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

As noticed by intrepid GoCulver denizen Higginbotham79, Culver has posted a full QuickTime video of this last summer’s graduation exercises up on their web site for all to enjoy. If you’ve never been able to attend a graduation ceremony (I’m looking at some of our international campers) perhaps this will give you an idea of what they’re like. The video file takes a little while to load but looks quite nice. It opens with last summer’s reg. commander CKocian (also a go culver denizen) calling the corps to attention for the national anthem and posting of the colors, includes remarks from Mr. Knight and Mr. Mayfield, the awarding of the Commander’s Cup and a few other honors and then the handing out of diploma’s to all the graduating first classmen. There’s no better way to relive those last exhausted, bittersweet moments of a Culver Summer.

Watch Culver Upper Camps 2006 Graduation Ceremony Video

Discuss Video in the Go Culver Forums

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

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

1. A reminder about the new videos available in the Super Two and Force Four forums they give a nice snapshot of summer 2005 and might get some of you excited for 2006.

2. If anyone has any of their old unit pictures and access to a scanner, let me know. We’re trying to compile unit pictures in our photo gallery.

3. Finally a fun post from the Alumni forum:

From GoCulver.com member higginbotham79, both a grad and former Tac officer of Naval 2:

“Okay I am going back a few years on this one when I was a tac officer for Co. 2. Some of you guys may remember this one:

It was homecoming weekend summer of 1982 and a company out of Chicago was filming a recruiting movie for Culver and would be filming on campus all week. Well, all of us tacs from all the companies went to the uniform shop where they were getting rid of some old army dress khakis that they used to wear for the various tac officers. We decided to get outiftted and wear them for the homecoming parade when we would be on the reviewing line grading each of the companies as they passed in review.

We were all decked out in these and we had each company commander wear “putts” or the white leggings that the midshipmen used to wear prior to 1979 when they used to march with M1 rifles. Also my brother was regimental adjutant that make and he was instructed when he was giving the daily report where you yelled out the OC and OD etc. In the old days they used to say”by order of the commandant” now it is “by order of the camp director”. The counselors involved were Brad Larson from Band, Hector Gonzalez from co 1, myself from Co 2, John Sbarbaro from co 3, mike uram from Co 4 and Stan Evans from Aviation.

So my brother does his thing with order of the commandant and there were some loud cheers from the crowd, the band steps off for pass in review and here come all the companies in putts and the tac officers all dressed out in officer uniforms on the reviewing line and Col Fred Lane who was the director of the school at that time almost had a stoke right there! Remember the film crew got all this on tape.

Col Lane didnt even wait until later to discipline us-he called us in that same evening and gave us an phonograph chewing that would rival General Patton. I remember Colonel Al Cornett who was in charge of military at that time winked at us all and stated that he didnt see anything wrong with it.

Needless to say when final rank was announced my brother got ensign in a company instead of Adjutant and the film crew had to come back the next week and shoot the whole sequence again! I feel horrible about this to this day but I wish you guys could have seen the look on Colonel Lane’s face!”

And there you have it. Enjoy the forums and send me feedback on the new site layout. Have a good weekend everyone!