Which would you choose?

It's something we've all thought about, ever since we were young. The question's been asked many times, by friends, by teachers on busywork "assignments." And it's fun to think about. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? There are so many to choose from, and so difficult to narrow the choice down to one. 

1. Invisibility- This is always a popular choice. I mean why wouldn't you want it? You could go anywhere undetected. You could break into banks and steal money. You could sneak out to the Hollywood sign. You could even sneak into the opposite gender locker room, as we all know most guys would. It would be pretty sweet, in general.
2. Super speed- Think Dash in the Disney movie The Incredibles. We all know it'd be awesome to be able to run so fast that you can run across water. You could get so many places so much quicker. And you could compete, that wouldn't be considered cheating, right?
3. Super strength- Same as super speed, you could use it for competing. But everyday life would just be easier too. No need to ask someone to open that drink bottle or jar for you anymore. Need to rearrange your room? No problem, you can do it yourself. You would be able to get all those groceries in one trip. Just imagine the feeling of accomplishment.
4. Flying- This could mean superman-esque, with just some sort of magic powering your flying, or even with wings. Both would be awesome. It's always been mans dream to fly, and we're on our way to achieving that, with planes, and skydiving, and jet-packs. But to just have the pure and simple ability to fly would be amazing. 
5. Mind reading- This is the last major superpower I can think of. And in my opinion, the best. So often, I think the world would just be easier if I knew what people were thinking. I guess some of it could be considered cheating, like reading your teacher's mind for the answers. But other times it would be honestly beneficial. You could read politician's minds. You could read those on trial, their minds. You could even read your parents minds to know what they were going to ask you to do, do it before, and tadaa! Perfect child status achieved. How great would that be?

But remember, with great power, comes great responsibility. So choose wisely, and dream away.  

Jazz hands and smile pretty!

I was never really into the whole show choir thing. I enjoyed watching it, sure, but I never really had the desire to be in it myself. I tried out once, in sixth grade, didn't make it in and that was enough for me.

This year, I decided to join the show choir band, called the combo, at our school. I had friends doing it and I enjoy playing trombone, so why not.

Now as a band kid, I really had no idea what to expect. I had seen the show choir perform before and knew a fair amount of people who either were out had been in show choir. And they all loved it. But these people I knew and talked to were just the singers/dancers. I hadn't really talked to any of the combo members or the crew members, so I was taking this essentially on faith.

The first practice with the choir was terrifying. They had been practicing since summer, while we only had our music for less than a month. How would we ever measure up to the extremely high bar they had set? Granted they had a lot more to learn than we did, and what they did was more difficult than what we had to do, but the task ahead of us was still incredibly daunting. 

But things gradually got better. The choir understood that we weren't going to be perfect at the beginning and we knew we had to work our tails off in order to not let them down. So we did just that and the choir was there every step of the way.

You can really feel the passion of the group, and that's what I've come to love the most. They really are like one big family. They have highs and lows, good times and bad ones. But they all sick together for the love of the sport. They're so incredibly dedicated to what they do and they work hard to be the very best.

But they don't keep that feeling to themselves. They project it through their show. You can see it in the way they even treat the combo and crew. They will let us know how grateful they are to us. They know that just like how we would have no show without them, the show would not be able to go on without the combo and crew. They go out of their way to make us feel like a part of this group. Just yesterday, at a performance, the director mentioned to them that one member of the combo thought this was just an awesome experience and wanted to meet all the members of of the choir. Immediately, someone turned around and introduced themself to that member. By the end of the day, so many singers had made sure to talk to that person and introduce themselves.  It was really a great feeling to see them all rise to the occasion, just to make one person a bit more happy.

And then there's the parents. They have just as much enthusiasm as the choir does, if not more. They're encouraging and incredibly helpful. They really complete the feeling of family in the group.

So through this experience, I've learned so much. And this is just the start of the season. We'll get better and grow as a group. Overall, I feel each one of us will come out changed by what we have done and accomplished, and I'm confident it will be for the better.

This thing isn't human

Recently I watched a movie called Splice. I'd been wanting to watch it for a while, practically ever since it came out. The movie was released in 2009 and was given a 37% on Rotten tomatoes by the audience. Which is completely understandable. It was quite the movie.

Just so you know, this review is going to contain spoilers, partially because it'd be hard to explain it otherwise and partially because I hope this gives you an excuse to never see Splice and gets rid of any desire you ever had to see the movie before.

Splice starts out pretty good. It's about a genetic experiment that goes wrong and the beginning of the movie is a lot of cool science experiments and stuff. You get to know the characters fairly well and it gives you some good background for the rest of the story.

Unfortunately, the actual plot doesn't make itself apparent until about halfway through the movie.

Once the science-experiment-gone-wrong is created (which happens to be  a partially human hybrid) it starts to get weird. It begins with the creators, a couple who live together(not sure if they're married), taking the creation home with them and dressing it up. See, they weren't supposed to create it and people are getting suspicious. So they sneak it out and take it home and start treating it like a child. They've named it Dren and decided that it's genetically a female. Sure, it's kinda cute at this point, look at them, they got a kid. Ain't it sweet.

Around then I stopped following. The woman creator starts getting random mood swings that we're supposed to assume are genetic. She starts taking her daddy issue anger out on Dren. Then the male creator discovers that woman creator used her own DNA in Dren because she wanted a child she comes could "control." He gets angry, they fight, woman creator cuts off Dren' s trail, which contains a dangerous spike. Man creator comes back when woman creator is gone and ends up having sex with Dren. Woman creator walks in on them and goes ballistic. She leaves, man follows soon after. They somehow make up, all is forgiven and they return to Dren to find that she's sick and dying. Dren dies, they bury her, and some dudes from the lab show up and are like "fess up and show us the thing." Creators go "she's dead bro, go dig her up yourself." 

But it doesn't stop there. Then something swoops out of the sky and grabs one of the lab guys. The other three follow and see that it's some sort of Dren incarnate. Other lab guy grabbed and killed (if you didn't guess, the other guy was too.) It then turns into essentially a horror movie with the two creators running from what turns out to be a male Dren. Male creator is knocked out and boy Dren pins down female creator. This is the point when I knew I really regretted watching this movie. The dialogue goes as follows:

 Female: What do you want?!?!

 Boy Dren: *distorted voice* Inside you...

It then starts having sex with her. Male creator stabs the thing through the chest, Dren stabs and kills the male with its tail thing, and female smashes Dren over the head with a rock, promptly kills it.

I thought the movie was over then, but then there is a flash forward. Some chick from the lab is talking to creator female, thanking her for helping them move on to the next phase. Creator chick stands up and OH SCHEIB she's pregnant.

Then it's the end, clearly open for a sequel I pray each night will never be created.

Overall, I recommend never seeing this movie. And no, I don't remember what the characters actual names were.

He's going the distance, he's going for speed

I usually consider myself a good driver. I use my turn signal, I watch out for other drivers, I only go five miles over the speed limit at most. Driving is fun and as long as you do it safely, I have no problem with you or your car. But accidents are scary, and many people either have not experienced them or have somehow miraculously forgotten how terrifying they can be. 

Just today, we were driving to Minnesota. Long distance driving is somewhat safer compared to street driving. But man, there are some idiots out there. There are many reasons why I might choose to hate someone, and about 68% of those reasons are the way you drive. 

1. Not using turn signals: The reason you have turn signals is to alert other drivers as to what your next move is. No one is a mind reader, and it's your responsibility to let others know if you are going to be changing directions. I know, it's so much more effort to move your hand to turn it on and if it doesn't automatically turn off, it's such an ordeal to have to do it manually. But seriously. Just use your turn signals. 
2. Driving under the speed limit: Hey guess what. It doesn't get you bonus points. That trooper sitting on the side of the road isn't going to give you a negative ticket for going five under. All it does is piss other drivers off. I will tailgate you if you go under the speed limit. The only time I consider it acceptable is if the driving conditions are hazardous, like rain, snow, or fog.
3. Not using lights when necessary: Let's just be grownups here. If you can't see your speedometer, then your lights should be on. If you can see stars, YOUR LIGHTS SHOULD BE ON. It's common sense people, come on. 
4. Not being in the correct lane: They teach this in drivers ed, I can assure you. And it's also common sense. On high speed roads, such as the interstate, slower traffic drives in the right most lane, and the left ones are essentially for passing. Don't just drive the speed limit down the left most lane. You will see lots of birds.  
5. Not keeping speed consistent:  That pointy thing that points at numbers on your dashboard, that tells you how fast you're going. And if you push your foot down or let your foot up, your speed is going to change. So try super hard to keep your little footsie still and you just might be able to keep your speed consistent and make the world a better place. 
6. Cutting people off: You might not have even cut me off. Nonetheless, I now consider you close to a spawn of Satan and should have your license revoked. If you cut ME off, you are Satan and should just be sent promptly back to Hell. It's like that one saying: "Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." Don't endanger my life and my passengers' lives because you should have been in a different lane. 

Paper or plastic?

This year, I had my Christmas early. Due to traveling, we decided to give gifts within our household family a few days early. And from my parents, I received a Kindle. 

I've been kind of reluctant to switch to electronic readers. I've never really felt the need to do so. I've always loved real books. Each book's style is different, I feel, from the way it's produced. The cover, the style of font, the size of the font, the size of the pages, and even the spacing between the lines helps contribute to the book's character. My goal in life is to, in fact, have my own library. Like one from the Disney Beauty and the Beast. Two story tall, spiral staircases, floor-to-ceiling shelves, rolling ladders, the whole deal. There's just something about holding a book that's made just to be read. I absolutely love it.

But my parents apparently decided that now was the time for me to go digital. I got one of those fancy dancey color light up touch screen Kindles. It's practically just a tablet. I've got Facebook, Twitter, even Netflix on it. It's the perfect gift, even for people who don't like to read books. 

So far, I like it. I don't have many books on it yet, just some freebees I found so far, but I'm guessing it'll be okay. It'll take some time to get used to it, like turning the pages with a swipe of my finger instead of physically lifting  paper. It's something different, but it's probably one of the better inventions of the decade. 

Wherever I may roam

If I had one wish, I sometimes think it would be an infinite amount of money. Not to build a big house, buy lots of cars, and just be rich in general. I would use it to see the world. 

But I would do it differently. I wouldn't just fly from airport to airport, staying in hotels. I would actually live all around the world. 

I would probably start in the United States. I'd pick some small town, buy a little house in the countryside, and live there for a while. But I'd get bored eventually. 

Then I'd just pick myself up and leave. Because I'd be able to do that, with all the money I had. I would probably just take a map, pin it up on the wall, and throw a dart. Wherever I hit (provided that it was not open sea) I would live, until I got bored again. 

I could live a variety of lifestyles too. In India, I could live in crowded New Delhi, in the open fields of the Scottish moor, or in a little mountain town in the Alps. 

Essentially, the world would be my oyster.

And I would rock it. 
I could do anything I wanted to. Skydiving? Yep. Deep sea diving? Of course. Trek across Antarctica? Why not. Almost nothing would be impossible. 

It's what we all dream of. The freedom to do what we want, when we want to. It's why we keep living. We hope for the day when we'll reach that perfect happiness, where we reach the point when we're completely satisfied. It really is unattainable, but we just keep striving for it because that's how we're wired. We're designed to keep hoping for that better day, when we won't worry anymore or be anxious about what's to come. 

We just keep striving for it.    

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit

This past weekend, I got to see the movie "The Hobbit." And it was simply fantastic. Sure it had it's flaws. But don't all movies?

From what I understand, the movie differed quite a bit from the actual book by J. R. R. Tolken. Many LotR fans are not happy about that. But you also have to see it from the perspective of those who haven't seen the movie. Sure, a lot has been left out, but would it really have contributed to the story? It may have just confused those of us who aren't quite as well read.

The second complaint I've heard a lot is that it's very long. And it was. But they already sacrificed accuracy to the book. I think it's only fair that we give them a bit more time. I don't really think there was a huge lot that they could have cut and still had it make sense. 

The last complaint I know of is that it doesn't have enough action. However, this movie wasn't really about the action. It was about character development. It was introducing  the viewer to the characters, in hopes that they'd have already seen the other movies or would choose to go see them. They did do a good job of incorporating action/battles/fighting into the movie, I thought. They made it suspenseful, had you on the edge of your seat for most of it. They do remember who they are trying to cater to. But they also wanted to keep those who aren't expecting or wanting a bunch of fighting happy. It's quite courteous. 

Overall, I thought the movie was very well done. I've seen the other movies, though long ago, and this one really fit in well. It was a true "LotR" movie. It was essentially the prequel to the first Lord of the Rings movie, or if you really want to get technical about it, the prequel to the first Lord of the Rings book. It really gave some good background that helped me understand the characters in the later movies better and it gave me key connection points where I thought, "Hey, that was in the other movie(s)!"