January = Dragonkeeper, curry, + Big Hero 6

Hi guys,

I've decided to do these posts at the end of the month so that I can give you a recap on what has happened this month, as well as reviews and personal opinion.

I'll start with book of the month, this month I have re-read a Children's book called Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson. I couldn't remember what happened in this book so I read it again because I knew I liked it before and I really enjoyed it :) I believe the suggested age group is grade 5-6 (10-13 years olds) which I totally I agree with but it's also a fun read for the young at heart. For example I'm 16 and I enjoyed it, but then, I don't mind reading Children's book so long as their interesting or they bring back a sense of nostalgia :) Anyway this is a great read and I would rate it 100%, 5 out of 5. Not because this is the most fantastic novel I've ever read, but because it is a wonderful children's book and although it is not my favourite book, it is an all-round, perfectly written story and I will definitely be reading the next book in the series: Garden of the Purple Dragon.

I made only one (proper) meal this month and that was an easy-peasy recipe I got off the jar of Patak's Korma Paste. It's super mild (not hot at all in fact) and so it's perfect for kids (or adults) who don't like things too spicy. Or, you can add your own spices. I used the recipe on the jar and also added in a capsicum and a carrot (they were basically the only veggies we had but you can add whatever else you want) which I blitzed up in the food processor (If you're cooking dishes for kids with ingredients they don't like, either blend it up so small so that they can't see it, cannot tell what it is, or can't taste it distinctly. Or, chop it big enough to be picked out easily).

And now for the highlight of January. This month my brother, mother, and I went to see Big Hero 6 in cinemas and it was amazing! I highly recommend getting it on DVD because it was sooo good! It was the best movie I've seen in a while. There's nothing else I can say about it you just have to see it!
 Hopefully I'm not raising your expectations too high so that you are let down (I find the movies I enjoyed most are the movies I knew very little about, or wasn't expecting to love so much). So Big Hero 6 was a huge thumbs up from me and but I won't tell you what I rate it because I don't want to get your hopes up too high only to be let down when you see it. Lets just say it was it was refreshing to see an original (I hope) Disney film that was made so perfectly after what seems like a run of movies where Disney has run out of ideas.


I also went to see Into The Woods with my cousins and my cousin and I both agreed that the movie was (in my words) strange and (in her words) odd. That's about all I can say about Into The Woods. It was strange and I don't know if I really enjoyed it. I would not recommend it (to anyone).

Also this month I went to Madame Tussauds in Sydney with my cousins for the first time and got a picture taken with a beautiful (and slightly intimidating) wax model of Johnny Depp. It's a shame they don't have a certain Loki in the museum in Sydney but I guess I'll just have to go to the U.K for that (and possibly see him in person there too).
Can I just go off topic here for a moment and say I am really excited and nervous at the same time.
Reasons to be exited: Year 11, which is exciting because I'm finally doing subjects that I (hopefully) want to do, which means less than 2 years of high school left, which means choices, which means one of those choices could mean travel (which I so want to do).
Reasons to be nervous: Year 11, which means hard work, which means HSC coming up, which means high school is almost finished, which means choices, which means one of those choices could mean university (which I really want to do) - but uni will be expensive :( so that's why I'm nervous and excited all at the same time. Anyway back on track, Madam Tassauds was very cool and the previous day I also went to the Circus Factory at the Powerhouse Museum and that was really fun. Lots of fun to be had for kids and I was particularly obsessed with a trick where you spun a plate-like-thing on top of a stick-rod-thing. Unfortunately they didn't sell any in the gift shop and you'd have to buy it from a circus shop if you wanted it which was disappointing because I did want it.

Back to books, I've started reading Firesong (which I will talk about later) but it's so boring at the moment and I can't get into but hopefully I will get through it in February. It's a small book so it shouldn't take long it's just that I can't get into it D: Our English class has also been given a book which I will talk about next month as well.

Well that's all for now, hope you all had a wonderful first month of 2015 (I hope the rest of this year is as good) and I'll see you in February :)

Jody

About Time

Well just then, I finished watching "About Time". I originally thought I wouldn't see it because I was unsure about it and I didn't think it would be good. But the good think about being a pessimist is that you can be pleasantly surprised. And that's what it was with this movie. I don't think the main focus was really time travel, but more, the essence of living life to the fullest and I quote "I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it were the full final day". Bill Nighy is of course a great actor and so if Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson played his part superbly. It was a really heart-touching, beautiful, inspiring, and quite hilarious in some parts, film. I thought it was odd that Rachel McAdams was doing another time traveling movie and I'm not usually into time travel as it's impossible and so many things can go wrong with time travel, but this was a much better movie than I thought it was going to be. In fact, I thought it was a great movie, and I would definitely recommend anyone to watch it, which doesn't happen all the time. Young or old, female or male, this is a great movie for anyone to see.

I do not own these images

Jody

Frozen Review

Hi there guys, so I thought I would do a movie review since I've never done one of those before.
I must say the reason I've never done it was because I'm actually a bit nervous. I've never done a movie review before not even in school - how weird is that? - but I'm going to try now because I think it would be good to get some practice, and besides, how hard can it be?

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Frozen

Movie Review

Frozen is Disney's latest animation film Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Starring
Kristen Bell as Anna, Josh Gad as Kristoff, Idina Menzel as Elsa and Josh Gad as Olaf. 

Like all Disney films, it has comedy and adventure wrapped up in a family musical. The jokes are quirky and cute (perfect for giggly kids or adults with child's humor) and the plot is simple and fun with a little bit of a twist ending with a serendipity that reminds of The Princess and the Frog. 

However the dialogue lacks in some areas where the story is going smoothly but seems to be cut short by dialogue that seems unrelated or doesn't fit in.

When I think of Disney films, music is one of the main areas that I find important. Everyone wants a Disney movie with a songs (or at least song) they can remember. And in any movie I find, the soundtrack makes the movie. But in Disney's 'Frozen' the songs lack their usual Disney charm and timelessness. Again, the lyrics in the songs sometimes take away from the general flow and catchiness of the song and seem unrelated. *Spoilers* For example when the song "Let it Go" ends with "the cold never bothered me anyway". And Anna says the line "in the first time in forever" too many times which made it irritating every time you heard it and it seems like half the song is composed of this one line. Also the beginning song of "Vuelie (feat. Cantus)" was annoying and didn't quite seem to fit in with the theme. I can hear what effect they're trying to make but it just wasn't quite right. Same with "Frozen Heart", the effect was obvious but the song seemed kinda cheesy. The songs definitely take away hugely from the movie as it is a musical. However Olaf's song "In Summer" is funny and cute and Idina Menzel is a great singer as I already know from listening to my "Wicked" CD.

The story did go smoothly though and didn't seem too slow or too fast. I think Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee made the story flow seamlessly from scene to scene and the graphics and look of the characters as well as their outfits was enjoyable for the audience to watch. However they didn't really grasp the 3D effect to their advantage. If I'm going to pay extra to see a movie in 3D I want to remember that I watched in 3D. However during the film I forgot it was in 3D most of the time as they did not exactly use it to their advantage and so it doesn't really make much difference whether you watch it in 3D or not.

The message of the story wasn't quite clear to me. I think the moral might have been something like "love conquers all" but I really don't know. But it is a childrens film so I guess 'love' was just a theme in general.

I know this film got high reviews previously and it got a high rating of 8.1 on IMDb but I definitely don't think it deserved that as the music was such a let down. I guess I would rate it.......6.7

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Well I hope that was useful to you, I will try to write more movie reviews and hopefully I will get better :)

Jody 

My Fav Photo Apps

Hey guys,

The other day I gave quite a few reviews on my game apps. So today I am finally giving a review on my favourite photo apps.

My first and most favourite is of course, Instagram. Now we've all heard of Instagram, in fact most of us have it. Well, especially teenagers. But it has to be the most addictive app I have. It is more addictive at the start when you're trying to find anything to take a picture of -clouds mostly- but you get the hang of it with practice. It's a great way of and sharing pics with everyone and as a personal inspiration for yourself. You can also upload pictures from your library. So if you took some holiday pics on your camera you can still upload them to Instagram. Plus it's free! No ads, and no in-app purchases. Don't feel discouraged if you don't have an iPhone. I have an iPod Touch 4th gen and it takes terrible quality photos but it's still fun. Unfortunately Instagram does not come for the iPad but you can download Instagram viewers like Padgram.

Ok if you have Instagram, then FanScan is a good app to have to find your biggest fan (the person who likes your photos the most) and fans of everyone else too! It used to be called Instafan but changed with the update.

If you don't like Instagram but you like the effects, ArtCamera has got almost exactly the same effects except you don't have to crop it, there are no borders and you don't post it to Instagram.But for some strange reason I can't seem to find it on the store anymore. It says it's only on the Chinese store or something so maybe it moved. So I don't know what happened to it but if you do find it, it's a good photo effects app.

I got Font Candy+ fairly recently but I still haven't quite gotten the hang of it. It's a great app for adding text to your pics - or pictures to your text ;). There is a free version of this which is good if you just want to try it out before you pay for the full version.

Rhonda Designs I also got recently and like Font Candy+, you can add a mask to your photos and add text plus so much more! It's hard to explain what you can do but just click on the link and have a look. It takes a bit of getting used to; I still haven't gotten the hang of it yet. But it's pretty cool and once you find the right balance of number of stickers you add and the layout etc, you get a pretty cool image. Creating a logo is another idea you could use this app for.

WordFoto is not one of my most highly recommended apps. I don't really use it much and you kind of get bored of it but it's kind of cool how it fills your picture with words. And you can change the word/s, the font, the colour. It's a pretty good app for what it does I just don't have much use for it.

Bokehful has to be one of my most favourite photo apps. It's not like other photo editing apps. You cannot crop, enhance or add effects to your photos. But trust me it is easy, simple, fun and makes your photos look beautiful!

Camera+ is one of my most favourite apps for intense effects. I use it a lot when I want to create a very surreal effect on my photos. Here are some examples of the photos I've created:

So as you can see they're no very subtle effects but you can change the intensity of the effect if you don't want it to be that strong. You can also easily crop your photos and add borders. Believe it or not I actually took those photos myself :)

Now if you like the kind of silly effects that make your head squish in or your fingers curl (Photobooth) then you will probably like Mega Photo. It has tonnes of effects where you can either put your head on the Mona Lisa or have your face burst into fireworks, and it's free. However there is an in-app purchase if you want to access all the effects. It doesn't cost much and you get soooo many effects that I think it's worth it.

Now if you have an iTouch 4th gen or an iPad (like me) you will probably be annoyed that the camera does not come with a panorama camera. So you have to buy panoramic app which is not going to be as good as the built in panoramas they give those lucky iPhone users but you still want to take a panoramic photograph. If you don't really like paying for apps - such as myself - and you want a free panoramic app then I suggest Cycloramic. It's not great quality but I have found that it is the easiest and most simplist app for taking panoramic shots. Here is a few panoramas I took at Perisher:

 
It does make your pictures a little distorted but that can't be helped and it gets the job done.

Next is Pic Collage which is my most favourite app for putting pictures in frames and collages. I highly recommend it as it is super easy to use and makes great collages and frames with very little effort. You can have up to 12 photos in a frame and as many photos as you want in a collage. You can change the background in a collage or make the background a photo, you can trim photos and change the size and rotation with a simple tap, swipe and and a twist. You can change the colour or pattern of the border and you can add stickers and text. This is definitely the best app for the job.

If your looking to change the background of your home screen or lock screen Pimp Your Screen is a classic and has so many wonderful background for your iTouch, iPhone and iPad that your sure to find one you like. Unfortunately it does require interent connection so download your favourite wallpapers at home and choose your favourite one when you get the chance. You can also create your own lock screen and home screen wallpapers using there images or yours.

Well that's all for now, I have currently misplaced my iTouch so I don't know if there are any other apps but if there are I'll make a part two.

Until then,

Jody

App Reviews

Hi guys,
Today I thought I'd give you a review on my favourite apps.

First of all, these are mostly old apps, nothing that new, so I recommend this post for new iPhone/iTouch/iPad users etc.

Games

Ok my first one is Cut the Rope.
Now you've probably heard of this game before but it is a really cute game! It's kind of a puzzle game. You solve levels by feeding "Om Nom" the candy. There are also sequels of the game; Cut the Rope Experiments and Cut the Rope Time Travel. You may get sick of Cut the Rope after a while as there are so many levels but Time Travel has less levels and is also very fun (more levels come with the updates).

The next one is Where's My Water? Like Cut the Rope, Where's My Water is a puzzle game. It is the same game style as Cut the Rope and it's fun and addictive. If you like Cut the Rope then I think you will like this game too. Again, it does get boring after a while.

Now the all-time classic has also become a pc/mac game and Nintendo game. Yes, it's Plants vs Zombies. Now I have always though this is a fun and entertaining game. I'm not a zombie person but I really do like this style of game and I would highly recommend it to you. If you finish the game, don't stress! You can still play the zombie garden an the mini games, or, you can just play it all over again! There is now also Plants vs Zombies HD and Plants vs Zombies 2 if you want to try them out but I've never used them before so I don't know how they'll be but PvZ 2 looks really bad.

Jetpack Joyride is a fun and hilarious game. I would definitely recommend it to anyone (but especially boys - or if you have boy humour) as it is extremely entertaining and you don't really get sick of it. You play as "Barry", a guy who has stolen a machine gun jet pack and is making his way through the lab while dodging obstacles and lasers while killing scientists, trying out different power suits and completing goals. You press and hold the screen to make him go higher and let go to make him fall. There are no levels, you just keep going until you beat your friend's high score! ;D

This next one is a classic. Now, Pocket God is a little sadistic but it's very fun! And there's always plenty to do! Basically you torture little people ("pygmys") and kill them in different ways. Trust me its more fun then it sounds. You can complete goals and put pygmys in battle, there really is a lot to do and it's very entertaining :)

Next on the list is Temple Run. But specifically, Temple Run Brave. Now we all know temple run, it's gotten a bit old now and a bit boring. Temple Run Brave is basically the same thing except you get to play as Merida (from the movie Brave), the landscape is different and you get to shoot some arrows along the way. Still, if you're a newbie I recommend you try out this game especially if you're obsessed with the movie ;)

Now Despicable Me: Minion Rush is similar Temple Run in some ways but its quite recent and MUCH MORE FUN! :D It doesn't matter if you haven't watched Despicable Me 2 you will still love this game! It's fast paced, funny, entertaining and there are different areas to play in so you won't get bored of this game easily. Temple Run players may love this especially but I would recommend it to anyone and if you have an iPad you MUST get it! It is so much better on the iPad and easier too in my opinion.

Ovenbreak is a cute little classic about a gingerbread man running away from a witch's lair. It's cute, easy to play, but also good for experienced gamers because of the harder levels. Again, there is also Ovenbreak 2 and Ovenbreak Infinity but I don't know if they're any good.

If you've heard of Froggy Jump, then you'd have a good idea of what Mega Jump is like. Except it's better than Froggy Jump and Doodle Jump but it's that kind of game. Not one of my must-haves, but an alright game none the less.

Mega Jump's sequel, Mega Run, is GREAT. I can honestly say that this is a fun an entertaining game that I still play. The only problem is that they now have in-app purchases if you want to play more levels. But I just play it over and over again until I get it perfect and that keeps me busy.

Parking Mania Lite is free and is fun and challenging to play but it's over very quickly. Apart from 2 levels that I can't do, I've finished the other levels and it's not really fun after you've already done it. But, it's free, and good for temporary entertainment.

Gelato Mania is a cute game that's fun and challenging (sort of) and it's free. Unfortunately it's an old game and they've stopped making updates which is bad because there's a bug that prevents me from playing the last level. You basically just decorate gelato but you have to copy the one they've done exactly to pass the level. Again, good for temporary entertainment.


That's pretty much it for games. I'll do another one tomorrow on my favourite photo apps.

Jody