Sunday, May 28, 2006

The Greatest

The Pictures of the Week


Yeah, that's me and kyle, with articially pee'd pants. We had to do that for the school newspaper last year. Good times at Ike, good times.

A big part of my childhood, the big van, as viewed from the computer library window. It's a good old van, but immobile for the past several years. It got towed away a few weeks ago, I'll never see it again. It served its country well. Here's to you, econoline.


And, that's a bunch of pictures of me. Picasa made that for me, it's a nifty little program. Endorsed by google, part of the google pack. My advice? Get the google pack, it'll make your life much easier.

The Quote of the Week
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift."
-Steve Prefontaine

Alrighty, howdy folks. It's been some time since I've written anything of consequence. There's been much to write about, but not so much time. This blog is going to be a little different from alot of my others. I'm not gonna tell so many stories, I'm gonna tell alot more ideas. So, I don't know if this is gonna work or not, but take it or leave it. I'm not forcing you to read.

But, if you read to the end, I might give you a cookie.

Friday night was something that I'd been waiting for for a long time. Friday night signalled the end of sophie school work. After friday night, nothing was really due. There'd be no homework, no pain. School is simply a bunch of parties now. I was up till 4:00 AM writing an English paper thursday evening, but that was the end. No more. Friday night meant freedom.

Friday night also meant frisbee. It was killer windy, but we were using the 200 gram anti-wind beast, and that negated the effect a ton. Once it got dark, we switched over to my lighty, and that worked pretty well too.

The important thing about Friday night was that it was grade A quality frisbee. It was just good playing. There aren't too many important stories that came out of Friday night. We hardly kept score, we were just out there to play. We had a good turnout, and we all played well. I had some very good plays, and some crap plays. Everybody played well though, it was amazing. It was one of those nights when you remember just how much you love everything about friday night frisbee. You love the people, you love the exercise, you love the frisbee, you love the score, you love your do-rag.

Frisbee, I haven't forgotten it.

So, it's wonder time. I'm gonna try something here. This is a dream of mine, in response to recent events. This is the ultimate spirit showdown.

Aight, so I was gonna write this as a little fiction piece, but that's just not working. So, back to old school style. w00t.

Spirit week has always had potential. In Junior high, it was my favorite week of the year. It was amazing. Every moment of school was competition. It didn't matter what we were doing, we were doing it for the good of the grade. It was alot like the society that 1984 is set in. It was for the grade, not for yourself. You went around and cleaned the lunchroom for your grade, for honor, for the glory. You made a fool of yourself, not to get attention like every other time, but you did it for the grade. You fought, you were willing to do it, all in the name of spirit points.

Then, in high school, that all sorta fell apart. Maybe it's because I never see TVTV, maybe it's because I'm disconnected, but spirit week came and went without me noticing it. Sure, I dressed up, but there was no big build up. There was no constant reminder that I was working for the good of my grade. There was no reason for me to do anything different in my life. There was no opportunity to do something great until Friday afternoon at the assembly.

It was fun to dress up, I had a good time, but I was one of few who did dress up. There was no benefit to dressing up, I just made a fool of myself for attention.

And so here, my friends, is my idea. The idea for the greatest spirit week ever. Is it possible? Probably not. Will it happen? Not unless I suddenly become the dictator of a high school when I'm old and have alot of money. This would be tough, but it'd be the very best.

This time, it's for glory. I'm not sure what spirit week was about this past year. I don't really know what it was all about. But this time, it's about glory.

The whole month has been building up to this week. There was a kickoff assembly, and there was planning, lots of planning. The Seniors even went so far as to have auditions to find out who would be their champions. They're in it to win, but it's too early to hand over the cup just yet.

See, you can't forget that it's spirit week this time. Everyone that is dressed up gets a point. The whole week is full of opportunities to get points for your grade. There are 5 great opportunities to dress up. No pajama day, because pajama day sucks. Nobody knows what the 5 days will be exactly, but there's no hawaiian day either.

At lunch, there's always a competition going on. This is where the grassroots occurs. This is where you choose a random audience member from each grade to come compete. You play twister, you pull them up on stage and ask "What will you do for 10 spirit points?". You let them decide what they're going to do with the ice cream, but whatever they do, it better be worth 10 spirit points. If it's not, well, they don't get the points. You test them to see who's the bravest, who can limbo the lowest, and who can dance the best. This is the place for grassroots. This is where you entertain the masses with trivial little games.

Points are deducted for however many tardies your grade has this week. Ultimately, everything counts this week. The economy is weighed in a manner that is fair to all. I'm not sure how that's gonna work yet, but that'll get worked out later.

So, you know that you've got opportunities to score points always. Ultimately, the more people in your grade that participate, the more points you get throughout the week. This leaves it up to you, the people that aren't drones, to convince them to dress up. How are you going to do it? That's just one of the challenges of Spirit Week.

But really, the capstone to spirit week is always the spirit bowl. But, instead of a bunch of random competitions that somebody thought up in a dark basement, this year we know what's coming.

It revolves around 4 main events, events that are too grand to be done in the auditorium, too grand even to be done on the field. The events are the DDR dance off, the Halo showdown, another various thing I haven't nailed down yet, and the greatest ever, the Taylorsville High School Text Adventure.

See, instead of random events that you may or may not win at, this time, you know what's coming, and you train accordingly. You know that in the DDR dance off of death, you're going to have to dance better than the seniors. You know that there's going to be a 5 song tournament, you know what 2 of the songs will be, and the other 3 are chosen by the competitors. Since you're one of the competitors, I suppose you know what 3 of them are. You want to choose something you're good at, but something the others won't be able to beat you at. You know that they're going to do the same.

You know the DDR dance off is coming, and you plan accordingly. You can elect 2 or 3 champions to compete in this event, with one coming off as the true champion for your grade. You pick the most asian, the fastest, the kid with the lightning feet and the soulful beat. (Yeah, that rhymes.) The seniors have a dance off the week before to find out who their champion is going to be. You're not that well prepared, but you elect your best, your finest, to represent the peoples.

But, how do you keep people entertained through the entire competition? Nobody wants to sit and watch as 9 champions get narrowed down to 3, and then those three have to dance through 5 more songs to find out who the grand champion is. That's boring. So what do you do?

You take a leaf out of NBC's coverage of the olympics. You recruit the finest from TVTV, and if that doesn't work, you recruit me, and you do a tape delay. You record some of it a little earlier, and then you make a story out of it. You do biographies of the champions, you do interviews with the champions once they're done. You show the video at the bowl, people cheer, they get pumped.

And then you wheel out the last three, to do the final dance off. You've already done the first 4 songs. You've shown the highlights. You've shown everybody that will watch the scores so far. You've talked about the prospects. You've shown them exactly how many points the juniors need to win it, how many points the Seniors need to hold on to in order to keep the victory. Everybody knows it. And then, you wheel them out, and you watch them dance it out live. On live television, you interview the champion. You make it work. It's more of a technical marvel than it is a DDR marvel. It's harder to make the coverage work than the actual competition work, but it's worth it. People get excited.

The Halo works in a similar fashion. The other event, which I'm not sure about, is the same idea.
Then, we get to my favorite. The Taylorsville High School Text adventure. This requries a crazy amount of support from the TVTV folks, but it'll be the best.

You have one champion from each grade, and really, they're sent on a crazy treasure hunt through the whole school, armed with nothing but a cell phone.

It's a text adventure, you're getting sent clues with texts.

Imagine, you're alone in the halls. You have no idea where the other two are, but you're just following the directions that keep making your phone vibrate in your hand. They told you to go to room I-204, so you did it. They told you to walk to the computer, and type in "walnuts" when it asked for a password, so you did. That gave you another clue, you followed it. When you get where it sent you, you texted back to the magical man in the sky, and he told you to run to the commons, and ask the giant statue what to do. Through some magic, he sent you on a hunt, to find something. To go somewhere. It's a challenge, a treasure hunt. There's mystery, there's surprises. But ultimately, it's just you, your cell phone, your wits, and, if you've got verizon, the rest of the network.

You've been following the clues for 15 minutes now. Maybe more, maybe less, you're not sure. Things are getting intense. You've already been in places in the school that you had no idea existed. You were directed to the secret key that let you into the secret closet in MJ's room, there you found the Helmet of Truth. They told you that you'd need this in your final battle, and you trust them. Why not? They keep giving you clues.

They make you take a picture of the lunch lady, after you've found her in her secret lair. They've made you figure out logic puzzle after logic puzzle. They've asked you to find mr. Olsen's car in the parking lot.

The whole way, the scary man with the camera is following you. It's like some crazy reality show, everything you do is taped. It's a little too difficult to play this one live, just with how far the camera has to go. And so, it's taped, and then edited at lightning speed. You might even have to compete the day before, nobody knows. It's all for the audience though.

It's the great finale. You don't know how the others have done, you only find out once they roll the video. It's like NBC, everybody loves the olympics.

Of course, these are only the 4 big events, the big crowd pleasers. People train for these forever. You get your DDR champions honed down to DDR legends. You know what' s coming, so you can prepare. It's like a track meet. The only reason anybody goes to a track meet to see slow people run is because they're related to them. The reason people go to track meets, aside from family obligations, is to see the real legends run. The people who are entertaining, fun to watch. Nobody wants to see me get up there and stumble through DDR. I want to see Azn pope robert get up there and fly. This way, i can do that, and my grade can still be amazing.

Of course, you can't just tape the whole spirit bowl, that's lame. There are live events on stage. The sumo wrestling, the American Gladiator combat, the trivia challenge. There's all sorts of stuff. But really, it's all about the olympic coverage.

That's what I want. I want something to plan for. There could be more events. I'd love to see a big Ultimate Frisbee match, divided by grade. I'd love to see a crazy triathlon through the school, where you've got to swim, climb, run, crawl, dodge, dance, then take a test. I'd love to plan it, and I'd love to see it taped, then edited, and covered like the olympics.

I want spirit week to be important again. i want to dress up, and I want to see everybody else dressed up. I want the opportunity to be great. That's why frisbee is amazing. It's because every single play in Ultimate, you've got the opportunity to do something great. That's the only difference between life and Ultimate. In life, the opportunity to do something truly great only comes once every long while. In Ultimate, it's every single play. Every play you have the chance to make that great layout D. You've got the chance to dive for the catch, to do great cover, to make that great pass. That's what Spirit week needs to be. It needs to be about unity, not about random mystery events. Support your team, support your grade, support your champions. It goes down to grassroots, as well as to the champions.

Everybody has to be important. Everybody has to dress up, everybody has to get to class. When that's over with, everybody has to help win something at the assembly.

I want to see the text adventure, I want to see the race. I want to play frisbee.

I want spirit.

I got spirit, do you got spirit?

I didn't think so.

Get some, then video tape it.

So, I'm not sure if this made any sense. I guess i gotta publish this now. i had more to say. More will come tomorrow. But for now, that's the greatest Spirit Week ever. G'night all.


4 comments:

Nick said...

wowz0rz. Amazing. We should really do that. We even have a possibly willing member of the (as I'm now calling it) blog posse to implant your ideas in the higher-ups, the G-Men, if you will. Ha, that was a good one. Anyway, good work.

Jaron Frost said...

Holy crap, that's awesome! Thatcher, you have some awesome ideas, we gotta somehow, someway, put them into action. I especially like the dance-off idea ;)

Anonymous said...

Hey, I dressed up. :D Cuz I'm cooler than all y'all. Except Thatcher, and no one is cooler than him. ;)

riss. said...

okay. So i'm definitely in the hierarchy....haha. I've got connections. But I don't know if I like the idea of playing videos. But I totally dressed up. Did you see my hair on crazy hair day?! it was amazing. But you all need to help invoke spirit into the student body. Its severely lacking. But I've got spirit! haha. so really, I can make things happen.