Boredom Block: Lol-League of Legends

For over a year now, my brothers and I have been playing a free online game called League of Legends. Now, most of the time when you see "free" and "online multiplayer game", the first thought that comes to mind is "horrible" and "computer viruses". League of Legends, however, does not fall under either of these categories. This game is made by Riot games, famously known for the creation of DOTA in Warcraft 3. When they started on League fo Legends, or LOL for short, Riot games basically took their famous and popular DOTA game and put it on gamer roids. They made it more organized so players are set up with other people of the same level, added new characters, and have made new maps with different team playstyles, there are a LOT of options. This game is not just some off-kilter game played by only the few odd balls- It is actually one of the most played games, with 32.5 million players signed up, 11.5 million players who play monthly, 4.2  million daily players, and the peak of players playing at any given time is around 1.3 million. To put this into perspective, World of Warcraft (which is one of the most often thought of game when the word mmo is mentioned) says it has 10.3 million active players. League of Legends is one of my favorite games with all the great teamplay. But.. sometimes you get stuck with a bad/angry/stubborn player on your team, and it can ruin the game experience. But otherwise, it is definitly a game to look into playing!

Writers Block

Yes, I am writing about the one thing that bloggers dread more than anything (other than losing internet/electricity). The dreaded Writer's Block. *DADADUHHHHH!* I am, at the moment going to teach any bloggers out there how to avoid a writer's block. One is to go exercise until you think of something. Not only does this get blood pumping to your brain, but it also give a motivation to think of one quickly- how many bloggers out there like running? Next option is to surf the internet, especially news sites and other blogs. There are many various places to go, and Google is one great way to find those places. Now if you are in a situation like me, where you have to do blogs for a grade, you can just do the occasional bs, and if you are really desperate, you can write about your writer's block, or better yet writer's block itself. Then you give advice to people, and keep going with examples(such as this one XD ), maybe listing a couple of sites like NBC news, National Geographic, exc. And If there is still some extra words you need to put in(and the quality is not relevant), you can just keep repeating certain things and go on and on and on and on like so. And if you become really desperate, you can always troll! Well, good luck out there and hopefully you can smash that writer's block into smithereens!

Charles Dickens

Yesterday marked the 200th birthday for Charls Dickens, a famous english writer who wrote classics such as A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist,  and Great Expectations. I have read two out of three of these books ( A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations), and seen movies of two of these  (A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist).  Other than Great Expectations, I have found Charles Dickens' works very interesting and worth reading. A Christmas Carol is acually one of my favorite classical stories- the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present,&Future. I will admit, I much prefer the Disney animated story over the the book itself, but nevertheless I do enjoy the book and the additional story that gives the book some darker, more serious tones. Oliver Twist was, for the most part, a very depressing movie. The orphan Oliver Twist first works at a "workhouse" doing various tasks such as undoing rope so the fibers could be reused, and where one of the most famous line of "Please Sir, May I have some more?" is asked by the main character to get another bowl of porrige from the taskmaster whom whips him for asking. Then he later runs away and works for two men who "employs" a group of rag-tag young boys to pickpocket(steal) from other people. He eventually gets adopted by a rich man who owns a vast library, and lives happily ever after(that is, after a dispute with the two men & gang of children). Great Expectations is...... not going to be described. If you want to find out about that horrid book, go look it up on google, I refuse to think about it for another second! And with that, I say good day!

New Car! and errands...

Recently, my parents got a new car. Now that we have three cars, I am no longer stranded at home or dependant on my parents whom are working full time and part time (my father and mother, respectively). No longer do I have to ask them if I will be able to go somewhere (although I still have to ask for permission). No longer will an empty garage haunt my eyes and destroy hopes of going to the movies or going to wednesday night church. FREE AT LAST! But... some added responcabilities come with this option. Firstly, I am now much more likely to be sent on "fetch" errands- ranging from fetching some onions for green beans to fetching my brother from his football/swimming/track practice. Picking up my brother is not that bad, but when I'm supposed to get something from the store, the difficulty is unpredictable. Produce is pretty easy- either it's there or it isn't. But certain items like chocolate syrup can possibly be found in multiple sections(ex. ice cream, toppings, deserts,exc.), but can actually only be found in one. And the bigger the store, the more time it takes. One time I had to look for cream of mushroom soup at Wal-Mart. An easy task, with either the canned goods or with the soups, right? No. I look in both areas, and it is nowhere to be found. I ask multiple people around the store, and I couldn't find it. When I'm about to give up, I see a "Specialty section" on the edges of one of the aisles, and.... there is the cream of mushroom, marked as 1/2 price. I did a *facepalm*, scratching my hand down my face slowly like someone scratching an old chalkboard(with the expression like I was hearing the chalkboard-scratching noise on my face) as I dragged my feet like a broken-leg zombie to the accursed jel-of-cream/mushroom contained within the cans. This luckily is my only experience with FML errand experiences, and as long as they are few and far between, I will find the freedom to drive w/out worry of lacking a car very, VERY worthwhile.

Favorite Thing:Video Games

Of all things I have difficulties saying I have a favorite of, it's a game. I  really enjoy action, like most people do in games, but I don't like the instinctual type of game where u merely 'point'n shoot' or simple reaction games- I am the type that likes action that is mentally ingaging, where you have to solve puzzles on the fly or use strategy and find the enemies weak spot to overcome impossible odds. I find some teamwork games very gratifying when my team and I work in tandum, but often people are... stubborn and so I usually end up preferring one player games. Finally, I like games that tell a great story. It makes the game feel much more real when a story is there giving a purpose for the main character(s) for fighting in the struggle they were forced into/chose to do. Of all games that fall into the action-and-thought category, my preferred selections would have to be- Legend of Zelda (favorites in the series are Orcina of Time and Twilight Princess, but haven't finished Skyward Sword yet so can't quite say whether it will be added to that list). If anyone reading this hasn't played at leas tone Legend of Zelda game, then you just need to play it. Let's just say that among 100's of top ten lists of video games created by individual people, blogs, and prestigous gaming websites/magazines, Legend of Zelda Orcina of Time consistantly ranks in the top 10 games ever made. Now many say that the other L.O.Z. games are not as good, but each game has it's own unique story to tell. Speaking of stories, my favorite story told via game has got to be the the Gears of War Series. The tale of brotherhood of one batallion, and their dramatic, gory, epic, and somewhat dismal story as they defend the surface world from the underground humanoids called Locust, Their assault on the Locust underground, and the afteraffects of the victory against the locusts- fighting the Lambit and the remaining locusts. Both are Some (key word some) of my favorite games.

Favorite things: Books

Hello again, and it is now time to chat about my favorite books! I have read countless books, but only a small fraction of those numbers make my best read/re-readable list. Many of them include some rather popular books like the Chronicles of Narnia, Charolette's Web, and Harry Potter. This books vary greatly in action, suspense, and adventure, but each has a unique story that just excites me! These books, though, are put to shame by my favorite book series. It is not the Inheritane Cycle, and it is definitly not a book about vampires. It is a relatively little-known- it is called The Sword of Truth series. This book tells a story on a scale so vast, so powerful, so creative yet using familiar enough ideas that the reader isn't lost. The first book in the series, called Wizard's First Rule, follows the main character Richard Cypher as he helps a stranger Kahlan from being assasinated, and ends up being involved in a struggle to save the world from utter destruction/complete domination from the Cruel Ruler of D'Hara, named Darken Rahl. Now, this summary sounds very cliche, but the summary does not do the story justice at all. This book contains some of the most intense action scenes, the deepest concepts I have ever seen put into a fantasy book, some of the most intruging secrets and the most intense love story that will keep you on the edge of your seat wanting more. There are a lot of parts where there is merely discussion between characters about ideas, planning what they are going to do, and other important matters which some may find boring, but these parts of the story make the action scenes all the more intense, and allowing the reader to have a deeper understanding of the culture the world of Sword of Truth, and also gives the book a more realistic feeling- how many heroes can acually succeed without a plan, without being knowledable? This series, once you start will suck you in. As my brother once said to my friend "Don't read it. Once you do, all other fiction books are dissapointing"
Unlike my brother, I reccomend anyone out there to read it. BEST. BOOK.EVER

Unexpected Happenings

It has been six months now since my family and I have moved into our new home. I recently went down the stairs and looked at the picture hanging awkwardly low on the wall, just below a set of light switches. I instantly started laughing, recalling why that picture was hanging there. It was early September, and My brother Garrett, our best friend Gabe, and myself were all goofing off on the weekend. We were eating a hearty meal that my mother had cooked. I got done eating before Gabe and Garrett, so I decided to head on downstairs. I saw Garrett's lime green fuff chair( a bean bag chair that's filled with memory foam instead of beans), and instantly a devious prank came to mind. I picked up the awkward load, and began moving like a sumo wrestler past the obstacles of chairs, a couch, and the pool table. I heard footsteps, so I quickly shoved the bulky yet fluffy chair through my bedroom doorway and squeezed it into my closet. As I was shoving my fuff chair into my closet, I head a THUMP, and felt the house shake a little. After squishing the huge fuff chair in the the darkest corner of my closet, I went to see what had happened between my Friend and my brother. My brother was laying on the floor and Gabe was walking with his back arched down. Both had a shocked look and their eyes and had their hands over their mouths, trying and failing to suppress their laughter. I came over to them and asked " What happened! What did I miss?". Garrett lifted one of his hands from his face and pointed at the wall and where the painting now hangs. There was a gaping hole in the wall. I ended up looking just like my brother, laying on the ground suppressing the laughter that would get those two caught. What were the odds? Us three had been horsing around a lot more aggressively and a lot more often in the old house over a course of 10+ years, and yet we never did any noticeable damage to the house. But after being in the new house for only three months, we had put a hole in the wall(*reminder* I was  innocent in this situation) Then, my mother came downstairs. There was nothing we could do- we were still laughing, and she would know that it was us who put the hole in the wall- so we didn't try to escape. When she saw the hole, she started laughing hysterically. Gabe, Garrett, and I started laughing even more, no longer able to suppress it well enough with our hands. Then I asked in between chuckling "Why are you laughing Mom? I thought you would be angry." "Well" my mother replied, laughing briefly " Your father said to me 'make sure they aren't breaking anything'". Gabe Garrett and I laughed like maniacs for a whole minute straight. A few hours later, we told dd what had happened. He chuckled a little bit, but I could tell that he was not very happy- he was most likely going to be the one who had to fix it. He hasn't gotten around to fixing it yet do to many other things that are needed to be done, but as soon as it's summer, Garrett will most definitely be helping him fix the hole. Don't forget- Wrestling, tackling, and shoving are not a good combination when near a wall

Favorite things: Movies

Hello everyone! This is going to be the first blog in a series about, well, some of my favorite things! Now, movies are extremely entertaining ranging from romance, horror, action, and even documentaries- I love em' all. My favorite movie is under the category of historical fiction, and includes drama, love, action, comedy, but is not focused on any of these themes. It is a slice-of-life from the perspective of the simple storyteller named Forest Gump. This heartwarming story starting with his early childhood, covers how he got into regular school, how he met his best friend Jenny and the drama in her life, how Forest learned he could run, and how Elvis Presley got his famous jumpy leg move. As Forest grows up and matures, so does the movie. It becomes more serious, more real-except where Forest Gump is being Forest Gump. He becomes a star college running back. The story goes on for quite a long time, and progresses and changes in ways that you don't expect, yet seem so fitting, that you feel like you should've expected it. It is a beautifully done movie, and it gets a rating of 11 out of 10 from me- it is one of my favorites! But, it is not my only favorite movie. A few of my other favorites are- the new Star Trek, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy,  the Chronicles of Riddik, and the classic Star Wars series.  Yes, I am a fan of science fiction. But, I don't like the fairy tales or the dream come true kind of movies. I much prefer the gritty ones that are more realistic( at least, as realistic as science fiction can get) in the sense of people dying, the outcomes of stories, the flaws in the heroes/main characters, exc. I have found that most of the newer movies that have come out recently are not very appealing to me. They often seem too... shallow. Usually with more action in action movies, more gore in horror, more smooching in love stories and less of the conveying of feelings via words that went deeper than a mere touch, less of the suspense that even made a cat scary(like in Alien), and less background behind the action to make the watcher understand why it is so exciting.