Christine

Christine Review 

The movie Christine is an adaptation of the well known novel of the same name by Stephen King. 

It tells a story centred around a nerdy high school kid named Arnie and his best mate Dennis. Arnie is struggling at school and getting bullied by a gang of boys whose leader is Buddy. Whilst Dennis and Arnie are driving home, Arnie sees a car in a man's front yard. This car is Christine. Dennis gets a strange sense of evilness from Christine and tries to talk Arnie out of buying her, however Arnie insists and faces conflict when he tells his parents he bought her. Because it can't stay at his home, Arnie stores Christine at Darnell's workplace (Darnell is the owner of the workshop where Arnie stores Christine) and strange things start to happen between Arnie and Christine, causing many problems for Dennis and his family. 

The characters in the film are true to those of the novel. We see Dennis as an average and mature high school kid who would do anything help his friend Arnie and is eager to get the girls. This is seen when Buddy is picking on Arnie in the school's workshop and when Arnie wants to buy Christine. We see Arnie as your average high school nerd who is having trouble at school, has learning difficulties and is a target for bullying. This is shown when Buddy gangs up on him at school. Buddy is that high school guy who is not wanting to give in to something he did wrong, is a leader and likes to pick on the lower level students like Arnie for his enjoyment. He is shown as bully when he gangs up on Arnie at school. Leigh is one of the high school girls that Dennis is eyeing all the time. She is also very flirty but can get very firm when pushed the wrong way. This is seen when she is with Arnie at at the drive-in and she doesn't want to be near Christine. She is also portrayed accurately when she is walking down the corridor at school. All these characters are represented in the novel and the film the same way in my eyes.

Music in this film is well chosen and suits the setting extremely well. It is filled with lots of retro hits like Bad to The Bone, giving it that old style horror look and like I said before, it works well. 

This film is strong to its source. I'm sure Steven King would appreciate the quality and effort put into this film. But like other adaptations, this film doesn't include everything and some parts that aren't in the book are added in, probably due to time constraints. But all in all it is very accurate portrayal of the book. 

I found it enjoyable and because I have read the book I already knew what was going to happen in the end. However some scenes were a little distracting and irritating but most of it seemed to flow well. I would recommend to this to anyone who wants a good retro horror flick without much blood n gore.

Choccie Biccies

Ingredients:
~ 8oz Soft Margarine (225g, 1 cup)
~ 4oz Caster Sugar (113g, 1/2 cup) (or any sugar suitable for cooking with)
~ 1tsp Vanilla Essence
~ 8oz Self Raising Flour (225g, 2 cups)
~ 2oz Drinking Chocolate (56g 1/2 cup)

Note: If you can't find drinking chocolate, you can use cocoa, but you will need to add some extra sugar in place of some of the drinking chocolate or your biccies will be very bitter

Method
1. Preheat oven to 375°F, 190°c, Gas Mark 5
2. Cream together margarine and sugar with vanilla essence until soft.
3. Work in flour and drinking chocolate.
4. Divide dough into small walnut sized pieces and place well spaced on a lightly floured baking tray.
5. Flatten each biscuit with a fork or potato masher
6. Bake in oven for 8-10 mins. DON'T LET THEM BROWN TOO MUCH. These biccies are infinitely better if slightly undercooked than if you let them overcook, in fact I often slightly under cook them deliberately!
7. Leave biscuits to harden for a few mins on the baking tray.
8. Lift them off and leave to cool.
9. Enjoy!

How to survive public transport problems.

Public transport is made to help people get to where they want to be without the costs of fuel or peeling your bum off the car seat on a hot day. Public transport is also good for those without an automobile and is used quite often. Even I use public transport from time to time. Most of the world's public transport system consists of buses, trains, trams, planes, boats and even just our own two feet. However, public transport is not always reliable and is often said to be very expensive. Cancellations, delays, noise, abuse, vandalism, fare increases, hijackers and crashes are the many common things that go along with public transport. This guide will show you how to survive those many issues that can happen when traveling on a public transport system.

Cancellations and delays are obviously the most common issue to people who catch public transport. They happen predominantly with trains. There is not much you can do about this but just be patient, wait and find something to pass time. Usually the delays only last for about 5 to 10 minutes and be coped with pretty easily. Cancellations aren't as easy to cope with, especially if you have to be somewhere by a certain time. A cancellation can make you wait anywhere from 15 minutes up to a few hours, especially if the cancellations are continuous. When my town of Melbourne in Australia was suffering from 3 days of extreme heat, there were over 100 hundred cancellations across the whole public transport network, but mainly trains. The best thing we could do is just sit back and wait.

Noise, abuse and vandalism are pretty annoying. There is not much you can do about this either. Usually there would be authorized officers around but sometimes you are left to sufferit. There a couple of things that I do that help me when I encounter this everyday on the way to TAFE(Technical and Further Education). I turn my music up and try to concentrate on reading a book or playing my Nintendo DS. This does work sometimes, but noise can override my music when there are lots of people chatting, laughing, yelling or even arguing. Otherwise, I just try hard to ignore the abuse, noise and vandalism thats going on; which tends to work more that music. Ignoring is the only help I can give if your going to encounter vandalism and abuse. If you become a target for abuse and vandalism, tell the driver through either pushing the red emergency button, going to the drivers seat or just hopeing that someone will help or an officer will appear. Dialing 000 or 911 might work too if it's serious.

When fares increases, it's usually due to the government wanting to increase taxes so they can pay for building new railways or upgrading other transport. It can also be due to economic problems. Not much I can say here but just deal with it. Fares are never going to go down and they will always be increasing. When I was young, fares used to cost around $2 Aussie Dollars for a day ticket. Now it costs nearly $6 Aussie Dollars and it is expected to increase again soon. I am dealing with it and it's the only thing I can do. They won't respond to my complaints about it so it's no use complaining. Just take it as a fact of life.

Be aware that hijackers and crashes can happen anywhere on public transport. Your best thing to do when a hijacker is on is just not move or say a word. Don't look at the hijacker(s) either as that may make you a target and you could be in big trouble at that stage. Crashes are more common and quite often happen on buses more than trains, planes, boats or trams. There have been many incidents in the media about crashes. If you do happen to be in one then try and escape as best as you can, or hope that someone will rescue you. If it is about to crash then break out with the emergency hammer and run for your life. It is very unlikely that we will see an incident like the Titanic again, but it too can happen at any time.

In conclusion, common sense is the main thing that can help you deal with all these problems. The help I have given you for the problems is all part of common sense. I hope this helps and gives an insight into what can be a hectic public transport. Good luck when using public transport because sometimes it's like a bloody lottery.

Night At the Museum

Night At The Museum stars Ben Stiller as Larry, who is currently unemployed and needs to get a job before he gets evicted from his apartment and loses custody of his son Nick. So Larry manages to score a job as a night guard at The Museum of Natural History. Larry treats the job as an ordinary night guard and gets the shock of all the museum exhibits coming to life, due to the golden tablet hanging on the wall near Pharaoh Ra's tomb. The other 3 security guards that have been showing Larry around don't feel he is right for the job and make plans to get him. Larry is then set for a massive load of antics which could cause him to lose his job and the relationship with his son Nick. 

It is easy to see how this fits into the comedy genre. Ben Stiller develops the character of Larry who is like an average, everyday parent but is manipulative and can come back to solve the problems faced. This is shown when Larry reads up on history to try and solve the problems the exhibits are creating. Its good to have the added comedy of the problems and dialogue, otherwise this film would turn out to be very boring in terms of our protagonist's journey. 

It's also good have different types of music played throughout the film. It goes from normal to fast paced and alternates often. It is quite diminished at some parts of the problems but then quite happy and smooth during the start and ends of the film. 

I found this to be very funny, especially with Larry having problems with all the exhibits; Like when the monkey steals his keys or when the little people fight with each other. It would be good to see what the sequel brings when it arrives. 

Rating: 5/5

Creating 'Unique' Roles - Alignment Switching

Venturing once more into the realm of generic and uninspiring role creation techniques, your attention should be brought to one of my favourite styles: Alignment switching. The concept is such a simply obvious trick that people probably don’t even think about it. When I realised how brilliant some roles can be when you quickly change their alignment I did a little dance. Well, in truth, no dance was performed, but I was tempted at the very least. The title is fairly self explanatory. An Alignment switch is taking a role and swapping its alignment from innocent to evil, vice versa or just fiddling with a neutral status and the results can range from train wreck disasters to colourful butterflies of Werewolf stardom.

As with the idea of Smooshing, Alignment switching still requires a level of thought. Sadly, it’s not as quick as saying “Evil dreamer, whoopee, let’s get to the next role.” A perfect example that is found adorned on the WereWiki is the Enchanter role. If you look at the Enchanter’s powers, you’ll notice a striking resemblance to the Malicious Hypnotist, who uses another player’s list to kill with. The Enchanter does the same, except it uses another player’s list to dream, protect, double, etc. So that is an incredibly basic alignment switch to create a nice innocent role. Not much thought was needed to adapt the Malicious Hypnotist to innocent form, because the hypnotise kill is an evil power and once changed to an innocent power (dream, protect, etc) then it’s a role of its own.

The Enchanter has been used in games before and I’ve never seen a problem with it. If the Enchanter wants to dream specific people, it needs to find someone with a list and get them to target who they want to dream, thus exposing a very useful role. So something as simple as that can prove a challenge for the Enchanter and goes to show that even the mildest change in a role’s power can affect how it plays a game.

Another example that I have used before was the Evil Cupid. The Evil Cupid would make two people fall in love nightly and would perform its kills by introducing a third player into the mix and rejecting another. The rejected player would suffer from a broken heart (a.k.a. they would be attacked). The Evil Cupid would create a new couple and reject/attack one of its players in the same night if no couple was linked (because the game required that a kill be present each night). In addition to that kill style, the Evil Cupid had several one use powers that related to the couple which included making them target each other, stopping their night lists and making them target the Evil Cupid.

As per a normal Cupid, what affected one player would affect both, but this was rarely something that people exploited for some reason (e.g. no couple was ever attacked by another team). The one speed bump in this role was that it was publicly announced who was in love (as should be) and this alerted the Protector of that team to who would be attacked in the next night, because by protecting one member of the couple, both were protected. This was a huge problem, so a change was necessary. The Protector could only stop people entering the love triangle, but once a person was in the couple, all the Protector could do was act as a Custodian for them (the shields of the couple would be raised slightly against the Evil Cupid’s attack).

I know that kill system may sound a bit over the top, especially since the Alignment switch method is meant to be simple, but I’ll list my thought process when I thought of it:
Evil Cupid. What makes it a Cupid that’s Evil?
Strings two people together like a normal Cupid. How can this be a kill?
Breaks one of their hearts by introducing a new Lover. What complications arise from this?
The Protector knows who will be attacked. How do I get around this?
Easy, the Protector doesn’t protect those already in the love triangle, it stops people from entering it entirely
It may not be as simple as the Enchanter’s train of thought (which was, ‘Malicious Hypnotist that’s innocent and uses innocent powers… cool’), but there’s a few key points that you can follow to help create a good template. In the end, it’s down to how far you can bend a role or a power to suit a new alignment.

To change a role’s alignment, the things to think about are ‘What makes this role special?’, ‘How can I change this innocent/evil power into an evil/innocent power?’, ‘What complications will arise from this?’ and, most importantly, ‘Is it balanced?’ Again, balance is the final decider to whether the role you’re thinking of will work or not. If the Evil Cupid broke the hearts of both the Lovers then it would be equal to two night kills every night. Also, by giving it day-kills the Evil Cupid would simply use them on their Lovers and get two kills for the price of one. I found it to be a balanced role and it actually won the game it was in, but not because its powers were grossly overpowered. It won because the player played well.

And that’s how to do an Alignment switch. The more complicated the role you’re trying to meddle with, the harder it will be to create a counterpart for it. Just like other role creating techniques, not everything is going to work. Personal experience will tell you how horrific some ideas can turn out with these formulas. Still, it’s worth a try if you want to create some chaos with yourself and if you’re lucky you’ll spawn a good role from your alignment fiddling fiascos.

Dragonball Evolution

When a film is adapted from a book, tv series or some other type of source material; it usually turns out to be average. However, there are some films which turn out to be at the good end of the spectrum like Watchmen and Kite Runner, or at the bad end like Message In a Bottle and The Pelican Brief. Dragonball Evolution pretty much hits the bad end and it does it pretty well in that aspect. 

Dragonball Evolution is telling us a completely different story to the one we have read and seen by Akira Toriyama. Goku (Justin Chatwin) is training with his Grandpa Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) and is given a four star dragonball for his 18th birthday. Goku is then struggling to fit in at school; being pushed around by bullies and timid when approached by his love interest of Chi Chi (Jamie Chung). He then finds his Grandpa has being killed by Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) and Mai (Eriko Tamura), which sets him on the quest to find all seven dragonballs before the eclipse, or some prophecy of Oozaru will destroy the world. Goku eventually runs into Bulma (Emmy Rossum), Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) and Yamcha (Joon Park) who join the search for the seven dragonballs. 

The character development is major flaw for this film. It jumps from one area to the next without giving enough time to build the characters. In other words, it felt like they rushed through the whole thing. and because it strayed away from the source material so much I was like “this is not the dragonball I know and love. What the hell is going on?”. I mean it is all completely messed up. Like, Goku is supposed to be a forest boy with a tail who holds incredible strength but struggles to cope with the real world. Goku is not some high school kid who is bullied by useless humans struggling to stand up for himself. And still in this film, we still struggle to grasp any knowledge of his character entirely, even if Justin's acting ability was well portrayed. The same can be said about the other characters; Bulma doesn't have blue hair and hardly ever screams and yells at Goku or Roshi. Even though she is acting her part of a nerdy geek character from the source, she still does not give us that feel we had from the source. Piccolo, Mai, Roshi, Yamcha and Chi-Chi barely get enough dialogue or airtime for us to begin to understand them fully. The parts where Piccolo is telling Goku of his history and the fight between Mai and Chi- Chi are supposed to be vital key points for the plot, but they end up coming off sloppy, too short and rushed. 

Apart from that the music fits well. I would buy the soundtrack for the film as it was very fast paced and fitted each set and incident that our characters are involved in. The composer did a brilliant job putting it together. 

There were many other elements that could have been fitted in like Krillin and Tien cameos, a proper Kamehameha wave as the one portrayed in this film was absolute rubbish; it didn't even look anything like the one we see on TV, even adding the proper hair, antennae and anthropomorphic animals, beards, extras would have been better for this film too. And lets not forget the perverted humor of Master Roshi that this film lacked.

The film only runs for 84 minutes and needless to say, it was not long enough to build a proper story. It would have been better off as a 3hr film; like Lord Of The Rings. That way, we would have understood the characters more and had a better idea of the scenes from the film. Then again, maybe if we had Peter Jackson as a director and a different writer, this film would have stayed more true to its source. There has been talk about a sequel but I doubt I would go see it after seeing how this film lowered my expectations and just destroyed Akira's creation in my eyes.

Rating: 1/5 Rubber Chickens (it wouldn't have gotten any stars if it weren't for the music.)

Neopets: Neohomes 2.0

The basics:
*Who…can have one?
Anyone can! And yes, you can still have a classic Neohome in addition to your 2.0 home!
*What…is the difference?
Neohomes 2.0 is the new version of Neohomes. Instead of building tons of individual rooms, you have one giant room, but in 3D. There is more flexibility with the floors/walls of the inside than in the classic homes. Also, you can see outside of the home, and create your gardens there. I think of my classic Neohome as my primary house, and my Neohome 2.0 as a summer vacation house.
*When….did this happen?
Late July of 2008, Premium users were able to Beta-test. This was opened to the general community in early August of 2008.
*Where…do you find them?
The easiest place to find them is either on your lookup (if you’ve already made one) or from the link in your inventory.
*Why…did TNT make them?
Who knows? Probably because they wanted to use more up-to-date graphics and technology.

The details:
So, you’ve decided you want to take a look. First off, keep in mind that you can *only* choose one home style *ever*. Once it’s picked, that’s it. This is kind of a bummer if you end up changing your account theme later on, but that’s what they decided to do.
Once you’ve picked your home, you’ll be able to place the actual home somewhere within a square on your lot. You can arrange your gardens, house, and whatever else you wish on the grounds, in one big fluid area. Plus, you can zoom in and out to take closer looks at the smaller items, or get a whole view. There are also additions that can be purchased that are separate buildings that can be placed on your lot.

On the inside, you have a lot more options. You can rotate the room to see things from a different angle.
We’ll start with the floors and walls. These can be found with the little hammer icon on the left hand side. You can paint/tile them different colors. You’ll automatically receive some basic colors – two floor tile types, and one wall paint. You’ll see that you can select individual squares on the floor to tile, and individual vertical strips of the walls to decorate. Talk about a chance to become creative! There's a possibility that we’ll eventually be able to build our own additional walls, put in more windows, doors, and even columns!

When it comes to furniture, existing furniture is slowly transitioning to become compatible. Currently there are roughly 900 items that can be used in the new Neohomes, with a little less then 400 of them being NCMall items. Items that will work will have a little house picture in the bottom right hand corner, show up with orange around them, and can be put in the storage shed. (The same goes with gardening items). All furniture and other items can be found in the section under the chair and they were kind enough to divide this into sections for us as well. Once you have the item in the room, you can rotate it, and raise or lower it (IE, if you want the lamp on the table, a few quick click of the up arrow, and it’s on top).

Finally, you can put your pets in these Neohomes. Whether you want them sitting (well, standing) on a couch, working in the kitchen, or flying near the ceiling, you can put them there. They can also be put out in your gardens, around your home, or lounging by the pool. Naturally, they can only be inside or outside, not both, as they can't be in two places at once. Also, if they’re wearing any NCMall items that move/glitter, etc, this will still happen.

Unfortunately, there are some downsides to the new Neohomes. The additions available do not have insides you can go into at this time, and are all NCMall items. In fact, many of the more exciting items, including flooring and wall types are NCMall only. Also, neopoints items that have been converted are going up in price. While a few items have been given out through the Advent Calendar and the recent Daily Dare, it will take some time before a large variety of options are available at reasonable prices.

The Neohome itself is only one huge room, not multiple individual ones, and thus there is a significantly smaller area to work with. Yes, you can still partition it into sections, but there's only so many items you can cram into one room. Also, unlike the old Neohomes, you cannot rotate your items as much; you are restricted to 90 degree turns.

Probably the worst thing of all is the stress that loading up the Neohomes page can be on your computer. Often times, it will take quite a while to load (even on reasonable computers), and sometimes will even lock up your browser for a few minutes. So, unless you've got a gamer's computer, you're more likely to be waiting on it.

Overall, though, I'd say that the new Neohomes are pretty neat!