The Secret Spot [water skiing movie]

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I posted about Soul, a barefooting movie a while back. Well here is a water skiing movie called The Secret Spot. The trailer looks pretty slick.

Basically, they took a camera crew down to a spot on some isolated river, brought some skiers, footers, wakeboarders, and hydrofoilers and let them tear it up in front of the cameras on the glass calm water. You can find the list of all the athletes in the movie over at IMDB.

Here’s the trailer.

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Primeval

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This movie falls at the other end of the spectrum from Blood Diamond. But like Blood Diamond, this movie is also based on a true story.

For those of you who don’t know and didn’t pick up on it from the trailer, this movie is about a crocodile in Africa. A very large crocodile. The trailer calls the croc a serial killer. 300 victims probably qualifies it as one.

It is hard to say that this movie is good, it isn’t. But for those looking for a popcorn horror flick that will make you jump a couple times and laugh at many inappropriate spots, this movie is worth adding to your Netflix queue or watching sometime in an unedited fashion.

It has a lot of good lines such as “If I have to stuff you up my ass to get you through customs, you’re coming back to America.”

I won’t go into many details about the movie, I don’t want to ruin what there is of the story. But it does star the guy who played John Doe and plays Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break, Dominic Purcell. And in probably a bit of embellishing the truth, there is a scene where the croc, name Gustave, could probably run down a horse, completely unbelievable.

But I did do some searching on the web to see if the inspired by a true story is legit. I found this article on National Geographic that contains many of the elements of the movie. So the movie isn’t complete fiction.

Here’s the trailer:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-8089421807756093396&hl=en
Trailer

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Blood Diamond

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I saw the movie Blood Diamond (official site) a few days ago at the local theater. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of Leonardo. He’s a good actor, I just don’t really care for him. In this movie, he was good, very good, cheesy accent and all.

The movie’s story revolves around conflict diamonds. Diamonds that are mined by what amounts to slaves, sold by warlords with the profits going to buy weapons. It shows that about the only people involved in this process that aren’t guilty of something are the slaves that are mining the diamonds. Everybody else from the smugglers to the diamond buyers that aren’t even in Africa are guilty of sponsors in the acts of terrors committed and wars over the rights to mine the shiny little rocks. These warlords brainwash children with drugs and alcohol, turning them into little soldiers that aren’t even really aware of what they are doing.

If life was anything like what the movie portrayed, one has to wonder if Sierra Leone would have turned into an early version of Iraq if the diamonds were oil instead.

Back to the movie… the story they came up with to set in this time period is very interesting and keeps you interested in the characters and events in the film. While Leo plays a character that is all about him, Jennifer Connelly is the complete opposite and plays a reporter that is trying to change the world with her words. The third major character in the film, Solomon, was played by Djimon Hounsou, someone I’ve never heard of. He does a phenomenal job as the diamond mine slave.

Overall, the movie was very good. It was a little long, the story probably could have been tightened up a little bit to shave maybe 10 minutes of the 160 minute run time. But it was time well spent. I was entertained and made aware of some recent history that was drowned out by the garbage being reported about Monica Lewenski. I was aware of the blood diamonds, but now I know a bit more about the reality, or at least the portrayed reality, of the conflict that occurred in Africa in the 90’s.

For more information about blood or conflict diamonds, you can visit these sites:
United Nations Conflict Diamonds Information
Wikipedia Entry on Blood Diamonds
Diamond Facts (public relations website that appears to be from the diamond industry)

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NASCAR on the Water

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Between Badger games today, I started browsing the Barefoot Central website and came across this video. It shows some pretty slick barefoot endurance racing video clips set to Thunderstruck by AC/DC.

What is barefoot endurance racing? It is a relay race, each footer goes as long as they can until they are exhausted or fall. The boat goes back to pick them up and another footer jumps in and the boat takes off. There is usually some sort of set distance, say 20 miles that the racers have to go. First team done, wins.

A popular race is the Dam to Dam race put on by the Austin Barefoot Ski Club in Austin, Texas. Here’s a clip of that one.

Links:
Barefoot Central
NASCAR on the Water Video
Austin Barefoot Ski Club
Dam to Dam Video

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Stunt Junkies

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Just an update on my earlier post about there being some water ski jumping on TV. Seems there is going to be some other crazy stunts on as well. A wake boarder will jump over a fountain and a hydrofoiler will jump over an oncoming towboat.

For the full USA Water Ski announcement you can go here.

For the upcoming schedule of the show Stunt Junkies you can go here.

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Pass-Pass-Shoot

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Back in the summer of 2005, I had a run in with Kyle Klubertanz. He was/is (not sure) dating a girl I skied with on Mad-City. We were in a bar up north playing Bubble Hockey. After the game, which ended in a tie, we got to talking about hockey a little. I didn’t try to coach him, tell him what to do specifically, he’s obviously a very good hockey player. I just mentioned one thing to him in particular. On their power play (from the 04-05 season) I told him how they were passing too much. Nobody was taking a shot. Also, the passes weren’t quick. It was pass, dribble, pass, dribble, pass, dribble… I mentioned that they needed to pass-pass-shoot. I don’t know if it was me mentioning this to them or just that their coaches came to the same conclusion I did but their power play was noticeable different in 05-06. They had a pretty good season too.

Now back to tonight & Pass-Pass-Shoot…

The Badgers did that twice tonight and it resulted in goals. Two of them to be exact. In hockey, you see a lot of passing. On power plays, it is instrumental. But to score goals, the passes need to be crisp and accurate. And quick. By quick I mean the time between receiving the pass and passing or shooting the puck is very brief. And quick. The puck just needs to be on the blade of the stick for an instant.

Tonight, the Badgers did it perfectly. Pass-Pass-Shoot. The plays were that were quick.

The first one was a three on two rush towards Minnesota’s goal. The Badger in the middle made a pass to the wing on his left and then hesitated for just a moment to hold up in front of the goal. The goalie moves to play the wingman with the puck who instantly passes it back to the guy in the center. The center gets the puck back and taps into the net. Pass-Pass-Shoot-Goal!!!

The second one was just as pretty. Badgers on a power play. Guy at the top of the keep passes it to the guy low by left pipe. Bang & goal!!!

Here’s a highlight video over on UWBadgers.com that shows the two scoring sequences.

Crisp, accurate, quick passes and quick release shots meant two goals for the Badgers tonight. Not big slap shots, nothing really hard or nasty. Just quick shots.

Pass-Pass-Shoot-Goal.

Those two goals ended Minnesota’s 22 game unbeaten streak. It was a big win for the Badgers. 2-1 over the Gophers. Here’s the official recap.

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Mark Your Calenders… Water Ski Jumping on TV

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On January 15, 16, 19 & 29, the Discovery Channel will be airing a show title Stunt Junkies – Water Ski Launch. Scot Ellis will try to set the world record for a person on water skis jumping over more boats than anyone else ever.

Meanwhile, while searching for a video of Scot Ellis ski jumping (didn’t find any on Google & YouTube was down), I came across the 4th blog dedicated to waterskiing called Waterski University (they’ve been added to the blog roll.) Seems to be more geared towards the collegiate skiing land, which is good. I even found a little mention of a neighbor to the east.

Seems Marquette won the NCWSA Team of the Year for 2006 for, among many other things, being the runner up at D2 Nationals in their 3rd year of existence (click here for the Marquette announcement). I had a post about the National Results back in October. Seems I should have given Marquette more props back in October. Looking through the results just a little closer, I see that Marcy from Marquette tied for first in Women’s Jump. I’d like to think the drinking we did back in July in Fox Lake and the barefoot sets we did in Madison later that month helped her jumping at Nationals.

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Now This is Rock & Roll !!!

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I’m not one to blatantly post an ad or infomercial here. In fact, other than movie previews, I don’t believe I have. Well, that is about to change. If you can make it through the first 60 seconds of this video, the rest is pretty amazing. Don’t think my fingers would work on the tiny keyboard’s keys, but his do.

Drums Please (spoken like the opening of Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)


YouTube.com

Disclaimer: I don’t know if this product is on the market, was on the market, or will be on the market. Other than it is a dual keyboard that incorporates a normal keyboard like I typed this post on and a very tiny piano type keyboard that you’d play the piano on, I really don’t know anything about it other than it appears to be a product from Creative that at least one person can play very well.

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Shepherds and the Sheep

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Caught this movie last Friday. It was one that I’ve been looking forward to, but it didn’t have show times or run-time that make it an easy movie to go see. But I did finally manage to catch it.

I would say it was worth the wait. Saying that, I will qualify this by saying not everyone is going to like this movie. The story is told in a very complicated way flash backs and flash forwards that can make it easy to get confused. I did manage to follow the story easy enough, but then I’m use to reading complicated plot lines and like some of the more interesting ways to tell a story. I would say I didn’t find the complicated story telling fashion added anything to the movie. It could have been told in a more traditional way and I think a lot more people would enjoy the movie.

In case your not sure what I’m talking about yet, I’m talking about the movie The Good Shepherd staring Matt Damon. It tells of the beginnings of the CIA and the spy game that the US is involved in. For those that think this stuff isn’t going on today, I’d say your wrong. And this is how it started. I won’t go into too many details about the movie other than to say watch it closely and pay attention to the story. It is confusing, but once all the pieces fit together, it becomes a pretty slick story. I’m happy to say I did manage to figure it out a little bit before the end.

Much like a flock of sheep and the shepherd that watches over them, does the shepherd really control the sheep, keeping them all together, or is it the sheep the controls the shepherds movements as they range around and find the food they are foraging for? Much like that dilemma, you also need to figure out who is the shepherd and who are the sheep? There are so many people pulling strings in this movie, you’ll be surprised all the strings just don’t knot up.

Damon plays a very convincing spy. Di Nero makes a nice little cameo in his own movie. And like any good Di Nero movie, we even get to see a little Joe Pesci (aka My Cousin Vinny.) Finally, I didn’t even really realize that Angeline Jolie was even in the movie (I’m mentioning that in a positive fashion in that she plays her character well.)

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Snowmen

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I’m a Calvin & Hobbes fan. Since they are no longer publishing new strips, I’ve found Red & Rover, which is similar, but not quite the same. For example, nothing can beat the many C&H strips featuring his snowmen. Here’s a link with several of them, many are my favorites.

Although today’s R&H strip was pretty good. I grew up playing hockey, so I especially liked it.

Link: Calvin & Hobbes Snowman

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