A Boring Afternoon

I made this yesterday. Enjoy!

Mushrooms

My brother and I bought some candy that came in mushroom shaped tins. They are from the Mario games. The blue one is the only one that remotely tastest like it was meant for human consumption, I wouldn't eat any of the others unless I hated myself. Still, they are some seriously cool tins. If you want to buy some you can go to Toys R Us or Bed Bath and Beyond.

SPORE!

SPORE CAME OUT TODAY!

My Spore Creatures

Here they are.

Clouds

My most recent hit internet video. (Okay so it isn't really a hit)

Hancock

Hancock is a movie about a alcholic "superhero" who everyone seems to hate. That would probably be because he does things the easiest way, not the cheapest or the safest (everytime he starts flying he leaves behind a spray of debris.)

It had cool special effects, good acting, and Will Smith ^_^ . It also has a pretty significant plot twist about halfway through, either the viewer will love it or hate it (I liked it) which kinda makes me wish I hadn't read the spoiler online.

The only complaint I had was that in scenes with conversation there was always an extreme close up on the face of the person speaking, which after a while can become a little bit tiring.

Personally I thought the movie was great. It wasn't focused too much on the boring stuff, like romance, and it did focus on the important stuff, humor and action. I would recomend this to most people out there who would like to watch a good summer comedy.

Rating: A

Oh Really?

YEAH REALLY!

The Dark Knight

Yeah, those other people were right, it's definitely a really cool movie. It's one of the few sequels out there that is better than the original!
Everyone who was acting in the movie was, in my opinion, a good actor. The new lady playing Racheal Dawes is way better than Tom Cruise's wife, sadly her acting is cut way back about halfway through (See the movie, you'll get what I mean.) Heath Ledger made a really good, I mean bad, Joker (seriously, he was downright creepy.) Christian Bale is a great Batman, AGAIN! Michael Caine is a fantastic Alfred. And Morgan Freeman is still Lucius Fox, the Q of Batman.
Clocking in at two and a half hours made you feel like you really got your money's worth. The story could have ended about half way through the movie and you would have felt that you got all the bang for your buck. But it kept on going for another hour or so and made you fell like you were ripping off the movie theater!
It isn't a kid's movie, unless your kid is a hardened movie watcher. In fact it may be a bit much for some adults! But if the disturbance gets to bad just use the ever so subtle, pretending to study the architecture of the theater tactic (It worked for me, but don't tell anyone.) Even though it doesn't show any internals (District Attorney's excluded) the film gave you enough of the violence for you to connect the dots.
I would most definetly suggest this movie to anyone, unless your under 14, suck at pretending not to be disturbed, or prefer watching films like "The Pride and the Prejudice."






Normally I'd show a photo here but I figure you know how to google stuff.






A++

September 7

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Spore Creature Creator

The Spore Creature Creator is a very cool tool. It allows you to build animals with wild body designs, and some pretty cool appendages.
You might be concerned that it will take up a ton of memory on your computer by having to render, and animate your creature. But fear not, since it uses predone mathematical calculations to animate and render your creature it doesn't require much from your computer.
It is also fun to test out the creatures. In the test mode you can make them walk, display emotions, dance, and do things that you would expect from animals. Sometimes it can be sad though to have made a really cool animal, only to find out it moves like it's internals are in pain, or that it has some weird twitch.
One other thing that is a bit disappointing is how basic the editor is. Sure you can adjust the spine and move all sorts of things around, but as far as edges go it is pretty bad. Every shape you make is round and when you scale it, it scales all edges, not just one side, say if you wanted to make a wide short creature. The paint doesn't have quite all the textures you might want either. But other than a few downsides it is all good.
At ten bucks the editor is pretty cheap and allows you to do all sorts of fun things, it also provides you with tools to capture and upload video, take picturs, and make .gifs. If you have ten bucks to spare and are looking forward to Spore, I suggest that you get a copy of this game, if your not sure there are tons of trial versions you can try. In my opinion this was ten bucks well spent.


A+

Lego Indiana Jones

Even though the most recent Indiana Jones game is devoid of blood, heart-rip-outs, and *sniff* the Wilhelm Scream, it is still a lot of fun to play. Especially in two player.

The first thing I would like to point out is, the two player. All of the levels can be played by two people at once. From the very beginning. You can choose to be helpful, or not. You can blow your friend to pieces with most weapons you choose weather it be fists, rocket launchers, pistols, machine guns, hand grenades, swords, crossbows, spears, feet, or random objects kicking around the environment. You could also help out by building, holding bridges open, or fending off the Nazis/village people/crazed knight. Two player is definitely the best way to play (the computer that plays as the other guy when your not in two player has the IQ of a retarded ant.)

One thing that isn't so fun is the all to common glitches. In one level you must scare birds so they will collide with the enemies airplane. In order for it to be adapted to a video game there are three flocks of birds that you have to scare. But, if you accidentally scare them in the wrong order the game freezes up. Some of the items you carry can be dropped. If you drop it in the wrong spot it seems to be teleported to somewhere else in the space-time continuum and isn't able to be recovered, meaning you have to restart the entire level! Often you yourself will get stuck in weird grooves on the not flat ground. Most of these should have been wiped out when the game was tested.

Something that is very interesting is the way all of the movies have been made into Lego. Watching Indy stare down into the pit with Sallah and his Dad was funny in the movie and equally funny in the game. Some of the movies elements were even matched in the levels such as the temple of the grail.

If you enjoy having an inventory of almost sixty people, don't mind a few glitches, or are a fan of the series, this would be a good game to get. You can easily beat the game in several hours, but with tons of secrets and bounuses to unlock it has days, upon days of replay time.

Indiana Jones the Fourth

So you thought the original Indiana Jones movies were good but you're afraid that the fourth one won't hold up to the previous films and ruin them all for you. Don't worry this series hasn't gone the way that Pirates of the Caribbean has.
The film gets right to the chase pretty quickly, within the first ten minutes Indiana Jones is unveiled and is already being uncooperative towards the Communists. Soon the action picks up and an inside joke is unveiled. Indiana Jones crashes a truck through a bunch of crates in Area 51 (the place with all the crates in the first movie) one of the crates he crashes through shows part of the Ark of the Covenant.
Shia Labeouf does a good job acting as well. Lots of critics thought he was just a normal boring character. But to me, a normal person, I thought he was pretty funny as Mutt Williams the 50's style punk. The dialogue between Ford and Labeouf was also pretty funny.
Lots of the things people loved are still in it. Exciting chases, fights, and temple traps. There is even a supernatural rescue. The badguys aren't Nazis but they're still evil and big at the set time.
They also did a good job of incorporating a ton of things that were important to the 1950's. They had everyone's fear of the Soviet Union, everyone's fear of atomic bombs, and, of course, everyone's fear of (stop reading if you want the plot kept a secret) aliens. When the Soviet Union lady asks Jones if he has any defiant last words he replies, "I like Ike."
And to those who are fans of the series, don't worry, the Wilhelm Scream is still a part of the Indiana Jones movies! When Indiana Jones and long lost son are riding through a library on a motorcycle they knock some guy over and he lets out a Wilhelm. Aoooughhahh!
If your looking for a fun film that isn't as gruesome as the first three this would be a good one. Just remember, if you don't watch this one then the Communists win!




No one's calling him "Junior"



A+

Iron Man

If you expected this movie to be as bad as the Fantastic Four or Spider-Man, don't worry, Marvel's most recent adventure in superhero movies is actually, well, good!
Tony Stark's gagillion (note: It's higher than a billion) dollar company provides some good financial support for his ridiculously expensive suit. And it's one of the only superhero movies I've seen that has to do with terrorism in the Middle East (kind of graphic, but not mindless street thugs).
Iron Man even has some pretty good special effects. As he is shot and crashes the suit's paint job continues to get more and more scratched up. The scene in which he basically has a fight with some airplanes is really, really cool. He also has a really awesome computer!
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior) isn't big headed *cough*PeterParker*cough* even though he's a billion dollar guy.
The plot is pretty good. It explains where the suit came from and gives a detailed description on how it was built. The amount of time that the bad guy is in it could have been increased, but without him most of the time it was actually okay.
I enjoyed the movie. Some of it was inappropriate for children, and by that I mean that it probably has the highest body count for all superhero movies combined! But other than that it was pretty good. If Spider-Man disturbed you with his boringness, don't worry, Iron Man was not affected by the previous Marvel movie's flops.

He's angry that you might not have watched it yet.

Mario Kart Wii

To start out I'd like to say that Mario Kart Wii is an awesome game. It's very fun and has tons of features.
The Grand Prix and the VS are still familiar enough to keep long time fans happy. The battles and races have changed, mainly because you can now play with twelve people instead of eight. You can still play four player all on one Wii but you can only play two on a Wii when you go online.
That's brings up another good point. The online play has drastically improved from Mario Kart DS. There is less lag making it a more fun experience and the game finds people for you to play much faster. With the friends system you can easily locate and join them! Even without the disk using the Mario Kart channel.
Some of the unlockable features require a ton of work to get. But none of the characters have any drastic advantages so if your a Mario Kart noob then you'll still survive the only play.
It's easy enough that people new to the franchise can still play and possibly keep up with the veterans of the franchise.
In conclusion I'd like to encourage you to buy this game if you already haven't. Who knows, maybe I'll even play against you online (my name on there is "Nolan".)

Rating- Double A+

Huo?

"What's a huo?" You ask. A huo (prounounced "huh") is basically a made up animal. This animal isn't exeptionally smart and has a love for many things (including chicken wings and Slurpees). Huos come in a variety of types, you can pretty much make up your own if you want (if you have any great ones please reply on this post). They are gassy and pretty much enjoy their lives. Now that my brother, Squishy Huo (a.k.a Jesse) is on you can expect to see many more things huo related.

Bald Father

Well today was St. Baldrick's Day. That means that a bunch of people get people to sponsor them in shaving their heads. All of the proceeds go to research for battling child cancer. The best part is that my dad, whom I have never seen bald before, took part in it! Yay!

Before

After

Bike!

Guess who got a new Cannondale bicycle.

Now I can hit the streets in style!

Brother's Stop-motion

Since taking my brother's stop-motion off my Youtube account screwed up the old posts, I'm going to post them all in one post. Enjoy.
Squid Attack


Squid Attack II


Stikfa Combat




Stikfa Combat II

Cookies!

Here is a stop-motion I did. It's about the wonderful joys of baking cookies!

As you might imagine, this took a loooooooooong time to make.
Below is the recipe.

1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flower
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate pieces
1 cup shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 375F (190C). In a large bowl, beat together butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs until light and fluffy. Add flour, baking soda, and salt, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate pieces and coconut, if desired. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove cookies from baking sheets; cool on racks. makes 100 (2-inch) cookies.

Indiana Jones

Here is the latest film I've worked on, with the help of two others (my brother and his friend from school.) Oh, and actually turn on your speakers, this one has sound!

As you can see it is a copy of Indiana Jones.

Professor Layton Art

As you can see I've drawn a picture of Professor Layton from the game. I started out drawing all the outlines in pencil, then I scanned it into the computer and let PhotoShop do the work from there. I used the paint brush for most of this, mainly the outlining and the coloring.

Pogo!

My grandparents came to visit us this week, and with them they brought their dog Pogo

Yay for Pogo!

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

I would like to start out by saying that this game is amazing! It isn't as you would expect from a puzzle game. What I would think would be in a puzzle game is a boring menu, no animated movies, no stories, and a boring presentation. But what came out was amazing. It has an amazing story, great animated cutscenes, interesting characters, and it is simple enough for anyone to play. The story is a lot like Paper Mario stories, it has strange twists, weird characters, and even though it is drawn to look strange, it manages to come off as serious. The supporting character, Luke (Layton's apprentice) isn't annoying like Tails is in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Professor Layton is a cool character too, he doesn't come off with any lame catch phrases, he isn't loud and obnoxious (He is willing to admit he's wrong even if he isn't), and he is smart.

The navigation of the game doesn't feel hassled because it shows you where you have to go with a relatively simple map and it isn't like navigating impossible streets.

There isn't a shortage of puzzles. Pretty much any time you talk to someone they will give you a puzzle, but since you can go back later and find old puzzles it isn't necessary to worry much about it. The puzzles are all very fun, even if some are difficult to do it provides you with something to think about and wrestle with.

The dialogue isn't annoying either, when a character talks to you it is usually brief and doesn't feel like a hastle. If you don't feel like doing anything you can get away with just walking around looking for something to do.

And not to mention the art! Everything is hand drawn and it looks a lot like a form of Anime or Manga. The cutscenes look like an actually animated TV show , there aren't too many, so you aren't waiting for their talking to end and the characters move enough so that it doesn't feel like your just watching an enhanced version of the game, plus when talking (in the game or in the cutscenes) the characters mouthes actually move with the words. As if this wasn't already enough, the music is pretty good too.

I haven't even finished this game and I'm already looking forward to the second and third Professor Layton. With wonderful art, music, story, gameplay, and characters this is one game that you don't want to miss.

A+

Mario Cake

For my brother's twelth birthday (or today) my Mom made him a cake. The cool part about this is that it wasn't just any cake, this cake had a picture of Mario on it.

As you can see my mother is a wonderful cake maker.

Fridge-Motion

As you can see I decided to do a short stop-motion on my fridge. The best part is that it took less than a half-hour to make.

The Faceless Man

So for my mom's birthday, she got some Adobe software. One of the items was Adobe Photoshop. I was playing with it some, and it has this really cool feature called Patch, it takes part of the picture and replaces another part, and it makes the colors match!!! So here is something I did with yesterday's photo.

Bloody Nose

So today was French Salad Dressing day. So the entire class got mustaches drawn on their faces. Now for Valentine's Day we all we're allowed access to red paint. I didn't know what to do with mine, so I gave myself a bloody nose with it. Enjoy!

Blue Beard

Okay, so this week at school has been school spirit week. This week's theme has been salad dressing. Today was Bleu Cheese Day and as you can see from below, the theme was dress in blue.

So pretty much the entire class did something along these lines, this was made possible because the teacher left blue paint at our disposal. Believe me, it isn't fun taking it back off.

N

N is a game based on Ninjas, for no reason you must collect gold, if you don't... you die. Although the game is free it is more fun than some games that I've payed fifty dollars for. The only three things you can do are move left, move right, and jump; but with the games excellent graphics and complex physics system, these three things can be combined any number of ways. To get through each level you have to find the door switch, press it, and unlock any other doors in your way, after that go through the door.
With its 500 levels plus how ever many users created (an option that you can use if you don't want to play the levels made by the developers) and the ability to make your own (press ~ or / at the main menu) this is a truly great game.
So head on over to http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/ to download the game for free. Oh and it takes up almost no memory on your hard drive.

GTA Coke

A really funny Coke ad making fun of Grand Theft Auto

One Question

I've only got one question for you.

I Am Legend

I Am Legend is a pretty good movie. Although the zombies appear really stupid looking if you see them too long (The very first one he sees is wearing golf pants) they manage to startle you when they jump out of a dark doorway making guinea pig sounds. The plot is very good all except for the ending *spoiler alert* where he sacrifices his life to safe some people that most of the movie goers won't care about, other than that it's all good (but the dog dies.)
Some of the coolest special effects don't even occur when Will Smith is fighting freaks who want to eat his flesh, the very best effects are the way New York City was aged. The weeds poking through the cement, the cars stopped in their places, and the buildings covered in quarantine plastic.
When Will Smith isn't fighting it definitely isn't boring due to lack of dialogue, even though 80% of the movie only has Robert Neville and has dog, the directors have filled the plot with flashbacks and interesting things for Will to say to his dog, such as,"Eat your vegetables, I'm not kidding now."
Most of the zombie stuff is only mildly scary and the blood is kept to a minimum. The part with probably the most violence in the whole movie is when he sets a trap for them and starts mowing 'em over in his SUV.
In conclusion if you're looking for a good movie to go see, this would be a good one to see, unless you have really small children.

Yesterday's Lunch

Yesterday I ate this really weird fruit called the Oroblanco
The fruit tasted alot like Grapefruit, but was a little sweeter. Also the peel was about one inch thick. The skin tasted gross but if you just ate the insides it was actually pretty good.

Short Horror Film

Today I was sitting at our computer desk in my home wondering what I should do. I wanted to make some stop motion with our new webcam. So I did. Here are the results of that boredom, I call it Pirate Horror