Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Video Game Reviews: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask/Naughty Bear

http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/06/30/naughty-bear-review
http://www.ign.com/games/the-legend-of-zelda-majoras-mask/n64-1933


-Gives a history of the franchise (if it exists)
-Lets in on backstory of development
-Avoids spoilers
-If it's bad, it let's you know the reviewer doesn't like it in the first paragraph
-Lets you in on the gameplay
-Tells you the story first.

Album reviews: Catacombs of the Black Vatican- Black Label Society/ Painkiller-Judas Priest
http://loudwire.com/black-label-society-catacombs-of-the-black-vatican-album-review/
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/Judas_Priest/Painkiller/465/

-Compares this to previous work
-Doesn't talk about all the songs
-Gives back-story of the record
-Fits the guitar style into some music genre other than metal (blues, jazz)
-Lets us in on an overall tone of the album
-Lets us know what kind of effects are used in it
-Keeps away from talking about the best or worst track

Restaurant reviews: Chef's Kitchen/ Kanpai
  http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g37835-d1100726-Reviews-Chef_s_Kitchen-Des_Moines_Iowa.html#REVIEWS
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60814-d437169-Reviews-Kanpai-Savannah_Georgia.html

-Talks about the service
-Talks about wait time
-Talks about food prices
-Mentions food taste
-Mentions how quick food came

2 Television series: Trailer Park Boys/ Soul Eater
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290988/reviews
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1214085/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

-Address other people who watched the show, regardless of how they felt of it
-Talk about the strongest characters
-On cartoon reviews people use many exclamations points AND ALL CAPS! and smiles (:
-For cartoons the art style is always commented on

2 Technology Reviews: Gibson Les Paul Studio 2014/ Charvel So Cal HH
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/gibson-2014-les-paul-studio-electric-guitar
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/electric_guitars/charvel/so-cal

-Mention how it was straight out of the box
-Go into detail about how versatile the guitar is
-Always mention how the guitar feels
-Compares it to predecessors or owner's previous guitars
-Always try to fit in a CON somewhere


Friday, December 12, 2014

Reviews of a Movie I Like

Positive Reviews:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20419668,00.html
http://www.7mpictures.com/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-the-collectors-edition-blu-ray-review/

Major points in both of these reviews were that Jack Nicholson casted as the main character is and example of perfect casting. He's cunning, crazy, and likeable. All the characters in this film do a very good job of conveying their emotions through the movie, and that really expresses the cruel tone of the movie. Another thing that was pointed out was the insane amount of rewatch value this movie has. Despite its long time, this movie is said to have an absence of boring or dull scenes, keeping its engagement through the whole film.

Negative Reviews:
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913797,00.html?iid=chix-sphere
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1739E76CBC4851DFB767838E669EDE&partner=Rotten%2520Tomatoes

From the reviews I just read, I withdrew their thoughts in which they believed the story didn't really capture the essence of the time period. One reviewer expressed that the directer, and even writer, didn't understand the concept of revolution, or revolutionary period of the 60s. These reviewers felt that with the failures to grasp these concepts, the film seriously failed in being serious and just looked dumb. It was also felt that the portrayal of the mental institutions were poor in the way that they didn't perform and procedures in the way the movie showed.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Failures of Fabrication: Stephen Glass and Ken Dilanian

   Stephen Glass and Ken Dilanian both committed the crimes of doing a major DON'T in journalism. For years Glass had written false articles for major magazine The New Republic while Dilanian had only created one false story with the help of the C.I.A.

Over the course of 4 years Stephen Glass had written 27 false stories before he was fired. Ken Dilanian had written a considerably more sinister story, in which he the C.I.A contacted him and got him to lie about the U.S killing Yemen innocents while trying to get to an Al Qaeda leader.

The U.S conducted airstrikes in Yemen to take out Abu Yahya al-Libi. While he was killed, the airstrike killed 20 others and injured 7 (some of which were terrorists).

Unlike Glass' fame gathering stories, Dilanian wrote a cover-up. Ken Dilanian's C.I.A edited article in the LA Times covered up the fact that the U.S airstrike killed civilians and wrote that only terrorists were hurt in the attack.

Dilanian's lies caught up to him when the International Bureau of Investigation exposed letters between him and the C.I.A. It turns out unlike Glass, he wasn't fired, he quit and joined the Associated Press because it turns out many journalists edit their stories to the C.I.A's liking.

The story that brought Stephen Glass' false articles to everyone's attention was a piece called, "Hack Heaven". Here's a link to the article: http://www.ep.tc/realist/140/11.html

Glass wouldn't just bend the truth, he would completely make something up out of nothing such as this article. Many of the sources he uses in this story aren't even true, Jukt Micronics and Ian Restil don't even exist.

If this was one of his last stories before he was caught, why did it take so long? Here are a few reasons.

Most people loved his stories, the magazine publishing them wanted to post them because they were great. The editors just wanted to take his word for them being real because they were hilarious.

Many of the things were easy for Stephen to cover up as well. In a lot of them he "experienced" some of these situations first hand, so he was often his own source.

It took completely different companies to catch these two reporters on their own lies, so that goes to show you how lazy some publisher can get. Something great we can take away from these two are that we shouldn't EVER assume or make things up in journalism.



   

Friday, November 7, 2014

Osama Bin Laden's Death

Osama was located in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by the U.S military in which they sent in Navy Seals to take out the Al' Qaeda leader. Osama Bin Laden's historic death was on the day of May 2, 2011 and became world wide news very quickly.

The most wanted man on the face of the planet was killed by the U.S military. With huge news like that, any news station anywhere would want the first story on that to make themselves big money, so there were a bit of inaccuracies throughout many reports.

News stations were reporting his death even when there was absolutely no information about him. There was still non-stop talk about it everywhere, even outside of the United States of America and Pakistan.

Osama's death was announced by United States of America's  President Obama at the White House recorded live by Fox News. Fox News was the first to report of the incident and recorded outside of the white-house until Obama gave his speech.

CNN by had the most coverage on the story. After the first day of his death, they already had short documentaries about his life.

A lot of news CNN reported about how he died was supposedly very brief and inaccurate the first few days. Eventually, more information was released but some of the news of the operation was illegally released.

A book titled, "No Easy Day" was written by one of the men that carried out the operation of the terrorist's death and was about his first-hand experience during the mission. The Navy Seal that wrote the novel was discharged and fined for giving away too much confidential information in the novel.

Most news stations such as Fox, CNN, and ABC have reported that the body of Osama Bin Laden was buried at sea to show respect for his religion. Although they had first reported that, the same news stations brought up possible evidence that he wasn't buried at sea.

It had been reported on Wikileaks that there is leaked info that the Central Intelligence Agency had actually brought the body back to the United States of America for inspection and dumped a fake body into the ocean. However, it has been reported that the United States of America brought Osama's body back for inspection, but buried the body after to avoid even more religious fights.

Once the public people of the United States of America heard news of Osama Bin Laden's death there were huge celebrations and rally crowding the streets of New York, Washington D.C, the White House and many other major cities. There were some people who complained that it was "wrong" to celebrate the death of the Al' Qaeda leader, but there weren't much.

Europe had a very similar reaction. European Union Parliament says, "We woke up in a safer world". Not really anyone seemed to be complaining.

Middle Eastern countries had a few uprising, defending the Al' Qaeda (few). Countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan were just hoping to get the U.S military to finally leave their country.

The Taliban themselves vowed to get their revenge, but they have yet to make a big retaliation to any opposing country. They better hope they keep it that way.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB8WH73fdkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX4xFDehCME
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/world/death-of-osama-bin-laden-fast-facts/
http://rt.com/news/osama-body-wikileaks-stratfor-949/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-hero-project/articles/2013/12/11/did-a-navy-seal-lose-his-honorable-discharge-as-a-punishment-for-exercising-his-rights.htmlhttp://www.npr.org/2011/05/02/135919728/world-reaction-to-osama-bin-ladens-death


Monday, November 3, 2014

Mr. Steve Perkins Japan Interview

     

                                                      Mr. Steve Perkins Japan Interview

      Steve Perkins is a well liked Human Geography teacher at Roosevelt High School in Iowa. For a year, he wasn't teaching in the USA, instead an English teacher on the other side of the world for a two Japanese middle schools.

Steve Perkins obtained this opportunity by hearing about a Des Moines/Kofu(a district in Japan) exchange program. Through this program he would be teaching English to the middle-school students for a whole year.

"I never had actually a super amazing desire for Japan specifically, I mean I'm interested in traveling um I just wanted to uh have a quick change..."

He sent in his application for the job and got called in for an interview. His information got sent to the two middle-schools and he was accepted.

However, he did know living in Kofu would be difficult considering he did not have much experience speaking Japanese. However he did have assistance from an English-speaking woman for the duration of the trip.

He describes his first weeks in Japan not as hard, but weird. Mr.Steve Perkins had a tough time settling into the culture, but once he had a routine going, he started to mx in a lot of adventure into his day, which he says was always fun.

After school you could often find him trying new food at a restaurant, or going jogging through the country-side. Perkins says, "I just wanted to pick up as much about the culture as possible to be honest".

When I asked him how the people treated him he says, "For the most part they were curious as well they're like, in Kofu there weren't as much non-Japanese people so little kids would point and stare which was kind of funny, but otherwise they're all pretty nice people."

At the schools he would teach on a year-round schedule.

According to him none of the students there aren't really trouble makers and that they're really taught to conform. He liked this at first, but they really didn't express their personalities as much as American students do, so this could cause him some boring school-days.

Late into his months in Kofu he would start to go crazy because nobody really spoke English, meaning that he couldn't socialize as much as he'd like to.

 "I would be riding my bike and see someone with a shirt and say, 'Hey! your shirt looks pretty weird over there!' He wouldn't know what I said but I just NEEDED to speak English."

In joy but also sad, he headed back to America after his year was up. He expresses that he definitely had a good time and would like to visit again.

"To be honest more like the fun stuff and like the best that I brought back with me are the memories and experiences."









Tuesday, October 14, 2014

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/saving-the-children-2/

The preparation for extermination of the Jews before the time of World War II was building up for a long time. Luckily, a man was ready to take action to save hundreds.

Briton Winton lived in Czech and snuck hundreds of kids onto trains on that traveled straight through the heart of Germany into London, England where the children were safe.

This is a heart warming and emotional story because near the end, Winton is surrounded by many of the people he had saved during those dark years. They all bless and smile at him for saving their lives.


What I noticed about this interviewer was that he rotated his head in a circular motion rather than a straight horizontal or vertical line. He sat comfortably and fiddled with whatever was in his hands to show that he is focused on the person being interviewed.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-smartest-dog-in-the-world/

In this 60-minutes video we are introduced to the smartest dog in the world, who understands nouns and adjectives. The video went even further than that when it showed us how the brain of a canine works.

Dogs may be smarter than we think. When taught, our canine-friends can be just as smart as a 3 year old human.

Even your dog can be that smart as the "Smartest Dog in the World", if trained.

In this interview, the topic is also brought up if our dogs actually love us, or if they're just trying to scam us humans for food. Thankfully, our dogs can actually care for us, which is good because I was starting to think my dog is a con-artist.

What I like about this Interviewer was that he moved his eyebrows and changed his facial expression a lot. He would also re-state answers or ask clarifying questions.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/joaquin-el-chapo-guzman-drug-cartel-kingpin-behind-the-arrest-of-pubic-enemy-number-one/

      The most wanted man in the world was finally caught after reigning on top of a drug empire for 13 years. The mans name is "El Chapo" Guzman, and he will be in jail for a very long time.

El Chapo was located once the Mexican and American marines routed the connections to members of his cartel's phones. Once that happened, The forces invaded and captured the drug dealers in their warehouse.

El Chapo's right-hand-man was captured in one of those events, and was brought in for questioning. It was then the military acquired the information of El Chapo's whereabouts.

The military swarmed Chapo's house and chased him through a humongous and elaborate underground tunnel network. The chase lead to a hotel and that's where the drug lord was caught.

El Chapo Guzman is now in custody of a super-jail in Mexico.


What I liked about the interviewer was that he never stuttered, and elaborated on his questions. I also noticed how he would repeat a strong adjective from the interviewed person. This was probably to exclaim his answer.






Monday, September 15, 2014

20 Things about Bryanna Sterzenbach

This class period I interviewed Bryanna Sterzenbach. I asked her questions ranging from her name and age to questions about Justin Beiber.

Bryanna is a 16 year old in 11th grade enjoys English class and writing. One thing she does not like about school are the annoying people that show up.

Outside of school Bryanna lives with her parents and enjoys playing video games with and without friends and constantly listens to music. Her favorite bands are Royal Concept and Group Love which are Indy/Punk Rock.

Her favorite movie and T.V show/movie genre is horror. Her favorite T.V show is Super-Natural which is somewhat a fantasy show while her favorite movie is submarine, a romance.

Things she does not tend to like are homework and Gueneth Paltra because homework sucks and Paltra doesn't believe in equality. If Bryanna could put an end to anything in the world she would end rape.

Bryanna is learning Spanish but is not fluent in any language. If she could speak any language she would speak Irish Celtic, but live in Russia.

Bryanna was asked if she would rather wear full Justin Bieber attire (Including pants, shirt, hat, and shoes) ALWAYS, or have bad breath and hair all the time. She chose the bad breath and hair.




Friday, September 5, 2014

What I Expect from this School Year

I expect my Junior year at Roosevelt High School to be pretty laid back. I have signed up for 5 fun classes for a reason.

Not even many of the core classes I have are very hard. I don't dread any of the classes I go to yet.

Out of all my classes I think English will be my hardest. I think the test and essays (ESPECIALLY the tests) can be overly cryptic and annoying.

So far, US History is the most boring and by the looks of it, it might continue to be. I think a lot of the people in it are annoying but at least I sit pretty close to some good friends.

My most fun class could be Film and Broadcasting because of all the out-of-the-classroom activities we get to do. Today we are going to the Sculpture Garden and take pictures.

In this school-year we are already getting to the part when the teachers are not still giving us explanations of the subject we are taking. That is a good sign because I have hardly gotten any homework so far.

Another thing that is going well so far is all the people I am meeting. I have already (I do not mean to sound like a loser) a few new friends.

I expect this to be my best school year at Roosevelt so far. With this going well, I can not imagine how fun Senior year is about to be.

I need five more words.


Thursday, August 28, 2014

America Takes Another Step Forward
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/justice/florida-same-sex-marriage/index.html

Last week in Florida the ban on Same-Sex Marriage was lifted, being recognized as unconstitutional. Florida became the 19th State to give its citizens this right.

The fight for Same-Sex Marriage has been on a roll lately. Florida has become part of the 13+ states to legalize this type of marriage in the last two years.

Hopefully America's momentum on the subject will continue to power through the next few years. Marriage is a human right that should be given to everybody without question.




Be Careful Who You Give your Money to
http://www.metalinjection.net/latest-news/nachtmystiums-blake-judd-accused-once-again-of-screwing-fans-over

Not comfortable with buying something from someone you don't know online? Your suspicion is not unjustified. 

Front-man of heavy-metal band Nachtmystium, Blake Judd, handles the funds for merchandise, and has reportedly been ripping off fans. Judd has reportedly taking funds from fans without mailing back the purchased item. 

There have been many cases of him doing this in the past, but this has become a especially big problem recently considering they just released a new album. Possibly being tired of having to make excuses for the absences of his items, he deleted the band's social media pages. 

No one has heard from Judd since.

Although Judd is the only one at fault, hopefully now people will try to become more aware of who they order from that's not a official business.


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Pantera Reunion Shot Down by Former Drummer Vinnie Paul?

Pantera Reunion Shot Down by Former Drummer Vinne Paul?
http://loudwire.com/vinnie-paul-pantera-reunion-eddie-van-halen-zakk-wylde/

Legendary metal band, Pantera has disbanded about 12 years ago and December will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

Fans are pressuring a Pantera reunion with Zakk Wylde to replace Vinnie's brother, Dime. Vinnie has always been against his former band's reunion but when the subject was brought back up at a recent interview, he was obviously angered.

He claims that his fans are being selfish for trying to get him to do something he doesn't think should be done and asks, "If Eddie Van Halen was to get shot in the head four times next week (the cause of his brother's death), would everybody be going, 'Hey, man, Zakk, go play for Van Halen, then just still call it, Van Halen."

In the end, it was his band, so he should be able to decide what should be done with its' legacy, not the fans.


Monday, August 25, 2014

About Me

My name is Noah Carrell and I am a junior at Roosevelt High School. The things I love to do are watch professional wrestling, watch movies and shows, listen to music, and play guitar.

I have a mom, dad, big brother, twin brother, a little brother, a dog, a cat, and fish. I'm hoping all of my fish die soon because I'm tired of taking care of them.

I've played guitar for 5 years now and practice constantly. Every once in a while I play a show at the House of Bricks.

 I am influenced by bands like Judas Priest, Pantera, Metallica, and Pearl Jam. My favorite genre of music is metal, but I like to listen to other genres as well as long as they have good guitar parts.

I enjoy Japanese culture and TV shows. I have been to Japan once and hosted 2 students at my house and have formed a bond to them, so I am trying to become fluent in the language.

 I'm also a huge fan of Nintendo and their games are basically the only ones I play. If I don't get the new Smash Bros when it comes out someones going to have to pay.


I watch wrestling programs such as TNA and WWE almost every-time they're on. I like these because my favorite types of stories are suspenseful and have action.

I've tried to play sports in the past and have participated in Baseball and Basketball for a while, but I was never very good. I never watch sports when they are on TV.