Today Jordan Wieber, American women's gymnast, failed to pass on to the final all-around by the slightest of margins. Even though she still gave one of the most powerful performances that would have otherwise qualified her, there is a strict 2-gymnast-per-country limit for the final round. Commentators and news anchors discussed whether or not this should be allowed, and there are diverging opinions. What's yours? In other Olympic sports it's possible to have three people from one country o
Fairytales are wonderful stories that spring from archetypes hidden in our simplest of fantasies. At the center of it all is "The Hero". The main character is usually quite special for a number of various reasons. Sometimes he or she has a special talent, or he or she is royalty. Sometimes he or she is more persevering than everyone else or he or she has outstanding strength of character. Sometimes he or she is curious, or simply defies the expectations of society. Something makes him or h
So here are a few random things that stood out to me: The guy with the red turban during Canadian's segment was cool. At least, the turban was. I love the simplicity of Canada's color scheme. It was pretty cool the way China had a really tall guy as their flag bearer. Denmark is one of the most competitive non-Asian nations in Badmitton Djibouti is one of my favorite country names, and the commentators on the channel I was watching agreed. Baseball is the most popular sport in the Dominica
As I write this, the opening ceremony is in full swing. It's actually very cool. The opening part was kind of boring. I understand where they're coming from, showing the transformation from agrarian to industrial society, but the agrarian aspect was a bit subtle for an event about pomp and circumstance. I don't know how you could build into the industrial revolution dramatically enough without a small beginning, though. The revolution, however, was really cool, and in keeping with the spi
So often I see good stories ripped apart because they were predictable. The judgment is passed underneath the narrow assumption that predictability is inherently bad and that unpredictable stories are always desirable. Following this logic, films such as Titanic and The Lion King would be the scourges of cinema, forgotten and hated by all but the most simple-minded viewers. The Velveteen Rabbit would be nothing special to anyone. The only truly good films would be Clue and The Sting, the onl
Rene Descartes made famous the line "Cogito ergo sum", translating to "I think, therefore I am." Like a good Neoplatonist, he sought out to prove only things that could be reasoned through means such as mathematics. Yet, what if his math was wrong? What if our reality is completely warped and 2+2 really equals 5 (which in fact it does, for really high values of 2). And really, what if self-awareness is just an illusion, since how can a unique configuration of atoms known as the brain really
Superman has been portrayed by George Reeves and Brandon Routh, both natives to Iowa. While we're on it, I might add that Captain James Tiberius Kirk was born in Iowa, too. That is, the William Shatner version. I would love to play either role in a movie or TV series. Probably not, but if I ever become an influential voice in the movie business I will make sure to get involved the next time the franchise is relaunched and make sure the actor is Iowan. My second choice would be someone fro
The Dark Knight Rises, like its predecessors, breaks the traditional flow of superhero films and perfects the tone that director Christopher Nolan has been working on throughout the series. Said tone is very formal and fancy, like the charity ball that Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle attend in the first act. It's the type of polish that I often see in Oscer-winning Best Films, and I have to wonder if Nolan was aiming for that. Therefore, instead of employing a glib spree of action and super-fight
June 21 As everyone who's been following this blog knows, I went to the hospital after passing a kidney stone. My mother had rented a car and was going to return it that morning, but since we spent some time at the hospital she payed to have it for one more day. The IV sucked. I hate needles as it is, and an entire tube up my arm was a nightmare from a body horror film. Anyway, as we headed back we picked up stuff from a convenience store, including sandals (buy one get one free). They we
A gunman in Aurora, Colorado recently walked in to a screening for The Dark Knight Rises fully loaded with weapons and open-fired on the audience, killing 12 and wounding 38. Among his tools included tear gas, a shot-gun, and assault rifle, a pistol, and SWAT team garb. He claimed to the the Joker and the arch-nemesis of Batman. This is clearly a sick, twisted individual. I don't know why he did what he did, and frankly it's not my concern. What matters is that people are dead, and they ca
June 20 We went to animal kingdom and it began to rain. A lot. The demons of misfortune seemed to be stalking me, because there were a ton of puddles and my shoes got soaked all the way through. My socks even got soaked all the way to the top, and I was wearing a long pair of socks. I label this day as "grumpy day". I get grumpy when something consistently causes me discomfort of nuisance all day long, such as wet feet. Finding Nemo Anyway, I went to that Finding Nemo musical. I was a
Alright, I figured I should have started this for some time now, and even though this is all belated, I did write down all my experiences in a notebook for a reason. So, without further...: June 19 We arrived at Disney World. One the way there from the airport we came across a Harry Potter shop advertising Universal Studios. I don't label myself a fan of Harry Potter, but I do like it, so i went over and played around with stuff. I tried on one of those long scarfs and really liked it, alt
For the last couple of years I told people that "When I live in a dorm, I'm going to have a totally hot poster ... of the Periodic Table of the Elements." It was funny how that would always take people off guard. Plus it's true, because I have one hanging over my bed and I'm so used to it by now.. However, it seems that my sisters, who bought me early birthday presents to prepare me for college, decided I could do with something more human. You know, to give people the impression that I wasn
In my first review, I urged people to watch it and then rewatch it. Not wanting to be a hypocrite, I did exactly that yesterday and fell in love all over again. My only regret is not being able to see it in 3D, which I think would have actually been one of the best 3D experiences ever. To make up for that, I sat so close to the screen that it literally took up my entire vision. For good measure, I sat on the edge of my seat. Every once and a while a movie comes along that really blows me a
Me: This is a drawing of a character of mine, a villain of Shakespearian style. Grandma: Oh, how terrible! Why would you ever want to write something so dreadful? Me: Okay...How about I tell you about a romantic comedy I've been writing? Grandma: That's very nice. Me: The main character has to put up with a bully. Grandma: Oh, how terrible! Can anyone relate to this? Any similar stories? Merida
From now on, whenever I see a recent theatrical release I will write a review of it here. I do the same in the Last Film You Watched topic, but that includes all films. This blog is reserved for current theatrical releases, and I will tend to these reviews first and foremost. My reviews will remain spoiler-free, and I won't bother rating them. While unprofessional, they should provide fair coverage, and I hope that there people who browse blogs who will appreciate the effort. In the future,
The film was designed to be more contemporary. It's a bit difficult, considering how clearly Spider-Man falls into the category of a prototypical hero in bright tights, in contrast to figures like the armored Batman or Green Arrow wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, but in some ways The Amazing Spider-Man is visibly the result of a superhero genre that has gradually been evolving since Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. The Amazing Spider-Man takes off in a different direction than Raimi's
That didn't literally happen, but they did somehow get to where I kept it and they chewed it all up. It really made me angry. As they are female dogs, I sometimes use words to describe them when alone or around people who don't judge me by my language, though I remain profanity free when around my super-sensitive sisters. This time, though, I didn't hesitate to unload a couple of choice words on those dogs. I never wanted them anyway, because I knew stuff like this would happen regularly.
Maieutism is an old Greek idea that truth is innate within the mind. This is tied to Plato's ideal that the universe is based upon archetypes such as math, and that everything is a derivative thereof. Since the human mind is capable of reason, he considered it to be a higher reality than the physical world because it suggested to him that the mind, especially a reasonable mind, required less integrating to get to the root archetypes. Understanding of greater truths had to be obtained by reaso
I'd like my new banner To look like my regular banner. If you look closely there's a border in my Gali banner, but Gali herself and the items in the foreground fit over it. There's also some shine added to the picture coming from the upper right hand corner. Elements of the background have a little extra gloss added to them, and if you look carefully there are also diagonal lines. These are features I'd like to apply to all my new banners from now on. If people could explain how e
On my trip to Disney World last June, I got off to an interesting start. On the second day, I began to notice pains while urinating. Since I have experienced exponentially worse pains before as far back as 5th grade and as recently as last August, I didn't think much of it. My concerns jumped up a few levels when I noticed that my urine was looking to be an unusual shade of orange, and I freaked out when I later produced a solid drop of blood. I called out to my mother and she set up an app
The other day I got done watching through old footage of the 1996 female Olympic gymnasts perform in Atlanta. This was, according to my mother, the first Olympics I ever watched, although I was a little tyke back then and I didn't remember anything. I found it very interesting to watch, especially since one of my favorite sports nowadays is gymnastics because of how truly athletic it is. A cousin of mine coaches it (who, by the way, had the same coach as Shawn Johnson), and she described what
I was thinking about it and I realize there are different types of philosophy. There's life philosophy, which was the type that I was referring to in my last two topics. But then there's stuff like my writing philosophies, which are the underlying archetypes within my mind that define my opinions on literature. Yet, I'm a little weary of saying "writing philosophy", since how is that different from saying "writing opinions"? I don't like the idea of the two words being interchangeable. For
