Rock of Ages?

Wow, so the other day I went out and saw Rock of Ages. I expected it to be quite, bad, but not as bad as it was when I saw it. Well...

Oh right! The spoilers. Psht, doesn't matter. Maybe after you read this review you don't want to watch it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Rock of Ages, a movie-musical-like movie that involves multiple plots. One plot is a girl named Sherrie from a small town in Oklahoma. She ventures on to LA to pursue her dream of becoming a singer. She is robbed first thing by a random man, but acquires a job at the Bourbon, a famous Rock-bar, due to the help of Drew, a man who works at the bar. Meanwhile, the bar owner, Dennis, and his right-handman, Lonny, attempt to pay of taxes they haven't paid in years. Not paying the taxes were threatened by the Los Angeles mayor Mike Whitmore's wife, Patricia. She is a advocate of destroying rock n' roll in the city of Los Angeles. In a church, she voices her decision and reasons that rock n' roll displaces hateful music. While this happens, Sherrie and Drew build up a relationship, but slowly diminishes when Drew becomes the opening act for Stacee Jaxx at the Bourbon. Drew sees that Sherrie just came out of the dressing room with Stacee, but also that Stacee just pulled his pants up. Drew signs to Jaxx's record label, but converts to hip hop music by his manager. Stacee becomes a stripper at a strip club.

I'm not going to reveal the end. I think its just so scattered everywhere.

Now for the review.

I like Julianne Hough, but this movie was just terrible. The plot was scattered around and the acting was quite spotty. It was an awkward movie with random musical outburst at random moments. At some points when you would just expect an outburst of music, nothing happens. It's filled with awkward sex jokes at awkward moments. I just have serious displeasure to this movie.

This is a hard movie to fully veto. Yes I show much displeasure to it, however, it's really a movie that you can like if it is your taste. For me, I do say it's a veto, but you can watch it if you like.

It's The End Of CLIP (For The Graduating Class)

7 days. That's how many days of middle school is left. That's how many days the CLIP graduating class of 2012 will be together. August 21st, 2003, that's the first day we were all gathered into a classroom. At that time, I didn't' realize how much we would have gone through. Now I feel like, time just flies. 7 days, and we will never all be in the same class again, unless some weird thing happens. Our kindergarten class had some over people, but a lot of us are still here. Through the years we also met some new faces.

In August 2004, we started at Meyerholz Elementary as first graders. We moved from Collins, which was going to be built into a (our) future middle school. We were split into a few different classes, about 17-20 people each. It was really different than kindergarten when we were jumbled into two classes. In second grade, we were put together in three classes.

We stayed that way (kinda), then in fourth grade it was back to two classes. In fourth grade, a few people left to other schools.

In fifth grade, we went on field trips to Science Camp and Age of Sail (though some of us didn't go to it together).

In sixth grade, not all of us stayed together. Some people went to their home middle school or just left CLIP. We weren't at Meyerholz anymore, but rather, we started a new school, Lawson Middle School. Our classes weren't by one or two teachers, but four to five to seven. We didn't even have half the day of Chinese/English anymore, it was only two periods (and some of them we don't' even speak Chinese).

We found out that in seventh grade, we were going to be the last CLIP class of Lawson Middle School. They were going to transition to Miller! We however, were happy to stay at Lawson with friends we made here. As we cruised along seventh grade, we had the opportunity of Mrs. Robinson to teach us, however she decided to accept a job offer at Apple. Ms. Jane Jane Lee replaced her, however wasn't our teacher for long. Shortly after, she was replaced by Mrs. Lu.

Mrs. Lu was our teacher this year, and this year we were in the Exploratory Wheel at school (no more Chinese History)! This year I really didn't realize how much time was slipping away, and how much CLIP really was a part of my life.

June 1st, 2012, our official graduation from CLIP. During our video, we all sang to the songs of the slideshow. Right before that though, we sang 今年夏天, meaning "This Year's Summer." Spring Banquet was really special for us this year. It marked our last CLIP class at Lawson (which makes us super special ;) ), and making our own ways into high school.

It's been 9 years, and we really must say goodbye and go our separate ways now. I got to admit, I never realized how much this CLIP class meant to me until this year. We're like brothers and sisters. No matter how far away, how separated we get, we'll always remember each other.

The Lucky One

~~~~~~SPOILERS IN THE SUMMARY~~~~~~~~~~~ Skip to Review if you would like~~~~~~

       The Lucky One, starring Zac Efron, tells the story of a US. Marine Sargent returning from duty in Iraq. Before nearly being blown to bits in Iraq, Sargent Logan Thibault finds a mysterious picture of a women he does not know. Keeping that picture with him, he searches for the owner. Sargent Thibault keeps the photo and survives every near-death experience he faces. After returning home to Colorado, he ponders endlessly about the mysterious picture. It saved his life. He walks all the way to a town in Louisiana, asking for who this picture belongs to. Logan eventually reaches a family kennel in Louisiana. There he finds a women named Beth. Beth mistakenly thinks Logan was applying for a job at the kennel. Logan, helps Beth and her family on many things. Meanwhile, Beth must deal with her ex-husband Keith. Keith and Beth had a son, Ben, who Beth keeps in custody. However, Keith threatens to take Ben in his custody if Beth does something he does not approve of. Eventually, after an argument Ben overhears, he runs away. Keith and Beth follow after him. Logan comes to visit Beth, however does not find her. Beth's grandmother tells Logan that they ran off into the woods for Ben. Due to the heavy rainstorm that night, Ben falls off a wooden bridge, hanging on for his life. Keith dives down to save him. Logan runs by just in time to save Ben from the water, however Keith dies when a tree house falls on him. In the end, they end up in a tugboat down the river in Louisiana together.  

REVIEW

If you watched the movie, you probably noticed my "summary" is pretty vague. 

BUT! The movie was good. I don't understand why so many critics hate this movie so much. Yes, this movie is pretty predictable, but it provides a very romantic, yet occasionally comedic, features. I came out of the the theater happy. 

SHOULD YOU WATCH THE MOVIE?

I APROVE AND NOT VETO THIS MOVIE!

It's better for people who like chick flicks I guess. I really enjoyed the movie though.

By the way! I'm sorry this seems rushed. I've been really busy lately. I'll write something less rushed next time! Thanks for reading! I didn't even know some people actually read my blog. :)

Don't Freak over The Freak

Why is everyone freaking over the freak? The beginning of the season for the Giants are not as well as expected. The season's still young. Even though the giants are 4-6, many other "contenders" are also getting to a slow start. Many of Giants nation wonder why Timmy Lincecum is going 13.2 innings with a 1.90 WHIP, 10.54 ERA with 16 earned runs in his first 3 games.

Why worry? He's the Freak.

I know, a 27.00 ERA in the first inning doesn't sound so hot, but Timmy's got 30 some starts left in this season. Beginning the year, Tim said that he was to remove his slider from his pitching arsenal, but he's thrown it about 8-10 times in his last outing (April 16th against the Phils).

Bottom line: Stop worrying about Lincecum because he has 30 starts to get back to his Cy Young form and rebound.

Bottom line: Don't Freak over the Freak.

Today In History: A Crash

April 14th, 1912. 11:50pm. Moment of impact. Moment.

On April 10th, the White Star Liner the Titanic set out from Southampton, England on its maiden voyage to New York City, USA. At the time, she was the biggest ship to sail. Named "Unsinkable," everyone knows the story; it his a humungo chunk of ice (aka an iceberg :) ) and sank.

One hundred years later, the wreck is still there. Wouldn't the salty water and pressures of being that deep in the ocean decompose of the ship's material? Apparently not, but apparently tourist do?

Robert Ballard, one of the oceanographers that discovered the wreck, suggest that "tourist" visiting the site leave trash and diminish the paint of it. Ballard suggests that they can actually "paint" the Titanic. Why paint the ship? It's history. You don't just go out there and add something unnatural to history.

Robert Ballard, don't try to make another mark in history by paining it.

Baseball Season!

A new pack of garlic and potatoes ordered. Newly sewn balls and freshly finished bats in the locker rooms. Baseball has arrived for 2012. 

Today the San Francisco Giants face off with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Giants lost 4-5, but showed much more offensive promise than the miser offense last year in 2011. 

This is just a short post. Just postin' 'bout my super duper happiness for baseball season. I'm sure during Spring Break I'll mass blog. *WARNING ONE DIRECTION IS IN THE FUTURE OF THIS BLOG!*

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Up and Coming Post

I've been really busy lately and not having anything "critical" or "informational," but I'll come up with something soon, especially because spring break is coming up. Today I came online and I realized people actually DO read what I post. I also found out I left something drafted for the last, psht 3 weeks? I'll try to post that but I'll be slightly out of date.

Oh yeah and doesn't that pic look awesome? I felt like this post was bland, so why not brighten it up with that? Or with this:

I wanna get myself one of those ;)

Have a good day!

May the odds always be in YOUR favor. Hog it all, rebel against the Capitol, you can do it, because you can be the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. (People who reads the series would understand that :) )

I'm Not On Lately

I probably have no one reading my post, but i just want to post to say sorry that I haven't been posting lately. Next time a have time to waste I'll post spam ;). Well now I actually have a lot on my plate. Stamp Test, MARS test, and baseball's back!

I have some homework to do! Gotta go!

Touching Video

I just watched that video. It was a really touching video. I'm seriously lost for words. I don't think many people even seen this 12 year-old boy on China's Got Talent. I really just want to show this video to people who actually read my blog. It'a a very touching video and hope that people who watch it really feel happy for the things you have.

A Long Time...

I haven't posted something in what i felt like was a long time. I'm working on something now, but not sure how to put it together. Just reassuring you that I'm still here. I think I'm working on some movie reviews and others like that. See ya soon!

The Winchester History

                                 

The Winchester House today.

  Living in the South Bay for all this time, I actually never been to the Winchester House (Never got the time). Even though I've never stepped even one footstep in the property, I know quite a bit of info on the place. Everyone knows that the widow Sarah Winchester built it. Everyone knows that her husband was a guy who managed the Winchester Corporation. How many people actually know how that corporation came to be? Anyone know who Oliver Winchester is?

Oliver Winchester 

Oliver Winchester                           

 Oliver Winchester was born on November 30th, 1810. The son of Samuel Winchester and Hannah Bates was an American businessman. He was also a politician. On February 20th, 1864, Winchester married Jane Ellen hope in Boston.

In New Haven, Connecticut and New York City, Winchester had started a clothing manufacturing company. Winchester soon come to the realization that the Smith and Wesson firearms business sales had plummeted rapidly. Seeing a chance of opportunity, Winchester brought forth a group of stockbrokers to acquire the Smith and Wesson division.  In 1850, the company was known as Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. He had relocated the company to New Haven in 1857 and had the company's name changed to the New Haven Arms Company.

The company struggled with business early on. Due to the Volcanic's poor performance and design, rival company's products were more in the line of succession. Luckily, Benjamin Tyler Henry, an engineer of Winchester's, thought of a brilliant idea for Winchester. Henry had improved parts of the Volcanic repeating rifle. Henry increased the size of the rifle's frame, allowing it to accommodate seventeen brass cases. This new rifle so called the "Henry Rifle" brought fame to the company. Approximately 12,000 of these rifles were produced in a span of six years. Due to the success of the company, Winchester decided to rename it again. The company was then known as Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Nelson King, a company employee, had improved known flaws to the Henry rifle by moving the loading gate to the side.

In the American Civil War, the Winchester rifle was not used even though repeating were used. The United States Army decided not to used too many new technology repeating rifles at the time, as they deemed it was untested.

The Winchester rifle is considered one of the earliest repeating rifles. By Western settlers it gained a reputation as "The Gun that Won the West."

Though a famed rifle manufacturer, Winchester was also active as the Republican Presidential elector in 1864. From 1866-1867, he was also the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut.

Winchester died on December 11th, 1880. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was handed down to his son, William Wirt Winchester.

William Wirt Winchester

William's the Boss
William inherited the company from his father. However, prior to that, he married Sarah Lockwood Pardee on September 30th in 1862. On July 15th, 1866, they gave birth to Annie Pardee Winchester, however died six weeks later.

Sarah Winchester

Winchester was the treasurer of the company for four months, as he died of tuberculosis on March 7th, 1881. The company was then owned by Sarah Winchester by 50 percent. The company gave her a daily income of roughly $1,000 a day. Today that would be an approximate equivalent of $22,000 a day.


Construction of the Winchester House
The death of her daughter Annie brought Winchester into a great depression. As a superstitious women, Winchester felt that the family was cursed by spirits killed by the Winchester rifle. A reported Boston psychic had told Winchester that spirits would keep haunting Winchester if construction of her house had halted.

The original house is shown with seven stories. Today it is only four
due to the earthquake of 1906.

Winchester decided to move to the west in 1886. There she purchased an eight acre ranch from John Hamm in San Jose, California. She spent $20 million of her fortune on adding new rooms and decorating the house. Work continued for every second of  every hour of every day on the house. He fascination with the number 13 was displayed in many parts of the house. Windows had thirteen panes, there were thirteen bathrooms thirteen chandeliers, thirteen steps on certain stairs, etc. The construction was continuous, except for a brief stint in 1906. Due to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Winchester was stuck in her room for hours. By the time she got out, she told her construction works to halt with work the front. She had claimed that spirits were angry with her working too hard with the main entrance. She left the front broken in rubbles and unprepared. Winchester moved to Atherton, California after the earthquake, only visiting her house in San Jose for brief stints.

Construction was unorganized, leading to a very large and complex building. Construction workers had to navigate through the house using a map.

When Winchester died on September 5th, 1922, construction of the house ended.

The Winchester Mystery House
The house was built with elegant rooms and stairs to nowhere. There were two main theories to why the house was built with stairs to nowhere. Many people had thought that Winchester wanted to confuse bad spirits. Good spirits would find their way to elegant rooms of gold. The house has many small steps as short as 2 inches due to Winchester's small, 4foot 10inch frame. Today, some bathrooms had to be switched with glass mirrors due to tourist thinking they were functional. The house also includes a massive garden that Sarah Winchester would stroll though on her horse-drawn carriage. Some speculate there is a solid gold room worth a fortune, hidden somewhere in the establishment. To this day, it still had not been found. The house was passed down to Winchester's niece after her death, however sold the house to the highest bidder in 1923. Today it is known as the "Mystery House" because of Harry Houdini had called it a mystery house during his visit in 1924.

Alleged Hauntings
Since public opening in 1923, tourist and employees have reported many strange phenomenons. A house caretaker had reported sounds of footsteps and creaking wood late at night. One night he reported the sound of a working screw, as if a construction worker was working. A sudden "plop" sound tempted him to turn on the lights. Nothing had changed. Nothing had fell on the floor. The caretaker had reported many pranks the mischievous ghost had played on him. One night, he checked that he had turned off the lights. He had. When he got down to the car, he had discovered that the entire third floor had been left on. He said that anyone would forget one room's switch, but rarely an entire floor. His last report had occurred when he had not been at the desk.

Many people had also felt presences, creaking, and the feeling of being touched. Many tourist who took pictures also reported faint apparitions on their images.

Well there's just a bit of info on the Winchester house. I really want to go there one day and really see how it's like in this house.

If you had ever experienced any creepiness please tell me! I wanna know!

Have a great day full of cookies!

The CINNAMON Challenge

What's this new trend with the Cinnamon Challenge? It's not really a new trend, it started in the late 1990s. Apparently your supposed to eat a tablespoon(or more) in less than sixty seconds with out the aid of water. And oh my god! I did it! It's really not as bad as you think! After watching people fail like this:

Or like this:

It made me think that the Cinnamon Challenge would be really hard to conquer. Yesterday I tried it and it really isn't that bad. If you wanna do it, I recommend moistening your mouth by drinking a bunch of water first. Cinnamon dries up and does a have a spice to it, so moisture in you mouth really helps out.

Good luck with it if you really try out. XD

One Directions Really Going One Direction

The new rising boy band One Direction! I really like them and my opinion my be biased.


One Direction is a British- Irish boy band with members Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson. The appeared on the seventh season of The X Factor, finishing third. Originally, each member applied to the show as solo acts, however did not qualify for the "Boys" act. Instead of performing a solo act, guest judge Nicole Scherzinger suggested that the boys could form a group. This qualified them for the groups category. They were part of Simon Cowell's act. F.Y.D, Diva Fever, and Belle Amie, were eliminated within four weeks of the competition. They were all part of Simon's act in the competition. By the fourth week, One Direction was Cowell's final act. Although finishing third, their song "Forever Young"was leaked onto the internet. "Forever Young would have been released when the band won The X Factor.


After The X Factor, the band signed with Syco Records, a secondary company to Sony Music, for £2 million. When appearing on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on April 4th, 2011, they confirmed their first official debut single "What Makes You Beautiful"after numerous rumors.


On November 13th, 2011, the One Direction released a second single, "Gotta Be You."


On November 21st, 2011, they released their first album, Up All Night. Up All Night included songs written by artist Kelly Clarkson and Ed Sheeran. 


On January 6th, 2012, One Direction released their single "One Thing."


The band signed with Columbia Records to promote music in the United States. The album originally was planned to release March 23rd, 2012, however was released earlier to March 13th due to fan demand.


Random Facts


-They are the ambassador of Pokemon! This started in April of 2011. They were in TV ads and special Pokemon fan meetings!


-They have their own Nokia C2-02 and C3-00. These limited edition phones include One Direction wallpapers, music, and behind the scenes footage.


-They also released a 2012 calendar! This was the most top sold calendar, passing Cheryl Cole's 2011 edition calendar.


-They have a book too!




Band Members


Niall Horan 
Birthday: September 13th 1993 
From: Mullingar County Westmeath, Ireland
                       



Harry Styles
Birthday: February 1st, 1994 
From Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, UK






Louis Tomlinson:
Birthday: December 24th, 1991 
From Doncaster, South Yrokshire, UK





Zayn Malik
Birthday: January 12th, 1993 
From: West Lane Baildon, Bradford England
He's British Pakistani
BTW: He dated Rebecca Ferguson...they broke up 4 months later





Liam Payne
Birthday: August 29th, 1993 
From: Wolverhampton, West Midlands, UK





Wow! that took a long time just getting the background of these guys! I really love their music. "What Makes You Beautiful" was the first song I heard, but at the time I didn't really like it. A while later, I heard "One Thing." I fell in love with it. I started to discover other One Direction songs like "Na Na Na" and "Another World."


Love Liam and Zayn the best ;) but they are all great in my opinion. You know they are legit because they were Simon Cowell's act. You know how hard it is to impress Simon.


Applaud or Veto?


Applaud! They are the rising band to listening to. If you love pop music they are the band for you. They are totally a band that is rising quickly through the charts and helping this apparent "British Invasion: Part II." 


Well this was my opinion of One Direction. I don't feel like it's complete for some reason.


They really are going one direction: up the charts in the UK and the world.

The Vow

Today I watched the Vow. It was such a cute movie! What made me feel more interested was that this was based on a true story. So heres my thoughts:

~~~WARNING: SLIGHT SPOILERS~~~

I'm gonna try really hard to try not to get too many spoilers but I might let some slip (sorry if i do).

Channing Tatum and Rachel Mcadams star in this romantic drama showcasing a couple who find themselves in a horrific car accident. Leo(Tatum) eventually recovers from his injuries, however Paige(Mcadams) suffers a severe brain trauma. Her injury caused memory loss, no remembering that Leo was her husband. Paige's parents attempt to bring her back to a life before the marriage to Leo, but Leo interferes. Leo eventually does get a chance to rejuvenate Paige's memories.  

Ok I'm going to stop there, because if i go any further I'm probably gonna ruin the movie for you. 

I really thought this was a good movie. Critics really are not giving it the love it deserves. It was really worth my eight bucks at the theater. I really can't believe this was based on a real story. The crash made me think it was so scary that a person can experience that. Now I'm really, really grateful for the person who invented seat belts. 

I would really give this movie an 8.5/10. It wasn't the best movie ever, but was a solid movie i would recommend to anyone who loves chick flicks. I really don't want to limit this movie to people who love chick flicks because i think it is a good movie to watch for non-chick-flickers. 

Applaud or Veto? 

This section is my opinion of if i recommend the movie or not. I didn't want to do Yay or Nay because i thought it was kind of boring. So Applaud : Yay :: Veto : Nay.

Applaud. It made my eyes watery. It was a really sad movie, but I really liked it. I do think its worth your money (unless you pay thirty bucks just to watch it once). 

So maybe I'm gonna do stuff like this. Critic stuff. Could be movies, books, or TV shows. If you wanna recommend anything you can in the comments below. 

Have a nice day everyone! :D 

The Secret of the Unicorn

Ok It's been like twenty minutes but i really would love to blog more. By the way, hows my background? Don't be afraid to comment! Ok back to business. My friend Cindy really wants me to blog about her. She really loves horses. I can ask her nearly anything about horses! And we can always talk about random TV shows. I bet you don't know this. GUESS GUESS!



Here it is:
She's secretly a unicorn :O. No really.

A New Blog!

Oh my god! I always dreamed of having a blog! I finally started this blog after I saw Darren's blog (BTW his blog: http://the-world-we-know.blogspot.com ). Well I should probably introduce myself. I'm Hannah if you didn't know (wait how would you find my blog if you didn't?). I really like free writing and just babbling what's on my mind. I'm gonna try to keep these blogs short 'cause if you do let me babble on its probably gonna be like an entire novel. And I'm not afraid to say that I'm a SF Giants fan :D (thus the name sanfranpandafan...see what I did there?). Ok I think this post is getting a bit long. Well I'm probably gonna post a lot at a time I get on. I might even post any information about anything if you want me to. Just shoot me a message. Oh yeah this is probably a new blog so I'm probably gonna have some blog spam XD.