Black Ops

I have this weird love hate relationship with Call of Duty. I can't play the darn game for the life of me, and I think that violence to that extent in video games isn't very good for society. But despite my views it's still an interesting game, with a captivating storyline (for the most part) and incredible graphics. So, I can see the reasons why people would want to play. Call of Duty also has an incredible marketing campaign. I thought the TV commerical for Halo reach was awesome (and I still do) but this commercial is equally as good if not better.


It just makes me laugh. Especially the chef at the end.

Walkin the Line

Hey,

Zombie time again (never seems to get old). I watched The Walking Dead for the first time on AMC Friday night.

Here is the synopsis of the show I watched: This guy is handcuffed to a metal pole on the roof and zombies are about to attack him. Scene ends and it goes to this cop who is reunited at a camp full of humans that are up a mountain so zombies can't get them. They decide to go back to town and get the guy they handcuffed to the roof because they feel bad even though the guy they handcuffed is a big jerk (apparently).

Okay I'm done plot summarizing and I'll go into some detail about my thoughts because the entire show I was wondering "Hmmm would I do that in a zombie apocalypse?" because I ask myself that question every day anyway.

The episode was good. I didn't see as much zombie scenes as I would've hoped but I saw a preview for the episode after the one I had seen where they go back to the city to try and rescue the jerk guy. It looked like there will be some sweet zombie death scenes. But despite the lack of zombies they made great connections with characters which is essential in a zombie movie (and even more so in a show) because you want the audience to get involved and hope that the characters aren't eaten for dinner. They made the episode I watched more suspenseful than gory which I'm thinking was a set up for a more gruesome next episode.  I think that's smart, though if they didn't have a "stay tuned" feature at the end I don't think it would've been.


Okay if I was in a zombie apocalypse I WOULD NOT set up my camp up a mountain near a large city. That is stupid. I would go as far away from any large city because large city equals a lot of zombies. Maybe a smaller city like Brandon. You can go into the city and probably kill most of the zombies in a few trips and take as much food as you need from the grocery stores. Will Smith is a moron for staying in NYC during a zombie apocalypse, that's just asking for death. Anywho I already know where I'm heading if zombies decided to take over the world so I'm not worried.



But all in all it looks sweet. The trailer is awesome and made me want to watch the show from the beginning. Like a darker Dawn of the Dead meets 28 Days later. I know, I know I'm basing this off one episode (a moderately boring episode) but my argument is that with the nature of a tv show you have to keep audiences interested for longer periods of time. So moral of the story is don't make dumb episodes.

Vegetarian Zombies

Hi friends,

Guess what? It's zombie time again! I found a video game I can actually play. It's called Plants vs. Zombies. The easiest way I can think of explaining it is that zombies are attacking a house and you plant plants that attack the zombies. It looks like a weird game of chess where plants shoot some sort of weird plant like stuff at zombies that kills them. I like this video game because I can actually play it. It's not too complicated.

Here try it out for free! Click Here --> Zombie

And once you get farther in the game there are DISCO ZOMBIES! Oooh Ya!

MIND = BLOWN

So it was just a matter of time before something snowboarding related snuck its way onto this blog. I think I've watched this clip 7 times since I've discovered it 10 minutes ago. I have come to the conclusion that if I had to fall 100 times and break a bone, I would still snowboard. It would be the end of my world if I could never do it again.


A SHOT IN THE DARK TEASER INT - PROCESS FILMS from PROCESS FILMS on Vimeo.

My Life as This

If this show doesn't have a Season 2 I think it will be the end of the world.....

1973

The summer I received my first pair of glasses was the worst summer of my life. I could feel the thick heavy black frames sitting on my face, like a curse, as my dad sped down the freeway in our 1967 Vista Cruiser. I pulled off my glasses and tried to focus without them. I promptly shoved them back on my face, giving up the battle.

Nothing like sticking to hot seats sandwiched between two younger sisters and a little brother. Dad and mom were sitting in front, mom was perfectly poised in the passenger seat thumbing through the Eaton’s catalogue for sewing patterns for our back-to-school clothes in September. She gracefully lit another cigarette and smoothed out her skirt. It wasn’t much of a vacation for mom. She seemed put off from her regular routine of cleaning in the morning, preparing dinner in the afternoon, making herself up and having a drink ready for dad when he got home. She couldn’t seem to settle down the entire drive. 

The only thing I looked forward to on this vacation was the prospect of purchasing hockey cards at different gas stations until about South Dakota when hockey is replaced baseball. Both my sisters were reading the latest Archie comics and my brother was complaining to mom, again. The air in the station wagon was thick with smoke and sweat. Every time I tried to open a window my sister would complain that her hair would mess up and mom promptly told me to roll in back up. My brother’s annoying voice pierced the hot air.

“Mom! I want out now!” He screeched, kicking the back of her seat. My sister reached over and maliciously gave him a pinch in the arm. 

“Owwwwww!” he cried. 

“Charlie stop it! That’s enough!” my mom said flatly. My sister reached around and gave him one more pinch. 

“Owwwwww!” Charlie yelped for the second time.

At least this vacation down to Florida allowed me to escape the fight that would’ve ensued before I left. Bobby threatened me on the way home on the last day of school. He didn’t have his cronies around like usual so I turned around and socked him one. For a little guy I pride myself in fighting; no one has taken me down in a one-on-one fight. Bobby’s face was in the dirt as he turned around and looked at me, blood pouring from his nose and tears in his eyes. He started running home and yelled about how I was ‘so dead’ or something like that. I knew I was in for a beating considering most of Bobby’s friends where two years older then me and weighed twice as much.  Nothing beats visiting Grandma when you know a bunch of angry kids are waiting to pound you into the ground; maybe they’ll forget before I get home. I still wonder if it’ll hurt my chances at hockey try outs for the Kings this year. Mom made me go on this stupid trip instead of going to hockey camp. I touched my glasses one more time not quite used to the feeling yet.

 The polyester shirt my mom bought me for Christmas is itches so bad I wanted to rip it off and torch it. My dad lit his one hundredth cigarette of the day, and finally uttered his first sentence, if you even want to call it that. 

“We’re close,” my dad mumbled. 

Close to what? A burger joint? The can? A shopping centre? I rolled my eyes at the thought or another motel or rest stop with a giant bunny statue or the world’s largest hot dog. 

No, it was the beach. The giant sprawl of sand came up into view and with it the bright blue water. My dad slowly pulled over to the side of the freeway and we all shifted over to the windows. I can almost swear the entire vehicle tilted to one side. My dad pulled our station wagon over to the shoulder of the road as slow as humanly possible. With the crackle of gravel the car finally came to a stop.

I grabbed at the door handle in desperation and finally threw it open and ran towards the sign that read Milton Beach. I kicked the sand up behind me as I raced towards the water with my brother and sisters trailing behind.  I whipped off my shoes as fast as I could with the rest of my siblings doing the same. We all ran into the water fully clothed breathing a sigh of relief. My brother was the last to get in because he was five years younger and verging on the same weight as me; he took one look at me and smiled. What was that in his hand? A rock? No that was my shoe. That little bugger. He’s so dead. I waded over just as he tossed it in the water with a grin. It was on. I tossed him over and he had no chance, he was down for the count. I wrestled him a little bit more letting him get in a few hits here and there, but like I said I was quite a scrapper and he was much younger. I got him under water and held him there just in time to let him back up for some air and push him under again. To make sure he stayed down I could see a beach ball out of the corner of my eye. Perfect, I thought. I’ll just reach around and smack him so hard he’ll.... 

My body goes limp, I feel the blood rush to my head and my lungs fill with water as I collapse on top of my little brother. I can feel my weight crumpling on top of him. I reach out to grab him, but he’s gone. Panic sets in. Franticly I grab for him, thrashing my arms back in forth searching. Nothing. A sharp pain sears through my arm. I can’t breathe. Strong arms wrap around my body and pull my hard to the surface.

Dad. I see him. The back of the station wagon is dark. My mom hands me me sweater to bite on. The pain is intense and radiating up and down my arm. I roll over. The bright florescent lights on the hospital ceiling are blinding as I rock back and forth from side to side. 

“Son, you’re going to have to stop moving because I have to roll you over and put this needle in your left buttock cheek. It will help stop the pain,” a doctor says. Whatever. I don’t care just make it stop. 

“You’re lucky. A boy last week fell into a tide pool of Man-o-war by the beach,” the doctor says matter of factly. 

“Holy shit,” I say out loud. The pain is still bad, but I frantically look around the room for my mother. The last thing I wanted right now was to get the strap from mom. 

  “You know next time you reach for a beach ball make sure it’s actually a beach ball, loser,” my sister says at the beach the next day. The only way the pain will stop is when I hold my hand over my head and shake it violently back and forth. 

“You look like such a retard,” my sister continues.

“Shut up,” I say as I bring my hand back down and examine it. There are streaks of red and blisters all the way up my forearm. Man-o-war are a special breed of jellyfish that attract their prey by blowing up like a beach balls with radiant colours that reflect the sun. The tentacles wrapped all the way up my forearm before I passed out in the water.

“Hey you look like a retard,” mimics my brother as he runs by me towards the water. 

Short Story Review: The New Yorker

Alright so just a heads up this is an assignment. I wanted to find an apocalyptic short story but I couldn't find any published in The New Yorker before August 30/10. So, I randomly picked one called the The Warm Fuzzies by Chris Adrian. To my surprise it was a story about a large Christian family band. The main protagonist is a girl named Molly who kind of hates her life (I think). This probably wasn't the best story to go with because I'm sure I'll offend someone with this blog post. I'll try my best to tread lightly.

At first I thought this would be a good insight as to what living in a big Christian family would be like. I had liberty of seeing a traveling Christian family band from Branson when I visited My grandparents in Mesa and when I first started reading the story I thought "Wow this will be interesting." And for the most part it was pretty interesting at first, you really see through the characters eyes what living in a family like that would be like and also experiencing normal teenage emotions. But as the story continued I found myself kind of worried by what may happen. I wasn't quite sure if the author was trying convey a point or main message in his story, like maybe "like Christian musical families are weird" or "Being a teenage girl is a large Christian family sucks."  The family also fosters a black teenage boy who likes to dance. While I was reading the story I kept cringing at the thought of what sort of offensive boundaries this author is going to break.

So after I read the story I did a little research on the author. He has an English degree and also an M.D. and working in "pediatric oncology at a fellowship". So, I thought that was strange. He is a Christian doctor that writes stories for the New Yorker about living in a big Christian family and the weird stuff that goes on. Interesting. Okay I get it (I think).

But, aside from the weird uncomfortableness of this story I thought the writing style was pretty good. It had this weird third person passive type thing going that made the story kind of hard to follow but I think it worked for the context of this story and made it stronger. I also like the use of language and description. I think it needed a little tweaking here and there for clarity sake. I also found it long but I was able to follow along pain free for six pages without becoming too bored (which happens often). I like the little details (like all the sisters names started with M and all the brothers names started with C). I also enjoyed the descriptive-ness of the protagonists thoughts, I thought it was a uniquely written.

But all in all this story was still weird and there is no way of writing that can fix a weird story and make it less uncomfortable to read.

This short story appeared in The New Yorker in the September 27, 2010 issue.