My blog

Please excuse my run on sentences, I feel it helps get the point across.

If you read this blog regularly (thank you if you are) then you have noticed that I publish a new post weekly. Well I have a problem with that! Having to write three paragraphs to the best of my ability each week is exhausting my writing. Writing is not something that can be pushed, it needs to come when you get inspiration. And when you have a busy life, inspiration comes more rarely and over all it is harder to write for a blog.

There are many influences in my life that really don’t help doing what I am doing right now. First is other school work, there are so many projects, and plain old work that when the time comes around to write a blog, you just don’t feel like anything good can come out of your pulsing head. Second is my social life, although I may not have much of a social life there is still enough chaos to give me a headache, but then I wonder what it’s like for other people. Third is my other writing, I am writing a book (which you will know if you read some of my previous entries) and I haven’t written a word in it for many weeks because my writing is going toward my blog (that’s not good).  All of these combined with the fact that my teacher marking this right now marks these blogs heavily really gets me out of the mood for getting my computer out and typing about a pointless topic.

Writing should be fun and enjoyable, but blogs aren’t. I realize that you, ***oh teacher***, have tricked almost our whole class into writing these blogs instead of writing journal entries, or short essays which are exactly the same. Now with this busy time of the year we are all very busy, (especially because of science fair) I ask that you lighten the load. ***It is but a dream to only do a blog entry once a month***(add a Shakespearean accent to those last star surrounded parts) but if that isn’t enough, then perhaps one every other week. And another thing, you have to mark every blog that’s written, so you have a lot of work out of our work. And lastly, in the one in seven billion chance that I have a fan of my blog, I apologize for scaring you with this information.

***Tristan*** =D

WATCHMEN (SPOILER WARNING)

There are only a few comic books that really make you think. Most of the time comic books have pointless superheroes fighting egomaniacal villains. Although Watchmen does have these elements, there is a huge amount of material that makes you ponder the way things are. Watchmen isn’t just a another comic book, it gets rid of the border between right and wrong, it gives a glimpse into an alternate reality, and it shows true human nature. Even though it is dark it’s possibly the greatest comic book ever made.


The book starts in 1985 with the murder of “The Comedian” who isn’t exactly a typical comedian (an assassin of sorts). After a failed police investigation, Rorschach (a costumed hero) does his own investigation in The Comedians apartment. It appears to Rorschach that there is a masked killer going after retired costumed heroes. Rorschach continues his investigation to find out who killed The Comedian while many other small side stories happen to reveal characters and an impending nuclear doom. When it all comes down to it, it turns out that it’s one of their own with a plot to prevent a war that could end the world but also kill millions of people. He had killed The Comedian because he figured it out. His plan was to use teleportation technology and a mutated creature to make it appear as in an alien tried to attack the world but failed. When other countries hear about this happening to the U.S.A. they stop fighting and offer help. In the long run the plan saved many lives but it also took many as well. It brings the ongoing question of what is right and what is wrong.


For every chapter there is a quote and some dense background info. The quotes always reflect on the events of the chapter. Some of them are from very famous people or places, such as Bob Dylan. The background info between each chapter contains information about character’s pasts, or other relavent information. Watchmen does contain adult...stuff, so reader discretion is advised for those who want to read it. All in all because of some very philosophical things, Watchmen is one of the best comic books ever made.

~Tristan J.R.M.~

Furry Fandom


Do you enjoy reading those newspaper comics about talking animals? Or find yourself staring at dog bobble heads? If any of these are true, or if you just have a liking for animals, you may be a “furry”. A furry is someone who likes anthropomorphic animals (animals with human traits). There is a huge world of furries on the internet, some good, and unfortunately, some bad. I will talk to you about some of the better stuff.

There are so many things involved in furry fandom. One such thing is artwork, out on the internet there are people who devote all of their skill to drawing Anthropomorphic animals, from web comics to full blown masterpieces. Many art sites feature an “Anthro” section, while some are dedicated to only furry art. There is also a lot of literature made in this genre. For example, Roar is a collection of short anthropomorphic stories. Once you see how much is out there, you realize that furry fandom is huge.

I really enjoy surfing around good furry sites on the internet. There is one web comic called Faux Pas (pronounced Fox Paws) which I absolutely love. There are also some great works of art on Deviant Art that I like to browse. I also enjoy watching fandubs on youtube, these are videos from animated movies, or stuff like that, with different voices added on top. All in all furry fandom is a very big part in my life.

Athos


Who knows what goes through a 9 year olds head.

During the summer when I was 9, I was very bored. To keep myself amused I would sit out on our deck in the warm sun with a pencil and a piece of paper. On that piece of paper something amazing happened. I poured out the extent of my imagination onto the white sheet. What came out of it was Athos.

Athos is an imaginary world that I made up. On it are islands, oceans, and every kind of landform you can imagine. I also made plants and animals that inhabit the whole planet; from fish and sea monsters in the ocean to canines and felines on the land. One type of animal I made is the liber, which is basically a liger. Another thing is the culture; most of the animals are nomadic and they all speak the same language. I made this language at the same time as everything else but due to some improvements I am making on it, I’m still working on that part. I had everything I could think of, down on paper.

Over the years I added island chains, continents, cave networks, and new rivers. It was quite cool how I made so much. Soon I sort of left it for a year then I heard about NaNoWriMo(which I have mentioned in a previous blog post). It was the perfect opportunity to continue Athos. And thus my book was born.

Right now my book is 20069 words long and counting. It’s full of everything; excitement, suspense, mystery, and a few philosophical moments too. I work on it whenever I get the chance, but it is still going slowly. When I can, I like to write at the bookshelf cafe. Being there really helps the speed and quality of my writing. With any luck one day it will be published and Athos will become a series of books, and maybe a bestselling series. It all came to me when I was 9 and it all evolved from there, and hopefully it will go much farther than it is now.

15 years ago the best TV station was first aired. The Discovery Channel was started in Canada and now reaches out to 170 countries on 29 network brands in 33 languages. It features amazing shows such as Mythbusters, Daily Planet, and Cash Cab just to name a few. Discovery Channel also offers HD shows, some of them include; Brainiac: Science Abuse, Time Warp, and Austen Steven’s Adventures. Because of the amount of awesome shows, and knowledge delivered to viewers, Discovery Channel is my favourite channel of all time.

Through the years D.C. has gone through many changes; from programming to looks, to advertising. For example, in the beginning, D.C.’s logo consisted of its name and a sphere in white with a black background. Now the logo is 3D and contains a detailed earth, which to be honest isn’t much different. Another thing, the shows that appeared ten or years ago were much different. You can imagine the old fashioned documentaries. Nowadays there are more in depth and exiting science shows (Brainiac Science Abuse especially).

All in all Discovery Channel is just plain awesome in every way possible. But the one thing that I would really like to point out before I finish is why D.C. is closely related to the meaning of life. If you are reading this blog you will probably notice the big “42” above this post. Well, Douglas Adams wrote in his book that the meaning of life is 42. I’m a big fan of this book and D.C. was channel 42 on our TV, coincidence, I think not!

There are thousands upon thousands of movies out there and even more books. The chances are that somewhere among all that entertainment, there are bound to be repeats. Eragon, for example, was an amazing book, but the movie was absolutely horrible. The plot was different and there wasn’t enough action. Harry Potter was another one, I guess it was unavoidable but there wasn’t enough of the original story; they left so many things out. Yet it still is enjoyable to watch. There are many examples of this but I do find a problem with it all.


Books leave most of the story to the imagination. Movies take that mental aspect away, but they can still provide entertaining visuals. Modern CGI is just getting better and better, so for some books it helps them to be turned into movies. Another issue is length; books can be as long as the author wants, whereas movies are almost always less than 3 hours. Given less time in a movie for character development can really change the way characters are understood by the viewers. In other terms, unless the movie adaption is really well done, it isn’t very good in my opinion.

Most of the time, movie adaptions don’t live up to their full potential. Many producers beg authors for the rights to make a movie; the book writer should take extreme discretion when making the decision. Although movies made from books aren’t always that good, they can still be entertaining... enough.

Technology is progressing at an incredible rate; “by 2013 there will be a supercomputer that will be able to do more computing than a human brain”. The question that I have next would be: if there will be a computer capable of doing more than a human brain, does that mean that in the future we could download our thoughts into a computer? Just think how cool that would be, and the possibilities it would bring. Our consciousness could go on forever. And if there was an interface which let video cameras be connected, we would be able to see. It’s all very strange when you think about it but on the other hand, one day it will be reality.

Like previously stated, technology is at a “boom”. First, the internet is expanding at an exponential rate. There are over 200 million users on MySpace, if that were its own country it would be the fifth largest in he world. Second is the raw technological information. Japan has developed a fibre optic cable that can push 14 trillion bits down a single fibre optic cable every second, and when you consider that there can be many more fibre optics in a single undersea cable, it makes you wonder how much information is out there. And finally is discovery. There are university students learning how to do jobs that don’t exist, with technology that doesn’t exist, to solve problems that aren’t problems yet! If we are able to solve all of the problems in the world (hunger for example) and we get every single human being focusing on our technological evolution there is no doubt that one day we will be capable of doing almost anything.


Facts from the video "Did You Know"