So by now I'm sure you've heard all of the hullabaloo surrounding Disney's new animated feature, The Princess and the Frog. It featured Disney's first black princess, which raised quite a lot of controversy before the film's release. It was also Disney's attempts to return to form, to recapture the spirit of the Disney revival of the late 80s/early 90s. Disney had a lot riding on this one. Personally, as a huge fan of Disney, I had high hopes as well. My anticipation for this movie was sky high; every time I saw a commercial for it I would shush everyone in the room, and when we finally got to the theatre on the day of the film's release, I was so excited that I was literally bouncing in my seat.

I am so happy to report that it lived up to all of my expectations. It's got that wonderful Disney charm that so many of us were hoping for. Tiana is a great addition to the Disney princess line up. She's hard working, sassy, and talented, one to make her own destiny instead of waiting for it. Despite the film being set in the 1920s, she's a modern girl.

Speaking of setting, the New Orleans backdrop is exquisite. New Orleans is a city that I'm very familiar with, and that I love dearly. I've traveled a lot, and it's definitely in my top five of cities I've ever been to. My university is about an hour and a half drive from New Orleans, and I take a couple of trips down every semester. It's truly an enchanting place. Disney has captured it in a beautiful way. When I first saw the St. Charles streetcar, pictured above, my heart soared. The animators captured the city in breathtaking detail including things that would be easy to miss like the black iron poles used for tying up horses, still seen throughout the French Quarter. The music in the film is incredible, blending gospel, jazz, and zydeco, staying true to the unique Louisiana character.

The characters are endearing, my favorite being the trumpet playing aligator, Louis. He's the source of a lot of the funny moments in the movie, of which there are many. As a little girl, I grew up loving Disney movies and all the princesses. Beauty and the Beast is the first movie I remember seeing in theatres. My little sister is now 9, and so all through my teenage years I was watching them over again. They're so familiar to me. I don't remember the first time I heard the songs, or the first time I laughed at these now familiar jokes. With Princess and the Frog, I will remember everything. I find that pretty cool.

I adored the film. I know most of you are guys who have little to no interest in Disney princess cartoons, but go see it if anything at all makes it interesting to you. It's a beautiful, beautiful film.

With that said, hey d00ds, what's up? Been awhile! Speaking of New Orleans, two pretty cool things happened there this semester! Mailer_Daemon came to visit me on his fall break. It was fun! On another N.O. trip (I told you I take a few ), I went to THE BEST CONCERT I've ever been to, of The Swell Season. It was a magnificient, beautiful night. If they come to your town, even if you've never heard of them, I encourage you to go. I left that concert feeling full of hope and just marvelling at how beautiful life is. Funny how music can do that.

I had a lot of fun writing this. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 9.5

Hey everyone! I hope all of you are doing well! For those of you who have recently started school again, I hope the transition has been alright! Summer 2009, you were a good one! I just started back, and I have a feeling this is going to be a busy, busy semester. If you see me around less, that's why. It's going to be good, though... I'm really excited to be back at my uni in the states... it's been nine months because of my time in England, so it's good to see all these people again!

I know I teased this awhile ago, but I just finished my Beautiful Katamari review. I gave it a 7.0. I liked the game a lot, but it was undoubtedly missing some of the greatness of its predecessors. We Love Katamari is easily the better game, which is disappointing... no one likes it when a sequel is worse than the games that went before it! It's still fun, though, and worth the $20 it goes for now. You can read the review here. Next up will be my review of Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Should go up soon, maybe even this weekend! My BK review was very traditional, but I want to do something fun for the Layton review. We'll see how it goes.

Something else fun happened this month - I was Gamespot's moderator of the month for August! You can check out my cool little red badge in my profile, but not for much longer! I was selected due to a writing contest we had... the objective was to write an article that we thought would benefit the Gamespot community. I wrote about tips for acting respectfully on the forums. You can check out the article the Moderator Collective! I'd love to link it to you properly, but Gamespot's HTML error hates me and never lets me do what I want. Here's the link: http://www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26997413&union_id=15969 (Note to the power's that be: PLEASE FIX THIS IT MAKES ME SAD!). While you're there, consider becoming a member of the Moderator Collective! It's a way for users of the site to get to know us mods better. Also, here's the mention of me being MotM in Gamespot's Community Report. For being MotM, GS sends us a game. My choice was... Bioshock? I know, I know... it's old as dirt! Still, I've never gotten around to playing it and have really wanted to. Since I chose an old, cheap game, Jody let me pick two old, cheap games! Fun times! I also got Mass Effect. Looking forward to playing both of them now that my Xbox is finally back from getting its RROD repaired!

That's all for today loves. I hope you all have amazing weekends!

Hey kids. We've all played Shadow of the Colossus. If not, get out of my blog. No seriously. Bye. Go play it. Then come back and we'll talk.

All done?

Alright so Wander from the game is currently duking it out with several other characters to be one of the ten reader-selected heroes picked for the final bracket in the All Time Greatest Hero challenge. I'm not so sure about this one. While I like Wander and all, you have to admit there is something a little dubious about him and his situation. You can't help but feel sorry for the colossi he wakes and kills... they seem innocent, and that makes Wander a little less than heroic.

There is one character in the game that never wavers from heroism: Agro! Agro, Wander's horse, is self-sacrificing until the end and a much better hero than Wander will ever be. Get Agro the recognition he deserves - join the movement!

Grassroots people, grassroots.

I'd absolutely love to hear all your thoughts on why or why not Wander is actually a hero. Let's talk about it! Feel free to comment in my blog or in the ATG forum thread.

Well, my 360 finally RROD last night while I was playing Rock Band 2 with some friends. Instead of being sad, though, I kind of got excited! Before I left for England, my system didn't work at all. When I got back 5 months later, it mysteriously worked again. However, my XBL connection didn't work properly, and I sometimes had freezing errors. I knew I would have to replace it eventually. Since it RROD'd, that replacement just became free! YAY!
So I promised more travel tales. I'm going to break them up into chunks because I figure people would get tired of reading them just straight through... there's so much to share! Last time we began my backpacking journey and covered London and Liverpool with my best friend Chrystle. Today, we move on to Scotland! I'll include a link to my first travel blog at the end of this post in case you are interested in reading it.

We flew to Edinburgh from London's Luton airport, which is a tiny and annoyingly chairless little place. I'm extremely anal about getting to airports/coach stations/train stations early in order to not miss departure times, so unfortunately we spent a lot of time waiting around. It was dark by the time we finally got to Edinburgh. When our bus dropped us off in the city center, I was stunned by Edinburgh's beauty. Even at night, it shows itself to be the most stunningly beautiful city I have ever visited. Edinburgh is, for all practical purposes, divided into two halfs: old town and new town. The names are pretty self explanitory. Old town starts with Edinburgh castle, mounted high on a hill, and slopes downward from there. A valley-turned-park divides old town from new. Our hostel was located in old town right under the mount of the castle, but it was so foggy we couldn't see it! All the entrances into old town are through narrow alleyways known as "closes," and without being familiar with the city they can seem very unsafe. We wandered around both new and old town, luggage in tow, for about two hours until we finally made it to the hostel! We saw lots of the city, including an underground bar called the Hogshead that we think might have been inspiration for a bar in Harry Potter, and the district where most of Edinburgh's strip clubs were located. Edinburgh was built up by old volcanic eruptions, so it's a very uneven city. Though I only had a bookbag, Chrystle had a suitcase. We tramped up and down hills and towering staircases the whole time, so we were quite tired by the time we made it to the hostel!

The hostel was a charming little place right under the cliff of the castle. Our room looked out onto George Heriot's school. Heriot's school has four towers and its students are sorted into four houses, so it is commonly thought to be one of the inspirations for Hogwarts. As JK Rowling lives in Edinburgh and wrote most of the Harry Potter series there, it was amazing to explore. Chrystle and I jokingly referred our trip to Edinburgh as our "pilgrimage to Harry Potter Mecca." It's easy to see how the magical city could come out of a place like Edinburgh. With the winding cobbled streets, narrow closes, and dominating castle, Edinburgh is a city of mystery and enchantment.

Once we dropped off our stuff that night, we headed out for a quick dinner in the Grassmarket district (right below our hostel--yes, below--though they were technically "next door" we had to walk down about 3 storeys or so of stairs to get there!) and then listened to music in a pub. In the pub we met a few locals, one of which who told me about Arthur's Seat, the dormant volcano about a five minute's walk from the lower end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile. He told me it was a great hike and that I "hadn't seen the real Edinburgh" until I'd climbed it. I promised him I would, and I planned to make good on my promise!

On our first day in the city, we took a walking tour. We learned lots of interesting facts, but my favorite was the story of Mary King's Close. The close led to an underground tenement where poor families lived, and during the plague it was bricked over! Later that day Chrystle wanted to go to the zoo, but I opted to fulfill my promise and climb Arthur's Seat. Climbing the seat gives a beautiful view of the city, and I enjoyed the hike. When Chrystle and I met up again, we headed to a movie theatre. We planned to go see Watchmen because we read the book together and wanted to experience the movie together, but unfortunately when we got to the theatre it was sold out. Instead we saw "The Boat that Rocked," which I had seen lots of previews for but Chrystle had never heard of! I found out then that it wasn't out in the US yet so it had not been advertised. We LOVED it! It comes out in the US in August, and I highly recommend it.
On our last full day in the city, we visited the Edinburgh Castle. Unfortunately, my water bottle spilled inside my purse, ruining my camera and cell phone. Luckily I didn't have my iPod with me that day! After the castle, I ran across to new town to buy a phone. I had to pass through the park in between, and again marveled at how beautiful Edinburgh was. We met up that afternoon at the Elephant House Cafe, one of the places where Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. It is a nice cafe and I loved visiting it! We spent the afternoon souvenier shopping, and we had haggis at dinner. I couldn't get over the fact that it was guts, but Chrystle liked it.

I'll end these travel tales with pictures here! I'll have more on Scotland later--after Chrystle left, I did a four day tour of Highland Scotland that ended up being four of the best days of my life. Chrystle got a disposable camera, so I have some pictures of Dublin and Cork (my next two destinations) but I have to get them developed. Once I've developed them I'll make another blog. I was able to get another camera before my highland tour, so luckily I've got pictures of that! Hope you like these!

Edinburgh Castle stands high over the city.

Edinburgh Castle from the park that divides new town from old town.

A view of Scott Monument (dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, and Edinburgh native) from one of the many tiny streets--closes--running off Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

Climbing Arthur's Seat - you can see on the right of the image some of the buildings below.

The seat again, with the city and castle off in the distance.

The highest point of the seat. I was amazed that something so beautiful and so wild existed so close to the city itself! But Edinburgh is great like that.

Sorry I can't link the other blog post here. HTML error. Blame Gamespot, not me.

Hey everyone! I just put up a Super Mario Galaxy review! You can find it here. I gave it a perfect 10. I loved the game so much! It's the first of the modern Marios where I've gotten all 120 stars, or even wanted to. My sister and I had a great time with it, as you'll find in the review!

I hope you enjoy reading it. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. As I've said before, I write the reviews for myself primarily just to get some good writing practice in a format that I rarely use. I like to experiment with style. Galaxy was, for me, a way for me to spend time with my little sister, so I approached the review in a personal, experience driven manner. It's not going to read as a product review so much as a "this is what the game means to me."

In other news, I got Left 4 Dead this week! Unfortunately I'm having trouble with my Xbox and live doesn't exactly work. At least I can play it local multiplayer, which I've done quite a bit since I picked it up.

Next blog will be a continuation of travel tales. Hope everyone had a happy 4th and enjoyed celebrating Palin's resignation! Haha!

Hey all! As I said in my previous blog, I've now landed safely back in the US and have honestly LOVED being home. I had so much fun in England, but being home has been wonderful as well. It's been great to see my family and best friends again, most of all, but I've also enjoyed eating my favorite foods, basking in the warm Southern heat, working on a tan, and eating pizza at the best pizza restaurant in the world.

My university in the UK gave students the entire semester of April off, and I used that time to backpack around the UK, Ireland, and France. It was an incredible time in my life, and I am so thankful I had that experience! I'm going to use my next few blogs to share the trip and pictures with you guys.

Before I get into that, I just want to say that if you're still in college or younger, take the opportunity to study abroad! It will change your life. Not only did I get the chance to travel the world, I learned so much about myself and have come out a stronger person. If money is tight, like it is in my family, look into scholarships--I financed this experience in its entirety with scholarships. There are also loans you can take out. It's an experience you can't really get any other time in your life and I highly recommend it.

This blog will focus on my first few days of backpacking. My best friend from home came up and stayed for nine days, and we went to Liverpool, London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.

First off, Liverpool! I had been before, and if you are interested you can check out that trip and some of my pictures here. Chrystle is a huge Beatles fan, so we did the same taxi tour I had already done. We had less than 24 hours there, so it was a rushed trip, but we enjoyed it. The Fab Four Taxi Tour is fantastic and well-priced; I highly recommend it to anyone who visits the city. The hostel we stayed in that night was extremely sketchy, but thankfully it was just one night. We also hit up the Cavern Club, the place where the Beatles got their start and countless other amazing bands have played. A band from Japan played that night, and opened their set with a great quote: "The Beatles is our hero!" Love it!

After Liverpool we took a 5 hour bus ride to London. It may seem like it would be long and obnoxious, but the English countryside is so lovely, you don't mind it. This was my third trip to London. My first was when I first touched down in the UK, before I went to school (you can read about it and see more pictures here). The second was in March, two weeks before this trip, when I went down for four days to see Animal Collective in concert and James McAvoy in a play. Lots of fun. I tried to take Chrystle to my favorite London places. We stayed in a B&B out in the suburbs, which was nice. Our first night was quite an adventure. We went out to the Troubador, a club where Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan all played when first starting out. We had a great time there, and the band that was playing (The Jacks) were great live and a lot of fun. That night we got incredibly lost on the way home! The tube was shut so we had to take the buses, which neither of us were used to. After we finally found our bus, we got off a stop too early in the most sketch-ass area of London and waited forty five minutes for the bus to come get us... this was at 1:30 in the morning! After an extremely long ride we FINALLY made it out to the Golders Green suburb we were staying in around 3:30 that morning!

After sleeping in a bit the next day, we started with pictures at Platform 9 3/4 and then went to see the illuminated manuscripts at the nearby British Library. Unexpected treats at the library included handwritten Beatles lyrics on the backs of envelopes, journals from people like Sylvia Plath and Lewis Carroll, and a random run in with one of my professors at Keele. After that Chrystle and I hit the Portobello Road market--one of the famous markets in London that has everything from handmade jewelry to paintings to antiques to vegetables filling the streets and boutique stores. I got a great pair of earrings: pink crocheted flowers with blue buttons in the center. Chrystle loves cupcakes, so I took her to the Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road, which specializes in adorable and delicious cupcakes. We carried them to Hyde Park and ate them on the grass among the flowers. That night we enjoyed our front row tickets to Spring Awakening, a modern musical about the sexual awakening of teenagers in 1800s Germany. It's an amazing show--I saw it before in New York, but Chrystle hadn't seen it before. I was happy to go again. The girl who played Wendla was amazing. Great show; see it if you have the opportunity!

On our last full day I took Chrystle to the British Museum, probably my favorite in London. After three trips, I've finally seen the whole thing! After that, we went to the Imperial War Museum. I'd heard it was amazing, but the subject matter didn't seem like it would be interesting. I was very wrong--it's a fascinating museum that really gets to the heart of the British war experience. My favorite exhibit was called "The Children's War," and it was about the lives of children during World War II. Some of you may be familiar with the evacuation concept, but I was not. During WWII, children were evacuated out of major cities and sent to live in the countryside, separated from their families, where they would be safer. The exhibit was fascinating and heartbreaking. Reading some of the letters they displayed between families or soldiers and their children brought real tears to my eyes. Other great parts of the museum include the film on modern genocide and the Holocaust exhibit. I highly recommend going to visit here, even if it seems like something you wouldn't normally enjoy... I bet you would be pleasantly surprised. After that, we headed out to Abbey Road studios and got our picture taken going across the street, made famous on the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. We ended that night by spending entirely too much money at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum, but we had a lot of fun and took lots of stupid pictures, so I don't regret it. Before we caught our flight to scotland the next day we saw the changing of the guard and got burritos at this great place on Fleet St. I wanted burritos really badly, so I put research into finding this place. Success!! Mexican food is basically non-existant in the UK, but I really enjoyed these. Yum!This is getting long, so I'll end it with some pictures here.

Up next we head to that mysterious land in the North... Scotland!

Clamps used to castrate priests--found in the British Museum. Oh boy!

Resting in Hyde Park. Check out my awesome Companion Cube earrings! Be jealous.

Visiting Ben.

Sunset in Hyde Park.

So I know what you all are thinking. E3 was 2 weeks ago... this blog... IRRELEVANT! Well I was super busy transitioning back to the US from the UK, so I just finished watching the press conferences. I know, I know. Well, let's get to it.

Jack Tretton Makeover 2009: HE'S A GINGER!!

Last year, someone scheduled him a tanning appointment. This year, he got his hair dyed! Now I'm sure Mr. Tretton was a lovely ginger in his youth, but last year he was definitely a duller shade with a little gray around the temples. Instead of succumbing to silver fox-dom, Tretton went red. What will we see next year??

Best Beard of GS Live Show:

Dan from Take10 - Forza 3 Demo

Best Sideburns: Mechberg

Worst Outfits: Nintendo Press Conference (Bill Trinnen's shirt was too small and an awful color, Cammie's jacket needed fitting, and the pastel shirts and the defeated looks on the NSMBW demo team were just emasculating)

Most Exciting GS Chat Feature 2009: xxx chat

Worst Grammar: Nintendo press conference. Cammie: "Nintendo DS equals diverse." No one says that out loud. Reggie: "play more real." How about realistically? And don't get me started on the wii slogan: "Everyone's game." They used it wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Coming to TVs and Wiis in 2010: Lost~WooHoo Island (courtesy of Wii Sports Resort)

Person Most Likely to Replace T.R. Knight as George on Grey's Anatomy Next Season:

This guy from Scibblenauts.

Funniest Chat Member: Hungry_Bunny

Most Likely Reason Cammie Dunaway Looked Pissed During the Nintendo Press Conference: "I think Reggie nailed her and forgot to cuddle." (courtesy of N3MO)

Best 'Are you ****ing kidding me?' moment: When Cammie announced that $ty|e Savvy was being targeted at twentysomething females. Good luck with that.

Biggest Jerk of E3: Person who asked Miyamoto mean questions in the roundtable... go pick on Iwata the buisness guy. Leave Miyamoto alone so he can continue to dress up like Link and garden and be cute and make awesome games.

'Finally Coming Into It's Own' Award: Playstation 3

Biggest Surprise: New Metroid being developed by Team Ninja

Best Press Conference: Sony

Game I'm Most Looking Forward To: Scribblenauts

Game of Show: Assassin's Creed 2

My heart said Scribblenauts for game of show, but I've been looking forward to it since I heard about it on 1up FM way back when there was a 1up FM. As nothing about the Scribblenauts showing made me more excited for the game, I'll give it to AC2, which did hype me up big time.

SkylinePigeon's E3 2008 Awards

Hey hey everyone! Wow, two blogs in the same week, this has got to be a record for me! So, I posted my picture in one of those OT pic threads the other day. Figured I'd post them here, too. So, meet SkylinePigeon!

First I posted this one:

Which everyone said was scary and looked like something out of the Grudge, so I had to refute that and post this more angelic one:

So, that's me! Also featured in this picture are my abnormally short fingers which make hitting all five buttons in Guitar Hero a nightmare and rendered it physically impossible for me to hold the original Xbox controller and still hit all the buttons.

Ok, now on to the crusade. Subscriber chat for E3 has been removed. Honestly, that was one of my favorite parts of E3, and I think that it was a really bad thing to take away. I had so much fun in the chats the past two years and will not enjoy E3 as much without them. If you were a fan of the chats (or even if you weren't ) go to this thread started by our dear friend Caddy and tell GS you want the chat back! Hopefully they will listen to us, but it won't happen if you don't speak up! So please help us out here. If you can write about this in your blogs & put links in your signatures to help spread the message, please do!

As a last addendum, I've been rocking the same sig now for about two years and am looking for a change! Thanks Jerell_Rast for the awesome one I've had. If you have mad sig-making skillz and don't mind whipping something up for me, shoot me a PM.

Also, next blog will be pictures of my trip, etc. I promise. Also, check out my previous blog for stuff about my recent trip to Manchester and an mp3 from one of my favorite bands!

Went down to Manchester last night to see Anathallo. I know I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about music almost none of you listen to and telling you about shows for bands you never heard of, but in all honesty I just wish I could convey to you the experience of seeing this band live. The musicianship, the passion, the creativity, and the artistry this group displays is an absolute inspiration to watch. This was my fourth time to see them live, and each time I come back just blown away by the experience. The guy standing behind me at the concert last night was a newcomer to the band, and his question after seeing just two songs was simply this: "Why aren't they famous already? Why have I never heard of them?" It's a good question. Check out this band, and if they ever come remotely near you go see them. I've never paid more than $10 to see them, but I'd gladly pay more. You're sure to get your money's worth. This band is tragically underappreciated. I'll link an mp3 for you guys. Enjoy. Right click save as to download.

Anathallo - The River

Manchester is a cool city in its own right; lots of good shopping. Lots of independent shops and record stores. A HUGE mall, too, but my suspensions about how I would feel about it were confirmed: I didn't enjoy it at all. Since coming to England I've been doing a lot of researching about consumer culture & trying to become more anti-consumerist, and it's changed a lot of things about me. There was a time when I would have loved browsing all of those shops, but I don't feel like being defined by how much I purchase anymore. It's just not worthwhile to me.

That's not to say I didn't do any shopping, just hit up places that weren't in the mall. I got a yellow leather vintage 1970s purse for my best friend, and some fair trade, made in India glass bracelets for myself and a friend. I'm also pretty sure there's nothing more dangerous for my wallet than music stores. I managed to spend just 20 pounds on music, but picked up these gems on CD:

• Belle and Sebastian - Tigermilk
• A two disc early Jamie Cullum sampler
• The Boy Least Likely To - The Law of the Playground
• Nina Simone - To Be Free: The Nina Simone story (3 discs + DVD)
• Radiohead - The Bends
• Jamie Cullum - Twentysomething
• Paul Simon - Shining Like a National Guitar (greatest hits compliation, Simon & Garfunkel are a new thing for me after puchasing Bridge Over Troubled Water about three months ago, so there's still lots of music to explore on that front )
• Girl Talk - Night Ripper
• Hanson promotional demo CD (gift for a friend )

I'd say that went pretty well.

Sorry for the blog disappearance, everyone. I have a big one coming up soon where I'm going to blog about the trip I took in April. I had Easter break off of school, so I used it to travel. My route was Liverpool->London->Edinburgh->Dublin->Cork->Highland Scotland->Alnwick (Hogwarts Castle in the first two HP movies)->Bath & Stonehenge via London->Paris->Nice. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I'm going to enjoy sharing it with you all.

I leave England in two short weeks. It's put me in the strangest emotional state--I'm very excited to go home and I miss all my friends and family very much, but just picking up and leaving behind the whole life I've made here is strange and heartbreaking.

I'm trying to make the most of my last week. I want to make a trip to Oxford before I leave, so hopefully I can fit that in. I'm going to see one of my favorite bands, Anathallo, in a few days on their European tour. I've seen them three times in the States. My only problem is exams! Got two left, and lots of studying to do.

One of my British friends asked me what "traditional British experiences" I still wanted to do, and honestly, I couldn't think of any. So, I'm asking you! If you came to England, what are traditionally British things you would want to do? If you are British, what experiences do you think I need to cram into my last two weeks?

I've already done lots... visited pubs, experienced UK club culture, watched rugby and football (soccer ), gotten takeaway from chip shops, had tea & scones, gone to a proper curry house, incorporated "chips," "crisps," "lift," "bin," "cheers," and more into my vocabulary, tried lots and lots of British food (including steak and kidney pie... ewwww), and lots of other things. Help me get ones I might be missing!

Did buy a pack of tea and crumpets today... that's one I haven't done yet.

So I've been watching Lost for a few weeks now... I've been pretty busy with school and kind of stalled on the beginning of Season 2, but I'm getting back into it again. I'm on episode 12 of the second season. We've got polar bears, smoke monsters, kidnapping, crazy dreams, swans and arrows to worry about. Plenty of mysteries to go around. However, there's one mystery that I haven't seen addressed anywhere, and to me it's the most pressing question of them all. See, many, many shelters have been set up on the island. For roofing, they use lovely blue tarps, the kind you'd find at any Walmart or Home Depot. I'm pretty sure most airplanes don't carry an excess of tarps, if they carry any. So there's my mystery: where do all the damn tarps come from??

Just got out of the midnight showing (UK win mwahahaha, I saw it 6 hours before you US folk ). It was absolutely amazing. Everything I wanted, no disappointments whatsoever. It's very adult, just like you want for Watchmen. The changes pack in all the emotional punch and moral dilemas found in the original. The ending is great; I've got no qualms. I could go on, but I'm just going to say see it. As soon as possible. Sheer perfection.

Enjoy!

I got to play real video games last night!! Yay! Gears of War 2 horde mode with Michael and his flatmate Sam, which was quite fun... and some Half-Life 2!

And then... yeah, funny story...

Hey all! I hope things are well with all of you. Things are grayer than usual in England today, and I'm sick for the second time since I've been here, but other than that things have been good. I had my first paper due earlier this week. We'll see how that goes once it's graded and handed back to me, but I feel like I did well. I can't wait to get an indication of how I'm going to fare in the English education system. I've always been a good student back home, and I'm interested in how that will translate here. I'll know soon enough.

All this buzz for RE 5 is seriously making me miss console gaming! I've met a guy here named Michael who is really cool (and eerily similar to me--we are both love Kurt Vonnegut, video games, are news junkies, both listen to Sufjan Stevens, the Decemberists, Arcade Fire, and several other bands, are both Christians, both politically liberal--heck he even likes Stephen Colbert and watches him online!!) and has offered to let me borrow his 360 while he works on his thesis, but I don't have a TV so I haven't been able to take him up on it. I would love to, though! There is a gamer's society at Keele that is starting up console game nights pretty soon... I may have to hit that up. I love my DS, but sometimes you just want a little more.

Speaking of DS, I'm *almost* finished with Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I LOVE that game. Still haven't started Chrono Trigger, but I will soon. I stumbled upon a free Layton "fun pack" in a game shop the other day that had a key chain, stickers, and a poster in it, so I put that stuff to good use. I've got the poster on my wall now, and Luke and Layton have both found little spots to call their own. Check it out:

That's Luke on my bookbag...

and there's Layton on my laptop!!

Other than these freebies, I found one other great shopping deal in one of the nearby towns: music store that sells used CDs five for ten pounds! In my first trip I picked up Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water, R.E.M. - Up, Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites, Ben Folds Five- Whatever and Ever Amen, and Blood, Sweat, & Tears - Found Treasures. You better believe I'll be taking advantage of that again sometime soon!

I went to Liverpool this past weekend. Wow. It is quite an amazing city. It was only an overnight trip, and that wasn't enough time... I'd love to go back at some point! Friday night we got into town and headed to the Cavern Club after checking in to the hostel. The Cavern Club is one of the first places the Beatles played and has also hosted the likes of Queen, Elton John, the Kinks, the Who, and many many more. We ended up making friends with a guy who knew the band that was playing that night, so when their set was over he introduced us and then the band pulled us up on stage and let us take a picture! We got yelled at by staff but when the lead singer of the band told them it was ok the staff had to allow it. Standing on the stage that had held all these famous acts was a great experience to say the least. Saturday was filled with sightseeing around the city that included a trip to the beautiful and absolutely massive Anglican Cathedral, Albert Dock, the modern Metropolitan Cathedral, and a Beatles-themed taxi tour that took us to famous sites like the birthplace of John Lennon, all the childhood homes of the four Beatles, the grave of Eleanor Rigby, and the place where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met. We also got to go inside Ringo's house and meet the woman that lives there now! She's great and had lots of pictures and stories for us. She knew Ringo as a child. My favorite part of the tour was heading to Penny Lane and getting my picture taken in a barber shop on the street! Haha! Here's a few pictures of the trip; I hope you enjoy them!

Anglican Cathedral--it's MASSIVE, certainly the biggest indoor space I've ever been in that's not a stadium!

Maybe that gives you some idea of how big it is? Probably not, though... and yes that is me.

View of the city and docks from the tower of the Anglican Cathedral.

The "shelter in the middle of the roundabout" on Penny Lane!

Gates of Strawberry Field--it was an orphanage near John Lennon's house where he would go and play with the children. Lennon had a difficult childhood--his parents split up when he was young and he lived with an aunt. His mother died young as well. Apparently, the children taught him that he was lucky to have an aunt who cared about him, and that's apparently what the song is about.

Grave of Eleanor Rigby.

Metropolitan Cathedral - it's a Catholic church.

That's all for now! Where to next? I'm thinking maybe Bath/Stonehenge or Oxford. We shall see!

Hey all! I've been here nearly a month now and I think it's finally time for a proper update from the UK! I just now finally got internet access in my room. It was quite a long process but I'm so excited that it's all worked out. Using the lab computers was a huge time crunch because I had reading and other stuff to do, so it didn't leave a lot of time for GS. The worst part was that I couldn't use my webcam to talk to my friends and family at home! But everything is sorted out now, so no worries. Expect to have to put up with me again.

I am having such an amazing time here in the UK! Studying abroad is a wonderful experience, and I'm so glad it's something I chose to do. It's such a wonderful feeling to wake up every morning to something different, and it's great to just experience life somewhere else for a little while. I truly am having the time of my life. The first week was a little hard... I got VERY sick and didn't know how to go to the doctor, which was really disheartening. Once I got through that, though, it's been nothing but wonderful ever since. Students here are incredibly friendly, and I've met some great people. On the flipside, it's also been nice to be on my own for once... I have an incredible group of friends whom I love very much and am so thankful for, but it's been good for me to step away from that for a little bit and get to know myself better. Things here are very, very good and will continue to get better.

I'm also incredibly glad I got to experience the UK's biggest snowstorm in 18 years. It was great. Also, there is a Ben and Jerry's inside the movie theatre in Newcastle. Amazing. My friend Veronique and I have already decided that going to see Watchmen will be a three scoop occasion. Hell yes.

There are plenty of differences between the UK and US! You might not think it would be that different considering they are two industrialized, Western nations who share a lot of history, but there's plenty that's different. Some of my favorites:

• Juice is way cheap in the UK!
• Potato chip flavors (or crisp flavours for you Brits) in England are practically inedible. Seriously. Steak and onion? Roast beef and mustard? Who comes up with this stuff?
• Traditional british food = meat and mashed up vegetables baked in a pastry crust. That sums up about 80% of it. Not my favorite... although I did have some cottage pie today that was quite yummy
• English people really need to learn two things: ice and refrigeration. Lukewarm beer/other beverages, alcoholic and non = gross!
• One thing the British are much better at is chocolate and baked goods. Ohhhhhh yummy. I have a favorite bakery in Newcastle that I have to get a chocolate chip cookie from at every opportunity. I will miss it when I'm gone!
• You can buy video games in the grocery store! They had Dead Space for 25 pounds... made me wish my Xbox was region free!!
• Cars are MUCH smaller and all basically look the same. Trucks and SUVs are VERY rare.
• If you talk in a movie theatre they WILL kick you out.
• The most fun British/American word comparison is burgled to burglarized. Everyone gets a huge kick out of it.
• British students drink WAAAAAAY more than American college students. I didn't think that was possible. But it is.

There's plenty more, so I'll try and include a list with all of my updates from England. There's always new stuff.

So far I have not done a whole lot of travelling. I went to London my first few days before coming to school, and will be going to Liverpool next weekend. I expect my travelling to pick up now that I'm settled in, so if anyone has an recommendations feel free to shoot them my way. I can't wait to see more of England and the rest of Europe!

As promised, here are a few pics from my journey:

Big Ben + Parliament, red buses, black cabs, and gray sky... how much more London can you get?

Here's a much nicer picture of Ben in the sunlight. English weather is even more frantic than southern US weather... the old adage in the south is that if you don't like the weather, come back tomorrow... in the UK it would be more apt to say "If you don't like the weather, wait about three hours!" Haha I love it.

Sneaking some pictures in Westminster Abbey... shhhhh don't tell on me! Next time I go to London, I'm going to go to a service here so I can hear the choir boys... I love choral music.

Best. Cupcakes. Ever. Hummingbird Cakes on Portabello Road--a must visit!!

Fleet Street! I have been in love with Sweeney Todd back way before it was a movie... so exciting to go here!

Tower of London--my favorite thing I did on this trip!

Tower Bridge at dusk.

Keele chapel on campus with just a little snow on the ground

If I walk down the hill for about 30 seconds or so, this is the view I get. You can see the farm... the cows are not pictured... nor is the barnyard smell.

The area I am staying in is known as "the Potteries" because that has been the dominant industry here since around the 1600s. Pottery made in this area can be found in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Buckingham Palace, and the White House. We went to a pottery museum today with one of my cl@sses. These are bottle kilns--formerly the dominant feature of Stoke-on-Trent--that were used to fire pottery. These produced lots of pollution and their use was banned in 1955. These are some of the last bottle kilns that are still standing.

Hope you enjoyed these pictures and didn't think this was too long! I'll have more from Liverpool next weekend.

Thanks to everyone who participated in my previous blog! I had fun with it, and hopefully I'll have fun with the game if you all chose well. I'll look into the other recommendations as well--Age of Empires, New Super Mario Bros., and Hotel Dusk are all things I'd like to play. It will be a long five months, so I'm sure I'll pick up at least one other game.

So, the results! Chrono Trigger DS got the most recommendations, so that will be the next thing I pick up! New Super Mario Bros follwed it closely, as did The World Ends With You. I'll be sure to share all my thoughts about the game with you when I pick it up this week and play it over the coming months!

In other gaming news, last night I got all 120 stars with Mario on Super Mario Galaxy. Definitely feeling a little gyped that I have to do it AGAIN to get the final reward, and I probably won't ever get around to it. Still, 120 stars is a big accomplishment. Expect a review soon!

And Soul, one day I'll definitely have to own you in Pokemon. Looking forward to it.

Hey all! I hope you all had a wonderful New Years and that things are going well thus far. I started mine off with a party at my house... we had a great time but it was a little too cold and windy to shoot many fireworks! Haha!

In my last blog I forgot to mention my little sister got a Wii for Christmas. I bought her Super Mario Galaxy (well, I bought US Super Mario Galaxy ). I'm currently at 83 stars and determined to get all 120 before I leave two weeks from today.

Leaving leads me to the actual topic of this blog. I've had a DS since the year of its launch, but I've never played it a whole lot, only on trips. I don't have a lot of packing space, and considering the dangers luggage faces on an overseas flight, all my consoles are staying at home and my DS will be the only gaming device I'll have for the five months I spend in the UK. There are lots and lots of great DS games availiable, and this will be a great time to check them out.

I don't buy a whole lot of games, and that is especially true of my DS games. I have more PS1 games, a console I never owned, than I do DS games. I haven't really stayed on top of new games, either, because I haven't bought that many and thus I haven't paid them that much attention. This is where you come in. I'm letting you all pick my next DS game, since I'm sure you know what's good much better than I do. I'm buying three new games to start with, and you all will pick one. As soon as I play it, I'll blog about my experiences and let you know which I liked the best.

I own:
Feel the Magic, Nintendogs, Meteos, and all the Fire Emblem Advance games, Pheonix Wright: Ace Attourney

Just bought for my trip:
Pokemon Pearl (shut up I know I'm a nerd, and I am TOTALLY pissed that they put Houndoom and Tyranitar in two seperate games... those are two of my favorites ), Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Have played but don't like:
Zelda Phantom Hourglass, Castlevania: Amnesia of the Title

I tend to really like puzzle games, RPGs, strategy games, and platformers. I tend to be really bad at/frustrated by 2D adventure games like Zelda. I will probably not be playing a lot of multiplayer/link up, so that's not that important to me. Still, whatever you guys choose I will buy. I'll give you all a week to put your 2 cents in, and then I'll tally up your choices next Monday and pick up the game! Leave your pick in the comments.

Some of you may have already played this, but if you haven't check it out. It definitely made me giggle.

Achievement Unlocked flash game

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I mostly got money for my upcoming trip to England, but I managed to pick up a few really cool gifts, too. My best friend Chrystle made me a Gryffindor jacket by sewing a red felt lion on to a yellow zip up fleece hoodie, and it's really, really awesome in addition to being really nerdy. I also got a "Gryffindors for Obama" t-shirt, which is just awesome. I got a Portal shirt and companion cube earrings, too... lots of nerdy gifts this year. Gaming-wise I got Guitar Hero World Tour (I cannot wait to download the three songs from R.E.M.'s Accelerate once I have a hard drive! ). My favorite gift was the deluxe edition of Murmur. Murmur is R.E.M.'s very first CD, recorded in 1983. The deluxe edition, released for the album's 25th anniversary, is the original CD remastered, and then it contains a second disc which is a live recording of a concert they did in Toronto in 1983. It's a really great slice of the band's history... I highly recommend it to anyone who is an R.E.M. fan (or anyone looking for an introduction into one of the most amazing and influential bands in modern music!).

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope everyone's having a great holiday season. Here's to a great new year!