My · Life · Is · A · Story

Google Wishes you All A Happy Holiday 2009

Merry Christmas Everyone! And Happy New Year!

Movies I've seen but forgot to review, hope I haven't repeated any:

• Black Book/"Zwart Boek"

Story: Movie set in Nazi Germany war time. A young Jewish girl named Rachel escapes Nazi persecution on a boat with a shipment full of other Jewish people, but the boat is ambushed by Nazi German soldiers, she manages to escape with her life and flees to Holland. There she recreates her identity as Ellis with blonde hair, and cooperates with the resistance in a plan to rise against the Nazi ruling by getting close to German captain Muntze. Soon she falls for Muntze and things become more complicated, forcing her to ask who she can trust in a time with war.
Opinion: Great plot line, very engaging dialogue, and amazing acting between Sebastian Koch and main actress Carice Van Houten. There was a variety of languages spoken in the film, some German, Dutch and also English, which gives relief to your eyes trying to read subtitles all the time. A lot of the plot was about visual cues, a nice break in a foreign film.
Verdict: 5/5

• First Daughter

Story: Daughter of the President of the United States desperately wants a normal life, so she goes to college with her security men and falls in love with a boy at the college who turns out to have a secret life she doesn't know about too.
Opinion: I'm not sure who the target audience for this movie is because it did not appeal to me or my mother, so neither young nor mature audiences would enjoy this. It is just a movie that shows off how cute Katie Holmes is, not much of a plot to keep your interest and the dialogue was boring!
Verdict: 0/5!!!

• Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

Story: Following on from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the half blood prince takes place when the Magical order has finally acknowledged that the Dark Lord Voldemort, most evil wizard, is back to terrorise the world and kill Harry Potter. Harry's class rival Draco Malfoy has been hand chosen by the dark lord to carry out his evil plan and rid himself of Hogwarts Leader Dumbledore, who continuously thwarts his efforts to kill Harry Potter and take over the World. Harry and the gang invesitage to find that someone very important is not who they seem to be.
Opinion: This movie was the best so far, each movie has been developing further and further away from a children's movie to a movie with dark and sinister plot twists that adults can enjoy. The whole setting was very bleak and a neutral scale colourwise, the acting improves drastically, especially from co-actor Rupert Grint. Children will fail to comprehend connections in the movie and concepts that adults will see, as well as the length being unsuitable for a child to sit through. You also learn a bit more about some other characters, which gives them more depth. Though I was able to see through the plot twists and predict what was really happening or going to happen, I think this is well worth a watch and you won't ask for your money back.
Verdict: 4.5/5

• Inglorious Basterds

Story: It's Nazi Germany and there is an organisation called the "inglorious basterds" who are dedicated to wiping the country of Nazi soldiers. The movie explores the ideas of what could have happened.
Opinion: Quentin Tarrentino delivers typical Tarrentino violence and gore, with a 'what-if' plotline. The story is told with a lot of humour and the usual artistic portrayal and directing of music, angles, etc. as are most of Tarrentino's films. I am not a fan of his work, but I did thoroghly enjoy this movie. It was not merely a blood bath, but a historical possibility that could have changed the world today. Worth watching.
Verdict: 5/5

• Murder By Numbers

Story: Police woman Cassie takes her job very seriously when it comes to violence against women, and soon finds some inconsistencies in the murder of a young girl that lead her to investigate school boys Richard and Justin. Richard and Justin think they are off the hook, but they didn't count on Cassie seeing what others would not.
Opinion: Ryan Gosling does a good job of playing self assured highschool jock Richard who is the coolest kid around. The major twist was obvious to me, but still enjoyable to see how they pulled it off. It was a bit dreary and sloe moving to start off, but once they began pursuing the boys things got more exciting.
Verdict: 3.5/5

• Terminator Salvation

Story: After Skynet has destroyed much of humanity in a nuclear holocaust, a group of survivors led by John Connor struggles to keep the machines from finishing the job. Marcus Wright is submitted to surgery after stepping on a mine and awakes later, confused about the state of the world. He endeavours to help John Connor fight the terminators, but discovers a dark secret about himself in the process.
Opinion: I saw a lot of reviews claiming Sam Worthington outshone Christian Bale's acting abilities, but did not agree. The sole reason he could 'outact' Bale was because Bale was a side character and Worthington was the main character. Both men did a fine job for the characters, and it was interesting to see a grown up John Connor. The most interesting part was seeing all the new terminators and machines that developed. This movie also probes into the question whether a person can still be human without posessing human parts(or being made entirely of flesh and blood). Lots of action for boys to enjoy too, but enough plot for the girls to enjoy too.
Verdict: 4/5

• The Ugly Truth

Story: A romantically challenged morning show producer is reluctantly embroiled in a series of outrageous tests by her chauvinistic correspondent to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love. His clever ploys, however, lead to an unexpected result.
Opinion: I had a good laugh every now and then, sometimes thought the humour was just lame though I knew that others would be dying from laughter. Typical chic flick result and plot line.
Verdict: 3/5

• Up

Story: After the death of his wife Elle, Carl becomes a bitter lonely old man, isolated from society. One day a young scout boy tries to offer his help in exchange for 'helping the elderly' badge, so Carl sends him on a wild goose chase. After getting ordered by court to move to a retirement home, Carl ties a whole bunch of balloons to his house and flies away on a mission that he and his wife had to place their house at Paradise falls. The place where their favourite explorer Charles F. Muntz ventured and claimed to have seen an extraordinary bird. The scout ends up being in the air with Carl after hiding under his porch to find the made up pest. Carl and the scout stumble upon the bird Charles F. Muntz was looking for, but find out that he is not the good guy he once thought. Carl and the young boy hurry to save the bird from Muntz.
Opinion: The movie starts off being very sophisticated and contains mature themes that go right over the top of the children's heads. I think these were put in to make the movie enjoyable for parents watching with their children. The movie of course contains a lot of humour and cute little creatures to entertain the children. This movie did surprise me and I came out loving it!
Verdict: 5/5

• Valentine

Story: Jeremy Melton is refused a dance by 3 young women at a school prom on Valentine's Day, but when the 4th one agrees and is found kissing him, she claims he sexually assaulted her. The other boys all tease, bully and beat him, embarrassing him in front of the whole class. Now years later on Valetine's Day someone is killing the girls one by one and leaving a card initialled "JM", who the girls speculate must be Jeremy, but nobody knows what happened to Jeremy, not even the police. Now Paige, one of the girls who refused Jeremy, must find the killer before she becomes his victim.
Opinion: Classic horror movie with lots of unexplainable fail. The nose bleed whenever the killer killed someone I did not see the previous connection so it didn't make sense to me, but I might have missed it. Enjoyable enough to watch if you like horror movies and sexy hunk David Boreanaz!
Verdict: 3/5

I had a freaky dream about snakes last night, so out of curiousity I googled to try and find world's largest snake... there's a lot of dispute about it, which I guess is because of what people mean by 'large' - long or heavy. Apparently the green anaconda is the world biggest snake measuring up to 8m in length(although this site claims 9.5m) and a whopping 250kg in weight, making it the bggest but not necessarily in length. The longest snake is the asian python reticulates  which grows up to 10-12 metres in length!
==
The undisputed king of all snakes is definitely the TITANTIC BOA(Titanoboa) which was 12-15m in length and 1,135kg!!! The diameter at the thickest part of the body was 1m!!! It is believed to have lived approximately 60 to 58 million years ago, in the Paleocene epoch. It was recently discovered in Columbia.

Artist's rendition:

==
Meanwhile check out this giant python:

You are fucking kidding me right?!  A bloody python captures, kills and SWALLOWS WHOLE a kangaroo!!! Jebus crust!
===
Swallowing a pig:

HOLY OROCHI BALLS!

Can only make me think of how massive Orochimaru from Naruto must have been in uber snake form:

EEP!

I've just been cleaning up my journal - Whoa that was a mission! Deleted all the pictures that were no longer there and made all the TCG posts only viewable to me because noone wants to see them, they're only for me anyway. So problem fixed, and the first thing I wanna do today is take an in-depth look at the anime Full Metal Alchemist. I think it is highly underrated and often dismissed as a childrens anime, but it has many undertones that the younger audience would not pick up on!

"Fullmetal Alchemist is arguably the best artistic exploration of a philosophy ever... ... the show has a political agenda and message, but it's one that most people would be agreeable with. Essentially, the show encourages thought, displays the horrors and beauties of life, and essentially promotes a humanist perspective... ...Government is a major topic in the series, but the analysis is much more nuanced than one might assume... Another major topic tackled is religion ...Once again, more often than not, this show is not picking sides, but trying to make people think."

The rest of this review is here! I think is is definitely worth a look at.Some trivia I found interesting about the series and movie(source):

• 'Hohenheim', the name of the Elrics' father comes from Auroleus Phillipus Theostratus Bombastus von Hohenheim, AKA: Paracelsus. Paracelsus was a reknowned 16th-century alchemist who made many pioneering breakthroughs in medicine [such as the use of certain minerals and metals in treating diseases], while also dabbling in the occult. Among the accomplishments Paracelsus claimed, though it was never substantiated, was the creation of a "homunculus" - a small humanoid creature that he made by stewing hair, skin fragments, bones and semen in a pit of horse manure. The creature was said to have been loyal to its creator for a time, then ran away. (<--HOLY SHIT! I wanna research more into this, claims of an ACTUAL homunculus?)
• The name of Alphonse Elric in Japanese is a play of language regarding the nature of the character. In Japanese, his nickname is adapted into the katakana "Aru" to mimic the pronunciation of "Al," but the hiragana "aru" (pronounced exactly the same) is a verb meaning "to exist." The Japanese, however, have two verbs for "to exist;" one for animate objects (iru) and one for inanimate objects (aru). Since a major theme of the anime is whether or not Alphonse still exists as a person with his soul affixed to the normally-inanimate suit of armor, the choice of naming him takes on a deeper meaning with this background. This wordplay could in fact be only a coincidence and not an intentional decision, but it serves as an interesting look into the nature of the language nonetheless given the theme of Al's struggle to define what he has become. (I think this is an interesting point a lot of people may wonder, do we still exist if we don't have a body?)
  
• In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala (or Shambala) is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. The myths of Shambala were part of the inspiration for the tale of Shangri-La told in the popular book Lost Horizon, and thus some people even refer to Shambala improperly as if it were Shangri-La. Shambala's location and nature remains a subject of much dispute, and several traditions have arisen as to where it is, or will be, including those that emphasize it as a non-physical realm that one can approach only through the mind. It is said that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, a King of Shambhala will emerge from the secret city with a huge army to conquer evil and herald the Golden Age. According to a website about shambala, it is "...a mythological kingdom, protected by a psychic barrier so that no once can find the kingdom who is not meant to. For centuries the people of Tibet and Mongolia have believed in the existance of the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, hidden behind the distant mountains north of the Himalaya . According to the Kalachakra tantra teachings, a line of enlightened kings is said to be guarding the highest wisdom for a time when all spiritual values in the world outside will be lost in war and destruction. Then, according to prophesy, a great king will come out of this sanctuary to defeat the forces of evil and establish a golden age."
  Note: Shambala is the Real world according to the movie.
• The Thule Society mentioned in this movie really existed. It estabilished the basics of the Nazi ideology, including the Nazi Flag and the myth of Aryan superiority. In its ranks, there were members from the top echelons of the 3rd Reich, including Rudolf Hess (who will make an appearance in this movie), Karl Hausshofer (who appeared in the last episode of the TV series), Alfred Rosenberg, and Adolf Hitler himself.

This site has some interesting information related to the philosophers stone and alchemy also.

http://d.furaffinity.net/art/nek0gami/1253407587.nek0gami_gc_rrr_face.jpg

The most creepy disturbing obsession among women in America, for(my opinion) old women who desperately want babies but can't have them anymore... Behold, the REBORN! Reborn baby dolls can be custom made to order, can include teeth, open or closed eyes, even a beating heart! You can buy baby clothing and accessories or a DIY reborn kit to make your very own. They can cost anywhere from $500-1000. Below I've included some of the recently 'adopted' dolls *shudder*.


----
---
And perhaps the most disturbing item for the obsessed woman: - The Beating Heart

Barats and Bereta have recently released their unaired pilot "this is culdesac" for NBC on youtube, a friendly 1950s neighbourhood smackdown.  I thought it was great and my duty to share it! Enjoy!

Google celebrates the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope

Ok, so there's a new weird infomercial out now, I'm gonna let you view it for yourselves and make an opinion...
That's it... can you ever imagine someone having this? these ads seem like something from double take...

This is a great parody of the lead up to the presidential selection. I didn't see it myself, but I'm told by my boyfriend the US politics nut who was pretty much glued to the TV while the elections were going, that this is almost word for word how the debate went.

Following that I have a funny parody of Obama revising things that he CAN'T say at the debate. Enjoy!

Serious WTFage. Check out this ad for Guss Pickles:

Yeah, wtf indeed. Sexual advertising is common, as you can see with other products below, but this is just gross and doesn't make sense to me. Why is there a NUMBER and WEBSITE dedicated specifically to pickles? wtf?
sprite ad due to air in Germany:
just kidding, luckily this is fake!
THIS, however, is not unfortunately... shake weights
"Designed specifically for women!"... serious wtf.
===
===
On a side note, Mac users can no longer brag about how superior their computer is in comparison to a PC. This is because a mac security expert has found a massive flaw with it's security, saying there is a technique that could allow hackers to take control of Apple Inc. computers and steal scrambled data! Pretty big f-ing flaw if you ask me! They claim that the number of attacks on Mac computers will most likely increase and hackers didn't fail to deliver, releasing a program to attack Macs earlier this year. You can read more about it if you're intered here.

Just a short story I found amusing, sorry for lack of details, heard it on the radio a few days ago.

Apparently a border collie dog named Bonnie became the first seeing-eye/guide dog for a blind dog - Clyde! Bonnie actually leads Clyde dog where to go on walks or for water and food. It literally is a GUIDE-dog, guiding dogs... bad joke I know. This story just amused me.

The two collies were rescued as strays a few weeks ago after being abandoned in a storm, poor pups! They need a new home now, but must be rehomed together due to the fact Clyde refuses to budge without his Bonnie.

....what!

Peter Powers the hypnotist works his magic on this poor sod. My personal favourite from his show "the power of one."

Priceless.
----
You can watch more of his shows at comedycentral.com

So apparently while having a BBQ in Kentucky, the BBQ fork flew off the handle and landed in the head of this 12 week old chihuaha puppy. Smokey the 12 week old puppy survived 3 days in the woods with a BBQ fork lodged in it's brain!

Google celebrates Nikola Tesla's birthday.
Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer.
----
EDIT(15/10/09): I only just realised that Tesla was referred to in the movie the Prestige!