Review: Order of the Black (2010)- Black Label Society

Ozzy Osbourne's band is known for a few great things, one being that Ozzy is an incredible songwriter, and the other being his awesome line-up of guitarists. When former guitarist Zakk Wylde formed his own band in '98, greatness could be expected from his group, Black Label Society.

Track Listings:
1. Crazy Horse
2. Overlord
3.Parade of the Dead
4. Darkest Days
5. Black Sunday
6. Southern Dissolution
7. Time Waits for No One
8. Godspeed Hellbound
9. War of Heaven
10. Shallow Grave
11. Chupacabra
12. Riders of the Damned
13. January

The heading track for Order of the Black is titled, "Crazy Horse" and Wylde's work with Ozzy becomes evident when you hear the heavy influence he had on his vocal work. The vocal style carries over to all the songs on the album as well as his guitar's signature heavy and fuzzy "wah" tone

Crazy Horse takes you on a ride as the song's heavily effected intro leads into a great headbanging riff, and top of all that, we get to hear the very best out of Zakk Wylde during his shred-tacular guitar solo. This song is definitely one you could listen to over and over again.

The second heading track, "Overlord" starts out with a funky riff that quickly becomes very heavy after the intro. The chorus is very fun to sing along to, making this a well-deserved live show staple.

Unlike the previous two songs, Parade of the Dead starts out very enjoyably faster than the rest of the album while it's still heavy at the same time, so its placed very well as the third track. Since it has a short run time, many metal-heads will find themselves coming back to this song wanting more.

Darkest Days, Time Waits for No One, Shallow Grave, and January prove that Zakk Wylde can also write memorable slow heart-felt songs. All of these have piano or orchestra instruments which really flashes his skills as a musician, especially in Time Waits for No One.

Now here are the album's low-points: the songs Black Sunday, Southern Dissolution, Godspeed Hellbound, Riders of the Damned, and War of Heaven are very similar in pattern with minor tweaks such as intros here and there. They'll start out really good hyping you up but then let you down when Wylde's vocals come in which unfortunately slows down the whole song.

None of those songs are necessarily bad, they just don't stand very well together. Godspeed Hellbound and Black Sunday are still worth listening to, and maybe the others if you feel as if you really like those two and want more that are similar.

Chupacabra is less than a minute and is a Mexican-styled acoustic shred. Not much to it, but it's fun to listen to.

Conclusion:
Zakk Wylde's song-writing here still had some developing to do. He knows how to capture our attention with his great guitar skills but sometime he just can't drive the songs all the way home.

Order of the Black has some fantastic songs but none are the best I've ever heard. The only songs I would take away from this album are Crazy Horse, Overlord, Parade of the Dead, Time Waits for No One, Godspeed Hellbound, and Black Sunday.


I give this rating a 7/10. What's with Wylde's black fetish by the way?

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

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.

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.

   

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

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."

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.