New Addictions

So you may remember that I have already written a post on addictions back in May. This one will be a little different however. This one is going to be about new addictions and the sources from which we attain them. We can not always realise that we are addicted until we look back and realise how much a certain thing had taken over our lives or become such a major part of it that to live without it was something bad. These addictions can be really annoying when we need to get something done and we keep getting distracted.

Source: http://www.businesspundit.com/5-best-and-worst-addictions-to-cultivate-during-2009/

Can you guess where that last sentence came from, well, why I chose to write it. I am trying to write this post but I keep getting distracted by Fringe. This brings me on to the new addictions part of this post. My friend, Xavier, is always going on about Fringe, a science-fiction show he really enjoys. He has since gave it to a few friends to watch and so now many of us are hooked on this show. In some ways this is great because I needed something to help me relax after a busy term and before even busier exams. Friends are a major source of our new-found addictions. They may mention or recommend things for us to watch, see or do which we then find ourselves enjoying so much that we continue watching it and fall in love with it. With Doctor Who I saw one episode in school at the end of Term 2 and then I fell in love with show. I began to watch it and hence found a new addiction. New addictions can be the worst because sometimes it is too late before we realise it and we can not bring ourselves to stop it.

New addictions come from many sources, see you tomorrow!

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!

Competition

Competition can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. It can be used to motivate people to aim for something higher. It could even be used as an incentive such as if you do this you will beat that person you have always wanted to beat. However, it can also be used as a de-motivator and can sometimes cause more harm than good. Sometimes too much competition can lead to psychological issues which are certainly not good.

Competition is one of the best motivators around. It acts as an incentive for someone to do something just for that thrill they get when they win or beat someone. Sometimes we have people we have never been able to beat and so when the opportunity arises to change this, we take it. I know some people who wouldn't do something unless it meant beating someone. A good example of this is my friend Xavier and Language Perfect. Xavier is obsessed (and I mean me to Hunger Games obsessed) with beating me in Language Perfect. Even though he cannot access it from home he still spends hours during school to gain points. Currently he is beating me but by a very small margin so I will overcome him pretty shortly. So competition can be used as something to motivate a person to do something, it is quite an effective motivator as well.

However good competition may be too much of a good thing often leads to a bad thing. Too much competition can have a big effect on a person's life. Sometimes competition can even control their lives to the point where things are being ignored just so that they can beat that one person they have always wanted to beat. Again, I use Xavier and Language Perfect as an example. Xavier, as he is unable to go on at home, has to go on during school and this does not mean just lunch time and recess. He does it during class time which means he is missing out on prime revision material (it's revision week for us) which could have a negative impact on his exam scores next week. Other cases of competition being a bad thing is for those around the person (or even the person themselves) who might develop psychological issues from this competition such as trauma, obsession or depression. So no matter how good competition may be, too much is not good. Competition is very important but we need to keep careful watch on how much competition we have. Some competition is good but too much is bad.

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

Excitement

We all get excited from time to time. Even the most serious of us have had one moment of excitement in their lives. Excitement can make us anxious and nervous but in a 'good' way. I put good in quotation marks because I can as this is my blog and I can write what I want. Why am I writing about excitement? Because tomorrow is my Birthday (YAY!) and I'm turning 16 (I can get a  Second Life account now!) which is super exciting. So in today's post I am going to talk about the things that excite me because I'm too excited to do a deep and meaningful post about excitement. How many times can I write excitement in this post about excitement? Check at the end for the final excitement count for this post (about excitement)!

One of the main things that excites me is THE HUNGER GAMES! If you don't know what the Hunger Games is where have you been? The moon perhaps. I just totally LOVE The Hunger Games and got super excited when the teaser trailer for CATCHING FIRE was released. In fact I wrote a blog about it where the whole first paragraph was a link to the trailer. Hell, let's do that again. Click anywhere on this paragraph and you can watch the Catching Fire Trailer again! Then watch it a few more times while you're there AFTER you finish reading my blog. I don't know why I like The Hunger Games I just do and I get really excited about it and I can't wait until November 22nd! If you don't know the significance of this date, click anywhere on this paragraph! I get so excited about The Hunger Games that anytime The Hunger Games Adventures (a Facebook game) updates I have a little fan-girl-ing  session for a little bit because I get to play it again! It's so exciting and I just love how it ties into the movies and books  and even has its own parts and adventures! PLUS it has a map of Panem! So yeah, I get pretty EXCITED when it updates and I get to play it. I guess I just get excited about The Hunger Games. I got the movie soundtrack from my cousin for being her Confirmation Sponsor the other week and as soon as I got home I was listening to it. I was so EXCITED! I'm sorry if I use caps-lock too often or too many exclamation marks, I'm just really excited!

Language Perfect! Need I say more? I just really love Language Perfect (but not in the love way but as in I really like Language Perfect, don't get any MORE ideas Xavier) and find it a very useful tool for my French Studying and it also makes it fun and I get my friends involved (mostly Xavier) who want to beat me. One of my friends tried to beat me last year but whenever she got ahead I got even further ahead of her. Language Perfect is really a great resource and I get really EXCITED when I get to 'play' it. For me Language Perfect equals excitement and one of my friends can tell you the story of my face when I couldn't access it one day last year, priceless. I was just so excited! Language Perfect, go check it out!

The final thing I am really super duper (did I just type duper?) excited about is King Kong Live on Stage which is the new King Kong musical premiering next month (well, actually the preview shows start at the end of this month) which I have been super excited about since October 8, 2012 when I saw the ad for it on Facebook and saw the announcement they did (on October 7, so I've been excited about it for almost the whole time it's being announced) and I just got really excited for it and can't wait to see it because I know it is gonna be awesome! I'm really excited about it and I know I'm getting tickets to go see it for my Birthday (which yeah, is tomorrow [EXCITED]) and I'm just so excited to see the musical that I have been looking forward to for so long. It's from the company Global Creatures who did the ones like Walking with Dinosaurs except this time they're doing a musical with its world premiere at the Regent Theatre Melbourne which is going to be awesome and I am just super excited about it! I can't wait, the excitement is killing me (figuratively of course).

So that's just some of the stuff that really excites me and I know today's post isn't as meaningful or as well-written as some of my previous ones but I'm just so excited I can't think straight!! I just can't wait for all these things and I am really EXCITED!!!! Now for the all exciting, word count for the word excite. The word excite (and all the words that can be made from it (i.e. excited)) has been used 38 times in this blog post, have fun finding them all or just be satiated by using the find (ctrl+f) function.

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!

Good Friday, Survivor and SongPop

So yeah, today was Good Friday and that means the Good Friday Appeal!

It also means waking up before 7am to get to the Fire Station by 7am! It was worth it though and our Brigade raised $72,485.50! This all goes towards the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal. You know, there isn't anything better than knocking on Strangers' doors asking for money!

So then I finished that around Lunchtime (I didn't want to stay the whole day) and came home and rested while watching the Survivor Marathon on Go! This was great cause it went to 5pm and caught me up on all the episodes I missed. Plus it was this years series so the next episode we get just 6 hours after the US! THAT IS SO COOL! So yeah, I have a new addiction to that. Which was a great way to rest after walking all morning, just joking, I was doing things while watching this.

Finally, I have a new addiction to SongPop. I am just going to say that I only started playing with Peter at 3pm and am already up to this, PS. (I AM STILL BEATING HIM!!)

So yeah, that happened and so now I have been doing that for a while but am taking a break to write this post. Also, I am having a Google+ Hangout with some friends at the moment which is pretty funny. Especially when someone keeps putting on mysterious noises (looking at you Xavier) and the other has a song playing. Anyway, so yeah. That happened. Also, I am STILL beating both of the players on SongPop and Xavier just totally asked "What's SongPop?" and I was (mentally) going "WHAT?!" but I replied like any sane person would...

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