VIDEO - Bush 4141: Custom-made train to carry George HW Bush to his final resting place #Remembering41

[VIDEO] This is pretty cool. A custom made locomotive dedicated to a former POTUS. And while he only took one ride on it, he will ride on it again.

Union Pacific locomotive 4141 will carry the body of former Prez. George Herbert Walker Bush to his final resting place at his presidential library at Texas A & M University. And the livery makes it attractive as it mimics Air Force One and he took that bad boy for a spin one-time! Cool!

I wish I could have a locomotive when I become famous. :P

George Herbert Walker Bush 41st POTUS R.I.P.

At this point, it's old news as it happened last night. George Herbert Walker Bush was not only the 41st POTUS (he was also the father of the 43rd POTUS George W. Bush) passed away on Friday night.

I was very young when he was president. Remembering that the 1st President Bush was the commander in chief that presided over the first Iraq War. Bush was able to organize and push back Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein back in their invasion of Kuwait back in 1990. It was a short war, but a successful one. Unfortunately this was didn't help his re-election bid the next year.

Not to be negative, but Bush had been the last one term President having been defeated by the 42nd POTUS Bill Clinton. Often we were reminded by Bush's quote at the 1988 GOP National Convention with regards to new taxes. [VIDEO]

Also understand Clinton's favorite slogan "It's the economy stupid".

Either I learned how even if Bush had been a Republican president at the end of the day he was an American. I remember when Clinton as POTUS had asked for a day of service Bush was one public figure who rose to the call and he asked "What's wrong with one American helping another American?" Mr. Bush is right.

Before Bush became President he had been a businessman, a member of the House of Representatives from Texas, Ambassador to the United Nations, Director of Central Intelligence, Chairman of the Republican Nat'l Committee, and Vice President of the United States. He had a very long career in public service. Let's not forget before he returned to Yale to finish college, he had also fought in the 2nd World War as a naval aviator.

I also want to note he came from a political family as his father Prescott Bush was a former US Senator from Connecticut, his aforementioned son himself also became President, another son won the Governorship of Florida, another son was elected Texas Land Commissioner. So it appears the Bush's commitment to public service continues!

My best wishes to the Bush family as his wife Barbara Bush had passed away in April 2018.

BTW, in the history of this blog Bush was the second President to have passed away. The first was one Gerald Ford who passed away in 2006.

BTW, was George Bush a fan of pro-wrestling. Here he is with a Texas promoter Paul Boesch in a post provided by the National Wrestling Alliance - NWA. Boesch had been referred to as a Bush friend.

View this post on Instagram

President George H.W. Bush with legendary NWA promoter Paul Boesch in Houston, TX.

A post shared by NWA (@nwa) on Dec 1, 2018 at 6:03am PST

 

In the mood for a tax #Meme

Now seeing this on Facebook and seeing that there are those who think this meme is basically confusing local property & sales taxes with the federal income tax I get what this is saying.

When seeing these meme, I assumed it was talking about the 16th amendment to the constitution:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Well all I have to say is, there's more research for me to do as far as taxation in this nation.

Saw #Creed2 and found this review

I just had to share this review with you all. You might have seen me retweet this on my twitter page. Here's in the tweet you can click on it to see the review in Cosmopolitan. It's interesting that they typical readership of Cosmo would even be interested in a boxing film.

So, #Creed2 is enjoyable and all, but I finally had to come to terms with how the franchise - in particular, this film - enables toxic masculinity at the detriment of its female characters. My latest for @cosmopolitan: https://t.co/JD7h0MA8bF

— Candice Frederick (@ReelTalker) November 20, 2018

I saw Creed 2 on Thanksgiving. And not to steal a schtick from the late critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel but I've give this film a thumbs up. The story of a man (Adonis Creed) who's about to fight the son (Viktor Drago) of a man (Ivan Drago) who took part in a fight that resulted in the death of that man's father (Apollo Creed). Basically we can call this sequal not only a sequel to Creed (2015) also for Rocky 4.

However the review for Cosmo that I just became aware of recently turns this film as an enabler for toxic masculinity.

It’s a boxing movie that we’re told has “heart,” a word coach Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) uses a lot in the film. "Listen to your heart," he keeps telling Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), who’s determined to defend his championship from Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), whose father Ivan (Dolph Lundgren) defeated Adonis’ dad in the match that killed him back in 1985’s Rocky IV. Adonis has some seriously unresolved issues about how his father’s death permanently devastated him and his mom Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) and attempts to use this fight with Viktor to settle a score.

So right away, the two opponents—Adonis and Viktor—are established to have major daddy hang-ups. Viktor is also fighting to reclaim the title for the sake of his dad, whose own was stripped by Rocky himself in 1990’s Rocky V. This means everything that happens in Creed II is dependent on how these two male fighters choose to define their own machismo and protect their paternal legacies. Even Rocky talks about his estranged relationship with his son. These themes of masculinity are so oppressive that they relegate everything else that happens in the film—including the fact that Adonis and Bianca (Tessa Thompson) are expecting a baby—to the background.

I'm going to assume the "toxic masculinity" of the movie is bad for the women most affected here. Mother is concerned about her son and his wife is definitely concerned about her husband. Well the family drama is important, but then the other side of the movie is the drama that takes place for the boxers once they get into the ring.

I wonder if it's ever understood that a man feels as if he must handle his business. Sometimes a man might let something slide, however, in the case of boxing why should he stand down from a guy boasting that he won't lose. Perhaps Creed needed to get back into the ring and prove something. Somewhere out there and under different circumstances (and yes not exactly within the context of competitive sports) a man is facing similar situations.

What this writer might neglect is what I was able to deduce in this movie. Viktor Drago is with his father Ivan at a dinner to celebrate their boxing successes. It gets somewhat marred when an elegant blonda haired woman enter the dining room. As it turns out it's Viktor's mother and Ivan's ex wife. After the events of Rocky 4 (1985) Ivan's life unraveled and that woman played by Brigitte Nielsen in both films left Ivan and his son. So now I understand why Viktor seemed upset and let his father know what's up. And matter of fact Ivan tells him what happened Ivan lost!

I won't give too much away, but once the fight is over I began not to be surprised at what happens near the end of the movie. Especially with the background I gave you, although I've yet to really fully watch Rocky 4 which I concluded years ago was probably the beginning of the Rocky franchise jumping the shark.

All the same, this toxic masculinity, where is it here?

If you haven't seen it do so here's a trailer to get you excited. [VIDEO]

Virtual Railfan: Amtrak's Southwest Chief back-to-back

[VIDEO] Having been wrestling obsessed over the weekend, I just wanted to share this vid from Virtual Railfan. Two Amtrak Southwest Chief trains back-to-back in LaPlata, Missouri train #4 was very late coming from Los Angeles, it would normally get into LaPlata in the morning. I'm curious what happened although I see it was pulled into the station by a BNSF freight locomotive.

That happened 20 minutes after train #3 pulls out of the LaPlata station near it's regular time. Sometimes (perhaps often) the train is late pulling into LaPlata especially when I'm able to see train #3 at night. I rarely get to see Train #4 it seems I'm more of a night owl when I watch the Virtual Railfan cams on YouTube.

Feel free to check out the Railcam page here.

#SurvivorSeries

[VIDEO] As I write this I'm watching the pre-show for this year's Survivor Series watching the five-on-five tag team Survivor Series match. This is only the second Survivor Series I have watched since I subscribed to the WWE Network last year.

It's cool to see some of the wrestlers in this match that I have been paying attention to for many years. Eric Young and Bobby Roode who not only came from NXT they made their names known in the organization formerly known as Total Nonstop Action TNA. Unfortunately while Roode had won the US Title upon debuting on SmackDown since then he's moved to Raw and seems to have stalled.

Anyway, there was one Survivor Series I wanted to watch before tonite's edition and it was the 1997 PPV where Bret Hart was screwed out of his WWF title before he left for World Championship Wrestling. I don't want to dwell on it too much especially as the PPV will start soon. However, I wanted to history lesson and it was necessary for me to catch up on PPV I missed out on back in the day.

So what's on tap on this PPV.

WWE Raw women's champ Rowdy Ronda Rousey faces former women's champion Raw and SmackDown Charlotte Flair who's subbing for the injured SmackDown women's champ Becky Lynch.

The Raw Universal Champ Brock Lesnar faces the SThe mackDown WWE Champion Daniel Bryan (who won the title over AJ Styles on last Tuesday's SmackDown Live).

The Raw tag team champs Authors of Pain will face Sheamus and Cesaro who are the SmackDown tag team champs.

The Raw intercontinental champion Seth Rollins face SmackDown US champ Shinsuke Nakamura.

The women's team for Raw & SmackDown and the men's team for Raw & SmackDown go five on five in the survivor series match. I could type out of the names, but just too lazy to do research and the Raw women's team had to scratch because well two of them got kicked off the team because they couldn't get along. You can watch that above!

And now onto tonite's Survivor Series.

OH YEAH I FORGOT

The Cruiserweight title is on the line Mustafa Ali faces off against the champ Buddy Murphy. So another appearance on a WWE PPV of the WWE's cruiserweight brand 205Live. 

#NXTTakeOver

This weekend is a big one for WWE fans. On Saturday night only on the WWE Network is NXT TakeOver WarGames. I saw the WarGames event that took place last year and remember the matches of Aleister Black vs. Velveteen Dream and then the actual WarGames match.

I remember Authors of Pain with Roderick Strong vs. Sanity Killian Dain, Alexander Wolffe, and Eric Young vs. Undisputed Era Kyle O'Reilly, Bobby Fish, and Adam Cole (Bay-Bay). So basically those three factions were wrestling in a cage covering two rings. Two members of each team were themselves released from a cage outside of the ring area and released at timed intervals into the match. The WarGames match came from the World Championship Wrestling "bag of gimmicks".

This year's NXT TakeOver WarGames will take place in Los Angeles (oh man I would've gladly made it out there for WarGames and Survivor Series the next nite). There is also a WarGames match which doesn't involved three teams of three men. This year it involved two teams of four men and it involves the team of Hanson & Rowe the War Raiders with NXT UK champion Peter Dunne & NXT North American champion Ricochet against Undisputed Era O'Reilly, Fish, Cole (Bay-Bay), and Roderick Strong. [VIDEO]

Yeah it's interesting Strong fought against Undisputed Era at last year's WarGames and this year he's joined then (in fact won the NXT tag team titles with O'Reilly). Well all I will say for that is we're talking about sports entertainment. These are the twists that you can often expect... [VIDEO]

Anyway a few more matches to note for Saturday.

Aleister Black vs. Johnny Gargano - for most of last year Gargano was engaged in a feud with his former #DIY tag team partner Tomaso Ciampa. Gargano for most of the time I watched NXT had a few victories but as the feud continues it seems victory eludes Johnny Wrestling. Especially with the TakeOver event that took place in Brooklyn back in August. I would like share a twist with you, however, it's somewhat related to the next match.

Velveteen Dream vs. Tomaso Ciampa for the NXT Championship - Ciampa defeated Aleister Black for the NXT title at an NXT taping that took place at Full Sail University in Florida. Black lost his title due to well-intentioned interference by Gargano. Gargano cost Black his championship and Ciampa is the defending champion in his match with Velveteen. [VIDEO]

Just before NXT TakeOver Brookly 4 Aleister Black was attacked and for months we had no idea who the attacker was until the last few weeks. It turns out it was Gargano, he caught up to Black and attacked him in the lot outside of the Full Sail Arena. He even explained why he attacked Black on a recent edition of NXT. [VIDEO]

As I said Gargano and Ciampa has been locked in a feud for months and culminated in a match at TakeOver Brooklyn a last man standing match where Gargano was close to winning Ciampa's NXT title only to injure himself looking to really knock Ciampa out! That match was supposed to be a three-way between Black (looking to regain his championship) vs. Ciampa vs. Gargano. However in storyline Black was attacked in a parking lot knocking him out of action (though I understood that Black had a legitimate injury). [VIDEO]

So, I want to see if Ciampa can retain his title against the rising Velveteen Dream who has certainly proven himself to be a flamboyant and entertaining performer. I can't wait to see him get promoted from developmental in NXT to the main roster on either Raw of SmackDown. Though having him take the belt could show if he could be a draw as a standard bearer as a NXT champ.

As far as the Black v. Gargano match not sure what to expect. Gargano has had some entertaining matches. I rooted for him to finally defeat his former tag partner in Ciampa. Gargano had to defeat Ciampa to regain his job in NXT in a non-sanctioned match after losing a title match with the stipulation that his NXT career was over. That didn't end the feud though Gargano's heel may turn a corner as far as Ciampa is concerned. Also I hope that Black could potentially regain his title in the near future unless it's meant for him to move up to the main roster himself.

The final match (and surely there's more than four matches on the WarGames card tomorrow) is for the NXT Women's title between Kairi Sane vs. champ Shayna Baysler. Saine held the belt until last month's all-womens WWE PPV Evolution where she was put to sleep by Baysler. This is also Baysler's second reign as champ and am curious if the "Pirate Princess" Sane is able to clinch another reign as women's champ.

So this will be the prelude before Sunday nite's Survivor's Series. I will write more about that later...

"The Big Bus"

[VIDEO] Been years since I've seen this film. I was horrified when I first saw this film at even a humorous idea of a nuclear-power bus. Now looking at recent clips of The Big Bus beyond this trailer, I just can't take this movie.

The odd subplots a fallen veterinarian, a man with a terminal illness, a couple about to divorce, a pastor who lost his way, a bus driver accused of cannibalism, and that's probably not have of the subplots. The main plot is that an intercity bus company creates and builds a nuclear-powered bus for non-stop service between NYC and Denver. And this is seen as a threat to the oil industry.

You know this movie is absurd and is a cult classic. It probably wasn't very popular when it was first released but someone appreciates it now. For me, it's probably one of those movies I would think of as you're entertained and then you can forget about it later. I would put The Big Bus in that category, though just for old time sake this is one movie I would like to see one more time.

No more clips on YouTube! Like this one! [VIDEO]

Hmmm, it's funny to see the stars that I know in this movie. Rene Auberjonois, Richard Mulligan, Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, and I just found out the late Larry Hagman is in this movie though probably in a bit part. These are names I would know today though one of those (Bologna) I know from this movie. The others were in far more well known productions years down the road Auberjonois I mostly know from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Mulligan was the star of series Empty Nest & Soap. Channing was on the series The West Wing.

Veteran's Day

I've always known this day as a holiday and never always appreciated this as a day for our military veterans. Also I also never know that this holiday was at first known as Armistice Day.

Armistice Day marks the end of the first World War on this day in 1918 - 100 years ago. I found this tweet that marks this day an ad from the old John M. Smyth Company courtesy of Chicago's Extinct Businesses.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Here is an ad for John M Smyth Company. It was located on W Madison St east of Halsted St. From The Chicago Tribune November 11, 1918. #WorldWar1 #WWI100 #VeteransDay2018 pic.twitter.com/2qe0RA3cyR

— Vanished Chicago (@vanishedchicago) November 11, 2018

Lately I will admit that I had been looking up YouTube videos with regards to the first World War. Here's my favorite.

Peter Jackson is doing a first World War movie that is to be told from the perspective of the soldiers of over 100 years ago. The footage has been colorized and the movements of those soldiers have been set to the right speed. Almost as if the film was the same speed as today's footage. [VIDEO]

I always portray black & white silent film footage from the early 20th century as mostly people who walk around like penguins. And probably more accurately they mostly walk a bit faster or they walk slower. The footage you see here I can't believe that this footage was shot between 1914 & 1918 but I also know that they manipulated the footage to make these soldiers seem more real.

On this day the Berlin Wall fell

[VIDEO] On this day 29 years ago, the Berlin Wall fell. The above video is a history of the Berlin Wall. The wall divided the German city of Berlin between the American allied west and the Communist allied east. It was considered a symbol of the so-called "Iron Curtain.

I'm glad Berlin is one city again and that the gov't that ran East Berlin and East Germany fell and the nation of Germany was reunited under a democratic regime.

I vaguely remember this event back in 1989, but because of my youth failed to understand its impact. It likely had less of an impact on me than the sight of a person confronting a tank during the Tiananmen Square uprising earlier that same year.