An Ode to the Dolfans

Ahem...my attempt at poetry.

~

It is late in 2010,
But football season has just began.
To my delight,
And to oppositions fright,
The mighty dolphins are back again.
With a roaring, robust, and revamped team,
We will surely make the league scream,
In terror because our offense will not stall,
Because now we have a beast in Brandon Marshall.
We have Ricky and Ronnie running the ball,
A devastating duo let me tell you all.
The QB is young, but worth more than a penny,
We have found a gem in young Chad Henne.
The O line is sick and much as it is strong,
The QB will be protected by big boy Jake Long.
Our offense is solid, our defense is young,
The fans we have are the best among,
Vontae Davis, Channing Crowder, and Karlos Dansby lead the defense.
Whether they are good of bad is my only suspense.
The coaches are smart, like Mike Nolan.
 Who will get all up in the other teams colon.
We have Tony Sparano as head coach and is a cool man.
Unlike that punk ass quitting bitch Nick Saban.
2010 looks to be a good year for Miami.
I said it’s the year of the Dolphins, can you understand me!
So even though we no longer have Dan the man,
It’s always a great time to be a DOLFAN!
So if this be regarded as a poem or something sung.
Remember… MIAMI DOLPHINS NUMBER ONE!

Money Makes the World Go Round.

My girlfriend loves movies, but she is so deprived in good cinema quality. She hasn't seen any of the all time classics...like...oh STAR WARS for example. That's a travesty all in itself, let alone all the other flicks she has missed throughout the years.

In any case, I go over to her house every so often and bring a movie I think she will enjoy. Now, they all aren't Oscar worthy movies, but some are comedies while others are dramas that I think she will enjoy.

Yesterday I brought over a movie called "All About the Benjamin's" starring Ice Cube and Mike Epps of the Friday movie fame. Those two actors had great chemistry in the Friday movies, so it seemed obvious that they would make more movies together in the future.

Enter this movie, it's set in Miami and has to do with stolen diamonds and Ice Cube's character who is a bounty hunter of sorts. Mike Epps is a con man who Cube has taken into custody countless times, but both end up getting involved in this diamond heist which then leads to all sorts of craziness. Cube is the brash and bold Dudley Do Right character who just wants to earn a living, while Epps is the comic relief who tries to nickle and dime his way through a day. The two end up becoming friends or partners rather and foil the crooks attempt to steal 20 million dollars worth of expensive glass.

The catch of the movie is that Epps' character plays his girlfriends numbers every day, and on this day the day that he stows away in the villains van, that his numbers are winners. He hits the 60 million dollar jackpot, but upon running away from the bad guys, he drops his wallet. He gets caught by Cube and is going to be sent to jail for the umpteenth time, but he convinces Cube that he has just won the lotto and will split the rewards with him if he can every find his ticket.

So both characters are motivated in some way to solve this case. Cube is the semi-cop who wants to nab the people who tried to kill him, finding the diamonds and making a name for himself as a good detective and Epps wants to go back to the scene of the crime and find his ticket so he can cash it in.

The movie is pretty funny, as I enjoy Mike Epps in most of his roles. Nothing special, but it has its moments where you laugh and it has tons of memorable lines and catch phrases.

Here's one of my faves. Point of interest, food for your brain, Mike Epps is talking to an older black man with white hair who works ay a convenient store.

Epps' character- "The you know what? I'm a start goin' D'Wights 'cause you don't laugh at my jokes or nothin'

Mr.Chef- D'Wight who?

Epps - D'Wight around yo lip!"

Gets me every time.

So Where Was I?

I think the Northern Sky Knights had dressed up as Southern Sky members to get close to Ovelia and set up a surprise attack on the church. Agrias, Gafgarion, and Ramza all go outside to quell the disturbance. They leave Ovelia inside with minimal protection (Que forshadowing here!). Outside they make little work of the few soliders and Agrias finds Gafgarion's tactics to be disturbing. He becomes a demon (not literally) on the battlefield, sparing no ones life. Meanwhile Agrias is dead set on protecting the princess, she just incapacitates her foes. Afterwards they here a scream from within the church. Aw darn, we forgot to protect the princess!

They run inside to see a knight clad in gold armor abduct Ovelia and ride off in a chocobo (which is a huge chicken-like mount). Agrias and Ramza are too far away before the man runs off the back entrance and flees. Ramza gets a good look at the man and becomes disturbed. He identifies the man as his long time friend Delita, which who he thought had been dead for years (more on that later). Delita takes one look back at Ramza before the scene fades away...while Agrias questions Ramza is he knows who that man was.

 This is the setting in the timeline currently. The next chapter in the story takes place back when Ramza and Delita were younger and still best friends. 

So that is basically thr opening scenes of the game. I gave you (the reader) a quick, yet pretty detailed backstory on some of the major story characters. Ovelia is the key to pretty much all the old men's plans. She isn't the rightful heir, but is viewed as the most important puzzle pieces to ruling the kingdom.

Why aren't Ramza and Delita friends anymore? What happened to their friendship? Why does Ramza think delita to be dead? What are Delita's intentions? Who is he working for, and why did he kidnap the princess?

All these answers and much more, when I decide to write again!

So It All Started When...

You know how Quentin Tarantino loves to give you a scene from a movie and then shoot you into a flash back? Yeah, well that's how Final Fantasy Tactics starts off. The scene they give you is that from inside a church on a dark and stormy night! (Creeeepy) We see a young maiden kneeling in prayer, mumbling about how she wishes this world was at peace, and how she wants to find a solution away from all this bloodshed. We find out that this is a Princess named Ovelia. She is probably next to Ramza and Delita, the most important character in the story.

A quick backstory on the princess and her heritage. She is the daughter of the former king who had just recently perished, though it is later discovered she is not the king's true daughter, but was only adopted and raised as such. The king after adopting Ovelia has another child, a boy named Orinas. This causes the nobles to start a split on who should reign should the king (and eventually does) die; Ovelia or Orinas. Two factions eventually form. Orinas's uncle, Prince Larg supports his nephew alongside the queen to become the regent and ruler of Ivalice, and Duke Goltanna who supports Ovelia. Ovelia is the more suitable heir to the throne because Orinas is only an infant (1 year old) at the time of his fathers death. Prince Larg and his sister, Queen Louveria. Thankfully, most of these characters names do not appear in the meat and potatoes of this story, because I know it would get somewhat confusing.

So backstory summed up. You have two sides, Larg who is in charge of the Order of the Nothern Sky Knights, and you have Goltanna who commands to Order of the Sourth Sky Knights. It's Goltanna who wants or shall I say, needs Ovelia for his selfish needs of ruling the country.

Back to the story.

Ovelia is praying at a church. She is hiding I guess, and then comes her body guards. Her closest guardian is a Holy Knight (I guess Paladin in some translations) by the name of Agrias. She has caught wind that Larg's men know of her whereabouts and has bought the assistance of some mercenaries to help transport her to a new location. This is when we get introduced to Ramza. He is part of the mercenaries hired by Ovelia to help guard the princess. his leader is that of a man whose blade is forged with black arts, a Fell Knights by the name of Gafgarion. He is an older man who wears dark armor and is feared throughout the land because of his skills with a blade and its ability to steal his opponents soul.

In any case, the chucrh then becomes overridden with members of the Nouthern Sky (Larg's men).

yada yada, to be continued or something...

The Sand is Covering My Understanding

Dune. Am I supposed to know what is going on in this story all at once? Fiction is great and all, but I really have no idea what I am reading at the start of this book. Granted I have heard this is a grea read, and I am not going to write it off completely. I just wish I knew what some of these words meant.

Then again, I think every book I have read recently does this to me. Except I really dislike the way Dune has done it. The words they use all have some sort of Turkish or Mid-European crazy origin that for some reason annoys me. Words I have a hard time sounding out in my head annoy me. And that is what this book throws at you in the first chapter, along with a whole bunch of terms that I don't recognize or understand.

We are given this boy who is special somehow or another. Whatever. He has a mom who has a mentor or teacher that is supposed to judge him. He is the prince of some well off or established kingdom? I should probably re-read the first chapter, because all I got out of it was that he was tested and passed and the boy has an uncle who wants him dead...maybe?

All in all I know this will be something that grabs my attention, but maybe I picked it up during a time where I have too much on my plate. I only did read the first chapter, so it's not like I will have to back track too far if I do decide to start over.

Well...they (who they is I do not know) always did say the second time is a charm!

I guess you could say they were each others Kryptonite!

That title should have been used two posts ago! Oh well, it's way out of context here and I want to work with that.

So, my Tactics game...oh how I love thine story. Let's give you a crash course history of the two male leads real quick.

Ramza Beoulve born into the pristine household Beoulve was something of a child prodigy. He took after his father, Balbanes in both appearance and character. Balbanes is loved by everyone because of his actions during the 50 year war. Being a noble he married and had kid with a noblewoman, his first two sons Zalbag and Dycedarg. This is brought up all the time in the story, so pay attention! Balbanes later remarries, but this time to a peasant lady and gives birth to Ramza and his little sister Alma. This makes Ramza and his brothers blood related, but they always point out that he has the blood of a commoner and that skews his purpose in life. Balbanes made the Beoulve name highly praised and the family is well off. They serve the crown with extreme loyalty, and Balbanes teaches his children to always fllow the path of righeousness and to not tolerate injustice. It seemed at least to his brothers that Ramza was the child Balbanes loved the most.

So there you have it. The house of beoulve that Balbanes built. It is rich with history and serves the crown with fierce dedication. Then you have Delita Hyral. A young boy with no trace of nobles blood within him. He was born to a poor family, but his parents were victims to a plague and he and his sister Tetra were left alone. Balbanes, with sympathy overflowing from his heart deciding to adopt the two children and ever since, he and ramza were the best of friends. Title or nobility was never something Ramza was too worried about, most likely due to being partial himself. Being adopted by the house Beoulve allowed Delita and his sister to attend special military and academic schools. Delita went off with Ramza to learn the way of the knight, while Tetra became good friends with Alma who both attended some academic school. The two Hyrals were lucky because no person of common blood were normally allowed to attend either school, but because of Balbanes influence, they were permitted.

So...the two main characters gone into a little more detail. Ramza, the son of hero and Delita the son of a peasant farmer. Rank and class are brought up throughout this game so it's important to note each characters background.

I've also recently started to read a book...in which I belive it's fairly popular. It goes by the name, Dune. I'm sure you have heard of it? Either way I will try to mix both of these stories into this blog to keep it interesting!

Project

This is a project I am writing for one of my other classes. I sense a trend...

The headline on Monday's paper said it all, “Where Were You?” On the opening day of the 2010 NFL football season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had their broadcast blacked out in the local markets. So what you say? It was the first time in thirteen years the Buccaneers have failed to sell out a home game. Say what you want about the economy, but take a look at a similar situation in Oakland. The Raiders, a team who has not been good since their super bowl loss to the Bucs has no problems of selling out their stadium. So why now? Why are we experiencing such a drought in loyalty to our team this year? It deserves to be defined and explored in more detail.

This trend has happened in the past sadly. It is hard to collect interest in a struggling team. Last year Tampa went ahead and fired their Super Bowl winning coach Jon Gruden and went with a young defensive coordinator by the name of Raheem Morris. With the change meant one of many things, a rebuilding phase was set in motion. Rebuilding phases are never easy to sit through, even as fans the mood was nervous optimism going into the 2009 season. They drafted a rookie quarterback in the draft and planned to rebuild the team around young Josh Freeman. Fast forward to this season. Freeman had a rough rookie season, but it was a learning process in which every QB has to go through to mature and improve. The team went 3-13 and saw less and less support with every passing day. It is hard for anyone to cheer on a losing team, but be it your local and home team the support should be there year in and year out. That was not the case in Tampa as seen in the 2010 home opener against the Cleveland Browns. Raymond James usually holds roughly 65,000 screaming fans in attendance, but sadly only 47,211 fans made it to the game. That is almost 20,000 less fans that normally fill those seats were unable to even watch their team play. The game was not shown in the Tampa area. If you drove over to St. Petersburg however, you could have watched the Buccaneers play. That does not seem right, in both regards.

The owners of the Buccaneers sought to remove the stigma that the team was bad by revamping the uniforms, the colors, the mascot, and even went as far as built a new stadium for the team. Yes, gone was the distracting cream-sickle orange that forever will be remembered as bad times around the bay. Out with the old and in with the new colors, red, and pewter. Buccaneer (or Bucko) Bruce was replaced with Captain Fear

My John Hancock

Bloody drawn out wars aside, I saw Hancock last night and I must say it was not all that bad. Granted, it did not win any awards or is my favorite movie, but if accomplished a few things. The setting gives you this guy, who for whatever reason is gifted with super human powers. Of course there is a twist.

The movie starts out with a car chase with all the specials sides included. Car full of immigrants or something, cops chasing said car through heavy traffic areas, news media covering every second of the chase. This is all happening, but our supposed hero is nowhere to be found.

Enter Hancock sleeping on a bench in supreme bum status, with his face ill shaven and a bottle of empty liquor lying near him. All he needed was a newspaper blanket to complete the picture. A little kid wakes him up and encourages him to help the cops and subdue the bad guys. Hancock barely moves a muscle to the child's pleas. The frustrated kid walks away while throwing Hancock a nasty comment in retreat. The hero of the story takes his time to wake up from his drunken daze and with bottle in hand (he never seems to be without his booze) he takes off from his bench into the air in an impressive display of speed and the ability to fly. This of course causes massive damage to the ground and surrounding buildings. His damage output in the aftermath becomes the heroes twist. He doesn't seem to care.

Hancock finds the criminals and tries to talk them into surrendering, but to his dismay the things open fire on him and break his bottle which irritates him extremely. he then picks the car up and starts causing even more mayhem and destruction, scaring the inhabitants of the car and pretty much everyone else around close to the scene. The chase ends with Hancock tossing the car up on a steeple, impaling the vehicle and leaving the men helpless and probably impossible for police to subdue by normal means.

Instead of being praised. Hancock is berated by the media and accused of causing more hurt then help. This hero, is not loved at all. Fast forward, you find out that Hancock suffers from amnesia. He has no idea who he is, what he is, or how he got his powers. His first memories are that of him waking up in the hospital in Miami. The nurse asked him for his John Hancock and he thought that was his name upon leaving the hospital. So this person with amazing powers is scorned by the public and has no family, no loved ones, nothing. He spurns social contact and does not care how the media perceives him.

You feel bad for him. he goes about life the wrong way, but in the end he only tries to help. Granted he does not always help in the fashion that is cost effective or smart, but he does save lives constantly. He saves a man life and the man helps him clean up his act and with a vow to change Hancock goes to prison as an act of repentance for all the billions he has cost in repairs. He of course could escape at any time he chooses, but the man begs him to stay in prison because the world needs a hero like him and sooner or later they will pardon him because the crime rate would skyrocket with him behind bars.

The plan goes according to plan and Hancock goes from enemy of the world to beloved hero in an instant. People aren't terrified of him and now greet him with applause instead of rude banter. For a man who had no place in this world, you can truly see that being wanted really hits close to this guy.

The movie then gives you a twist. there is another person who shares Hancock's abilities. Though this person wants to be left alone, all Hancock wants is the truth about himself and what or who he is. The movie does a decent job of portraying Hancock as a true outsider to society and all the humans around him. At first he just does not know how to mesh well with people often yelling at kids and older women who are staring, but at the end of the movie he accepts his part in this made up world as its protector.

It was an enjoyable enough film. I like Will Smith as an actor, and I think he did the loner surrounded by people who need, but can't stand him pretty well. Again, not the greatest movie ever written, but it kept me awake.

A World of Wars

Hm this website does not seem to have the option to use tab. Oh well! So the latest story I have been privileged to read has been one of the interactive sort. Yes, I am talking about a video game. Before you get all high and mighty in protest, I want to say the games I play are story driven and are heavy on text. Role playing games are full of huge world, the stories are expansive, and the characters get fleshed out the in the same fashion as characters do in books. My personal preference to any type of reading material has always been fantasy based, and luckily these RPGs focus mainly on that genre.

With that said the game I have been playing is called Final Fantasy Tactics. It takes you on a journey of discovery, betrayal, love, bloodshed, and religion's dubious history. The preset tells you of the war that ravaged the lands, "The War of the Lions" as it was called. They describe how the war looked everlasting, with both sides failing to gain any ground on the other, the people suffered, the death count was skyrocketing. There was no end in sight. All of a sudden a saviour appeared. His name was Delita Hyral, and he ended the conflict and was crowned king of Ivalice, the land in turmoil. This is what is recorded in the history books. This to the people of the land are the cold hard facts. Delita's name goes down as a legendary hero and loved by everyone across the land.

But things are not always how they appear in the tomes. Written history can be easily manipulated and altered as shown in this game as it progresses. A scholar discovers a secret tome which explains that Delita was not the so-called hero that united the land and was widely known as the saviour of Ivalice. There was another name that appears in these scriptures. A youth named Ramza Beoulve whose name is all, but missing in any known documents seems to have been erased from history. These passages detail his journey and explain that his role, not Delita's is the real reason for peace throughout the land.

The game then centers around Ramza as a youth. It tells you how history details the War of the Lion, but the game shows you what actually transpires and how Ramza becomes a central figure in the reshaping of the land, but in the end gets no credit and is erased from being a central figure during these times.

The characters talk in a old medieval style akin to the days of chivalry and knighthood. Thy, thou and thine along with a whole bunch of outdated jargon fills up the text boxes, so it becomes an interesting read since the words are all so unfamiliar with me.

The story is very engaging and I can't wait to see how this is all shapes up in the end.

Journal Entry #1

So I was given a task of sorts by my girlfriend the other day. The topic was movies and transformers 2 came up. for some reason, she loved that film. I on the other hand could not stand that pile of garbage. We kept on debating about who was right on this particular subject and she gave me a sarcastic comment about how I should give her a written report (or essay I suppose) as to why I think that movie is so bad. she wanted it to be a joke of sorts, but I told her I was going to actually do it.

And so I did. Now, you must forgive me, because that movie is not something I keep fresh in my mind, and I really do not want to re-watch it again for the sole purpose to just bash it. So I go with the next best thing, the internet! It just so happens that when I type in Transformers 2 reviews, most of them are as i would expect. reviews that focus on all the bad aspects of the film. So at least I won't have trouble researching this report!

For the most part, I have never written a paper which main focus was to point out the flaws and basically talk down upon someones hard spent time. thing is, I am a die hard transformers nerd, and even the first one was enjoyable to me. the sequel did not deliver at all, and I have at times been known to go on tangents as to why and how this movie was so bad.

First, the plot. My lord what did Micheal Bay do here? there basically isn't one, and if you say that the movie wasn't supposed to make sense in the first place, then you are watching movies for the wrong reason. Any movie should have a decent plot that is easy to follow and makes sense from start to finish. this was a multi-million dollar project. Shame on the writers.

The next thing I wanted to focus on was the comedy. They needed to get one thing straight from the get go. is this or is this not a movie for children? I understand transformers is targeted for the younger audiences so most of the toilet humor that was thrown in this makes sense. Now, if that is the case and this movie is for kids, then why is there so much sexual scenes, dick jokes, and racism so overly abundant from start to finish? It's one or the other, it can't be both.

The fights were horrible too. If you are going to have two giant robots fighting, that is fine. Just please make them distinguishable! every scene where the Autobots and Decepticons fought each other was so confusing to me. it was just metal on metal moving around with horrible camera angles to boot. I couldn't tell who was winning and who was losing.

I guess the casual movie go'er doesn't really care about this or any of my other complaints. All they want is expensive explosions and pretty CGI effects. Weeeeeeeeee