Category: entertainment

Spirited Away.

eternity1030Leave a comment

Have you ever imagined your unique name is taken away? Who are you then? Name is an identity of a person. It contains a family’s history and it can also contains memories.

Spirited Away is an Japanese animated movie written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli which tells a story of an adventure of Chihiro and her family.

However, after watching the movie, I realized that this was not a simple cartoon, but a moving animation filled with profound sense.

Chihiro is a fourth grader in Japan. The story started by the scene which she was on the way with her parents to another city, they planned to move there and start a new life. However, they were lost on the way and accidentally entered a ghost town. The town was run by an old lady Yubaba, who is also the owner of a bathhouse inside the town. The bathhouse is a holy property for the town, Yubaba said it is the places where Japanese Gods take bath. Yubaba has some kind of magic power, but the people in town call her a witch.

There is a law in the town that if you don’t have a job, you will be transformed into a pig and will end up being pork served in meals for other people in town. Therefore, when Chihiro’s parents were found, they were captured and transformed into pigs.

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Influential Oldies

smackyjackjackLeave a comment

It’s safe to say I was born into the wrong decade.

If I could pick a time to grow up in, it would be the 1920s-30s.  My favorite music comes from around then.

The king of blues, and pretty much music, was around in the twenties and thirties. Robert Johnson, or the greatest and most influential guitar player to date recorded most of his music in 1936. When you hear him play, you hear just how ahead of his time he was. This is either because of how good he was, or because everyone has copied his style. Even Cream capitalized on his success. If you ask any successful guitar player who influenced them, you can trace it all the way back to Robert Johnson, because he started it all.

My other favorite blues guitar player from around then was Robert Johnson’s old friend Son House. Son House…was Son House. He kind of just recorded what he wanted when he wanted. Screw rhythm, Son House is playing. “Grinnin’ in your Face” is basically just him clapping around the beat and singing off key and tempo. But, it’s still a top twenty five song…ever. Death Letter Blues combines is stomping, clapping and singing with some slide guitar. How bad could that be?

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Top Shot-Finally a show for the gunman in YOU!!!

backinphillyLeave a comment

A lot of people ask me what I’m interested in other than football and ranting about football. I like to follow literally everything about that sport. But there are other things that I love as well.

I also love firearms. I love weaponry, hunting, sniping, archery, anything that involves loading up a projectile and shooting it away.

My favorite type of weapons are pistols. I enjoy shooting for recreation on ranches outdoors, as well as going to indoor ranges and firing off a few clips.

A few times, my family and I have taken some friends and gone down to Waco, Texas where a friend of my father’s has a ranch full of animals and trap shooters, which fire clay pigeons into the air to practice shotgun aim. While I enjoy firing a long gun, I particularly have a certain fondness of the handguns.

I feel that a handgun allows you to become more personal with yourself and your firearm. A bond can be built between a man and his best gun.

I have not shot enough to build that kind of bond with any guy. However, I have shot a 45 magnum pistol, a colt 22 revolver and a 9mm “cop” gun. All are great guns, but I love the 45. That’s my favorite firearm to date.

Another thing similar to myself and these guns is the connection to the History channel show, “Top Shot”, which is a reality contest show where the contestants compete to be the best marksmen.

I love the show because I can learn about new guns, shooting techniques and get to watch some wild shooting talent such as trick shooting and sharp shooting. It’s an adrenaline rush. As I write this, I’m watching a guy try to shoot a bullet to make contact with the blade of an axe. Axe blades are VERY skinny.

The weirdest part about that shot is that one guy actually was able to split the bullet. He split a bullet in half by shooting onto an axe blade.

It’s completely wild. I love this stuff. Watching things explode and watching guys load up and fire away is just a rush.

Team Rest

callmemaybe32Leave a comment

This weekend was the first time since the start of the season that our team did not have a game.

This is not because one was not scheduled, but because simply we could not compete against Orcutt Academy’s team.

We are a team that defies odds, beginning a season with a mere 20 players in a collision sport.

Players are bound to get injured, and starting with a number that low doesn’t put us in the best position.

Regardless of size, we are a team who trains to compete, to show what we are made of, and even if we don’t always win, to show we will not go down without a fight.

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Spudfest

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

The past few days have been absolutely crazy. Wednesday morning started off with the PSAT tests, which as some of you may know are a little bit torturous.

After the PSAT’s, my friend and I loaded up in one of the school car’s (with a teacher driving, don’t worry), to do the shopping necessary for the Halloween dance we had planned for the next night.

We made sure that this dance wasn’t just any ordinary, boring, and annoying OVS dance. Instead we held it down at the tennis courts, and made it into a carnival type thingy.

As one can imagine the clean-up took a really long time.

But our week was not over yet. Today was Spudfest. I’m sure that the majority of you don’t actually know what that is, so I’m gonna go ahead and explain it to you.

Spudfest begins once the eighth graders from the Lower Campus arrive, which is when we start the team comp activities (pumpkin toss and other such things). This lasts about an hour or two, and then the real fun begins.

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Pick Me Up.

eternity1030Leave a comment

Tiramisu is a gorgeous Italian dessert, it has became very common in restaurants and bakeries nowadays.

It is made of ladyfingers (In Italian: Savoiardi) dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks and mascarpone cheese, and flavored with liquor and cocoa. Tiramisu has a very smooth structure and a very rich taste in every spoonful of it, it is magical.

Everybody knows by now that Tiramisu’ means “pick-me-up” in Italian, for the high energetic content (eggs and sugar) and the caffeine of the strong espresso coffee. There are many different stories about the origin of Tiramisu’. It is a layered cake; therefore some people place its origin in Tuscany, where another famous layered Italian dessert is very popular. It is called “Zuppa Inglese” (English Soup).

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South America Bound, Jack Marcus’s Journey to Chile

callmemaybe32Leave a comment

South America Bound!.

^^^^^Here is a great blog from a very close friend of mine.

I have known Jack since we were younger, but we became close friends my freshman year of high school.

I am also close to his younger brother Peter, and we spent many great days and nights together.

I am incredibly proud to have a friend who has the guts to pack up and go to a country where he can’t really speak the language, and leave all major civilization for nine months to be in Patagonia.

File:Cuernos del Paine from Lake Pehoé.jpg

This isn’t his first adventure out of the country alone, his sophomore year he spent a semester in Israel, learning Hebrew, and embracing the life of a jew in Israel.

He loved living in Israel, and while Israel and Chile are very different places, I am sure Jack will love it.

Jack is not known for speaking Spanish, really, he doesn’t at all, and when he does it provokes a good laugh.

Although I have been unable to spend time with him in the past few months, I will be thinking about him through his journey, and hope to go visit him at some point in South America along his journey.

I will keep him in my thoughts, and hope all goes well.

I am sure when he gets back he will have plenty to tell, and hopefully some pictures.

While you cannot read this Jack, stay safe and have fun, we will be thinking about you back at home!

I am sure you will spread your odd humor and good vibes to all the people you are with.

Adios Hermano!

Mickey’s Halloween Time

kirbyfullyloadedLeave a comment

I had the most amazing weekend.

I went to Disneyland with my roommate and one of my best friends, Brooke Browning.

We stayed at a Hilton, and as I walked in the door, I looked down to see a text from her:

I’m gonna get you.

Turning my head, I dropped all my bags and ran into her arms when I saw her running full speed at me.

What most people don’t understand is the intensity with which CIMIans miss each other during the year.  I hadn’t seen her in 63 days, which for us, is like 63 lifetimes.

At camp, the C’s (16-17 year olds) have a  Murder Mystery Party and this year it was cowboy themed.  I wore my costume from that crew night and Brooke went as Max from Where the Wild Things Are.  

She made her costume, mind you.  She makes everyone’s costumes at camp.

Disneyland at Halloween time is so awesome.  They go all out with the decorations, the shows, the commodities.

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Defeated Again

callmemaybe32Leave a comment

Once I again I walked off of another teams field not feeling the great feeling of victory

This past weekend the team traveled up to Los Olivos, CA to compete against the Dunn Earwigs on their parents weekend, just as we did last year.

We went into the game with high hopes, and a new play series that we had worked on all week.

We arrived at the school, and right of the bat the day was not going as planned.

Somehow the ball bag was left back at school, some 2 hours away.

We did not have our own game balls, or our own kicking tee.

We put that aside and made do, and went into our pre game routine of bananas, pretzels, and stretching.

Our Defensive Coordinator John Wickenhaeuser had dome some research that bananas and pretzels before a game does the body good if that comment seemed a little odd.

During our warm ups that same nauseous feeling returned, and I was once again off my game.

I even tried to take medicine to make this feeling go away, but it is clear that it is nerves, and I just need to be hit a few times so that I don’t think about it as much.

When the game started Dunn quickly scored their first touchdown, and we weren’t too worried, that happens in the game of football.

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GODIVA, CHOCOLATE HEAVEN.

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My favorite chocolate brand is Godiva. I call it the chocolate heaven.

The famous story of Lady Godiva is the inspiration behind the Godiva Chocolatier name. In the 11th century, Lady Godiva and her husband Lord Leofric lived in Coventry, England. Lord Leofric was a powerful ruler who was unsympathetic to the citizens of his kingdom. Lady Godiva, however, was a woman of great generosity who had dedicated her life to the impoverished and stricken.

When Lord Leofric imposed a heavy burden of taxation upon his subjects, Lady Godiva protested. In response, Lord Leofric set forth this challenge: If his wife rode naked through the streets, the taxation would be lifted. Lady Godiva was a modest woman, but she immediately agreed to this challenge to help her fellow townspeople.

Centuries later in 1926, Godiva founder and master chocolatier Joseph Draps created a new line of Belgian chocolates with extraordinary richness, premium quality, and iconic style. He sought a name for his company that embodied timeless values balanced with modern boldness – much like our lady of legend. The choice became clear to Draps: He named his company GODIVA.

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