Movie Review

I recently saw the movie Red Dawn, so I decided to write a review about it.
What if Cuba and the Soviet Union opted for a conventional invasion of the U.S. rather than a nuclear attack? Then, their troops would have another thing coming. Namely a group of high school students turned commandos. These teenagers -- Jed, Robert, Erica, Matt, Toni and others -- one day look outside their classroom windows to see Communist paratroopers descending from the clouds and landing on the soil of their small town. Skilled hunters and tenderfoots alike, Jed and his friends take whatever food and weapons they can find and head for the mountains. It is not long, however, before the enemy soldiers follow their trail, take prisoners, rape women, and execute "subversives." Now the fate of one theater of World War III rests in the rifle-filled hands of America's youth. As a slab of paranoid, right wing propaganda, no film will ever top Red Dawn. Released in the same year as Reagan’s re-election campaign, the film was no doubt intended as a cautionary tale for lazy, complacent liberals who thought the Soviets weren’t a real threat to our way of life(sarcasm).

I'd give this movie a 3 out of 5, because even though there are some holes in the plot, it's still a good way to spend 114 minutes.
What if Cuba and the Soviet Union opted for a conventional invasion of the U.S. rather than a nuclear attack? Then, their troops would have another think coming. Namely a group of high...

Soccer is a game of almost constant play where each team is trying to kick a round ball into a goal,guarded by a goalie who is the only player on his team allowed to use his/her hands.

A little history on Soccer

One of the earliest forms of soccer in which players kicked a ball around on a small field has been traced as far back to 1004 B.C. in Japan. The Munich Ethnological Museum in Germany has a Chinese text from approximately 50 B.C. that mentions games very similar to soccer that were played between teams from Japan and China. The Chinese kicked a leather ball ( hair-filled ) and it is known with certainty that a soccer game was played in 611 A.D. in the then Japanese capital, Kyoto.

While historians kept records of events such as wars and religious movements they had very little interest in preserving the various origins of soccer or many other sports, so no one can say how soccer seems to have spread from Asia to Europe.

My Artrage soccer ball.


The game of soccer hasn't change much over centuries, and it still remains an INCREDIBLY popular sport throughout the world. In fact, the Soccer(Football almost everywhere outside of America) World Cup is this year, sometime between June 11 and July.

Whacky Web Tales WEEKEND POST

An Odd Animal

My Whacky Webtale

The Bob is an animal that has red fur with red spots on its arms and legs. Its tail is shaped like a(n) person which it uses to running people. An adult Bob may weigh more than 100 pounds and stand over 200 feet high.

The Bob can be found only in America and Canada. Although its favorite food is Noddles, it also likes to eat Mouses. If you ever see a(n) Bob, be sure not to ever sing “Party.” That song makes it Cool. Instead, give it a few Noddles and be on your way.

Geared for grades 4 and above, this site first asks you for nouns, verbs, and other words which it then enters into a story. A wacky tale is the result!

Day of The Dead-Mexico

November 1, All Saints Day, and November 2, All Souls Day are marked throughout Mexico by a plethora of intriguing customs that vary widely according to the ethnic roots of each region. Common to all, however, are colorful adornments and lively reunions at family burial plots, the preparation of special foods, offerings laid out for the departed on commemorative altars and religious rites that are likely to include noisy fireworks.

In most localities November 1 is set aside for remembrance of deceased infants and children, often referred to as angelitos (little angels). Those who have died as adults are honored November 2.

From mid-October through the first week of November, markets and shops all over Mexico are replete with the special accouterments for the Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead). These include all manner of skeletons and other macabre toys; intricate tissue paper cut-outs called papel picado; elaborate wreaths and crosses decorated with paper or silk flowers; candles and votive lights; and fresh seasonal flowers, particularly cempazuchiles (marigolds) and barro de obispo (cockscomb). Among the edible goodies offered are skulls, coffins and the like made from sugar, chocolate or amaranth seeds and special baked goods, notably sugary sweet rolls called pan de muerto that come in various sizes invariably topped with bits of dough shaped like bones and, in some regions, unadorned dark breads molded into humanoid figures called animas (souls). All of these goods are destined for the buyer's ofrenda de muertos (offering to the dead).

New York Myth

Alligators in the Sewer

It was once a fad among New Yorkers vacationing in Florida to bring back baby alligators for their children to raise as pets. These baby gators eventually grew up and outlived their cuteness and their desperate owners would eventually flush them down the toilet to get rid of them.

Some of these hastily disposed-of creatures managed to survive and breed in the dank Manhattan sewer system, as the story goes, producing colonies of giant, albino alligators beneath the streets of New York City. Their descendants thrive down there to this day, completely hidden (apart from the rare heart-stopping encounter between sewer gator and sewer worker) from human eyes.

The beginning of a Myth

The earliest published reference to alligators in the sewer — in what Jan Harold Brunvand refers to as the "standardized" form of the urban legend ("baby alligator pets, flushed, thrived in sewers") — can be found in the 1959 book, The World Beneath the City, a history of public utilities in New York City written by Robert Daley. Daley's source was a retired sewer official named Teddy May, who claimed that during his tenure in the 1930s he personally investigated workers' reports of subterranean saurians and saw a colony of them with his own eyes. He also claimed to have supervised their eradication. May was a colorful storyteller.

'New York White'

The tale was well known throughout the United States by the late 1960s, when, according to folklorist Richard M. Dorson, it became associated with another icon of sewer lore, the imaginary "New York White" — a potent, albino strain of marijuana growing wild from seeds spilled out of baggies hastily flushed down toilets during drug raids. Not that anyone had ever actually seen the marijuana because of course, their were alligators down there.

Herpetologists disregard the very idea of alligators thriving in the New York City sewer system. It's cold down there most of the time, they point out — freezing cold during the winter — and alligators require a warm environment year-round to survive and reproduce and burgeon into colonies. And if the cold didn't kill them off, the polluted sewer water certainly would.

Actual New York City gator sightings:

Adding fuel to the legend is the intriguing fact that wayward alligators — escaped or abandoned pets, — do occasionally turn up in the streets of New York City. For example:

• June 2001 - A small cayman (a semiaquatic reptile of Central and South America that resembles an alligator but has a more heavily armored belly) was spotted and eventually captured in Central Park.

• November 2006 - A two-foot-long caiman is captured outside an apartment building in Brooklyn. Police say it "snapped and hissed" at them.