Green Street Tooligans

So the most recent hype on my floor here at school has been the movie "Green Street Hooligans." This isn't really a new movie, but it has recently made its way into the movie collections of many of the guys on the floor and I haven't stopped hearing about it. As I had never seen the movie, and heard from many of my friends that it would be a movie I would like, I dedicated 109 minutes to what I can now see was the biggest waste of time that I have spent in a while (and that's saying something seeing as how I took chemistry last semester).
You see, from what I had heard about the movie from my friends, I was expecting to see something like "Fight Club," which is on my top 10 list of best movies ever made. I knew that the movie was set in England and that there was a lot of violence and fighting, so I thought it might be about feuding gangs in England, which would have been something that would've been interesting to see.
However, in actuality, the plot nothing of the sort. No, it was far worse. To give a short summary, the movie follows Matt Buckner, played by Elijah Wood, as he is wrongfully accused of selling drugs at Harvard, is kicked out, and moves to England to pursue journalism. Through family ties with his sister's husband, he meets Pete, who introduces him to a world he has never known. This is where the movie started to lose my respect. Pete is the leader of what he calls a "firm," which is pretty much a gang of obsessed soccer fans who like to trash talk other soccer fans and get into huge brawls all for the love of the game and their home team. You see where I'm getting at? To make a long story short, Pete's firm had accidentally killed the son of the leader of their opposing firm and is now involved in their own mini super-soccer-fan war as the opposing firms' leader seeks revenge by trying to kill Pete and his entire family. This plot was not only stupid, but the acting was terrible. I honestly couldn't keep a straight face as Pete tries to tell Peter that he should go back to school at Harvard rather than getting involved in the final battle between the "firms," that it was not his fight. There's no decision to be made man. Go back to America and go somewhere in life! (By the way, if you're going to make an action movie, don't cast Elijah Wood as your main character. The kid is so small that I could use him as a soccer ball. There's a reason he was casted as a hobbit in "Lord of the Rings").
While these sorts of fights and the inclusion of soccer seemed to win over the love of all my floormates, I could not help but become very disappointed. I mean is fighting and senseless violence really all it takes to win over the teenage boy crowd. The plot was absolutely rediculous. These hormonal firms where took a good sport way too seriously and decided it would be a good idea to beat and kill other super-fan firm members all for their hometown soccer team. The players probably didn't even take the game that seriously. And while my friends around me where "oooing" and "aaahhhhhing" all around me as someone gets a glass bottle shoved through their neck or gets their face bashed in by a brick during a brawl, all I can thing about is that guy's family at home; his wife or son or daughter who is wondering why their father isn't home eating dinner with them rather than spending all of his time fighting and killing for a silly game. How pathetic. It's movies like this that inspire Cubs or Sox fans to take baseball way to seriously and brawl it out during a Cubs/Sox game at Wrigley. It's movies like this that show that no matter what happens, even if every war was to come to an end, the people of the world will always find reasons to kill each other. This movie gets an F- in my book.

A Super Dooper American Trooper

On Tuesday, January 20th, 2009, an event occurred that will go down in the history books forever as the day when Barack Obama became the first black man to be sworn in as President of the United States. As almost every news channel covered the Inauguration and the newly elected President's every movement following from 10 am to 5pm, millions of viewers tuned in to witness this historical event. NBC alone led with the most views of 11.5 million people, followed by ABC (11 million) and CBS (7.2 million).
However, due to my class schedule, I was unable to watch the entire Inauguration and only got to tune in to the very end of his speech. I had just finished my first class and was going out to lunch with my friend Eileen at the Watterson Towers food court. Upon entering, I was suprised to see that every TV in the cafeteria was showing coverage of the Inauguration with the volume cranked up for all to hear Obama's speech. I quickly ordered my food and grabbed a table, hoping to catch some sort of slip up or goof that Obama might make that would serve as my entertainment. However, I was reminded once again of Obama's phenominal public speaking abilities as he not only spoke error free, but he did not once have to look down at any note cards or prepared outline. He spoke with booming confidence and appeared to make an effort to look into the eyes of each American citizen that made up the ocean of people all around him. Such a display of confidence like that made me feel confident that nomatter how bad things are or how many people think he is underqualified for the Presidency, Obama will do ok. While I know that there are many die hard Republicans out there who still hold a grudge and cannot let if go that McCain lost, you cannot deny that Obama's speech was one full of hope and genuine concern for America's future. I was very impressed.
Once Obama had finished speaking and the volume was turned back down to allow the students to talk amongst themselves, Eileen and I talked about Obama's confidence and reflected on how many times he mentioned "Founding Fathers" or whether or not he mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. As we watched Obama shake the hands of other senators and the former President George W. Bush and his wife, we added our own dialog as making fun of George W. is one of my favorite things to do in my pass time.

Me

So this is it, the first blog that I have ever created. I guess by saying that, I don't really need to say that I haven't been much of a "blogger." I have never really had much of a desire to make a blog nor have I found the desire to read blogs that others have made. This is not to say that I don't have opinions on anything or that I don't care to read the opinions of others, I guess I have just always formed my opinions and learned of other opinions and beliefs based on the interactions and discussions I have had with friends and family. Yet, I have never really felt the urge to display these opinions and feelings to other people over the worldwide web.

However, here I am creating this blog for my English class and you are bored enough to read it. So, in light of this predicament, I suppose I should give some sort of background that may give you more of a reason to keep reading; or not.

My name is Kyle Price and I am a freshman at Illinois State University. I am currently majoring in Middle Level Education as I hope to someday be a middle school teacher in the inner city Chicago. As a shy freshman, I don't belong to very many clubs and I'm not participating in any sports currently, but I have recently become involved in "Fuel," a campus ministry that meets at 7 on Sunday nights, and it's small "pneuma" groups that meet at different times throughout the week.

Now that I have covered the basics, I guess I could tell you a little about my personality and give you a little more information you can use to make a judgement about what kind of guy I am. I can't really say that I am a part of any kind of stereotype. My wardrobe doesn't really belong to any kind of specific labels. My favorite shows include such titles as: Rob & Big, Fatherhood, Man vs. Wild, and Cash Cab. My favorite movies include: Fight Club, Dark Knight, Requiem for a Dream, Pi, Gladiator, and Inside Man. I don't really play videogames all that much, but if I did, I would probably play Guitar Hero; that game is just too much fun not to enjoy. However, I am not nearly as big of a TV or movie kind of guy as I am a music kind of guy. I'm not gonna waste your time by telling you all the bands I like as I am sure there will be a blog assigned to us in which we will talk of the music we enjoy, so you can just wait until then. If there is one skill that I would say is unique or different than any others I would say that it is my ability listen and my ability to do knife tricks. I'm not really much of a badass or anything, I just bought a knife one day and thought about how cool it would be to be that guy that knows a bunch of sweet tricks. I also hoped to learn enough to list it as a special skill that I have solely for instances like this. In fact, to tell you the truth, I am probably one of the nicest guys you will ever meet as I am very friendly (but not in a creepy kind of way) and as I am very easy to get along with. So with that, I think you have enough to get a slight idea of what I am like and hopefully you can get to know me a little better in the next few weeks. Until then, be easy and keep your deal straight.