Animal Farm

About a year and a few months ago, I gave up my habit of compulsively reading. I loved to read, especially epic adventure series or popular novels. Due to a demanding schedule of music practice and my coursework, I had to stop. In addition, I also began to have difficulty finding additional books to read to interest me, which also contributed to this stop.

However, over the summer, my dear friend from elsewhere met me, and she recommend a short read to me called "Animal Farm". On my trip back, I did get to stop by a store and pick up Animal Farm, along with a few other classics that hopefully will receive their own blog posts. Now that my auditions are over, I finally had the time to sit down with this book and thoroughly enjoy it. I read the entire book, from Chapter I to the final line about Napoleon's face, in about two or three hours. I can easily say, without a doubt, Animal Farm is one of the best books I have had the deepest pleasure of reading.

NintendoDSi

On April 5, 2009, Nintendo launched their latest invention in the United States: Nintendo DSi. Everyone had wondered what the new Nintendo DS would feature--another screen, the ability to install game data to the device, perhaps enhanced PictoChat? None of these were included, instead an extremely weak and low quality camera was installed and Internet capability. With the latter came the ability to download games from an online DSi store to play, such as classic rereleases and short new games/applications. Now on the subject of the Internet, this doesn't seem bad, right? Get to relive the adventures of the Oregon Trail or play an exclusive version of WarioWare, nice! Wrong. The Internet capabilities of the Nintendo DSi is horrible, and in this blog post, I am going to prove that it and the rest of the DSi are not an improvement over the Nintendo DS Lite, its predecssor.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Imagine a world in which you are not limited by normal natural environments. A world in which animals can talk, and you can come and go freely to enjoy or do battle. Throw in an iffy plot and some fantastic casting and you've got the Narnia film series. Many years ago, I delighted in seeing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, an entertaining film that started all of these shenanigans. I skipped Prince Caspian due to not having ever gotten around to the theater to view it. Boo, having stuff to do other than watch movies and blog their reviews!

Anyway, I'm also a faithful reader of many series; Harry Potter, Pendragon, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and many more. However, a book series I am totally unfamiliar with is in fact The Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, I've had all seven books, but just never read them as a young'in. I'm sure that having read the novel incarnation of this story would have affected my stance on what made the movie successful and what didn't, but I'll let you be the judge of that, faithful readers of the Narnian world.

The Music of Final Fantasy VI

I certainly have a liking for Final Fantasy games, though I haven't played too many of them. I have much more experience with the Kingdom Hearts series of games, a spin-off of sorts from the series. Of Final Fantasy games, I have only played to a full extent Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, and Dissidia Final Fantasy. I am currently playing through Final Fantasy for the PSP, and I'm writing a walkthrough on the Final Fantasy Wiki (go check it out!). Needless to say, I have an interest in the games.

However, there are also games that I do not like in the Final Fantasy series, the most of which is Final Fantasy VII. Having had it shoved down my throat in the entire Kingdom Hearts series didn't exactly make it a good memory. From the content and characters I have had the utter displeasure to observe and learn about, I can tell the game had truly nothing to make it special, and I can in fact identify many weak points in the game's structure and story. Also, no, Sephiroth is not the greatest thing ever.

Then, you've got Final Fantasy VI. I don't dislike this game, but I can't say that I like it either--because I haven't played it! From what I can only observe through articles and videos, the main character is certainly not one that I like: Terra Branford. Anyway, I was recently asked to critique several pieces of music from this classic game, and I figured it would make a good update here. So, here goes!