Cherry Blossom Viewing

I've been reading a little about this. I've seen amazing imagery in movies of the Cherry blossoms falling in different movies, but I had not idea that it was such a big event in Japanese culture.

Viewing the blossoms fall is almost a spiritual thing to the Japanese. Right when the bleak winter skies start to fade away a gentle breeze will cause the blossoms to fall like tiny pink snowflakes.

Yoshino Mountain in the Yoshino-Kumano National Park is covered with tens of thousands of old cherry trees.

Turns out to the Japanese the blossom is a symbol of mortality, the kamikaze pilots used to paint them on the sides of their planes during WWII.

It would be an amazing experience to go see this. If you've been and would like something to remember this place by, or are looking for a special unique gift for that loved one that traveled there with you, I suggest you purchase this location on Earth Claim, and give the certificate to them as a Christmas Gift.

Kennedy Space Center

Oh man I feel so lucky. I was able to pick up a deed for the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I was really glad this one wasn't taken yet. You can see it here.

Although I am really into science fiction, I am also into science fact, and there is no greater symbol of that than NASA. The frontiers they push everyday simply astounds me. After visiting the Kennedy Space Center on two separate occasions I am still in awe as to what they can do there. The size and the power of what they build.

I highly recommend you visit it if you have the time. But I also highly recommend you buy some land on EarthClaim.com . I can't believe how fast the land is getting snatched up. Go check it out now.

I have some toy reviews coming soon.

Over and out!

Earth Claim again.

My wife was really happy with the deed I bought for her on EarthClaim.com. She thought the idea of having a deed for a place she visited was really neat. I decided to get her another one for our anniversary to commemorate our trip to the Kennedy Space Center.

We went down to Florida for a week in February and visited the space center on two separate days. The thing is I am trying to decided which part of the center to buy. There was the launch pad where all the space shuttles had been taking off. But there was also the Vehicle Assembly Building where the Apollo Rockets and Space Shuttle stacks are assembled.

They both would be pretty amazing to have, but I don't know which one to get. I think I need to decide quickly before someone scoops this one out. Which one would you get??

The Box

Hey. Was just checking out this Trailer for "The Box"

Trailer

I heard about this story about 10 years ago. Sweet that they are making it into a feature film.

Richard Kelly, the director did a really good job on Donnie Darko. Unfortunately that is the only film of his that I have seen.

Hope this is good.

Over and out!

Parralel Universes

My visit to EarthClaim.com got me thinking of all the different fiction surrounding the Transformers universe. The show has been restarted so many times it would be nice to have some sort of official story to see if there is anyway to relate them to each other. I know lots of fiction has contradictions, but how many do you restart as often as transformers?

Here is a list of the various shows. This is only shows, let alone comics and toylines

• Generation 1
• Beast Wars & Machines
• Robots In Disguise
• Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, Cybertron)
• Transformers Movie & ROTF
• Transformers Animated

I have seen some fan made fiction that attempts to bridge the gap between all of these fictions. There was a Transformers Mosaic comic that showed how the various incarnations of Prime were connected.

Also the unofficial Battle Rollar toy that came out last year....

had a comic that came with it that attempted to show how G1 was connected to the movie universe. But again this wasn't official cannon.

I want something official!

Over and out!

EarthClaim.com

Kind of neat. I was looking for a gift to commemorate our trip to Paris this year. We spent a full week there, we even brought my Daughter, who wasn't even a year old at the time. We went to the Musee D'Orsay , the Eiffel Tower, the Chateau de Versailles, Mont Martre, and the Louvre twice (Because it was sooooo big). I wanted something really unique, so I set out to search on the internet and found this site EarthClaim.com

Its an interesting site, it supposably an alternate dimension where another version of our earth exists. Sounds a lot like a conspiracy on X-files. I was reading through the info and they opened up this alternate earth for land sales! Sounds pretty unique to me! The deeds were cheap so I decided to buy the louvre for my wife. Check out my deed.

She is going to love this birthday present. If you go to my dee you can see the museum north of the river. You can make out glass pyramid and the inverted glass pyramid. If she likes it, I think I'll buy some other property from our other adventures.



Oh, I just noticed that if you look at the lower right side of my deed, on the island, you can see the Notre Dame cathedral.

What an awesome bonus!

I'm sure she'll love it!

Over and out!

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

I went and saw Transformers: Revenge on the Fallen on opening day yesterday with a few friends. I had already glanced over the ratings at RottenTomatoes.com so I was prepared for it to stink, but as the show went on I started to wonder if the reviewers saw the same movie as me. I found it was a great rollar coaster ride of a movie. The story wasn't super deep and there was several elements that seemed to be obviously lifted from other stories, but overall I really enjoyed it. The first half was definitely stronger than the second half, stronger acting, and more character development. I was thinking that they were going to have more talking scene's with the bots, to flesh out their motivations, but that quickly changed. In the end it seems that the character development (if any) was left to humans. Humans were in charge of figuring things out, bots were in charge of fighting. Maybe we'll see a change in this in the future, but I doubt it.

Likes
Optimus Prime was much tougher than in the 1st movie. In the 2007 movie, Megatron was giving him a beat down almost the entire time. This time Prime was able to take on Megatron, Starscream & Grindor all by himself. This was one of the best action sequences in the movie. I also found that he was the one bot that you could emotionally connect to. During his debriefing with NEST and his talk with Sam in the cemetery he felt very real. He also had a wicked entrance in Shanghai, skydiving as a truck, transforming, cutting his chutes loose, and retransforming. The animation has come a long way.

The N.E.S.T. organization for the human/autobot alliance. This seemed like such a natural next step from the 2007 movie. It only makes sense that the soldiers that fought along side the autobots would develop some sort of camaraderie with them. Also its not that surprising that the government would distrust them, especially since they are at a major technological disadvantage.

The camera work was much better this time around. Longer shots and a less shaky style made it much easier to tell what was going on during the intense fight scenes.

Megatron and Starscream's chemistry was reworked. Starscream was much more sniveling and Megatron really put his foot down (literally) to keep him in line This was much closer to their original G1 relationship. Maybe in the next movie we'll see him trying to usurp Megatron more, just like in G1

I found the comedic elements were really well done. I thought I'd find the twins (Skids & Mudflap) annoying. They've been compared to Jar Jar, but I found their banter quite funny and it lightened the tone of the movie. Although some of their language is definitely not for kids. Some thought they were a racist portrayal of African Americans but to me they felt like they watched too many rap videos, sort of like a caricature of a caricature, which would explain why they thought they were so cool. Sam's girly scream at college was quite funny too.

Jetfire was hilarious. I wasn't sure what to think of him when he showed up at the Smithsonian with his strange accent and acting (for a robot) but it grew on me quickly. Wheelie was also great as the remote control truck.

The Fallen had a really cool look. He definitely looked like he inspired Egyptian artwork.

Dislikes

Number 1, Alice. The pretender fembot at the University of Pennsylvania. I understand that there is a precedent for this in the transformers mytho, but it seemed really out of place and a bit too much like Terminator 3. I think they definitely could have removed her. It would have been better if there was a bit more explanation to her existence, but it didn't really fit with the internal logic that they have established thus far.

Seemed kind of weird that only a Prime could kill the fallen. Could have used a little more clarification like "Only a prime is powerful enough to destroy me" or something like that, it would seem less magical.

The final battle at the Giza pyramid between Prime, Megatron, and The Fallen was waaaayyyyy to short. Seemed like there was a lot of buildup for this and Prime just destroyed both of them so bad it wasn't even funny. I think they should have shortened the military part of the final battle by about 10-20 minutes so that they would have more time for this fight scene.

Megatron seemed to be very subordinate to the fallen. This really doesn't fit in well with past Megatrons. Somewhere I read that they should have made him scheming to kill the fallen at the right moment, this would have been much more in line with his character. Megatron also seemed a bit too weak, in the old shows prime would win, but it was usually close, and this wasn't close at all.

I would have liked to see other bots fighting Devastator instead of just the twins. They were funny, but I would have rather had Sideswipe or Ironhide or Jolt in there fighting as well.

New robots didn't get enough character development. They were merely eye candy, it would have been nice to get more from them. Again they really need more talking scenes for the bots, this will help the audience connect with them more.

Overall I really enjoyed it. I would have watched it again, but I had to go get my daughter at the sitter's place. Maybe next time I will watch it at IMAX, I hear there is some extra footage there.

Over and out.