Holiday Hugo: Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Okay, so you remember a couple blogs ago when I introduced you to "my little green friend" Hugo? And you remeber how I said there would be different hats for different holidays (thus "Holiday Hugo")? Well guess what? Its Valentine's Day!!! And Holiday Hugo wants to wish you all an amazing Valentine's Day and share his festive hat with you!!!

Happy Valentine's Day from Holiday Hugo and Tommy!!!

Movie Review: Across The Universe

As most of you know (and if you didn't you do now) I love The Beatles. As such, I have long wanted to see Across the Universe. If you haven't heard of it, I'm not surprised. It had a very limited release and it was never in a local theatre (much to my dismay). The movie has a soundtrack (yeah its a musical...) composed entirely of Beatles songs. So I happened across the movie on Bluray the other day at Best Buy (which is not a good place for me to visit while I'm on a budget...) and bought it. I hadn't had a chance to watch it yet, but I had some extra time today. Here is what I thought of it:

The music was great! I was worried that it would change my feelings towards certain Beatles songs, but it didn't it all. The overall feel of the movie is fairly surreal. There are scenes that I definitely would call psychedelic and I would guess are the result of drugs (or at least made to have that effect). The acting wasn't surperb, but where do you really find surperb acting anymore? The actors were amazing singers though (assuming that they actually sung for themselves). The character, Sadie, had a singer style that reminded me of Janis Joplin, which was amazing. The story was very emotional, but hard to follow at moments. It does, however, all make sense eventually. The plot could have been slightly better developed but overall it was very successful.

At this time I would also like to introduce my rating system for the quality of books, movies, and whatever else I decide to review. Two blogs ago, I introduced you to my little green friend, Hugo. Well each review will be based on how many "Hugoes" I give it. The scale will be out of six (Six being the highest rating).

Across the Universe Rating: Four Hugoes

Dismantling Terrorism

I recently returned from the 2008 Academy Assembly at the Air Force Academy. The purpose of the event is to produce national policy reccommendations on a certain topic to the U.S. Government from undergraduate college students. This year's topic was "Dismantling Terrorism".

It was an amazing experience and one that I truly will never forget. The reccommendations that ended up in the final report weren't all I thought they should have been, but I was inspired by the whole event. I will be producing (in a while... way too overloaded right now) a longer blog that will go more in depth on what have put together on the subject.

The whole thing was also very controversal. Below you will find the link to the New York Times article published as a result of the the Assembly. Shortly there after, Steven Emerson, who was our banquet speaker wrote in article in response. It is also linked below. It was definitely an amazing experience and something I will definitely never forget.

Read the New York Times Article.

Read Steven Emerson's Reponse.

Check back for more on Dismantling Terrorism.