One of the great things about working in Company Two this last summer was having the “Superman Returns” film out in the theaters during camp. It certainly meant we had a lot of Superman stuff to have fun with all summer, and it also made it seem like perhaps the planets were aligning a bit for Naval 2.

This summer though Company Three will be the unit with a movie.

“300″ directed by Zach Snyder (of the great “Dawn of the Dead” remake) is another retelleing of the Battle of Thermopylae, when 5,000 Greeks, led by King Leonides and 300 of his Spartans stood their ground in the face of a 300,000-strong Persian invasion force…and held them off. It’s about as “badass” as any story you’ll find in a history book.

The film is an adaptation of Frank Miller’s excellent, painted graphic novel “300″ (should be required reading for all N3ers) and was produced with his involvement a la 2005’s “Sin City.”

The trailer is online, and it looks spectacular. Check it out here. Could this be a good omen for Spartan Three’s summer 2007 chances?

Discussion: “What do you think of the trailer?”

Links:

Check out the “300″ Novel on Amazon.com

Official “300″ Web Page with Production Videos/Blog

“300″ on the Internet Movie Database

Battle of Thermopylae on Wikipiedia

Naval Three Culver-pedia page

Naval Three Message Board

In the “pointing out Culver Stuff on the internet” department those of you on Facebook.com should check out the new Culver Summer Camp group started by Go Culver member p_de_laborde a few days ago. It’s already ammased 131 alumni/camper members and could always use a few more. Some moderate trash talking taking place in the wall posts already….nice.

So what does everyone on here think of all the changes coming to thefacebook? The miniFeed? Opening it up to anyone and everyone? Have you set your privacy settings the way you want them, you know, so your parents don’t see all the pictures from last weekend’s party?

In case you hadn’t heard about the whole “opening up” thing, here’s the latest piece of opining from facebook founder/corporate mascot Mark Zuckerberg:

“I want to clear up some rumors and ask for your feedback.

Right now a lot of people want their friends to use Facebook, but they can’t get on. Soon, we’re planning on letting these people register for regional networks.

I know a lot of you are worried about this and how it changes the site. Honestly, it shouldn’t change much for you. College networks will remain exclusive to people from those colleges. High school and work networks will remain exclusive as well. Only your friends and other people in your networks can see your profile. This is what makes Facebook different, and we’re not changing it.

From reading a lot of your messages, it seems like some of you want more separation. Do you want to be completely invisible to people who aren’t in a college or high school? Do you want to make sure they can’t message or poke you? We like hearing from you. Please send us your thoughts on how we can make this work for you.

And just to clear some other things up: we’re not putting up more banner ads, we’re not charging anyone, we’re not letting people put random HTML in their profiles, and we’re not selling your information. Facebook is about increasing information flow and connecting people, not these things.

Please send us your thoughts here.”

You heard the guy, if you’re not happy with widespread access to facebook.com, send him a note to let him know.

Personally I would rather facebook stick to just those with .edu e-mail addresses simply because it gives an actual sense of identity to the site, separating it from myspace and the rest of its ilk (which serve their purposes, just different purposes). I have no doubt that there is immense pressure being brought to bear upon the facebook viziers by their financiers, people who gave them a great deal of money and expect a return on their investment. Do you think widening access to the site will bring in more visitors? Will it affect the frequency with which current members check out the site?

If facebook opens up to the public, will you visit it any less? If it’s no longer an exclusive site, will you still hang out there?

Respond in the Go Culver forums

theFacebook.com - link

New York Times Articles on Facebook

Also, with the addition of member MURILLO Go Culver.com’s finally picked up its 601st member. Nice…..now if I could just find some time to get things rolling on the forum again…

Also, hope you like the new look to the front page.  It’s been a while since I’ve done much work on it and I wanted to get those muscles moving again.

This post is so “off-topic” its almost not funny. Miss Geisler sent me a message today:

“The other night on Conan O’Brien they showed a video that just might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on the show: “Jar Barf, the Barfing Jar.”

Makes me think of all that yummy goodness over at the dining hall…”

She’s posted it up in the video vault forum for you all to enjoy. Click the image above or the link below to check it out.

Watch “Jar Barf the Barfing Jar” and leave a comment

So apparently William Shatner has an official DVD club.

Let me clarify that statement. …Read the rest of this entry…

While there are several social networking sites online already like myspace.com, facebook.com, and friendster.com, myYearbook.com, a newer network (and apparently the fastest growing one online) has an interesting idea: it lets its users create social networks for their schools AND other programs they’ve been involved in. That swim camp you went to in Eighth grade? You can make a social network for it and perhaps track people down that also attended it. That backpacking trip you went on during college? Same deal. This is something new and unique as far as I can tell.

It’s also perfect for any summer camp community, any group that gathers only once a year. With this in mind I checked out the site the other day, created a profile, and spent a few hours poking around in it. All in all, I was pretty impressed.

MyYearbook.com is like a less seedy version of myspace (important for any summer camp) with a few better ideas and slicker design. I started a Culver Summer Camps discussion board, put up a few Culver pictures, and sent out some invites to other Culver people. I also tried to have a little fun…but it did not go “well” in any sense of the word. …Read the rest of this entry…

Anyone who’s ever attended a dance at Culver Summer Camps can attest to the immense popularity of the Song Tunak Tunak Tan, a tune who’s infectious beats never fail to get entire masses of students (and staff) jumping around on the dance floor.  Yes, even at a summer camp in the middle of heartland USA some bollywood bhangra beats can have a huge impact on a social event.

Today we shine the spotlight on a Culver Summer Camps dance fave, “Tunak Tunak Tan” or Tunak Tunak Tun.

Lyrics up top, link to the tunak tunak tan video and discussion below. Watch it once and you’ll have the song in your head all day.

It’s that good. Also makes for a good ringtone too! …Read the rest of this entry…

It was the worst day of his life!

I promise this will be the funniest thing you see today.

DISCUSS in “Web Finds” thread

Here’s some naval-themed news for you. According to Fox News:

Two U.S. Navy warships exchanged gunfire with suspected pirates Saturday off the coast of Somalia, and one suspect was killed and five others were wounded, the navy said.

Seven other suspects were taken into custody after the early-morning shootout, said Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown, spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

No sailors were wounded in the battle, which occurred at about 5:40 a.m. local time, approximately 25 nautical miles off the Somali coast in international waters….

…Read the rest of this entry…

Every day or so I check the traffic logs for this site and there’s one thing I keep noticing that I must address: almost 75 percent of GoCulver.com’s visitors are running Microsoft Internet Explorer.

I understand the convenience of IE. If you’re running Windows, it’s right there, ready to use. However did you know it’s considered buggy, unsafe, and slow, and does not support open web design standards?

More importantly, it makes this web site, and many other web sites look a lot worse than they should. Sixty percent of the time I spend on this site is devoted to making perfectly valid code work for IE users. Not fun.

Thankfully there are alternatives to IE. I switched to Mozilla Firefox 1.5 a year ago and have never looked back. It’s a free browser created by a group of former Netscape programmers who want to make sure there are alternatives to IE on the internet. It’s free, it’s faster and safer than IE, and it lets you run multiple browsers within a single window.

More to the point though, Firefox will let you see your favorite web sites (including GoCulver.com) as they were meant to be. So This site looks a lot better in Firefox too..

I guaranteee that after 5 minutes of using it you’ll never go back to IE. Bill Gates will send forth his siren’s call, but you’ll be too busy having fun with Firefox to notice. Rediscover the web indeed.

Discuss in CulverTalk Forums.