Ray's Poetry

There once was a man named ray 

he likes to play all day 

but some other people said that is not okay 

I don't know what else to say . 

I once met a girl from frystown 

every day shes still bringing me down 

but whenever she comes to town 

she still makes me frow

the mean girl and strange girl from frystown !

Pyramid Poems By Josh B

Monsters

Big, Scary

Eatting,Sneaking, Growling

I Get Very Scared At Night

Darkness

Scary, Wicked

Cloaking, Dominating, Worrying

It Is As Black As Midnight

Universe

Infinite, Dark

Expanding, Accelerating, Floating

It Moves Faster Than The Speed Of Light

Magic

Mysterious, Special

Casting, Purifying, Assisting

I Wish I Could A Wizard

Light

Pure, White

Glimmering, Refreshing, Restoring

It Shines As Bright As The Sun

Ruins

Historic, Mystical

Mystifying, Wondering, Searching

I Look For The Ancient Relics

Future

Unknown, Strange

Worrying, Reassuring, Hoping

What Is Going To Happen Tomarrow?

Guardians

Defensive, Evasive

Protcting, Guarding, Defending

I Shall Attack The Enemy With My Power

Pyramid Poems Written By Josh B

I am Ray

I am fun and pleasant

I wonder why the sky is blue

I hear a train horn

I see pretty clouds in the sky

I want a nice girl friend

I am a father and grandfather and love it

I feel sad when I see someone crying

I touch other peoples hearts

I worry about my daughter

I cry when I think about when my mom died

I am fun and pleasant

I understand that I have memory problems

I say people should treat each other the way they like to be treated

I dream wonderful dreams that I don't want them to end

I try to be nice to other people

I hope that I meet a nice lady and always treat her great

I am fun and pleasant

-Ray

I am

I am kind and creative
I wonder if I am imaginative
I hear the sound of the wind
I see the gusts of the winds
I want to be the best I can be
I am kind and creative

I pretend to battle dark beings
I feel the presence of evil beings
I touch the aura of living things
I worry I will lose it all
I cry because I think I will fall
I am kind and creative

I understand the Universe is ever-expanding
I say "Let's go on forever"
I dream about my own future
I try to do my best
I hope I can do my best
I am kind and creative

-Josh

Summer Movies 2012 Pre-view

I'm honestly stumped for topics to write about this week because I don't want to write another sports article and I haven't seen any new movies. Still, I like the idea of looking ahead to some upcoming movies as I'm watching the baseball season unfold. Therefore, I'm going to use this space to preview summer movie season 2012. These are some movies I plan to watch this summer, and also films I think may deserve a look from the general public:

The Avengers: Release date May 4. This will be the first Marvel film distributed by Disney (with the exception of the Spider-Man films, all the others were distributed by Fox). I personally see this as a good thing. If there's one thing Disney does best, it’s marketing and creating high expectations (hype). This movie is what 4 years and five films (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America) have been leading up to, and you can expect Disney to build it up like no one's business. The Avengers will be the film that officially kicks off the summer season, and it will do so in grand fashion. I have hopes for this movie, especially since it's being directed by Joss Whedon (creator of nerd-friendly shows like Buffy and Firefly), but I don't know much more about it besides who the characters are. The one thing that I am sure of, with this movie, is that it's going to be big.

Brave: Release date June 22. Pixar’s Brave is another film with which I’m mainly basing my opinion on hype. I don’t know a lot about the creative team or voice actors, because none of them are Pixar regulars that I recognize, but the trailers for the film (Pixar’s first try at fantasy) look really good. I plan to see this movie. Pixar has earned my trust.

The Amazing Spider Man: Release date June 22.The second Marvel movie this summer, Amazing is a reboot of the Spider-Man films, previously directed by Sam Raimi and staring Tobey McGuire. This film will star Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and will be closer to the original comic book, in that Peter’s first love interest will be Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), instead of his eventual wife Mary Jane Watson. I will watch this film out of a sense of nerdy obligation, but I have my reservations about this executive-driven reboot. I loved Andrew Garfield in The Social Network, and I wish him and director Mark Webb the best in these films, but I’d rather keep Spider-man as far away from Sony as possible

The Dark Knight Rises: Release date: July 20. Another superhero film released this year. The Dark Knight (2008) was one of the greatest superhero movies ever made, and this film, it’s sequel, is probably the most anticipated blockbuster this summer.  This is the movie I am most looking forward to this year.

Other summer blockbusters that I will wait and see on, but may be worth checking out (if the reviews are good):

Men in Black III. Release date May 25.The first MIB movie was the perfect Will Smith action comedy - the second one, not so much. I don't particularly have high hopes for this third installment, but it certainly looks like their trying to bring some level of dignity to it with the casting (Smith and co-star Tommy Lee Jones are back, with the addition of Emma Thompson as another MIB operative).

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. Release date June 8, Yet another three-quel to an unnecessary sequel to a good movie. Are you starting to sense a pattern too? If I were you, I'd save my money and watch the Penguins of Madagascar TV show instead of this cash-in.

Mirror, Mirror: Release date March 30.  This is the only movie on my “wait and see” list that I may actually check out. This is a spoof of the Snow White story, and from the ads, it looks pretty funny.  Like the other movies on my wait and see list,  I’m still going to wait for positive reviews on it before I check it out.

Final Oscar Post: Academy Commentary

After much discussion and review of this year's Oscar nominees, the Oscars are over, so I've decided to give my opinion of the 84th Academy Awards. My reaction to this year’s Oscars is very lukewarm. To be frank, I think the Academy is getting a little out of touch (warning: rant imminent.). The one decision they made this year to appeal to a wider audience was to bring back Billy Chrystal as the host, who was hilarious as usual. Other than that, the Academy still seemed to ignore the larger public.  Modern movie going demographics are all over the place in terms of age, gender, nationality and ethnicity. In contrast to that, a Los Angeles Times study found that that the Academy voters are 77% male, nearly 94% white/Caucasian, and 84% over 50 years old (\latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/academy/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-html,0,7473284.htmlstory ). This helps explain why the Academy continues to vote for movies that mostly appeal to just a small, select group of people (old-fashioned movie buffs). The age gap is what matters most to me. This year, The Artist, a silent , independent film , won 5 Oscars, including best Picture and best original score (someone please explain to me how a silent film wins for best music score) . Who saw The Artist before the Oscars? Apparently, just the critics and people who live in big cities, because before The Oscars, I hadn’t heard from anyone who’d seen it unless they specifically went to New York or Philly to see it. I’m sorry to anyone who had seen The Artist during its limited release and loved it ; but, it seems to me that the system is rigged so that limited release movies like that can be made specifically to win awards. Slumdog Millionaire did almost the exact same thing a few years ago.

          I want to be clear that I am less upset about The Artist winning than I am about what other deserving movies it beat out. Believe me, I’m sure The Artist was great (I intend to see it during its wide release), but Hugo and Moneyball were also nominated for best picture. Both were deserving movies that I already reviewed. If Hugo had won, it would have been the first 3D film to win Best Picture. If Moneyball had won, it would have been the first baseball movie to win. I bring this up because Hugo and Moneyball were accessible, enjoyable films. They were also really good and dramatic. Why didn’t they win? Were they not traditional enough? Hugo did win in several other categories,(cinematography, sound nixing, sound editing, visual effects) but Moneyball didn’t win in any. I call foul. A similar thing happened last year when the excellent but very modern The Social Network lost to the also great but more traditional film, The King’s Speech.

Again, I want to stress that I am not against good films winning awards. What bugs me is the accessibility gap. In an earlier review, I voiced concerns that The Adventures of Tintin, an excellent and accessible film, wasn't even nominated for best animated feature. While the eventual winner of the category, Rango, was pretty good film, I have my own issues with it in terms of accessibility. Personally, I found that Tintin was easier to follow, had more likable characters, and relied less on old cinema in-jokes. For proof, I point you to both films' world-wide grosses: Tintin grossed $373,567,516 and Rango grossed $244, 57,58 1(boxofficie.com).

I have other issues with the Oscars, Like Harry Potter not winning a single award, even for makeup, but this article is long enough. Thanks for reading it.

St. Patrick's Day

                                            
    The Irish are popping in green for their holiday. There is green EVERYWHERE!! The people usually always dress in that color for work and school days also. Some times you see little leprechauns hopping around, LOOK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope you won't get to scared if some foot prints are the yard, please don't call Erlick.


                                 JUST LOOK OUT FOR THE GREEN GUYS 

Post created by:  Robyn and Gary

Summer Olympics 2012 London England

       The Summer Olympics, which is always an event which bring many tourist too the host city will be hosted by London England during the 2012 games.  This is good news for the people of London who are surviveing through one of the worst economic crashes ever.  It is estameted that the 2012 Olympic Games will bring in about 1.6 billion dollars for British busnieses which as the prime minister David Cameroon said. The games will bring investors too London if they have never been there before.  But with the outside investments the games bring several problems with it too the host city.  Owners of London's movie theater's are ecpecting the theaters to be filled tith empty seats.  Also the London form of public transportaion, the tube, which is like the subway had its contuctors therten to strike. But with the games comes the growth of the construction insustry. This will also help England's economy since the construction companies will need to buy building matterial and also hire prople to design sporting complexes, which England will be able to turn into housing complexes, because the foundation had already been layed, once the 2012 Olympic games have been cimpleted. As the former wastlands of East End have been completly remaid so that they will comply with the olympic building standards.  This formula worked in 1992 when Barcelona hosted the summer olympics and again in 2010 when Vancouver hosted the winter olympics they were forced to sell some of there assets.  But for every eucess story there is one that ends up with the opposite end result. There is an Athens story of despair, who hosted the 2004 and ended up in dept with millions of dollers still to pay of after they hosted the Olympic games. For every tale of debt and depair, there is the angle Vancouver choice to take and sell off some of its own assets to help pay for the total cost of the games.

Ncaa men's basketball champinship

         Min's basketball in the NCAA (national Collete athletic association) national championship is determined by a national tournament in which every team that qualifies is invited. Every team in the tournament is given a seed number. That number is how the experts predict that team will finish. Before the first ball is tipped every expert decides which of the four regions each team will play in. East, west, south east, and south west, the regions depend on the location of the school. There are a few ways in which a team may earn an invitation to the tournament. When a team wins their conference tournament they automatically earn a spot in the national tournament. There is also what is called an at large bid, which means if a team beats other teams that are bigger and more have a higher rank that team will also earn an a bid. The first round starts with 64 teams, but the national tournament is a win or go home tournament, so half of the teams are cut every round. The second round starts with 32 teams, then down to 16, 8, 4, finally the national championship game is played. Although the teams with a number one seed have the best chance to win but, there are some surprises every year. One of the biggest surprises of last years tournament was the small college of Vcu and Butler, Butler who played Uconn in the national title game. Vcu which made it all the way to the elite 8, before losing to 2011 champion Uconn (41-53). Although Butler made it further than anyone expected they were defeated by another power house school University of Connecticut. The fact that the small college of Butler made it to the final forces the public to wonder should more small schools be given the opportunity to show the country that they can play competitively with the powerhouse universities. Although it will not happen mostly because the major powerhouse schools bring in a larger audience to their games and also donate the more money, than a small school can.
 The final outcome of the national championship would have been different had Butler been able to shoot the basketball a little better.  But the fact is the game was taken over by the Connecticut big men, Kemba walker and Jeremy Lamb.  Butler had only one player who could score as much as the Uconn big men and that was Shelvin Mack, who led his team in points, (13) and rebounds (9).  But that is compared to Uconn's Kemba walker's (16) points and Alex Oriakhi (11) rebounds.
     Had Butler had a big man that could score and play defense they might not have needed so, much from their star Shelvin Mack who must have been extra tired having too lead Butler in Scoring and rebounding.  The fact is though that Butler did better than anyone had expected them too.  But the fans of the University of Connecticut would say the biggest story of the tournament was the fact that for the first time a school,Uconn, who did not receive an invitation too the NCAA tournament the year before, came back as an at large bid and won the entire tournament. Never before has a school been able too accomplish that goal.
    

Quote of the Day

Jumping for joy is good exercise.  ~Author Unknown


Posted by Ben

Moneyball Review

The Oscars are this Sunday, so this will be my last review of an Oscar nominated film before the show itself. In my Hugo review, I mentioned Moneyball being one of the films competing with Hugo that I am rooting for.  Moneyball was nominated for Best Picture, Actor in a leading role, Actor in a Supporting role, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, and Adapted screenplay. I really hope Moneyball wins one of those six awards, because it’s an outstanding, worthy film, and not just for baseball fans like me.

Moneyball is an adaptation of the 2003 book which covered several subjects, most importantly the true story of Oakland Athletics General Manager and former player Billy Beane, who shook up his team and consequently the world of baseball around 2002. In The film, Beane is played by Brad Pitt, whose nomination for best actor is well deserved. Pitt steals every scene in this movie, when he’s not sharing the spotlight with fellow nominee Jonah Hill, who plays Beane’s assistant GM Peter Brand. All of their scenes together are delightfully fun to watch, even when they’re just sitting behind a computer talking strategy and statistics.

The film goes to great lengths to appeal to those in the audience who are not baseball fans. For one thing, all scenes dealing with the intricacies of how and why Billy is rebuilding the Athletics are easy to understand, and in most cases, are enjoyable to watch.        For another thing, the film is foremost a character study of Beane. According to the film, much of Beane’s motivation for rebuilding the Athletics by disregarding conventional wisdom comes from his past as a failed #1 prospect. The scenes of young Billy (Reed Thompson) choosing to sign with the Mets and subsequently  struggling on the field before finally giving up playing are powerfully dramatic and I would go so far as to call them the glue that holds the film together.

As  I said, I will be rooting for Moneyball in The Oscars, but it’s long shot since it’s competing against Hugo  in 4 categories and other Oscar favorite The Artist  in 3. Still, Moneyball is definitely worthy of it s nominations and absolutely worth watching.

By Colin V

Romance this evening at Acadia

I think we're in love

I'm falling head over heels

With you this evening

By: Robyn and Ben

A Stray

                                   LOVE IS A LONG WALK:                            

                                                           WAS IT LONGER THEN WE THOUGHT ;
                                                                  CAN WE SIT AND TALK ;

Acadia News

Hugo Review

When I was seeing Tintin with my mom and little brother, my dad and sister went to see Hugo. While I loved Tintin, eventually I decided to see Hugo myself because of the rave reviews. To put it simply, Hugo amazed me. Apparently, it also amazed the Academy, being nominated for Best Picture, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Directing, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, and Adapted Screenplay. That makes 11 nominations, the most since Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2004). What made LOTR  so special is that it swept all 11 categories, and while I’m not really rooting for Hugo to also sweep because it’s competing in some categories against films I saw and liked this year (Harry Potter, Tintin, and Moneyball), I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it does. Hugo is a nearly perfect film.  

The two things that stand out most about Hugo are the beautifully simple and captivating story and the intricate, out of sequence way in which it’s told. Throughout the film, the audience follows the tale of orphan boy Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), who lives and works in a Paris Train Station after WWI. All he wants to do is fix an automaton, the last relic of his late father. This leads to him “fixing” much more: The life and dreams of a retired filmmaker he didn’t even know. It’s a simple and beautiful tale. What makes it unique is that all the details of the story--How Hugo became an orphan, why he lives in the station, what led him to the filmmaker—aren’t made clear until the end of the film. In two incredibly well written, well acted, and beautifully directed scenes at the end of the movie, the plot comes together and all the character’s actions begin to make sense.  Until then, we get snippets of plot, like the scenes  detailing Hugo’s back-story, and him meeting and befriending Isabelle ( Chloë Grace Moretz) , the filmmaker’ s niece , trying to uncover the mystery  of the automaton,  but we don’t know what it means yet.  By the time it all comes together at the end, everyone is smiling—the characters and the audience. Hugo deserves all 11 of its nominations, and it definitely deserves a look.

By Colin V.

Here are some Valentine quotes that I found,I thought you might like.

It is estimated that 15% of the women in the United States who receive flowers for Valentine’s day send them to themselves. There are no figures that tell how many of these women are married, single or in a relationship.

Teachers receive more valentine cards than anyone else, even children.

More than 650 million valentine cards are exchanged by children from ages 6-10 each year. Most of these cards are bought in the last 6 days leading up to Valentine’s day.

Each year the city of Verona Italy receives more than 1000 valentine’s addressed to Shakespeare’s Juliet. It really is amazing how much affection a dead fictional character can attract.

It was once believed that if a woman saw a flying robin on Valentine’s day she would end up getting married to a sailor. If a sparrow was the bird she saw she would end up marrying a man that was poor and live a happy life, if she saw a goldfinch then she was to marry a man that was a millionaire. One can only wonder who she would marry if she saw a crow.

Found from http://itthing.com/10-interesting-and-weird-facts-about-valentines-day on 1/30/2012

Posted by Jackie.

Veggie Valentine

Below is aValentine's Day poem that I found and thought you might enjoy!

You may not 'Carrot' all for me,
The way I care for you,
You may 'Turnip' your nose at me,
When I plead with you.

But if your 'Heart' should 'Beet' with mine,
Forever 'Lettuce' hope,
There is no reason in the world,
 why we two 'Cantaloupe'.
AUTHOR ANONYMOUS


Poem retrieved from http://www.brownielocks.com/valentinepoems.html


Post created by Ben.

Tintin Review

It’s Oscar season. For me, that means it’s time to talk about good movies. The full list of the nominees was released Jan. 24, and because this is the sort of thing that gets me thinking and writing, my next several posts will probably be related to the Oscars. Personally, the only category that I really pay attention to besides the big 5 (best movie, director, actor, actress, original screenplay) and the ones pertaining to movies I watched that year is Best Animated Film. In recent years, that category has been dominated y the excellent Pixar animation studio. Unfortunately, even though Cars 2 was a good movie, it wasn’t up to Pixar’s usual standards of excellence, and it didn’t even get nominated. Instead The Academy chose a couple of DreamWorks films (Kung fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots) and Rango, completely ignoring the Golden Globes’ pick and mine, the Adventures of Tintin.

Unlike recent movies that were adaptations of ongoing comic books, Tintin requires no prior knowledge of the source material to understand or appreciate. Like any good film, all you need to know about the plot or characters is shown through the actions and dialogue of the characters themselves. The rest of the story is told by the stellar motion-capture animation, which beautifully depicts all the action, adventure, comedy, and drama this movie has to offer. The film begins when Tintin, (Jamie Bell) buys a rare model ship from a market stall, just looking for a story for his newspaper. What he finds is wild, captivating adventure well worth writing about.  Go watch The Adventures of Tintin, and see for yourself what The Academy missed.

Colin V.

Murder Mayhem at Acadia

By Bill B, Ben, Jonathan, Dan, Kathy, Robyn, Gary, and Maggie

Written in a Cognitive Skills Group on January 10, 2012 

Three days passed before they found the body.  Detective Bill B, who was in charge of the investigation, was resultantly fired.  “But the leads they gave me were gnarly.  They sent me every wrong direction,” he protested, as he packed up his office in shame.

Bill’s assistant, Laura, suddenly saw a snake on the ground where the body was found.  “Oh my gosh, guys, get over here and take a look at this!”

 Ben, Jonathan, Dan, Kathy, Robyn, Gary, and Maggie rushed to the scene.  There was a gut-wrenching stench.  Kathy yelled, “this is doing wonders for my appetite and I had a gourmet pizza for lunch.  I think I’m going to hurl.”  She proceeded to puke. 

Everyone leapt back due to the pungent smell.  While hopping back, Dan stumbled and fell over something fleshy.  “Are you okay?” Laura yelled. 

“I’m okay, but why am I covered in blood?”

Gary peered at Dan and asked, “is it because you’re so blood-thirsty?”

“Forget that,” yelled Robyn, “what the heck is that body doing there?”

Ben acclaimed, “Oh my gosh, that’s Donald Duck!”

Jonathan looked down at the corpse, threw himself on top of the duck and exclaimed while bawling, “that’s my brother!”

The Muppets Review

It’s hard to mess up a concept as simple, engaging, and fun as the Muppets. Unfortunately, the American public seems to have forgotten that fact a little in the few decades since the Muppets were at the height of their popularity, choosing instead since the ‘90s to focus on less wholesome aspects of pop culture such as MTV, Comedy Central, and juicy celebrity gossip. The latest Muppet movie is aware of this, and the majority of the film is the juxtaposition of the more family friendly Muppets with modern day cynicism, with wildly entertaining results.

The movie begins with a montage showing the lives of brothers Gary and Walter. The fact that Gary, played by Jason Segal, is a man and his brother Walter is a Muppet is not ignored by the movie. That Gary and Walter can be brothers raises more questions than it answers, but the movie has little time to wax philosophical about the existence of Muppets in a world of humans, because soon we are introduced to Gary’s girlfriend, Mary (Amy  Adams) which leads us to our first musical number. Yes, The Muppets is a musical, which shouldn’t be surprising since music has been a major part of The Muppets since the ‘70s, and almost every Muppet movie since The Muppet Movie has been a musical. What surprised me was the scope and scale of the musical numbers in The Muppets. Every song is big, fun, and very well performed. They pulled out all the stops to make this movie big.  

After our first number explains in grand fashion how content the characters are with their lives, the movie finally gets a around to having a plot. Gary, Mary, and Walter are taking a trip to Hollywood to meet the Muppets. They finally meet Kermit, but not before Walter discovers a plot to tear down the Muppet studio and drill for oil. The plan is to save the studio by putting on one more show.   Hilarity ensues. The Muppets is definitely worth seeing.

By Colin V.

Meteor Shower Tonight!

For those night owls, there is a scheduled Meteor Shower at 2:00 AM on January 3, 2012. What exactly is a meteor shower? A meteor shower is magnificiant dazzling display from a neighboring constellation. This occurs when there are a large number of meteors at a particular time. Meteor showers are created by debris that fall from comets.

Examples of meteor showers are given below.