Snake Versus Rabbit

My friend Danae sent me this incredible video the other day and I just had to share. Maybe I've said this before, but seriously, I think this might be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen! The commentary is quite classic as well.



I can't figure out if the rabbit was just crazy brave or crazy stupid. I think I'm leaning towards him being a young and stupid rabbit who actually thought the snake was a really fun play toy since he never actually got bit. It's amazing that the snake struck at him that many times without actually making contact! I must say, we have an amazing animal kingdom!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Thanks to our friends James and Beth, last night we had our first opportunity to play with Wii, the new Nintendo video game console. It's pretty much all I could talk about all day long! This is so my type of video game! While I'm not that much into video games in general, I am a big fan of Dance Dance Revolution (a game we have on Xbox), so I guess maybe when it comes to video games I like to exercise my whole body and not just my thumbs. Quite honestly, I don't like most video games because they're way too complicated for me to figure out. Even if I could figure them out, it would take me years to improve because today's games have too many buttons and levers for me to learn! That's the beauty of Wii. You move your arm around and push one button, and you can play tennis, baseball, golf or bowling--and those are just the games that come with the system. As you can tell from our pictures, it is so much fun!

The graphics aren't spectacular like an Xbox 360; in fact, they're rather goofy and cartoonish, which is part of the charm of the whole system, I think. You can create a little "Wii Mii" (wee me, get it?) that looks just like you to be the participant in all of your games. I think it's a blast!

While Chad enjoyed the Wii, he is much more into the consoles with the amazing graphics and ridiculously challenging button pushing combinations, which is unfortunate because I was hoping he'd ask for a Wii for his birthday. :) He's also extremely paranoid because he read an article about people losing their grip on the controller and accidentally throwing it (with force) right into their plasma TV. Since our TV is Chad's prized possession, he isn't too interested in getting a game that will endanger its very existence! Maybe the next edition of Wii will have a no-slip grip on the controllers, and then I can ask for one for my birthday!

By the way, Beth is an amazing Wii bowler! Check out that form! :)

Jayhawks Watching Jayhawks

When my brother was in town last week we were able to score tickets (thanks to my friend and coworker Jerome) to a KU basketball game. Although the 'Hawks didn't exactly play up to their potential (it was the Detroit game), Eric and I still had a good time hanging out in those 6th row seats and taking pictures afterwards with our cell phones in the Booth Family Hall of Athletics. It's great fun to be that close to the players, although I must say that Eric was quite dismayed at how lethargic the crowd was compared to those that filled Allen Fieldhouse back when we were in school a few years ago (okay, make that 10 or 15 years ago). The crowd certainly has changed a great deal during that time, as the rich but less rowdy "fans" fill the Fieldhouse according to how much they've forked out to KU Athletics. While the current Athletics administration has certainly been successful in their fundraising, it feels like we've lost so much of the awesome Allen atmosphere as a result. Granted, probably a lot of the students were gone because of the Christmas break, but there were times during the game that the Fieldhouse was so quiet it sounded like we should have been shooting free throws! Gone are the days of students basket tossing each other into the air. Gone are the days of shouting "we're going to beat the h*ll out of you...and you...and you...and you and you and you" while the band plays along. Gone are the days of all the students and alumni knowing how to do the rhythmic clapping to the off beats of "I'm a Jayhawk." It's just so sad to us that the current classes and future generations will never know of these wonderful traditions! Eric and I blame the Orc. ;)

Bonus Day

Today I got a bonus day off. As I'm sure you know, federal offices were closed for President Ford's funeral, which meant that state offices were closed, which meant that the University was closed, which meant that KU Endowment and the Alumni Association were both closed. While I'm not complaining, I'm still totally confused about why G.W. declared it a national day of mourning and closed down the government. It's not that I'm second guessing the decision to honor our past presidents--it's just that I'm baffled as to why we didn't show the same respect when President Reagan died back in 2004. Let me also just say that it scares me at how quickly time flies, since before I just looked it up, I felt like Reagan's death was just a few months ago--but my poor memory is a totally different story. Well, then again, maybe it's actually the same story. Maybe the federal government did shut down for Reagan's funeral as well and I just don't remember it. Somebody please help me out here. I hate inconsistency. Did federal offices close for Reagan's funeral, and if not, why not? Honestly, this is not intended as a commentary on who was the better president or anything, even though most historians would agree that Reagan was significantly more popular. I'm merely very curious. Although I haven't scoured the Internets for an explanation, I have yet to hear a plausible one from those people to whom I've posed this question. Help me out, friends!

Happy New Year!!

Since today is a happy holiday, I really wanted to post something funny to my blog. As I was searching through silly videos and e-mails we'd recently received, I came across a very funny audio file that our friend Jason sent. It's an interesting rendition of a classic Christmas song, and while I'm certainly a little late for Christmas, I'm hoping that it will still give everyone a good laugh. Since I'm not smart enough to figure out how to post an audio file to my blog, I thought I'd just go find the song somewhere else on the Internets and link to it. Low and behold, I found a blog where someone had written about the exact same song and embedded it into their page for everyone's listening enjoyment. Since this blog is much more eloquent and funny than mine, I'll just give you the link to the post, called O Holy Crap. The blog is funny and the comments below are just as hilarious! Enjoy and have a happy day!