Wanted to drop by and throw this link out there: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6558540/thekillers?pageid=rs.Home&rnd=1097762064812&has-player=false

I've always thought of Wal-mart as one of the great American Success and I found this article quite funny. I really do believe the Music Industry is a dying breed. They are too old-fashioned and stiff to survive. They'll learn the hard way....

   As I am sitting here listening to Louis Armstrong, I just suddenly realised how I have a huge lack of Randy Newman in my fairly extensive music collection. I'm a big fan of Randy Newman and I really like his works. He's done music for countless number of movies. He ranks up there in my books as high as John Williams and Howard Shore.

    Everyone has heard their stuff, unless you are a complete shut-in, confined to the expanses of your wheelchair and are death, mute and blind or are some poor Armenian that lives with his family tribe in middle of a huge desert herding dirty, flighty goats and got lost in horrible sandstorm. Struggleing, you managed to walk four thousand miles to a Oil Company surveryor who has the nearest place with Internet and are sitting there translating this word by word using an English-Armenian dictionary you picked up at your local supermarket.

    That can be the only two scenarios I can think of that would prevent you from hearing their music. They were the composers of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, respectively.

    Just another quicknote, I've put in yet another call to the Faculty Editor office. No response.

- The Falcon

do not press any red buttons, ever

It's not my fault. You guys showed up late.

My excuse is I've been sick for the past week or so. With trying to keep on top of midterms while coughing to death, the blog suffured. But I'm on the mend so let's review my progress sheet:

• Had History mid-term. Got a good feeling on the essay question but not so good on ID terms...hoping I get a good grade. Although I really like my professor, no one knows what he's like on the tests so I'm kind of unsure on how to get a handle on it. Monday will tell me much.

• Spanish mid-term is in one week. I do not like this. The spanish professor is horribly un-organized and hasn't even taught us the last fourth of the material we need for the test. We are not happy. Not at all.

• English Final is next. Not fun, either but easy at least.

• Started what I call a PTL. Personnel Time Logs are a way for me to 'focus' on whats around me and pay attention to surroundings. I log on a 3x5 card what people I see when and what they are doing. I'll then compare each month the results and look for behavioral patterens. I'm even thinking of getting a blueprint of the campus and tracking where I see who to establish traffic patterns.

• Went and saw a recruiter yesterday. Not having a sport is extremely harming for me, for you MUST have a sport and letter in it for West Point. This is a problem for there are no teams out here that I can join. I'm really looking for ways to fix this. I also talked about enlisting to pay for College. There's an option open that I can go to college, then join the Army and be entered as an Officer and go to OCS (Officer Candiate School).

• Started Re-GMing my campaign. A Person Who Shall Remain Nameless or PWSRN (by personal preference) has had some severe problems crop up in personal life. So I'm having to re-take the reigns of the game. PWSRN, hang in there.

So that's what happened. Nothing to exciting, aye?

There are two big things I'm working on currently.

    Number One is getting a job as a student reporter for the local paper. The school has a student insert in the local paper, the Frontiersman, and is looking for student reporters. I applied and was contacted by the Editor of the paper. Or so I think for someone at my house took a message and didn't bother to give me ANY details at it. Another person left a message, wanting me to cover a school event for the paper. So.....I guess I got the job or something. I've left numerous messages, trying to get ahold of the Faculty Advisor for the paper. Hopefully answers will crop up.

  The other Big Thing is I applied to be a Youth Vote Ambassador. Basically, you get paid to go to special training and then you go (and get paid) to assist people at the polls and handling voting machines. I hope I get it, good resume crap. By the way, VOTE November 2nd. I'm not going to say who for or anything, just VOTE. Biggest, more important freedom we have. And you are a stupid, moronic fool if you don't vote. Non-american. Not voting is like.....flinging hundred-dollar bills at Arabic-looking men who say they need funding for a large Muesum of Modern Explosives in their home country of Iranikcjaiaaioeastan.

    I've picked up quite a few of execellent flicks this past week. Wal-mart is a goldmine for good movies. Their five-dollar bin is the equivilant of a large hole dug for waste storage, upon which a man arrives every other week and tosses in large rubies. There is some good stuff amongst that crap.

   Some of those movies in there scare me. Who in their right mind would make garbage like that while actually breathing and living. Things like The Voyage of Bert and his Fantastic Car of Cheese and

Elvis the Elder vs. the Senior Citizen Vampire Mummy. I'm serious. There is really a movie of Elvis, as a walker-using, oxygen breathing ancient seasoned citizen fighting a mummy that has arisen from the Tomb positioned just beneath the Senior Citizen center. You know, from when the Egyptians started building pyramids in America. Anyways, this hybrid mummy/vampire thing prays on those who have to use bedpans and Elvis beats him to death using his walker. Maybe it's an allegory or something. I don't wanna know.

   But anyways, I got some good movies that didn't have Elvis. Movies like Signs, Jackie Chan's First Strike, Shaolin Soccer, What About Bob?, Ocean's Eleven, The Cross and the Switchblade and the entire Pink Panther collection on DVD. All but the Pink Panther was obtained at Wal-mart. Two movies deserve warrent: Signs and Shaolin Soccer.

   Signs is an outstanding movie. It's a story about a preacher who has lost his wife and his faith and his family coping with alien invasion, which may sound weird. It's billed as a 'horror' movie but it's really not. The alien invasion is only dealt with as a basic plot. The real story is how a person responds to a crisis, with either hope or despair. It's a story about faith in something greater then yourself. Mel Gibson stars in this and is, of course, perfect in his role. It's M. Night Shalyman (sp?) first movie, in which he wrote, produced and directed.

   I think it's one of the most underestimated movies out there. Extremely heartening and well-done, it carries a good, strong message, upon which a lot of movies lack. I had watched it awhile back, but upon re-watching it a few days ago I realised that this just went into my Top Ten.

   Ok, Shaolin Soccer. This movies stands out for two, well actually, three reasons:

1. It's the most funny suppose-to-be-funny Asian movies I've seen.

2. It's freakin' cool to watch a guy slow-mo kick a soccer ball upside-down

3. Chad almost choked to death, he was laughing so hard.

Most Asian movies that are supppose to be serious, are funny. And most Asian movies that are suppose to be funny are not. But this was is. They take like a Matrix-style approach to this thing, doing bullet-time affects and using so much slow-mo you'd think it's a John Woo movie. Now you may think, "that's pretty lame some guy kicking a basic soccer ball."

   But's it is really cool. They kick these balls so hard mini-cyclones start, ripping huge holes in the field and generally creating havoc. Evidently, the Asians play soccer like War. You attempt to kill teamates, not score points. Or something like that. All I know it had funny moments, cool moments and Chad-has-a-really-wierd-laugh-watching-it moment. It was also the first movie I've seen that needed dubbed in voices. It just wouldn't work if they didn't dubbed it in. Watching those mouths pump up and down for ten minutes when they say "Kick!" adds to the merriment.

    Now all I need are the titles 12 Angry Men, Firefly, Van Helsing, Pie, The Rundown, Starsky & Hutch and The Station Agent.

Well, I'm about to sign off. Nothing to really think about in here but I'll add some more stuff later on about the Enlightment and Consutional Goverment. To keep up with your Suggested Thought Intake, here's a poem I quickly wrote at lunch.

Cry of those who are Dead

O very hills where death was sough, o green carpet soaked in red

What valvue of land was so preciously bought, the glutton of war cannons fed

Why this place that leaders sough, banners whose men led and bled

Lessons of old should always be taught, the cry of those who are dead

   - The Falcon

go crazy, oh baby

Random is good.

I've been promising a report on John Locke recently and I finally have some time to deliver. With a couple of hours before me, I have to find time to do Spanish homework and study for mid-terms. So it won't be as detailed as I like but that's the breaks.

    John Locke lived during the time of the era of Enlightment. He was a British thinker and published a number of works that defined some radical ideas. The one that inspired me was the Two Treatises of Goverment. In this essay, Locke describes the goverment as "a contract between the rulers and the governed." He states that the people had the right, indeed the duty, to terminate the contract if it required.

   Locke was the one that came up with the popular saying "inalienable rights", for he believed that mankind had certian rights that were granted by God and could not be taken away. He also that the government's duty was to protect "Life, liberty and property". That phrase familar? It should be. Thomas Jefferson, the guy who wrote most of the Declaration of Indpendence, copied heavily from John Locke. Jeffereson wrote the famous phrase, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" which is a spin-off of John Locke's words.

   Locke had some great ideas. We can see that the Framers were influenced by Locke and his ilk. I am a firm believer of Lockeism. Government's ONLY job is tto protect life, liberty and property. It is indeed a contract between we, the governed, and Washington D.C., the rulers. The current goverment has gotten so large and so out-of-hand that we need to redefine goverment. I believe it's time to re-state the goverment's purpose.

   It is NOT to support the poor and weak. That's the Church's job. It is NOT to provide education. That's the State's job (in fact, that's another beef I have. According to the Consitution the Federal Goverment is prohibited from interfering with education. But's for another time and place.) It is NOT to fund arts.

  The sole job of the goverment is to protect the Constitution, the American people and America herself. We should get rid of the Department of Education, cut back spending on public arts, cut back spending on public projects and relinquish much of the goverment to the States. Not only would we gain considerable profit from these cuts, thus allowing taxes to go down, thus allowing the economy to improve, but we would be able to be way more efficient.

   Locke's ideas, along with a few others from the Enlightment age, are the core of the Framers thinking and Constitution, which are the core of America herself. We need to return back to those ideas. We need to foster the idea that WE, the people, are in charge. We need to start thinking again about the base ideas of America.

   Me? Well, I'm a firm believer in Locke.

I have another essay on the Constitution and centralized power but I'll get to that later. Research some of Locke's ideas and see for yourself the truth. I hope to write next about David Hume, who wrote about Human Reason, around the same time as Locke.

I must now return to the wonderful world of study. I found out today my history test is three questions with one essay (2-3 pages) and I'm a little nervous. I do not handwrite very fast at all and I think I may bog down a bit. No worries though, ample studying and some practice will take care of it. Though I only have about a week to study, so I'm going to pushing it a bit.

   However, I'm forming a study group, so I think I'll be well prepared.

Also, I just got Rome: Total War. Let me tell you now, that game is impressive. More then impressive, it's mind blowing. I went, "woah!!!". Amazing graphics, you can zoom all the in and watch thousands of guys duke it out with swords and crap. Then having the camera follow a storming horde of calvary with dramatic music going and watching those guys tear into a line of barbarians....it almost brings a tear to the eye. Amazing.......

Remember that today is National Salute to the Birthday Suit. I encourage everyone to wear your suits today in honor of the holiday.

- The Falcon

well then...i'll...pee all over myself and THEN we'll see who is stupid!