The Legend of Korra

I saw the first two episodes a few weeks ago. Oh my God, it is good! I don't usually watch things twice in one day, but  had to make an exception for this. I love it!

SO GOOOOUHAFHUIWSGHIHAUHAD

I can't even really decide which of the first two episodes was my favourite! I am so ready for this series to start for real. Like seriously, my body is ready.

I am already so emotionally invested in the plot, the characters, the soundtrack even (gotta love me some of whatever magical instrument makes this sound.) I think I've gone beyond the point where even if my expectations are not met, I'll love it anyway. Maybe. BUT THEY WILL BE MET, I have no doubt!

Episode 3 comes out April 21. The day after my final exam. I can think of no better reward for my not failing, but I wish it were here right now. 

Why I Suck at Volleyball

This past weekend I went home to visit family, and while I was home my dad and my sister had planned on participating in a for-fun volleyball tournament. The team would be just six people, which is one full team with no substitutes. And of course, the morning of the tournament, one player calls in sick, and guess who has to fill in.

You guessed it! Wow, you're so smart! (Sorry, that was kind of mean sarcasm, but I digress.)

I filled in for Miss No-Show (I'm pretty sure she was hung-over) and played in four consecutive volleyball games. Of course, I was reluctant to play because I hadn't actually played a legitimate game of volleyball since I was about twelve or so. I'll let you know, right now I'm nineteen years old; that's over seven years of not-playing.

Of course, just because I haven't played in a while doesn't mean I physically can't play, right? I play other physically demanding sports like ball hockey and soccer, and I work out regularly. Adjusting to another sport should be easy, right?

Um, no.

To explain, I'll break it down into three categories; height, muscle groups, and forearms.

Height

The last time I measured my height, I was a little under 5'2" or approximately 157cm or approximately 61 inches. In the US, the average height of a white woman is 5'5" or 165cm or 65 inches. And I'm going to say based on personal experience, I am always either the shortest or one of the shortest people on any sports team.

5'2" LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
(also I invoke the right of artistic license to not draw my boobs because, although they are great,  I do not want them to be the focus of this image.)

Now, in most team sports, height does matter slightly, but not a whole lot. I play sports like soccer and ball hockey because height hardly matters at all for those. 

But in volleyball, being tall is a definite and extremely beneficial advantage. Let me make a comparison: someone who has never played soccer before and is 5'2" will be just as good at the game as someone who has never played before and is 5'9". Someone who has never played volleyball before and is 5'2" will have a much harder time playing the game than someone who has never played before and is 5'9". It's just science. And I've accepted it.

... but that's not to say that someone who's short can't be a great volleyball player, it's just a lot more difficult.

Anyway, I was by far the shortest on my team. The next shortest person was my sister, and she's about 5'6" (I'm not doing the math again) and the tallest was probably about 6'3" or so. The nets were standard height at 2.43 meters or 7 feet, 11 5/8 inches. So my ability to block was zero.
Let me illustrate.

So yeah. Height puts me at a disadvantage, but not nearly as much as...

Muscle Groups

As I've stated earlier, I play other sports and I work out. Translating those skills to another sport is usually not too big of a problem... Except for volleyball.

When I work out, I usually just do some cardio, like go on an elliptical for a while. Because of this, my quads are pretty sexy

BAM. Dat quad!

OKAY, so maybe I'm using my artistic license to misrepresent the shape and bamf-ness of my ass, but you know what? I'm going to do it anyway.

So, as I was saying, sexy quads. But my ass is another story. I cannot jump very well at all. Nor do I ever partake in the agony that is squats. So after playing just one game of volleyball, I felt my ass start to clench uncomfortably, because whenever you play volleyball, you stand like you're constantly about to drop a deuce (so like, mid-squat.)

Needless to say, I think my ass is still recovering.

Forearms


They're just really sensitive, okay?! Here's what they looked like before the game:

Here's what they looked like after the second game:

The tiny red spots are broken blood vessels or something I guess.

And finally, here's what they looked like for the next few days:

They actually bruised. How sad is that!? My pain threshold is so high, I actually enjoyed getting my wisdom teeth removed. The sport of volleyball defeated me. So lame!

Three Movies that Should Be

Many movies nowadays are based off of other sources, like books, television shows, toys, and video games. It is safe to say that Hollywood won't run out of source material any time soon, but what should their next big production be? That's where I come in. This is a list of three movies that should be!

1: Portal (and Portal 2)
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Mila Kunis, Ellen McLain, Stephen Merchant, J. K. Simmons

Christopher Nolan is really good at making movies that are out of the ordinary. Scratch that- he's just really good at making movies period. He's made great adaptations to previously famous materials before (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) so there should be few issues in that department. And if you've ever played Portal, you know that is unlike any other mainstream game out there. It forces you to think- it is not a button masher like other first-person shooters. Creating a movie based on this games plays to all of Nolan's strengths as a director; just recall the mind-blowingness of Inception and you'll have an idea of how this movie would likely play out.

As for the actors, McLain, Simmons and Merchant were the voices of GLaDOS/Caroline, Cave Johnson, and Wheatley respectively. GLaDOS and Wheatley would probably be CGI, so keeping the same voice actors should be fine. As for Cave Johnson and Caroline, there could be some snippets of them together, and maybe (SPOILER) they could show some of Caroline's transformation into GLaDOS. J.K Simmons has acted on-screen in big-budget films already (Spiderman 1, 2, and 3), so it should be no problem for him. Finally, Mila Kunis has portrayed many different characters in her career, and she's portrayed them very well. Putting her in any role is a good idea, and the fact that she looks kind of like Chell is a bonus too.

Drawbacks: Chell doesn't speak. This was initially intended so that the player would be able to insert his or herself into the game, so it would be a more personal experience. Even Chell's name isn't mentioned at all in the game (I don't think.) So do we have her speak? Or does she remain silent?

Also, the cast is very small; at most it would be five or so people. The whole cast- if I remember correctly- was Chell and GLaDOS in the first game, and Wheatley, Cave Johnson, and Caroline joined them in the second game.

Finally, it would be really great if all of the original voice cast could be in this film, but Ellen McLain doesn't look like Caroline. Caroline is supposed to look like this:

A dark-haired lady in her late twenties/early thirties. Ellen McLain looks like this:

A fair-haired lady in her forties or so (I actually couldn't find her actual age.) 

I suppose another actress could replace her for the Caroline parts, but I feel like that would take away from the authenticity of the film.

REGARDLESS, this movie should be!

2: Battle Royale
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Original cast

Now, I know what you're thinking. Battle Royale has already been a film twice, and one of them was really good! It was all the gore and insanity of the original source material, so why remake something that was already a success to begin with?

I'll tell you why; friggin' Quentin Tarantino. I read Battle Royale when I was fourteen years old, and when I was fourteen I wasn't allowed to watch anything Tarantino. I'm sure if my parents had read Battle Royale before me, they wouldn't have let me read that either. But the first Tarantino film I watched was Kill Bill, which showed off his stylistic qualities as a director. There was a bit of dark humour, and tons of violence and blood and gore. But it went deeper than that. It wasn't just a revenge movie. It delved into the psyche of the assassin, and had developed characters. Battle Royale is similar in that regard.

After my review on Battle Royale and the Hunger Games, I provided an analysis of the story and character development and so on. I casually mentioned how great it would be if he directed Battle Royale, but after thinking it over for a bit, I really realized how well-suited Tarantino would actually be. He had already worked with one of the original cast members of the 2000 version already, Chiaki Kuriyama (Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill, Chigusa in Battle Royale), so why not make the movie?

Drawbacks: Really, the only major drawback I see here is the fact that the movie has already been made. Tarantino has the basic outline for his movie already; he doesn't necessarily have to use all the same elements from the movie either. It would be all the gore and violence and foulness that was Battle Royale, with added style and a new interpretation.

But, I guess it boils down to repetitiveness. There has already been a movie, it did well, why reboot it so soon? *cough*Spiderman*cough*

REGARDLESS, this movie should be!

3: The Legend of Zelda
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Starring: David Kross, Willem Dafoe, Carey Mulligan, Dakota Goyo(?), Joey King(?)

This one doesn't even need explanation. You KNOW it would be amazing.
... but I will explain anyway.

It's an action-packed epic fantasy adventure with a vast landscape and a host of interesting characters. And there's a massive volcano as one of the plot points. Where have I seen that formula before? Long story short, if any director can take a well-known and loved game and turn it into a beautiful, action-y movie, it would be Jackson.

Also, I recall a few years ago, IGN released a trailer for a Legend of Zelda movie. There was huge excitement for this film even though the quality of the animation was sub-par, the costumes looked off, and te acting was very "meh." At least in my honest opinion. If this movie were to be made, I have no doubt in my mind that it would not only be outrageously awesome, but pretty successful too. I mean, LORD OF THE RINGS MEETS LEGEND OF ZELDA?! OH MY GOD I WOULD WET MYSELF WITH EXCITEMENT IN PERPETUAL FLOW UNTIL I EVENTUALLY DIED OF DEHYDRATION.

But I digress.

David Kross would probably make a really good Link I think. He's 22 years old, but still has a baby-face. He's an up-and-coming actor from Germany who hasn't been in too many movies to date, but he has done an excellent job in the one's he has been in (The Reader, Knallhart.) His younger counterpart, if he were to be included, would be Dakota Goyo, who has been praised as a natural actor with great emotional range.

Carey Mulligan, what can I say. Her subtleties as an actress are great, and subtleties are what can make or break a performance. She would be best suited (in my opinion) for the role of Zelda, and maybe also Sheik, but there is a bit of confusion regarding Sheik's gender (I will go in depth in the drawbacks section.) Her younger counterpart would be Joey King, who, despite her age, has been in many movies to date (not to mention, she's been cast as a minor character in The Dark Knight Rises, so automatic plus there.)

Willem Dafoe. Need I say more? He's a great villain. Even in Spiderman, he had some great moments (although they were few and far between, but hey, everyone has a bad performance once in a while.) I think he could pull off  the evil Gerudo King Ganon/Ganondorf very well. And his voice is just so dark and deep and intimidating! It would be a bit of work to get him to look the part, but it can be done.

Drawbacks: There are many. The game is about adventure and figuring out how to navigate your way through numerous temples and solving puzzles to get necessary items. The story is a very rinse, wash, and repeat save-the-princess formula.

And will they base the movie on the entire Zelda universe, or base it off one single game? My personal preference would be to base it off one game (Ocarina of Time), but then would that warrant a movie version of each game?

Will they go into each temple? That would make it a very long and repetitive movie, but they could split it into two films perhaps. If they were to base it off Ocarina of Time, they could split the movie up so the first one would be centred on young Link, and the second would be based off old Link.

Or will they scrap that idea completely like they did with the April Fools Day trailer and have adult Link throughout the movie?

Also, the protagonist Link is well known for never speaking. Should that be maintained in the movie? Is Link going to just be stoic and quiet (aside from the occasional "HYAA")? Would they give him dialogue?

And then there's the whole controversy with Sheik; is Sheik man-Zelda, or is Sheik just Zelda in drag? There is evidence for both theories. I can't go into detail on this controversy or else this already long post will be much longer. Here is where you can find a neat summary of the controversy. Read it!
So, should a man be cast as Sheik? Should Mulligan just be dressed in drag? Decisions, decisions!

Finally... Dammit, Navi was an annoying piece of work, eh?!

REGARDLESS, this movie should be!

I am SO Sorry for Killing You Accidentally!

So, last night I had this pretty out-there dream. Now, I usually think adjectives like "weird" and "strange" are redundant when describing dreams because, hey, all dreams are weird. I've never had a dream where I open the fridge to discover we're out of milk. It just doesn't happen like that. But the dream I had last night was particularly strange. Let me explain.

I guess it actually happened this morning. I set my alarm for 7:00am, but realized after I woke up that I could sleep in for an extra hour or so. That's when things got weird.

My friends and I are in a hotel and we decide we want to go swimming in the pool. There are some floaty pool toys there, and my one friend partially submerges one of them and sits on the submerged part. I decided it would be pretty funny to jump on the part that was not submerged, but this was actually a terribly not-funny idea. Want to know why? Because I had launched her out of the pool and head-first into the wall. I got out and went over to see if she was okay, but she was as dead as a dead thing.

Now I'm freaking out because, dear God, I killed my friend! I leave to find someone to help and when I return, her body has somehow disintegrated into something that looks like this

Mostly bones with a bit of skin, and she still had some hair on her head but not a lot. I had brought over two of my friends, who also freaked out when they saw her. Then everyone got really sad, and I remember not knowing how I was going to tell her significant other that I had killed her. And I cried, and they cried, and for the next little bit I just wandered around town moping.

BUT THEN, something incredible happened. It had dawned on me that this wasn't reality. I was in a dream, and I was aware of it! I thought, YES, I didn't actually kill my friend!!!! Then I thought, HOLY SH*T, I CAN LUCID DREAM!!!

So I tried to fly, but couldn't. Then I tried to teleport to a really cool place, but I ended up in a really kinda boring place. I thought, what the heck! I'm dreaming lucidly, shouldn't I be in control? This only happens once in a while, and usually when I realize I'm dreaming, I wake up. So I got really frustrated and just woke up. 

Does that happen to anyone else?!

Hunger Games and Battle Royale

With the Hunger Games movie coming out in just over a week, I thought I'd jump the band wagon and give her a go. And by "giver her a go", I mean do a contrast/comparison bit on the Hunger Games and Battle Royale (just the books, not the movies.) Also, please bear with me, as it has been about five or six years since I read Battle Royale, and I may not get some plot points quite right, but I shall try my best.

Introductions!


Battle Royale is a stand-alone work written by Japanese author Houshun Takami in 1999. It takes place in an alternate version of Japan called The Republic of Greater East Asia, a totalitarian state that each forces one class of junior high school students to fight to the death.

There are a number of measures taken to ensure that the students fight. First, they are outfitted with explosive collars (remember this because this is important). Then, they each select one bag containing a weapon, a map, maybe some other stuff, I don't really remember (the map is important too!) The weapons provided range from machine guns to hatchets to poison and I think someone may have gotten a spoon.

Now, the explosive collars ensure a few rules. If no student is killed in 24 hours, all of the collars explode and there is no winner. Certain areas of the location become off-limits, and anyone who wanders into an off-limits area or happens to be there when it becomes off-limits, the collar explodes. If a student tries to remove his or her collar, it explodes. If a student tries to escape, his or her collar explodes.

The map is necessary to provide the layout of the location (in this case, an island) along with a grid that represents the "areas." Of course, one by one these areas become off-limits, so don't lose your map.

The Hunger Games is the first in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins. If you don't know the plot of The Hunger Games, you are an anomaly. Congratulations! For the anomalies and the misinformed, Hunger Games takes place in a futuristic North America called Panem and it is also a totalitarian state. Panem is split up into twelve (formerly thirteen, but we won't get into that) districts ruled by the Capitol. There had been an ineffective rebellion against the Capitol years ago, and after it was taken care of, someone had somehow figured out the secret to preventing future rebellions; forcing 24 children to fight to the death until only one survivor remains. This televised fight to the death is called the Hunger Games.

One boy and one girl from each district between the ages of twelve and eighteen, called Tributes, are chosen at random to fight to the death in an arena. Volunteers are allowed, and are common in the richer districts where competing in the Hunger Games is considered honourable. For every other district, being chosen as a Tribute is practically a death sentence.

Once the Tributes are selected, they are sent to the Capitol for two weeks to train, to be assessed, and to be interviewed on television. This is crucial because Tributes are allowed to get parcels from sponsors during the games, and this time is used to attract them. Sponsors could be betting on the tributes or they could be members of the Tribute's district trying to help them out. The parcels could contain anything from food to medicine, and are sent to the Tributes via parachute.

At the beginning of the game, the Tributes are provided with weapons and other accessories like blankets and pots for cooking (the games could last weeks, so cooking is a necessary skill.) However, these items are acquired dodgeball-style in a 3-2-1 GO chase. Only instead of chancing getting hit with a ball in the face, you chance getting hit with death to the face.

There are people overseeing the games, and they can control the arena's climate, weather, and can cause fireballs to shoot out from the ground if things get too dull.

Similarities


There are many striking similarities in both Battle Royale and Hunger Games. They're both about children killing each other, they're both set in a totalitarian setting, and they both have a main theme of rebellion because (*spoiler alert*) they both cheat the system and there is more than one winner. If you were to write a three-sentence summary of both books, they might be identical.

So, if the Hunger Games is so similar to Battle Royale, is it a blatant rip-off?

No. Here's why.

Differences


The intended audience is different. I was sitting on the train on my way home and there was a boy sitting across from me- he couldn't have been older than ten- reading the Hunger Games. When I got home, my forty-nine year old mother had just finished reading it and loved it. It's graphic, but not so graphic that it would  warrant a criticism by my mother.

Battle Royale, on the other hand, has a much smaller audience. It is graphic, it is gory, it explores other mature themes (aside from- you know- children killing each other), and is it ever foul-mouthed.

Battle Royale is like a Quentin Tarantino film, and the Hunger Games is like a good Steven Spielburg film- stylistically speaking. Both are great, both cover mature themes, but while my mother would enjoy a Spielburg film like, say, Saving Private Ryan, she would not watch Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. It's all in the way they handle the gore and how the content is handled.
... Also, if Tarantino directed an adaptation of Battle Royale, that would be amazing. Kill Bill style Battle Royale? I would be all over that.

Another striking difference is the narrative and character development. The Hunger Games has a few really well developed characters, and the rest are not very developed. In Battle Royale, most of the characters are developed to the point where I actually cared when they died. In the Hunger Games, I only really cared when one Tribute died. The rest were just "meh," because I didn't get to know them. I understand that the perspective that Collins wrote in made it impossible to get into the character of anyone that the protagonist, Katniss, didn't know on an intimate level, but I wanted to feel bad when the Tributes died. That's the main problem with writing in the first person- you can only become invested in a few characters. In Battle Royale, I felt bad when even the antagonist died because he had a backstory. Battle Royale was written in the 3rd person perspective, and follows many different characters throughout the story. I was emotionally invested in many characters, and I knew they would die, but I had hoped they would live anyway.

I should take this opportunity to say that I have no qualms with either book. In fact, it's just the opposite. I really enjoyed both! If you ask me which one I prefer, I don't know which one I would chose. In conclusion, I guess you could say that the themes and plot are very similar, and I guess you could argue that one is a rip-off of the other. But I would have to disagree.

... and one last note, did Katniss not remind anyone of Susan from The Chronicles of Narnia (especially the fourth book, Prince Caspian)? She was a teenager with long dark hair that was often braided and was a great archer who shot an apple from far away to prove her skills. That's about as far as the similarities go, but still.

Honourable Mentions


The Running Man, The Lord of the Flies, The Condemned (don't watch. It sucks)

Clever Pun (1)

I need to share this with everyone. I'm a genius

It says, "It's Panda-monium!" geddit!? 

America and Canada

I live in Canada. I've lived there my entire life, and will most likely remain here the rest of my life. It is a great place to live. It has its flaws, like every other country, sure. But its flaws are greatly outweighed by its virtues, and it's great.

However, there are a few things that really stall my car, if you know what I mean, and I will steer clear from politics and whatnot to keep this article brief.

The typical Canadian is just a biiiiit of a hypocrite. Now, nine times out of ten, I am proud to be a Canadian. I literally bleed red and white (blood cells. Zing!) However, whenever I, say, go to a webpage to read about something Canadian or where something Canadian is mentioned, this is what I see:

LOVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Not-so-subtle and not-so-refined Canadian pride. Which is ironic, because one of the things we pride ourselves on is our unmatched politeness.

Now, this goes to a whole new level whenever someone makes a comparison between Canadians and Americans. And when that happens, brace yourself. You will hear nothing but the War of 1812 (the North American one, not the European one), burning down the White House, superior hockey teams, differences in health care, and blatant name calling. And surprisingly, a LOT of this comes from the "nice" Canadians. There are so many things wrong with this that I don't even know where to start!

The war of 1812 happened two hundred years ago. Canada wasn't even technically a country, and has gone through MANY changes since then, so bringing it up is a little bit redundant.

We have different forms of health care, both with their own advantages and disadvantages. One system prides itself on speed and quality, the other prides itself mainly on being free. 

And really? Name calling? I thought we were above that.

I won't make any mention of Canadian hockey teams, because that is actually one thing that doesn't bother me to see. Go Canada! (Although we've had many close shaves and upsets [I'm looking at you, World Juniors!])

Personally, I was brought up to be polite and considerate. When my family went out for dinner, we kids weren't allowed to have dessert if we didn't say the magic words to the waiter or waitress after placing our order. When people came over and visited, everyone played host, not just Mom and Dad. And when the guests left, we waved from the window until their cars was out of sight. Little things like that. And Heaven forbid if we were ever rude to anyone! We got "the look", which looked a bit like this:

So it's upsetting and confusing to me when I see rude comments over the Internet and in person. Weren't they taught to be polite? I thought it was an inherent thing to be polite if you were Canadian. 

Long story short, we need to regain some of that old Canadian attitude back. I want to be able to see, "yeah, Canadians are so nice and polite!" and actually believe it and see evidence of it. Now I don't want to send the impression that I think all Canadians in general are, well, hypocritical. I'm just stating what I've noticed lately.

Anyway, proud to be Canadian! True North, strong and free!