First and foremost, I’m not a gamer-at least not the gamer type. I play video games on occasion either by myself, or with friends, or various other ways. I don’t however use a video game as a substitute for any type of real life situation. I’ve played the game “Call of Duty.” This game will make me no better if I was to go into the army. As in WOW, people become addicted to it easily. They take these fictional games and turn them into their second life. Professionals say its just a way of escaping, but its obviously not. You don’t hear about people becoming hooked to the Sims or Runescape.

Seeing the lines of people lined up outside of a game store just to be the new owner of a game that could continue to shatter their relationships with either family members, lovers, or even the social world around them. Granted, these people don’t waste time on Myspace or Facebook, but they always seem to spend every waking moment on WOW. If they aren’t, they are at work trying to accumulate enough money to put some food on the table for their loved ones while they spouses are forced to eat alone.

I’m not against video games or online games. I am however against people who decide to spend all time on the computer finding spells and swords to play in their alternative life.

Corvallis Hurling Club

When we hear hurling, most of us think of a late Saturday night after a long week of class and one drink too many, but not for the guys of the Corvallis Hurling Club. They take the field every Sunday to brush up on their Hurling skills as well as have an excellent time doing something enjoyable.

Hurling is a sport that started in Ireland about 3,000 years ago in Ireland. It is considered the Irish redneck sport. It combines skill, athleticism, and a little of your weekend time. This sport that is a cross between lacrosse, hockey, football, and baseball is a hard hitting sport that will leave you wanting more.

“(Hurling) is the grandfather to hockey. When the Irish came into Canada, they had to adapt hurling to the frozen ponds,” midfielder Austin Strickler said about this historic sport. “It started in the United States many years ago, but just started teams in Oregon in 2001.”

Using a wooden stick called a hurley which takes on the appearance of a long axe, this group of 13 team members sprint the field trying to score points. The field has a goal net like soccer, but also a set of goal posts, like football. You then try to hit the small ball, or sliotar, into either the net or between the posts. The net scores you three points, the posts score you one.

During the game, the team members pass, shoot, and run with the ball. They catch the ball and will hit it again with the end of their hurling stick. You do live by the “Rule 4.” You are only allowed four steps once you have it balanced on the end of the hurley, plus you can only stand in one spot for four second with the ball.

These set of rules sound complicated, but they are not. Once you get used to this small set of basic rules, you can start trying to improve your hurling talent.

Just don’t forget-just because the rules sound easy, doesn’t mean the game itself is easy. Imagine yourself trying to play baseball while running as fast as you can.

Dustin Herron, a 29-year-old midfielder for the hurling team, started the club in July of 2008. The Corvallis Hurling Club, or the Benton Brigade, would like to get a club started at Oregon State, so they can play teams from across the Pac-10. Both Stanford and Cal have competitive teams, and USC is trying to get a team started. Portland also has a club, but if you wanted to get serious about hurling, you can travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where their roster sits at approximately 300 team members. “They (Milwaukee) has sent teams to Ireland to compete against them,” Strickler said. “This is really unusual and cool,” added Herron.

“We hope to get a team started at OSU, so we can go against the other teams from the Pac-10,” Strickler added.

The Corvallis Hurling Club meets every Sunday at Avery Park in Corvallis. If you are a beginner, come at 2pm, and you can get hands-on lessons from Dustin, as well as the other talented players. Stick around after though, for the scrimmage that will follow the practice. Before you show up on Sunday, check their Myspace to make sure that the practice time hasn’t changed yet. Anyone is welcome.

“When people show up, we are there. We will show them the basics, and if they want to practice with us or do the drills, they’re more than welcome to. It’s just a good way to get out and do something,” stated Herron. “We are looking for anyone who is interested in learning a challenging sport that will be exciting, frustrating, and exhilarating at times.”

If you are interested in the Corvallis Hurling Club, go to mypsace.com/corvallishurling or email them at corvallishurling@gmail.com.

Join them on the weekend for some exercise. You will learn a difficult sport and enjoy yourself in the process.

Animal Rights? Right for who?

If you were 9 years old, getting yelled at by a 40-50 year old man, muscles from head to toe, with a neck the size of a California Redwood, riding a Schwinn none the less, what would you do? Be scared? That’s the path I took.

Feeding baby calves with my dad when I was younger is one of my fondest memories. Then the day came when an animal rights activist biked past our field screaming obscenities at my father and me about how we mistreated our animals, in this case, baby calves. This hippy, most likely from Eugene, decided to ride his eco-friendly method of transportation past our field with his helmet that reminds me of the one I wore when I still had training wheels. You know the one–the blue, yellow, and lime green plastic that had those crappy Velcro strips inside. In our field, we kept calf hutches, which are approximately 10 feet in diameter. Is this not appropriate for a calf that weighs less than 80 pounds? I have come to realize that most animal rights activists don’t know the first thing about animals in general–much less raising animals. These animals were treated better than most of the children in my home town. They had all of the clean water they could drink, all of the grain they could eat, and a warm environment. Granted, they weren’t together with their “friends”, but we kept them apart to keep from the possibility of spreading any sickness that might affect the herd. You wouldn’t keep 70 babies in one large crib, you keep them in separate ones.

Apparently, these people would prefer to have animals running the streets. First, if you are an activist of this sort, you had better be a vegetarian. Farmers raise the food on your plate, and if you feel deemed necessary to exploit the fact that we keep animals contained, you need to take a long look in the mirror you ignorant hypocrite. Millions of people have dogs or cats inside or outside their house, but this doesn’t mean that those animals are being maltreated. A dog in a small kennel will still get the exercise it needs. Even if it is not let out of its cage for long periods of time, you know that dog, whether Shih Tzu or St. Bernard, will get the exercise it wants. Dogs can bounce off the walls for hours. I stood with amazement watching a border collie annihilate the back seat of a four-door, rust infected sedan, as it ran from near side to far side window just for fun, barking loud enough for even my grandma without hearing aids to be able to depict the sound that erupted from the back seat. That is the type of joy that animals have in life. No worries, no cares. Why can’t these hippies take that same approach and calm down?

Now to take the other side for a moment, not all animals are treated properly. You heard about the woman with eighty some dogs locked up in her beige, deteriorating mobile home that probably has asbestos seeping from the insulation. These people are embarrassing to humans. No person in their right mind would even think of doing that. Just think of the smell! This isn’t everyone though. I realize that some hypocritical, narcissists think of animals as being on the same level as humans. Personally, I have raised cattle, sheep, pigs, as well as having multiple cats and dogs throughout my life. I don’t think of them as being even close to the same level as a human being, but at the same time, I would never mistreat an animal. If you’re going to treat them like any other child or human, they need to be disciplined as such. If my dog decides to lash out and dig its canine teeth into the side of my calf muscle, I will discipline it, whether that means a swat on the nose or putting it in its kennel for a while. Is this mistreating it, of course not? When I was a child, if I tripped my sister or lied to my parents, I was “kenneled up” for a while in my room. It’s the parents who don’t take this approach, that end up raising kids who grow up to ride their bikes to their upper-division manager position at Walgreens then on their way home, yell at those same farmers that put the food on their table.

I have grown up with animals and will probably keep them around for my entire life, but if there is one thing in this world that would give me joy, it would be seeing a rabid dog run up to that biker halfway through a pedal stroke, knock him off his 2 ½ speed Schwinn, and tear his hippy, cut off shorts from his legs, while destroying his cute but somewhat unfashionable Birkenstocks. Wouldn’t that be a memory?

Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers is already being proclaimed as being the “next Michael Jordan.” Are you kidding? How many rings do you have LeBron? Zero, right? Michael Jordan on the other hand has 6 championship rings and 1 NCAA championship under his belt. Oh wait…he was also on the All-Defensive team nine times. He was the NBA leading scorer 11 times-need I go on because I can. I hate the fact that James is already being viewed as the next MJ. First Kobe Bryant held this position after being drafted straight to the NBA from high school, just like Lebron. Look at Kobe now. He is a great player, but I think takes a seat behind Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, maybe even Chris Paul. Give James a couple years, and he will be taking the back-seat to the next great stars.

Take Tayshaun Augusto, a fifth grader that can dribble as good as almost any high school varsity player. If you’re 11 years old, and you can run a mile in 4 minutes and 50 seconds, you’re doing something right.

I’m a Lebron fan, but I know for a fact that he is nothing compared to Michael Jordan. Lebron-play basketball, quit, play baseball, quit, play basketball again, make some movies, retire, and own a team, then maybe we’ll start thinking about a half-decent way to compare you to MJ. Don’t forget, just because you wear his jersey number, and proclaim that your tattoo that says “Chosen 1” on your back was there when you were born, doesn’t make you Michael Jordan. Take your seat Lebron.

So this is my first blog, so hopefully everything will turn out well, just don’t get your hopes up. I’m currently lying in bed sick so why not start one? I will try to update this when I think about it and have time so you can be sure to be up to date on my interesting, wonderful life…okay, maybe not.

First off-school. College has shown me a few things about life so far. The first thing being that I was wrong about college when I was in high school. When you’re in high school, you think that once you go to college, everything will be easier and more relaxing. This is definitely a lie, and what teachers say in high school is true. In high school, the hour and a half you sit in class and the hour of actual homework you do does not even compare to the fifty minutes of class and the 3+ hours of studying you are SUPPOSED to do every night in college. Luckily, I have been finding enough other things to keep me busy in my spare time, because I have just so much of it. These things include my current radio obsession, studying up on my Canadian history, betting on midget races, starting my CERL (Canadian Eskimo Racing League), and trying to memorize every word to the movies Mulan and The Lion King. Well, maybe not all of those, but two of them are accurate. Try to guess which ones.

The radio station I work at, KBVR 88.7fm, has kept me quite busy. During the fall term, I hosted a Christian variety show on Sunday mornings at 7am. I should have guessed that absolutely no one that is attending college is up by 7am on a Sunday morning. Despite the early mornings, I made it work. Rolling my study-ridden brain out of bed early enough to squeeze in a luke-warm shower and grab some sort of nutritious breakfast such as Lucky Charms or Pop Tarts, I would throw on a sweatshirt and sweat pants and attempt the long, cold walk to that DJ booth. Heading into the winter term, I knew I needed a time change. I was able to pull a 12pm-2pm show that I co-host with my good friend Adam.  This show is a real variety show. We play all kinds of music, talk about sports, and also different current event stuff. You could say that we are a cross between Elton John, Jerry Springer, and The Beatles. Needless to say, it’s pretty amazing. I’ve been interviewing for paid positions at the station but have been having my problems getting jobs since I’m a freshman. I’ve also been lucky enough to have the opportunity to intern at Bi-Coastal Media, a group of radio stations in Albany this spring. As you can tell, the sports and 4-H portion of my life have slowed down, but other things have picked up.

Don’t worry I’m not finished yet. Starting this summer, I plan to start doing high school sports play-by-play broadcasting. I got the idea from a couple of guys down in Roseburg that does that as their job. I will hopefully be broadcasting for up to six Benton County schools, as well as the Richey’s Market American Legion baseball team. This has definitely got my nerves going slightly. I figured if anyone could handle it, I probably could.

There is one thing about college that never seems to get old, and that is the semi-early morning classes that give me the opportunity to walk in the sun and get the cool, fresh air that comes along with it. Walking in the type of weather reminds me of home. Getting up early to feed the 4-H animals is a memory I will not soon forget. That and the sweet smell of pig poop that seems to fill up the barn in an avalanche type of fashion.

It’s tough to keep your spirits up when every thirty seconds, I have to run and blow my nose while simultaneously hack up a lung. A diet consisting of cough drops, Zicam, ibuprofen, and cole slaw seems to keep my stomach in check. I guess if there was a time to be sick, March is both a good and bad time. The bad side being that finals are in a week from Monday so now is crunch time. The positive, March Madness is upon us so that means there is college basketball on CBS all weekend. Let’s hope that the Beavers will make it. The Ducks definitely didn’t help our cause at all.

Well I’m going to head out now. I’ll probably go blow my nose, eat something small, and jump back into bed and try to rest up for finals. Go Beavs.