November 10th, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved to raise two battalions of Continental Marines marking the birth of our United States Marine Corps.

As Major General Lejeune’s message reminds us, the ensuing generations of Marines would come to signify all that is highest in warfighting excellence and military virtue.

Each November as Marines the world over celebrate the birth of our Corps, we pay tribute to that long line of “Soldiers of the Sea” and the illustrious legacy they have handed down to us.

Happy 231 years of service.

As most of my friends and readers know, I’m a huge fan of classic video games; you know the ones that took a single quarter to play from the early 1980′s to early 1990′s.

Most of the video arcade games from back then actually had some entertainment value and didn’t involve being a gangster or a car thief. Amazing.

The sad thing is almost all of my favorites are virtually impossible to find in a modern arcade but thanks to projects like MAME and my personal video game collection, I can play them any time I want.

Ok, moving on to the reason for this post… last night I was talking with a few of my classic video game collecting friends about what we felt were our personal top 20 games that we actually own either the full upright or cocktail table version in our collections, so without any further delay, here is my personal top 20 list:

1. Ms. Pac-Man
2. Tempest
3. Pac-Man
4. Centipede
5. Galaga
6. Asteroids
7. Star Wars
8. Donkey Kong
9. Tron
10. Joust
11. Donkey Kong Junior
12. Robotron: 2084
13. Defender
14. Space Invaders
15. Frogger
16. Battlezone
17. Galaxian
18. Space Duel
19. Q*bert
20. Dig Dug

It’s great having my own personal arcade. Everything is set to free play. No quarters required. I’ve spent many years and 1,000′s of dollars to restore and revive my childhood memories of the local arcade.

I’m a hero to the kids in my neighborhood when the garage door is open but sometimes I have to be a bully and kick them out. I’m not a baby sitter… but it is nice to let the youth of today see what real arcade fun and entertainment is all about.

It does take up a lot of room having full size games in my garage but it’s so cool when I have friends over for a BBQ or just to hang out and remember the days of playing Galaga as a kid.

Five years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil, families of some of the nearly 3,000 victims gathered this morning at Ground Zero for a solemn ceremony.

The commemoration included four moments of silence – two for the times that hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center towers and two for when the burning towers collapsed into mountains of rubble, killing thousands of people working there and first responders who were trying to rescue them.

The ceremony included the reading of the names of the 2,749 victims at the trade center site by about 200 of the victims’ spouses, partners and significant others.

The first moment of silence came at 8:46 a.m. ET, the moment American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the trade center’s north tower; others followed at 9:03 a.m., when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the south tower; 9:59 a.m., when the south tower fell; and 10:29 a.m., when the north tower collapsed.

Souce: CNN.com

Dylan Avery, the creator of Loose Change headed to New York on September 8, 2006 and had the following to say on his Loose Change blog about the trip:

I’m leaving for NYC in two hours… hope everything goes okay, I’m a little nervous, I’m not going to lie to you. There’s going to be troublemakers there, let’s be realistic.

I wonder how the distribution of the Loose Change 2nd Edition DVD’s is going? I hope people are being respectful.

Even though there is a lot of evidence to show things happened differently then what we were told 5 years ago, we still need to be respectful of the family members who are at ground zero to remember the loved ones that were killed, still missing or unaccounted for.

I’ve been giving out free copies of the Loose Change DVD to family, friends or anyone that I know who would talk to me about the events of 9/11.

The creators of the film, myself and others have stated “we encourage you to research this information yourselves and come to your own conclusions” which everyone should do.

I will never forget what happened 5 years ago and either should you. Do your own research, ask questions, demand answers.

The United States celebrates its Independence Day on July 4, a day of patriotic celebration and family events throughout the country.

In the words of Founding Father John Adams, the holiday would be “the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance… It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

I totally agree with you John Adams, so today I plan on celebrating our independence with good friends, good food on the BBQ, loud music, maybe a game of Scrabble and lots of fireworks exploding high into the sky.

The picture above was originally entitled Yankee Doodle, this is one of several versions of a scene painted by A. M. Willard that came to be known as The Spirit of ’76.

You pumped your fists when they rocked. Your heart pumped full of love when they broke out these sweet ballads. Go ahead, shed a tear or two.

That’s the introduction on the liner notes on the CD that I picked up yesterday titled “The Greatest Hits – Power Ballads” from my local Target.

The CD was only $8.99, so it was well worth the cash to have some songs from days gone by in my music collection.

I just finished listening to all 12 tracks straight through this afternoon while I was driving around. The songs brought back so many memories from high school and from when I was in a metal band. Good times indeed.

The track list has some of the biggest bands from the 1980′s-1990′s:

Whitesnake, Damn Yankees, Warrant, Poison, Night Ranger, Scorpions, Bad English, Skid Row, Extreme, Mr. Big, Cinderella and Queensryche.

So for any of my readers who are into late 80′s-90′s metal, go grab this CD. It’s less then $10.00, so it’s not a major purchase :)