Who’s in your 5? - 80’s action movie characters

The decade that brought us the Terminator, Indiana Jones and John McClain among others is now getting the top 5 treatment. These are my 5, who are yours?



5. Dalton (Roadhouse) – Pain don’t hurt


4. Terminator – Arnold was a bad ass cyborg in the original.



3. Rambo – Seriously does the dude ever run out of ammo? And whatever you do, don’t kill the girl he likes.



2. John McClain - Yippee Kay Yea Mother Fu#ker$


1. Indiana Jones – Seriously is there any better? All he needs is a whip! And the fedora





I almost gave Arnold a second nod with Commando but that is basically a Rambo rip off. And Chuck Norris with the Missing in Action movies, but he had a team too.

Who's in your 5? Movies

Ok, so I've done Who's in your 5 for SuperHero movies, now I'm going to do movies in general. So the following are my top 5 favorite movies. Feel free to comment, and give me your 5!

5. Gladiator - "Are you not entertained?!?"

4. Lord of the Rings Trilogy - My Precious....2nd Greatest Trilogy in film history

3. Shawshank Redemption - Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.

2. The Dark Knight - WHY SO SERIOUS?

1. Star Wars Double Trilogy - The Force will be with you...always...

And the loser dad of the week goes too....

So this week I feel like I get a bad dad award. Last week I had talked to them about taking them to Clear Lake for a couple days and hanging out at my aunt & uncles and playing on the beach, and swimming and boat rides and all the fun stuff that goes along with Clear Lake. I’m not going to be able to get them there a whole week like I got when I was young, but a couple days and they are happy and it’s fun to get away too.

Well Monday morning I was planning on leaving after work and taking them up. Something at work didn’t go right in our testing, so that got pushed back to leaving a half day Tuesday and going up then coming home Wednesday evening. Tuesday I get into work and déjà vu happens. Not leaving work early.

Tuesday when I went to pick up my daughter from preschool, I told her and it was one of the worst feelings telling her that we weren’t going. Right away her lip pops out and then eyes swell up. Then the wife tells me when she picked up my son, he kept asking her, “where are we going? Are we going somewhere?” yea that made me feel better!

The only thing that could make it up is that I’m hopefully going to be able to get them up there in August for a couple days. I really hope work doesn’t get in the way because it sucks when they are looking forward to something like this so much then because of work it falls through. We also played candyland and I made homemade blizzards to try to smooth everything over.

So if there is a bad dad award, or most disappointing award or loser of the week award, I’m sure I’m a nominee.

Who's in your 5? Iowa Hawkeye Games in the Ferentz Era

With the college football season coming up soon, just not fast enough, and a lot of local media are creating their own list of top games and top story lines....welll here is mine. Top Hawkeye games in the Ferentz Era? Now there are many ways to take this, as in the most impactful on the program, the most memorable for the program, or ones that I’ve just enjoyed the most. So I think this list is a combination of all of them.

5. Iowa – Michigan State 2009: Stanzi leads the Hawks to a TD on the last play as time expires capping a 70 yard drive.

5. Iowa – Purdue 2002: Dallas Clark has a huge game, Brad Banks leads Hawks back in the final minutes before a last second INT seals the deal.

4. Iowa – Penn State 2008: Upsetting the #3 team in the nation on national TV and setting into motion what was coming in 2009.

3. Iowa – LSU 2004: Tate to Holloway!

2. Iowa – Michigan 2002: The beat down in the big house. Hawks won 34-9 in total dominating fashion. Worst home loss for UM in like 35 years.

1. Iowa – Penn State 2000. The Ladell Betts run in over time that capped the win at Beaver Stadium and then the Hawks won 3 of the next 4, 2001 the Alamo then.

Who’s in your 5? TV Shows

So I can either go with current, past, or combined. And I think I will go with the later. Right now there are a few shows that I consider shows I follow and watch, and I think a few will fall into my top 5. So here we go.



5. Big Bang Theory – Nerds! How can you not laugh with Sheldon being Sheldon. And to bring in HALO night to a tv show is awesome!

4. Big Brother – It’s not the most popular reality show out there, but it is my favorite of them. I don’t think there is a better reality player (maybe boston rob on survivor) than Dr. Will. He was great in season 2 and in all-stars. The interactions with Mike Boogie in both seasons was great.

3. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – sure it was about promoting Will Smith, but if you watch it and follow it, its about 1 thing too. Family. The Dukes of Hazzard was one of the last pure good family shows, but with what was shown on Fresh Prince if look deeper is a family bond and what it should be.



2. How I Met Your Mother – it’s Legen…wait for it, wait for it…DARY! I love all 5 characters. It’s perfect, it’s the new Friends. I don’t know if it will ever top Friends popularity, but for me its a lot better! And if you don’t think so, I challenge you to a slap bet!

1. Dukes of Hazzard – I love that car! Learned how to drive watching it! Remember Friday’s watching it at Grandma’s house in here little cubby hole area. We’d sit and watch, and then when the re-runs came back on, we’d watch those too. One day my goal is to own a 1969 Dodge Charger painted up in orange with an “01” on the side.

My Bucket List

So I posted a blog, What's in your Bucket


And this summer after doing my 5K, I have some updates:
Ragbrai
Newton 8K
Skydiving
Canoe boundary waters – w mike/kyle/ryan jason brayden
White water rafting
Go to Europe (germany/Italy/Denmark)
Family to Disney World

Who’s in your 5? Video Games

So the wonder of video games have been around since well like 1986 in my mind when I got my Nintendo. From NES to Super NES, Sega, PS1, PS2 and then Xbox and 360 and then also computer games, I’ve played a hand full of games. What are my favorite. Here we go.



T5. Civ series on PC – If only my computer could process it as fast as I wanted so it would run smoother and quicker. I could get lost for hours in that game building up my army and civilization, then trying to take over other countries.




T5. Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 – The first real Action/RPG game I played, and getting immersed into the Star Wars universe was awesome. And then building my lightsabers and not only having 1, but 2 going and killing sith! I hope another game comes out from this series for 360!

4. Contra – the best weapon ever on this game. The Spread gun.



3. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 – the game that got me hooked on online play. Loved spending hours upon hours at night playing this with the now defunct mwcgamers.com clan. If I could have only got my mic/ear piece to work earlier!



2. Tecmo Bowl/Tecmo Super Bowl – the first great football game, and the home of the best video game athlete ever, Bo Jackson. I remember playing with the Bears at my parents old house, and I’d keep stats on the original when the game didn’t, and then draw and create my own BIG PEACH (what the Des Moines Register used to call it’s Sunday Sports) Great memories.

1. NCAA Football series by EA Sports – I don’t even want to know how many hours I’ve spent playing a dynasty on here, or the classic matches vs. Fouch before the bus would leave for basketball games. Add in the new feature of creating your own school online and all the advances up uploading your own highlights. SWEET! I’ve owned ever game in the series but one.

3's a company? or a crowd?

So the Miami Heat have pulled off the biggest coup in sports this summer. Some thought the Pac-10 was going to stealing 6 schools from the Big XII, but nope. Keeping Dwayne Wade, and getting Chris Bosh and Lebron James they are now the favorite in the NBA’s Eastern Division to get to the finals.

Last night Lebron, on a one hour special, pretty much gave Cleveland the bird, his home town, and has left for what looks to be greener pastures. Moments later, the Cavs owner calls him a coward and quitter. This is getting a little highschoolish isn’t it? First off, Lebron should have never done the one hour special just to give Cleveland the bird. Second, the NBA really needs some restructuring of its salary cap or to contract some teams. The league has to few good players and too many teams. A title now doesn’t mean what it used to years back. And finally, it sounds like the 3 had a plan like this since 2008 at the Olympics.

The Heat are D-Wade’s team, they will be while he is there. Any failure will be put at Lebron’s feet. Remember no matter how many titles they win, D-Wade already has a ring and will always have 1 more than anyone else. And how’s this for a stat. Adam Morrison has 2 rings, Lebron has 0.

My gut feeling is that if no one gets hurt, they get about 60 wins, and a top 2 seed. I think they roll through the first round of the playoffs. Win Conf semifinals like 4-1, and then in a battle with the Magic, they win 4-3 and have a show down with the LA Lakers in the finals. Lakers win in 7. So all this hub-bub is all for nothing.

State of Play

Not a bad movie, but not great, couldn't get into it. Had some good twists and turns, and some nice actors listed in it. Give it 2 stars out of 5.

Don't Get No Respect

So I grilled steak, tators/onions/carrots/beans, and corn on the cob. While eating, Addyson says "Mom, you made a good supper!" Shawnna stated that she didn't cook it, daddy did...."Mommy, Grandma brought us good corn."

Like Rodney Dangerfield used to say, "I don't get no respect."

Who's in your 5 - College Football Helmets

So, new topic, who's in your five for College Football Helmets. A lot of schools change them to get a better image of your school, other schools haven't changed in years because they are classic. So here is my five, what do you think, what's your 5?

5. Florida State - Fear the Spear

4. Miami - I think the "U" struck fear into people in the 80's/90's

3. Kansas State - Love the Power Cat

2. Michigan - A classic.

1. Iowa - Yea, I'm biased!

Who's in your 5? Superhero Movies

Some of the best popcorn movies, and most viewed and most anticipated movies are Superhero movies. Spiderman, Batman, Superman and the X-Men all have their spots in the a lot of DVD collections, but which ones are my fav 5? Here we go…


5. Fantastic Four – Again, a great origination movie. Introduces Hollywood to Dr. Doom and the Human Torch. Great performances by both. Like Iron Man, the sequel failed to live up to the 1st. With Chris Evans taking on Captain America, I assume we will see a reboot.


4. X-Men – chhhing! How many of us have always wanted to hear that sound on the big screen? Finally Wolverine! Movie brings our favorite mutants together, and also kicked off the decade of superhero movies.


3. Spider-Man 2 – until The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2 was the best superhero sequel. It continued classily the story of Peter Parker, and Doc Ock was perfectly acted by Alfred Molina.


2. Iron Man – one of the best ever origination movies. It brought Iron Man also to the mainstream of movies. Wish the Sequel would have continued it, hopefully #3 will.


1. Dark Knight – the best comic book movie ever. Heath Ledger’s Joker is iconic. If it wasn’t a comic book movie, then it would have won Best Picture

Eclipse

Ok, so my wife loves the Twilight series. The whole vampire/werewolf thing gets her engrossed. She like underworld but on no level of where Twilight is with her. So if you haven’t heard, the latest movie in the saga came out this past week, Eclipse. Now I’m not a big fan of the series, and I’d like to see Blade slice Edward in half, but going to a movie is going to a movie! We went to the Indianola theater, which was cheaper than anywhere in Des Moines, and reminded me of the theaters I went to when I was growing up. Kind of nice change. But as for the movie, it was actually pretty good. A lot better than the first two films. I’d say it’s more like an Empire’s Strike Back in the movies order. The acting was better, the action better. Still pretty cool seeing people turn into werewolves. So I’m giving it 2.5 stars out of 5. It’s probably #3 or #4 on the list of movies I’ve seen this summer.

Who's in your 5? Stadiums

Ok, to steal from SoundOff again. What’s in your 5, favorite ball parks.

Now I haven’t been to a lot of baseball stadiums (only 4, Wrigley – Kaufman – Coors – Old Yankee), so I’m going to go on all ball parks, football and baseball.

I'm sure people who may glance by here have been to more, let me know what your 5 are.


5. Kaufman – nice stadium and heard they made some upgrades. Place a family could go and enjoy a day at the park.


4. Coors Field – pretty cool newer stadium, and had a really fun time there too


3. Ohio Stadium – simply the loudest stadium I’ve ever been too.


2. Wrigley Field – though it’s becoming more expensive of a trip, a game in the bleachers is worth it.


1. Kinnick Stadium – seriously, is there any other?