Has it really come to this

Back during WWII Uncle Sam recruited young men and women into the army with this:





Appealing to the inner patriotism of those youngsters to go fight and possibly die for their country. Now with an unpopular war and declining recruiting numbers, rather than appeal to those overzealous young Republicans would jump at the chance to fight in the war they support, right? They have come up with new campaigns like this.
That's right folks, sign up for the Army today and you get 3 free downloads at itunes!

I shit you not.

Gee, I've really been wanting a few of the new Black Eyed Peas songs, but don't want to buy the whole CD, I'll just join the army and get them for free. I'll only have to give up my life for the next three years to spend in a hot desert in a war we are losing where the people hate us and I get shot at and mortared everyday. If anyone actually joins the army because of this, is this the type of reasonable person we want fighting our wars? Dear God.

Haven't done one of these in a while, you surprised?

Course not and I know that, so let's just shut it and get to the post, huh?

The Husker football team sucks ass, major ass, this is not fun, but then again it does validate my hatred for Steve Pederson for making such a dumbass move in firing Solich and bringing in that "west coast offense". My ass, I never understood the big hoopla, isn't every offense just passing and running in different variations. And I'm sick of the whole, the kids are still learning the offense, no matter what offense it's still just BLOCKING, RUNNING, PASSING, and CATCHING. I'm not taking anything away from our players, they're trying and getting shit on in the process because it's Nebraska and that's not fair, but life isn't fair, deal with it. The defense and special teams is saving our only savior, much improved. Their are no playmakers, no passion, no heart, just incredibly sad football. I never thought I'd say this but when does Husker baseball start again?

Have been watching the Sopranos 1st season on netflix, it's pretty good, a little overrated from all the praise it got. There's definitely some major rough spots but maybe it gets better later on. Also watched "The Station Agent" which was just an incredible film, very enjoyable, great drama, comedy, casting, the works. I'm going to write up a review for Scotty and I's Movies Of Our Lifetime blog that we've neglected big time.

Other than that I don't think there's too much to tell. The fall is off to and okay start I guess, I wish it wasn't so hot still and was a little more fall-like in the weather, but then again I can't complain, I could live in the gulf coast or something, I hear they are having some weather problems.

I got tagged?

This is new to me, but Scotty did this thing on his blog and I got "tagged" which I'm assuming means I have to do one too. If not I'm going to feel stupid, but here we go:
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This is actually good, since I'm terrible at blogging anyway, maybe I need the 3 people who read this to give me topics or suggestions or questions. Maybe then I could fulfill the prophecy of blog God I know to be true lurking underneath this mask of laziness.

7 things I plan to do before I die:
-Hire a historian and go on a round the world WWII history trip, visiting all of the famous sites and battles and such. Might take a few months to complete the journey, but I would die a happy man.
-Start an Alamo Theater style movie/restaurant house in Omaha with my friends like we've always talked about.
-Buy a new house that overlooks the city, O-town is pretty flat, but I've always wanted a backporch with a great view so I can sit outside at night and drink and watch the city lights, nothing better than that.
-Succeed in this movie business dealie, I've always been more than happy with what I've done up to this point, but doing one film with a budget, or just having something moderately successful would be a sweet payoff for all the work I've put in during the last 10 years.
-Run for elected office (well this one is still up in the air, I would like to do that, but I hate politics as much as I love it, the down and dirty stuff, the unflattering things I see in documentaries and stuff makes me just want to dream about it rather than actually do it)
-Watch the Indiana Pacers win an NBA title
-Have three wonderful kids and spend the rest of my life watching them grow up with my beautiful wife

7 things I can do:
-Make films
-Be lazy
-Field ground balls
-Be a jerk
-Watch endless hours of the history channel
-Eat an extraordinary amount of KFC
-Watch the Pacers win an NBA title (only on my PS2 game though)

7 things I cannot do:
-Play any musical instrument
-Sympathize with celebrities
-Spell
-Make my parents happy
-Not constantly worry about Dax's well being
-Tee off with my 1 wood without slicing it like a sombitch
-Care about money

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex/another person:
-Laughs alot
-A great smile (there was a girl in high school who always gave me the best smile every time we crossed paths. Just simple eye contact and a simple cute smile without even saying anything. I've been a sucker ever since for that)
-Knowledge (ignorance is the worst)
-Humility
-A person who's happy with their life (I don't like depressing stuff)
-Creativity
-Realness/honesty

7 things that I say most often:
- "...really?"
- "I hate you"
- "ya jerkface"
- "fuck"
- "that's stupid"
- "right on"
- "nice"

7 celebrity crushes:
-Jessica Biel
-Kirsten Dunst (I don't want to hear a single word)
-Scarlett Johannsen
-Katie Holmes
-Gillian Anderson (Scully from X-Files bitches)
-Elisabeth Shue
-Rosario Dawson

That's all.

What the hell is going on

What started out as another hurricane has turned into not only one of the worst national disasters, but one of the most embarrassing and pathetic moments for our government in the history of this country. It has taken me until tonight to fully comprehend what is going on in this country with this tragedy. There's alot of people on the right who are saying that the left is using just criticizing the government to use the tragedy as another way to bash Bush. NO, that is not it, and I don't care if people think that, fuck them. I'm serious, I'm so sick of certain people in this country. While there are so many generous and caring Americans from both sides of the political spectrum who are pledging money to the Red Cross and showing up down there to lend a helping hand, where the hell is our government, where the hell are the rescue missions. It's more than five days after the storm hit and the national guard is just starting to arrive? WHAT THE EFF PEOPLE! How does a part of the country that gets hit by hurricanes every year botch so badly in preparing for a storm? Could it be most of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi's National Guard troops are in Iraq? Yep, you guessed it, oops. The regular Army had it not been in Iraq, would have been in New Orleans evacuating, keeping the peace, stopping the looting and so much more. I know this because my buddy was stationed in Louisiana before shipping to Iraq, and they were called in for several hurricanes in 2002. Could it be that FEMA and the Army Core of Engineers have had major budget cuts that have weakend their response times and delayed projects like building better levees in a city that is below sea level right off the ocean? Yep, right again. I couldn't believe my ears yesterday when I heard a clip of the President saying, "nobody imagined the levees would break in New Orleans". Again, WHAT! The first thing I said when I saw the first report that Katrina was building strength and heading for New Orleans was "oh shit, they're screwed, that city is going to flood like a sombitch" and I'm a farm kid from Omaha, how does the President or any of those oh I don't experts not know what was going to happen? It's the same line of bullshit from 9/11, "well nobody could imagine terrorists flying planes into buildings". Actually there were alot of them George, but you didn't listen during your vacation, hmm, funny maybe you didn't listen during this vacation either. A year from now we'll probably learn that he got a memo saying "Katrina determined to strike New Orleans, levees expected to break". The relief effort has many courageous men and women but no organization, no plan, I saw news report after news report of reporters standing among angry stranded people wondering when help was going to get there. Anderson Cooper snapped at a Democratic Senator during his interview because all she was doing was thanking the President and other Republicans, basically campaigning and being a kiss ass, and all he wanted to know was why there was no truck, no helicopter dropping food and water to these people. For that she had no answer. And lastly my anger is directed at those worthless human beings on the Right in the media who are doing nothing but trashing liberals for first not giving aid, (just to point out, EVERY liberal blog I've seen has links to the Red Cross and has been encouraging their readers to give money, go to Ann Coulter's site or Bill O'reilly and try to spot their helping hand message, you won't find it), then absurd comments like:

"nobody made these people live in New Orleans" - Rush Limbaugh

"well maybe if these people didn't live paycheck to paycheck they wouldn't have to loot to eat" -Bill O'Reilly

The last comment is by far the most idiotic and pathetic thing I have ever heard. O'Reilly both hates raising the minimum wage and hates people not making enough money at the same time. Amazing. And since they're poor, they should probably just die is what I took from it. I sit here not even believing what is going on, this is the first time I've seen a natural disaster bring so much rage out in people. It's not a fun time to live in America right now. This post is long but I needed to vent. Sorry.

The Family Tree

I've been yelled at recently by a few people for not updating my blog, I don't know if this is because they are just being mean or if they actually like reading my posts and want more. I'm guessing it's #1, but in my mind I'll think it's #2 because I'm an arrogant jerkface like that. I just don't feel like posting alot of days, and this is why I was not cut out for having a blog. But I won't stop either, because I don't like to quit things. So my goal on days I do feel like posting is to create and save a couple posts to put up on future days.
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My grandparents 50th Wedding Anniversary is this Sunday and they are having a big gala at a country club in Millard. Has everyone stopped to think about how long that is to be together, holy shit. I'm glad they made it this far, because my family doesn't get along all that well and so that makes it even more of a feat. The party should be fine, good food and all, but there is something that has become clear to me over the years. Being the oldest grandson makes me like the ambassador for all the grandkids to all my older relatives and my grandparents friends. I get introduced to everyone while the other grandkids don't have to, and I also have to answer questions about all other grandkids, because I guess old people know they don't have time to talk to all nine and just go through me instead. "So where's James working now? We hear colleges are looking at Ben? How'd Colter do on his social studies quiz last week?" I don't know, the kid is third grade, and he doesn't call me with updates.

I've also been putting together a 35 minute photo tribute video that they are going to play at the gala. It actually turned out really good, they wanted something simple but of course I can't do that and have all these graphics and I digitally zoom in on each picture and dissolve and the whole works. It's a whole history of their lives and I showed them a rough cut of it earlier this week and they were on the verge of tears so I think it's going to go over well. They had a lot of old pictures from the 40s and 50s of their parents and families and I end with new photos we took of our family now and something becomes quite apparent. My family back then was ugly and now my family is not, has anyone else noticed that in their family? Is it just a weird cultural thing where people back then just aren't attractive to us because of the way they dressed and did their hair or were they actually inferior in looks? Is it because women wear a lot more make up now and tan and guys fixed their teeth with braces and lift weights and let women pick out their clothes now? I don't know, but it's interesting and I've been thinking about it alot lately. Will we appear ugly in 75 years and will our children and grandchildren be laguna beach caliber pretty?