Blogs

There are thousands of blogs on the Internet and a myriad of sites hosting them. They range from daily blogs to Current Affair Blogs. Some of them are lifestyle blogs while others focus on other topics such as Beauty or Gaming. They all have many things in common and are all entertaining in their own rights. Some Blogs make us laugh while others make us think. Some just keep us up-to-date with news while others educate. Some show us different (sometimes entrenched) views while others just provide the facts without opinion. One thing is for sure, all these blogs involve an individual's thoughts, often unmitigated. This is fantastic as it provides us with an online World rich in opinions and culture. Blogs really are wonderful things.

Image Source: http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/blog/web-links/assistive-technology-blogs/

I am going to use my friend (Xavier's) Current Affairs blog as an example. You guys should really check it out because it is very entertaining. As well as being entertaining this blog is also insightful (most of the time) and provides the facts as well as opinions so you know that however ridiculous it may sound it has some basis of fact. Also, under some posts there is a list of references (also known as a Bibliography) for further reading or to check some facts. This is very helpful as it can give an interested person some more information without the Blogger having to type anything else. Xavier's blog is a great example of the great use of Blogs today as it involves entertainment in the form of comedy as well as opinions and facts. There is also in-depth analysis in some of them as well as a lot of metaphors in others. I really recommend reading this Blog, it really is great writing.

Image Source: http://thetravelhack.com/blogging/top-travel-blogger-2012/

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Writers

We all have those television shows or movies we watch over and over again. These are the classics like Love Actually and Doctor Who which continue to draw in the viewers every year. These are the things we watch year after year without getting tired. Sure, the actors play a role but they do not make up their own words do they? Do you think Jack Nicholson just improvised "You can't handle the truth!" in A Few Good Men? Of course he didn't. Always, there were people there telling him what to say. Always behind the scenes creating the characters we have grown to love. Always there were writers and without them where would we be?

Image Source: http://www.diygamer.com/2011/11/volunteer-writers-wanted/

Remember those big television or movie moments that defined a generation of viewers? Remember the edge-of-your-seat writing of the great and glorious Alfred Hitchcock? How about the humorous yet romantic writing in Love Actually? Who could have possibly thought of the shocking plot twists in Revenge? The writers of course! To be able to write such thrilling and hooking drama must really show a skill. Their innate ability to leave clues throughout the movie or series only to be drawn together all in the final moments is a gift. These writers are like a breed of their own. They are one of the many unsung heroes of our world. Without them we would most certainly be lost.

Image Source: http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2011/08/on-importance-of-joining-writers-group.html

Where would we be without these writers? What would our television shows and movies be like? What of all the genres these writers create? With them gone does it all disappear? We would become a society with an entertainment system simply devoid of all entertainment. We would be living on facts without a creative bone in our existence. It would simply be evolved out of us. Someone unable to move for a long time has to teach themselves to move all over again. Our society would simply lose our creativity. We would have less architecture and more squares. Writers are artists and without them our lives become boxes. Boxes no one has even the slightest capacity to think out of. Writers are truly inspiring people and without them we stand to lose so much.

Image Source: http://leedsreads.net/tag/writers-groups/

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

50 Posts

If you didn't know this is the 50th Post on this blog and so today I just wanted to look back on some of my old posts as well as share some statistics along the way. This blog started on the 24th March 2013 (Sunday) and the first post was an introduction. I never expected my Blog to get this many views already and as I went to get the link for the first post I became the 1500th view. This is pretty cool because I expected I would get pretty low views around the teens if I was lucky and that it would take me 6 months before I could even think about making 1500 views. It only actually took until the 3rd of May when I hit 1000 views. This was just over a month since I started and I couldn't believe it. So today's post is for all my readers and thank you so much for coming back.

When I first started this blog I was lucky to get 10 views a day but now I get an average of 45 (talk about a rise). The highest amount of views I ever got in one day was 74 and that was also the day that I got over the 1000 views mark. The good thing about my views is that I never get below 40 a day anymore which is quite an achievement and which also means that I must get some people who read my blog regularly (not necessarily daily) and to those people I say thank you. If it wasn't for this I don't know how long I could have stayed motivated to write daily posts. I did miss a few days at the start of April because I was away but now I have mastered the scheduling tool which means that if I am busy or unable to write a post on a certain day I can write one in advance and schedule it for release on that day. I have done this numerous times recently and it really does help me keep this Daily Blog Daily.

Sometimes I wonder how I manage to keep writing my daily posts sometimes when my workload gets very high (which it does). Some of my friends have even asked me this question. The truth is I don't actually know how I manage it. I made a commitment when I made this blog that I would write regularly in it and I've tried to stick to this commitment as much as I can. By now it has become just a part of my daily routine. Get home from school, do homework, have dinner, finish homework, write blog post, relax, get ready for bed, go to sleep. It just seems normal to me now that I don't really think about it as a chore, I just sort of thing about as something I have to do every night and find time for it. I don't even know how I come up with some of these topics I discuss. It generally comes from something that happened during the day. For instance, yesterday I discussed books because in the morning we had an author (Michael Pryor) come in to talk to us at Assembly. Sometimes I don't even think about what I'm going to write until I start and then it takes a few goes to find a topic I can actually make a post about. Sometimes I write a few introductions before I find the topic I am going to discuss. So I don't know how I keep up this blog, but I do and that is partly due to the motivation my viewers provide (in the form of views).

That's all for today and I really want to thank you all for viewing my blog and reading my posts. It really does mean a lot to me, especially when someone comments. I really enjoy that interaction with the readers.

For the 50th time: May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Oblivion Review

My Rating: 9/10

Synopsis (Click here for source): 
Tom Cruise starts in Oblivion, an original and groundbreaking cinematic event from the director of TRON: Legacy and the producer of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs. Jack's mission is nearly complete.

Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows and puts the fate of humanity in his hands.

My Review:
Oblivion is a huge success and is one of the best action/sci-fi movies out to-date. The action in the movie is not in your face and the suspense just keeps you glued to the screen waiting to see what happens. An exemplary writing skill is shown in this movie as you are left questioning right to the very end and the writers make you believe something at the start and then they show that everything is not quite as it seems. It is a cinematic success and the dystopian landscapes with constant hints to well-known Earth landmarks, such as the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge, add another layer to an already multi-faceted movie experience.

The acting of Tom Cruise (as Jack Harper), Morgan Freeman (as Malcolm Beech, one of the 'rebels'), Olga Kurylenko (as the stranger from Jack's past, a past he has no memory of) and Andrea Riseborough (as Victoria, Jack's partner [in work and bed]) is exceptional and adds yet another layer to the movie. The characters at the start seem entirely different to what they do at the end and this is partly due to the acting because no matter how good a script, if you don't have good actors playing the parts then the story is just unbelievable.

So that is another thing that provides this movie with some intrigue, it is believable. Despite the sci-fi aspect it is still a realistic futuristic Earth, ravaged by war of the greatest scale ever witnessed, that can be related to because of the use of famous landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge and they explain how the Earth got to how it did.

Overall it is a great movie which is why I gave it 9/10. I am not usually a fan of action movies but there isn't a lot of in-your-face action like Batman, or Iron Man, or any movie really where the last three letters are M-A-N. I really recommend this for teenagers and older (do not take your kids) and even my grandmother loved it and she doesn't like action movies, or sci-fi for that matter. So I urge you to watch this movie.

In other news: Today I had an award ceremony for the Fellowship of Australian Writers because I had submitted a selection of 10 writing pieces to a competition and my work got Highly-Commended (the one under Won) and there were only 4 people (out of hundreds) who actually got any recognition for their work. (1 person got Commended, 2 got Highly Commended and 1 won). Plus, this was an Australian-wide competition so it is really cool that I won.

Also, check out my friend Xavier's Awesome blogs! They are great because Xavier has just a natural sense of humour so you'll definitely enjoy them! Check them out here: Daily Xavier (wonder where the idea of that name came from [he made his after I showed him mine by the way]) and Xavier's Thoughts on Current Affairs

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!