VCHS Football Is Back!

The Jaguars scrimmaged with Mira Mesa this Friday, and a lot of Valley Center...ites? Valley Centerans? A lot of fans came out to watch the action, which provided some exciting moments. Beau Reilly showed some good things, and some room for improvement, as did the rest of the Jags.

Here are some video clips from the Jaguars' final series of the night. The first two feature Reilly at quarterback, then Jared Dale takes over in the final clip.

And we'll be keeping an eye on WR Taylor Oshinski (No. 81), who hurt his left ankle making a long reception in this series (which you can see at the end of video clip No. 1). The trainer on the sideline thought he might have broken it, but nothing conclusive has been established yet. More on that soon, hopefully...

Rincon Fiesta

I've been spending the majority of my weekend down at the Rincon Fiesta in Pauma Valley...and it's been a fun time for sure. Softball, horseshoes, dancing, great food, a little water park and other attractions for the kids...it's got a little bit of everything. I even caught what appeared to be an impromptu native dance session...which I felt weird about filming, but...here it is, anyway.



The fiesta keeps going through Sunday, and I hear they have some classic cars coming in as well, so I'm excited to see what's going on on Sunday. Come on down and check it out if you get the chance!

VC Grad James Johnson Dazzles In First Practice With Huskies

Valley Center High School grad James Johnson is already wowing the coaches (and the media) at the University of Washington.

Check out this article from the Seattle Times about Johnson's first practice, in which he caught three touchdowns, including one in some heavy traffic.

I sent a quick text message to James this week, and he says he's working hard, and I know I'm looking forward to the season. I'm hoping to talk with him a bit this weekend to see how life in college football is going so far...so check back in later this week and make sure to pick up a copy of The Roadrunner.

Skater Boys

Valley Center brothers Daymein (9) and Gunnar (7) Hertenstein are pretty amazing. Daymein set a Guinness world record for his run in a downhill race in Pauma Valley last year, and he recently won some hardware (a gold and a silver) in the California State Games at Qualcomm Stadium. The boys showed me some of their tricks at Pala Skate Park this week...

Daymein and Gunnar shred the pool:



Daymein goes around the edge:



Daymein throws down some grindage:



Daymein gets some sweet air:



Daymein gets a running start for this big jump:



Daymein jumps down the stairs:



Gunnar (did I mention that he's only 7 years old? Crazy!) does a textbook 180:



Gunnar gets some air:



Gunnar goes up and around a big wall:



And Gunnar finishes off his day of skating with a big drop down a wall:



These kids are awesome...they're adorable for one thing, they're really good at skating, and they're really having fun. I had a blast hanging out for just about an hour with them...look for a full article on what they're doing in the Roadrunner this coming week...

G.I. Joe: Fun For Fun's Sake

Be prepared: a lot of critics, bloggers, mainstream media mouthpieces, and in short, nerds, all over the world are going to unleash a deluge of hate on the movie G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. It's probably already begun, as I sit here at 3 a.m. after a midnight showing of the film. Like we saw with Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, all it takes is a few geeks whining about plot holes to spark an inferno of bad press.

The thing is, G.I. Joe is a fun movie. Plain and simple. I laughed at the cheesy lines. I gawked at the crazy, over-the-top, no-way-a-human-being-can-do-that special effects. I even swooned more than once when The Baroness sashayed across the screen. Yowza, Sienna Miller with dark hair and glasses. Nerds everywhere are freaking out right now. And I might just be one of them.

Here's the thing: this movie is unbelievably unrealistic. Gravity may or may not apply in the world of "the not too distant future" where this movie is set. Physics, biochemistry, metalurgy... I'm pretty sure dweebs everywhere are already finding and bemoaning all the inaccuracies.

I'd just like to say one thing to them: who freaking cares? I don't go to an action movie to see things that could happen. If I wanted to see action that is realistic, I'd just watch my own life. (Boo yah nerds! Take that! My life has more action in one day than yours does all year! What. Up.)

*Ahem* And now back to the movie.

I like how the movie unfolded... they didn't give us all the background info on all the characters all at the same time. They used some flashbacks here and there to give us the idea, and to set up those pesky plot elements of motive and... basically, why the people we're watching are doing what they're doing. Just so you know going in, and this isn't a big spoiler because apparently it's mostly true from the cartoon series, pretty much every character is intertwined with at least one other character in some significant way. Except maybe Arnold Vosloo... but you'll just have to figure that one out for yourself.

That's another good thing about the movie: they stayed true to the cartoon/toys, but didn't push the history on you if you aren't a huge nerd and know the backstory of every obscure action figure ever made. They had a lot of recognizable characters if you had the toys as a kid (and if you have a Y chromosome, you better have had at least one): Duke, Ripcord, Heavy Duty, Hawk, Scarlett, The Baroness, Destro, and of course, Cobra Commander. Oh, and we can't leave out my favorites, Snake Eyes:

and Storm Shadow:

...who really could have had their own movie and it would have been pretty great. You can walk into this movie after living in a cave for your whole life and still understand what's going on, and probably enjoy yourself. Although if I had been living in a cave my whole life, the first thing I'd want would probably be a shower and/or a toothbrush.

The point is, G.I. Joe does exactly what it's supposed to do... if you let it. It's a fun movie set in a fantastic world of crazy things like suits that make you all but invincible and hot women who are somehow awesome at fighting despite wearing high heels and gallons of eye makeup. The character development is just right -- not too shallow, not too deep. You get to know them, you start to care a little bit about them because you see their humanity, but you don't get bogged down by too much weepy stuff or have to be subject to the horrible dramatic acting of Channing Tatum (for more than a few seconds, anyway).

The story makes a reasonable amount of sense, given the nonsensical world in which it takes places, and it keeps moving with all the requisite twists and turns necessary to be interesting, but not confusing. The bad guys are sufficiently bad, and the good guys are pretty great without being sappy or goody-two-shoes.

In short, G.I. Joe is going to get a bad rap just because it's not Spiderman, or The Dark Knight, or even Watchmen. It's a shame, because G.I. Joe is fun, it's action-packed, and you may even catch a cheap laugh or two (by trying to pronounce the Celtic word they use to fire the voice-activated rockets, for example). The only thing this movie does wrong is take some liberties with the laws of science -- but isn't that why we go to movies in the first place?

So... I recommend that you go see G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra if you get the chance. It's rated PG-13, "for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout." They drop the "s" word towards the end, but other than that, I honestly can't recall very much swearing. All the use of hypodermic needles isn't exactly kosher with the squeamish among us, but even that isn't the worst use of syringes we've seen this movie season (I'm looking at you, Wolverine).

Take a date, grab some popcorn, and leave your stuck-up obsession with reality at the door... and enjoy G.I. Joe. Now you know... and knowing is half the battle.

Dog Days

Apparently, the arrival of August in Southern California means that the earth is so positioned that this region is about 11 feet away from the surface of the sun.

I'm much more of a rainy day kind of guy anyway, so this degree of heat isn't really my preferred climate. I mean, it could definitely be worse, on both sides of the temperature spectrum, but it's hard to even be motivated to accomplish the simplest of tasks when your energy is melting away.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel: football season.



I'm starting to shift my mind back into football gear by re-familiarizing myself with the names and places of the players I'll be watching leading up to the annual fantasy football draft. Obviously, people are big on running backs like Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner and Matt Forte, while there are some guys who are flying a little bit under the radar that I'm curious about (and whose names I'm not mentioning on purpose because of all the scavengers out there looking for any scrap of information they can get). I'm going to share my thoughts on fantasy football in some greater detail later this month, so I'll refrain from anything more for the time being.

Football season also means Valley Center High School football, and I'm excited/curious to see the team this year. Beau Reilly takes over at quarterback, and after Tyler Bernard and James Johnson lit up the competition last year, it will be interesting to see how the team looks with Reilly under center. This is also the first time I'll be covering the Jaguars without Bernard and Johnson on the field, so I'm looking forward to finding out who will be the next big playmaker. Running back Stanton Upson will be the guy to watch after an amazing junior year last season, and the offensive line is almost completely intact from last year. The defense should also be solid, but without Johnson playing centerfield and picking off passes like Deion Sanders in his prime, I don't know how well the Jags will play against passing teams like Westview and Oceanside (Valley Center's only two losses last year, coincidentally).

But with still a good three or four weeks of August (and unrelenting sunshine) left before that, I suppose I'll have to content myself with softball twice a week, with G.I. Joe coming out this weekend, and wearing as little as possible in my heavily air-conditioned apartment until it's safe to go outside before 8 p.m. again.

My Life Has Meaning

So...this happened.

(and by "this" I mean that I'm the guy who brought pie and got sworn at. Enjoy!)

Video Game - E3 2009 - Comic-Con '09

Baby Otters

So...I played with baby otters yesterday.