Lanford, the city of cities, the hope of hopes, the end of days! Graham arrives in what will soon become his worst nightmare, and his greatest challenge of all time. But for now, he can get cushy on another train ride. Just for now. By the way, the novel is now just over a quarter finished! Woohoo!

Word Count: 26,848

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Ah, the craaaaazy things that can happen on a train. Or locomotive! What an old-fashioned word.

Word Count: 23,376

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I’ve made a correction in ast entires. I’d been typing Light Sphere when I really meant Lamp Sphere - it’s been corrected. Also, I corrected a statement about Marcus’s accent in yesterday’s post so that the way he speaks is at least a little more sensical.

Word Count: 20,061

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Happy birthday, Dad. I wish you were here for it.

I don’t think I’ve ever read as much on a single vacation as I have on this one. Cape May’s been fun so far, though I kind of wish we’d have gone to Atlantic City, which is more exciting and has more activities. I’m pretty sure we chose to go to Cape May only because our family overlooked Atlantic City’s existence. That said, it’s still quite fun and I’m glad we did this, seeing as college is about to begin and taking a break in any form is well appreciated and loved. I’ve finished two books here in Cape May over the course of a single day: Magic Knight Rayearth, a manga, and Blink, a wonderful psychology book by one of my favorite authors, Malcom Gladwell, who wrote The Tipping Point (which taught me basically everything I know about marketing).

Blink was as interesting as The Tipping Point was, but I don’t think it’ll end up being as life-changing. Whereas The Tipping Point taught me marketing strategies I never would have dreamed of that aided me in making the ZU relaunch a rousing success that not only met my expectations, but exceeded them and crashed our server, Blink has not taught me anything I did not already know. Rather, it’s made more interesting the way that our subconscious mind works. Blink is all about the subconscious mind and controlling our snap reactions and judgements. The most powerful and reasonable judgements always occur within a few seconds, which is why, say, a music instructor will know who has potential and who does not simply by hearing those first few notes.

It’s nothing surprising, but it’s interesting to know that you can control the way those judgements turn out and take advantage of them. the than that, Gladwell will need to pull something amazing off in his next book to outdo The Tipping Point. Blink, while profound in its own right, just didn’t make as much of a splash to me.

I’m looking forward to eating some saltwater taffy today, perhaps some fudge. I’m really ready to shove off and head to college. There are afew things I need to do first…

(…AlcoholEdu, my ID photo, packing, ZU’s brawl section…)

…but once they’re done, I’m set and ready to go. And go I shall. But back to Cape May.

I’ve been hampering my mother and brother to go see Kung Fu Panda for the last few days, and I finally got ‘em to collapse and go to the multiplex. My mom always loves to dis movies meant for a younger audience - and I’ll admit, there was one little girl in that theater that wouldn’t shut up or sit still - but usually ends up enjoying the movie and raves about it at the end. A similar case with Kung Fu Panda.

Now, I use Rotten Tomatoes to get my movie reviews. So far, Kung Fu Panda has an 86% - pretty high. Rotten Tomatoes has never been wrong before, so I took it for what it was. I saw the movie, and I loved it. There were a few things wrong with it, but nothing major.

I thought it was short. If it wasn’t really short, and I wasn’t keeping time, then it was so good that it went by incredibly fast. I never felt like I got to know any of the major characters. At some point, I was sure the movie was about acceptance among one’s peers, but it turns out that isn’t the case. The Panda, Po, is quickly accepted by his peers, “The Five” greatest martial artists around. For some reason, I totally failed to notice it. It looked like they hated him to me, even if they laughed at Po’s jokes every now and then. And then The Five disappear for a good portion of the movie, as if they don’t really matter. Which is strange, because they don’t get to see Po develop as a warrior.

And neither does the audience, really. You never get to see Po really become great. It’s all “accidental” kung fu. Which, I suppose, is the point of the movie, which I won’t spoil for you. It’s a generic moral that won’t surprise you any more than being accepted by one’s peers.

But that’s really all that’s wrong - the animation is beautiful, and the intro sequence has a touch of Okami. Fighting? Oh yes, there is fighting, and it’s good. The physics is definintely not possible, but screw physics! Get me some good kung fu action any day. And that’s what you’ll get - plenty of high speed fighting that’ll make you dizzy for a split-second. You expect the antagonist to go easy on the Panda for their final fight, which is what allows Po to defeat him, but that doesn’t actually happen - its a full-fledged battle and Po actually does prove to be, well, a true Kung Fu Panda.

Go see it. ;)

As the title says, I now have the subtitle of my blog (it’s a few pixels above this post) linked DIRECTLY to my Pownce page - it shows my most recent status. I find it neat, it gives this place some nice dynamic content for people to stare at. Just in case you wanted to stalk me.

As a side note, tomorrow is my wee bro’s 14th birthday. Wish him a happy one!

Is way too influenced by Japanese culture and Okami. Yay Okami! :D

After completing the game in just over 31 hours, I loved it so much that I decided I had to write a review. I put that review up last night on Zelda Universe - I don’t think there’s a way to accurately describe how awesome that game is, but it’s a real treat for anyone who has a little artist inside of them.

Read the review, and if you like it, Digg it to get Okami some publicity!

The second part of my AP Portfolio has a far more specific purpose. Students must choose a single subject and create twenlve works about that subject. My subject? Molecular science.

In the words of my teacher, it’s a portfolio that "the AP board will have never seen before." And, despite the fact that several of the pieces in this section are HORRIBLY rushed and crappy looking, I’m confident that the AP board will eat it up simply because all of the pieces fit together so well.

Why molecular science? I’ve always enjoyed science, and I was particularly enticed Sophomore year by Chemistry, specifically electron orbitals. I make a single drawing one afternoon depicting just how cool electron orbitals looked when you were finally able to view them all together in a single atom, and I came across two startling revelations: (1) The nucleus of an atom is REALLY small, and (2) They really do look cool! And so my quest to make lots of pretty molecules shoved off.

This also ties into my engineering; as an engineer, I feel that science and art don’t mix enough. Someone needs to show those up-tight professors that physics can be beautiful. That there is passion in science. That art can be found even under an SEM.

I have organized these pieces in the order that they will appear as slides to the AP board. There is meaning in their organization.