Swimming

It’s been 2 an a half years since I have swum. Before I left for Japan, I had passed swimming star patrol and was going to advance to ‘bronze cross’. However, now that I am back, I forgot how to swim quickly and properly. Therefore, I am going for free swimming to practice before I start bronze star.

I realized that after such a long period of time without swimming worsens my swimming ability. I still know the basic swimming strokes like front stroke, back stroke, etc., but I just can’t go as fast as I used to go. When I practiced my front crawl, the 3 mistakes I made were: my arms crossing the middle, lifting my head for a breath too high, and kicking too hard. I was able to correct my mistakes but I yet, still need to go faster.

I am hoping in the next few weeks, I am able to regain my swimming abilities.

Metal Gear Solid Figure Review

Today, I am going to do a review on the Metal Gear Solid Figures, ‘Snake and Meryl Special Edition Box Set’. The figures come together in a fish tank along with some of their weapons. These are figures based off the characters from the first ‘Metal Gear Solid’ game.  There are also 6 other figures from the same series that can be collected.

First, I will review the Solid Snake figure. Snake comes with around 14 points of articulation. He has 4 weapons and 2 gadgets. The weapons are: a SOCOM pistol, a FAMAS rifle, a missile launcher with a missile and C4. The gadgets are a gas mask and night-vision goggles. The figure itself is well painted, can stand properly, and has nice figure detail. When I found out about the ‘Metal Gear Solid figures’, I wanted to get Snake first but I could ever find the figure in stores or Ebay. However, when I stumbled across the ‘Snake and Meryl Box Set’, I thought that was even better since I was trying the collect the 4 main characters of the series, Snake, Liquid, Meryl and Gray Fox.

Now I will review the Meryl figure. Meryl has a Desert Eagle pistol, a FAMAS rifle and a knife. She only has 8 points of articulation. Like Snake, she has fine detail and good paint job. Unlike Snake, she lacks balance. Because she has no leg articulation, she cannot stand. Therefore, I recommend, if you get this figure, to buy a stand as well.

Overall, the box set is much better than buying the two figures separately. If you are a Metal Gear Solid fan, especially of the first game, I recommend you to buy this exclusive box set.

Game Reviews: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

I have just finished playing the game ‘Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days’ on the Nintendo DS. You play as a kid named Roxas, a Nobody.  A Nobody in Kingdom Hearts is a person without emotion or a heart. The game begins on Day 1, where Roxas joins an organization of Nobodies who are like him. Their goal is to complete Kingdom Hearts in order to get themselves hearts.

The game requires you to complete missions in different worlds. These worlds on based on Disney Worlds such as Neverland and WonderLand. These worlds even have certain Disney characters from that world. There are two different modes in this game. One, the story mode, where you play as Roxas and follow the main storyline. Two, mission mode, where you can play as most of the characters in the game and redo the missions from the story mode for bonus items. So overall, this is an excellent game because: you can customize Roxas and his weapons, has a great storyline, has high quality cut scenes, and has great graphics…for a DS game.

Anime: Bleach Review

I am currently watching the anime called Bleach and I think it is very interesting. Bleach starts with a male high school named Ichigo(strawberry), who has the ability to see ghosts and spirits, encountering a female soul reaper named Rukia in his house. However, they are attacked by an evil spirit called a Hollow. After Rukia was defeated by the Hollow, Ichigo, wanting to protect his family from the Hollow, asks Rukia if he can borrow her powers in order to defeat the Hollow…

I would recommend you to watch this anime if you are one of those people who love watching anime. The story line is just okay because there are many side stories that might confuse you at times. There might also be some boring parts but those can easily be skipped. Overall, I think this is a great anime because it’s funny, has lots of action and takes place in both modern times and in a pace similar to ancient times.

Newspaper Article about the Wii

I have just recently read  a newspaper article about the Wii, PS3 and Xbox360 competition. From this article, I have just learned that the Wii had the best sales since its release. However, I was disappointed to find the PS3 having the least amount of sales since the PS3 is one of favorite game consoles. I also learned that new variations of the PS3 and Xbox360 with new feature might be released. These new features include 3D graphics for the PS3 and controllers similar to that of the Wii’s for the Xbox 360. I don’t play the Xbox so it doesn’t really matter to me but because I never liked watching movies in 3D, I think I will have a tough time adjusting to the new PS3 that might be released. If Nintendo is going to make an upgrade of the Wii, I’m sure it is going to be great since the Wii is far more advanced than the PS3 and the Xbox360.

Book Review: The Time Machine and The Invisible Man

The first thing you are probably wondering about is “Why are there two books in the title?” To answer your question, these two books are books by the same author, H.G. Wells put in one.

The reason I choose this book is because I read the book ‘War of the World” also by H.G. Wells and I wanted to read other books by him. Also, when I was young, I read ‘The Time Machine’ modified for young readers. I really enjoyed these two since they are both topics that I like. They also have exciting adventures like: time traveling 800,000 years to the future and finding out a formula for invisibility that drives a scientist mad. I would recommend this book to you if you like futuristic themes with lots of action.

Book Review: Brisingr

Recently, I just finished reading a long fantasy book called the Brisingr.

This book is the third sequel to the fantasy book Eragon.The book starts off with the main character Eragon, and his cousin Roran, going to invade a village to save Roran’s girlfriend and eliminate to the forces of evil keeping her captive. Then Eragon tries to get Roran’s girlfriends’s father to give them their blessing so they can get married, but he wouldn’t allow it…. I won’t spoil the ending but if you ever wondered what the title of this book means, it mean fire.(Eragon named his sword fire)

This is probably a good book but I thought it was confusing with all the weird names and villages. This is usually why I don’t read fantasy books. I would recommend this book to you if you have read the last 2 books, for some of the names of the people and villages will reappear in this book. I would also recommend you to reread this book to understand the details.

To conclude, this is a long and concluding book but if you read it carefully, it will be thrilling and exciting.

Book Review:Holes

I just finished reading a book called ‘Holes’.

The book starts off with a boy named Stanley being falsely accused of a crime and sent to a work camp. All the kids who commit crimes are sent there to dig holes as a punishment.  Stanley believes he is sent to the camp because of his great-great grandfather who tole a pig from a gypsy and had his descendants cursed. Later in the book, Stanley makes friends with a lot of the books and is given the name ‘Caveman’, since he is big. Stanley experience in camp has him, teaching a boy how to read, finding seeds that belonged to a counselor and getting him punished the the Warden.

The weird thing about this book is: no matter how many times I read this book(twice), I still have trouble figuring out its genre. Anyways, the reason I chose this book is because when I was young, I saw part of the movie and older kids reading this book. Now that I am older, I decided to finally read this book.

Anyways, that concludes my review on this book. I would recommend it to you if you like books about a kid digging holes, running away, teaching others how to read and flashbacks of how his great-great grandfather got the curse.

Basketball Volunteer

During the last 2 weekends, I was doing basketball volunteer work. The volunteer work I did was helping mentally challenged kids to play the game of basketball.

The first Sunday I went there was the first time I have ever done volunteer work. They started of with running exercises. What we basically did was run laps. After was the stretching. What we did was stretch our legs, arms, v-sit, jumping, etc. Then we finally got to use the basketballs. It was dribbling exercises. Then we gave the basketballs the the mentally challenged kids who were called the athletes since this basketball project is called ‘Special Olympics Basketball’. Our job was to rebound their shots since they might sometimes be scared of the ball. Finally, we played a game. However, playing with the athletes was different than playing with regular people. We had to pass differently, run slower, no long shots and no blocks. At least they had a game where coaches and volunteers went against each other. I was the youngest in my game and I made the first shot. After, I talked to the coordinator who told me I should play in advanced basketball. So I switched to advanced for the next Sunday. Now I am going to talk about the experience in advanced basketball The stretching and running exercises were the same but the games and practices where different. Instead of the athletes  shooting and us rebounding, we did passing and shooting/teamwork exercises with them. When we played a game, we could play normally.

Overall, I think this is a great experience to help mentally challenged kids and learn more about basketball.

Book Review: Ultimate Special Forces

Recently, I have just finished a book called the Ultimate Special Forces.

The reasons why I like this book is because I played video games like Call of Duty 4 which is based on modern warfare and now, I finally get to read about it. What makes this book unique and interesting is the fact that it doesn’t just have words and chapters like novels, but has pictures of the soldiers, guns, tanks, aircrafts, etc with a little bit of description. Also, if you wanted to learn more about WWII, this book says most of its history. In this book, there are 4 different sections: WWII, modern warfare, types of guns and the different types of special forces. I would recommend this book to you if you like to learn about modern warfare and the different types of special forces.