Unlawful Arrest and Detention of 20 OKC Teenagers

I just read an article that all-out outraged me. Those of you who live in OKC probably heard that last weekend, 20 kids who had just come out of a movie were waiting to be picked up by their parents, and were arrested for violating curfew.

Now, let me establish something: OKC has a downtown area called Bricktown. It's a nice area, with the exception of bars and things. My family and I go down there a lot, mostly to go to the Harkin's Movie Theater there. Now, there is a rule where teenagers can't be out in Bricktown past 11 pm, with a little leeway time to wait for their rides. That's all well and good. Sadly, that was not the case this past Saturday.

You can read the full article here, but here's the jest of what it said: Some kids were outside the Harkin, waiting to be picked up by their parents, and it was a good TWENTY MINUTES before curfew.  They were approached by police officers, who asked them to give them their cellphones and get in a car they had. When they tried to explain, the officers wouldn't listen. Their parents were outraged and went to pick them up, but had to wait until SIX AM.

The number of kids arrested that night scares me. TWENTY. One or two they had just mistook might have been justifiable, but TWENTY?

The fact that the kids weren't listened to outraged me the most. The law says that if you can prove you had just been in a movie and were waiting for your parents, you were okay. But these officers didn't even ask for that information. They just arrested them. For doing absolutely nothing wrong. Imagine being a parent and getting THAT text. 

Something needs to take place in OKCPD. This can't happen again! I can only imagine me and a friend being caught up in something like this. That would be terrifying! Let's just hope that the proper action will be taken and I won't have to worry about that.

Cars 2

Hello, all! Welcome back to FNS! Today I will be reviewing Pixar's latest movie, Cars 2.

It starts with a transmission from some spy asking for Finn McMissile. We see Finn boating to the location, and witnesses the unveiling of some sort of TV camera, only it is supposed to be much more dangerous. McMissile gets caught and barely escapes with his life. We then go to Radiator Springs.

Lightning McQueen has just come back from winning his fourth piston cup, which has been re-named the Hudson Hornet Piston Cup (which is a tribute to the voice of Doc, Paul Newman, who died of a heart attack). McQueen is ready to slow down, hang out with his best bud, Mater, and cruise with his girlfriend, Sally.

McQueen is on a date with Sally when he notices a crowd around the lobby of Wheel Well. He finds himself committing to racing in the World Grand Prix. Sally encourages him to invite Mater along, since he has never been to any of his races before.

They land in Tokyo, Japan, for a party, and Mater sticks out like a sore thumb and embarrasses Lightning.  Mater meets Holley Shiftwell, who was sent by Finn McMissile to get information from an American spy, which had been captured by enemy agents. Mater is mistaken for the spy, because a tracking device that he had on was passed to Mater secretly.

This is where it gets dark (but this is one of maybe only two or three really dark parts of the entire movie). We see the American spy being interrogated by the enemy spies about the information he passed on to Mater.He is given Allinol, an organic fuel, whose creator is behind the Grand Prix. Allinol is supposed to be good for cars, and by itself it is. But, when in contact with a magnetic pulse, it becomes very dangerous.Too strong a pulse makes a car explode! The enemy spies relay this information to the spy, and torture him with a stronger and stronger pulse until he gives them who he gave the device with evidence of the enemy spies' leader to. Now that they have the information they want, they no longer need the American spy. They turn the pulse up to maximum, and all we see is a picture of mater, and flames.

Holley, in an attempt to save him from assailants, cuts into the McQueen Team's headphone system, giving Mater instructions. He repeats these, and McQueen, thinking these are racing tips, messes up and takes second place in the first race because of it. McQueen fights with Mater, leading Mater to get on a plane and go home.

Finn intercepts him at the airport, and convinces him to help them catch whoever is behind the mysterious accidents in the World Grand Prix.

Overall, it was cute and funny, but some of the jokes are only understood by an older audience,and I'll admit it was a stretch for a sequel. Now, based on the dark scenes, I suggest not taking children who are old enough to understand what is going on, but still young enough to be scared by it. I suggest either taking young kids who only like watching the colorful cars, or older kids, from like 9-12.


Thanks for reading! Until next time!

My Terrible Summer Tuesday Morning

Hi, all! I have had about the WORST morning ever. It all started when I woke up at SEVEN AM. Only my parents were up, and Dad was leaving for work. I was going to make a simple egg,ham, and cheese breakfast sandwich on flatbread when I discover that we're out of eggs. I finally settle on having a bagel with butter and apricot preserves.When I go over to the counter to get a bagel and put it in the toaster, my foot gets stabbed by a piece of broken glass. I quickly get the piece out and throw it away and get a band-aid over the wound. In happier news, the bagel was delicious.

In even happier news, I leave for Disneyworld in about a week! Excited! This will probably be the last time I will ever get to go until I have children of my own. My brother will start to work over the summer and have football camps and won't have time for vacation. So, I am really going to cherish this trip. The girl may have gotten older, but the magic is still young.

Well th-th-th-th-that's all folks! Until next time.... Abinata!

Portal 3

Hi there! It hasn't been too long since my last post, has it?

Anyway, I recently discovered the awesome video game series by Valve: Portal! It is centered around a human trapped in a human testing facility, run by a robot named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). My brother, Mutt, got Portal 2 for his birthday. He had played a demo of the original and watched a walkthrough of the full game, and loved it. I watched him play Portal 2 and became hooked on the idea. I did more research, and ended up watching the original Portal myself. I even played Portal 2 all the way through!

Now, if you are playing either game and don't wish to have them spoiled for you, I recommend you stop reading RIGHT NOW. That's right. Just click the little shiny X in the upper right-hand corner. I won't be offended AT ALL.

So, you're still reading. That means you've either played, or don't really care about spoilers.

People have talked a lot about how great Portal 2 was, and what they would want for a Portal 3. I, personally would LOVE another installation to this series, but I think the ending of Portal 2 was a pretty satisfying end to the story. Chell (the main protagonist) is freed to go back to the surface and live out her natural life outside of Aperture Laboratories, leaving GLaDOS to test with her two robots, Atlas and P-Body.

I can think of a few plot points for a Portal 3, but they have one question in common: Why would GLaDOS want Chell back after all the events in the past two games? In the end of Portal 2, GLaDOS lets her go because it is too hard to kill her, and she doesn't want to be killed again herself. So why would GLaDOS drag Chell back into Aperture? This wouldn't exactly work out.

Some people want a prequel set when Cave Johnson, the CEO of Aperture, was still alive. I, personally, think that we got all the backstory we need from Portal 2, when Chell is sent back to the original Aperture from the 60's to the 80's. We learn about the history from pre-recorded messages Cave left to be played after each test. Also, GLaDOS was designed to have his wife, Caroline's, likeness so, she implies some things while in this persona. What more do we need to know?

Others want Wheatley, the anti-hero from Portal 2, to come back, but the whole premise of Portal 2 was that Wheatley was to be stranded in space forever! Chell no longer trusts him, because he went mad with power after she put him in GLaDOS's place. How could he come back?

What I want to happen is this: GLaDOS reverses her deletion of Caroline and discovers the secret behind Chell's mysterious past: Chell is Cave and Caroline Johnson's daughter. Since both of her parents were unable to care for her, because Caroline was being used for the mind-to-computer technology, and Cave was ill due to exposure to lunar sediment, they had her raised by one of the scientists of Aperture so that she would be cared for properly. When GLaDOS was activated on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, and released neurotoxin, Chell and Rat-Man were two of the few survivors. Rat-Man put Chell into cryogenic stasis, so that she could be revived when all was repaired. He left messages for her, so that she could defend herself against GLaDOS until she could manage to escape, whether or not he could help her. GLaDOS puts her core into a human body, and goes to the surface to tell Chell, who has always wondered about her past, but was only told by GLaDOS that she was adopted. GLaDOS uses this information to blackmail her back to Aperture to test. (In the co-op campaign, she re-gains access to the cryogenic human vault. I always thought that she would test with them, but think that none of them were as good a quality as Chell was)

I realize this is a HUGE stretch, but I think Valve could make it work. Granted, it would probably do better as a movie. Not saying that it wouldn't be EPIC if Portal could be made into a movie.

Either way, Portal 3, as of yet, has not been officially confirmed. Some person from Valve briefly mentioned Portal 3 during E3 when Portal 2 was announced, saying that it would not support Playstation Move or 3D. They said that we'll "have to wait for Portal 3". This could have just been a side little joke, but maybe not. As of yet, none of their game series have had third installations. Half Life hasn't, Left 4 Dead hasn't, etc. So it may not happen, who knows? We can only imagine...

Tangled vs. Princess & the Frog

Hey there, blog fans! Recently, I've seen the new Disney Princess movie, Tangled. I've found many reviews on it, but only one pessimistic one. The comments on it argued that "Princess and the Frog was better" or vice versa. I personally loved both movies! I saw them both on my birthday. I saw PATF on my birthday in 2010, and I saw Tangled this year. I must say that I had a better reacton to Tangled, though. Being the net-picker that I am, I'm going to add my own argument.

Tangled and PATF: two COMPLETELY different movies. Both have fun elements, nice characters, and great music. However, I think Tangled, itself, is a better family-friendly movie because it doesn't have any dark voo-doo/hoo-doo stuff. It is pure fun and like the magic Disney shared before Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers.

Granted, Tangled has its down-sides, too. The beginning is a little over-the-top in fairy-tale mode, because of how it unfolds. A speck of the sun falls down to the earth, produces a magic golden flower, old hag finds it and makes herself young again by singing to it- with a song NO ONE KNOWS, so you have no idea how she learned it.

The music in Tangled was great! It was generally pretty interesting lyrics, with the exception of "I've Got a Dream". While catchy, it was a little redundant. Suddenly, all of these tough pub-thugs break out in song, revealing their soft sides, with dreams of like being a concertina, becoming a famous chef, etc. I LOVED "I See the Light", even though it has a small reference to Aladdin.

Yet, in PATF, all of the music the music was catchy, but sort of redundant. New character- suddenly: song to introduce himself/herself.

That brings me to the next aspect: Characters. The male and female lead roles were different personalities. Naveen was a lazy prince who is carefree and does absolutely nothing except party and flirt. Flynn, he's quite the complicated character. He isn't AS full of himself as Naveen. His conceitedness evaporated sooner than Naveen's did. The female leads- that's a different story. Tiana has grown up with the notion that the only way to get things in life is through hard work. She is a stronger character than most of the other Disney princesses have been. Rapunzel, she's weak (sort of) because the evil step-mother has been babying her for eighteen years! She has no idea what the world is like, besides what Gothel describes as "evil and dangerous and scary".

I think that Tangled's character's love-life was more realistic, because, at the end in narrator-mode, Flynn says that it takes several years for Rapunzel to agree to marry him, while Tiana and Naveen got married soon after the drama with Facilier went down.

Now for the endings: PATF had a sort of cute ending. It ended with the fire-fly being a star like "Evangiline". Stars was a sort of theme in PATF, which I really didn't get. Tangled's ending was alot more sad because, technically, our hero "dies" to keep Rapunzel from being a prisoner forever.

I found the ending of Tangled to be overall better than PATF's because it shows more love between Rapunzel and Flynn than with Tiana and Naveen. Naveen is cool, but I don't think he'd give that much of a sacrifice for Tiana. While Naveen was about to give up marrying his true love so that she could have her dream, Flynn gave his LIFE. I find that more of a devotion- just my opinion! And, plus, Flynn admitted that Rapunzel WAS his dream, and Flynn was Rapunzel's dream. I  just found it more romantic.

Now, completely random, I want to talk about sequel possibilities.

For PATF: While there is a more open-ended possibility for a good plot-line, there is one problem: It didn't make as much money as Disney expected. Here's how sequels work: Movie company makes movie. They spend money making that movie. They earn profit from ticket sales, and DVD sales of that movie. If they don't make a worth-while profit though, the company won't want to make a sequel out of it and waste more money on a project that was a failure in the beginning. If there is a sequel to that movie, it's more than likely to be straight-to-home video, so that the company doesn't lose profit off of theater costs. So, if there was a PATF 2, it might be straight to dvd. Also, there is another thing to factor in that I will discuss in...

For Tangled: There isn't much of a possibility that a Tangled 2 would have a very good plot, unless there was a huge plothole. Also, there is the aforementioned fact about the money thing. Disney spent ALOT of money on this movie and aren't making much of a profit on it. Also, they have announced that Tangled would be their last princess movie. I have no idea whether or not that is permanent or just for now. While we want movies to have sequels, it all depends if the people who make the movie think they will make money off of it.

So, that's what I have to say on the matter. Abinata!

Friendship Is....

Hey, all! Merry Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve! Haha! Anyway....

A coupla weeks ago, my English teacher gave my class an assignment to make a small paragraph with an abstract noun (we're reviewing for semester tests) Just in case any of you would be interested in reading it.... Here it is!

Friendship is....

            a treasure that never loses its worth.
            lending a shoulder to cry on.
            laughing at every joke. (even when they stop being funny)
            smiling and waving as we pass each other in the halls.
            staying up all night chatting on the phone no matter how tired I am.
            sharing nail polish.
            entrusting secrets in each other.
            never turning my back when times are bad.

This is friendship.

I think that this is a truer description of friendship than I have ever heard. Also, a wise man once said that friendships are like tootsie pops... They're sweet and last.... until you bite them. Never bite, and it will last forever.

I have/had many friends in my life. One of them i consider a sister. I have known her all of my life! Others, I only knew for a short time. My elementary life was scattered, so I never could get too close to anyone because I never knew if I'd stay in one place or go to another. Others still, I go to church with and hope to hold a friendship with them forever and to see them in heaven. I hope you all have someone like that.

As I mentioned before, I've been reviewing for semester tests. That means I'll be busy STUDYING (as much as I hate it). That, combined with Christmas and New years, I might not be back on for a while.

If I'm not back by Christmas... I hope yours is a good one! Remember: Jesus is the reason for the season. A Happy New Year, too!

So, in the words of Prince Naveen, Abinata!

Facebook!

WOOHOO! HELLO BLOG-READERS!!!!

Sorry for the caps. I'm just excited because...... WE'RE ON FACEBOOK!!!

That's right. There is a page for all of you Mutt-lovers out there to post on and all that. There is a place for you to suggest books you actually want to hear about. There is a place for EVERYTHING MISS CELLANEOUS!!

Just click here and press "like" and you are officially connected. Hope you like it!