thing. Snakes used to just creep me out and I didn't like them. But as I got older, I watched Indiana Jones more and other action movies filled with snake pits, snake bites, and other scary images. Now,just the thought of them make me cringe, and when snake shows come on, I start squirming in my seat.

One time I stepped on a snake, and yelled ran away. There's my snake story. Very anticlimactic, I know. Here are some sights that scare the shit out of me.

Well that was extremely painful for me so I hope you enjoy it.

You Creepin Creeper

If there is one word that is the most overused word in the English language by teenage girls, it has to be the word creeper. Yes it even surpasses "like". Now this in itself doesn't bother me, and I could easily look past it if it wasn't for the context it was used.

Now here are some definitions from urban dictionary to know what a creeper really is.

A person who does weird things, like stares at you while you sleep, or looks at you for hours through a window. usually a close friend or relative. you know right away if that person is a creeper or does creeper things. it is not hard to spot the creeper.

Someone who views your profile (multiple times) without saying anything.

A person and or creature who stalks/ creeps around/follows/ eavesdrops/ harasses/ lurks/ peeps/slinks/ sneaks/prowls/ hangs about/ skulks etc.

You get the jist. It's a stalker essentially. Now if this word were used in the correct way, it wouldn't even get used a quarter of how much it does today. Want to know the reason? Girls have gradually gotten more naive, and are now trained to perceive flirting as creeping.

Now here is the definition of flirting: a form of human interaction whereby one person subtlety indicates a romantic and/or sexual interest towards another. It can consist of conversation, body language, or brief physical contact. It may be one-sided or reciprocated (encouraged).

Now clearly these are very different and are heading in two completely different directions. But in case that was too dificult to understand, let me try to make this simple for you. When a guy likes you, he talks to you and tries to show his interest and see if you feel the same way. And when he's saying stuff you think is creeperish, it's NOT because he's stalking you and planning on raping you.

This rant wasn't triggered because a girl recently accused me of creeping. It's just been a buildup of annoyance of several girls constantly complaining about a creeper that's bothering them, or naming practically every guy a creeper. It just kind of pisses me off because being a creeper is not a good image, and especially sucks when it's not true.

The funny part, is that most girls that accuse guys of creepin, are the biggest flirts in the world. They draw them in, show them their (fake) interest, then talk about how stalkerish they are. Kind of a bitch thing to do if you ask me.

Draft TIme

The NFL Draft was this weekend and it was pretty interesting. I only really care about Hawkeye players that were drafted, and players the Vikings picked up, so that's all I'm gonna write about.

I was a little surprised about how some of the players went. Shonn was the first pick in the third round to the Jets, and Bradley Fletcher was the pick after him to the Rams. Then Olsen went in the fourth round to the Broncos and Brandon Myers in the sixth I think to the Raiders. That left King and Kroul undrafted. This kind of blew me away. Everything else generally went how I thought exept Myers who definitely surprised me going that high. But I thought King was for sure, and Kroul was a probably. Kroule ended up signing as a free agent with the Jets, but as of now, King is still not signed with anyone which is pretty disappointing.

The Vikings got five players from the draft. Their first round selection was a wide reciever named Percy Harvin from Florida, and is supposed to be a great reciever. They also got an awesome Lineman from Oklahoma to fill the gap at Ritht Tackle, and a speedy corner from Georgia. The last two selections were a Linebacker and Safety, and I don't know anything about them. But seeing as the Vikings have the best Linebacking unit in the League, I'm not sure why they picked up the linebacker.

Vids

I've seen a few videos lately that have shocked the hell out of me. All of them had to do with talents of people. Two of them were from Britains Got Talent, and one was just a random video from Yahoo! that I saw.

The first two were from Britains Got Talent, but YouTube won't let me post them for some reason, so I'll do my best to explain them. The first one I saw is a huge sensation and you have most likely seen it. Her name is Susan Boyle and she is a very intersting character. She looks like the typical crazy cat lady, and looks about sixty even though she's 47. But then she sang and captivated everyone in the audience. She had a very surprising voice for how she looked. Then the next episode a 12 year old kid came on and completely dominated the competition. His first song was a song by Amy Winehouse or however you spell it, but then Simon stopped him and said picked a very bad song and let him sing a Michael Jackson song. The moment he begins singing, everyones jaw dropped, including mine. He is definitely the best singer I have ever seen at 12 years old.


This is the other one. It's a band named Recess and the lead singer is 9 years old, the guitarist is 11, keyboard player is 13, the drummer is 11, and the bass player is 12.

CUBBIES

It is now baseball season and obviously with that, comes the cubs. They happen to be my favorite baseball team, so I will blog about them.

So they're doing pretty good. They are 5-3 and are off to a good start again. They didn't have a good preseason, but that doesn't really matter with baseball.

They went 2-1 against Houston, 2-1 against Milwaukee, and 1-1 against Colorado. Now they have a series against St. Louis which they need to win to pull ahead of them in the central division.

Rated R for Retarded

So Spencer said he was going to blog about this, but I have yet to see it posted. So i will go ahead and do a post about it.

A few weeks ago I went to I Love You Man with a group of friends. It is a very good/funny movie, and I strongly recommend it. I'm even going to go far enough to say it is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time (which isn't saying much considering I haven't seen many funny movies in a while). But anyway, coming back to the story, one of the people in this group happened to be a 16 year old. We'll just call him..... Sam. And this is a R rated flick. So he just bought a ticket to another movie, then slipped in with us when it was time for us to go in. Well obviously someone noticed that Sam was with us, but had a ticket to a different movie. So they added the two up and came to the realization that he was planning on sneaking in....Genius!

So about a half hour into the movie, two people, one of which was a manager, came up to us and asked to see our ticket. The first four of us all showed her our tickets with no problem, but Sam had no ticket to this movie to show her. So he said that he threw his ticket away, but then she asked for his ID. She saw he was sixteen and he told her that his mom bought him a ticket, and she said that was impossible since she would have had to come in with him. Well as you can probably guess, this led to him getting kicked out, and they forced him to go to the movie that he bought a ticket to. Well Spencer would have none of this and promptly got up to go fetch him. To my surprise, in ten minutes I saw them both reappear, but this time Sam wearing a different shirt. Spencer sat in our section, and Sam went a few rows up from us to remain out of sight. Or so he thought. In about five minutes the same lady came back and made a beeline for him. I don't know how they saw him. I wouldn't have. But somehow psychic psycho lady knew and she escorted him out of the whole theater this time. Sam later texted us saying he was leaving because she had called the cops on him. THE COPS.

This pissed me, and didn't really make sense to me for a few reasons. The first was that while this lady was busy kicking out my sixteen year old friend, she was leaning over a six year old watching the same movie. This just doesn't make much sense to me. I mean this kid is hearing stuff WAY to inappropriate for him, but it's okay for him to watch? Yet Sam who understands all of this stuff and is not being harmed in any way by watching at, needs to be kicked out and have the cops called on him? What also pisses me off is... Why do they care? He's a few months away from being seventeen, so what danger does he cause this theater? Especially this one. I mean I can see some other theaters doing this, but for Wehrenberg to do it is just hypocritical. I mean for a theater who has employees and managers that do drugs while working, it's a little pathetic that they care that much and would go far enough to call the cops on him. So they can do very illegal acts while on the job, but can't turn the other way for a sixteen year old who is just slightly breaking the rules? Hmmmmmm.............

Vids

So I saw a couple of videos lately that I wanted to comment on. Both have to do with music in public and both would be pretty tight to see. This one would definitely be crazy to see. It's obviously pre choreographed and was planned, but if you were a spectator, it would be insane. A bunch of random people breaking out into dance? That's intense. Especially since it was pretty well done.



I want this flight attendent. He can rap, he's fun, and I don't even know what else, but he would obviously make your flight a party.

Basketball Woes

So anyone that's been paying attention to Iowa Basketball knows the problem that has presented itself a few weeks ago. The Iowa basketball team lost four players. And not just any four. Jake Kelly, Jeff Peterson, Jermain Davis, and David Palmer are all transferring to different schools. Thats almost a third of the team, and some of them were key members.

Jeff Peterson and Jake Kelly were key members of the team and led the offense. Both were point gaurds and switched off starting. Toward the end of the season, Jake Kelly became the leading scorer and had several games with twenty points or more. He led the offense to several wins and is a huge loss. Jermain Davis was also a good backup player. Palmer isn't that big of a deal because he didn't play that much, but he also could have been a good backup. Now we need to make up some of our losses and get some good recruits, in good numbers.

Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy

Scenes like the one above are common in Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy. It is a show that was seen on Broadway, and then diffused to other cities around the country, including St. Louis which is where I happened to see it over Spring Break. It's kind of a rip off of Cirque Du Soleil, and not as good. But that doesn't mean it wasn't impressive, because I'm not saying that at all.

It started out with kind a funny beginning, much like Cirque Du Soleil shows do. Two plants went up on stage, and it was kind of obvious to tell they were from their build. The guy looked very athletic, had huge arms, and had an interesting outfit on. The girl that went up just had a perfect body and had to be a dancer or gymnast. Sure enough after the little stint they did, she ran backstage and the guy stayed up there.

The show wasn't as good for a few reasons. One, some of the acts were a little messy, such as the first one which was a jump roping act. They messed up a LOT in it and it didn't look very good at all. Second, the stage they were on was not as good as Cirque Du Soleil stages. Their stages are designed for their show and give you a much better look at it and help the feel. This was just a regular theater, and although it was an amazing theater, it still wasn't a theater for that type of production.

What did strike me about the show though, was how certain people did much more than one thing. The main guy for instance, was in several acts as a main guy, whether it was jump roping, doing crazy acrobatics, or spinning big wire cubes (which you have to trust me, it was really cool).

What impressed me most though was when three guys that had to weigh 250 pounds each came on stage. They had the same role as the three guys in the picture above did. I saw one of the biggest guys get down into a squatting position, then another big guy stand on his knees. A guy come up from behind the guy standing and grabs his hand over the guys shoulder and lifts himself off the ground, with one hand. He then pulls himself onto the guys shoulder to stand there. That's two, 250 guys standing on one guys knees while doing a squat. It was crazy.

So it wasn't Cirque Du Soleil, but it was still amazing, and if you have the chance, I recommend watching it.

Nashville- Vacation

Okay now on to the actual trip which was a drastic change from the competition. Unlike that rigged, political, biased competition, the trip was great. Yeah the bus ride was long, but it was well worth it. We got to our hotel after a twelve hour ride and my first impression was definitely a good impression. I first saw the hotel and mistook it for a mall. A mall the size of Mall of America. The place is huge. We walked in, and i could see that in the middle of the hotel was a garden/rain forest area and it was so cool. We then visited our room which was also one of the coolest rooms I've been in. It was complete with a comfortable modern looking bed, nice furniture, and a high def T.V. After admiring the room we head out to the main section. We later learned that it was actually three sections. The scenery was incredible with waterfalls, fountains and animals in the place. All three were rain forest sections with different restaurants and stores in them. There were probably 5 or 6 restaurants in the place, including a Jack Daniels, Haagen Daaz, an amazing sushi place, and more.


After the preliminary round, we got to go the mall right next to the Grand Ole Opry. While there we went to the oxygen bar which was a huge waste of twenty dollars, even though it was relaxing. We also went to an extremely impressive Bose demonstration and I got some nice Oakley swim trunks. I was about to buy some expensive glasses since they were all on sale but I figured if I did my parents would castrate me. I also went to forever 21 with some people which I felt gay for going into. That is until I got to the small men's section where they had some really cool shirts, and I ended up buying two. The highlight of the day was definitely going to Dave & Buster's though. We had a descent chicken meal there, and then got going on the games which was a blast. We all had a 10 dollar game card to go crazy with. We started out by playing some shooting and racing games, then got started on trying to get as many tickets as possible. We ended up getting about 1,000, before we realized that we really didn't want or need them. So we began our search through the place looking for the best candidate to give our tickets to. We spotted a young kid of about five or six years old and decided he was worthy of our charity. We asked if he wanted the tickets and his dad very enthusiastically said yes. I think he was more excited than the kid was, but we felt good about our charity none the less. When we got back to the hotel, a kid down the hall decided to have a rave and he set up a strobe light, pumped up the techno, turned the lights off, and we went crazy. This lasted for about a half hour with about 3o kids in a small, hot room, before everyone called it quits for the night.

After finals the next day we went to The Wild Horse Saloon, which I thought would be fun, but maybe a little awkward. But that was before I knew what they had scheduled. They ended up having a local band play for us, and they were nothing short of amazing. They did a bunch of country stuff at first which I wasn't too excited about, but it was still pretty fun for country. That's when they broke into Jessie's girl and the crowd erupted. I was right up at the front of the stage and it was a blast. The lead singer then showed his vocal skills when he went into a few Journey songs, and sounded exactly like Steve Perry. He could even sing as high as him which is very impressive for anyone to do. After a few more country songs, they finished the set with Don't Stop Believing, which was pretty much perfect. I think that was probably the highlight of the trip. The only other thing that could compete with that was just hanging out with everyone else in the group. The trip was really fun mainly because everybody got along and became friends over the trip, and that made for some good times.

Nashville- Show Choir

Over spring break Happiness went to Nashville, Tennessee to compete. I'm going to make this a two part blog, first about the competition, then about the trip. This one, as you could probably guess from the title, this one is going to be about the competition.

So we got there pretty excited and ready to compete. We were all psyched and felt good about competing. The first night we got there we went to the Grand Ole Opry where the competetion was taking place, and watched Buffalo Grove and were pretty impressed. We also watched a middle school that one their division, and were nothing short of amazed. They could have probably beaten our prep groups.

The next day, before we competed we watched about three of four more groups. No one was really that impressed with any of them and that psyched us up even more. Our warm up went okay and the same with our performance. It wasn't anything amazing, but it was still pretty good. We had some intonation problems in the ballad as always, but not that bad. We easily got into finals and then went back to our hotel to learn the scores. When there we got good news, and bad news. The bad news was that we were in fifth. The good news was that if they had judged it the way they were going to in finals, we would be in second. That psyched us up a lot and we learned we were several points behind because of intonation, and there we made a decision. We decided the bass would come in earlier on the ballad, which would almost fix it completely.

The next day, before we headed back Ziegler told us that he listened to the judge tapes, and the biggest complaints, were easy fixes. We got the changes down in the warm up, and everyone felt great. We walked onto the stage and did our show. The best we had ever done it. We nailed it and the bass in the ballad helped dramatically. We felt on top of the world. We went back into the theater to watch the other groups go, and surprisingly they all got worse. Mt. Zion was absolutely terrible and their choregraphy was so off. Buffalo Grove was still really good, but not as good as they had been Thursday. So when awards came around, we were expecting a pretty high placing. Sixth place....... Danville. Fifth place....... Kennedy.



We were all pretty speechless at what had just been announced. We had done a killer show, and at least three of the groups that beat us, we are clearly better than, and they even had a worse show than their preliminary. With that judging system we moved down from second to fifth, after improving and the groups around us getting worse. Make sense to you? Cause it makes none to me.

WATCHMEN

So over the weekend I saw Watchmen. Twice actually. The first time with a couple of friends, including one who works at the theatre and got me and another friend in since we weren't seventeen yet. I haven't read the book, but what I saw Saturday really impressed me. Everything about it was great and there weren't many parts that I disliked.... Actually I can't think of one part. The visuals, the acting, the story, everything. And from what I've heard, the movie followed the comic frame for frame which is really cool and you almost never see.

The movie starts out showing the death of a man named Eddie Blake, later revealed as "The Comedian". He was a member of the Watchmen, a group of costumed crimefighters bent on making the world a better place... At least at one time. They were officialy put out of the job after a law was passed banning their use. That didn't stop all of them though. Rorschach is a crazy, dillusional vigilante bent on fighting crime on his own terms. Then Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian were working for the government to continue fighting for the military.

After The Comedians death, Rorschach begins to investigate in his paranoid, crazy way, and he eventually uncovers a terrible plot to end war. Wait, a terrible plot to end war? How could it be so bad? Well it is. But I don't really feel like telling you so I'll just let you watch it.

The one thing that surprised me most after watching it was how messed up and disturbing it is. I was expecting something along the lines of 300, but ended up getting something along the lines of Seven. It was gruesome, twisted, and pretty sad at parts. But that just added to the movie and showed the true nature of some people, the side that we never want to see.

The guy that played Rorschach was amazing. He had a Heath Ledger like performance (although still not nearly as good) and portrayed the role perfectly. He was the only real stand out actor in the movie, but the other actors didn't bother me. He was just so much better, because his role was so messed up and now I'm rambling so I'll wrap this up. Watchmen is a good movie for people with good stomachs and who aren't easily offended and I recommend it.

P.S. It will be a very awkward movie to watch with your parents. cough cough silk spectre