Comment if You've Read Deathly Hallows

I'm thinking of reviewing the book since I finished it a while ago, but if none of you have read it, I'll wait until someone has. Otherwise, not much of a point if no one's going to read the review. My sister and mom have read it, but they already know what I think.

Tomorrow Is...

The day before the last Harry Potter comes out? Yes. But more importantly it's my:

BIRTHDAY!!!

I will be 22 years old. A religious holiday shall be announced for all followers of Cherianity.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Movie Review

*Warning: Movie and Book Spoilers*

Yeah, they're tiny in that picture, but I couldn't find a better one. If you click on it, though, it's a lot bigger. Anyway, it says something about a movie when you can't find a close-up action scene you like. There were cool scenes in this movie, but I couldn't find any good stills. Mostly because it's all about Harry, and personally, I think it's gone to his head.

Overall Thoughts

To be fair I didn't like The Order of the Phoenix book, and I liked the film better than the book. I may have liked it better than the Goblet of Fire film. I'm not sure. The only thing I ever liked about Phoenix is that it's easily the most quotable of all the Harry Potter books. Sadly, only one of my favorite quotes (Dumbledore telling the aurors he's not going to go quietly) made the movie, and it wasn't delivered as I would have liked it. Micheal Gambon wasn't as bad in this movie as he was in The Goblet of Fire, where he alternated between strange outbursts and looking old and lost. In this movie he doesn't look like he's trying to beat Harry, and I was even able to sympathize better with Harry than I could in the book. When you see Dumbledore consistently and obviously purposely ignoring Harry, then you can better understand Harry's feelings of isolation and frustration much more than all the internal whining in the book.

At the same time, I think they hit the audience over the head with how alone Harry was. Too many scenes of him standing alone. At least a few minutes wasted that could have been used for something better. There's also a point in the movie (actual picture below) where Harry tells Sirius that he's "angry all the time." Sirius leans over to comfort him, and I wanted, more than anything else, for him to say, "Of course, Harry. You're fifteen!"

I was disappointed, and I can't even remember what he said. It was just something lamely encouraging. Gary Oldman is a fantastic actor, but he sadly did not get enough of his great lines from the book.

Many scenes also went too quickly. I think some of the Harry "I'm so alone" scenes could have been cut to extend the scene where Dumbledore escapes the aurors (give poor Phineas Nigellus his line dang it!). Also, Snape's Worst Memory was so short, and they cut Lily out completely. It might as well not be there the way it is.

Then there's the most important scene. Sirius's death. I cried when I read it in the book. Sirius was my favorite character. Now, it could just be because I've already grieved and no longer trust Rowling with my heart, but I didn't even blink when it happened. Yet I actually cried when Cedric died in the fourth film whereas my reaction in the book was "so what?" I don't know if this was a personal thing or if the scene really wasn't all that moving. However, it does seem like they don't address Sirius's death in the rest of the movie. It's like they're less broken up about it than they were about Cedric!

Special Effects

Despite my disappointment with Sirius's lack of good lines, I think the special effect of him in the fire was much better done than before. But they cut out the majority of the cool things in the department of mysteries. They just have all the glass orbs breaking. The entire ministry is an amazing set, but they didn't do as much with it as they could have. I also mourned the loss of the scene in the book where the statues came to life. That would have been awesome because those statues were impressive, and I was really looking forward to them fighting. Very unfortunate, that.

Characters

The Best

The best character in this entire movie was Luna Lovegood. I didn't like her in the book, but I loved her in the movie. She did the best job as an actress. She was not only perfect as Luna, she was more than perfect; she was better. I think the book Luna is nuts. But this Luna was someone I would love to have as a friend. Her voice is so beautiful and quiet, but it doesn't seem insane--just permanently contemplative.

The Teachers

Imelda Staunton is actually a perfect Umbridge as well, but because of that I couldn't like her character. I will just respect her as an actress.

Another excellent actress is Maggie Smith, but I was disappointed that McGonagall didn't stand up to Umbridge as much as she did in the book. As I already said, Dumbledore wasn't a complete loss but he still wasn't good enough to make me completely happy with his performance either.

Finally, Alan Rickman is brilliant as always and the perfect Snape. If anything he should have had more lines.

The Students

Harry was at least not worse than he was in the book, and Ron was actually better than he has been in the other movies and even in the book itself. Hermione was tolerable which is saying a lot because normally I don't care for her character or Emma Watson's acting.

Fred and George at least got a bigger part in this movie than in the other movies and they do very well, but it looks like this was at the expense of Percy getting NO LINES AT ALL! Gurgle. I know I'm weird, but I love Percy and Chris Rankin who plays him. So this was probably only a disappointment for me and a small minority of Percy fans. The reason I like him is because I think he'll redeem himself. If Rowling forgets about him, then I'll just pretend like he did.

Continuing on the Weasleys, I liked that whenever Ginny did a defensive spell she blew something up. In a good way and not a mistake way, if that makes any sense. She didn't get any good lines, but that was at least a visual way of showing that you should expect great things from her.

Another character who received a disappointing blow to his role was Neville. I know it wasn't of the utmost importance to the story but I love Neville so I was kinda sad about this. This is not the fault of Matthew Lewis, though. He's still an awesome Neville and...er...Matt, call me! Ahem, yeah. Just the limitations of the script.

The Order

You don't see the actual Order of the Phoenix much. They didn't do badly, but I wouldn't have felt anything for them if I hadn't read the books. The one time I really loved Sirius in this movie is when he punches Lucius and tells him to leave his godson alone. That was shortly before he died, though, so there's a bit of a pall over the triumph for those who know what's going to happen.

Other

Kreacher. Why are you here? Shrug. Kreature was a waste of special effects. He had no purpose in the film. I would have preferred at least one shot of Mrs. Black's portrait screaming.

Filch, on the other hand, is exactly as he should be. The actor who plays him is as I imagine him, and unlike Umbridge, I actually enjoy watching him be bad. So the picture where I make fun of him later is done with love.

What...?!

Here is my impression of three random things in the movie that bugged me or that I just raise an eyebrow at. As such, I've paired it with a completely random image.

1.) Cho Chang and the Veritaserum: Instead of having Cho's friend snitch on the group like in the book, it was Cho herself. Now, this actually would have tied up the story quite nicely and made everyone understand why Harry broke up with her instead of having the erroneous cafe scene. But then they say that Umbridge used Veritaserum on her. Then shouldn't they all forgive her? Except they don't.

2.) Voldie and his Pimp Suit: Perhaps it really is hard out there for a Dark Lord.

3.) Flashbacks? Two hours isn't long enough? We know Cedric died. They spend more time on that than they do on building up Sirius before his last hurrah.

Now all of this is appropriately followed by a couple movie stills I decided to make fun of--enjoy.

*song* ...Here's the story of a man named Brady, who was busy with three boys of his own... *song*

Rrrr...don't make Harry Hulk angry!

Final Rating: Not as exciting as Goblet of Fire, and neither is as good as Prisoner of Azkaban, but I was less annoyed with the bad parts. It is also Harry Potter, and just for Evanna Lynch's charming Luna, it deserves a nod of approval so: 9/10

Thirteenth Most Haunted Place on Earth

This would probably be a better post for Halloween, but it's best for me to do things when I'm thinking about them.

I've always been interested in ghosts even though I don't believe in them, so I was always just a little jealous that my sister went to Ohio University listed as one of the most haunted places on earth.

My sister does not believe in ghosts either, and she never saw one. She didn't live in a haunted dorm, though. However, all the dorms have a sound like dropping marbles which is supposedly the drip, drip, drip of blood. My sister did hear this, but suspected it was the pipes. I also heard strange noises in my own dorm at Denison University and my roommate immediately suspected small animals in the pipes. Come on, people, where's the fun in being sensible about these things? Denison ghosts are lame, by the way. Actually, I never heard any good ones of the college itself. There's an Inn in Granville that they say is haunted by a cat. Yes. A cat. Oooo...

Anyway, above is a picture of the Ridges, which doesn't look very scary with the "Weaving is Life" sign, but it used to be an old insane asylum. I went around the entire building and saw bars still on some of the windows. I don't know why I don't have any cooler pictures. But this was back when I first got my digital camera, so I didn't have a memory card yet. Probably ran out of space.

Here's also a couple of videos I found on YouTube about the OU ghosts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWgYLyfXXMI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SxTjmpSnl0

YouTube Fame: A Review and Requests to my Readers. (If I still have any)

Why is the flag of the Philippines here? Read on to find out.

I've recently found that the combination of insomnia and YouTube is really bad. But while finding this out, I came across two YouTube gems. I thought I could review them in relative safety since they're not likely to ever read my blog--just like everybody else. *Crickets chirp* But really, I'm not going to say anything bad about either of them since clearly I like them. I will critique them, though.

So, originally I only went to YouTube to look at things that technically aren't supposed to be there. I'm sure that's a common experience. I was very happy with all the music videos because I can just make a huge playlist of them, and it's like a radio without commercials. But the point is that, by happy chance, I was bored one day and clicked on a video of some girl speaking Gaelic. In the related videos was some guy doing something similar, but he looked vaguely Asian. Being vaguely Asian myself, this intrigued me. It turned out he was an Irish-Philippino mix. So this will lead into my review:

MokongX3M Review: http://www.youtube.com/user/MokongX3M

To be brutally honest I could tell his Gaelic wasn't that great, and I don't even speak it. His words were halting, and it was clear he wasn't that comfortable speaking it. He admitted as much himself, though. What I liked, as a language student myself, was that he clearly had respect for the language. From there I found his magic 8 ball videos. Basically he just asks his magic 8 ball a question for you. It's pretty simple, and I have something similar to a magic 8 ball myself, so why would I need to ask a question?

I'll tell you why.

The reason it's so engaging is for the simple reason that some guy in Ireland is answering (or getting his magic 8 ball to answer) the question of people hundreds of miles away. This was what I originally loved about the internet. It made the world a smaller place, and you could connect with anywhere in the world.

Sadly, for many years some of the shiny wore off of this magical ability, because when you get that many people together there's going to be a lot more people you don't like. That relates to another thing I like about Mokong's videos and something that I think is incredibly rare on the internet at large. He's just a nice guy. At least, he projects the image of one very well and nothing else matters because I'm not likely to meet him. One simple but very uncommon way he achieves this is by never swearing (or at least practically never--I can't remember) . The worst thing he generally says is "frack" which I know is a Battlestar Gallactica swear word that is supposed to mean the same thing as what it sort of sounds like, but I find the nerdiness of its use charming rather than off-putting. Even when he's really angry he doesn't degenerate in vulgarity. Actually, his rants are some of my favorite videos because usually he's angry about something that really matters (at least to him) instead of just being angry for the heck of it like some people on the net. I didn't even really notice that he generally didn't swear when I first watched the videos, it just unconsciously put me at ease and made me think of him as nice.

There's also the fact that he's a huge Legend of Zelda fan as is evident on the background of his YouTube channel. I have a soft spot for anyone who loves the Legend of Zelda. He even has the triforce tattooed on his arm and Link and Ganon's swords on the other arm!

Then of course, I have to admit, I like listening to his Irish accent, and he's pretty easy on the eyes. But he's got a fiancée, so just a warning to any girls who might be of the same opinion. I won't be chasing after him anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I just like his videos. Besides, his relationship with his fiancée is pretty endearing all on its own. She's in the Philippines and he's in Ireland, and it's quite touching that he's so devoted to her even though she's so far away. Another rare thing in my opinion.

Mokong's a bit of a diamond in the rough, though. Not all his videos are brilliant. But there's a lot of them and enough good ones to keep me interested. Only one last gripe--his sign off. He doesn't always do it, but a lot of the times he likes to shout out "Rock on!" and fake punch the camera. Now the words and the action itself don't bother me, but I find the shouting a bit unsettling. Still, I think I'm one of the few of his viewers who feels that way, so I've just accepted it and moved on.

Additionally I've made several comments on his videos, and he's even responded to some of them which I really appreciated. I almost feel as if a celebrity talked to me. Actually, it's more fun because I feel as if I know more about this guy than I do most celebrities. But I decided to do this review on my blog because I feel if I comment too much more, he'll think I'm stalking him...

Anyway, check him out if you're so inclined.

Onto the HappySlip Review: http://youtube.com/user/HappySlip

Now if we were going in order of popularity and professionalism, then HappySlip probably should have been first. But I thought I'd pay homage to the person who made me interested in normal people on YouTube in the first place. Besides, Mokong needs more press than HappySlip who currently has 53,334 subscribers (of which I am one). I don't have as much to say about her because I feel I don't need to convince you to like her. If you watch her stuff, you'll see it's good. She's a funny girl. I was skeptical when Mokong first recommended her. I know it's horrible since I am a girl, but I generally find guys funnier than girls. Not all guys. But the funniest comedians I know are usually guys. I figure it's something in a girl's genetic make-up thrown in to make girls want to continue the human race.

Anyway, HappySlip is also from the Philippines, so that's why I put the flag up. But she grew up in America so she's Asian-American like me. Her videos struck a good cord with me because she (lovingly) pokes fun at her Asian family. I may not be Philippino, but a lot of the characteristics she jokes about are similar to my own Asian family.

HappySlip also doesn't swear and, so she seems kinder and friendlier than 90% of most internet fare. She's also an aspiring actress, so there's a little more craftmanship into her video making than Mokong's.

***

So now you know the flag is in homage to these two YouTubers mostly cause I couldn't get any good pics of them. To see them, you'll just have to watch them. But, as a parting request, I'd like any of you to let me know if you find (or have found) someone interesting to watch on YouTube.

You'll also have to tell me if this post was too long or if you didn't read it. Right. Especially if you didn't read it.

... ?



While walking through Roseville I happened to see this sign and could not help but chuckle. Yes, I am sure the warriors famed for their austere lifestyle will have a happy summer frolicking in the sun.

However, I was further amused to find that this was not the mascot of a High School, as I had originally assumed, or even a Middle School. No. This was an elementary school. Ah, yes, the little Spartans. I can see it now. Their little league soccer team only has three teammates, but they are undefeated! Sadly, by the end of the season, none of these noble warriors has survived... Rough game, little league soccer.

Then there's lunch time:

"I'm hungry!"

"No, food dulls the senses."

"WAH!"

"Insolence! Give me fifty push-ups at once!"

Yeah. Anyway, I'm sure that's exactly what it's like.

Let's All Be Independent Together!



Happy 4th of July eveybody!

I am the Writing Queen

Since the month of June is passed, I thought I should say that I have so far fulfilled my goal of writing an average of 500 words a day or more. I do actually keep a word log as nerdy and weird as that sounds. One of my favorite childhood authors did the same which is where I got the idea. Does it make me a better writer? No. But I just like to know for some inexplicable reason. As a result, I know that the word total for the month of June is 19,479 words. Oh yeah! That's 31.5 single spaced pages in Word for anyone preferring the horribly inaccurate measure of a "page." However, this is not counting revisions in general. Since I'm a bit too lazy to keep track of every little sentence I go back and add, I only count what I like to call "forward writing," something that advances the story, rather than what is simply added to the back. I may count really large revisions, but I don't think I have so far. It seems like cheating somehow because you can rewrite the same 500 words 500 times and never make any progress. It needs to be done sometimes, but I just can't feel as good about it as normal writing. This is probably why I stink at editing.

The whole draft so far is 47,478 words and 76.75 pages. Anyone wondering what novel I am referring to I have to shamefacedly admit it is my fantasy novel which I thought I had finished. I can feel several friends losing all respect for me right now. The last draft was 800+ pages, but it had taken so long to write that my writing style had changed drastically from beginning to end. I still have hopes of using passages from the later part of the long draft, but the beginning most definitely needs to be entirely rewritten. I have changed so much about the plot and characters, though, I may just have to rewrite the whole thing. This was probably another reason my writing in general languished for so long because I was incredibly depressed by the state of what has always been the story closest to my heart. But I have new optimism. At this rate, the story should be finished a lot faster than the last (previously final) draft, giving the writing style a smoother feel. And as foolish as I feel for telling everyone I'd finally finished and that I would not write any more drafts, I think it's for the best. I now LOVE this story in a way I never did before, and I really believe that THIS is the final draft. But I'll understand if none of you believe me until it's in the bookstore.

If I remember, and it's not too embarrassing, I think I'll let you know my word total for each month. Yeah, gripping news, I know. How shall you bear the suspense for July?

The Legend of Zelda:
Twilight Princess Review

Tim asked me to review this game because he admitted he doesn't really care for a lot of my other book and movie reviews. If this is the case for any of you, please let me know and tell me what you would be interested in me reviewing. I can't promise I'll do it, but I might. Doesn't that make it worth a try?

Also unless you don't want to know anything about the game, this should be free of spoilers. I put the only spoiler, my personal opinion of the end, in difficult to read text at the very end. If you want to read it, you can highlight it. Otherwise, just don't try to decipher the dark text.

Anyway, onto the review:

The Story:

I originally played The Ocarina of Time purely for the storyline. This may seem incomprehensible to hardcore gamers, but I am still most interested by good stories and not necessarily games. That said, I do not feel the story of this game disappoints. It's possibly a better story than Ocarina. As with many of the other games, it takes place in Hyrule and stars the Link character, but it doesn't directly relate to the events of any of its predecessors. This game's storyline seems meant to give you a sense of Link's reincarnation over time, and there are several references that those who played Ocarina will appreciate, but they're only like echoes over a great distance and those just getting into the series won't be confused because of them.

The simple summary of the story is that Link is a simple goat-herder in a village called Ordon. But one day all the children of the village are kidnapped by monsters and Link sets out to find them. In doing so, Link is ambushed by the shadow beasts and turned into a beast himself, a wolf. Then Link finds out that the problem is bigger than his missing friends. All of Hyrule has been beseiged by the beasts of Twilight and Zelda herself asks for Link's assistance. Throughout the game Link goes between his wolf and human forms with the guidance of a strange imp from the twilight world, Midna.

The only characters from Ocarina are Link and Zelda. Otherwise, it's an entirely new cast. I think the best of all of them is Midna, and this was actually the biggest surprise of the game. Those who played Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask would probably be surprised as well after the annoyances of Navi and Tatl. Normally, the guide characters are the worst, clearly only there to tell you what to do. Midna, on the other hand, is actually a major character in the story, and by the end I completely fell in love with her unique mixture of good and evil. As a creature from the shadow realm you even get to explore Midna's world and you learn a lot about it and her as the game progresses.

Sound and Music:

Those who've played the previous Zelda games will recognize the old sounds and themes but there's also enough of an infusion of the new that people shouldn't be bored. The music also seems to be more complex, probably because the Gamecube and Wii systems can support better sounds. It sounds less like midis and more like the real soundtrack of an epic fantasy with a more real sounding orchestra. Much as I loved the music of Ocarina, a few of the tunes drove me a little nuts with their repetition. I didn't have that problem in Twilight Princess.

However, I was disappointed by the lack of a musical instument in this game. The wolf can howl which is used to play music instead. This is a cool idea but you don't have the freedom to howl whenever you want and it's a lot more difficult to do than the ocarina or any of the intruments in Majora's Mask. The rise and fall of the notes are controlled by the joystick on GC and this is problematic at best. Maybe if I'd been able to just settle down and howl to improve my technique, I would have gotten better and enjoyed it. But as it was, it was just a constant frustration.

Strange Extras:

You can pick up dogs and cats in this game, pet goats, and throw bones to play fetch with eagar dogs. None of this appears to have any relevance on the game at large.

One thing that was also more of the opposite of an extra was the inabillity to talk to people who are walking in Castle Town. I think any person who won't talk to you is just a lame waste of space.

You can also sumo wrestle a goron and snowboard against a yeti. While these were awesome, I was disappointed that the sumo wresting wasn't a mini-game of its own. Once you've done it in the course of the game, you can't go back and challenge the goron to wrestle with you. This made me sad. Happily, the yetis are always up for a race.

Graphics:



I know that the GameCube will never be a Playstation, but I was happy with the graphics. Everyone who plays Nintendo knows they don't do it because it has the best graphics. That being said, for the GC and the Wii the graphics are still awesome. You can even see actual detail in the irises of Link's eyes in certain scenes and some of his facial expressions are priceless. The better graphics allow the characters a wider range of emotion which, considering that Link is the strong silent type, really helps flesh out his own character.

The only gripe I have were the lights and darks. Now, my sister has rigged an old computer screen to play her video games on so it may just be because of this, but I could never get the color contrast to work properly. The beginning of the game even has a selection of color squares to help you adjust your screen but mine wasn't capable of the proper adjustment. As a result, some of the lights were a bit too buttery bright and the darks were a bit darker than they should have been. This made some of the text difficult to read at times. Still, as I said before, this could have just been because of the weird arrangement we had. If you have a normal TV, it's probably fine.

Gameplay:

You get to fight on horseback in this game, and while it looks cool, it's a bit hard on the fingers if you have more than one attacker. In the GC version you practically have to push every button frantically at once while jiggling the joystick to pull this off. I asked my friends with the Wii version if this was any better but they seemed to think it was just as difficult on the Wii.

Difficulty, however, was lacking in a lot of other aspects of this game. Now, keep in mind this comes from the girl with the cheat guide. But I had two cheat guides to Ocarina, and I still think it was a lot harder than this game. Maybe I've just gotten better, but even the final boss in this game didn't require me to use all of my heath potions, and you only have four bottles in this game to what I think was six in the other. Fairies also only restore eight hearts in this game, which I suppose was their attempt to make things more difficult, but it didn't. The bosses just aren't as hard. It was a bit more difficult for my sister who didn't know exactly how to defeat everything, but even she passed the game the same day I did and actually spent less time than me doing it without using the cheat guide at all.

The only truly difficult thing in this game is called "The Cave of Ordeals." I crawled out of there with only two hearts left, no healing potions, and a sprained L-targeting finger. It isn't necessary to pass the cave in order to pass the game, though. Bats in this game also seem faster and more difficult to shoot down. I remember in Ocarina and Majora's Mask I could clear a room of bats without blinking, but now I'm lucky if I can get one that's not in targeting range. Then there's rupees. For some inexplicable reason it's more difficult to get rupees in this game. You can still find them in the grass and other places, but it seems to take a lot longer to fill your wallet. Getting lost is a problem in this game too. I suppose this is good news for explorers and bad news for people like me who just want to get from point A to point B without a lot of running in circles. Everything is bigger. There isn't just one field; there are several. The fishing pond is even bigger! I would get lost in the town when I first started playing. Maybe players of the previous games asked for these changes, but if Nintendo purpousely made these things more difficult while making the bosses easier, then I still question their motives.

I don't want people to take any of this as an excuse not to get this game, though, because I still think it's lots of fun regardless. Just don't expect to be overwhelmed by the difficulty of the battles. I can't speak for all the puzzles since I hate puzzles and cheat on practically all of them. But I still felt the dungeons, though more numerous, were smaller and easier to get through in this game. There were, however, plenty of things I would not have been able to figure out so easily without my guide, so the puzzles weren't a complete loss.

All the same, I now have every poe, bug, heartpiece, and possible piece of equipment. I even caught the largest fish in the fishing pond. It's a bit sad really. It's all over for me.

But it doesn't have to be for you. If you haven't already played, I highly recommend it.

Overall Rating: 9.75/10

A few random scenes to leave you with:

***Spoilers!***
(Highlight the text below for easy reading. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't look too close!)

I think Link should marry Midna and have lots of sex and babies since she's cooler, hotter, and a better Princess than Zelda! Clearly Link thought so too at the end. That's right, Link. Run away from silly Zelda into Midna's arms. And I know what you're saying. You're saying, but Cherie, I thought YOU wanted to do all that with Link. Yeah. But Midna's definitely my video game alter ego. Twilight Princess all the way baby! Why did she have to seal the portal to her world? WHY?! Miiiiiidnaaaaa!!!! *Sobs inconsolably*

I even made a poem out of one of Midna's lines at the end.

"Zelda, your words are kind and your heart is true..."
But I am so much cooler than you!

http://www.karenfreberg.com/TwilightPrincess2006.JPG

Click the link to see a picture of human Midna to compare her beauty with Zelda's (above). I think the answer to her question is "Yes!"