New Cowboy Stadium

Since the new Cowboy stadium has so much hype and praise, I wanted to give you a different perspective from my visit to Big D and their new Mecca when I went to see the Chargers WIN.

First of all, I have been looking forward to this trip for two reasons, one to see Nicolle and Nick, along with Marty my friend of over 30 years who lives in Irving. The kids and I drove up from Round Rock Saturday and spent the night at Marty's home in Irving. We had dinner with others to celebrate Marty's 50th birthday, which is on the 22nd. The main reason for the visit was that Nick, Nicky and I had tickets to the Charger and Cowboy game played Sunday the 13th of December 2009.

PRE-STADIUM

Sunday morning we headed to Champps a regional Sports Bar and restaurant. The four of us which included Marty were adorned in Charger gear. Our arrival stirred nothing more than a few double takes. We enjoyed some food and beverages and viewed the many morning NFL contests on the multiple big screen options while awaiting our adventure, the game was starting at 3:15pm CST.

While waiting, we met a couple dressed in Charger gear. They (Karen and Gordon Bishop) were from Georgetown, which is located about 10 miles from Round Rock, where the kids have a home. After chatting for about ten minutes, we discovered our lives were intertwined from Oceanside where Karen had served on the YMCA board of management. She left before I joined the board. That group of folks are some of the finest people I have ever been associated with. The husband, Gordon was the OSD school Board Superintendent. Turns out we know many, many dear friends included legends Knox Williams and Farley Mann. While I was seated at their table chatting, a random man asked me if I needed a parking permit to the game, he said he only wanted $20 for it. I said I had parking, which was about a mile from the stadium and included a trolley ride to and back from the game. I said "No Thanks", he then said "Oh, just take it for free" So I did, and then offered to buy him and his two table guests a round of drinks, which I did. Turns out, the Parking Pass was $75 and about 50 yards from the entrance. When I came over to thank Dan, the parking ticket gifter, he said "Oh no, you are a Charger Fan, I gave it the wrong guy". I was in my lucky Dark Blue Jersey, which is close to the Cowboys color. I then gave my parking pass to a couple in COWBOY jersey's in the spirit of pay it forward. When wearing my Dark Blue Gates Jersey we are undefeated this year. Ok, we have won 8 in a row you say, well in the first five games when wearing my light blue LT we lost all three games, and when wearing my Dark Blue Gates we won two games. That cannot be just luck :~). In fact, when playing Cleveland, when the game started and I was waiting for my Gates jersey to finish drying, so I wore the light blue LT. Darn it if the Browns did not score. I ripped the Gates Jersey out of the dryer and wore it, although is was still not completely dry. As you know, winner, winner chicken dinner. All due to me wearing the Gates Jersey.

It was now time to head to the stadium, and Nicky wrote down Dan's turn by turn directions, and we followed them to near perfection right to Arlington.
The Stadium Parking lot is divided into two sections Blue, and Silver, Blue is close to the stadium, Silver is a hike, accross the lot where the baseball stadium is located. When we got to the stadium, we had a easy entrance, because it is all divided by parking lot color, and then small groups of numbers. This was about the most intelligent thing I got out of the design of Jones Mecca.

Since game time was only 45 minutes away when we arrived, we walked rather briskly to the stadium. The Stadium is further divided by entrance sections, being letters, like the Q. However, you may only enter in your designated lettered entrance which is indicated on your ticket, so more walking for us.

We did get to see the main private vehicle entrance, which was like a UN security check point, with Police everywhere, bomb sniffing dogs, every car and Van was searched inside and out. We heard that even Jerry Jones Car gets the dog sniff routine. Nick really liked the four door 911 Porsche that was at the high security vehicle entrance. At this point we started to notice Charger gear, on about one of every ten people. Groups giving each other words of encouragement about the game. I then started to tell the Bolt fans "No goofing around, and that we were there on a "BUSINESS TRIP". Most Bolt fans loved the call, a few looked at me like a puzzled dog, you know the one, who has their head cocked to the side. There was lots of Charger energy and some good natured jaw boning.

The security to get in was very similar to the Q, with the usual pat down. I never understand what good that does, they check the same arm and body areas. You could have a musket in your pants (no comments please) or a 457 magnum strapped to your ankle. Once we were inside of security it was if "Barnum and Bailey" just came to town, the only side show missing, was that stupid looking guy with the stripped pants walking around on stilts, scaring all the small children. A stage show with dances, girls in caged areas dancing, hawkers, and booths selling stuff.

I will give them props for the enormity of this place, it is amazing.However, if you don't like crowds, this place is buzzing. We were seated on the top level, in section 401. We took the escaltor and there were display rooms and helmets etc...
I did like the numbering of levels. Really Loge, Plaza, Press, Club, Field, and View at the Q are stupid. I love when people ask for the luge or lodge level to ushers. At minimum, change the name of field, to go down in the dungeon and come out to your NO VIEW seats. Quick suggestion Chargers change it to 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500. Let Club, Club and Press Suites have their own colored tickets.

PRE-GAME

Teams enter from under the stands, from behind the sideline. It's like they suddenly appear from the underworld. The Chargers were annouced, with little to no fanfare,INTRUDER ALERT apperared on the big screen. The Cowboys then have their cheerleaders dance around, followed by six guys running onto the field with big Dallas Star flags, then it is the COWGIRLS, errr football players. All and All nothing compared to any other Charger game where each player is introduced, which is generally followed by some heart pounding fly over of our military heros.

There were tons of concessions stands, with many $$$ food options,the restrooms were huge, but they missed the mark with the Mens room, when they had two entrances and no exit, the one side had fifty guys waiting and the other entrance which is 20 yards further down, was without a wait. They both lead to the same room. BTW, feel free not to yell out Chargers! When you are at an away game while in the mens room. I had twenty guys look at my Gates Jersey, my personal danger was so compromised, I said "Wasn't me, Men", I saw the movie Sparta, I am not that foolish. I got out of there without any further incident. That is so common at a Charger home game in Plaza or loge to hear someone sing out "Char-gers".... This was like an Opera bathroom, never a word spoken and no one was talking up or about the Cowboys.

Ok back to section 401, in the corner end zone, I happen to like that angle of the game, and my seats at the Q are in the Press level and have that similar view. You get the full view of the field and enough angle to judge down and distance. What changed besides the size of the players from that altitude, was the HORRIBLE 40MM TV hanging over the field. The side screens are 60 yards long and the end screens are 20 yards wide. We could see both the side and the end screens from our seats and it was distracting to watching the game. The way they used this screen was equally baffling. They never showed down and distance. Score, times, rarely replays, nothing from the other NFL games or scores. Wait for it, Wait for it, your right, it's an on going freaking sponsored commercial. If I saw one more AVATAR clip, I was going to scream. On the humorous side, they did have three rather amusing repeated crowd motivators at the beginning of the game, and yes I will get to that also. They had an actor, maybe one of the players, say "you are our home field advantage, so 80,000 Cowboy fans making noise". The crowd got loud, then fell asleep. Every time the message on the TV's said DEF-FENSE. The crowd said nothing. When some great play happened they showed an animated cartoon character of a cowboy, on an animated horse,whose legs are twisting and turning as they streak across the screen "You have to see it, to believe it!" it is about the most childish thing I have ever viewed at a professional football game. Who even finds this entertaining, five year old kids?

In the third quarter they turned those huge screens into a 3-D commercial for AVATAR, and then kept them in the 3D mode for game viewing. It was totally unwatchable. Whose cousin of Jerry Jones, thought of this stupid idea? Did they truly expect us to wear these stadium issued, made in China, paper glasses? Were we simply demanded to stare at the screen? About 10 minutes in the stadium announcer came on the PA and said "You have been watching in 3D, what do you think?" the stadium exploded in a thunderous 'BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO". Moments later the 3D was gone and the crowd gave out with what would prove to be the loudest cheer of the day. On Monday, the national ESPN TV talk sports shows crucified this tactic.

Another oddity is when you leave the seated area it is if you had left the game completely, sound, action no way to even look down an aisle to catch a glimpse. Plenty of TV's in public areas, but only in certain areas, not just here and there.

We had plenty of Charger fans seated near by us, one couple from Tulsa had driven five hours to see the game. I met Bolt fans from all across the US. Most of them had to move out of San Diego to survive, hear that state seat holders? These business people could not make a living in your socialist conditions. Texas has created more jobs than the other 49 states combined in the last two years. Sorry, now back to regularly scheduled broadcast.

The Suites looked exactly like they sound, sweet, looked like 60inch or larger HD TV's in each, and spacious and such. The actual seating area has virtually no room to walk down with out people almost standing up so it is easy to pass through. Seats were hard plastic (well in the cheap seats they were. Also the seat numbers are in 10 fint on the edge of the seat, I observed many fans trying to find the seat number. I say make a big number in the middle of the seat backing, which is resessed.

Oh right, there was a game being played, we scored first and that sort of took the air out of the fans, does the term front running fans meaning anything to you? Once they fell behind the fans never got into the game. Rumor around these parts is they are not the best fans once the team falls behind. The Q has the best fans, although Denver has pretty good fans also. This was like a movie where everyone knows its going to be a sad ending. There was a group of Charger fans in the area behind us chanting "Char-gers" "Char-gers" and "You can't run" two chants often heard at home.One Cowboy fan screamed at them to "Win a Championship", Nicky turned to me and said 'Win a game in December!" It has been since 1996 that the Cowboys won their last playoff game. When Demarcus Ware got hurt, we decided to head down so that when the game ended we could run to our car. He was down about 15 minutes, about the same amount of time it took to go east to west and down three levels.

All and all the fans were pretty nice to us. One idiot came up to Nicky near the end of the game and said "You Suck". I thought of some clever retorts, but we kept walking. Near the end of the game some DRUNK cajun stumbled up to Nick and I and said "What are you doing here?". Nick told him "I live here". I noticed this short drunken, nymrod who has his face painted with a Retro Charger blue. I couldn't say it. He says "I was born in Louisana and I cheer for the Cowboys". I was thinking was your daddy a gator or your mommy a gator? He simply wasn't worth the wasted oxygon,
I did think later "Isn't this America? Are we not allowed to go where we wish?"

Remember the funny man who had to remind fans to cheer, they brought him back in the 4th quarter, with a "Don't forget what I told you to cheer message". Really, Jerry you need some fifty foot jolly green giant looking cutesy boy telling your fans to cheer? It was almost sad, so sad, it made us laugh.

We ended up on the west end of the field where Gates caught the winning TD, and Nate split the uprights to seal the deal. A Video Camera toting SD media person asked Nicky if she would do an interview on camera. She said "He will" pointing at me. I think she was with the SD Union however, I don't know. I had about a One minute on camra interview which probably ended up on the editing room floor. We left with about one minute to go in the game, so as to smoothly exit the stadium and the parking lot. We left with our heads helf high and our mouths zipped. I hate it when the visiting team is screaming we suck, and they are great if we get beat. I think it's classless. In case you missed it we won 20-17.

Quite frankly, had Dallas come back, I did not want to be there, to see it. We got to the truck and were out in a flash, once again, very organized. What a great day, winner, winner, chicken dinner.

I was at Old Cowboy in 2001, to see the Chargers beat the Cowboys 32-21. That game was played 12 days after 911. I missed the game played in San Diego four years ago played on 9.11.05. It was the day after Nicky's wedding. We took the Insiration out on SD harbor for three hours with the family and wedding party and missed the last second TD for the Boys, to nip the Bolts at the Q 28-24.

John and Darius at Invesco Field 10/4

Fisker Automotive Inc. has received $529 million in taxpayer money

A start-up automotive company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has been loaned more than half a billion dollars by the federal government. According to The Wall Street Journal, Fisker Automotive Inc. has received $529 million in taxpayer money. The loan was intended to help Fikser produce a hybrid sports car to be sold in Finland. "This is not for average Americans," Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, told the Journal. "This is for people to put something in their driveway that is a conversation piece. It's a status symbol thing."

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and released by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures. It was filmed in several locations, among them Germany and France. The title of the film was inspired by Italian director Enzo Castellari's 1978 movie The Inglorious Bastards, but it is not a remake of that film, being set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, and depicting a plan to assassinate the Nazi leadership.

Starring Brad Pitt, Chrstoph Waltz, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, with special guest appearances by Mike Myers and Rod Taylor (in the same scene).

This is Pitt’s acting coming out party, critics have written of him as just a pretty face without much substance to any of his performances; he takes to this character, like a cat to milk. His portrayal of Aldo Raine, the company leader, is played out to precision. His scene equal and nemesis is Chrstoph Waltz, a virtual unknown Austrian actor, who according to Tarantino “Gave me my movie back” when Leonardo DiCaprio declined Quentin’s invite to play Colonel Hans Landa, a romantic, yet utterly sinister pipe-smoking Nazi. To counter balance these well-placed actors, are two unfamiliar actresses with Me’lanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, the French girl on the run, who becomes a central character as the theater owner. She owns the screen when she is on the celluloid. Diane Kruger, as Bridget Von Hammersmark, turns in the other superb, but limited time performance. The casting is skillful in all the required spaces. Samuel L. Jackson lends his pipes, as the narrator.

Robert Richardson is behind the adroit and proficient lens work. He earned the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice, for his efforts on JFK and The Aviator. His past work in the film “Platoon” may have aided him with some of his graphic scene set-ups. I treasured the continuing challenge of titter tottering between the “blood and guts” and dramatic thespian conversations. The skilled slowing down of the big screen was artful. It was those theatrical conversational scenes that ostensibly creep that I admired the most in this motion picture.

Much of the production was shot and edited in the famous Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany, the oldest large-scale film studio in the world.

The music is unmistakably Quentin, as he borrows 22 songs from other films, such as ‘The Alamo”, “The Return of Ringo”, “Zulu Dawn”, and “Kelly’s Heroes”. My favorite of them all is “Putting out the Fire” which was sung with booming vocals, by David Bowie.

I found this movie to be expertly done in all areas of need to call any film grand. The use of scene humor is engaging; that humor is sometimes veiled. The music bed is expertly placed in every frame. The glorified violence is not overdone, as the film doesn’t follow these soldiers like in “Saving Private Ryan”. I found the first fifteen minutes of Ryan, some of the most uncomfortable to ever sit through. Quentin takes a comedic twist to his use of gratuitous violence. The acting, and Cinematography is both top notch. Tarantino delivers to us a Chapter-by-Chapter Spaghetti Western but with World War II iconography.

Of the finished film, Tarantino said he thinks that it is the closest thing to Pulp Fiction he's ever done. I so not share that accolade, however I did not like Pulp Fiction after my first viewing. My opinion has changed on Pulp Fiction after seeing that title multiple times. I plan to examine “Inglourious Basterds” all over again, before it leaves the big screen.

If you enjoyed Pulp, Kill Bill, and Jackie Brown, run do not walk to this movie.

Health Care

This is about giving health insurance LEGALLY to illegal aliens, eliminating portable health care, driving free market out of business, rationing health care to the old and sick. Payback for La Raza for voter turnout. Behavior control and economic control. If the US takes over health care they will now be in control of 48% of the economy, the only democratic society with a higher percentage by percentage, would be France, at 50%, Is this America? Where is the tort reform? Lawyers have driven the cost up 20-25% with the insance lawsuits, c-sections are now 30% due to big settlements (started by John Edwards) and doctors are now scared into doing safer c-sections, the cost and much more costly c-sections driving the cost of your insurance upward. now 30% of all births at 4 times due to fear of lawsuits over anything that might seem a liability.

47MM people are not uninsured, it is closer to 18MM, they counted me as uninsured because I did not have health insurance in January, I could have but did not choose to use my Cobra coverage unless I needed to. Every child has access to healthcare through a Fed program for free, millions do not sign up. Also many americans choose not to buy health insurance due to their younger age, or they buy cars, TV's etc..... The bill will charge every US person, $2100 per year regardless of their age, the young citizens (Justin) will pay $175 a month, yet illegal aliens get it for FREE.

We need health care reform, that is done by setting up different types of co-ops. That way the people who are uninsured due to Diabetes or other ailments, can be covered.

If they get this its "game, set match". Yesterday the left, used a laugh down the opposition strategy, really? An American citizen offers concerns for the swiftness and the problems with medicare coverage being eliminated and they are laughed at. Pelosi calls protesters Nazi's and Un-American. As I recall the country was formed out of protest over British control.

Obama does a dog and pony town hall meeting yesterday and says AARP supports this, AARP comes out afterwards and says "We did not say that", exactly like Caterpillar supporting TARP, Barry claimed caterpillar was in support and they would re-hire people, the President of Cat "Said no I did not say that". After TARP, Cat has continued to decline in sales and now laid off more people, this is not a report, this comes from Nicolle's friend Brennan, whose Dad is their CFO.

We need to fix health care via free market and by co-ops, tort reform (among Obama biggest contributors was Trial lawyers).

I will attach forward another email about why government can not be trusted with the numbers EVER.

Milton Freeman said:

"If we put the government in charge of the Sahara desert, it would be out sand in 5 years"

The Reader

Stephen Daldry and David Hare team up again, to direct and write another methodically moving film. These two, brought film goers the 2002 film “The Hours”. In the event you don’t recall that title, it was a very well done story about three generations of women, all of whom, in one way or another, have had to deal with suicide in their lives. Nicole Kidman won the best acting Oscar, for her long nosed depiction of the real Virginia Woolf. Both of these movies align with the analogous pace, and exact what I believe should have been drawn from screenwriter’s adaptation of the original material. The pairing of the two veterans, created an unmistakable familiarity in overall pace, carefully constructed shot selection, and desired solemn texture as was accomplished in “The Hours”.

The acting is great; the cast assignment was flawlessly placed in this motion picture.
As I viewed the movie in the cramped and ancient La Jolla Landmark Theater, I pondered the lava-moving pace that the film was setting for the audience. It then came to me, that it was as if we were all watching an old withered fence being restored. You may not beautify it with one coat that it was an exacting process of sanding and painting that was unfolding on the screen. No ability to rush this process, as it takes time to soak in and dry and then have that method repeated over and over again to get the job finished, as it should be. I was also made to believe this was a white fence, and on a straight line without color or creativity.

I feel the filmmakers derived exactly what they sought from this celluloid contribution. I generally object to telling plot content or story details as it makes me feel like a reporter not a reviewer of the type, style and effectiveness of the films quality and content. I will reveal that the films central story line is life long love story of a simple, yet loving, relationship that only the film can unmistakably reveal.

If you are among the many that watch cinema for escape and pure entertainment, this may be not be for your viewing. However, if you enjoy a slow developing novel where one chapter sets up the next discovery, this could be a valuable two-hour investment. A must inform you that the Professional film critics only gave a 60% approval rating of this movie.

Kate Winslet may win her coveted Oscar for this performance, as it certainly one that took some talent to play to the changing demands placed on this character. I was also admired the small but strong performance of Bruno Ganz, an excellent German actor for his portrayal of Professor Rohl.

The Reader contains nudity, moral conflicts and the cruel handling of the Jewish population during WWII. I will comment that the Holocaust issue is done in a more complicated manner than I have viewed in other films.

Three stars out of five ∗∗∗