The Sea of Monsters

    I recently viewed the film version of Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan, and, as I have also read the book, I was surprised (to say the least) at the changes in the plot. I understand that the film-makers have a time limit, and are limited (slightly) in the world of special effects, so they have to make changes, and cut scenes. But this was too much. They cut massive hunks of important scenes, and added too many details to count. They also added whole new scenes. I know that you have to cut things, but in a way, adding things is worse, because the stuff you add in a series of movies will come back to bite you when you make the next movie. It was a good movie, but I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the book, and was able to recognize the gigantic changes they made.

Sweet Venom

I recently acquired this most excellent trilogy from our local library. Well, all except the last one. But now I have it!!!!! Woot woot!!

These books are about the three Gorgon sisters. Or rather, their descendants. In every couple of generations, a set of triplets are born. Their task is to inject monsters that escape from Abysoss into the human world with their venom [Yes, they have fangs]. Each sister inherits a special trait from their ethereal ancestors. One sister has the gift of auto-porting, another has the gift of the prophecy, while another has superfast healing abilities [They all heal extremely quickly, but one sister is extra fast]. Abysoss is basically an eternal abyss, a void of darkness, where all the beasties live. Well, all they beasties except the ones that escaped to wreak havoc in the mortal world.

ATTACK OF THE CUTE!

ATTACK OF THE CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://attackofthecute.com/

Everyone Loves a Good Dystopian Fantasy

Today, my pupils, we will discuss the excellent trilogy by Ally Condie, consisting of the books Matched, Crossed, and Reached. The trilogy is about a young girl called Cassia Reyes, who live in the perfectly controlled world of THE SOCIETY. She is living in perfect harmony with everyone around her, until, at her Matching banquet, two faces appear on the screen, instead of only one. Now she must face the impossible choice, between Xander and Kye, between passion and perfection(Hint:these exact same words are on the inside cover of Matched!). 

Bar Code Tattoo

Once I read this amazing dystopian book called Bar Code Tattoo.It was about this 16 year-old girl called Kayla. In her world, everything was controlled by a company called Global-1. The latest thing was a thing called the bar code tattoo. It was a tattoo in the form of a bar code that held all your medical information, your money, and everything about you. Kayla's dad dies, and her mother says that the bar code killed him. At her school, there is a group called Decode headed by politician Dave Young. They claim that the bar code is an invasion of your privacy, and that it does something strange to your life. Some people with the bar code are rocketing unnaturally to success. For some people, like Kayla's friend Amber, the bar code ruins their life. It "malfunctions", so they can no longer use it, or it messes up their information. As Kayla decides to not get the tattoo, a law is passed that all teens without a bar code will be arrested. A bit of advice: READ. IT. NOW.

The Unwanteds

There was this book I just read, called The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann. It was set in the dystopian world of Quill. In Quill, when you reached 13 years of age, you were put into one of three groups: the strong, smart Wanteds who would go to the University, the Neccessary, who just barely squeak by, and the artistic Unwanteds, who are sent to their death. In the barren land of Quill, creativity is a death sentence. The Unwanteds are sent to the Death Farm, and supposedly thrown into the Great Lake Of Boiling Oil. But when Unwanted Alex Stowe is sent to his death, he, like so many Unwanteds before him, discovers a magician call Marcus Today. Mr.Today has created the magical world of Artime, where creativity is considered a gift, and a magical weapon. Want to find out about the flying cheetah? Read the book.

Mystic Worlds

I think that the world has many levels, multiple planes of existence. Each plane has its own horrors, its own delights. Each plane is ruled by a specific race of creatures. All the planes are copies of this Earth, just modified to support its own population. You might planeswalk in San Francisco, and come out in the same place, but the city might be floating thousands of feet in the air. Or it might be on top of an active volcano. Or everybody might be robots. There is a plane for every fantasy the human mind has ever created, and it is exact in detail to what that person has imagined. Even if that person hasn't consciously imagined that world, it will be created. All your dreams can come true if you know how to planeswalk. How to planeswalk, you ask? Well! Planeswalking is an ancient art that is only known to exactly 42 people. Those peoples numbers are quickly dwindling. By the end of 2018, there will be none left. All of those magical realms will be cut off from this world. Perhaps it is for the better. If everybody had the power to make there dreams come true, then the world would be plunged into darkness. The 42 people who know how to planeswalk have to be sucked of their pride, and their thirst for power. Their lives are lonely lives, every waking moment spent training to planeswalk. The art of planeswalking is best kept secret. 

 

Back in Time

I once saw a movie series called Terra Nova, where humanity had used up all of earth's resources, and, to escape, the mom of a young family is recruited by the project Terra Nova. Project Terra Nova is an effort to get rid of some of earth's population, to give people a second chance. Scientists found a fracture in time, going all the way back several thousand years, to the age of dinosaurs. So, by use of a portal, they send people back in several pilgrimages, and this young family is sent back on the tenth pilgrimage. The original purpose of the time portal was to go back and strip mine all of that world. The whole series is about the family discovering that, and then trying to prevent it. There was supposed to be a second series, because the last episode was a total cliffhanger,  but it was cancelled (Arrrgh!! Darn you, producers!!). Anyway, wouldn't it be great if we had that opportunity? 

Blockbuster

This years blockbuster film: Catching Fire 


This year, the main film almost everyone is yearning to see is the sequel to The Hunger Games, Catching Fire. The cast has worked exceptionally hard to produce both of these amazing films, but I have a bit of criteria to share. In The Hunger Games book Katniss' friend Madge gives Katniss her mockingjay pin, but in the movie, Katniss gets it from the Hob, the black market. Both movies don't perfectly follow the book, like in Catching Fire movie, when Gale gets whipped, it's because he stopped a Peackeeper from hurting someone, but in the book, he goes to the head peacekeepers house to sell him an illegally hunted turkey, because the peacekeeper they had then liked a cut of the game, and instead found a more strict and cruel head peacekeeper, and he lies about hunting it, and says he found it by the fence and killed it with a stick. Hunting is banned, so he could get killed for it. Instead of getting killed, he only gets whipped. When Katniss tries to stop the whipping, she gets whipped in the cheek, but, 'cause she's the Capitol's favorite, she stops Gale from being whipped anymore and brings him to her mother to be healed. For that reason and a few others, I personally prefer the books. I wonder what the final movie will be like. Hmm......

Post #18/Survival Stories

This tale's atmosphere is entirely different from the previous tale. This story takes place in Malibu, where a young man is spending his honeymoon in bliss. This particular young man is currently following his passion. His passion? Swimming, in fact. And, being swimming, he is particularly happy. Up until a shark fin in the water comes weaving towards him. He is frantically swimming towards shore, when the shark grabs his leg in its jaws. His first thought is: "Oh my god there's a shark on my leg." Then he punches it in the nose. It takes a few more punches to get the shark off, but it finally lets go. When he makes it to shore, he looks down at his leg. "I try to refrain from freaking out" he says, "when I look down and see nothing but tissue and bone (and a whole lot of blood in the water). " At the hospital, he undergoes an emergency operation that saves the rest of his leg. He is fitted with a prosthetic leg, but even that horrifying experience only exceeds his love of swimming. "When I look down at my replacement leg, it makes me feel proud, that I got bit by a shark and survived."

A Mutt the Match of a Man

In these next few posts, I will tell you amazing stories of survival, in very extreme conditions. This story is that of a mutt the match of a man. 

 When Dosha, a mutt from the animal shelter, got bored in her owners backyard, jumped the fence and ran straight into the path of a truck, barrelling down the street. A police man nearby came to the scene of the accident, and shot Dosha in the head, to end any further suffering. She was then taken to the animal shelter, where they put her into a freezer, where her body would be preserved, until they could bury her. When a veterinarian came to check on her several hours later, miraculously, she was sitting up!! Evidentially, she had survived the truck hitting her, and the policeman's shot missed her brain, and instead, it scraped her jaw. She lived a very happy ( and safe) life after that, under the very watchful eye of her owners.

Cyberworld

Have you read the book "Ready Player One"? I personally think it is the best book in the universe, and have already read it multiple times. In this particular book, a genius and his friend have invented a virtual reality program called OASIS. OASIS is the next best thing to reality. Its haptic gloves give the illusion of actually touching virtual objects and surfaces. Its sleek visor uses lasers to scan the image of the virtual world right on to the wearer's retinas, completely covering their field of vision. In contrast, the real world looks fuzzy and out of proportion. The creator of this virtual world, James Halliday, was a millionaire who died a supposedly friendless bachelor. So, having no heirs, he hid his vast fortune inside the game he put his soul into. Okay, enough story time.

Apocolyptic Earth

It is rumoured that,in the year of 5000, the sun will explode, and the earth, along with all other life, will die. If this apocalypse happened, say, 4886 years shy of its predicted date, in 2014, what would we do? Would technology be prepared enough for the end of the world? If it were, where would we take our giant spaceship, loaded with the "essentials" to survive? Where would we then call home? If, like in Beth Revis's "Across the Universe" trilogy, would we have already sent a fraction of our species to find that perfect place, our Centuari- Earth? I would be greatly surprised if this predicted apocalypse happened, and, if it happened, that we were prepared enough to survive it. I say we load up a starship and get the heck out of here now!!!

Stress Free Life

Some people say(like me) that, if you own a pet, you will have a more stress free life. Like, for example, if you are stressing out over something, you just look at your cute pet, and you relax, and laugh. I totally agree with this, because, take therapy dogs, for example. Their very jobs are to help people laugh. They are used to help people that have had surgery, and/or have been in an accident. If you live in a metropolis, or are really stressed, it might be a really good idea to purchase a pet immediately(preferably from the animal shelter).

The Technological Era

I wonder when "technology" was really invented. Did it start with the primitive invention of the wheel? Or did it start when medieval peoples made their first weapons? Or maybe when the primitive Homo Sapiens began to hunt and gather? Some people call this the technological era because there are so many automated escapes, forms of computerized entertainment. Some people think that we will soon have everything in a form of code, nothing truly natural. Hmm...., that sounds kind of dystopian. 

The World of Warcraft

Compare the World War II, and America's Civil war. They both center around the discrimination of other people who are different, in skin colour, or religion. Some people wanted them dead, or lowered in all eyes. Some, like the Northern States in the Civil War, fight for freedom and equality of all people. Wars have changed many things, including people's lives, laws, and many other things. Take, for example, The World Trade Center, not a discriminative war, but it killed so many people, changed so many lives, and was a national obsession (national tragedy, too). Wars are, in a way, useless, a strategy devised to kill, nothing more. Why fight when you lose much and win nothing? Even if you win that battle, the enemy will just keep coming. You can never truly "win" a war.

The "Sugar High" Theory

If you eat enough sugar, would you really get "sugar high"? The theory is, that if you eat lots of sugar, you will get hyperactive, and your physical ability and brainpower will speed up, get "better". My brother says that his friend got hyperactive when he was eating some pie (I guess the pie had a few tablespoons of sugar in it, or something). He must have been pretty hyper already, because I don't think that one slice of pie could get you that hyper,(enough to jump over a few tables) unless it was made of pure sugar, and at least a foot long (maybe). I wonder if you could use this "sugar high" thing to cheat, like if you got all hyper before a test, and then ace it, because your brain power would be extra speedy. Hmm...

Animal Intelligence

The CIA and other government operations have been training animals as spies for a long time. Pigeons trained to deliver secret messages, hawks trained to record conversations, and even dolphins trained to transport nuclear weapons underwater. Animals had their part in the Cold War. Some even argue that animal spies were better than human or robot ones. For instance, animals are more inconspicuous than a gun wielding robot, or some guy in a trench coat. Others argue that animals don't have the brain power to make the mistakes that a human spy might. Some that are against this idea say that animals brainpower constricts them more than it befits them. That probably isn't true, but, you know people. When they get their minds stuck on something, they just won't let it go. 

The History of History

 When in time was "our" history started to be recorded? When the ancient Greeks and Romans began to philosophize about were we came from? Or did it start when ancient Victorians recorded the heavens? (what they could see of them.) There are many arguments about how our world and all others came to be. The typical scientific approach, the Big Bang theory, compared the Christian Religion, thinking God made the earth and sent Jesus. Other religions and theories say different, but I'm not one to go on and on. The real question is, which theory or religious picture do you believe?

The History of Theft

Since the medieval era, thieves have been thirsting for many things, from gold and jewels, to eggs and ham (I'm not kidding, in medieval times, when there were food shortages, people would loot others for food). If there was a rich nobleman living nearby, then chances are, all kinds of thieves would be looting him from head to foot. It wasn't a very good idea to live in the middle of a poor village,when you're filthy rich. Especially not good if that village is famed for thievery. Especially now, when many great treasures have, and are being found. There is a difference, between the time when people put sticks and pieces of wood across their doors, and now, when we have high tech lasers, motion detectors, etc. I could go on and on, but let's not. Thieves have many methods of stealing, from busting a hole in the wall, to parachuting from a helicopter. well, that's all for today. Time to go rob the museum's new exhibit, a giant diamond. *wink, wink*