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Warren Shea

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Avatar: The Last Airbender (Anime/Cartoon) – Review

Sunday, July 4th, 2010 at 3:44 am

Avatar: The Last Airbender – Introduction (taken from IMDB)

In a lost age the world is divided into four equal powers: Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. In each nation there’s a group of gifted people known as Benders who have the ability to manipulate their native element using martial arts and elemental magic. For thousands of years the nations lived together peacefully. But then disaster struck. The young ruler of the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Sozin, began a war of world conquest. The only one who could have prevented it was the Avatar. The Avatar is the human incarnation of the Spirit of the World, he alone can master bending all four elements. But, just when he was needed most, he disappeared. Now, 100 years later, a young Waterbender named Katara and her older brother Sokka stumble upon the long lost Avatar, Aang, who was encased in an iceberg for 100 years. Now, they must help Aang master all four elements before summer when Sozin’s grandson Fire Lord Ozai will use a comet to deal one last deadly strike against the other nations and claim a Fire Nation victory. But, all that is easier said than done with the Fire Lord’s determined and hot-tempered son, Prince Zuko, hot on their trail. Written by Melanie

Review
I watched the entire series of Avatar: The Last Airbender within the last week. Half of season 2 and all of Season 3 today actually >_<. I thought it was a masterpiece of animation, epic in proportion, dramatic, hilarious, entertaining, all around great. It gave me the same whole hearted chilidish fun of Digimon Season 1 except without the terrible dubbedness of it all. I loved Digimon Season 1, I loved how imaginative and unique the Digmon world was. I love the variety of characters as well as the character interaction. Avatar: The Last Airbender does the same trick, taking you to a fantastic, unique world with superb, unique characters.

I should point out that sadly, Season 1 was below my expectations. Given the amount of hype and recommendations from my friends, I found the series good, not great. Very episodic (which I hate). Worth watching but nothing spectacular.

Season 2 picks up the pace. It’s a lot less episodic, the story arcs are larger, the characters are better. They introduce Toph whom is probably my favorite character. Think Gaara of the Sand, but blind, cute and with a spunky attitude. I guess once they get some of the initial character development out of the way and once you know and like the characters better, the show is just so much easier to watch.

Season 3 is epicly good. It’s insanely focused on character development…BUT also focused on plot at the same time. Is that possible? They do….everything right. The bring Season 1 and 2 together and every episode is spectacular. They put their A+ game into everything.

Now that it’s over, I completely understand why I’ve gotten so many recommendations on it. It’s pretty damn good…

I would give it a 9/10….the only drawback is the first season. It was just a little too…episodic, I would have given up on this series if not for Z. But…I’m glad I stuck through it, it was definitely worth it.

9/10! Go watch it if you haven’t…be sure to stick with it even if it starts off a bit slow. It just gets better and better and better.

…Because Dragon Ball has everything to do with Family Studies

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 3:10 am

The cover of my Grade 8 Family Studies duo-tang…
I don’t know why Gohan’s on the cover of a Family Studies course. I don’t know why Gohan has a sword.

Remember when TV Guides looked like this?

Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 8:49 pm

Remember when people used TV guides?
Remember TV Guides?! >_<


This is from 1998…from a Seinfeld dedicated TV Guide that I thought I’d save…

You don’t wanna mess with my new super computer

Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 pm

75 Mhz CPU
8 MB RAM
1 GB HDD

I think this was my first computer…I would have been…13…early high school? or is that late elementary school? Anyways, found the specs as I was rummaging through old stuff

Canada Day – A mix of epic awesome and epic fail

Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 2:17 am

I’m on the phone right now (1:30AM), on hold with Future Shop regarding my TV that, for no reason whatsoever, started having weird issues…the power button stopped working. My TV wouldn’t turn on. I go looking for the receipt…digging through papers from over 2 years ago…and WTF, my TV turns on by itself. Sadly, it reaches a certain point, after the “turn on music”, and shuts off again. Restarts…and does the same thing over and over.

Anyways, that’s been the last hour for me…it really sucks, especially considering some of the epic awesome from earlier today.

Let me explain, see the image below? It’s from 2000 (I think)….


There’s a shoebox underneath my garbage can. Inside that shoebox contained a year+ of Nintendo Power, possibly the most influential magazine of mine as a child. I would read the Mario and Zelda comics in there, I would draw images from Megaman, Street Fighter, Tiny Toons…that was THE magazine that probably defined me as a child and influenced the person I am today. Now…somewhere between 2000 and 2010…I took the Nintendo Powers out of that box and put something else in it. And the Nintendo Powers…well, I wouldn’t have thrown them away, that’s not me. But I didn’t know where they went. Because of THIS image, I never forgot about them. At this point though, I had been moved out of my house for 2+ years…I know where 95% of my things are. But I could never find these Nintendo Powers…even after looking for them for over 5 years. My house isn’t big…they’re not in my condo, I didn’t throw them away, I had no idea where they were. Until today.

Okay, there’s a lot of set up in there but the point is that I found them…in a box in the garage…it was uber dusty and heavy and really high up. But I found them. (disappointing, poorly written climax…gomen!)


Here are just some of them, some of my favs…
From Top Left to Bottom Left in clockwise circle:
Nintendo Power 34: Mar 1992: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Nintendo Power 33: Feb 1992: TMNT III: The Manhattan Project (NES)
Nintendo Power 56: Jan 1994: Mega Man X (SNES) – possibly my favorite Mega Man game of all time
Nintendo Power 69: Feb 1995: Mega Man X2 (SNES)
Nintendo Power 20: Jan 1991:Mega Man 3 (NES) – I was 9 when this issue came out
Nintendo Power 38: Jul 1992: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES). Not SF2 Turbo, not SF2 The New Challengers…this was the one that started it all.

I can’t say how happy I am to look through these magazines from almost 20 years ago…I still recognize so many pages of content…like doors to memories that haven’t been opened in a decade…only to open and feel overwhelmed with nostalgia.

The summarize the day (and I try not to do these, I doubt anyone reads them…)
The Bad – Waking up at 6am

The Good – NOT having to drive 3 hours to Kingston, just sleeping in the back seat and letting my dad do the driving. I offered to drive but I don’t drive his giant van too often. It probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.

The Bad – Not getting McDonalds hot cakes. Also, they screwed up my coffee. Instead of 1 Cream & 3 Sugar, I got 3 Cream & 1 Sugar. Bleh. Too much Lactose for me, not enough sugar. Fail.

The Good – Hanging out with Zena, my parents, my brother, my brother’s wife and my nephew, niece all day. I still consider my close family my parents and brother, rarely do we all hang out together. Less than 5 times a year maybe?

The Bad – Yelling “My ass won’t let me go down the (children’s) slide”. Yelling “ASS”…in a children’s playground. With possibly 10 kids and 10 parents in earshot. Not very good uncle Warren, not very good at all.

The Good – Not having to drive 3 hours back to Toronto.

The EPIC AWESOME – finding my Nintendo Powers

The Good – Going out to dinner with my friends

The Good – This much salmon sashimi for $7~


The EPIC FAIL – Wanting to play PS3 and finding out my TV is royally busted.

The Good – Calling 24/7 Tech Support because at 1:30 AM, I’m sure to get immediate service!

The Good – Finishing the night with blogging