It's ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, after taking my iPod to the Apple Store, it's back up and running again. Apparently, it was so low on battery that my computer didn't even recognize it as an iPod. That's strange because I had it plugged into my docking station all night; I need to check that thing out...
Anyway, the results of my Greek hero poll were:

1. Heracles-3 votes
2. Odysseus-2 votes
3. Achilles/Perseus-1 vote each

That's probably the closest poll I've ever had; every contestant got at least one vote. My new poll stems from a conversation me, Andy, and Harrison had while walking home one day.
Also, Pods brought up on my previous 'Star Wars' post that there will soon be a live-action Star Wars series set during the Rise of the Empire era (in my opinion, the best Star Wars era). It sounds cool, but I don't have any other info.

Mon iPod, il est mort

In case none of you speak French (damn you, Latin students and your GenCon trip) or don't know basic French words, the title translates to basically say that my iPod is dead as a doornail. Yesterday morning at the bus stop, it wouldn't turn on. Since then, it hasn't returned to life, and now my iTunes program on my computer doesn't even recognize it. So, I'll either have to exchange it, or have the Geek Squad (or whatever they call themselves) at the Apple Store fix it. Go figure.

New Clone Wars Series! (And 'Force Unleashed' trailer!)

It looks like Lucasfilm is making a new CGI series based on the Clone Wars. Here's a link:

http://www.starwars.com/

Hopefully, this will allow us to see more from characters like General Grievous or Asajj Ventress, and hopefully tide me over until the release of "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed." Speaking of which, here's the official site for "The Force Unleashed," including the awesome trailer:

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/theforceunleashed/#

Both of them look awesome!

The Nietzsche Family Circus

I know Boots already posted this, but you have got to check this website out! It pairs a random Family Circus comic with a random Nietzsche quote. It's hilarious!

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc

For instance, the image to the left was paired with the quote:

"Once Spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming a mob."

News

I have so much to say that this post will be divided into sections.

Poll: The Civil War poll is over. Three people voted to support Captain America (oh yeah) while two decided to take no side (thanks, X-Men). Going back to my old poll theme of Greek mythology, the new poll is about Greek heroes. So far it's split down the middle.

Obama vs. Clinton: Obama is now on an 11-caucus winning streak. That's awesome! At this point, it seems that if Hillary doesn't win both Texas and Ohio, she will be forced to concede the race. Talk about an upset!

Dragon Ball Z movie: In my first post about the DBZ movie, I speculated that the eye in the movie poster might be Vegeta or Raditz. However, Boots pointed out to me that the eye is probably that of Shenron, the magical dragon that appears when the Dragon Balls are gathered.

Renaming Bizarro Maffey: It has been brought to my attention that I made a mistake in naming Bizarro Maffey "Yeffem." His real name is "Yeffam."

Death Note posers: I was into Death Note way before anyone you know, so I'm not the one copying. Also, L is one of my favorite characters of all time.

Dark Knight Trailer?????

By now, you've probably figured out that I'm hyped about the upcoming "Dark Knight" movie. Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThYPfULdomg

Now, I guarantee you'll never be able to watch the regular "Dark Knight" trailer the same way again! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! "I'm so diabolical! They don't call me 'Florence' for nothing!!!"*
Now, if you want to see the real (and awesome) trailer, here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaIR9dAZRR0&feature=related

*-That's a line from Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged! for those of you that have a life.

Anywhere Is Possible

So, I went to see the new movie "Jumper" on Friday. It was about a kid named David Rice who learns he is a 'Jumper', or a person with the ability to teleport. He's also hunted by an organization called Paladins, who want nothing more to kill all jumpers. By the end, he has to team-up (well, kind of) with a Jumper named Griffin to save his girlfriend from the Paladins, who will use his loved ones to get at him.

To summarize: it was good, but shallow. It was a fun movie, but it didn't exactly 'wow' me with greatness. The plot moved uncomfortably fast at times, relationships between characters didn't always make sense, some plot threads were left either unresolved by the end, and sometimes the resolutions to certain plot points left me going 'huh'? Also, the motives behind the Paladin organization's desire to hunt the Jumpers is pretty unclear.

However, on the good end, the fight scenes were very well done, and were pretty awesome to watch. You managed to forget some of the unclear plot points when you saw Griffin shoot a flamethrower into a wormhole, teleport a bus from Tokyo to the middle of the desert in an attempt to kill a Paladin, or the amazing chase scene between David and Griffin, when they chased each other halfway around the world, wrestling for control of a detonator.

So, I recommend seeing this movie, because the action scenes, the concept of the movie, and the special effects were pretty cool. Just don't expect anything outstanding.

More on DBZ!

Okay, my friend Mike just showed me the DBZ article on IMDB. Here's the synopsis for the movie, copy-and-pasted directly from IMDB:

"[Based on] The King Piccolo Saga [Dragonball], also known as the Piccolo Daimaoh Saga (Demon Lord Piccolo Saga) is the penultimate saga from the anime Dragonball. It occurs after the Tien Shinhan Saga and precedes the Piccolo Junior Saga. It includes the battles between Goku and King Piccolo's sons, Goku's first encounter with the Samurai warrior, Yajirobe, Goku's quest to find the Holy Water, his final battle with young King Piccolo, and the birth of Piccolo Junior. Appearances also made by Yamcha and Bulma but regretably not Pu'ar or Oolong, nor even Krillin. Ox King and his Daughter Chi Chi are speculated."

So, if IMDB is right, the movie will be about Dragon ball, not DBZ, although if the poster is any indication, the movie will still be called "Dragon Ball Z."

P.S- Chris says "Falco Paaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwnch!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Bizarro Maffey

Yesterday in first period English, it seems like a Bizarro Maffey was teaching instead of the normal Mr. Maffey. His reaction to our in-class talking was not extremely out of place, as I had far stricter teachers, but it was weird for Mr. Maffey, who is usually indifferent or not really strict. As such, I am officially naming giving this 'Bizarro Maffey' a name: Yeffem.

The questions that are probably running through your head right now are:

1.Why didn't you write about this yesterday?

2. Why are you even writing about this?

3. How far are you on the first Odyssey interactive?

I will answer them to the best of my ability.

1. I didn't write about this Bizarro sighting yesterday because I was overloaded with Algebra II Accel homework, where I had 100 problems that were much harder than expected (no exaggeration here, it really was 100 problems, even though I probably only did 3/4's of that). I know you A2 Honors kids are like, "100 problems? Big deal! We do those for an in-class warm-up!" But this amount of problems was unexpected, so it prevented me from posting yesterday.

2. I am writing about Yeffem because my blog is called 'Bizarro World,' after all, and I will post Bizarro sightings when I see them. If you find any Bizarro sightings in your life, feel free to post them here.

3. I have not yet started on my Odyssey interactive, but I have multiple ideas for it. Just as I thought: the interactives would be the worst part.

As a side note, I'm going to see "Jumper" tonight, so expect a review of that movie sometime this weekend.

Writer's Strike Ends!!

My Greek goddess poll is over. If you haven't read the poll, which will remain up until my next poll ends, the results were:

1. Athena-4 votes

2. Aphrodite-2 votes

3. Hera/Artemis- 0 votes

My new poll is an extremely nerdy one, and one you will most likely only get if you read the recent (and excellent) Marvel comic series, Civil War. To fill in all the non-believers, the Superhuman Registration Act is a law that requires superheroes to reveal their secret identities to the government and become paid, trained government operatives. A group of heroes, led by Iron Man, supported the act and launched the Fifty State Initiative, which would give each of the fifty states their own government-sponsored superteam. Another group of heroes, led by Captain America, go underground and fight against the act, believing that the act violates personal freedoms, and that if they go along with the act, American politicians will start telling them "who the bad guys are." So vote on the poll!

In other news, the writer's strike that has kept many shows, such as "Heroes", from returning after their winter break and has led to the birth of many horrible shows such as "American Gladiators", "Moment of Truth", and "Lipstick Jungle", has finally ended!

Why is Everyone Sick??

I've noticed that lately, almost everyone I know has come down with some sort of sickness. I puked on Friday, Boots has been gone two days, Harrison said he was sick after the ski trip, Grant was really sick at MUN conference, my sister is laying down right now because she doesn't feel good, etc. The list goes on and on. So, the question before us now is the cause of this sudden outbreak. The only possible explanation is that everyone is infected with microscopic, extraterrestial parasites that are slowly eating away at our life force, and decreasing the surplus human population so that Earth is vulnerable to invasion.

P.S- The attached pic is supposedly of James Marsters as Piccolo in the upcoming Dragon Ball Z movie that I talked about extensively in my last post.

Dragon Ball Z Movie!!

DISCLAIMER: Boots had this post, and this pic, before me. Go read the Nerd Word if you haven't already.

A Dragon Ball Z movie is finally coming out! I've been hearing rumors since, like, third grade, but it's never come to anything...until now! This is the official movie poster, stolen off of the Nerd Word.

Now, the question is what this movie's going to be about. Is it going to be about Dragon Ball, when Goku's a kid, or Dragon Ball Z, when he's an adult?

And who's eye is that? It looks to me a lot like a scouter, although there's definitely an eyebrow, so it can't be Frieza or one of his minions. My guess? Vegeta or Raditz.

From that, I can assume that the movie will cover the Saiyan Saga, although it will probably go into the Frieza/Planet Namek saga since there wasn't a big emphasis on finding the Dragon Balls during the Saiyan Saga.

The next question is how they're going to portray the alien characters like Piccolo or Frieza. Will they use computer animation or hokey costumes? I hope they use CGI, and that seems to be the only realistic option. Costumes don't cut it anymore.

Finally, how would they portray the high-speed fighting and energy attacks that the series is all about?

My hopes for this movie are extremely high, but only time will tell to see if it delivers...

Get Ready for the Brawl!

By now, you can probably tell that I'm waiting anxiously for the American release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, whether it's my countdown widget, the thing in my "Sucks" column, or the fact that I'm 'waiting' for it.

For some reason, it's already come out in Japan, two months ahead of the North American release date. That really sucks. Not just because a bunch of Japanese kids and American kids with Japanese imports can play it two months ahead of me, but also because now the entire character roster is spoiled for me, including hidden characters. Although, that doesn't really suck that much, since the roster is awesome!

BEWARE, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU WANT TO SAVE THE SUPRISE!

here it is:

Mario

Link

Pikachu

Kirby

Samus (and Zero Suit version)

Fox

Zelda/Shiek

Yoshi

Princess Peach

Bowser

Meta Knight

King Dedede

Ice Climbers

Wario

Pit

Solid Snake

Sonic the Hedgehog

Captain Olimar

Pokemon Trainer

Donkey Kong

Diddy Kong

Lucas

Ness

Ike

Marth

Jigglypuff

Luigi

Captain Falcon

Ganondorf

Lucario

Mr. Game and Watch

R.O.B.

Toon Link (Wind Waker)

Falco

Wolf

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS GAME! Why must it be another month?!!

Favorite Super Bowl Commercial?

So, my Greek god poll is finished, just in time for the start of the dreaded Odyssey project. New poll should be up soon. The results were:

1. Poseidon-3 votes

2. Hades/Apollo-2 votes

3. Zeus/Ares-0 votes

Anyway, the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in an upset, stopping the Patriots from getting an undefeated 19-0 season. But everyone knows that one of the best parts of the Super Bowl is the commercials. So what were everyone's favorite commercials? Personally, I liked the trailers for "Iron Man", "Wanted", and "Jumper", as well as the car commercial with the head shrinking witch doctor.

The Last Socially Acceptable Role-Playing Game

Okay, so I just got back from a four-day trip to the Palmerhouse Hilton in downtown Chicago for a gigantic Model United Nations conference. It was pretty fun, but also pretty exhausting. For those of you who do not know what Model United Nations (henceforth referred to as MUN) is, it's like debate team, except that you are assigned a country, such as El Salvador, and a topic, such as transnational organized crime, and must debate the assigned topic from the assigned country's viewpoint. Kids from other schools and whatnot make up all the other countries in the makeshift UN. After long hours of debate, you join up with other countries to write a resolution to solve the problem. Like I said, it was pretty fun but quite tiring.
The best part was that on Saturday night, there was a 'delegate dance.' It was fun because it was time to relax and chill and forget about the duel between Panama and Saudi Arabia. Here's a quick description of the dance: take the nerdiest, smartest kids in America, as well as some crazy partygoers, shove them in a ballroom and turn on techno remixes of pop music. Then you might come close to envisioning this spectacle.
The only downside to this trip was that although I missed school on Friday, I also missed the first three meetings of Menagerie as a result. Hopefully I'll still be able to participate. A sophomore who was in it last year (and who was my partner in MUN) said I should be fine, but we'll see...