“If we don’t have our dreams, we have nothing.” With a tag line like that and a PG rating to boot, you know “The Astronaut Farmer” is either going to be a sap-fest or one of those rare films that leaves you truly inspired. Unfortunately, this movie falls into the first category.
As far back as I can remember I have feared “the box.” When I was younger, the choices were a little easier to decide, it was either “black” or “white,” but today it seems that even though there are more races to choose from there are still none that I can identify with.
With winter approaching a little too slowly to sunny California this year, Pierce College’s Fall semester is reaching an end and final examinations are knocking on the door. Finals mean good and bad news. Who wants to be at school way into the holiday season? Nobody.
Mel Gibson gets to the point in “Apocalypto.” He starts out with a fierce hunting scene to get the audience in the film. The savage nature of the warrior comes out in different ways. “Apocalypto” has English subtitles and Gibson does a remarkable job with the Mayan Yucatec language.
It seems like everyone in college, at one time or another has heard of the dreaded “freshman 15.” Late study nights, new roommates, pizza parties and a school cafeteria later, everything we eat will eventually catch up with us, especially if the only example you have for exercise is walking back and forth from your car to class.
When Bea Ramos was seven years old she picked up her first volleyball in her hometown of Davao in the Philippines and fell in love with the game. What she didn’t know was that 12 years later she would be playing as a defensive specialist for the Pierce College Brahmas and would place second in Western State Conference Championship, the highest finish in Pierce’s history of women’s volleyball.
“How many blondes does it take to screw in a light bulb?” “Why did the blonde cross the road?” Over the years I’ve heard them all but it still doesn’t cease to amaze me how many people still humor themselves when they approach me with yet another blonde joke (as though I haven’t heard “that one” before) comically insulting my very intelligence.
On Gwen Stefani’s sophomore attempt of a solo career, “The Sweet Escape,” she fails to do anything except make the listener change the radio station. The charm and cutesy, bubble gum voice that Stefani sang her heart out with on her albums with No Doubt has suddenly become whiney and flat.
It’s that time of year again! Shopping sprees, holiday cheer, and, most notorious of them all, holiday movies. “Deck the Halls,” starring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick, fits in perfectly with the mood of other dysfunctional family holiday movies done in the past.
Few students know that Pierce has a short-course meter swimming pool where adults of all ages who love to swim gather for a splash of fun. Everyday you can find the Southwest Aquatic Masters swim team practicing in rain or shine with coach, Fred Shaw, a three-time NCAA Division I Championship Team member for USC, with 20 years experience in Masters Swimming.
