Tuna Salad Sandwiches
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AquaWeek – DAY TWO
AquaWeek – DAY ONE
The Tom Hanks Theory
Most people have heard of the movie The Polar Express. It’s based off a book with the same title written by Chris Van Allsburg. The movie was made in 2004, and it was directed by Robert Zemeckis. He made other films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Back to the Future Trilogy, and A Christmas Carol.
The Polar Express is the story of when a boy took a train to the North Pole, and along the way he met many different people that helped him believe in the Christmas spirit, and Santa Claus. However, I believe that there is a deeper meaning in this movie, and that this movie is a retelling of A Christmas Carol.
Tom Hanks voices six of the characters: The adult hero-boy, his father, the Train Conductor, the Hobo, the Scrooge puppet, and Santa Claus himself.
I believe that because they are all voiced by Tom Hanks, they are the same person, and the entire movie is just Tom Hanks’s character attempting to believe in the Christmas spirit.
Let’s start with the train: The train in the movie took all the kids to the North Pole, but what it was literally was the hero-boy’s train of thought, to start having the Christmas spirit. Following the parallels of A Christmas Carol, The Conductor was the Ghost of Christmas Past.
He guided the boy through the train, showing him all the happy kids enjoying kids going to see Santa. And that train did not travel the world to pick up kids. All of them were living in the neighborhood of the boy, meaning that they were also just a “vision” for him to see. The train did stop after the boy got on, once. It picked up another boy, but he was a vision of Christmas Present. We’ll get back to that part later.
Eventually on the train, the Conductor takes the hero-boy on to the top of the train. Up there, he meets a hobo, who says he has been living on the train for a very long time. At some point the Hobo says that he “once owned the train,” the train that I said before was just a physical representation of his Train of Thought. This is another clue that all the characters played by Tom Hanks are the same person. The Hobo is the ghost of Christmas Future, and a vision of the hero-boy in the future.
The Hobo doesn’t believe in Santa, even though he has obviously traveled to and from the North Pole many times because he lives on top of the train. While he is the Christmas Future ghost, he is also the physical representation of disbelief the hero has. “Owning the train” means that the disbelief used to control the hero-boy, but he was starting to believe again.
When he returns home at the end of the film, the Hobo is seen on top of the train, before he turns to dust/snow and disappears, meaning that the hero-boy has started to believe again.
The final boy that the train picked up is a representation of The Ghost of Christmas Present. In A Christmas Carol, the ghost showed Scrooge the poor life of his employee, Bob Cratchit, and in The Polar Express, the boy’s life was also poor. He had one present, and lived in a small, old household.
He also seemed to not have received many Christmas presents in the past, because he was not excited to get on the train in the beginning, but super excited when he discovered that he actually had a present for him this year.
The hero-boy couldn’t see Santa until he started believing, and he was also able to hear the silver bell ring. There was a similar moment of revelation that Scrooge had in his story, when he woke up and treated everyone better. It was the refining moment for both of these characters, and it made them both change and enjoy Christmas.
From the journal of Olmec
Below are found pages written by Olmec, the face at the base of the temple in the retired show Legends of the Hidden Temple.
February 17
It’s been exactly 23 years since anyone’s been inside my temple. The pieces of the Silver Monkey lie in the rooms waiting. Why it was so hard to assemble, I don’t know. I could have done it and I don’t have hands. It’s only three pieces.
April 3
I think there might still be some Temple Guardians lurking around. They basically lived there so I don’t really know why they hide anymore. Maybe they’re just trying to relive the old days.
May 12
I think I saw a parrot or monkey run out with a half of a pendant. Rude.
May 13
It was definitely a parrot. Those Purple Parrots almost never made it here when people still came by. I miss them.
July 23
I’ve had an itch on my nose that I just can’t scratch for two weeks now. Normally the host is able to help me out, but he left too.
July 25
The parrot came back! He pecked at my nose which thankfully fixed my problem. He was carrying the whole pendant around his neck. I wonder where he got that other half?
August 1
I saw the parrot fly back and forth from the temple for a few days. Not quite sure what it’s doing.
August 3
I think it’s starting to look for the pieces of the Silver Monkey! The temple guardians are all skittering around, I think they’re excited for another challenge after all this time.
August 3 (cont.)
The parrot lost its pendant. A guardian was hiding out in the bamboo forest. I think the bird’s going to rest for the night and try again tomorrow.
August 4
NO!!! Another guardian surprised the parrot and they took it out of the temple. He was so close. At least he’ll be going home with a Laffy Taffy rope and a Razor Scooter.
Hopefully someone else will try again in the future.
August 10
That itch is back again….
TOP 10 SCARIEST THINGS
With Halloween happening again this year, it’s always fun for people to get scared. I have compiled the ten scariest things to people in case anyone wants to scare someone this year.
10) You’re working on an important project on the computer and the power goes out before anything was saved
It’s happened to me once, and I hope it never happens again.
9) Ordering a hamburger without mayonnaise, and it comes back with mayo on it
Mayonnaise is quite possibly the worst topping someone could put on a hamburger.
8) People who put mayonnaise on a hamburger
That’s just disgusting. You people are monsters.
7) People asking you “What’s your favorite ___________?” and you forget everything about yourself
It happens to me all the time. Never gets any less scary.
6) You’re driving down a road going a good speed, but there’s a car directly behind you not even trying to get around you, just staying as close as possible to you
You don’t even know the person, and you shouldn’t have to speed up because it isn’t an issue, right?
5) Not finishing a project in time
That could have bad consequences if it didn’t happen. What would happen if I wasn’t able to finish this list in time for Halloween?
4) You’re eating something really soft and feel a crunch
Was that a tooth? Or something else?
3) Being alone in your house and hearing footsteps in the room nearby
It’s just the wind, right?
2) Being alone forever and the fear that your actions have no meaning and anything you ever do or say won’t ever matter because people don’t actually care
1) Missing a step while going down the stairs.
This already happened to me today.
Eggy Jay is the greatest mascot that probably won’t ever exist.
The Egg. Most people around the KU campus have seen or heard about it already, but what is exactly inside of it?
In all likelihood it’s just going to be a statue in there. But what if it wasn’t? What if, to celebrate one of the depictions of the previous Jayhawks, they made a whole new mascot?
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I would like to present to you:
Eggy Jay
A mascot that’s just an egg with feet sticking out could be the greatest idea for KU since the discovery of helium.
Eggy Jay could possibly be the cutest college mascot ever next to Baby Jay, who canonically hatched from an egg almost exactly 47 years ago.
(Yesterday, exactly. October 9)
That egg was much bigger than Eggy Jay, but I think it’s safe to assume that whatever laid Baby, also laid Eggy.
So far, the known Jays are: Baby Jay, Big Jay, and Super Jay, but there has to be more. Super Jay would not have laid the egg giving us the gift of Baby Jay; the egg was too big. So, the Jay that laid the egg has to have the ability to lay other eggs, right?
Yes.
If Eggy Jay comes in to fruition, I believe it could bring a whole new light in on the cycle of Jayhawks’ evolution. And sports games would be 1000x more fun that they currently are with Eggy Jay in them. Both teams playing would also love the new mascot.
The egg will more than likely be a statue of a Jay that has already existed, but if it did turn out to be Eggy Jay, I think everyone’s life would just be a little bit brighter.
The Importance of the Hot Dog Race
Sports!
Some people hate them, some people are indifferent towards them, and some people really like them. As for myself, I like certain kinds of sports, and I also have no feelings to other sports. There is one sport I always have to watch when I can, and that is the Hot Dog Race.
It is a longstanding tradition in sports to have other entertainment in-between the sports so you don’t get bored when there is nothing happening on the field, and that’s where the Hot Dog Race thrives.
One fan of the Hot Dog Races states: “Give me Hot Dog Races, or give me death.”
The Hot Dog Race was invented in the March of 1902 by a James Hotdog, when he noticed many fans watching the baseball game appeared to be very bored towards the end of the game. Some he even said were yawning.
He then found the first three people he could see, then slapped a hot dog costume on them. One painted red, one yellow, and one green.
He called them Ketchup, Mustard, and Relish, and after quickly explaining the rules to them, he chased them down the edge of the field until one of them made it to the home base.
The crowd loved it. The moment they saw what was happening they instantly sprang to their feet and cheered on the hot dog they wanted to win. It was a hit.
James Hotdog was an instant celebrity. He continued to do this at every baseball game, and eventually he didn’t even need to chase the hot dogs. People wanted to dress up and run around the edge of the baseball field. The sport inside the sport got so popular that they started doing it at other sporting events like football and basketball.
A person’s first Hot Dog Race is a special moment. You start off watching one sport where people are using some kind of ball, and then that sport is suddenly paused and you see off in the distance three colorful hot dogs running across the edge of the field.
You’re standing there thinking: “What is this? Are those hot dogs? Racing? In the middle of my sport game? Is this a new sport? Should I be cheering for one of them? Is this a statement saying that I can only put one topping onto my hot dog? Why exactly are they running? Is there enough time afterwards to go down to concessions and get a hot dog? Should I have even gone to the game today? The team I am rooting for is loosing, will this Hotdog Race fulfill my thirst for winning? Do I have time after the game to get any work done that I pushed off for this? Oh wait, is it already over before I could fully process what exactly was going on?”
Good times.
My favorite hot dog to cheer for has got to be Relish. Sure, it’s not the best condiment to put solely onto a hot dog, but as a racer, it is most certainly the underdog.
But you certainly don’t have to cheer for Relish when the race starts, even if it’s the best one and everyone knows it. You should always pick a running hotdog and cheer for it. Especially if it’s Relish.
So, the next time you go to any sports event, be sure to look out for the greatest sport inside that sport: The Hot Dog Race.
KU Needs to Win a Bolt Game
KU is not good at football. You know this, I know this, we all know this. KU hasn’t even been to a Bowl Game since 2008, 10 years ago. Even when going into overtime yesterday they still lost.
Numerous people have attempted to dissect the football team and tried to figure out exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. Now it’s my turn: the person that’s probably the least qualified to talk about football and how to make improvements.
Back in 2008, Kansas Football went to and won the Orange Bowl. This is the last major thing this sports team has done. They keep showing videos of this game in their hype videos 10 years later, so it must be. What else happened in 2008? Disney released its action/animation hit: Bolt, starring John Travolta and Miley Cyrus.
Bolt is about a dog named Bolt, who believes that his life is full of action and that he has super powers. In reality, Bolt is the star of a television show with the same name, and every human is trying to make him believe it. This is very similar to the KU football team because they believe they can win more than four games despite their record for the last ten years.
When Bolt was released back in 2008, life was good and happy and pure. Nobody expected a movie like this to come out this year, and no one expected it to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature alongside the other Disney movie Wall-E, but it did and things were good.
What I suggest is that Disney releases a Bolt 2. I’m not a huge fan of sequels, but if KU is to be good at football again and go to a Bowl Game, it needs to happen. We need the pure joy of Bolt to come back to us again for the first time. We need Miley Cyrus and John Travolta to come back and sing another song together.
Maybe it is the coach like most people are saying. Maybe it’s the fans losing interest. I however, believe that the lack of Bolt is hurting our football team, and something needs to be done about it.
Heat of the Moment
Oh boy is it HOT outside! Welcome to the first post of the new writing system.
Kristopher K. Online 