Quotes

I've been trying to come up with a second post for this month and I think I've found it!
So here are a few quotes I think are witty, significant, or wise.

"The problem with wearing a dress is that it clashes with a sword." - Chuck Black Kingdom's Hope

“Travel makes one modest. You 
see what a tiny place you 
occupy in the world.” 

― Gustave Flaubert 

"People have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn't." Christopher Paolini, Eragon

"Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water." Elizabeth Gilbert

"She had blue skin,
so did he.
He kept it hid,
so did she.
They searched for blue
their whole life through,
and passed right by -
and never knew."
Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It

"Brave? Or stupid?"
Roger shrugged. "I've never been quite sure where brave stopped and stupid began, myself." 
Gerald Morris, The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf

"We'll cross that bridge when we fall off it." 
Lester B. Pearson

"Some people just don't have what it takes to appreciate a cookie."
James Patterson

"mmm....she's doomed! You're doomed!! They're all doomed! Notice I didn't specify what kind of doom, so no matter what happens I predicted it. How very WISE of me." 
Christopher Paolini, Eragon

The Hobbit Review

Well at long last, partially because of the imminent second instalment and partially because I finally watched it again. I have decided to throw my two cents worth into the seething internet debate about the prequel to the Lord Of the Rings; The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey. First, allow me to say I will be watching this movie again. Now that that's said lets get to the good stuff.

I guess I'll start with the negatives. There are a couple of long drawn out scenes that are kind of mood killers, and while I understand that the filmmakers wanted to tie this film in with the Lord of the Rings, the amount of time spent with the older Bilbo felt way too long and drawn out. Then there was the equally lengthy but more necessary back-story of the dwarves. The white council scene is also far too long; although it does develop the characters of Gandalf, Saruman, and Galadriel it swiftly gets bogged down with all the stuff they are trying to accomplish with that scene.

Another issue I have is the amount of epic moments in this movie that don't feel all that epic. Yes they are intense or rather epic but they lose that quality once they are slowed down to half speed and you have to watch a thirty second event take place over a minute and a half. There are a number of fight scenes, that seem to drag on and on with far to many slow mos and not enough actual action to carry them through.

The third and largest problem is that you go in to the Hobbit expecting an epic adventure and I think one screenwriter did and the other went in thinking it would be a funny kids movie, and more reminiscent of Tolkien's book. The result is an odd mix of epic adventure and rollicking comedy that has disastrous results for someone who goes in expecting a movie to equal the Lord of the Rings. Lastly I will mention the animation, it just didn't strike me as the kind of realism that the Lord of the Rings had, although it was pretty decent.

I won't nitpick with characters for this review because if I did then in the pursuit of fairness I'd have to list the good things about them too. Suffice it to say that there are some I like and some I don't.

Okay! Now that I have all the negative stuff out of my system lets move on to the good stuff. First off, DWARVES!!! All you fans of Gimli are going to love this. I mean honestly what isn't cool about watching Dwarves perform their awesomeness and throw dishes? The overall film, once it got going, was pretty awesome, the story was cool and the film making, decent. The setting was very coherent with the Lord of the Rings and the story hit most of the high points while sticking tolerably close to the book The main characters are pretty well rounded and even the characters that have fewer than five lines in the entire film (I don't think Bombor has any lines at all) make themselves memorable by sheer appearance and behaviour. The famous casting is a bit distracting (I keep seeing Martin Freeman as "Dr. Watson" from the new BBC Sherlock and Bofur as "Jack from Ireland" from the movie The Way) but overall they nailed their parts and manage to carry the movie. The biggest plus though was the humour. Really, this movie had a surprising number of ridiculously funny parts, those goblins, once you stop taking them seriously, are so random, it's hilarious.

So in conclusion, if you haven't seen the Hobbit yet, then go ahead, be prepared to either yawn through the intro and get caught up in the epicness later. Or just go in and laugh at it all the way through.

And yes, it’s better the second time around.

So what do I think about the Hobbit an Unexpected Journey? 

In the words of Bofur:

"Well that could've been worse..."

Having a Day

You know those days when you start out mostly okay and then by the middle of the day you’re wandering around doing nothing and thinking "I hate my life"? That was me yesterday. See we're leaving Canada for Turkey today and I was going to write kind of a complaining post about Canada and Turkey and being way too busy. Then I remembered this Psalm; psalm 121 to be exact.

'I lift my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help?

My help comes from the LORD the maker of heaven and earth,

He will not allow your foot to be caught,

He who keeps you will not slumber,

Behold He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,

The LORD is your keeper.

The LORD is your shade at your right hand

The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night,

The LORD shall preserve you from all evil

He shall preserve your soul.

The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in

From this time forth and even forever more.'

And I will admit that I kind of went "But I want to keep grumbling and complaining!!!" After all I'm not the best at taking quiet hints. Actually I still kind of want to go hide in my room and feel sorry for myself. But that's not what I'm going to do, I'll go and try to be a nice human being for my last day in Canada and then I'll go and try to be a nice human being in Turkey. 

At least that's the plan. Wish me luck :/

Oh and if you’re looking for God, look down, He's got you in the palm of his hand. 

Jewelry Making

Well, here is this months second post. I am not feeling to serious at the moment so I thought I'd post some of the crafts I've been doing lately.

I always tend to wing it when I'm making jewelry the thought process goes something like this: Oh, that's a pretty stone, what colour of wire would look good with that? Ah that's nice but a bit too thin, lets twist the wire! There that looks good. And so on and so forth. So I rarely follow patterns although I will often do Internet searches to get the rough idea of what I'm doing.

This one's oldish, the ring got deformed so it didn't fit me any more and the chain was off a broken pocket watch.

This one I made from some embroidery floss and a heavy, inch and a half wide metal ring. The cord I crocheted from the same floss.

This is a stone I found on the beach the other day, I haven't found a suitable chain for it yet so I didn't add a loop to it. I usually go over the stones I find on the beach with clear nail polish, it protects the stone from the wire somewhat and also brings out the colour of the stone nicely.

This one I built from some beads off of a broken belt, a stone I bought from a jewelry maker in the Tuesday market in Gelibolu,  a small piece of green wire to attach the stone and the disk, and a chain I salvaged from a piece of steampunk jewelry I got at Value Village. 

More proof that anything can look good as long as you put it together right :)

And, this isn't really jewelry but I crocheted myself finger-less gloves! I am rather impressed with myself since last time I started something that big I couldn't crochet a straight line for more than two or three rows.

This is one arm warmer which is also crocheted. I considered attaching the gloves to the gauntlets but it works because I can take off the gloves and leave on the longer things. They come in handy when it gets cold and rainy over here.

Thor review

Edit: Be warned that there are a few spoilers in this review, apologies.

Well, I don't feel like over analysing this movie at the moment but I will touch on the high points.
First off I quite enjoyed this movie, it wasn't the best movie ever made by any stretch but it was a decent film.

Lets start with the negative stuff; A lot of elements of this movie feel really rushed. The whole film takes place in less than a week and in that time Thor attacks Frost giants, gets banished, falls in love, does an about face, redeems himself and then gets back to Asguard. It takes less than two days for the love interest Jane Foster to decide Thor's the one. Some movies can make that work (Tangled anyone?) but this one just couldn't.
Now if that wasn't enough the movie leaves you with the sensation that there could have been some awesome supporting characters there that never really got explored. There are a lot of things that get touched on but not quite explained.
Or maybe that's just me; those of you who know me also know that I have a thing for obscure supporting characters :). Anyway, back to the topic. This movie was way undernourished plot wise, with the attempt made to tell two stories at once with one or two underdone sub-plots. Once again some movies can make this work (ah la Lord of the Rings) but here too Thor falls short of achieving any balance.

On the plus side, most of the actors did a fantastic job with their roles, Tom Hiddleston has been well recognized for his role as Loki but Chris Hemsworth (Thor), and Anthony Hopkins (Odin) as well as the actors who portrayed Thor's friends (on Asguard and off it) did a good job with their respective roles.
Another plus is the laughs this movie contains. Unlike, say, Iron Man 2 this movie is all about the circumstance based humour. Here's a guy from a fantasy world on earth in the 21 century, there are some pretty ridiculous moments, predominantly involving Thor getting hit with cars and smashing coffee cups.
Another nice thing is that for a Marvel movie Thor was amazingly clean, there are two or three expletives and one long involved kissing scene which is one of those things where you just laugh at the writers or directors who thought it was a good idea, there is no innuendo and all the women remain fully clothed and respectable although we do see Thor shirtless once and in a hospital gown in another instance. There is a bar scene although it doesn't last long and there is a lot of fighting and a couple of casualties but hardly any gore.
I have said that the plot was undernourished, and while that is a flaw the story's still a good one, especially with the drama unfolding between Loki, Thor, and Odin.

Any-who this was my brief rundown of Thor. Like I said at the beginning I am not feeling the need to write a 3 page essay on the subject...
In conclusion if you get the chance to watch the movie you will likely be entertained and leave the movie with some fun character discussion and even more fun quotes.
Speaking of which....

"This drink, I like it"

"I know, it's great right!"

*smashes cup on the floor* "ANOTHER!"

It Is All A Question Of Respect

Hello again!

It has been awhile but I have finally got a new blog post for all you people. This one is based on a conversation mom and I had a while back about respect. The basic premise is that in the world today there are a lot of issues. Everyone has heard about the unrest in Egypt and the Middle East, the homeless and poor in every country, the ongoing debate on animal rights and food. And there are a lot of suggested causes; injustice, money, economy, laziness, abuse, the list is endless. But I think a lot of our issues stem from one simple thing, lack of respect.

Let’s start with the horse meat scandal in the UK, if you don’t completely understand the issue you may be inclined to say something like what I said when I first heard about it; “So what? Horse meat is a food too.” Or maybe your reaction is more like; “Oh my gosh! The poor horses!!!” But the type of meat has nothing to do with the problem. The problem is that the marketers called it beef when it wasn't beef. That’s fraud. And if they didn't have enough respect for the industry to actually call the horse meat horse meat, why would they bother to use meat from horses that have been raised well and not shot full of steroids? Especially when the lame, broken down, drugged up horses are cheaper than the healthy ones.

And speaking of broken down horses, animal abuse is another problem stemming from lack of respect. There is a verse in proverbs that says “The righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” The righteous man will honor his animal by treating it well even if the end result is going to be meat for supper. The wicked man doesn't care what happens to his animal as long as he gets his meal at the end of the process. The wicked man has no respect, he doesn't respect his animals they don’t respect him. And there is no one I know of that will respect someone who abuses their animals.

So what about person to person relationships? Well, think about the last fight you had with a sibling or parent. Chances are you felt disrespected. Maybe they weren't listening to your ideas, maybe you felt like they were belittling you, or maybe they were ignoring your personal boundaries. All of those are disrespectful, but maybe it was double sided, when your parent didn't listen to you, you started getting upset and disregarded what they had to say, when your sibling waltzed into your room like they owned the place you got up and shoved them out. What might have happened if you had respected them? Maybe the sibling who came into your room needs to talk about their stressful day, maybe the parent who wasn't listening to you felt like you were disrespecting them by interrupting. Of course it is possible that they just weren't respecting you, but that is no excuse. If you want respect you are going to have to give some respect away. If you want your sibling to stop belittling you then stop immaturely disrespecting them, if you want your parent to listen to you, then respect them by letting them finish their sentence, or paragraph, or their whole speech before you jump in.

Now there are people out there who mistake fear for respect, however, there is a vital difference. Fear is intimidation and feeling powerless while respect is most similar to love. Fear drives people away but respect draws them closer. Which of those really freaky villains that you've seen in a movie have made you think; “Man, I want to get up close to that guy!” That just isn't something you say when you’re watching the Red Skull shoot civilians and his soldiers in cold blood. On the other hand those people you respect, Heroes, artists, or grandparents even, those are people you want to know better and get closer to right? Those are the people who make you think, “Oh my goodness! They are so cool! I want to know all about them!” You respect them.

Of course respect is not really a particularly simple subject, as with anything you can’t just lay down a line that says ‘this is respectful’ and ‘this is disrespectful’ because it depends on the circumstances. But if what you’re about to do is going to hurt someone or damage something, just assume it is disrespectful and don’t do it.

So now, just because I feel like making the point, I have a couple of questions for you to think on:  What if Governments respected their people enough to listen to them? What if people respected the government enough to actually change it when it needs changing?

What if we all made respect the top value in our lives, then in our families, and then in our communities, and then in our countries?

Would it change the world?

I believe it would.

Asking questions.

So.... Nicole and I decided we would write a list of questions for each other because we both like answering  lists of questions. You can read the ones I wrote for her and her answers on her blog the link to which should be on the top right side of this post.
Anyway, to business.

1. If you could live in any book what book would you chose? Oooooh uuummmm.... I would have to say Lord of the Rings although the Door Within is pretty cool too. 





If you had to choose one movie in the world to watch which movie would you pick? Second Hand Lions.






If you could swap places with any person (living or dead)which would you swap with? I don't know, I like being me pretty well.






Favourite Ice Cream Flavour? Mint Chocolate Chip.






Favourite drama you've been in? Tumbleweeds!






Least favourite character? (movie or book) Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor. That is one character  that drives me nuts.





Favourite Villain? Professor Moriarty.






Have you ever wanted to eat an ice cream cone without the ice cream? No, its better with the ice cream.






Who was the last person you spoke to? Mom.






Favourite art tool?(pens, pencils, etc.) Black Pens are cool.






What do you want to be when you grow up? An 3D animator or 3D designer and or a Rancher. Either one would be amazing.






Sunshine or rain? "All sunshine and roses......"






Cheese or sprinkles? Cheese Grommet! Cheese!






Editing or Animating? I love them both! I'll go with Animating though.






Boys or stinky socks? Not stinky socks.






Thor or Captain America? Uhhhhhhh, well.... I'll have to go with Cap until I've seen the movie Thor and can make a slightly more educated decision :P






Laptop or Tablet? Laptop is better at everything except apps.






Skillet or Owl City? Owl City.





Books or Movies? Books are amazing.





Hats or socks? Hats are better.





Horses or Cows? Cows.





Camping or Historical Sites? Oh, tough one.... I would have to say camping though, but camping near historic sites would be beyond awesome.





Do you read my blog? You have a blog? Just kidding, I do, it makes me laugh.






Cheese or Carrot Cake? Both! Together! Carrot Cake would be better though.






Cooking or cleaning? Well, I like to cook in a clean kitchen and eat after I've cleaned. But I would rather cook than clean.






Would you rather be a librarian or a diver? Librarian, less chance of getting drowned or eaten.






Boromir or Theoden? Theoden, King of the Riddemark, every time.

Well that was fun for me, I hope that wasn't horrendously boring for you readers.

Prussian Schooling

I learned something interesting a few weeks ago. In the 1880s Prussia had the highest literacy rate of any European country and thus the Prussian schools were used as a model for schools in the U.S.A. and likely Canada.

So now I’m sure one of three thoughts is going through your mind:

1, “You kinda just misspelled Russia there……”

2, “Yeah? So what?”

3, “I KNOW!”

Well if you’re thinking number 1, no, I did not misspell Russia, I spelled Prussia correctly. You see Prussia was a militaristic empire based in Germany from the 1500s through the early 1900s. And when I say militaristic I mean they ruled the roost with one of the most fearsome armies in Europe. So now you’re thinking “What on earth does this have to do with school?” Bear with me, I’m getting to that.

So into this militaristic country comes Napoleon Bonaparte. And he whips them. Big time. This humiliating defeat gets the Prussians looking at ways to improve their military. Ah hah! Mandatory School! So the Prussian school system is born, complete with standardized nationwide tests. But how is this going to improve the military? Well in a word; indoctrination. You see the perfect soldier never questions authority they just go in and get the job done. A mandatory, government run school was the perfect way to make sure all those potential soldiers got the pre-training (brainwashing, indoctrination, whatever) they ‘needed’. And all these mandatory schools meant that everyone learned to read, giving the Prussians some of the highest literacy rates in the world.

Now let me point out that if you’re running a country and you’re population can’t read, it makes you look bad. So seeing those Prussians with such a high literacy rate made every one think “Hey! They must be doing something right!” Which was how it came about that the Prussian model was used in the U.S.A.

And now we get to the important question. So What? Who cares if the Americans used the Prussian model? Why does it even matter? Here’s why; every government in every country around the world is insecure. People are awfully strong when they all get ticked off, and more than one or two governments have gone the way of the dodo bird when the people got fed up. So how do you keep the people satisfied? Well the method that most governments would like to say they follow is that they do what the people want, but that’s hard and people can be so demanding! One way that allows the government to pursue it’s own goals is to keep the people suppressed and ignorant for as long as possible and hope they get used to it. Another more peaceful method, used most notably by Hitler before and during WWII is to indoctrinate the people as much as you possibly can.

Now let me just say that no matter where you got your schooling you still got the indoctrination, all those ‘Adventures in Odyssey’ about war were about how heroic it is to be a soldier fighting for your country right? And all those history textbooks written in the USA had an awful lot to say about how wonderful the constitution was. And heck, even the fact that your parents shared their faith and opinions with you could be classified as indoctrination. And it wasn’t all bad was it? Because your parents gave you their ‘opinion’ that it was wrong to hit you don’t go out and clobber people, at least not where everyone can see. And because you’ve been trained to believe freedom of speech is important you like to share your opinions.

Proverbs 22:6 says that you should “Train a child up in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” So while you’re a child you absorb all the training people give you and when you grow up you will act on that training. All I’m saying that maybe there should be serious thought going into where that training will come from. And maybe it shouldn’t mostly come from the government.

Lego Stop-Motion again

Yes I know, I just posted one of these. This one is different though because I finally found a website with royalty free music to use! So here is my first ever Stop-Motion video with sound:

If you are interested, this is the site I used for the music: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free

If you are wondering what programs I used, I used  Windows Movie Maker (which usually comes installed on PCs) to assemble the video and Jellycam to take the pictures through a webcam. 

You may notice I have links in my text now, I have been doing an online html coding course through a website called Code Acadamy and I am testing out what I have learned so far :)

Another Lego Stopmotion

Here is a new Stop-motion video I made last night with Lego.