Book Review: Catching Fire(Hunger Games book two)

The tricky part about talking about a sequel is depending on how far along someone is in the first book if they stop by to read a review of the next one, whether unintentional or not, a sequel is a huge list of spoilers. I am going to warn you now if you are in the middle of book one or near the end do not read this review. I pretty much stopped on the train in my first review because in my mind the train was the safest place not to ruin exactly how well Suzanne Collins had paced her book. For Katniss the small town girl on her way to the big city things never seemed to slow down once she left that train, everything was new, bright, and exciting, her life(if it continued) would be forever changed by the food, clothing, and amenities she had experienced, the people she would come to meet. And though she had not intended it, her world would be changed by the actions and determination she would show during the games.

A recap of the rules of the Hunger Games: 2 tributes from each district, one boy and one girl(12 districts 24 in all) would be selected each year to participate in the games. The games are to the death, each year there will only be one victor. Previous Victors from your district act like your lifeline to the outside world, they find you sponsors are allowed to send you gifts and train you for the 3 day period before the games. When first entering the arena you must remain one minute on the dais you were raised upon so that the land mines at your feet will be disabled(obviously they were tired of "False Starts").

There is a Cornucopia made of gold sitting to one side and the "arena" for that years games in the other direction. The arena changes every year, as does the terrain, the obstacles within the arena, the outfits you are initially equipped with and items stored within the cornucopia that will help you at least initially during the first phase of the games. Normally the Cornucopia is a blood bath. Careers, tributes who come from districts who have the resources to train their children from a young age to be prepared for the games, tend to form Alliances and wipe out any of the weaker tributes who are at the mouth of the Cornucopia trying to snatch anything to help them survive and they take the choice items for themselves as they hunt down the other tributes before they pick themselves off.

The Debt that can NEVER be Repaid

Book review: The Hunger Games

The world has changed a lot since the disasters long ago, Panem(the country formed out of what was left of North America) is a place of great struggle for some in the districts yet relative ease for those who live in the Capitol, it has been over 70 years since the rebellion and the 12 remaining districts must scrape by until it is time for the tributes to be gathered. To remind the districts of exactly how powerful the Capitol is, how utterly useless resistance would be and as a backdrop to the smoking crater that used to be District 13 each remaining city must submit two children a girl and a boy between the ages of 12-18 to participate in the yearly tournament. This is not just any contest no, it is to the death the winning District is showered with resources and praise, while the losers get to mourn the loss of two more pieces of it's future. 24 children in all one male and one female from every district but the Capitol, and since most have barely enough to survive they are aptly called

The Hunger Games

Katniss is a young girl from the Seam a part of district 12 that is usually home to coal miners. Like many she does not have much even less since an explosion in the coal mine took her father, but

The Sleeper has Awakened

In the past their battles had been in the shadows, Lycan versus Vampire. While humans had been the prey of both only those directly encountered knew the truth, either those humans who came in contact with one or the other were turned or slaughtered their deaths blamed on wild animals or roving bandits. Tales of Vampires and Werewolves(the human name for Lycans) ghost stories to scare children. Now the modern world knows, they do exist and an all out hunt for both sides has begun, the former Death dealer Selene the vampire and her Hybrid lover Michael Corvin heir to the Corvinas blood line have decided to escape and run for safety. They are hunted by both sides Michael by the Lycans because they believe his hybrid blood can strengthen their ranks and turn the tide against the Vampires and Selene because she has killed two elders and betrayed her Coven.

As Selene looks over a rooftop and sees vampires being slaughtered she has a rendezvous at the pier to make her escape with Micheal to evade the chaos being caused by marshal law. The humans are killing without quarter or mercy, united against the monsters that go bump in the night no longer do they assault each other the Vampires and the Lycans must be eradicated. A door opens behind her and an armed human approaches her demanding she turn herself in, his death is swift she has been killing

12,550+ hits wow where have I been

I know usually I commemorate every 1000 hits to the ponderings but as is known to happen I got a little tied up, a little busy, a little bored with writing and I hadn't been paying attention. So as I look through my published posts I noticed that hey the last one I recognized was the CLIMB up to 8,000, now I don't know about you but I remember the first few months and years if I got a hit or two a week I was happy. So to go from September having just under 8,000 to here in January(yes near the end but still impressive) have over 12,000 thats a little over 1,000 hits a month. Now to be fair a lot of these hits have come when I really wasn't creating any content people have pretty much been reading a lot of my old offerings, which is fine. I mean the fact that you see something I wrote in the last 3 months and decide, "hmmm I want to see what he was talking about 6 months ago, or what else has he tagged with this label" I personally find that awesome. I mean I do this as a hobby, for fun just to get random

The Diminutive Debutante or the Greeter

We all have our preferences when it comes to snacks, some of us like Lays, some of us like Vintners, some Ruffles same with snack cakes. Personally my tastes tend to jump brands for the most part down here I am a little Debbie fiend(yes that would be the Diminutive Debutante, oh you don't find that cute? Hater) especially in my more waist be damned days I would gobble up Swiss Rolls, Chocolate Chip Creme pies, Fudge Brownies and those little mini chocolate donuts. My reasoning besides price was(because you know little Debbie tends to be between 35-75 cents) I guess some of the cremes, coatings, and frostings tasted a little sweeter to me. I mean yes I like some of Hostess' fruit pies(thesauri people they exist both on line and in print) I used to love their lemon before they stopped making them(or at least I was told they stopped making them, but it could be like Sobe Black Tea just not working in this market) but past the pies while twinkies are okay you can only eat so much sponge cake.

The Trailers for Underworld Awakening

John Carter

An arena in some desolate location two beings are brought into an arena filled with a blood thirsty crowd. One is a tall, green, four armed alien, the other is an athletic man with scruffy brown hair, they are chained to a rock in what seems to be some sort of punishment/execution. A 6 legged beast is let loose and the brown haired man jumps at least 10 feet in the sky and moves like lightning. He lands grabs and weapon and slays the beast in one blow, his name is John Carter he is a stranger to this world but it will not beat him. It seems John Carter is from Earth but found his way into some strange new world, John has landed in the middle of a war, that he did not start but he seems fully equipped to end. The green four armed aliens may have thought they had a captive, but now they know they have a Champion.

Ghost Rider:Spirit of Vengeance

Johnny Blaze is a former stunt rider who lives with a curse, no not alcohol, drugs, or women no his curse is the spirit of the Devils Bounty hunter, the Ghost Rider, who is locked within him and pulling at his very soul. Johnny has sacrificed a lot to bear the spirit of the rider and keep the devil from using him to hurt innocents but now he faces a big challenge. The devil is looking for a new form in the body of young Danny Ketch, and if the rider doesn't save him he will become the Anti Christ. So once again on his Hell Bike the rider is coming, and all those in his path will know no mercy, they will feel wrath, they will feel pain, they will know penance and they will suffer vengeance.

Resident Evil: Retribution

I want to say I love this trailer, it isn't long it starts off looking like a Smart phone commercial and ends with Alice kicking major butt as she fights off the zombie hoards and takes the fight to the Umbrella corporation(AGAIN). It seems that a lot of the characters from the game(in the actual outfits) were shown in this trailer. Oh I did find the "Official Sony Site" here, I guess since it doesn't come out til Sept they haven't really fleshed it out yet. Hoards of zombies and zombie hybrids, Alice and her friends and lots of innocent humans trying to escape and lead a normal life. Unfortunately when the rest of the world is full of zombies, exactly what is normal anymore?

2011 My year in Review pt.2

This is about to come out bass ackwards but I am about to talk about my e-book library, wait why is this backwards you ask? Because I did not start collecting or reading E-books(or digital comics for that matter) until I got my Toshiba Thrive 10.1 on Black Friday(pictured to the right. So since I have yet to do a review or even talk about said Thrive since I got it to talk about something I use an object for and yet not the object(at least in my mind) is a little backwards, maybe I will talk about the Thrive in my next post.

Okay enough stalling, after Black Friday I started what is quickly becoming a favorite addiction:Collecting E-books and digital comics. The reason this is my favorite addiction is because do you see that little beauty up there in the top right corner so far I have at least 75 e-comics and roughly 35 books on that bad boy. now I don't know what kind of comic book collector you are, but let me tell you I would need a steamer trunk to carry around all those comics and that just isn't convenient as compared to that barely 2 lbs of my Thrive. And now those long car trips I used to complain about back when all I had was my blackberry and some tunes have gotten a whole lot more interesting so without further adieu:

E-books and Digital comics

Book Review: Wicked

Everybody has a story, from the nicest person you will ever meet and love introducing people to, to the wretch you can't understand why the Earth didn't swallow up. And the question, no matter where they lie on the spectrum is always the same:Wow, what happened to make you turn out this way? Good or ill people always want to know so that they could either attempt to duplicate the process or else avoid making the same mistakes. Even when it comes to fictional character and iconic scenes you wonder how and why you get to such points don't you?
Wicked is the story of the "Wicked Witch of the West" from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
, what you never had questions? You didn't ever wonder if the "Wicked Witch" had a name? Why was she wicked? How did

17 months and what has happened

Atlanta Ga, lovely city I think I have been gone longer than I actually lived here. Officially moved to Atlanta in January of 06, moved back to Memphis in around February of  07 I last came here for vacation in August of 2010 it's now January of 2012. The delay was due to a rocky personal life, I mean I could lie on a lot of things but if I can spend high 3 figures on a laptop and buy a tablet money wasn't the reason I didn't come back. I didn't know if it was a good idea. When things get rocky we all wonder if closeness or distance will help the situation, once that decision is made you have to live with it you really can't take it back. Good communication can help a situation but as gifted as I seem with words sometimes even I often say the wrong thing sometimes, I make the hard decision just doesn't make it a good one, and I can be just as subject to emotional swings as anyone else.

2011 my year in review pt 1

I said I was going to do 2011 the year in review so let me go head.

This one is my "personal year in review". Personally 2011 SUCKED, all I did was work, come home, maybe watch a movie or two on the internet and then go to sleep at around 4 in the morning. The only travelling I did was for work, as much personal travel as I did in 2010 I never left Memphis unless it was for work. I did not step foot into Atlanta at all in 2011, and yes that means that me and my wife who happens to live in Atlanta did not see each other for the whole year. We talked on the phone, got busy, got annoyed with each other, and basically acted like we forgot we were friends for a minute okay a few months. A few of my older friends will tell you that somebody has two phones but still forgot how to call as often as he should(that would be this guy), and that his thumbs don't seem to work half the time either.

I didn't take a lot of me time, didn't do a lot of me things, and as far as ones "memoirs" would be concerned this would be the chapter that is like two pages long, I'm gonna make this about my REAL life not my DIGITAL one, because technically my digital life was kind of popping. Only the real world sucked for me this year. I mean yes I went to the movies, yes I wrote over 150 blogs last year, but seriously other than that short span with the power outage there was no real excitement. I mean I really don't have anything to report here soo I'm just gonna post this and say 2012 is going to be travel, meet and greet, and figure out my personal life.

The last place I expected to be

As of the moment I am writing this it is 11:48 central time, I am not writing this in a Casino in Tunica, I am not writing this in the Apartment in Atlanta, and while it was tempting I didn't take 240 to 55 and run to West Memphis. After dropping my youngest brother off to hang with some friends(a feat that took damn near 3 hours), I decided that if I can't go the first place I wanted, or the second and if my movies prospects were dashed by the fact that it was after 11 pm and personally why sign up for the heavy police presence, idiotic drunk drivers, falling bullets, and overly friendly strangers if I don't have to.

So I hopped back in the rental, drove to the house, and decided that I would do the one thing on New