Mowing

Hey people's. So as you know it is Spring in Martinsburg and for us that means mowing the lawn. Let's see how that went.

So Dad tells me that I am mowing the lawn today. Color drains from my face. Number one: my setup is pretty bad. I use to have 1-2 problems a mow about my iPod, hat falling off, or trying to get to my water bottle without stopping the mower and having to start it again. Number two: the Nerf darts. Alex and I constantly shoot each other in the yard with foam darts fired from plastic guns. I always try to find them all but sometimes that is impossible. If I am lucky I can get one or two saved. Sometimes I just heard Bzzzzzt! Pow! And I am afraid to look at the poor dismembered Nerf dart. Number three: the obstacles. In the backyard alone I have a huge shed, several trees, a long row of other trees right up against the fence, the Cabana, and a tree bush monster that I suspect used to eat people rules the long gone pond area. There is also another thorny bush, and a risen garden close enough to both bushes to hurt me and far enough away I have to mow there. Not to mention in the fall the pine needles shoot out like bullets in the front yard.



The cabana.


The people eater.

First I have to get out my last pair of shoes which are for yard work. The shoes I have used over the years have differed as I get new shoes and old shoes expire but by the time it is Springtime they are all super small. This particular pair was even worse because the bottom front of one of the shoes flopped down only connected to my shoe by the back half of the rubber. There was still a cloth protecting my socked foot from the elements but my mom had to glue the rubber back it. The glue worked fine but somehow over the months the glue bunched up into a tight roll right in between my toes and the rest of my foot. With every step the back of the shoe dug into my heel and the glue lump kept my toes pressed against the roof of it.



Work shoes






See the glue.

Next I have to make sure that there is nothing in the yard like the hose. Everything goes well. Then I get out the mower and fill it with gas. It starts fine especially for the first mow of Spring. 5-10 minutes of mowing and I hit a root grown just enough since last Spring to hit the blade but not big enough for me or Dad to notice the difference. There is even a patch on the side yard I don't mow because of the roots there but in the back yard there has never been a problem. So anyway, Bzzzt! clang! The mower stops immediately. I flip it on it's side and I see the root with the top chopped off and the mower blade bent downwards so bad it left a rut in the dirt from hitting the root. I rushed inside and found Dad with a smile on his face knowing I did something but not that bad. I told him what happened and his smile disappeared. He examined the mower and I put it away along with my things.


The root.


The grass clumps shot out when the blade bent.



Oh by the way, a few weeks ago Katie broke the dishwasher so Katie and I are the new dishwasher.

Bye!


By Ashton

Psycho

Hey peoples. Today I have another horror movie to talk about. Here it goes.

On Friday me, Katie, and my parents saw the movie Psycho. It came out in 1960 in black and white. It focuses around a woman in her mid thirties who ends up stealing 40,000 dollars so her boyfriend could pay off his ex wife and so they could get married. On her way from Arizona to California where he lives she has to stop at the Bate's hotel. A small hotel next to a creepy old house a ways off the highway with some dark secrets.



Even Norman Bates' actor looks creepy.

A few weeks before we saw it, it was me that asked Dad if we could watch it. Unfortunately when we did get around to it we found out we didn't have it on the apple TV. Another week passed and eventually we were able to rent it on Netflix to watch. One of the funny things is I originally wanted to watch it because I saw a picture of this dude.


I'm not sure what happened but i guess that somehow my brain remembered him and remembered that there was a famous movie called psycho,me not knowing much about the movie, and my head put the two together.



Norman Bates

No matter what happened I still enjoyed the movie a lot. Here writing my blog Dad is telling me that that guy is from Halloween and that I can't quite see that movie yet. I think both me and katie were very into the movie.

Spoiler alert

Going on the title in the beginning of the movie I thought at first that maybe her Boyfriend was the psycho because it would add the horror of her lover trying to kill her. As I stated previously I didn't know much about this movie except the title and for some reason I thought that the dude I mentioned earlier was in it but with the mask he wears he could of been much of anybody really.


After this shower scene I still thought that the Halloween dude was in it because when they showed us only the outline it still looks like it could of been a dude with a knife, mask, and messed up black hair.


Later in the movie when Norman is carrying his mom down the stairs I couldn't see her face but she was unusually unmoving even for a sick woman. I thought maybe he had bouts of madness and killed people like his father, later his mother and boyfriend, and eventually the girl. Maybe he also stuffed his mom and the later killings were just covering up his and his madness. I was still a bit off however.

All in all psycho was a great movie. Bye!


By Ashton

The Amazing Spiderman

Hey peoples. Today I'm going to talk about another Playstation game. Here it goes.



Recently I tried a game called Amazing Spiderman. The story takes place after the movie. To sum it all up not all of Dr. Connors work was destroyed and due to continuations on animal/human gene mixing and an accident at oscorp the mutations escape. So far that brings in Scorpion and the rhino as villains for sure. but maybe we will even get a vulture or Dr octopus later on in the game.



The controls are pretty good. Everything works very smoothly. Even with being spiderman there are never any times where I feel confused or wondering where I am. There is only one button that sometimes I get messed up on. The fight system is pretty good but sometimes unrealistic even for Spiderman like him hovering in the air for to long.


For a score I think I give it a 4/5. It seems like everything is there but sometimes it is just a little boring. It is a good game for everybody and it is rated T. My 7 year old brother plays it though and I have seen no profanity or excessive violence. Definitely check it out and keep in mind that these reviews are for Playstation 3 and I have not finished the games in review.

Thanks Aunt Robin for those comments on my last blog. I now have an outline and a few sentences started on it.

Bye!



By Ashton

Limbo

Hey people's. Today I have a real interesting topic. Here it goes.

Recently I have gotten into writing and drawing horror. While drawing some of it I started thinking about a possible story line. Through many horror books I have seen many short lines or people mentioning Limbo; a grey place; a place not earth, heaven, nor hell. This became my inspiration for a book. I'm pretty sure it starts out with someone dying but on their ethereal way to the pearl gates of heaven something happens. A crack in the system of dying and finding your rightful place and the soul of the protagonist is violently thrown out of place into Limbo. A place where all of my fears and horrors are in a single place with chaotic cities, limitless forests and a sky with no sun forever grey and black. Created by a mutation of reality as God created everything as we know it. Fight your way out or die in limbo meaning your own special place in hell.

So what do you think? I myself am intrigued with the story but is has been hard working out the details. Should the protagonist be my age so I could better relate to he/she, or older so it would be more realistic for he/she to fight through the dangers of Limbo and have an easier love interest to wright about then one of a thirteen-year old. Will their be other souls inhabiting Limbo or maybe possibly other souls but more far gone then the hero such as just simple apparitions doomed to Limbo forever? Is the hero on a mission of God being sent from the gates of Heaven down to Limbo to defeat the vile place and to find himself. Should there be a main antagonist such as a ruler of Limbo? Separate characters with separate story lines? Should the world of limbo be inhabited all at once by the horrors or separated in different rings of a tree such as this:

1st ring: horrors of man. Twisted cities, possibly from the hero's past, scattered around a war destroyed landscape populated by insane killers, satanic cults and a twisted warmonger government.

2nd ring: horrors of science. A land populated by scientific horrors like in Alien and a bizarre landscape like that of H. R. Gigers paintings.

3rd ring: horrors of supernatural. Where all the unreal ghosts and ghouls sprung from the very nightmares of children quivering in their beds stalk hunt the protagonist in a dark barren land of night.

So there you have it a true trip into Limbo. Suggestions are welcomed. By.


By Ashton

The Enemy

Hey peoples. Today I am doing a blog on a book I got called The Enemy. Here it goes.

The Enemy is a book by Charlie Higson. It Is set in modern day London. A year and a half ago a terrible disease swept the world infecting everybody above 16. Adults died by the thousands with ugly boils covering their skin and rotting flesh. Eventually society is broken in London and with no grown ups left they start to kill.

The grown ups now have no minds except the will to eat. They are not dead, but simply the disease has destroyed their minds leaving them in a zombie like state with boils, rotted flesh, and grey colored skin. Now across London bands of kids have stuck together wielding sledgehammers, axed, and kitchen knives. Defending themselves against hungry hordes of adults and occasionally warring against other kids. In Waitrose, a grocery store fitted into a rough fortress, things are starting to break down. A kid dies every day and hope is low, until soon a strange kid from the outside arrives bringing news of safety at Buckingham palace in the center of London. Is it trap? Can they even make it there?

I give is book a five out of five star rating. I liked it so much that I brung it to school every day to continue reading. One of the things I learned about writing a horror book like this is that every choice is a bad one and every twist leads down a darker road. It is soaked filled with suspense and I could barely put it down. Read The Enemy by Charlie Higson and it's prequel I have not yet read The Dead soon.

Bye peoples!


By Ashton

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part2 game

Hey peoples. Today I'm going to talk about another game. Here it goes.



The game I am reviewing is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 for Playstation 3. The story is so far much the same as the book/movie. It only strays for more action and things to do as most book/movie based games do in order to lengthen the game. For example when Harry and company is heading for Bellatrix's vault you have to fight around fifty guards unlike the movie. Unfortunately so far it is going to be very short.



The controls are a bit wonky. It is a third person combat based game. The analog sticks are move and look. The x, triangle, square, and circle are for changing spells. R1 and L1 are aim and shoot, and R2 is your shield. Often I find myself hitting the square button to change spells and hitting it instead of shoot leading to my death. Maybe that's just me but I don't favor it.



Overall it is not my favorite game. The controls are over complicated. I have only played for an hour and I am at the battle of Hogwarts. There's is not anything else to do besides shoot bad guys either. Its a little entertaining but can get old fast. I give it a 2.5 out of 5.



There's my review on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. Next is the Amazing Spiderman and so far it is amazing. Bye!


By Ashton

Portal 2

Hi there. Today I'm blogging on one of my favorite games. Here it goes.



For Christmas I got the game Portal 2 for Playstation 3. I played it around right after I played Little Big Planet 2. I played only a little of the story as the plot was a little confusing. A while after I had some spare time and I read up on the Portal plot from Wikipedia. It made much more sense now but I see now this is a series where there is meant to be a little mystery. If one of those gamers who wants to know everything than just head up to the Portal wiki and it should answer any questions you might have. Portal is made by Valve. So I think your name is Chell. You wake up and start the game in a stasis bed in a small room. A machine called Glados spelled GLaDOS instructs and warns you about an upcoming test situation. The reward for beating all 19 test chambers is cake and grief counseling. You use a portal gun to beat these tests. So if you had a white floor and the exit to the level was up high on the ledge and a white wall was behind it you could shoot a orange portal at the floor and shoot a blue portal at that wall than jumping in the floor portal would make you pop out the blue one so you could get out. (I say white wall because in the game white walls are the only things you can put a portal on).


The crystalline white test chambers



The dirty rooms behind the walls

As the test goes on the puzzle like gameplay gets increasingly difficult and the hazards become deadly. Ever so often Glados even makes lies and little half truths about the hazards. Eventually even facing you up against military drones with real machine guns. Bloods stains, bloody handprints mold, and warnings from past test subjects appear on the walls. The most famous being "the cake is a lie" and a enormous amount of tallymarks supposedly the days stuck there. The creepy drawings and words are found mostly in areas where rooms behind the walls have been struck open by a glitch in the testing area where they past subject had its final days.


The drawings

If you don't complete the chamber you are stuck there, eventually to die from thirst of hazardous areas. Chell eventually completes the test and tries to escape. Here's not spoiling everything and all you really need to know is you are forced to try escaping Aperture labs once again through the test chambers. Everything else will become clear.

The gameplay is like a first person shooter but your never shooting anything but portals. To get to the end of each test chamber you do things such as, picking up a cube to weigh down a button, refracting laser beams into the wall mounted device, therefore triggering something. There are also momentum based moments like this:



If you go in one portal fast then you came out the other portal fast too until gravity intervenes to much.

Portal 2 is a great game and I definitely enjoy it. If you have a Steam account you can get Portal free for PC. Bye and know that the cake is indeed a lie.




A replica of the Portal gun.

By Ashton