- Patrick Carman

This book was so unique and different from anything that I have ever read that I am a little ashamed that it took me this long to actually get this review up on the blog. It’s terrifying. Amazing. And oh so dark.

The book starts off with Jacob returning to school after a small leave of absence. He just miraculously survived the major car crash that took the life of his foster father. His best friend Milo has taken up with the new girl, Ophelia (or Oh as they call her). Jacob and Oh immediately connect.

Jacob is haunted by the last words his father said to him. “You are indestructible.” Through a series of freak accidents it becomes apparent that Jacob is immortal. Not only that but he can pass the power to other people at will. They decide to use this power to save people. Like superheroes.

Of course, I did say this was a dark book, didn’t I?

Jacob is no Nathan from Misfits. (Okay, so maybe I just wanted to use the gif).The power of immortality eventually drives Oh insane and they become addicted to killing themselves over and over. Jacob in a desperate attempt to save Oh begins to search for the origins of the power granted to him and a way to return Oh to her senses. And when they find the cure? Yeah… it’s not pretty.

The book is incredibly unique with its plot and its characters. It is so dark and amazingly written….

Of course the squeamish may not enjoy so if that’s you, you might want to pass.  Otherwise, there is no reason for you not to read this book. Just saying.

abi

I just joined this amazing community called GoodReads? Maybe you’ve heard of it? Maybe not? It’s like the book nerd supercenter of the internet. You go online and rate books you like (or hate), discuss books with other people and keep track of books you want to read. I spent about an hour or two on there the other day and found over 500 books that I’ve read in the past and over 200 that I want to read. Basically, it’s my heaven. If you have an account already feel free to add me as a friend… I think my username is Ashli3?

here  <- that’s me

So… updates. I might be returning, I might not. I’ve decided to focus on my school work this year a little more, so if I do post, it’ll be more sporadic than before, if that’s possible. Probably book reviews and philosophy rants (because that’s what I’m into now). Maybe more music….

ANNNNNDDD…. that’s it for now. Might post later..

P.S. Check out the books on the side! The highly rated ones are good. My guarantee.

P.P.S. It’s Nanowrimo! Get writing, people!!!!

abi

Discoveries made and finished

But a creative bend

(and twisted childhood?)

Lead to my rise to fame

I’ve always hated cats

So I trapped one in a box

Is it dead or is it alive?

Who knows?

Not me.

I’m just a scientist.

I admit that it is a strange combination. But It is not the strangest by a long shot. So what is the strangest combination? Well, of course I’m not counting fan made mash-ups like in my last musical post. So only counting a real collaboration like the Matt and Kim video?

Jack White, Guitar player for The White Stripes (Song) with Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Rappers of Insane Clown Posse (Song(Naughty Words))

What? why?

… Oh, and Mozart.(Song) I almost forgot that one. Jack white, ICP and Mozart.

The song they are performing? Leck Mich Im Arsch Which roughly translates to Lick my ass. That’s a real Mozart song too. Mozart did that sort of stuff.
So what is the result? This is it! (Naughty words)

Now I’m not going to lie, that is absolutely terrible. But what’s more important is Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why?

What?

Why Jack White? Why ICP? Why any of this?

Why?

Is it ironic? Is it free press? Is it just for fun? Jack White knows what he was doing right? Do ICP know what they are doing? Who’s idea was this? What is happening?

Anyway, if you have any opinions on what this is, why it is or anything else feel free to comment because I’m at a loss.

I want an I’ll Bake You Pies shirt.

abi

Musical Monday # 9: Mash-ups

What’s better than one good song? Two good songs. At the same time.

Yep.

Mash-ups are an interesting thing. Most of the time they are put together because the creator feels like the two tunes were work well together, other times it’s set up as a this vs that and  some times it’s just to make a funny phase out of combining the titles. Actually most times it’s that last one or just to match up the least likely songs.

But still, the results are pretty amazing.

Skip these if you hate rap unconditionally and will never even try to expand your musical palette because of your preconceived notions:

This is awesome:

Warning: Naughty words

This is just silly:

Alright back to non rap stuff

Here’s a notable video since this is probably one of the only mash-ups performed onstage. It’s a mix up of Brick House and Houses of the Holy by a band called Dread Zeppelin. Dread Zeppelin is Reggae cover band of Led Zeppelin led by a 300 pound Elvis impersonator and I could probably do a whole post on them but this is all they’re getting for now.

And one more for the road.

That’s all for now folks.

I might make a follow up post to this one day..

Son of Hipster has told me to come back. I assure you it was always my intention to return but I suppose that maybe it has been a little while since I actually posted something. So I thought maybe my first post would be on something you people actually seem to be looking for: Matt and Kim! Yeah!!!

Look at them, all posing and stuff...

Besides, Matt and Kim just released a new song a few days ago entitled “I’m a Goner”. I say Matt & Kim, but really it was a collaboration between Soulja Boy, Matt & Kim, and Andrew W.K. (Depicted above). When I first saw this mix I thought that maybe it was some fanmade remix. That had to be the only explanation. I mean, LOOK at that group! What on earth are they doing working together? Soulja Boy is, well, Soulja Boy. Matt & Kim have no actual discernible genre, as we’ve discussed before  (Alternative Dance Punk?), and Andrew W.K. is just… a rocker turned motivational speaker with a kind of questionable past that includes baseball card forgery. This group collaboration was a bit of a shock. What’s more of a shock is that the song? The song is more than decent. Its actually really, really, good.

Post video warning: Video contains scenes of zombie partying and may be confusing/disturbing to some audiences.

Its good, isn’t it? Even if you didn’t like it you have to admit it was good…

The Music Video for “Block After Block” was also released after my first Matt and Kim post. It’s a very summer song, so appropriate? Definitely catchy… And the video is very cool.

And finally, “Cameras”. This video is also violent… I got caught watching it in physics by one of our readers and earned some dirty looks. It also started a weird music video competition. Which I lost.  Anyway, that aside, this is also a very catchy song of their’s…

So long! Admin Out!

Starbucks, the Internet and Compassion

or Everybody is an ass and nobody wins.

Gather around and let me tell you a tale of kindness, curiosity, malevolence, charity, skepticism, surprise, greed, underhandedness, vindication and closure.

But what did we learn?

Oh wait I jumped the gun a bit.

How it all began:

We start with the first character: Jonathon Stark.

Jonathon Stark had a wonderful idea. Some would call it idealistic, others would call it inspiring. He got a Starbucks card and made the information publicly viewable online. The idea was that anybody could take money from the card to buy a coffee, but anybody could also put money into the card. Thus Began the story of “Jonathon’s card” or “Give a coffee, get a coffee.”  The idea was to inspire acts of kindness in a “social experiment”

For a while this actually worked. People were getting free coffees, but money was going back into the card just as often as it was going out. Jonathon himself had put in over 100$ into the card and many others were doing the same.So a bunch of people started a money pot for coffee and were actually using it for the intended purpose. There was always money in the card, despite the odds.

Then the inevitable happens:

Our second major player is a man named Sam Odio.

Sam Odio looked at this “Social experiment” and decided it wasn’t interesting enough for him. He was bored by the idea of  relatively simple experiment that had gone over smoothly and decided to spruce things up a bit by making a script that would detect whenever money in the card went over a certain threshold. he would then move the money from the public card to his card. Using this method he could drain money from the card without bringing it down to zero. He Worked at this for one afternoon and managed to get himself $625 from the giving public. Enough money, as Odio himself points out, to buy an iPad.

Odio did not use the money to buy an iPad though. it’s a Starbucks card after all, so you can only use it for buying coffee and other things, which is exactly the point of the shared card anyway. But He also did not use the card for coffee…

The plot thickens:

Once Sam Odio got the money and it was secured he wrote a blog post about the exploit entitled “How to use Jonathon’s Card to buy yourself an iPad” He then went on to explain that he was going to see the card information on eBay.

What? For his own personal gain? No, he was going to donate the proceeds to charity based on the premise that “There are more important things we should care about than buying each other coffees”

Well he has a point, I guess. Perhaps this was undermined slightly when his brother, Daniel Odio, put 625$ back into the card.

Another point that Sam Odio made was that other people had likely been doing the same thing and they were probably doing it more right after he made the post. These people were not doing it to make a point and give money to charity though, these people were just doing it for personal gain.

Of course, there’s a twist ending:

Enter character 3, Andrew Hetzel

Andrew Hetzel found out about this whole business and was skeptical.

A man starts up a “social experiment” with the intent  of showing the kindness of strangers in a franchised coffee shop. Of course this kindness was centred on spending money at Starbucks and not just being kind. Coincidentally, in addition to showing off how wonderful Starbucks customers were it also featured a new method of payment Starbucks was introducing. As a final point, the experiment was mostly successful and there was always money in the card. Many, many reporters and newspapers flocked around the story like screeching vultures over a really compelling display of human nature a cow or something.

If you think that the above description sounds like a Viral Marketing strategy, then you are not alone. Andrew Hetzel made a blog post examining the link between Stark and Starbucks. He supposed that although Jonathon claimed he was not working for Starbucks, he was working for a company that was employed by Starbucks.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Starbucks had such allegations levelled at it. This blog uses a frightening amount of phallic metaphors to suggest that several years back, Starbucks was using a viral marketing scheme that involved “The kindness of strangers (at Starbucks)” and “Giving (money to Starbucks)”

So the question remains, Is this a viral marketing campaign?

I guess this is the denouement:

Jonathon released a reply to Andrew. in it he claims that not only is he not affiliated with Starbucks, he is deeply hurt by the insinuation that he was. If you can scroll down you can see hives of screeching loyalists jumping to defend their glorious mega crop Starbucks and their new messiah Jonathon while they pounce on Hetzel. Ok Jonathon’s statement itself seems rather convincing but I’m always inclined to disagree with something when a large number of people comment on something in an annoying fashion. This is why I no longer care about the environment.

Anyway, Starbucks released an official statement and Mobiquity released a statement. I’m not linking either of them, so just take my word for it when I tell you that both of them said they were not involved with Jonathon or each other.

So was Jonathon a viral marketer? There’s a very good chance he wasn’t, however, he still set up a marketing campaign for Starbucks that one a lot free publicity, it’s just a matter of whether he was payed for it.

So at this point a lot of people jumped all over Hetzel and claimed he was  a jerk for even showing skepticism at the thing, I suppose also implying that we should take everything (especially from giant corporations) at face value. This blog even says that Hetzel should apologize because he hurt Jonathon’s feelings. I’m not even going to bother mentioning that blogger’s name because that is one of the most smug and smarmy posts I have ever seen. The blog also reacts with such shock at the idea that, get this, a company is using the internet(!) in an underhanded marketing strategy.

A conclusion:

Well, after a brief struggle with eBay’s selling restrictions, Odio is Selling the cards he owns for charity. He’s written a few posts about the aftermath of the whole thing which you might want to read. Unsurprisingly, a number of people hate him now as well.

Hetzel made a recovery post proclaiming that he could be wrong but he would “wait and see” which, translated, means that he’s probably wrong but he won’t admit it ever. Since his blog doesn’t really matter, everybody will likely forget about him.

Starbucks has decided to shut the whole thing down. From a legal standpoint they could have done this at any time but decided to do it now because everything imploded. Don’t worry, Starbucks still has a hugely devoted fanbase.

And Jonathon Stark is doing well. He now has a legion of followers who will defend him at a moments notice and depending on whether or not that was gold card, he may be recieving 1 free drink for every 15 drinks bought with his card. Keep in mind of course that somebody made 625 dollars by just skimming the card for 5 hours.

My thoughts:

So what did we learn?

Well we learned there are a surprising amount of coffee themed blogs that’s for sure.

Oh and we learned some other stuff. I’m bad at making transitions so here we go.

In my opinion this was one of the best social experiments of all time. Not the actual experiment about buying coffee or something, but the whole thing that developed around it. This turned into a fascinating read and perhaps the best thing about this? No one was right.

Actually that’s probably more depressing as well. But you see here on the internet, perhaps in real life as well, everybody is an ass

Who is an ass and why?

Let’s start with Sam Odio. He’s a very tricky case. What he did was probably legal, because when Jonathon set up the card and said “Use this for coffee” there were no restriction on how much a person could take. He filled up his own cards with money, which is admittedly not Jonathon told him to do but words aren’t legally binding. If you throw your money on the ground and tell people to use it to buy coffee, don’t be surprised when it ends up being used on drugs or charity.

But is he an ass? Yes. there is no doubt that he is an ass. regardless of whether or not you agree with him, what he did was asinine. People had their own little system set up and he destroyed the whole thing. Way to go.

Next up, Hetzel. Is he an ass? Well skepticism alone is not something I would condemn as asinine, but you could make the case that his mistrust of other people and stubbornness on the issue at hand both make him asinine. Yep.

Finally, Jonathon. This is a difficult one. If he was a viral marketer, then damn he was the biggest ass of all. In the increasingly likely case that he wasn’t he may still be an ass if he is getting the free coffee off the backs of strangers. Otherwise, not really a huge ass, but perhaps misguided.

Oh wait I have one more: The legion of screeching fans. these guys were the biggest asses. They when absolutely berserk on  anybody who disagreed with their notions and have even threatened Sam Odio, which is just not cool.

So who wins? Nobody, nobody except for Starbucks and starving African children. I guess this means that this is one of the few times I can say “A bunch of white people were all jerks to each other on the internet  and the only people that benefited were starving Africans.”

I feel like I still have some unspoken thought so let’s get this out of the way.

I think at the end of all this, I like Sam Odio the most. Or at least more than others. You see, I’m not entirely sure what the whole thing was with the Card anyway. As far as I can figure, a bunch of wealthy white people put money into this card that was later used by other wealthy white people to pay for a coffee they could easily afford. A Starbucks coffee mind you, so it was an overpriced luxury item. I don’t know why this was even considered a charitable display of human kindness in the first place.

I guess the next bit would be to look at the dynamics. I assume that most people that bought a coffee did not put money back into the card, or if they did, I’m not sure what the point was since you ight well have just bought your own coffee. So if you look at it in that sense, tons of people were taking more money out of the card then they were putting in. Other people were probably scamming the system before Odio was as well.

There are two differences between Odio and those people

1) His brother but the same amount of money back in the card  meaning there was no net difference on the card.

2) He wrote a blog post.

If he never did step 2, then nobody would have cared or threatened him.

Finally, I think that his final point, that there are more important things to care about than buying coffee, is correct.

Now not that I think that Jonathon’s experiment wasn’t worthy in itself, it was. For a case like this you don’t need to pick sides, simply put, I think everybody was right and wrong in their own ways, but I felt like Odio wasn’t being given enough credit.

Alright, I am getting very tired of talking about this issue and by the time it is posted I’ll be in Montreal, so form your own opinions.

Also, Abi, feel free make addendum or minority report or something.

I’m a bit pressed for time so I’m gonna rush this one let’s gogogogogogo

MUSICAL MONDAY #8: ONE HIT WONDERS

This was the first image when I searched 'One Hit Wonder' so I'm putting it here.

The 80s were a different time. There were no bands that made music in a conventional sense, instead, every musical group made exactly one song that they were famous for and they dissappeared off the face of the earth. Well, usually not before pushing out a few other songs that would have minimal success but not ever really be remembered.

So I present to you a bunch of 80s songs

Most of these are like the my grade average, some punchline about the 80s I need to leave soon let's get through this.

Uh, blah blah blah blah synth pop, I love 80s music blah blah blah this is just an excuse for me to write a quick music post blah blah blah.

Ok here are my criteria for One Hit Wonders

1. The song in question must have been very popular for a period of time.
2. The song must be vastly more popular than all their other works.
3. More people should remember the song than the band
4. The band may still have made other hits, but those hits must not be the main thing the band is remembered for.
5.  I will probably screw this up at least once put I’m seriously pressed for time so alert me in the  comments and I’ll attempt damage control when I get back.

Ok I think we’re good let’s do this!

ok technically the guy who made this was well known for like two really popular songs but damn it I’ve already screwed this whole thing up! Augh!

Here’s his other one:

I just wanted to show I lot of 80s music and I needed a reason  but ok it’s too late let’s do this

This is what I’m talking about, these guys made this song and had exactly one successful song later but let’s be fair nobody remembers “Pop goes the world”

What can I say, this was certainly a one hit wonder.

Some people might dispute me putting Gary Numan on here but they can write their own blog with a couple of followers so here:

Also, not really the 80s but he was ahead of his time.

These guys are like the definition of one hit wonder.

They made this huge hit and never broke the top 20 until they re-released this song. Wow!

Ok let’s get a couple more!

Here’s another two hit wonder:

BOOM! we’re almost done!

Ok so here’s a 70s one

So remember how this video was about the 80s?

Here’s a song from the early 90s

I can’t even name another song that these guys did, I even forgot what their name was. It’a right there in the video and I don’t even care, THAT’S HOW ONE HIT WONDERISH THESE GUYS ARE!

Peace out!

I have a blog post coming in a few days so see you then.

Specifically, Rango.

You might not know it yet, but you need this movie. Also, despite the cover, this movie is not called

I love animated movies. I really enjoy them, but one of the problems with animated movies is that they are often made for children and this can boil down the experience. This is not always the case, for instance, Pixar respects their audience and understands that just because they are young, they don’t need to dumb down a movie. As a result, I firmly believe that Pixar the consistently best film studio today.

Still, there seems to be something missing. A film for children can still be good, but it is still limited in what it can do.

The makers of Rango avoid this issue by not making a movie for children, a fact they apparently forgot to tell their marketing team. I’m being dead serious here, Rango is not a film for children. I’m fairly surprised it got a PG rating in this day and age to be honest. So, it’s a bit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the sense that it isn’t made for kids but they’ll watch it anyway.

And I envy what memories they’ll have when they’re older.

So we’ve established who the movie isn’t for, so who is it for? Rango is for people who love movies. More than anything else, this a movie for the movie lover. Well, People who like Western movies at least. I suppose if for some ungodly reason, you don’t like westerns, you may not enjoy Rango. It would also help if you’ve seen lots of movies, because this film makes a lot of references. It certainly isn’t integral, but the more movies you’ve seen, the better.

So what is Rango about? Basically, It’s about a rather dashing chameleon who calls himself Rango. Yep, I just explained nothing. Alright, It’s a movie about a small town in the desert that is in a complete drought. They are running out of their water reserves and are in need of a hero when our titular hero shows up, dazed and confused.Through a complicated series of events, cool things happen. Yeah, you still don’t understand, do you? Go watch the damn movie. It explains itself better than I do.

One aspect of movies I don’t normally think about that really stood out to me was the soundtrack. Composed by Hans Zimmer, who apparently makes the soundtrack for one fourth of all movies, the soundtrack is absolutely amazing. To give you an idea, Hans Zimmer has composed the soundtracks for The Lion King, The Pirates of the Caribbean Series, The Dark Knight Series, Sherlock Holmes, Inception and more than 100 other movies.

So the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic and sets the mood perfectly, I have never remembered enjoying the soundtrack to a movie more. It is also pretty rare for me to look up the soundtrack to a movie after I’m done watching it but I can assure I’m listening to the background music as I write this. If you want to get a little taste of the soundtrack Here’s the credit music and, WARNING: This next clip is from one of the coolest scenes in the movie and I would hate to spoil that for you, This.

Also, this happens very early on.

Visually this movie is very impressive. The studio that made it has never made an animated movie before, but they’ve made plenty of realistic visual effects. This isn’t something I would normally say, but I love the art design. It’s difficult to describe, but everything works very well. The set pieces are all effective and visually interesting and then there’s character design. Oh good lord, the character design. It’s incredible, one of the things I like is how every character isn’t some pristine, cutesy animal, but they are all very dirty matted and mangy. I think it’s a rather bold step to do that when making an animated movie. But really, it’s a visual thing, you have to see the movie to really get the art design.

The acting is also very effective. Johnny Depp is very good in this movie, I really feel his carries character quite well. You could argue that it is ironically one of his most human performances despite being a lizard. Other people with superb voice work in this film include Ned Beatty and Bill Nighy. One thing that really helps the actors is the way it was filmed. All the actors were dressed as their characters and acted out the scenes in a little play version of the movie which was filmed from dynamic angles and used as a base for the animation. Yeah, this section is pretty short but what can I say, everybody acted well in this movie.

So what I like most about this movie is that it takes risk. it’s an animated movie that adults and teenagers will like more than children. It’s an animated movie that has ugly characters. Arguably it’s metafiction, which is a dangerous genre. It is what it is and spends most of it’s time referencing other movies. But it is incredible. There’s something to it that I can’t describe, what makes Rango so awesome. I describe some things though. Like for instance, there is a character named Rattlesnake Jake and he is a giant rattlesnake with a Gatling gun for a rattle, this alone should nullify all complaints about this movie.

Why are you still reading this? Go watch the movie!

So to recap:

• Plot – 6/10
• Execution – 8/10
• Graphics -10/10
• Sound – 11/10
• Risk taking -10/10
• Gatling guns – 10/10

Total score: Why is this Movie so awesome‽ Are the bats exploding? Holy shit!

From the Peanut Gallery:

(( are you even a fan of westerns? What John Wayne movies have you seen? (I find this a valid way to gauge levels of western film fandom)))

[Ridiculous as this may seem, you don't need to watch a John Wayne movie to enjoy a good western. Just lots of Brisco County Jr. and like, Tombstone or something.

BTW, You will love this movie. It may or may not have been made for you.]

(you’re quite right, that does seem ridiculous. John Wayne IS Western. Anyway, the reason I haven’t seen Rango yet is because of Johnny Depp. I mean normally that would be good for a movie but I was just suspicious. It looked like he had too much fun making it.)

[And that drove you away?

I also reject the idea that John Wayne is all there is to western, there's also Clint Eastwood and if you don't like Clint Eastwood there's a chance I can't be friends with you anymore]