According to this guy, you are never more than 107 miles away from the nearest set of golden arches in the continental United States. Scary, indeed. Visit the link below and take a gander at his findings.

Check the map, too.

-DeRoin (my first job was at McDee’s)

P.S.- Did you know Sioux City alone boasts seven Big Mac eateries?? (They are on M’Side Ave, Sunnybrook Drive, Lewis Blvd./H’way 75, inside the Floyd Super Walmart, off I-29 on Singing Hills, and there are two on Hamilton…plus one in North Sioux and one in SSC!!) In comparison, there are five BKs, six Subways, three Wendy’s, and four Dairy Queen’s in the Sioux.

Pee in the shower.

Need I say more?

-DeRoin.

This guy is a good writer. Don’t miss this one.
And that’s all I need to say. Go ahead, talk amongst yourselves.

PeAcE,
DeRoin.

Now I’m not very old, but I notice that not many of the toys I loved as a kid are still around.  Most people have gone on to way more technologically advanced things.  Sure there is still a Barbie and lots of Hot Wheels, but whatever happened to those Cabbage Patch kids?  Yes, those ones that had a recall because some ate kids’ hair.  Where did the trading cards go?  People used to have all the major league sports and a whole array of made up ones like Pokemon and Digimon.  What ever happened to my personal favorite, the Easy Bake oven?  Does anyone even enjoy these basic toys anymore or have we all moved on to the era of cell phone games, PSPs, and other handheld systems?  Where have the MadLibs gone or the fifty-five colors of Play Doh?  I remeber the Lite Bright and the build-it yourself K-nex roller coasters.  What happened to the simple board games like Monopoly and Clue or jigsaw puzzles?  All that is left is multiple crash and destroy racing games or world at war soldier games.  In this new era of video games and online play, are we missing the human element or the interaction and imagination that makes those “old-time” games so much fun?

I attended the performance of Sleeping Beauty this afternoon.  It was a fantastic performance by the local ballet company, one I would have enjoyed a bit more if I had not been busy being ashamed to be a Sioux City Resident.  Theatre etiquette or just etiquette was missing today.  Miss Manners would have been ashamed!

-Just because it is named Sleeping Beauty and Disney has taken the tale and made her into one of the Disney Princesses does not mean that one should bring their toddlers to the performance without first doing some research!  I am all for sharing the performing arts with the little ones; I had a six year old with me.  But that six year old did not talk through the whole performance.  Not in a whisper voice either, a full blown conversation with people several seats down; throughout the entire two and half hour performance.  And that was just the adults!!  Due to poor parenting, the youngsters were also talking, loudly; but then one can’t expect the apple to be able to fall to far from the tree.  I realize that not every young child and adult where displaying such terrible manners, but the general hum throughout the Orpheum along with the very annoying group behind me was enough to ruin the afternoon. 

-Next time, please attempt to arrive on time.  Even though the performance began late, you still proceeded to pour in after the lights had been lowered. 

-I appreciated the touch of having a narrator share the story with us before every act; but when people proceed to talk through his part and then ask each other 20 questions about the story line during the dancing, the effort of the narrator is lost.

-One does not have to be cultural educated to know better than to answer your cell phone in the middle of a ballet.  Oh yes, it happened, more than once!

-You do not have to enjoy the performance, but PLEASE wait to share your demeaning, sexist, racist comments till you get in your car. 

-Your child asked to leave at least 15 times; I sure wish you would have listened to them the first time.  Instead, you chose to leave with approximately 10 minutes left in the performance.  I was excited that you were leaving, that was until you proceeded to leave VERY loudly. 

To the performers involved in today’s production, great work!  It was beautiful to watch, it is just unfortunate your hard work had to be ruined by some adults.

We want to know what you think of President Obama’s first weeks in office.

We asked the Young Readers Board to share their thoughts, and many of them did here.

Now we want you, too, to add your own thoughts about how the Commander in Chief has done during his first weeks as leader of the United States – on legislation, on fulfilling his promises, on meeting your expectations.

Share your thoughts by adding a comment below.

We’ll run select answers on page 2’s of the Sioux City Journal this week.

By now you have probably heard about the Octuplets born in California to a mother who already has 6  young children. It’s been a very controversial topic especially since the mother’s interviews have been on tv. She used fertility drugs to become pregnant and does not have contact with the father (althought the father of the first 6 children was the sperm donor for this pregnancy). There are lots of questions on whether this was ethical or not on the mother’s part as well as the doctor. The mother is unemployed and recieves $2300 a month for food and disability for a couple of her older children. She has set up a website in order to accept donations. People are outraged at this situation and the fact that it was allowed to happen. What are your thoughts? Please Share!

 The website is below:

http://www.thenadyasulemanfamily.com/

For all of those who didn’t make it to the “Best of Rockestra” concert last Saturday, it was great! The Orpheum was packed and the crowd was especially into the show this time. The concert was a little longer than usual (over 2.5 hours), but I don’t think anyone minded. My favorite tune was the Led Zeppelin medley, but I really like that group anyway.  For anyone who went, feel free to sound off on your favorite song from the concert, and for all those who didn’t make it, there will be another concert on Saturday, April 18th, and Rockestra Jr. will be sharing the stage as well!

-E. Horneber   

NBA jerseys were the talk of the school in the 90s, but today fashion revolves around a few different key pieces.  Scarves are the main accent for any of the colder seasons.  They are often worn with a plain shirt and are acceptable in any color.  The more patterned the better.  My favorite picks are animal prints and stripes. Another new trend is moccasins.  They come in most any color imaginable, so they go with everything. The other must have for the winter is boots.  Suede boots, leather boots, patterned boots, UGG boots, everything is good.  These are worn casually, or with sweats depending on the style of boot.  They are really great for snowy mornings.  I hope these fashion tips were helpful and feel free to share any new fashions you may have run across for Spring! 

Rockestra has become quite popular in SC for the few years its been running, but I think there still may be some people who haven’t discovered how different, yet cool it is.  Rockestra is basically a large group of professional musicians from around the city playing classic rock songs that have been arranged to include brass and strings as well as the normal guitar, bass and drums.  I go to almost every concert I can for the group, and it is a lot of fun.  The people playing on stage have almost as much fun as the audience.  They play all sorts of different rock music, so don’t worry that they’ll play just one type.  I admit that I don’t love every one of their songs, but they are fun to listen to anyway.  So if you don’t have much to do next weekend, their next concert is Feb. 7th at the Orpheum and I recommend that everyone check it out.  It’s going to be a best of rockestra concert and it will be a blast!