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

Jake Kelly?

So my dad and I went to the Iowa-Penn St. basketball game early saturday afternoon. Neither of us were expecting much because of our history this year. As we crowded into our not so great corner seats, we excitedly waited for the tip off. Penn St. got the tip off and the game got underway. Unexpectedly, Iowa played pretty well and was ahead for most of the half until Penn St. tied it up at 24 before the half was over.

We were really excited for the next half after the game we had been seeing so far. Cyrus Tate and Jaryd Cole or however you spell it were having great games- Tate offensively and Cole defensively. Kelly was also doing good with something like eleven points in the first half. We got the ball again and after two possessions no points had been scored. As Kelly dribbled it back up court slowly, he yelled something over to one of the Iowa coach's and they called a timeout. He then ran off court into the locker rooms, and returned within a minuted.

" Pee break I guess." my dad said laughing.

I laughed along and didn't think much of it. The second half continued on almost exactly like the first half. Hawkeye's did very good for most of the half and were leading by eigth with like three minutes left. That's when they made a series of very costly mistakes and before we knew it, they were down by two with thirty seconds left. I don't remember who scored but someone did to tie it up and send it into overtime 54-54.

Penn St started off with the ball in overtime, but it was dead even between the teams and they tied again at 61 sending it into double overtime. In this overtime they were still all tied up until Jake Kelly hit a three with 55 seconds left to pull ahead three. After that, Penn St. had to begin fouling and we hit the free throws and won the game 75-67.

Jake Kelly finished with 22 points, and 11 assists. That's like the fourth game in a row with over twenty points, and what's even more impressive is what I found out after the game. I read the next day that Kelly was actually sick that game and had a fever of 101 degrees. That one timeout early in the second half, he had told the coach he was going to puke so they called a timeout for him to do so. That's pretty good to score 22 points when you're that sick.