I bother posting this, because I seem to recall another documentary that planned on doing the same thing. Hoop Dreams (1994) followed a couple of teens expecting to see them in the NBA. It was proof that not all high school stars become college or NBA stars. I’m not saying that he’s not good, he would easily beat me in a 1 on 1, but he’s being taught that things come easy for you. That’s not what you want to be teaching a kid if you want them to become productive members of society.

The fans do their best, we were as loud as a jet engine in that first half, but once we realized the defense was absolutely unable to stop a fatass or a very predictable run game by a not-so-quick quarterback.  The only times we could keep Javorskie from getting anywhere was when he didn’t have the ball.

The saddest part of the game was when I was able to be sitting in the student section and still see the field. I mean, we try to support our Huskers, but when they don’t respond positively, we have a hard time letting them know we support them.

Lyrically entertaining, musically unoriginal. To me it sounds a little too much like Fat Lip. Even though they fail to create a new sound, it’s still one of my two favorites on the album. Again, thank the lyrics, not the sound.

Song 2: Walking Disaster

Probably the best song on the album, the other of my two favorites. This song is very well written, and possibly the most original song on the album, at least comparing to other albums.

Song 3: Speak of the Devil

For some reason the sound of this one reminds me of “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park in some parts. The sections that has singing but no music behind it doesn’t interest me.

Song 4: Dear Father

Sounds too much like Walking Disaster. Again, I like the lyrics, but Sum 41 fails to add a better or even different element to their music. They also repeat the last 3 words of virtually every stanza. Even young, new, and mostly lyrically challenged bands know that it just blocks the music behind it, which isn’t required if the music is worth hearing, which it really isn’t in this case.

Song 5: Count Your Last Blessings

I like this song because it’s old school Sum 41 without really copying it. The guitar licks are pretty good too.

Song 6: Ma Poubelle

I spent a good while searching for the translation of this one, and let me just say, it’s not exactly appropriate.

Song 7: March of the Dogs

This song is so perfectly hostile to President He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It matches my political preferences, with some good music to boot.

Song 8: The Jester

To me, it sounds like this song is about Darth Cheney. “A Jester of sorts you stand holding your courts/Over minions on Capitol Hill.” Another nice tune damning the Bush Administration.

Song  9:  With Me

Getting away from the “Hate Bush” vibe, this sentimental song is what you make it. It steps away from the average “pissed-punk” kind of music that is standard to Sum 41 on this album and all of their others. It is a fine, fine song.

Song 10: Pull the Curtain

The fast paced sections rock, but the redundancy of fast pace to soft to fast to soft again gets rather annoying. It makes it hard to enjoy the song when it’s only good in 30-40 second intervals. Not bad, but could be better. Oh, and the end sounds too much like “We’re All to Blame”

Song 11: King of Contradiction

Finally, the fast-paced punk rock that is, or was, Sum 41 shows itself. Unfortunately, it’s short lived – a mere minute and a half long.

Song 12: Best of Me

Sounds a lot like Hoobastank’s “The Reason.” No complaints though, I like that song.

Song 13: Confusion and Frustration in Modern Times

A good example of what Sum 41 used to be meeting hopefully what they will become in the future. Maturity in music and lyrics clearly noticeable, and entirely likable in this song. If you’re just getting a few songs on this album from iTunes, this is definitely one to get.

Song 14: So Long Goodbye

It seems every band is trying to recreate what Green Day did with their most widely known song “Good Riddance.” Plain White T’s has “Hey There Delilah,” Jet has “Look What You’ve Done,” and now Sum 41 has this. Can’t complain, sometimes a band needs that sentimental song.

Overall not a bad CD. Maybe I was just expecting too much from them because Green Day came out with American Idiot, and My Chemical Romance came out with The Black Parade, so it wasn’t anything spectacular.

Rating: A generous 3 out of 5

Buy, Borrow, or Forget?: Either get a burned copy from a friend who has it or buy some of the songs on iTunes, or whatever you have. I wouldn’t pay full price for it, so I got it on sale at NFM.

A cool timeline thing: http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf

15 poorly placed ads:  http://www.oddee.com/item_87332.aspx

Abandoned buildings:  http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com  (One of my favorites)

101 Greatest Simpson’s quotes:  http://blogzarro.com/?p=223

Teacher’s note to a parent:  http://www.shof.msrcsites.co.uk/teach.gif

Leave someone an automated message: http://www.callerbot.com/

David Blaine spoof: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1050

Outdoor chores tend to suffer from neglect more often in the spring, when Gilner spends seemingly every free minute planting seeds to help his favorite sport flourish in the city he now calls home.

By all accounts, Omaha looks like fertile ground for a game that’s sprouting across the country.

“Everywhere I go, the grocery store, the bank, I talk about lacrosse — just in case I meet somebody who might have an interest or a background in the sport,” said Gilner, a Maryland transplant who coaches the club teams at both Millard West and Creighton.

“And I’m meeting more and more people here every year who do.”

It’s been less than a decade since lacrosse began to take root in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Ten years ago, you’d have been hard-pressed even to find a lacrosse stick in an Omaha sporting goods store.

But the options for anyone bent on getting involved seem to be exploding.
The YMCA in Omaha offers recreational and instructional leagues for boys and girls in grades four through eight. There’s an adult men’s team in Omaha for former college players who aren’t ready to retire.

Most prominent universities in Nebraska and Iowa — including Nebraska, Creighton and the University of Nebraska at Omaha — field men’s club programs. Many colleges also have women’s teams.

This year, more than 200 players competed on high school club teams for Millard North, Omaha Creighton Prep, Millard South, Millard West, Papillion-La Vista and Omaha Westside.

And while there isn’t yet an organized high school club league in Nebraska for girls, there’s been a surge in boys prep lacrosse around the Omaha metro.

The Nebraska High School Lacrosse league first took the field in 2005 with about 80 players spread out among four teams.

This year, Omaha Creighton Prep, Millard North, Millard South, Millard West, Papillion-La Vista and Omaha Westside fielded varsity club teams. With more than 200 players in the league now, four of the programs for the first time were large enough to form junior varsity squads. Organizers next hope to bring an Omaha Public Schools team into the mix for 2008.

“It’s amazing how fast it has grown,” Millard South coach Tom Meyers said. “Last year we had about 20 kids on our team. This year it was about 40 — and I’d say there were about 60 total who were interested in playing but couldn’t come out for one reason or another. It seems like there are a ton of kids now who want to play, and we’re trying to make sure there’s a way they all can.”

The increasing participation in lacrosse locally mirrors what’s happening around the country.

According to a recently published survey by US Lacrosse, the number of people playing the sport has increased 68 percent since 2001. A nine-page April 2005 spread in Sports Illustrated trumpeted the one-time niche sport as the fastest growing game at all levels in the U.S.

“I think there are lots of reasons that so many people are getting into lacrosse,” said Andrew Valenta, president of OMALAX, the Omaha Metro Area Lacrosse Association. “But mostly, I think it’s growing simply because it’s so much fun to play.”

For those unfamiliar with the sport, lacrosse looks kind of like hockey, football and soccer rolled into one.

Players wear helmets, shoulder pads, gloves and shorts, and they carry netted sticks to pass, catch, scoop and shoot a hard rubber ball. The objective, just like in hockey and soccer, is to score goals into a guarded net.

The people who promote lacrosse say their fast-paced game has everything that makes other sports popular — without many of the perceived drawbacks.

With fewer pieces of equipment to purchase, the game is less expensive to play than hockey. There’s lots of contact between players in boys and men’s lacrosse, including the occasional vicious open-field hit. At the same time, most regard lacrosse as a less dangerous game than football.

Many of the offensive and defensive strategies of lacrosse are similar to the sets and schemes run by basketball teams. Unlike in hoops, however, lacrosse players don’t necessarily have to be tall to stand out.

“There’s a place for every athlete in lacrosse — both the little guy with speed and quickness and the big guy with size and strength,” said Jared Widseth, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound senior defenseman at Millard West. “I think it’s a perfect hybrid of the hitting of football and the high scoring of basketball.”

Certainly, the ball finds the net during a lacrosse game much more frequently than it does during a soccer match — which often can be all but decided when one team takes a lead with as many as 10 minutes left on the clock. In lacrosse, the final few minutes can feature bursts of goals and wild swings of momentum.

Widseth, who will continue his lacrosse career next year at Tri-State University in Indiana, is the first known Nebraskan recruited to play the sport for an NCAA program. That’s one good indication, area coaches say, that the skill level of local players is getting better each year.

“A couple of years ago, the teams that could scoop the ball the best seemed to have the most success,” said Creighton Prep coach Steve Haney, whose teams won the first two Nebraska prep lacrosse tournaments. “This year, Papillion and Millard West were great fast-break teams. The passing has reached the point where it’s a faster game now.”

The ball got rolling on Omaha’s lacrosse scene in 1999, when Brian Anzur and Pat Kelsey formed the Creighton club team. Most of the organizers currently involved with high school lacrosse have ties to the program.

The first Creighton squad was made up of students from other parts of the country who had prior experience playing the sport as well as some locals who had returned to Omaha after being exposed to the game in various other states.

In the early 2000s, members of the Creighton team also got involved in the fledgling YMCA youth programs. In turn, when those kids reached high school age, the base had been built to create Omaha’s prep teams.

The area’s founding fathers dream of lacrosse ultimately becoming sanctioned by the Nebraska School Activities Association — although the game still appears far off the NSAA radar.

For one, lacrosse hasn’t yet taken off in other parts of the state the way it has in Omaha. And NSAA Executive Director Jim Tenopir said no member school has even initiated the required legislative proposal to kick-start the process of getting lacrosse sanctioned.
“I don’t know how widespread the access is to lacrosse in the state,” Tenopir said. “On the national level, we definitely are hearing that it’s one of the fastest-growing activities. A lot of our sister states across the Midwest do sanction lacrosse, but here we haven’t yet seen the interest from our schools.”

And even though the popularity of lacrosse is swelling, that doesn’t mean the sport’s organizers here have stopped knocking themselves out promoting it. It’s still difficult to find experienced coaches and officials, and Omaha’s prep teams receive varying levels of support from their schools.

“Everything is self-funded, and we are completely reliant on volunteers at this point,” said Gilner, the Millard West coach who will stay busy well into July as he helps run Creighton’s first high school lacrosse camp. “Becoming visible still is a chore for us; it’s a big challenge.”

At the same time, Gilner said, the scene at Tranquility Park on June 2 offered a glimpse of lacrosse’s potential in Nebraska. On the night Millard West edged Creighton Prep for the NHSL title, the gathering of 300-plus fans included rabid and vocal student sections supporting both teams.

They screamed and cheered, chanted and jeered. When it was over, the crazies dressed or painted in green stormed the field to take part in Millard West’s celebratory mob.
And, like you might see during any high school football game across the state, the stars of the future could be seen honing their skills on the sidelines. Instead of tossing around the pigskin, however, these boys passed and scooped lacrosse balls while perfecting their stickwork.

“That night was so great — it definitely had a ‘Friday Night Lights’ kind of atmosphere,” said Millard West’s Widseth. “Obviously, football is always going to dominate Nebraska. But I think lacrosse is really going to catch on. It really could become the sport here during the spring season.”

They’re gonna clean up your looks
With all the lies in the books
To make a citizen out of you
Because they sleep with a ((gun))
And keep an eye on you, son
So they can watch all the things you do

Because the drugs never work
They’re gonna give you a smirk
‘Cause they got methods of keeping you clean
They’re gonna rip up your heads,
Your aspirations to shreds
Another cog in the ((murder)) machine

They said all teenagers scare the living ((shit)) out of me
They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

The boys and girls in the clique
The awful names that they stick
You’re never gonna fit in much, kid
But if you’re troubled and hurt
What you got under ((your shirt))
Will make them ((pay)) for the things that they did

They said all teenagers scare the living ((shit)) out of me
They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Ohhh yeah!

They said all teenagers scare the living ((shit)) out of me
They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

All together now!

Teenagers scare the living ((shit)) out of me
They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Now, you can forgive them for blocking out the word “shit,” but the rest is unforgivable. I’m pretty sure you can say gun, pay, and your shirt in any other circumstance.

“Honey, did you remember to *** the bills last month?”

“I got a pellet *** for Christmas.”

“That’s a really cool design on **** ****, how much did you *** for it?”

The release date for this single was pushed back due to the Virginia Tech massacre, which I can understand, but censoring words that are not standard expletives is ((bullshit)).

The waiver provides each of the student-athletes a fifth year of eligibility to play lacrosse, regardless if the participation is for Duke or another NCAA institution. Duke University applied for the additional season of competition after canceling the 2006 season amid criminal allegations against some members of the team.

“These individuals were involved in an unusual circumstance that we believe warrants providing them the opportunity to complete their four years of competition,” said Jennifer Strawley, NCAA director of student-athlete reinstatement and membership services.

The student-athlete reinstatement staff considered a number of factors in determining that a waiver of NCAA regulations was appropriate. These factors included the unusual and extenuating circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the season; the hardship endured by the team from the false allegations; and the unanimous endorsement by the Atlantic Coast Conference university presidents for the waiver.

Senior middies Dan Clauson and Andrew Reeves both added a goal and an assist to help lead the Wildcats (5-1) to their fifth straight victory.

In a game between the two fiercest rivals in Nebraska lacrosse, both teams came out hard from the beginning. Clauson pulled his short stick defender behind the net, beat him on a quick dodge and found a wide open Ketcham on the crease for West’s first goal.

Later in the first quarter, Ketcham beat his defender and buried his shot from eight yards to score the Wildcats’ second. Millard West continued to move the ball around and led 5-3 at the end of the third quarter.

But Creighton Prep came back in the fourth and brought the score within one with less than a minute to go on a laser from senior attackman Cameron Killen. However, the Junior Jays’ comeback attempt was cut short when the Wildcats won the ensuing face-off and ran out the last minute of the game on their offensive half of the field.

“This is a big-time rivalry for both of us,” Ketcham said. “They brought it hard, but we brought it harder and they just couldn’t keep up.”

In a losing effort, Killen scored twice, and senior middies Ryan McGowan and Mike Doran both scored once and dished an assist. McGowan and Doran kept the Junior Jays alive with strong transition play all day. Despite their efforts, Creighton Prep fell to 4-3.

“We’re probably the two most evenly-matched teams in Nebraska,” McGowan said. “It’ll be a good game when we play them again.”