Random Update 11/24/09 (Gatlinburg Trip & New Super Mario Bros. Endnote)

Well, I am sitting here in class without a teacher again. She has a cold and probably won't be here for the next two days; which means, our Thanksgiving vacation starts this minute without her presence. Mwahaha! lol

Endnote:
I will start off by talking about NEW Super Mario Bros. Wii. I picked up my copy the second that it was being put out on store shelves. Finally, I had my hands around the game that I have dreamt about for the past eighteen years of my life. When I rushed home to play it, it almost felt like Christmas had come too soon. Even though I had beat the game within a 24 hour period, I was not at all disappointed with it. It is a very difficult game- especially for newcomers of the series. It was a very satisfying challenge for me. I have been playing Mario games over and over for years. I have the skill and dedication to jump under King Koopa’s reptilian @$$, at any cost, to save back Princess Toadstool. :C)

It gives long running fans the memorabilia that they have been longing for since the dawn of the 16 bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Many of the reviewers are giving it a mediocre score due to the lack of unnecessary features that Nintendo decided not to implement; such as not allowing you to play with the classic controller (sold separately for 19.99) and the absence of online multiplayer play. Many reviewers are not being fair to the game itself and are looking for reasons to cut down it’s expected high score. This game has crammed most of your favorite characters, good and evil, into some of the most original, inspirational, and graphically-updated levels ever seen before in a Mario game. For newcomers of the Mario Bros. Series, this game deserves a 10 out of 10, but for returning, hardcore fans like myself, a 9.5 out of 10. It gives ALOT of references back to the retro Mario Bros. games, but it doesn’t take too many risks by stepping it’s plumber shoes into uncharted territory. Like Super Mario World (SNES), it could have let you take Yoshi into other levels instead of just letting you ride him into levels he was made exclusively for. It could have let you unlock more playable characters other than Mario, Luigi, & the two toad children. It could have made better use of the colored power switches. They could have made Bowser’s castle seem more threatening than his koopaling’s castles. These levels are so fun, they could have made about 300 more to add to the diverse 77.lol There is nothing really bad to say about this title like some of the stale reviewers are saying; they are just mad that this title didn’t make it’s way to the PS3 and X-Box 360. If you own a Nintendo Wii or are planning to buy one for the Christmas season, don’t forget to pick up this gem for you and your whole family to play around the holidays.

The Gatlinburg Trip!

Now, about my Gatlinburg trip. It was fun for the most part. Me and Rachel got up there later than expected due to Sleeping Beauty (a.k.a. - Rachel.) If I didn’t knock on her window to wake her up, we would have been later than we were. We just had to check into our hotel by two, and you know that there is a one hour difference between our time and Gatlinburgs. We stayed at Best Western’s Crossroads. It was a pretty empty hotel which only had 4 floors. It was peaceful, nobody was ever going up or down the elevator- so it seemed that we had our own private elevator at times. As soon as we unpacked our luggage, we wanted to hit up the streets. So we walked down into the crowded streets looking for interesting things to buy and to take pictures of. We walked to our favorite shop in town called, “Earthbound.” It is a big shop that sells jewelry and decorations from different cultures spanning from Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, to African. Me and Rachel wanted many things, but everything I really wanted cost a couple of hundred dollars. We ended up buying nothing, but I regretted it, I could have bought the whole store if I had the money. Instead, me and Rachel tried on many masquerade masks and took pics; I uploaded many of the images on my myspace account.> www.myspace.com/sirbanedefiance

We walked out of the store and looked up at the sun. We acknowledged that the sun was going to go down in a few hours so we continued wandering in town, instead of going to the Smoky Mountain National Park like we had planned. We went to our favorite restaurant based on our last visit to Gatlinburg, “Blaine’s Bar & Grill.” We sat outside on the balcony of the second floor looking down at all of the passing motorist and crazy people yelling at one another from the sidewalks. Me and Rachel ordered something different from the menu this time, and the cook burnt it. The waitress asked us was it cooked right. Me trying to be a nice person and trying to avoid from hurting anyone’s feelings, said to her, “Yes. Everything is fine.” Everything wasn’t fine though, my chopsteak tasted like charcoal. It was the second worst steak I have ever consumed in my life. So that ruined all of the future hopes that we had for Blaine’s Bar & Grill.

We shopped until the sun went down and the streaming Christmas lights helped light up the streets. Neon Christmas lights draped past electrical lines; some lights were making the shape of gigantic snowflakes in the sky. Dinner sucked so we went to Fanny Farkles and got a foot-long corndog. Me and Rachel went into a Christmas village that consisted of many Christmas-based stores, but we didn’t enter. We just wanted to take pictures in front of all the decorations. Hoping that I wouldn’t get caught, I straddled a stone pony in the middle of this square.lol We went back to our hotel and made Pina Coladas. We attempted to make appletinis, but the vodka I brought was cheap, watermelon flavored. Yuck!

We got up the next morning and went to Flapjacks Pancake Cabin. It was a lot better than The Log Cabin that we ate at last time we were here. For $7 you could get 2 sausage/bacon & biscuits, eggs, 2 pancakes, & hash browns. This is one of the first restaurants that I got full at.lol We finally let our TOMTOM navigate us to the Smoky Mountain National Park. (Side Note: Our TOMTOM lost signal and told us to turn off into many rivers and mountains during our entire trip.) Based on their website, I was pretty sure I was gonna get eaten by a bear. We walked to Laurel Falls, a 3 mile around hike. Traveling up the strenuous mountain trails, Rachel & I ran out of breath many times, but it was well worth it when we reached the towering waterfall. I wanted to go back to Dollywood because we had seasonal passes for this year, but we didn’t have enough time to go. After we walked the 1.5 miles back, we got in the car and drove to Cades Cove. We thought it was another hike, but we were really wrong. After driving 27 miles down curvy roads beside rushing river rapids, we were finally there at Cades Cove. A 11 mile long site-see going 25 mph behind people from the city. We seen more deer and turkeys than we have ever seen in a one days time, but atleast I got some good shots of the mountains. Overall, it was a big waste of gas. Our original plan was to ride in carriages around some of the parks sites, but we had already had enough of the park for one day. It’s good we bought plenty of snacks with us, or we would have died from starvation. Do you know how long 11 miles is going 15-25 mph? We kinda went home after that. Click on the player below to watch a brief snippet of the waterfall.

And....If you haven't seen the New Lady Gaga music video, "Bad Romance," you need to see it! It's freakin' awesome. Lady Gaga has re-released her album, "The Fame." She added another disk which contains 8 darker additional tracks that deals with her life on the road from 2008-2009. The new 2 disk compilation is called, "The Fame Monster."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsthwTUTylQ
^^^^Click on this link to watch the music video if it doesn't pop up down below. v

The Deep, Dark Ocean Within

Under the full moon, on a dead planet, and in the lonely mind, a boy sits upon the weak ledge on the edge of the brink of time. He reaches for shooting stars that shine within his darkened eyes, but he wasn’t meant to catch one; not in his lifetime. His shivering legs wade under the cold waves of forgotten shores. The sea shall hold deep secrets, the sea shall hold the lives of shipwrecked sailor’s souls in which the ocean keeps alive. The moon has a reflection, the moon has a twin that lies underneath the ripples of the deep, dark ocean within. A maiden knows him by his shame somewhere from this life of pain. A faraway dame calls him by his name, but he is enchained by life’s secrets and sins.

Just so many maps were graphed by man, so many maps that you won’t understand. An "x" marks the spot, but the treasure was marked by a hand, an unfaithful, mortal hand. In this broken humanity, be quick to draw your blade. Pirates will parade around you on their island escapades. They’ll poke you with steel tips to make you walk their splintered planks, but will you sink down below into the abyss of the skeletal necropolis? Mermaids will swim to save you as you fall into the deep depressions of your life, but your soul knows that you are not weak enough to say goodbye. Because I am this boy, and I have this knife; vengeance is ready to help me slash out the eyes of all of the betrayers that hide behind a disguise. I shall eventually put a face on all the things that I hate. I will find a masked culprit within this underwater masquerade.

Angels turn heads to watch a mortal falter into a reflected galaxy made of water. My darkened eyes drown into an abyss where the creatures from my dreams coexist. I have explored these upset waters once before. On the surface above me, the storms of calvary thunderously roar, and send a warning upon the forgotten shores. The spirits of the dead sailors assemble their skeletons from the sands of the sea. They chatter their teeth back together, they cackle, and stare at me, the trespasser. Hidden in the dunes of this marine desert is the treasure chest that will forever make your life complete, but "greed" is the power-hungry breed of foolish humans that feed off of the fear of the weak. They will abuse their authority on the peon-minority until they are strangled by the eight tentacles of deceit.

I hear thee calling, maiden from the caverns of the deep. I am aware that you have awoken from your enchanted sleep. I am sorry, but I am something that these mortals will not accept. I want my useless body to be raked into your depressing, watery depths. To these humans, my voice is an unheard whisper; it shall be just as easily forgotten in the pass of time...just as I. She said in a echoing breath, "You were born with imperfections and humanity claimed sins, but the only scars that I see are those etched into your skin. You are wise enough to not need a disguise, to lie, to get what you want out of life. If you hold the hurricane inside your heart, eventually, your entire world shall whirl apart. I am the majesty of the deep dark ocean within, my kingdom is a mirror-copy of a galaxy swam by fins. The past has been penned in blood and cannot be undone. Redeem yourself from the wicked and be lifted by the embracing rays of the sun."

The fiery star emerged out from it’s own reflection from the ripples of the nocturnal sea. It lit up the sky to awaken the world; of a world that is in spiritual need. Clams raised their shells to expose their sparkling pearls- to all of the dreamers that are sailing across the world. With bubbles swirling through my levitating hair, I emerged back up through sun-beaming waters in hopes to reach a breath of fresh air.