Everyone’s favorite person - only backwards
Okay, I don’t really like rap music, and I’m not a huge fan of Hip-Hop. So I kind of had this thing against The Black Eyed Peas, but I decided to give them a try so I went onto iTunes and listened to some samples of their songs. They’re……. well they get stuck in your head and some of them (a few) aren’t that bad. Some of them I hate, with completely messed up lyrics, but there’s one that has really good lyrics with a pretty good tune. “Where is the Love”…
Yesterday, I went with Warren, his childhood friend Steve and his family, and some of their friends to the Jones Beach Airshow at Long Island. We took the Long Island Railroad, and then went to the beach. Now a beach and an airshow may seem a very odd combination, but it was actually a lot of fun. You enjoyed the beach (SOOO crowded, but I didn’t mind that much) and there were airplanes doing cool stuff above you to watch. I have about 50 pictures from the airshow up here. Enjoy!
It took a while, but I’ve finally finished the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. It’s good, but a little bit different from The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code was all about the past and researching history; and while Angels & Demons has that it’s really more present-time.
Angels & Demons starts out in almost exactly the same as The Da Vinci Code - Robert Langdon wakes up with an urgent phone call that some guy has been murdered with symbols all over him. After that though, the stories go their seperate ways. In Angels and Demons, the creator of a new technology called “antimatter.” Briefly, antimatter is matter that is negativly charged, and a droplet of it can power New York City for a day… And a gram of it, if it comes in contact with any matter - even air - has the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. And it’s actually a real thing in real life! Anyway, someone kills the creator of it and steals the anitmatter in it’s little capsule that, once disconnected, ahs 24 hours of charge keeping the antimater from touching normal matter. After it’s stolen, it’s hidden somewhere in Vatican city and the book is all about trying to find it by uncovering clues about a secret ancient society called the “Illuminati” that has this huge thing against the church and want to destroy it. There are treasure hunts, fights, countdowns, romance, and plot twists - as can be expected by Dan Brown.
Robert Langdon teams with Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of the guy who created antimatter and was killed. They go on a treasure hunt around rome looking for clues to find answers to who the Illuminati are and how to stop the bomb, figure out where it is, etc. Cardinals and other people very close to the Pope play main characters in the book. The characters are fairly complex, and just when you think that you know them - BAM!!! - everything is turned around. Brown does a great job of setting up the plot towards the beginning, giving the general plan, and that happens, but then about halfway through another thing factors in, raising the stakes even higher.
The book is heavily centered on the Science vs. Religion debate. It explores issues how people are losing faith in God and religion and turning towards science for answers. The book isn’t biased either way. It shows both sides of the argument. Still, the ending is almost over the top. Some pretty amazing things happen that is pretty much not possible. Brown goes into some of the cardinal’s minds where they think it is a religous miracle and that God made them survive. The conflict is very well described and played out throughout the book.
One note, out of the 600 or so pages, at around 500 the bomb’s timer counts down and the climax happens. Then the last 100 or so pages are a bunch of plot twists that are fascinating to read but aren’t exactly necessary, and then the resolution.
So overall the book is an enjoyable read, a great thriller with some historical information and recent issues mixed in. The book is a bit over the top, as I mentioned earlier, and the book does go on for a bit to long, some of the middle could have been cut. But besides that, if you enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, this is a great read, and just a great thriller in general.
8/10
Sorry about the convoluted review, it’s kind of all over the place and not in order.
You may have noticed some things going on with the site over the past week. First there was the “dummie” and “Literature” pages, then the games page, then the downloads page with a games page. Then the photoset page which had nothing on it under the downloads page. Then the header changing colors…
First off, no it’s not your imagination, I fixed up the logo a little bit, made it a bit sharper and better looking, and then added 5 other versions. (1+5=6 which are the colors of the rainbow). I know that it’s a little annoying to have the different colors everytime you go to a new page, so I’ll probably take it off soon, or change them periodically, but they all look so nice!
Second, the games page that appeared and then went under the downloads page is now back on the main page thing. There are 4 games you can download as .exe files that I made.
Third, the photos page has been RE-DONE. I realize that the old photo page format was very slow, loading individual pictures, one by one by one. There was the slideshow, but still - it just didnt’ really work. Also, I never really completed the movies page, so I am now going to try to unite photos, movies, and games under one consistent format. So since the photos were basically just streamed from my flickr account, I have now made my own, better looking version of the page. It’s not nearly as slow. Why? Because it links DIRECTLY to the flickr photoset page for each one, and I also link to the slideshow. And (New feature!) I’m starting to upload each of the photosets as .zip files with full quality images. So far they are only available for 4 sets, but there will be more to come. And you can reach all of this just from the Photos page! It’s still under construction, so the pages without zip files to download actually link to the one for Florida 2005, and it’s not all full yet. But it’s still viewable!
The movies page with downloadable (from our ftp server) and probably viewable movies too (youtube) will be put up soon with more movies than just the crusader series.
Today in school we were doing a simulation of Cold War and Cuban Missle Crisis. We broke up into 3 groups, 3 different seperate planets. In each group there were 3 more groups, 3 countries on this planet. Each country had a certain amount of “Ray Guns” (nuclear weapons) and soldiers, and we all had to figure out peace from other factors. Two of the groups survived and made a peaceful resolution (we destroyed the ray guns). The mistake in the third group, though was putting Solon, Henry, and Jon together… Lets just say that they aren’t exactly breathing fresh un-polluted air right now.
Anyway, while we’re sitting there talking about Ray Guns and attacking other countries and war, a very deep, low, and loud sound is heard, and it starts to get louder. It’s a plane going by. No, 5 planes. Fighter planes. Going by fast. And low. Very low. Over Manhattan, in New York City. In the “post-9/11″ world. I only got a fleeting (no pun intended) glance at the planes before they disappeared behind some buildings. Everyone looks at each other. A few moments later another larger plane goes by. I’m no military aircraft expert, but it looks like some kind of cargo plane. World War II? It’s old-fashion style lightens my anxiety a bit, just an air show. But over Manhattan??? Greg (the student teacher) then suddenly remembers that it’s Fleet Week, and we have nothing to worry about, and that nothing’s going on, and that they’re flying over the Hudson River. I ask him that if he’s wrong if he’ll give us $5 each. Wow. He said yes. So everyone goes back to work. Throught the next hour and a half or so more planes go by, pretty exciting. And Greg was right. My mom explains it as “A bunch of sailors coming the New York City and getting drunk.” I wonder if you can get arrested for drunk flying like you can for drunk driving… My mom had a pretty big fright also. She heard them and immediatly ran to the T.V. thinking they would crash into the Empire State Building.
So yeah, fun experience. I wish that I had had my camera, pretty cool videos of those planes going by. It could of been featured on the YouTube home page.
It looks like a lot of New York also got a little scare from the whole Fleet Week thing. (Picture from Gothamist by Mark Lennihan/AP)
On Sunday Aaron and I took a trip to the new apple store on 5th avenue. Just so you know, Aaron loves Apple - he has a mac, posts on a blog called “Mac User” and posts a lot about everything Apple on his personal blog (that looks kinda dead). So this was a pretty big event for him. We both brought our cameras, but I didn’t really get any pictures - well I got a few videos on my video camera, but they’re just us messing around, and Aaron would prefer I didn’t post it online. So below are Aaron’s pictures (I AM giving due credit, so please no don’t sue me Aaron!)
I’ve just added the games page and the links page. On the games page I’ve put 4 games that I’ve made with the program Game Maker, with more to come both from me maybe some from other sites - you know, cool games that I find.
In addition, I’ve also added a links page with links to friends and family sites, blogs, and some more things to come. It’s kind of messed up now, but I’ll fix it later.
Enjoy the 4 games (if you’re a PC user, if not then sorry, because it’s a .exe file, and Macs can’t read them!) I just did the breakout one which is being made now, so I’ll constantly update it, I know that the ball bounces really weird, so I’m fixing that, programming it differently.
Well, this is the first movie I’ve seen in theaters for the summer blockbuster season, and although I just saw it Sunday, 2 days after it came out, most of it’s reviews said it was ok, but that was just it. There wasn’t really anything special. It was just ok. I have to agree somewhat…
Ron Howard, who started his career as an actor in such movies as George Lucas’s “American Graffiti” later took off in his film career as a director producer, and much more. He’s done A LOT of stuff. I wide range of things actually, he’s worked on tv shows like 24 and kids movies like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. So when I heard he was doing “The Da Vinci Code” I had my hopes up that it would be a good movie. To tell you the truth, it was what I expected almost exactly. A good repesentation of the book, but that’s not always good.
The movie is very faithful to the book. There’s no major plot points cut out, though there are a few minor changes and it expands on things only briefly mentioned, like Tom Hank’s character falling into the well when he was a child - they kind of show it in a flashback. It also has all of the same characters. The locations that they visit like the Louvre are all great and obvioulsy real. I feel that someone considering seeing the movie as opposed to the book would get the right feel - it hits the same note as the book.
The acting by Tom Hanks is good. I think that he was a good choice to play Robert Langdon, but his acting was still a little bit wooden, a little much like he didn’t care. The character of Sophie I think could have had a better actor. I mean, she just didn’t really express the character of Sophie in the book. She seemed all closed up. But Silas, the bad guy who is kinda the apprentice to “The Teacher” who’s supposed to be all evil-ish. You know - Silas is the one who carries out all of the murders - Anyway, the guy who they got to do him was great. He was an albino, as said in the book, and gave off the right feel, scary, but not TOO scary. Also, the scenes where he was torturing himself were great. I think he was the best actor of the film, although he didn’t say that much. Sir Leah Teabing, the elderly man who helps Langdon and Sohpie was played by Ian Mckellen was also great, almost equal to Silas. He was a bit over the top in the acting, but he delivered a great performance throughout. The other actors were fairly well chosen, but I won’t go into much detail as they were more minor characters.
The music by Hans Zimmer I think did the book a lot of justice. It was very religous with lots of vocals. I think that it’s a very good choice to go along with the movie. Still, it lacks a good recurring theme throughout that would have been nice to bring it all together. The music just kind of sits in the background, not usually noticible to an un-trained ear. It helps move the story along and it kind of connects the scenes to the events that they’re talking about in history involving the Church, Priory of Sion, and Jesus Christ’s bloodline.
Speaking of Jesus Christ’s bloodline, I counted at least 4 times in the movie where it was emphasised that this was just a THEORY, even a MYTH. In fact, Langdon and Teabing had a little friendly arguement in the movie about whether the theory had enough evidence to support it. And in another note, I think that in bashing against this movie and the book it was based on, the church is just proving what the book says about them is true - that they will do whatever they can to keep people’s faith true, to believe in God, in the church, etc. Besides, there are plenty reminders throughout the movie that the theory is just a theory.
So overall, this movie is good, but it just lacks anything unique. It’s acting isn’t bad, the story is pretty good, but the pace of the movie is so fast in the beginning and long in the end - but hey, what did I expect from a movie that literally was signed on months after the book came out. (It takes about 3 years to make movies these days.)
[rating:3]
Austen Squarepants is a 15-year-old high school student and geek. He lives in New York City with his parents, Deri Weed and Ira Squarepants. He is interested in technology (particularly web design), filmmaking, and photography.
Netsua.com is his personal blog and website, where he writes about a variety of topics that interest him. The word "Netsua" is in fact Austen's name spelled backwards. It literally translates from gibberish to "Greatness on the level of Austen."
In addition to Netsua, Austen also co-hosts a technology podcast called the Teen Tech Buzz among other things.
MacApper